Introdungcing English language part 32

172 EXPLORATION: INVESTIGATING ENGLISH LANGUAGE




of the text. Of course, you might disagree and find that the work organises itself around
a different prominent pattern. And also, of course, in each case there will be other
linguistic features at other levels that work in parallel with the main stylistic feature.
For each literary text, sketch out a stylistic analysis and explore the patterning to dis-
cover the iconicity of the work.

Activity 11.1 J Phonoaesthetic singing
Investigate the sound-patterning in this poem by Rudyard Kipling. How do the
sound-effects and the metrics help to create the sense of the text? How does the
syntactic arrangement of the lines contribute to these effects? How do the word-choices
parallel these patterns?
Harp Song of the Dane Women
What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?

She has no house to lay a guest in —
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you
Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken —

Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters, —
And steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.

You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables —
To pitch her sides and go over her cables!

Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow,
And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow,
Is all we have left through the months to follow.

Ah, what is a Woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
(Rudyard Kipling, 1906)

Find a poem or transcribed song lyric that seems to you intuitively to have a
strong or unusual sound. Try to describe it as accurately as possible, and then try
to work out how the sound-patterning is significant in your interpretation of the
text.
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Pseudo-lexicology J Activity 11.2

The satirist Jonathan Swift wrote many punning verses and dialogues that he called
‘Anglo-Latin’ or ‘Latino-Anglicus’. Try to read the following two poems out loud, and
then work out how Swift has made English look like Latin. Can you rewrite the
passage with conventional word-boundaries and spellings in English?
Mollis abuti,
Has an acuti,
No lasso finis,
Molli divinis.
Omi de armis tres,
Cantu disco ver
Meas alo ver?
(Jonathan Swift, c.1735)

I ritu a verse o na molli o mi ne,
Asta lassa me pole, a lae dis o fine;
I ne ver neu a niso ne at in mi ni is;
A manat a glans ora sito fer diis.
De armo lis abuti hos face an hos nos is
As fer a sal illi, as reddas aro sis;
Ac is o mi molli is almi de lite;
Illo verbi de, an illo verbi nite.
(Jonathan Swift, c.1735)

(Swift did not provide a ‘translation’, so the answer at the end of this unit is our best guess.)
Can you find other literary texts in which the disruption or exploitation of
morphology and word-choice is a major organising feature (see for example the John
Lennon passage in C7)?

Semantics in the head J Activity 11.3

The following passage is from near the end of Brian Aldiss’ 1969 psychedelic novel
Barefoot in the Head. Set in a post-apocalyptic future in which psychotropic bombs
have poisoned the food-chain, the novel describes Colin Charteris’ road trip across
Europe, in which he gathers a convoy of vehicles and crazy travellers in a series of
multiple crashes and confrontations. The style of the novel clearly aims to represent
the states of mind of the war’s victims. Examine this passage closely to see how Aldiss
achieves this iconicity.
Sparkily flinging up stones from the tired wheels the gravelcade towed darkness,
Headlights beams of granite bars battering the eternal nowhere signposting the dark.
The cuspidaughters of darkness somebody sang play toe with the spittoons of noon the
cuspidaughters of darkness play toe with the spittoons of noon the cuspidaughters
of darkness play toe with the spittoons of noon. Only some of the blind white eyes
of joyride was yellow or others but altirely because the bashing the cars the jostling in
the autocayed. And hob with the gobs of season.
In these primitive jalopsides herding their way like shampeding cattletrap across
the last ranges of Frankreich that square squeezing country sang the drivniks.
 174 EXPLORATION: INVESTIGATING ENGLISH LANGUAGE




Cluttering through stick-it-up-your-assberg its nasal neutral squares its window-
bankage to where the Rhine oiled its gunmottal under the northstar-barrels and a wide
bridge warned zoll. Break lights a flutter red I’d ride the rifled engines ricochetting
off the tracered flow below.
Cryogenetic winds bourning another spring croaking forth on the tundrugged
land doing it all over and bloodcounts low at a small hour with the weep of dream-
pressure in the cyclic redbirth-redeath calling for a fast doss all round or heads will roll
beyond the tidal rave. RECHTS FAHREN big yellow arrows splitting the roadcrown.
Writhing bellies upward large painted arrows letters meaningless distant burriers sedu-
cing him to a sighfer in a diaphram.
Clobwebbed Charteris stopped the Banshee. He and Angeline climb out and he
wonders if he sees himself lie there annulled, looks up into the blind white cliffs of
night cloud to smell the clap of spring break its alternature. About him grind all the
autodisciples flipping from their pillions and all shout and yawn make jacketed ges-
tures through their fogstacks.
They all talk and Gloria comes over says to Angeline, ‘Feels to me I have bound
the hound across this country before’.
(Brian Aldiss, Barefoot in the Head, 1969: 193)

Stylisticians have particularly been interested – for obvious reasons – in linguistically
deviant texts like this. Can you find any others to explore? In particular, look for experi-
mental and avant-garde writing: how are the styles of such movements deployed in
the service of their politics or ideological programmes?

Activity 11.4 J Syntactic imagining
There are apparently only two sentences in the following poem. How does the
arrangement of syntax contribute to the sense of the text?
When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
(W.B. Yeats, 1891)

Find two passages from different novels which are markedly different syntactically
(see, for example, the two passages from a science fiction novel and a modernist novel
in C4). How is the syntactic form significant in each case?
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Discourse (oh no it isn’t) J Activity 11.5

The following is a sketch by Monty Python, first broadcast on the BBC on 2
November 1972. It clearly presents a surreal, absurd, or at least unusual dialogue.
Can you identify what is strange about it, from the normative patterns of everyday
conversation? Can you also identify what is conventional about it, in order to get a sense
of how it balances oddity and normality for its humorous effects?
The Argument Clinic
[A man enters an office]
Man: Good morning, I’d like to have an argument, please.
Receptionist: Certainly, sir. Have you been here before?
Man: No, this is my first time.
Receptionist: I see, well we’ll see who’s free at the moment. Mr. Bakely’s free, but
he’s a little bit conciliatory. No. Try Mr. Barnhart, room 12.
Man: Thank you.
[Enters room 12].
Angry Man: WHADDAYOU WANT?
Man: Well, well, I was told outside that . . .
Angry Man: DON’T GIVE ME THAT, YOU SNOTTY-FACED EVIL PAN OF
DROPPINGS!
Man: What?
Angry Man: SHUT YOUR FESTERING GOB, YOU TIT! YOUR TYPE MAKES ME
PUKE! YOU VACUOUS STUFFY-NOSED MALODOROUS PERVERT!!!
Man: Yes, but I came here for an argument!!
Angry Man: OH! Oh! I’m sorry! This is abuse!
Man: Oh! Oh I see!
Angry Man: Aha! No, you want room 12A, next door.
Man: Oh . . . Sorry . . .
Angry Man: Not at all! [Under his breath] Stupid git.
[Man enters room 12A. Another man is sitting behind a desk]
Man: Is this the right room for an argument?
Other Man: [pause] I’ve told you once.
Man: No you haven’t!
Other Man: Yes I have.
Man: When?
Other Man: Just now.
Man: No you didn’t!
Other Man: Yes I did!
Man: You didn’t!
Other Man: I did!
Man: You didn’t!
Other Man: I’m telling you, I did!
Man: You didn’t!
Other Man: Oh I’m sorry, is this a five minute argument, or the full half hour?
Man: Ah! [taking out his wallet and paying] Just the five minutes.
Other Man: Just the five minutes. Thank you. Anyway, I did.
176 EXPLORATION: INVESTIGATING ENGLISH LANGUAGE




Man: You most certainly did not!
Other Man: Now let’s get one thing perfectly clear: I most definitely told you!
Man: Oh no you didn’t!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: Oh no you didn’t!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: Oh no you didn’t!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: Oh no you didn’t!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: Oh no you didn’t!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: Oh no you didn’t!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: No you DIDN’T!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: No you DIDN’T!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: No you DIDN’T!
Other Man: Oh yes I did!
Man: Oh look, this isn’t an argument!
[Pause]
Other Man: Yes it is!
Man: No it isn’t!
[Pause]
Man: It’s just contradiction!
Other Man: No it isn’t!
Man: It IS!
Other Man: It is NOT!
Man: You just contradicted me!
Other Man: No I didn’t!
Man: You DID!
Other Man: No no no!
Man: You did just then!
Other Man: Nonsense!
Man: [exasperated] Oh, this is futile!!
[Pause]
Other Man: No it isn’t!
Man: Yes it is!
[pause]
Man: I came here for a good argument!
Other Man: AH, no you didn’t, you came here for an argument!
Man: An argument isn’t just contradiction.
Other Man: Well! It CAN be!
Man: No it can’t! An argument is a connected series of statements intended
to establish a proposition.
EXPLORING LITERATURE 177




Other Man: No it isn’t!
Man: Yes it is! ’tisn’t just contradiction.
Other Man: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position!
Man: Yes but it isn’t just saying ‘no it isn’t’.
Other Man: Yes it is!
Man: No it isn’t!
Other Man: Yes it is!
Man: No it isn’t!
Other Man: Yes it is!
Man: No it ISN’T! Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just
the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.
Other Man: It is NOT!
Man: It is!
Other Man: Not at all!
Man: It is!
[The Arguer hits a bell on his desk and stops]
Other Man: Thank you, that’s it.
Man: [stunned] What?
Other Man: That’s it. Good morning.
Man: But I was just getting interested!
Other Man: I’m sorry, the five minutes is up.
Man: That was never five minutes!!
Other Man: I’m afraid it was.
Man: No it wasn’t . . .
Other Man: I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to argue any more.
Man: WHAT??
Other Man: If you want me to go on arguing, you’ll have to pay for another five
minutes.
Man: But that was never five minutes just now! Oh come on! Oh this is . . .
This is ridiculous!
Other Man: I told you . . . I told you, I’m not allowed to argue unless you PAY!
Man: Oh all right. [Takes out his wallet and pays again] There you are.
Other Man: Thank you.
Man: [clears throat] Well . . .
Other Man: Well WHAT?
Man: That was never five minutes just now.
Other Man: I told you, I’m not allowed to argue unless you’ve paid!
Man: Well I just paid!
Other Man: No you didn’t!
Man: I DID!!!
Other Man: You DIDN’T!
Man: I DID!!!
Other Man: You DIDN’T!
Man: I DID!!!
Other Man: You DIDN’T!
Man: I DID!!!