African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 165
cannot admire the skillful wordplay when the performer weaves a listener’s comment into
the story. Sometimes the interaction between narrator, as one character, and audience
member, as another, might be critical to the reader’s interpretation of ensuing actions
(Fretz 1987). Indeed, when listener comments disappear from the published text, the
performance loses some of its dynamic artistry and seems flat and pale. As Ruth
Finnegan so aptly explains,
In all this the participation of the audience is essential. It is common for
members of it to be expected to make verbal contributions—spontaneous
exclamation, actual questions, echoing of the speaker’s words, emotional
reaction to the development of yet another parallel and repetitious
episode. Further, the audience contributes the choruses of the songs so
often introduced into the narration, and without which, in many cases, the
stories would be only a bare framework of words. (1976/1970, 385)
The excision of audience participation, in performances distinctive for their dialogic
nature, can be attributed to several sources. Some scholars admit, off the record, to
editing out irrelevant audience comments and rationalize that participants mentally do the
same. Others point out that the Western printdominated conceptions of narrative,
superimposed on oral storytelling, keep researchers from hearing and seeing the full
performance. Usually, such critiques pinpoint the errors of earlier, biased scholarship and
of previous, poorly translated documents (Okpewho 1992; Finnegan 1970), but rarely
assess the minimal presence of audience in some current publications. In addition, writers
are influenced by disciplinary agendas, and thus, they foreground certain features and
circumscribe or overlook others. Finally, all too often, the researchers’ language skills
and recording equipment limit what they can perceive, translate, and present in print
(Finnegan 1970; Okpewho 1992), Fortunately, many African scholars, including African
poets, novelists, and playwrights, study their own oral traditions and contribute to the
growing body of knowledge about oral performances (J.P.Clark 1977; K.Yankah 1995).
Recent research across the disciplines, however, more clearly and consistently
displays the dialogic nature of oral performances. Not only do more researchers
intensively study indigenous languages as well as work with local assistants, but they
often include both languages in the final texts (when editors permit). The advances of
technological equipment (tape recorders, video and movie cameras) enable scholars to
document and analyze more features of performance, such as the performance situation
and the nonverbal communication of facial expression, tone of voice, and gesture.
Though perhaps inadvertently, the scrutiny of technologically advanced cameras or stereo
recordings makes artificially staged audiences awkwardly visible and muted or silenced
listeners easily heard. Clearly, the ever-increasing attention to performances in context
(cf, Duranti and Goodwin 1992) has contributed to a better understanding of performeraudience
interaction. Thus, the discussion, once restricted to easily recognized, formulaic,
call-and-response patterns in songs and chants, has expanded to a more comprehensive
exploration of dialogic performance.
An analysis of specific narrative moments, among various ethnic groups in Africa,
reveals the types of narrator—listener exchanges and allows us to envision (and hear) the