Value Identification in Narrative Discourse

It is easier to get people to tell stories first and then think of ways to analyze them afterward.  Narratives include--Plot (events), Characters and the way they are characterized, setting (time and place), and narration (particularly symbols and metaphors).  The rubric below is from an old article in a Journal published by National Communication Association.  It focuses on action (plot) and character with a thought about how we identify values within them.  These are rules primarily for text analysis but are possible thoughts for listening.  "Terminal values" = what a person ultimately wants; "Instrumental values" = what is valued for what it enables us to do/achieve/be. 

Taken from Vanderford, M. L., Smith, D. H., & Harris W. S. (1992). Value identification in narrative discourse: Evaluation of an HIV education demonstration project. Journal of Applied Communication Research 20 (2): 123-160.

Rules of Analysis of Actions

To find terminal values:

1. Focus on prescribed actions within the stories--evaluative oughts/shoulds. The storyteller indicates what should or should not be done in a particular situation. Underneath these recommendations for specific action are generalize values that serve as a guide across many incidents.
2. Focus on goals, implied by the storyteller, that actions are designed to fulfill. These goals are desirables or values.
3. Focus on the storyteller's justification for a chosen action. Justifications constitute good reasons, which Fisher (1978) identifies as values.
4. Focus on action that are praised or condemned by the storyteller. Praise and condemnation of a specific action express an attitude. The analysis dissects the attitude into specific information and the underlying value, the fulfillment or violation of which leads to the praise or condemnation.
5. Focus on actions that the storyteller repeats. If actions are repeated, they reveal values that people may not espouse verbally, but subscribe to behaviorally.

To find instrumental values

4. 1. Focus on cause and effect relationships developed in the story's plot
   2. Focus on action identified in a story as leading to the fulfillment of a terminal value. That action generalized is an instrumental value.
   3. Focus on action identification as blocking a goal. The opposite of that action, when generalized, is identified as an instrumental value, i.e., a means to a terminal value.

Rules for Analysis of Characters

Focus on positive and negative labels attributed to personal characteristics. These constitute attitudes, which may be separated into specific information about the character, and the general values that are the basis for the prasie (when fulfilled) or blame (when violated).

Focus on postive or negative emogions felt toward particular people. These also constitute attitudeswhich may be separated into specific information and generalized values.

Focus on relationship between characters. What kind of actions are described as appropriate for what kind of character? Who is described as the appropriate decision maker within the plot? Such declarations constitute statements about the approriateness and general desirablity of roles and power, and so are values.

Focus on statements which include positive or negative evaluation of specific relationships between characters in the story. Specific information can be separated form underlying values, upon which the individual relationship is weighed and thus pronounced good or bad.

Focus on how storytellers identify and define themselves. Values are rooted in the identification of the self which has been acquired as part of the development of self-image.

Focus on what the storytellers identify as their needs. Those things, when generalized, constitute desirable or valuables.

Focus on where the storyteller puts his/her attention. The assumption underlying this element is that people spend more time talking about what is most important to them, hence topic selection and time spent are kyes to their values.