Labov describes narrative as having two functions: referential and evaluative, with its "referential" functions orienting and grounding a story in its contextual world by referencing events in sequential order as they originally occurred, and its "evaluative" functions describing the storyteller's purpose in telling the story. Formally analyzing data from orally generated texts obtained via observed group interaction and interview (600 interviews were taken from several studies whose participants included ethnically diverse groups of children and adults from various backgrounds), Labov divides narrative into five or six sections: