Abstract

The article analyses the gradual development of the narrative and the change in its main features. Initially, the narrative was considered as an authentic reproduction of past experience that is meaningful for the narrator. Later, the definition and study of such attributes of the narrative as sequence, plot, the narrator’s value attitude, and time began. Contemporary research focuses on temporality, causality, the context of narrative formation, certainty (uncertainty) of narrative scenarios, and narrative control. There has been a shift away from viewing the narrative as a finished product towards understanding it as a process of meaning-making from the narrator’s present. Narrative formation is rooted in social or personally meaningful context.