Representation and enactment in autobiographical narrative

Speech is multifunctional, both communicating denotational content and establishing interactional positions for interlocutors. In some cases, the denotational and interactional functions of speech interrelate and even depend on each other. This chapter describes a type of speech event in which the interrelations between denotation and interaction are particularly salient-autobiographical narratives in which the events described and the relationships enacted run parallel. Further study of such speech events promises to illuminate how the denotational and interactional functions of speech can sometimes contribute to each other.