Dialogic Relationship between Story-Tellers and Audiences

Action Research on a Voluntary Story-Teller’s Group of Disaster Victims

Abstract

Action research was conducted on a voluntary story-tellers' group of disaster victims from the 1995 Great HanshinAwaji Earthquake. The group was facing major difficulties 10 years after the disaster. There was also a problem regarding how to bridge the widening gap between the story-teller and the audience. The story-tellers wanted to tell a "retrospective story" of suffering and recovery, whereas the audiences wanted to listen to a "prospective story" of disaster preparedness for future events. First, Bakhtin's idea of "authoritative/internally persuasive utterances" was redefined as a concept describing group dynamics among "speech genres". Secondly, it was suggested that the difficulty stemmed from the "authoritative" relationship between story-tellers and audiences, without dialogic interactions. Thirdly, the author conducted action research aimed at turning an "authoritative" relationship into an "internally persuasive" relationship. Specifically, the author encouraged story-tellers to get involved in a joint disaster education program for primary school children, conducted by university students in a disaster reduction course. This attempt created a successful series of multi-voiced and dynamic responses among the program participants. The researcher's responsibility in action research is also discussed from the perspective of Bakhtin' ideas.