The Five Languages of Storytelling

(Excerpted from Telling Your Own Stories: For Family and Classroom Storytelling, Public Speaking and Personal Journaling by Donald Davis. August House Publishers, Inc., 1993.)

            [When] we tell a story to a living group of listeners, we are making use of five language dimensions whereas when we write we have only one to work with. Let’s look at these five oral/kinesthetic language dimensions so that we may understand the storyteller’s medium better.

(1)   Before and apart from words, the storyteller has a fully developed language of gesture to use in telling the story. Children acquire gestural language soon after birth, and throughout all our lives our gestural language remains not only usable but probably carries more of the content of our storytelling than do the words. For example, with gestural language alone we can show our listeners a list of all the musical instruments we wish we could play; without gesture it is almost impossible to tell another person what an accordion is. Gesture is one of our natural languages which we use in oral communication without even thinking about it.

(2)   Apart from and in addition to words, there is a fully developed and usable language of sound which we make use of in telling our stories. Again, children acquire their ability to use sound (not words) soon after birth and exercise this sound-language through a range which runs from loud screaming to quiet giggling. A very young child can give the entire world a passing grade or a failing grade simply through the language of sound.

With sound-shaping we can give words which look the same on the printed page (no matter what they mean) a whole range of different meanings. Think of the word “mother.” Any average teenager can shape the sound with which the word is spoken and give this simple word a dozen different meanings. Try the same with words like “fire’ or even with a simple expletive like “oh.”

Throughout all of our lives the language of sound remains a basic and usable natural language which we employ to supplement, bend, refine, and focus the meanings of the words that we use.

(3)   A third natural language which we use in oral communication is the language of attitude. Our ability to subtly display attitude and emotion is a very powerful part of our functional kinesthetic language.

It is this dimension of our language through which the speaker reveals such things as whether he or she is happy with the audience at hand, whether the audience is liked or disliked, whether the speaker is confident about what is being said. It is almost impossible to cover up our natural display of feelings which range from boredom to excitement, and this “language” of displayed attitude and emotion in itself shapes and augments the content of the words which are spoken.

Most of our judgments about whether people around us are happy or sad, about whether they like us or not, are based on the language of attitude.

(4)   There is still another language dimension which the storyteller makes use of apart from and in addition to words. This is the language phenomenon of being guided and molded by listener feedback.

When we tell our story to a group of present listeners actually guide our telling by their responses. If our listeners look puzzled, we explain more fully what we are describing. If we receive a laugh of recognition, our story moves forward. If people begin to look bored, we quickly attempt to recapture their interest. Even though the teller has the floor, a great deal of the shape and content of the story is determined by the listeners.

Think of what we do when we want someone to come to our home for dinner and we begin to give them directions for finding where we live. We are the one who possesses all of the information they need to find our house, yet we begin with the question, “Where are you going to be coming from?” Even after that beginning question, we continue to check out every turn along the way to be sure that we have not “lost’ them. The listener has guided and molded the teller.

It could even be said that it is the response of the parent which determines how long the baby cries. The listener has great power to influence the teller.

(5)   At last we come to the words! (In addition to the above language dimensions, the storyteller also gets to use words.)