- 1 - F. Plank, LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF VERBAL ART SS 14 9 credits, requirements: (1) oral presentation on one of the following topics in class: sign up for one by May 9, and (2) term paper on that topic: hand in by beginning of next winter semester at the latest Always remember: This is a linguistics class! Topics for class presentations and term papers, with basic reading list GENERAL READING two concise classics: Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and poetics. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in language, 350-377. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. [Often reprinted.] Kiparsky, Paul. 1973. The role of linguistics in a theory of poetry. Daedalus 102. 231- 245. [Reprinted in Donald C. Freeman (ed.) (1981), Essays in modern stylistics, 9- 23. London: Methuen – a collection worth reading also for some of the other chapters.] and these textbooks (although we won’t really use them as textbooks): Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Mary Louise Pratt. 1980. Linguistics for students of literature. New York: Harcourt. Fabb, Nigel. 1997. Linguistics and literature. Oxford: Blackwell. Fabb, Nigel. 2002. Language and literary structure: The linguistic analysis of form in verse and narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Transcript
- 1 -
F. Plank, LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF VERBAL ART SS 14 9 credits, requirements: (1) oral presentation on one of the following topics in class: sign up for one by May 9, and (2) term paper on that topic: hand in by beginning of next winter semester at the latest Always remember: This is a linguistics class! Topics for class presentations and term papers, with basic reading list GENERAL READING two concise classics: Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and poetics. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in
language, 350-377. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. [Often reprinted.] Kiparsky, Paul. 1973. The role of linguistics in a theory of poetry. Daedalus 102. 231-
245. [Reprinted in Donald C. Freeman (ed.) (1981), Essays in modern stylistics, 9-23. London: Methuen – a collection worth reading also for some of the other chapters.]
and these textbooks (although we won’t really use them as textbooks): Traugott, Elizabeth Closs & Mary Louise Pratt. 1980. Linguistics for students of
literature. New York: Harcourt. Fabb, Nigel. 1997. Linguistics and literature. Oxford: Blackwell. Fabb, Nigel. 2002. Language and literary structure: The linguistic analysis of form in
verse and narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
binomial collections in the references below; http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/echoword/echodata.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siamese_twins_%28linguistics%29 and you’re welcome to create your own binomials: it’s not difficult Essential reading: Dictionary/encyclopedia entries ICONICITY/ICONISM, REDUPLICATION, RHYME, ALLITERATION, ASSONANCE, ECHO WORDS Thun, Nils. 1963. Reduplicative words in English: A study of formations of the
types Tick-tick, Hurly-burly and Shilly-shally. Uppsala: Carl Blom. Malkiel, Yakov. 1959. Studies in irreversible binomials. Lingua 8. 113-160. Cooper, William E. & John Robert Ross. 1975. World order. In Robin E.
Grossman, L. James San, & Timothy J. Vance (eds.), Papers from the parasession on functionalism, 63-111. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Ross, John R. 1980. Ikonismus in der Phraseologie: Der Ton macht die Bedeutung. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 2. 39-56.
Müller, Gereon. 1997. Beschränkungen für Binomialbildungen im Deutschen. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 16. 5-51.
Minkova, Donka. 2001. Ablaut reduplication in English: The criss-crossing of prosody and verbal art. English Language and Linguistics 6. 133-169.
- 3 -
TWISTING THE TONGUE Collections: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-twister http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/
Dictionary/encyclopedia entries ACRONYM, REBUS http://www.fun-with-words.com/rebus_puzzles.html Helene Hovanec (1978). The Puzzler’s Paradise: From the Garden of Eden to the
Computer Age. New York: Paddington Press. POSSIBLE WORDS: ANAGRAMS AND PALINDROMES �to come later� http://www.fun-with-words.com/anagrams.html http://www.fun-with-words.com/palindromes.html
http://www.wordsmith.org/anagram/ Starobinski, Jean. 1972. Les mots sous les mots. Paris: Gallimard.
Gussenhoven, Carlos. 1993. The Dutch foot and the chanted call. Journal of Linguistics 29. 37-63.
http://todi.let.kun.nl/todi/level1_2.htm Gussenhoven, Carlos. 2004. The phonology of tone and intonation. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. pp313-315 Hammond, Michael. 1999. The phonology of English: A prosodic optimality-
theoretic approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp156-157 Rialland, Annie & Stéphane Robert. 2001. The intonational system of Wolof.
Linguistics 39. 893-939. pp914-915 Ko, Eon-Suk. 20��. Phonetics and phonology of vocative chant variation in
Korean. http://www.ling.upenn.edu/Events/PLC/plc23/ko.html Ko, Eon-Suk. 2003. The laryngeal effect in Korean: Phonology or phonetics? In
Jeroen van de Weijer, Vincent van Heuven, & Harry van der Hulst (eds.), The phonological spectrum I, 171-191. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
- 8 -
EXPLETIVE INFIXATION: abso-bloomin-lutely HOMERIC INFIXATION: saxo-ma-phone Reference texts: The first example above is from Eliza Doolittle (Shaw, Pygmalion, then My Fair Lady. Since then, such expletives may have changed (for better or worse), but they are still in the same place. The second is from Homer Jay Simpson.
Essential reading: McCawley, James D. 1978. Where you can shove infixes. In Alan Bell & Joan B.
Hooper (eds.), Syllables and segments, 213-221. Amsterdam: North Holland. McCarthy, John J. 1982. Prosodic structure and expletive infixation. Language
58. 574-590. McMillan, James. 1980. Infixing and interposing in English. American Speech
55(3). 163-183. Yu, Alan C. L. 2004. Reduplication in English Homeric infixation. North-Eastern
Linguistic Society 34. 619-633. Yu, Alan C. L. 2007. A natural history of infixation. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. pp174-177
- 9 -
DISGUISE: LUDLINGS, or PLAY LANGUAGES Reference texts:
produce or choose for yourselves Essential reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game http://linguistlist.org/issues/5/5-764.html http://linguistlist.org/issues/5/5-812.html Hymes, Dell (ed.). 1964. Language in culture and society: A reader in linguistics
and anthropology. New York: Harper & Row. [Part VI, esp. Conklin, Haas, with further references]
Bagemihl, Bruce. 1995. Language games and related areas. In John A. Goldsmith (ed.), The handbook of phonological theory, 697-712. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara (ed.). 1976. Speech play: Reseach and resources for studying linguistic creativity. Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania Press.
Laycock, Don. 1972. Towards a typology of ludlings or play-languages. Linguistic Communications (Working Papers of the Linguistic Society of Australia) 6. 61-113.
Sherzer, Joel. 1982. Play languages, with a note on ritual languages. In Lorraine K. Obler & Lise Menn (eds.), Exceptional language and linguistics, 175-199. New York: Academic Press.
Bertinetto, Pier Marco. 1987. Lingue segrete, e segreti delle lingue. Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, Serie 3, Vol. 17(3). 889-920.
McCarthy, John. 1991. L’infixation réduplicative dans les langues secrets. Langages 101. 11-29.
Plénat, Marc. 1995. Une approche prosodique de la morphologie du verlan. Lingua 95. 97-129.
Lefkowicz, Natalie. 1991. Talking backwards looking forwards: The French language game verlan. Tübingen: Narr.
Dominique Didier (2005). http://monsu.desiderio.free.fr/curiosites/verlan1.html for references and examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game Trey Jones (1994): http://linguistlist.org/issues/5/5-764.html, http://linguistlist.org/issues/5/5-812.html Pig Latin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_latin http://users.snowcrest.net/donnelly/piglatin.html
- 10 -
RHYMING SLANG Collections: Ayto, John. 2002. Oxford dictionary of rhyming slang. Oxford: OUP. and lots on the web, including: http://www.askoxford.com/worldofwords/wordfrom/slang/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockney_rhyming_slang http://www.aldertons.com/
http://www.phespirit.info/cockney/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A649 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education1190945.stm and a movie or two: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Directed by Guy Ritchie, Ska Films 1998. Clockwork Orange. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1971, based on novel by Anthony Burgess. Also watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij5mw_eqKuc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ipa9rTSRJQ&list=PL2301CCEEA2ED06D9
Linguistische Berichte 50. 1-10. Hansen, Klaus. 1966. Rhyming Slang und Reimformen im slang. Zeitschrift für
Anglistik und Amerikanistik 14. 341-366. Lillo, Antonio. 2000. Bees, Nelsons, and sterling denominations: A brief look at
Cockney slang and coinage. Journal of English Linguistics 28. 145-172. http://www.fun-with-words.com/cockney_rhyming_slang.html
- 11 -
SURROGATE LANGUAGES: WHISTLING, DRUMMING
Essential reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistled_language http://www.lemondesiffle.free.fr/ Hymes, Dell (ed.). 1964. Language in culture and society: A reader in linguistics
and anthropology. New York: Harper & Row. [pp 305-311, 312-325, with further references]
Sebeok, Thomas & D. Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds.). 1976. Speech surrogates: Drum and whistle systems. 2 vols. The Hague: Mouton.
Busnel, René-Guy & André Classe. 1976. Whistled languages. Berlin: Springer. Carrington, J. F. 1949. Talking drums of Africa. London: Harry Kingsgate Press. Cloarec-Heiss, France. 1999. From natural language to drum language: An
economical encoding procedure in Banda-Linda, Central African Republic. In Cathérine Fuchs & Stéphane Robert (eds.), Language diversity and cognitive representations, 145-157. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Rialland, Annie. 1974. Langages tambourinés et sifflés en Afrique. La Linguistique 1974. 113-125.
Rialland, Annie. 2005. Phonological and phonetic aspects of whistled languages. Phonology 22. 237-271.
http://annierialland.free.fr/wlanguages.pdf Meyer, Julien. 2005. Typology and intellegibility of whistled languages. Doctoral
thesis, Lyon 2. http://www.lemondesiffle.free.fr/whistledLanguages.htm Dentel, Laure & Julien Meyer: http://www.lemondesiffle.free.fr/ Moreau, Marie-Louise (on Diola, in Senegal):
http://www.senegalaisement.com/NOREF/communicationsiffleediola.html (also at: http://www.teluq.uquebec.ca/diverscite/bienvenue.htm) Everett, Daniel L. 2005. Cultural constraints on grammar and cognition in Pirahã:
Another look at the design features of human language. Current Anthropology 46. (see also: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003175.html#more)
- 12 -
RHYTHM, NATURALLY: NURSERY RHYMES
Collection: Opie, Iona & Peter Opie. 1959. The language and lore of schoolchildren. Oxford: Oxford UP. [and many more] Essential reading: Fabb chapters 2-5 Traugott & Pratt ch. 2 Attridge, Derek. 1995. Poetic rhythm: An introduction. Cambridge: CUP. Bràiloiu, C. 1984. Children’s rhythms. In Bràiloiu, Problems of ethnomusicology,
206-238. Cambridge: CUP. Zwicky, Arnold M. 1986. Linguistics and the study of folk poetry. In Peter C.
Bjarkman & Victor Raskin (eds.), The real-world linguist: Linguistic applications in the 1980’s, 57-73. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Hayes, Bruce. 1988. Metrics and phonological theory. In Frederick J. Newmeyer (ed.), Linguistics: The Cambridge survey, vol. 2: Linguistic theory: Extensions and implications, 220-249. Cambridge: CUP.
Hayes, Bruce P. & Margaret MacEachern. 1998. Quatrain form in English folk verse. Language 64. 473-507.
Kiparsky, Paul & Gilbert Youmans (eds.). 1989. Rhythm and meter. (Phonetics and Phonology, 1.) San Diego: Academic Press. [relevant chapters]
Aroui, Jean-Louis & Andy Arleo (eds.). 2009. Towards a typology of poetic forms: From language to metrics and beyond. Amsterdam: Benjamins. [relevant chapters]
Burling, Robins. 1966. The metrics of children’s verse: A cross-linguistic study. American Anthropologist 68. 1418-1441.
Reference text: make your own collection of advertisement slogans, sports cheers, etc. or consult this archive: http://fanchants.co.uk/ Essential reading: as above, s.v. RHYTHM Stein, David & David Gil. 1980. Prosodic structures and prosodic markers.
Theoretical Linguistics 7. 173-240. Hayes, Bruce & Abigail Kaun. 1996. The role of phonological phrasing in sung
and chanted verse. The Linguistic Review 13. 243-303.
MEMORABLE UTTERANCES: PROSE (proverbs, clichés)
Reference text: lots of proverb collections; also, try to coin your own proverbs Smith, W. G. & F. P. Wilson (eds.). 1970. The Oxford dictionary of English
VERBAL MAGIC: BLESSING, CHARMING, CURSING etc. also INSULTING �to come later� charm (Segen)
Dell Hymes (ed.) (1964). Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology. New York: Harper & Row. [pp 356-365, with many references]
André Jolles (1930). Einfache Formen. Halle: Niemeyer. [ch. Spruch] cursing Geoffrey Hughes (1991). Swearing: A Social History of Foul Language, Oaths
and Profanity in English. Oxford: Oxford Univesity Press. Timothy Jay (2000). Why we Curse: A Neuro-psycho-social Theory of Speech.
Amsterdam: Benjamins.
- 15 -
(NICK-)NAMING �to come later� see ONOMASTICS, Hymes 1964: 171-181 (Boas, Kwakiutl place names), 221-227 (Evans-Pritchard, Nuer address)
- 16 -
PUNNING �to come later� Reference texts: check pun collections; Redfern has lots
Essential reading: Dell Hymes (ed.) (1964). Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in
Linguistics and Anthropology. New York: Harper & Row. [Part VI; pp 299-300, with further references]
Walter Redfern (1984). Puns. Oxford: Blackwell. Richard John Alexander (1980). English verbal humour and second language
learning. L.A.U.T. Papers, Series B, No. 60. [with further references]
F. B. J. Kuiper (1960). The ancient Aryan verbal contest. Indo-Iranian Journal 4: �-�.
Dell Hymes (ed.) (1964). Language in Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics and Anthropology. New York: Harper & Row. [Part VI; p 299 for further references]
- 18 -
ABNORMAL SPEECH: TALKING OF/TO SOMEONE NOT QUITE LIKE ONESELF (e.g., female, child, mother-in-law, handicapped, foreigner, animal) Reference texts:
??? Essential reading: Hymes, Dell (ed.). 1964. Language in culture and society: A reader in linguistics
and anthropology. New York: Harper & Row. [Part ���] Sapir, Edward. 1915. Abnormal types of speech in Nootka. Reprinted in Sapir,
Selected writings, 179-196. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949. Sapir, Edward. 1929. Male and female forms of speech in Yana. Reprinted in
Sapir, Selected writings, 206-212. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949.
also baby talk, foreigner talk, mother-in-law languages, talking to/like animals, etc.
- 19 -
TABOO
Essential reading: Havers, Wilhelm. 1946. Neuere Literatur zum Sprachtabu. Sitzungsberichte der
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien, Philologisch-historische Klasse, 223, Abhandlung 5.
Jakobson, Roman, Lautgestalt der Sprache, 229-232. Burridge, Kate & Keith Allan. 1991. Euphemism and dysphemism: Language
used as shield and weapon. New York: Oxford University Press. Allan, Keith. 2006. Forbidden words. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holder, R. W. 1987. A dictionary of American and British euphemisms. Bath:
Bath University Press.
- 20 -
FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING: METAPHOR �to come later�
- 21 -
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE: TELLING A STORY Reference texts: any (short, everyday) narrative will do, preferably one of personal experience Essential reading:
Fabb chapters 7 and 8 Traugott & Pratt ch. 6 Labov, William & Joshua Waletzky. 1967. Narrative analysis: Oral versions of
personal experience. In J. Helm (ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts, 12-44. Seattle: U. of Washington Press. [often reprinted]
Labov, William. 1972. Language in the inner city. Philadelphia: U. of Pennsylvania Press. [esp. ch. 9]
Labov, William. 1997. Some further steps in narrative analysis. The Journal of Narrative and Life History (online: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/sfs.html)
Toolan, Michael. 2001. Narrative: A critical linguistic introduction. London: Routledge, 2nd edn.
- 22 -
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE: TELLING A JOKE Reference texts: any jokes you can (re-)tell (perhaps a clean one like this, from http://www.3wave.com/~newsy/joke.htm, or
also http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/edinburgh2002/funniest_joke/): The linguistic lesson. The li A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. “In English,” he said,
“a double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.” A student piped up from the back of the auditorium. “Yeah, right.”)
Essential reading:
Freud, Siegmund. 1905. Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewußten. Jolles, André. 1930. Einfache Formen. Halle: Niemeyer. [chapter on Witz] Sacks, Harvey. 1974. An analysis of the course of a [dirty] joke’s telling in
conversation. In Richard Bauman & Joel Sherzer (eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking, 337-353. Cambridge: CUP.
Alexander, Richard John. 1980. English verbal humour and second language learning. L.A.U.T. Papers, Series B, No. 60. [with further references]
Ruch, Wilhelm, Salvatore Attardo, & Victor Raskin. 1993. Toward an empirical verification of the general theory of verbal humour. Humor 6(2).
Attardo, Salvatore. 1994. Linguistic theories of humor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Attardo, Salvatore. 2001. Humorous texts: A semantic and pragmatic analysis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- 23 -
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE: TELLING/SINGING A TALE: FORMULAE Reference texts: to include Beowulf Essential reading: Fabb ch. 9
Kiparsky, Paul. 1976. Oral poetry: Some linguistic and typological considerations. In B. A. Stolz & R. S. Shannon (eds.), Oral literature and the formula, 73-125. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. [and other chapters in this collection]
Lord, Albert B. 1960. The singer of tales. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP. Finnegan, Ruth. 1992. Oral poetry: Its nature, significance and social context.
Bloomington: Indiana UP.
- 24 -
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE: POINT OF VIEW Reference texts: (a) Georg Büchner, Lenz; Johann Friedrich Oberlin, Herr L...; Daniel Ehrenfried
Stoeber, Vie de J. F. Oberlin George Moorse, Lenz (the movie – video in Mediothek) English translations of Lenz by Carl Richard Mueller (1963) and by Michael
Hamburger (1972) Essential reading: dictionary/encyclopedia entries DEIXIS, EMPATHY Traugott & Pratt 287-306 Fabb 183-185 Kuroda, Sige-Yuki. 1973. Where epistemology, style and grammar meet: A case
study of Japanese. In Stephen R. Anderson & Paul Kiparsky (eds.), A festschrift for Morris Halle, 377-391. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. [and later related work by Kuroda, or inspired by him]
Simpson, Paul. 1993. Language, ideology and point of view. London: Routledge. Uspenskij, Boris A. 1970. Poetika komposicii. Moskva. Translated: A poetics of composition: The structure of the artistic text and
typology of a compositional form. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1973. Poetik der Komposition. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1975.
... and there are tons of books on point of view from a literary rather than linguistic point of view (Stanzel’s, Banfield’s, and Fludernik’s are among the more instructive)
(b) William Golding, The Inheritors
Essential reading: dictionary/encyclopedia entries TRANSITIVITY, also Fabb 173-177 (or the work of Hopper & Thompson summarised by Fabb) Halliday, M. A. K. 1971. Linguistic function and literary style: An inquiry into
the language of William Golding’s The Inheritors. In Seymour Chatman (ed.), Literary style: A symposium, 362-400. New York: Oxford University Press.
