The Narrative Dialogue

Abstract

The final transformation of autobiographical memory into autobiographical narrative marks the definitive transformation from a thought for oneself to a thought for others. The story the person tells is therefore deeply influenced by the listener. But not only the story, because once transformed into a narrative this narrative in turn exerts a profound transformation on the memory because the memory of the event will be added by integrating the memory of the narrative of the event.

In short, the relationship between memory and narration can be considered to be a process that takes place in two cycles. A first cycle is when memory is narrated. The memory is then externalized in the narrative. In a second cycle, after the memory has been narrated, it becomes an object of internationalization and returns to being a memory. But when a person has to recall this memory, it will no longer be the same, because it has gone through the first cycle in which it was told and the second in which it was internalized. These two cycle process has an enormous impact on the narrator’s awareness. The effort to translate an inner thought into an outer language requires the development of a new awareness because it obliges the narrator to overcome those physical and social constraints that we have mentioned. But with the translation of the narration into memory, the narrator becomes able to look at his/her memories from different points of view precisely because they have been told to a narratee, who, even just by listening to him/her, induces him/her to consider his/her memories with new points of view that have emerged in that specific relational situation.