(2016) Science and education, 11, 35-42. Odessa.

Svitlana Hutsol,
Doctor of Psychology, associate professor, Department of Psychology and Pedagogy,
National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”,
37, Peremohy Avenue, Kyiv, Ukraine 

NARRATIVE AS A PRINCIPAL DISCURSIVE TOOL OF PERSONALITY’S SELF-DESIGNING

Today, in the era of “non-extracted sense”, psychological science faces the issue of social and personal identity, and in this regard, the issue of development of applications and technologies of personality’s self-designing. We experience growing relevance of implementation of narrative applications, which aim to transform concepts into technologies of sociality designing and are conceptualised as processes of building perfect plans of activity and communication, construction of sign/symbol systems, which mediate human interaction with social reality in the process of integration of separate individual components of personal and socio-cultural experience. The aim of the article is to justify application of the narrative as a principle discursive practice of personality’s self-designing. Research methods: interdisciplinary analysis and synthesis of philosophical, psychological, sociological, cultural, linguistic literature on the issue of the study; comparison, systematisation, generalisation, analogies construction, interpretation while studying the features of the narrative as a factor of personality’s self-designing. Referring to hermeneutic paradigm which helps to consider the reproduction of social and cultural experience through interaction with cultural texts, makes it possible to consider the narrative as a promising methodological tool that contributes to modelling the interaction of semiotic and communicative mechanisms in the process of personality’s self-designing. Unlike traditional designing, self-designing process cannot involve a rigidly predefined result/outcome. The texts generated by a personality during narrative designing process are works of “non-finito”, “possible stories” in a way. A person meets a prototype of the future in possibilities, which are available to him/her in an actual condition. Possibilities have considerably greater influence on the behaviour and condition of a man than reality. In the context of narrative self-designing, a project is considered as a plot of a possible story, which is constructed by basic plots of the world literature (“migratory plots”, “eternal types”, leitmotifs, “eternal images”, etc.). These plots are extremely important for a person to solve problems on “potential self”, when a personality takes him-/herself beyond the existing semantic field, thereby creating the possibility of transformation of “self-text”. This transformation takes place through processes of understanding and interpretation of social and personal experience and becomes the basis for constructing a personal project. Individual and in particular existential reflection can be regarded as one of the main mechanisms of the formation of personality’s project.

narrative, discursive practice, self-designing, “self-text”, project, plot.

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