LLMs for Narrative Discourse

<p dir="ltr">In this study, we explore the application of large language models (LLMs) to analyze narrative discourse within the framework established by the field of narratology. We develop a set of elementary narrative features derived from prior theoretical work that focus on core...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Andrew Piper (1375935) (author)
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:<p dir="ltr">In this study, we explore the application of large language models (LLMs) to analyze narrative discourse within the framework established by the field of narratology. We develop a set of elementary narrative features derived from prior theoretical work that focus on core dimensions of narrative, including time, setting, and perspective. Through experiments with GPT-4 and fine-tuned open-source models like Llama3, we demonstrate the models' ability to annotate narrative passages with reasonable levels of agreement with human annotators. Leveraging a dataset of human-annotated passages spanning 18 distinct narrative and non-narrative genres, our work provides empirical support for the deictic theory of narrative communication. This theory posits that a fundamental function of storytelling is the focalization of attention on distant human experiences to facilitate social coordination. We conclude with a discussion of the possibilities for LLM-driven narrative discourse understanding.</p>