Language, Story, and Explanation: Hayden White's Theory of Historical Narration

In Hayden White's opinion, there is an important relationship between historical narration and language. The nature of language determines that the history narratives have rhetorical characteristics. When historians change single group of historical events into a complete story which contains beginning, middle and end, there must have emplotment, formal argument and ideological implication in the story. The process contains the historians' subjective likes and dislikes and emotional preference, therefore, the historiography is a kind of poetic constructing process.