This paper presents narrative analysis as a qualitative research method focused on language at the suprasentential level and on the structure and social function of narrative as a specific discursive genre, which is a rather under–researched area in Croatian linguistics. The first part of the paper presents a short historical overview of the development and current trends of narrative analysis in linguistics, sociolinguistics, and various discourse analyses, with a special emphasis on the inquiry into identity construction in narrative discourse. The second part introduces a possible model of narrative analysis, based on findings from a larger empirical research on identity construction in personal narratives of migration.