Вредновање усмених историја и животних прича

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI1802319P УДК 39:303.1 Оригинални научни рад

Сажетак

Oral histories and life stories, as specific “documents of life” (K. Plummer) and narrative
forms, have hybrid genre structure, a particular relation to reality, and the process of their
evaluation poses different methodological questions. The use of oral histories and life stories
as resources and evidence is especially complex issue. These texts are subjective with regard
to reconstruction of memories and construction of narratives, as well as intersubjective and
dialogical, considering that they are created collaboratively by the interviewee and the
interviewer, starting from the conceptualisation of the interview up to its interpretation. The
paper discusses the criteria for validity and reliability in oral histories and life stories, which
concern advantages and limitations of a field interview (i.e. oral history and life story
method), and aspects of constructing narrative identity in oral history and life story
interview. The interview is considered to be a form of a heuristic collaboration between
interviewer and interviewee, with their shared authority in a dialogue. However, there can be
certain methodological limitations regarding, for example, conduction of an interview, relation between participants in a research, interpretation of data, influence of a particular
context, employment of specific narrative or linguistic conventions in the construction of
narration, and they may affect evaluation. In the final section the importance and forms of
evaluation in narrating is discussed. Relaying on sociolinguistic and narrative analysis
studies, some characteristic evaluating techniques in narratives are outlined, and also the
way how evaluation is connected with other components of the content and the structure of a
narrative.

Key words: oral history, life stories, interview, evaluation, validity, narrative