1. 0Background of the Study Story telling is very common in a family institution. There are various types of stories that have been told in a family especially by parents to their children. Famous stories that have been told over and over again in many places will be fairy tale stories like Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. But in Malaysia, we have folktales like Bawang Merah Bawang Putih, Si Tanggang and Batu Belah Batu Bertangkup. Stories are not limited to fairy tales only, sometimes parents told their children stories about their own ancestor, blood kin, people that they knew and also their own experiences.
Those stories can appear in many forms, such as horror, comedy, tragedy or inspirational genres. Story telling or narrative technique can convey the message effectively to the listeners as stated by W. Prat et al. (1999). Another journal by L. Vangelisti et al. (p. 337, 1999) describes narrative technique as; “The perspectives of everyday storytellers, as depicted in their narratives, provide an indication of how people see, experience and feel about their social world. ” Moral value, gender role, culture, identity, idea and history can be distinguished as values.
People acquire and learn value from their first environment that is their family. A research by Y. Samchez (1999) agrees that family institution play an important role in inculcating the desired values in the children of the family. However, different family might emphasis on different value even though all of them are positive values. Some values might be seen less important than the other values according to the family preferences. The more important values can be seen in the stories that are told the in the family.
The more important the value is seen, the teller will stress it more in the stories. 1. 1 Statement of the problem Many research that had been done shows that story telling or narrative is a very useful medium in passing down values. It was also proven to be very effective. However, there are not many research has been done to identify what kind of story that had been told the most in a family. Not many research has been done to describe or to understand the difference value being stressed in a different family.
Moreover, this research tries to find out the values in family through the children of the family’s perspectives. 1. 2 Objective and research questions The aim of the study is to identify what kind of stories that had been told in families that influenced young adults’ values. From the objective, several research questions have been identified, they are; 1. What kind of stories that had been told the most in the family? 2. Who was the teller? 3. Did the values were stated directly or not? 4. How the listeners perceive the stories? 1. 3 Significance
This research is important to provide better understanding towards how values are conveyed in stories. It also can add up knowledge in terms of relation between language and sociolinguistics fields. This research will describe how different narrative styles are used to express different values and understand more about how human behavior related to the stories that they were told. It is also important for parents to understand this, so they can choose a best medium; kind of story to inculcate the values in their children effectively.
