Abstract

One of the main features of narratives is sequentiality, which is normally related to the sequence of events. In this paper, we intend to show that we can also find another source for sequentiality seen in narratives, i.e., language. In the present study, we will attempt to examine the validity of this supposition that there is strong relationship between the sequentiality we find in narratives and the sequentiality of language. Meanwhile, we will use the ideas of Paul Ricoeur and Heidegger, regarding the narrative and temporality respectively. Also, we will focus on Halliday’s ideas of language and cohesion. Halliday is a distinguished linguist known for his Functional grammar. On one side, we will review Ricoeur’s supposed parts of narratives; episodic or chronological and configurational or nonchronological. He takes episodic as the actions which are “in” time, i.e., he considers the nature of episodic aspect as the sequence of events. On the other side, we will use the idea of cohesion in Functional grammar, to prove the supposition that sequence in the nature of language is prior to the idea of sequence in actions. In fact, every action is accounted to be sequential or is narrated as a story partly, because of language; because language has this potentiality intrinsically to be sequential and express accounts of actions sequentially.