narrative identity

Objective: This study aimed to explore how adoptive parents construct their identities and meaning of parenthood following experiences of infertility. Methods: This qualitative research employed a narrative methodology to investigate the lived experiences of 31 adoptive parents residing in Austria, all of whom had previously experienced infertility. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling, ensuring diversity in gender, relationship status, and duration since adoption. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, each lasting between 60 and 90 minutes. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using thematic narrative analysis with the assistance of NVivo software. Theoretical saturation guided the cessation of data collection. Data analysis focused on identifying shared themes and patterns in the way participants narrated their transition from infertility to adoptive parenthood. Findings: Three major themes emerged from the data: Redefining Parenthood, Emotional Journey, and Social and Relational Adjustments. Within these categories, participants described subthemes such as letting go of biological ties, reconstructing identity, symbolic rituals, emotional ambivalence, hope and renewal, navigating social stigma, and coping with institutional processes. Participants emphasized the importance of narrative reconstruction, spiritual or moral reframing, and peer support in legitimizing their parental identity. Despite the fulfillment found in adoption, many expressed that emotional residues from infertility persisted, shaping their experience of parenthood in both subtle and explicit ways. Conclusion: The findings highlight that adoptive parenthood after infertility is a complex, emotionally layered, and socially negotiated process. Narrative identity construction plays a vital role in helping individuals reconcile reproductive loss with the joys and challenges of adoption.

The world is not a neutral or value-free reality, but each person inevitably experiences it in terms of value. So, every person in the society has a perception of reality and the translator is no exception. However, this has a lot to do with his/her social status. Understanding a symbolic system such as language as a product of culture is done through our expression of reality. Identity construction is somehow related to reality construction. So the main issue is not how the narrative is constructed as a text, but how it acts as a mental tool in constructing reality and consequently, identity. Like the controversial issue of language and thought, it is not easy to deal with narrative discourse and narrative thinking, since the reality existed in the mind, depends on the spatio-temporal framework of the culture in question. In this regard, elaborating on the concept of narrative identity, and the applicability of Goffman’s Frame Analysis in mentioned concept, this paper shows how society, as a cultural frame, forces the translator or the publisher to retell the narrative and to reconstruct the identity, and why this identity formation will be more pronounced in the paratextual elements (translatorial &authorial prefaces). Analyzing the frame of 80s, along with literature and media, it proposes a hybrid model based on Somers’ features (Paul Ricoeur’s Mimesis), and Goffman’s Framework for the concrete manifestation of renarration, and the incorporation of the core conception of identity formation, to indicate how orientalism concepts have been renarrated in translatorial and authorial prefaces of Edward Said’s Orientalism, affected by structure or agency during 80s in Iran, and how these prefaces play a crucial role in framing readers’ interpretation. Finally, it has concluded that, regarding structure/agency, and the involvement of multiple agents in translation, different author-functions and identities have developed through the presentation of the prefaces in question.