Performance: Paralinguistic Cues, Metadata, and Identity

As discussed in the section on narrative framing, these seven literacy narratives begin with similar preambles like "How did I start using computers?" which identify the topic of the story being told. Although the lack of information about the narratives' original context makes it impossible to confirm, similarities in the use of the technological literacy narrative frame, purpose and production of the narratives, and birth cohort of the students suggests that these narratives may be examples of technological literacy reflections assigned by teachers in courses that include a focus on technology. Evidently sitting alone and speaking into webcams, these narrators seem to be responding to a prompt asking them to recall their earliest computer experiences, apparently focusing on satisfying the requirements of an assignment rather than with attracting an audience. The flat delivery that the narrators generally employ seems similar to the audience-less genre of the student essay, demonstrating little apparent effort to perform in order to engage the audience since the video's intended audience of one—the teacher—is assumed. If these seven narratives are viewed as school assignments, the DALN audience becomes ancillary and unintended. If these narratives were produced for a class and later submitted to the DALN—as teacher-researchers affiliated with the DALN often encourage students to do with literacy narratives composed for their classes—the purpose of these videos shifts from attracting an audience (as is often the case with self-sponsored online videos) to fulfilling an assignment’s requirements.

In light of their apparent rhetorical context—the school assignment—the few instances in which the narrators do "break through into performance" stand out. As folklorist Dell Hymes explains, breaking through into performance occurs when storytellers get so wrapped up in telling a tale that they deviate from the normal conventions of the occasion and shift into a different mode of narration (90). Hymes explains that the breakthrough performance is "authentic" in the sense that it responds to the conditions of the moment, as opposed to conventions which have become normalized within the genre (131). Brief instances in these narratives indicate times when the authors break through into performance, when they use paralinguistic cues that emphasize the parts of their stories that seem to engage their own interest and that dramatize the interplay between video, narrative conventions, and the rhetorical situation of the video literacy narrative.