Sensing Type Speech (Childhood Memories) — Example and Analysis

Let’s analyze this text: Childhood Memories. It is a vivid example of sensing narration.

From the very first minute, we hear a vast number of details. The girl tries to describe everything that surrounds her, everything she has perceived through her senses. She begins by telling how she was put to bed and, for some reason, immediately recalls the curtains she saw:

"Then I remember they made me—my mom, to be exact, made me take naps during the day, even though I didn't want to. I remember those orange curtains—not orange, but those dark brown ones that hung in our house.…"

This is followed by a description of auditory sensations:

"And waking up there was very, very epic—I had a very epic wake-up there. Well, actually, it wasn't me waking up in an epic way. The thing I woke up to was very epic. I mean, I would wake up to my grandma yelling and swearing—using some pretty choice curse words. She really knows how to put a strong word in. "Staska, what on earth are you doing?!"—blah-blah-blah, swearing at him. "

Throughout the entire recording, we constantly hear clarifications and details that are important for a sensor to mention:

"A friend of mine and I—we are still friends to this day, for about 16 years now, since the first grade. We used to play... Oh, as for that other friend, we weren't friends since the first grade, we were friends since infancy, we rode in strollers together. "

Next, the girl describes a garden. She lists all the sensations she captured through her senses:

"I loved sitting there so much, you know, it was quiet, peaceful, nature, summer, so nice... you could watch the passersby, read a book, or just fool around doing some silly stuff. It had such a comfortable, wide branch, and it would creak sometimes because it was old."

Another good example. The girl describes the road she was driving on:

"So I'm riding down an old, unpaved road, meaning it's full of potholes. Not potholes... yes, potholes. I mean, there were lots of holes, bricks lying around, and all that stuff. I turn toward my house, and we had these tires sticking out of the ground there. And I rammed right into one of those tires and fell."

We can immediately visualize a vivid picture. The girl remembers and describes specific objects as if she sees them right in front of her.

Moreover, the focus is close-up (and here you can already guess the author's sociotype). For comparison, let's look at camera lenses. There are macro lenses. They are used for extreme close-ups so that you can see every detail. And then there are wide-angle lenses, which capture a vast amount of space. In that case, the need for details disappears; they simply become part of the general background.

Source: S. Ionkin