LANGUAGE IN LITERATURE

BBL 3207

What is literature?• Literature, as an art, is surely to arouse “the excitement

of emotion for the purpose of immediate pleasure, through the medium of beauty” (Coleridge 365).

• In what way is language in the literature different from language used in everyday communication?

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils;

William Wordsworth

What is ‘literariness’• Russian Formalists – “defamiliarisation”:

deviating from and distorting “practical language”.

• Mukarovsky – “the function of poetic language consists in the maximum of foregrounding of the utterance”– “foregrounding” opposite of “automatisation”

(related to defamiliarisation i.e. to estrange something is to foreground it)

– Stylistic devices to compel attention

What is ‘literariness’– Stylistic devices to compel attention

• Tung (2007): “verbal artfulness” - proper choice and good arrangement of all linguistic components (phonological, morphological, syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic).

Foregrounding

• the deautomatization of an act; the more an act is automatized, the less it is consciously executed; the more it is foregrounded, the more completely conscious does it become.

• may occur due to deviational or parallelistic (syntagmatic – repetition of the same element) nature of the poem.

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Devices of Foregrounding • Outside literature, language tends to be

automatized; its structures and meanings are used routinely.

• Within literature, however, this is opposed by devices which thwart the automatism with which language is read, processed, or understood.

• Generally, two such devices may be distinguished, deviation and parallelism.

• Foregrounding is realized by linguistic deviation and linguistic parallelism.

Foregrounding

Deviation Parallelism

The Realization of Foregrounding (Leech)

Deviation• A phenomenon when a set of rules or expectations are

broken in some way. Such as when this font has just changed. This deviation from expectation produces the effect of foregrounding, which attracts attention and aids memorability.

• Result: some degree of surprise in the reader, and his / her attention is thereby drawn to the form of the text itself (rather than to its content).

Examples of Deviation• e. g: neologism - “monomyth”, “quark” (Joyce’s

Finnegan’s Wake)live metaphor - "The fog comes

on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on."

(Carl Sandburg’s the Fog)ungrammatical sentences - he sang his didn't he danced his

did(Cumming’s anyone lived in a pretty how town)

oxymoron - “Beautiful tyrant” “Honourable villain”

(Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet)

• 8 types of deviation: lexical deviationgrammatical deviationphonological deviationgraphological deviationsemantic deviationdialectal deviationdeviation of register and deviation of historical period.

Parallelism• A rhetorical device characterised by overregularity or repetitive

structures• e.g: rhyme, assonance, alliteration, meter, semantic symmetry, or

antistrophe.

Because I do not hope to turn againBecause I do not hopeBecause I do not hope to turn....

T. S. Eliot's "Ash-Wednesday“

I looked upon the rotting sea, And drew my eyes away;I looked upon the rotting deck,And there the dead men lay.

Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Foregrounding Deviation Overregularity

Phonology Graphology lexicon Grammar Meaning

Realization Form Semantics

Language

Figure 2 The Realization of Foregrounding

Levels of Analysis

• If we want to examine language in a given text, there are different aspects of language structure which need separate consideration.

Levels of language Areas of Language Study

The sound of language; how words are pronounced

Phonology, phonetics

The patterns and the shape of written language Graphology

The way words are constructed Morphology

The way words combine with other words Grammar

The words used Vocabulary

The meaning of words and sentences Semantics

The way words and sentences are used in everyday situations

Pragmatics

1. The sound level

• Phonemes• Rhyme• Rhythm• Alliteration• Assonance

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Forms of sound patterning

• Phonemes• Rhyme• Alliteration• Assonance• Consonance

1. The sound level

Phonemes

• A phoneme is the smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in meaning. In other words, phonemes are sounds that differentiate one word from another (e.g. /hat/ vs. /hot/ or /mat/).

Rhyme• the repetition of identical sound combination of

words. • usually placed at the end of the corresponding lines

in verse.|Humpty |Dumpty |sat on a |wall|Humpty |Dumpty |had a great |fall|All the king’s |horses and |all the king’s |men|Couldn’t put |Humpty to|gether a|gain

Types of rhyme1. Full rhyme2. Incomplete rhyme3. Assonance4. Consonance

Full rhyme

• Sometimes known as perfect, true or exact rhyme. • The stressed vowels and all following consonants and vowels

are identical, but the consonants preceding the rhyming vowels are different e.g. chain, drain; soul, mole.

Incomplete rhyme• Also known as half-rhymes, which are not exact repetitions

but are close enough to resonate e.g. supper, blubber; sane, maintain; dangerous, hostages.

Assonance

• Repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences

• vowel rhymes, rhyme on the final vowel sound, but the final consonance sound is different, e.g. flesh, fresh, press (“e”); wine, life (“i”); head, said (“e”); tries, side (“i”);

• Hear the mellow wedding bells. (Poe)• And murmuring of innumerable bees (Tennyson)• The crumbling thunder of seas (Stevenson)

Consonance• The repetition of two or more consonants using different

vowels within words. • Consonant rhymes, rhyme on the final consonant sound but

the final vowel sound is different, e.g. blank, think (“nk”); man, wind (“n”); wants, cards (“a”); aim, brim (“m”); work, hurt (“r”); flung, long; tale, tool

– And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain (Poe)

– Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile / Whether jew or gentile I rank top percentile. (Hip-hop music)

Rhythm

• The regular periodic beat.• “a unit which is usually larger than the syllable, and which

contains one stressed syllable, marking the recurrent beat, and optionally, a number of unstressed syllables” (Leech, 1969: 105).

• Rhythm is related to the regularity of alternating patterns. • It may involve a succession of weak and strong stress; long

and short; high and low and other contrasting segments of utterance. Rhythm can occur in prose as well as in verse.

Meter• Meter is a type of rhythm of accented and unaccented

syllables organized into feet, aka patterns. • It is determined by the character and number of syllables in a

line. Meter is also dependent on the way the syllables are accented.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18”)

• The above line consists of ten syllables that show a pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables: 1st syllable unstressed, 2nd syllable stressed, 3rd syllable unstressed…. 10th syllable. The unstressed syllable is underlined while the stressed syllable is in bold (Cumming 2006).

Foot – stress patterning

• A foot is made up of a pair of unstressed and stressed syllables. Thus, the above line altogether contains five feet (see below):

1 2 3 4 5 Shall I..|.. compare |.. thee to..|.. a sum..|.. mer’s day?

5 types of foot

Iamb (Iambic)

Unstressed + Stressed Two Syllables"To be or not to be" (Shakespeare’s Hamlet)

Trochee (Trochaic)

Stressed + Unstressed Two Syllables

"Doule, doule, toil and trouble." (Shakespeare’s Macbeth)

Spondee (Spondaic)

Stressed + Stressed Two Syllables“heartbreak”

Anapest (Anapestic)

Unstressed + Unstressed + Stressed

Three Syllables

"I arise and unbuild it again" (Shelley's Cloud)

Dactyl (Dactylic

Stressed + Unstressed + Unstressed

Three Syllables

openly

Meter depends on the type of foot and the number of feet in a line. Below are the types of meter and the line length:

Monometer One FootDimeter Two FeetTrimeter Three FeetTetrameter Four FeetPentameter Five FeetHexameter Six FeetHeptameter Seven FeetOctameter Eight Feet

    1              2               3              4              5 Shall I..|.. compare |.. thee to..|.. a sum..|.. mer’s day?

Alliteration

• The repetition of sound, usually consonant, at the beginning of words.

Example:

• sweet smell of success, a dime a dozen, bigger and better, jump for joy

• And sings a solitary song That whistles in the wind. (Wordsworth)

Onomatopoeia

• a word that imitates the sound it represents• Example:

splash, wow, gush, kerplunk

• Examples: Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard, / He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred; Tlot tlot, tlot tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hooves, ringing clear; / Tlot tlot, tlot tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?

("The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes)

2. Graphological Level

• Design, layout, spelling and lettering• The typographical arrangement of words is as

important in conveying the intended effect

she loves meshe loves me notshe lovesshe loves mesheshe loves

she - Emmet Williams

3. Grammatical Level• Grammar itself is also composed of a number

of levels.

Sentences

Clauses

Phrases

Words

composed of one or more clauses (or "simple sentences").

composed of one or more phrases.

composed of one or more words.

Words

• Word class: – noun (N), – verb (V), – adjective (A) – adverb (Adv).

3. Grammatical Level

• Sentence structure: – Single – a sentence with only one verb group – Compound – sentences / clauses linked simply

(and, but) – Complex – sentences where subordinate clauses

are bound together by more complex connectives and punctuation

• Consider the sentence, • 'The audience might like the play but I hate it'.• Using round brackets to indicate the phrases and

square brackets to indicate the clauses, we can show the sentence's structure as follows:

• [ ( The audience) ( might like ) ( the play ) ] [ but ( I ) ( hate ) ( it ) ]

• The sentence thus consists of two coordinated clauses (ie two simple sentences joined together as one sentence). In the first clause each constituent phrase consists of two words, and in the second clause each phrase consists of one word.

3. Grammatical Level

• Identifying elements of simple sentences functions of words and phrases in sentences: subject, predicate, object, complement, adverbial

Predicators consist of verb phrases (e.g. 'ate', 'had been eating', 'is', 'was being') which can be used to express tense and aspect) function as the centre of English sentences and clauses, around which everything else revolves they express actions (e.g. 'hit'), processes (e.g. 'changed', 'decided') and linking relations (e.g. 'is', 'seemed') they are the most obligatory of English sentence constituents Note that we use the term 'predicator' to be able to distinguish the form-property (VP: verb/verb phrase) from its function in the sentence so that this difference can parallel those for the other SPOCA elements (see below) Examples Mary loves John (transitive predicator), John had been running (intransitive predicator), John seems quiet (linking predicator)

Subjects consist of noun phrases (NPs) (e.g. 'a student', 'John') function asthe topic of the sentence, and the 'doer' of any action expressed by a dynamic predicator and normally come before that predicator subjects are the next most obligatory element after predicators Examples Mary loves John, The exhausted student had been running, John seems quiet

Objects consist of noun phrases (NPs) function asthe 'receiver' of any action expressed by a dynamic predicator, where relevant and normally come immediately after that predicatorobjects are obligatory with transitive predicators (but do not occur with intransitive or linking predicators) Examples Mary loves John, The exhausted student had eaten all his food, Mary has the biggest ice cream

Complements consist of noun phrases (e.g. 'a student') or adjective phrases (e.g. 'very happy') and normally come immediately after a linking predicator (when they are subject complements) or an object (if they are object complements) Complements are obligatory with linking predicatorsfunction asthe specification of some attribute or role of the subject (usually) or the object (sometimes) of the sentenceExamples John is a student, The exhausted student is ill, Mary made her mother very angry

Adverbials consist of adverb phrases (AdvPs: e.g. 'soon', 'then' 'very quickly', prepositional phrases (PPs: e.g. 'up the road', 'in a minute' or noun phrases (e.g. 'last Tuesday', 'the day before last') function asthe specification of a condition related to the predicator (e.g. when, where or how the predicator process occurred)adverbs are the most optional of the SPOCA elements and can normally occur in more positions than the other SPOCA elements, though the most normal position for most adverbials is at the ends of clausesExamples Then John walked up the road, The exhausted student became ill last Thursday, Next Mary stupidly made her mother very angry on her wedding anniversary

Words and Tropes: Transference of Meaning

• Trope: (Greek tropein, to turn) involves a deviation from the ordinary and principal signification or meaning of a word. Metaphor, metonymy, personification, simile, and synecdoche are sometimes referred to as the principal tropes.

• Involves transference:• Trope—transference of meaning• Scheme—transference of order

More on Foregrounding, Deviation and ParallelismForegrounding:

some parts of texts had more effect on readers than others in terms of interpretation, because the textual parts were linguistically deviant or specially patterned in some way, thus making them psychologically salient (or 'foregrounded') for readers (Short 1996)

Deviation: exploits choice and frustrates expectations that are set up either by the linguistic system or by changing the pattern set up within the poem at some expected point (Herman

1998). Parallelism:

defined as where some features are held constant, usually structural features, while others, usually lexical items - for example, words or idioms - are varied (Short 1996).

Foregrounding

• Earlier it has been stated how foregrounding , deviation and parallelism are special characteristics of literary language or contribute to the literariness of language.

• One way to produce foregrounding in a text, then, is through linguistic deviation. Another way is to introduce extra linguistic patterning into a text. The most common way of introducing this extra patterning is by repeating linguistic structures more often than we would normally expect to make parts of texts PARALLEL with one another.

• This: linguistic deviation + lingustic paralellism = produce the effect of foregrounding

Sound Parallelism

• how sound patterns contribute to the meaning and effects of poems: alliteration, assonance and rhyme,

• and also how particular sounds and groups of sounds 'mimic' phenomena in the world to create effects like onomatopoeia