A Preface to Parallelism

1

Parallelism

in

Verbal Art and Performance

Pre-Print Papers of the Seminar-Workshop

26th–27th May 2014

Helsinki, Finland

Edited by

Frog

Folkloristiikan toimite 21

Helsinki: Folklore Studies, University of Helsinki

2

PARALLELISM IN VERBAL ART AND PERFORMANCE is a seminar-workshop to be

held 26th–27

th May 2014, in the Great Hall of the Finnish Literature Society, Helsinki,

Finland. The event is organized by Folklore Studies of the University of Helsinki and the

Academy of Finland research project “Oral and Literary Culture in the Medieval and Early

Modern Baltic Sea Region: Cultural Transfer, Linguistic Registers and Communicative

Networks” (2011–2014) of the Finnish Literature Society.

Organizing Committee

Board: Pertti Anttonen University of Helsinki

Frog University of Helsinki

Tuomas M.S. Lehtonen Finnish Literature Society

Karina Lukin University of Helsinki

Ilona Pikkanen Finnish Literature Society

Ulla Savolainen University of Helsinki

Eila Stepanova University of Helsinki

Lotte Tarkka University of Helsinki

Published by Folklore Studies of the Department of Philosophy, History, Culture and Art

Studies, University of Helsinki.

Cover photo of the master poet Kornalius Medah from the domain of Bilba on Rote by James

Fox.

© 2014 The authors

ISBN 978-952-10-9935-9

Number 21 in the series Folkloristiikan toimite.

ISSN 1458-4875

Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance has been made possible thanks to support from

the Academy of Finland research project “Oral and Literary Culture in the Medieval and

Early Modern Baltic Sea Region: Cultural Transfer, Linguistic Registers and Communicative

Networks” (2011–2014) of the Finnish Literature Society, the Academy of Finland research

project “Oral Poetry, Mythic Knowledge, and Vernacular Imagination: Interfaces of

Individual Expression and Collective Traditions in Pre-modern Northeast Europe” (2012–

2016) of Folklore Studies, University of Helsinki, and the Research Community “Cultural

Meanings and Vernacular Genres (CMVG)” of Folklore Studies, University of Helsinki.

A Preface to Parallelism

7


Frog

University of Helsinki

Parallelism has been considered a fundamental feature of poetic discourse. Indeed, as a

foundation of his approach to poetry, Roman Jakobson used “the obvious fact that on every

level of language the essence of poetic artifice consists in recurrent returns” (Jakobson 1981

[1966]: 98). Althuogh few would probably know it, were it not for the quotation by

Jakobson, Gerard Manley Hopkins had observed a century earlier that “The artificial part of

poetry, perhaps we shall be right to say all artifice, reduces itself to the principle of

parallelism” (ibid.; Hopkins 1959 [1865]: 84, emphasis added). The term and concept of

parallelism is a fundamental feature of discussions of literature, poetics and beyond. As

Jakobson (1981 [1966]: 98) observes: “Those poetic patterns where certain similarities

between successive verbal sequences are compulsory or enjoy a high preference appear to be

widespread in the languages of the world.” James Fox (1977: 69–70) observes that such

remarkable pervasiveness “suggests it is a phenomenon of near universal significance.” The

event Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance was organized to open this phenomenon to

discussion from a number of different perspectives, approaches and viewed through different

sorts of materials. Some of this work is more empirically oriented while other work has a

more theoretical orientation: these together stand in complementary dialogue. Our hope is

that the negotiation of perspectives and insights brought together by this event will be

interwoven into a platform for increasingly sophisticated understandings of parallelism as a

phenomenon and of its significance for understanding different forms of discourse. The

present volume of working papers of this event is intended to facilitate that discussion and

offer an initial, concrete base from which we can advance. At the same time, we anticipate

that the discussions begun on the basis of this event will stimulate interest in and attention to

this important topic, echoing outward through networks of scholars, carrying these

discussions in new directions.

Background

The event Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance (26th–27

th May 2014, Helsinki,

Finland) came about through the happy conjunction of several factors. In the end of May

2012 and again in 2013, Folklore Studies of the University of Helsinki and the Academy of

Finland research project “Oral and Literary Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern Baltic


8

Sea Region: Cultural Transfer, Linguistic Registers and Communicative Networks” (2011–

2014) of the Finnish Literature Society organized two international multidisciplinary

colloquia on the term an concept of ‘register’ – i.e. socially constructed context-based and

situation-based varieties of language and other resources for expression.1 The organizing

committee decided to resist the appeal of making the Helsinki Register Colloquia into an

annual large-scale international conference, but our success with these meetings had already

stirred interest and inquiry toward what would follow in 2014. Our cooperation had been so

fruitful and the time so convenient that we quickly determined to organize another event.

This produced the frame in which Parallelism would take shape.

Three additional factors also came into alignment. First, we had been in contact with

Richard Bauman and discussed having him visit us in Helsinki. Second, in conjunction with

Register II we had organized a small workshop led by James Wilce,2 at which great interest

and discussion was prompted by an example of complex patterns of parallelism in discourse

which lacked fixed meters (cf. Wilce 2008). This stimulated thinking about parallelism in

new and different ways. Third, within a few weeks, we came into contact with James Fox,

who was updating his cornerstone article “Roman Jakobson and the Comparative Study of

Parallelism” (1977) for a forthcoming publication. Work on parallelism in Kalevala-meter

poetry (especially Steinitz 1934) had, of course, held a prominent position in international

comparative discussions on poetic parallelism. Fox wanted to make certain that there were no

very recent publications on parallelism in Kalevala-meter poetry that he might have missed.

Especially in the wake of Wilce’s workshop, Fox’s inquiry led to an awareness that many

researchers – whatever the genres and traditions they worked with – mentioned parallelism

and engaged with it in different ways in their research, yet the phenomenon itself had not been

receiving concentrated attention: parallelism has, for the most part, sifted to the foundations of

research discourses as a term, concept and point of reference that tends to be taken for granted

rather than critically assessed. This is not to say that there has not been an accumulation of

advances and insights into parallelism, but these seem to have been concerned with particular

types of parallelism, with particular traditions, or within particular disciplines. They seem not

to have advanced toward a synthesis, returning to the broad perspective on the more

fundamental phenomenon of parallelism in human expression as proposed in the discussions

1 These were Register: Intersections of Language, Context and Communication, held 23

rd–25

th May 2012, and

Register II: Emergence, Change and Obsolescence, held 22nd–24

th May 2013.

2 This was the Digital Technologies for Oral Tradition Research workshop, held 27

th May 2013, organized by the

Academy of Finland Project “Oral Poetry, Mythic Knowledge and Vernacular Imagination” of Folklore Studies,

University of Helsinki.


9

of Hopkins and Jakobson. It seems, as Nigel Fabb recently observed, that parallelism “has

remained undertheorized.”3 The theme for a 2014 event had unequivocally presented itself,

and we embraced it.

From that point onward, the organization of the event came together with remarkable

ease. Rather than a conference as had been done with Register, we determined that the event

on Parallelism should be oriented to nurturing and developing research on this topic with

emphasis on discussion of materials, problems, approaches and perspectives. In order to do

this, the event was planned to have a limited number of speakers: two keynote lectures and ten

additional participants. Bauman was quite interested in the theme and Fox responded to the

invitation to be a keynote speaker with enthusiasm. Other presenters quickly fell into place,

although James Wilce, who had planned to be among the presenting participants, was

unfortunately prevented from making the journey by factors beyond his control. The various

presentations on a range of materials with different foci and from various perspectives

promises to provide rich discussions leading to new understandings by all involved.

The Strategy of the Event and the Pre-Print Papers

The seminar-workshop model of Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance is adapted from

that developed for the multidisciplinary seminars of the Viking Age in Finland project,4

comprised of two full days of presentation and discussion open to the public. Although the

event is developed as a workshop and oriented to promoting discussion, each presentation will

be fully developed as is it would be at a conference, rather than remaining a mere summary or

some introductory comments as at some workshops. This will insure that attendees who have

not had the opportunity to read the working papers in advance can also participate fully in

discussion. In many seminars, the central question of each participant in both presenting and

listening to papers is: ‘How is this useful to me?’ We have asked participants in this event to

arrive with the questions: ‘How is what I do useful to other scholars? How does the data and

material that I work with have relevance or interest for the work being done by other

researchers?’ In order to promote fully developed discussion and to facilitate the negotiation

of understandings, each twenty-minute presentation is followed by a forty-minute period for

questions and comments. In adapting this model, keynote speakers provide a longer

presentation that opens each day of the event, speaking for forty-five to fifty minutes and

moving to open discussion for forty to forty-five minutes. Whereas participation in a

3 Personal comment when discussing parallelism at the conference Frontiers in Comparative Metrics 2, 19

th–20

th

April 2014, Tallinn, Estonia. 4 See further Ahola & Frog 2014.


10

conference venue often leaves the majority of listeners to any paper in passive roles, this

framework is intended to make the event more interactive. This is hoped to produce new

insights by bringing multiple perspectives into dialogue surrounding each object of

discussion, and thereby lead to new knowledge as the different sides of that object, which

cannot all be seen from any one perspective, begin to be considered together.

All speaking participants have prepared working papers on their topics for publication

before the event. These have been gathered into the present volume, where they are organized

in two sections: keynote papers and participant papers. Within each section, working papers

appear in the order of presentations in the program of the event. This organization is intended

to make the publication a practical companion as materials for the workshop. All papers

included here should be regarded as works in progress. Rather than representing the texts of

presentations per se, speakers may also engage their own and other pre-print papers in

dialogue in their presentations. For the working papers, emphasis was placed on introducing

and presenting material, concepts and theories that can provide a solid basis for participant

discussion at the event. Participants were especially asked to provide the examples to be

discussed. This will make the examples immediately available in printed form for all

participants throughout the discussion, as well as providing the possibility of referring to

examples and materials from different presentations throughout the course of the event.

Some Preliminary Perspectives on Parallelism

Parallelism may indeed be fundamental to poetic discourse, but the very degree to which it

appears fundamental makes the concept as a whole challenging to pin down. I do not

presume to attempt to describe and define it comprehensively here, nor even to survey the

diversity of its forms and uses. However, it seems worthwhile to preface the working papers

of this event with a review of some of the topics and themes that are found across them, as

well as some of the significant questions concerning parallelism that connect and relate the

different papers to one another. This preliminary survey and discussion has two primary

intentions as a prelude and introduction to Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance. The

first is to survey some of the basic ground that is covered or addressed in individual papers

and discussions as a preliminary frame in which the papers can be approached and

deliberated. The second is to stimulate thinking about parallelism and ways to relate

perspectives from the different approaches offered by different materials and produced by

focus on parallelism of different types.


11

One of the first observations to be made concerning parallelism is the diversity of

phenomena to which it might refer. Descriptions of parallelism of particular types or in

individual languages, traditions and networks of cultures have, in a number of cases,

developed quite rich and penetrating descriptions. During the year leading up to this event,

however, some of the participants came to observe that the term ‘parallelism’ is not only

diversely applied, but the analytical definition of the broader concept does not seem to have

advanced significantly beyond the descriptions of Jakobson – e.g. definitions such as “poetic

juxtapositions of paired elements” (Wilce 2008: 97; cf. also Fox 1988: 2–4; Tannen 1990: 57–

58). Of course, significantly more attention has been given to how parallelism functions in

discourse (e.g. Hanks 1987), its relationship to text cohesion (e.g. Glick 2007), and viewing it

from the perception of reception, according to which ‘parallelism’ can be regarded as to

“[p]refer a grouping structure in which parallel forms appear as parallel parts of groups”

(Cureton 1992: 263). Nevertheless, trying to clearly delimit ‘parallelism’ with a unified

analytical concept can easily make it appear as a vast and amorphous monster.

Jakobson’s (1981 [1966]: 98) “recurrent returns” may occur on the level of sounds,

words, grammar, syntax, semantics, metrical units and so forth. The range of uses of

‘parallelism’ rapidly advances to motifs, narrative sequences and still larger structures. Thus

Jakobson’s “recurrent returns” may rapidly begin to resonate in scope with Friedrich

Nietzsche’s ewige Wiederkunft [‘eternal return’] of a cyclic universe – and this even before

considering parallelism in music or parallelism between word and action in performance.

And if this were not enough, the dyadic structuring of equivalence, linking parallel elements

as sharing in some sort of identity (if not being identical to one another), can also be inverted

as opposition – referred to as negative parallelism and similar terms – presenting an antithesis

or negative analogue rather than a common identity. Consequently, when considering the

kaleidoscopic use of the term, it warrants considering whether the ‘parallels’ of ‘parallelism’

are constrained to parallels within a single text or whether parallelism can be produced

between texts, as for example between a parodic performance and its object of parody.

Rather than a common analytical definition, there seems to be a tendency for us to

develop familiar and often intuitive or tradition-dependent understandings of parallelism. We

internalize these on the basis of the discourse surrounding the research materials with which

we are concerned. Such understandings are potentially quite narrow, and thus the movement

from that comfortable space into the diversity with which ‘parallelism’ is wielded can be

dizzying: it is not in fact clear that there is a single, fundamental concept underlying and

uniting these various approaches, and uniting parallelisms of so many and diverse kinds. As a


12

consequence, it becomes difficult to discern where ‘parallelism’ ends and ‘not parallelism’

begins.

Verbalization and Semantics

In research on oral poetry, perhaps the most familiar and recognized variety of parallelism is

semantic parallelism, especially at the level of the metrical line in relation to adjacent verses.

Whereas parallelism here appears as a form of repetition, it is distinguished from simple

repetition by a complement of variation. Thus, semantically parallel lines are equivalent but

not identical. Where the particular “similarities between successive verbal sequences are

compulsory or enjoy a high preference,” this is described as canonical parallelism (Jakobson

1981 [1966]: 98). Canonical parallelism is a social practice, a tradition, and therefore is

governed by conventions within the poetic system, even if it is not required for every line.

These conventions may be highly restrictive. In this volume, for example, James Fox

discusses Rotenese ritual discourse in which parallel lines are realized with locally established

pairs of synonyms forming clear dyadic structures. Canonical parallelism may also be subject

to other structuring constraints, such as requiring not only that lines communicate the same

semantic content but that each word in a parallel line correspond to a word in the preceding

line, as in kalevalaic poetry discussed by Jukka Saarinen, where protracted sequences of

parallel lines are not uncommon (on their variation, see also Kallio, this volume). This is a

quite strict form of semantic parallelism, noting also that each parallel unit is a formally

equivalent metrical unit (i.e. the metrical line). In some traditions, semantic parallelism may

involve prominent lexical repetition in parallel lines (see e.g. Roper, this volume) although it

otherwise repeats the same informational content. Equivalent expressions may appear as

conventionally ordered pairs or sequences, or their order may be variable (cf. Fox 1988: 26–

27). The ordering of which element comes first may reflect a common convention or it may

depend on a semantic hierarchy, in which the first phrase carries meaning while subsequent

phrases merely echo and prolong the presentation of that unit of meaning (Steinitz 1934; cf.

Saarinen, this volume; Kaartinen, this volume). Propositional information may potentially

appear to vary or be added in parallelism of this type as a function of lexical variation or

completing metrical requirements, but it will normally be incidental and potentially formulaic

or idiomatic and thus semantically light or void. For example, when designating the mythic

smith in kalevalaic poetry as Se on seppo Ilmarinen / takoja ijänikuinen [‘He is the smith

Ilmarinen / forger eternal-aged-one’] (semantically parallel elements underlined), the

reference to Ilmarinen’s age is formally an authority attribute, but in practice it is functionally


13

related to producing the parallel construction, which should complete an eight-syllable line

with words corresponding to words in the preceding line (‘smith’–‘forger’; ‘Ilmarinen’–

‘eternal-aged-one’). Parallel sequences of this type clearly form cohesive units of

expression.5

Semantic parallelism may also be more flexible, as in the Karelian lament tradition

discussed by Eila Stepanova, where semantic parallelism is complemented by additive

information within each parallel unit of a potentially protracted series. This combines

repetition with a slow informational progression, which in this genre may be complemented

by interweaving parallel sequences to make a more complex progression (cf. also Wilce

2008). This interweaving of parallel expression moves parallelism away from adjacent lines

by intermittently reintroducing earlier, semantically distinct parallel sequences. Although the

sequences are not adjacent, expressions from each parallel of the interwoven sequences

remain clearly recognizable. This enables expressions in each parallel series to be clearly

associated as a coherent, cumulative address of a particular topic while the interweaving of

two or more parallel sequences highlights their interconnectedness with one another. The

interconnectedness of the different parallel sequences is especially prominent because they

remain tightly interwoven without being distributed among additional poetry. Nevertheless,

semantic parallelism can indeed be distributed through a sequence of text. Karina Lukin

addresses this phenomenon in Nenets epic, where she emphasizes its role in producing

cohesion in a poetic sequence. She also looks at parallelism of sequences of poetic lines as

well as textual parallelism in longer poetic passages associated with parallels in narrative

content. This highlights the variability in the potential scope of semantically parallel

elements, even when focus is on whole-line units.

Parallelism may also be at the level of recurrent formal structures and features at the

level of a unit of expression such as a hemistich, line, couplet, stanza or equivalent. Semantic

parallelism is also only one variety of parallelism – parallelism at the level of meanings.

When semantic parallelism occurs at the level of metrical lines, it is reinforced by formal

parallelism of the metrical unit in which each expression occurs. Whereas Lukin draws

attention to larger textual units in which such parallelism is realized (cf. also Saarinen, this

volume; Frog, this volume), semantic parallelism can also occur at the level of units smaller

than a line. Jonathan Roper draws attention to patterned language use in smaller units in early

alliterative Germanic verse that may be distributed across and within whole long lines.

5 I am indebted to James Wilce for introducing me to thinking about parallelism in term of text cohesion.


14

Researchers have in fact debated whether this phenomenon should or should not be called

‘parallelism’. This can be illustrated by an example from Old Norse of two expressions for

‘gods’ in adjacent lines (underlined), of which the second is grammatically unnecessary:

Þá gengo regin ǫll á rǫcstóla Then went powers all to the judgment seats

ginnheilog goð oc um þat gættuz magic-holy gods and on that considered

(Vǫluspá 23.1–4.)

Here a half-line is filled by the expression for gods, tautologically repeating the grammatical

subject of the preceding line. This might be compared to line-based semantic parallelism in

kalevalaic poetry where parallel lines are often formed by repeating elements of a noun phrase

in the preceding line while omitting the verb (cf. Saarinen, this volume).6 In this case,

however, each long line is governed by a different verb, and neither grammatical nor syntactic

parallelism connect the full long lines. This case appears to have formal functions of

accomplishing alliteration and completing the second long line while the parallelistic and

otherwise redundant repetition of the subject emphasizes the agents and reinforces linkages

between the two actions as a coherent event.

When tautology as minimal as a noun phrase is viewed as parallelism, this can be found,

for example, in a single line of (e.g. kalevalaic) poetry such as oi emoni kantajani [‘oh

mother-mine, bearer-mine’]. The tension concerning whether this should be considered

‘parallelism’ or a distinct phenomenon is worth highlighting because, when it is not required

that semantic parallelism occurs at the level of whole lines as metrically parallel units,

‘parallelism’ rapidly begins to populate even the most casual discourse. A number of

varieties of parallelism can even be found in the text above, such as “Canonical parallelism is

a social practice, a tradition.” Regularly repeating formal poetic meters and otherwise

regularly structured poetic discourse easily foreground different types of canonical parallelism

by combining its regular occurrence with units of clearly distinct metrical structure (or its

equivalent; cf. Stepanova, this volume). Forms of discourse that lack such regularizing

metrical structures may also be characterized by canonical parallelism as an essential

discourse strategy, potentially in quite dynamic and flexible ways. As in Rotenese ritual

discourse or kalevalaic poetry, this may not be essential to incorporate into every expression.

Particular types of parallelism may also be bound up with individual registers and broader

6 This Old Norse meter (fornyrðislag) has a stress-based rhythm, according to which regin ǫll and ginnheilog

goð carry both metrical stresses in these lines although the lines are not metrically the same type (owing to the

distiribution of unstressed syllables). The inverted word order of regin ǫll [‘powers all’] which reduces the

formal correspondence between the expressions can be related to alliteration constraints: ǫll regin would prefer

alliteration on the vowel.


15

conventions in language. For example, semantic parallelism in adjacent words such as

‘mother carrier’ above can be considered a broadly Finno-Ugric or Uralic strategy of dyadic

expression, not restricted to metered verses, of which the Russian verb-pair formula for

opening folktales, zhil-byl [‘lived-was’] may be a translation loan (see Tkachenko 1979).

When parallelism is viewed as a device in this broader perspective, it shifts from being a

phenomenon tightly linked to formal meters to ethnopoetics more generally. Similarly, Indo-

European languages exhibit a different (but widely found) rhetorical figure called a merism

comprised of (normally) two nouns referring to a third broader category (Watkins 1995: 15),

such as the Old Norse expression ár ok friðr [‘good harvest and peace’] to refer to a broad

idea of prosperity and well-being for a community (cf. Kaartinen, this volume). Regarding

the merism as a formulaic parallel construction of a certain type suggests the potential

diversity that might be found even in semantic parallelism, and the potential for certain types

of parallel constructions to become highly conventionalized.

Verbal parallelism may also be at the level of grammatical structure (grammatical

parallelism) as well as employing or being complemented by lexical repetitions, all of which

may be complementary or strategically employed to produce contrasts. In this volume,

Richard Bauman addresses the oral poetics of early 20th

century African American sermons

through the use and manipulations of their conventions in parody. Here, multiple varieties of

parallelism provide integrated resources in the development of performance, variously as a

cue of the genre being parodied, as a device for creating cohesion within sequences of the

performance, and not least as a device for prolongation in the build-up of expectations and

excitement. Bauman’s discussion highlights that parallelism does not function in isolation

and offers examples even of dialogic co-construction of discourse in which parallelism and

repetition become essential strategies of the genre. Individual strategies may also exhibit a

distribution of communicative labour connecting them with particular rhetorical uses. This is

explored by Timo Kaartinen in genres of Bandanese oral discourse, focusing on differences in

situational patterns of use of parallelism in contrast to lexical and phrasal repetition. The

respective patterns of use appear to be indicative of differences in the culturally established

functions of parallelism and repetition in discourse, which may be related to metalinguistic

ideologies. Another angle on performative genres lacking formalized metrical structures is

provided by Antti Lindfors, who considers parallelism in Finnish stand-up comedy with

concentration on analogical juxtaposition. Where clear structuring meters are not observable,

the position and role of parallelism might easily be overlooked, and these discussions

emphasizes the pervasiveness of parallelism and its ability to penetrate even co-constructed


16

discourse. In such genres where parallelism may be less regular and less subject to more

restrictive conventional poetic constraints, discussions give more attention to the rhetorical

and semiotic functions of parallelism as a resource in specific uses. Formal conventions of

canonical parallelism make analytical descriptions of their functioning and use a more

practical concern for research. Then, within the context of that system, it is possible to

observe rhetorical or semiotic functions in practice, as Stepanova does for Karelian laments,

or to observe where variations in parallelism lack rhetorical or semantic intent, as Kati Kallio

does for kalevalaic poetry. On the other hand, a form of discourses that is quite marked in

this way can also be approached in terms of its use as a recognizable metasemiotic entity (cf.

Agha 2007). In other words, the register or way of speaking has significance in itself, and can

confer that significance on new objects, as traditional Rotenese ritual discourse was applied to

Christian biblical stories (Fox, this volume), or the discourse can be associated with particular

users can be manipulated in parody of those users, as was done with African American

preaching at the beginning of the 20th

century (Bauman, this volume).

The pervasiveness of parallelism should not be underestimated. Michael Silverstein

(1984: 183) in fact situated parallelism as a central factor in the metrics of discourse lacking

formal meters as “a measured repetition that serves as the metered frame for positional

variability.” Put another way, in the progression of any communicative situation, each

expression presents a potential point or frame of reference for subsequent expressions, even,

as in Silverstein’s example, in the co-production of casual conversation. Each expression can

be linked to expressions that preceded it in semantic content or referent, formal features such

as grammatical sequence, signifiers, rhythm, intonations and even sound patterns. From this

perspective, parallelism – in its many varieties – is a primary structuring mechanism for any

discourse, underlying the generation of coherence and cohesion. This warrants bearing in

mind when considering language use in more extensively structured poetic forms. To borrow

the pseudo-maxim of John Miles Foley (2002: xiii): “oral poetry works like language, only

more so.” When considering parallelism, this would mean that the highly conventionalized

forms of parallelism encountered in some oral poetries are reflexes of the same linguistic

phenomenon found in other forms of discourse. Silverstien’s approach also highlights the

significance of parallelism as placing elements of expression in relation to one another,

linking them. Consequently, memory should also be considered as a factor in the functioning

of parallelism – not simply in terms of mnemonics in production, but in the apprehension and

interpretation of parallelisms in reception. The ability of a parallelism to be effective is

dependent on its recognisability as a non-incidental recurrence, as a strategic return. (It may


17

be noted that different types of parallelism will be more or less easily recognizable depending

on the expectations produced by conventions in the tradition.) For example, a number of

equivalent and identical poetic formulaic expressions may be produced in the course of

performing an epic, but if they are not perceived as co-occurring in a way that links them

individually to one another, they will be interpreted in relation to the patterns of occurrence of

the expression in the poetry more generally (although this could also potentially be regarded

as a type of parallelism with a different referent, much like the problem of parody mentioned

above). On the other hand, parallelisms that are more distanced from one another in the

progression of performance may exhibit parallels in longer sequences of text making them

more recognizable.

Negative or Contrastive Parallelism

Whereas ‘semantic parallelism’ refers to semantic equivalence, there may also be what

Jakobson referred to as “negative parallelism”; a correlation of “concurrence of equivalence

on one [...] level with disagreement on another level” (Jakobson 1981 [1966]: 133). This

variety of parallelism is significant to mention although it is not a prominent topic across the

papers present here. Negative parallelism is normally characterized through semantic contrast

or a contrast of images, for example in parallel lines of bylina poetry: “It is not a bright falcon

in full flight, / It is a noble young man racing on his course” (Bowra 1952: 212). One

noteworthy feature of negative parallelism is that it frequently advances to complex parallel

structures. Jakobson drew on this same conventional parallel construction from bylina poetry

with an additional line, “Not a fierce horse coming at gallop to the court,” which produces a

three-element structure: ‘it is not a bright falcon; it is not a fierce horse; it is a brave fellow.’

(Jakobson 1960: 369–370.) In this case, each negated statement appears to form a negative

parallelism with the positive third line rather than the two negative statements being

semantically parallel to one another as a coherent unit contrasted with that third line.

Negative parallelism may also manifest semantically parallel couplets which are opposed to

form a negation (cf. Frog, this volume). In his preliminary survey of negative parallelism in

kalevalaic poetry, Felix Oinas (1985 [1976]) observed that the basic conventional structure

used was quite complex. This was a schema constituted of (a) an initial statement or

question, (b) the negation, and (c) a new positive solution. Any or all of these could be

expressed with semantically and/or grammatically parallel lines, as in the following example

from the epic Sampo-Cycle, in which lexical repetitions and grammatical parallelism connect

the negative parallelisms:


18

(a) Kuuli miehen itkövängi, She heard a man weeping,

Urohon ulizovangi; An old man lamenting;

Läks’ itkuo perustamahan: She went to check the weeping:

(b) Ei ole itku lap en itku The weeping is no child’s weeping,

Eig’ ole itku naizen itku, The weeping is no woman’s weeping,

(c) Itku on parda uun urohon, It is the weeping of a bearded man,

Jouhileuvan juorotannan. The lamentation of someone with a beard.

(SKVR I1 13, 84–90.) (Trans. Oinas 1985 [1976]: 80.)

The presents quite a complex rhetorical figure, which Oinas observed could vary by the

omission of element (a). However, it is also possible to find examples in which (c) may be

lacking (cf. Frog, this volume), and there are conventionalized figures in which a negative

parallelism is formed by first presenting the positive position followed only by the negation,

as commonly encountered preceding the introduction of the hero Lemminkäinen in his epic:

Kut uu rujot, kut uu rammat, Invite the crippled, invite the lame,

Kut uu verisogiat, Invite the blood-blind,

Van ei kutsu Lemmingäistä, Only do not invite Lemminkäinen,

(SKVR II 224, 9–11.)

This example presents a complex series of semantic parallelism in two half-lines followed by

a full line. This series functions as a three-element merism: ‘invite everyone’. Lexical

repetition of the verb (kutsua) links this to the negative parallelism in the final line. This

example also differs from the preceding examples taken from Oinas and Jakobson in that the

negative parallelism is between a complex unit (the merism) and the subsequent contrasted

unit (‘not Lemminkäinen’) rather than each line in the first sequence forming a contrastive

parallel individually. Thus, negative parallelism may provide a basis for a wide range of

conventionalized complex structures. This raises questions about how to approach and

discuss their conventional forms and variations when “broad level [...] typologizing offers

insufficient understanding of the complexity of semantic relations in even the simplest

traditions of canonical parallelism” (Fox 1977: 72).

These examples are unambiguous because they incorporate negations. However, the

characterization of “disagreement” as opposition situates this type of parallelism more

generally in terms of contrast rather than grammatical negation. When parallelism is quite

generally characterized by equivalence in one set of features and differences in others, the

question of emphasis on equivalence versus disagreement is related to interpretations

produced by how elements regarded as parallel are seen as relating to one another. This is

significant to consider, for example, in the generation of tension and humour through the

contrasts between analogies discussed by Lindfors. It also leads to questions concerning the


19

limits of parallelism: when the referent for contrastive analogy for humorous effect is

explicitly presented within the same text, it can be regarded as parallelism – but is this basic

rhetorical strategy significantly different from the parodies of sermons discussed by Bauman,

for which the referent is external to the text as common cultural knowledge? (This parody is

foregrounded at the level of generic discourse, but also includes misquotation of Biblical

verses etc. that are unambiguously textual referents.) This sort of question is relevant to raise,

both because of the question about whether ‘parallelism’ is necessarily a text-internal

phenomenon, and also because negative or contrastive parallelism presents significant

challenges to formulating a unified analytical definition of parallelism.

Parallelism and Phonic Texture

Parallelism is not constrained to the level of words, meanings and grammar – i.e. at the level

of signs and their patterns of combination. It may also be realized at the level of signals, such

as the sounds and rhythms with which language (as a system of signs) is communicated.

Recurrent metrical structure or equivalent recurrence of a syllabic, word-based or other type

of stress-based rhythm (metrical parallelism) is at the level of sounds in relation to one

another and sounds in time – the level of phonic texture through which words are

communicated – rather than at the level of words as signs as such. Jakobson (1981 [1966]:

98) saw the “regular returns” to certain sounds in the form of rhyme or alliteration also as a

form of parallelism.7 When canonical, this may be viewed as a strictly metrical requirement,

or it may be a prominent convention rather than a strict constraint such as alliteration in the

Kalevala-meter (Saarinen, this volume) or the variation of the early Germanic meter used in

charms (Roper, this volume). Like other forms of parallelism, phonic parallelism indexically

links units of expression as associated with one another more than with other co-occurring

expressions in the same manner that in verbal parallelism, “parallel forms appear as parallel

parts of groups” (Cureton 1992: 263). Thus the poetic ‘strings’ of Karelian laments lack a

discernible formal meter and the words and formulae of a verbal sequence are marked as a

unit at the phonic texture of expression through the phonic parallelism of alliteration

(Stepanova, this volume). The rhythms of regularly repeating meters can also be considered

7 Compare, for example, Kaarle Krohn’s (1926: 100) description of semantic parallelism as ‘thought rhyme’

(Gedankenreim). It should also be mentioned that alliteration and rhyme may be conditioned by languages in

terms of what sounds people are sensitive to, what combinations do or do not function as euphonic or equivalent,

and so forth. Moreover, certain recurrent patterns in the organization of sounds producing phonic parallelism

may be highly dependent on the language itself insofar as they are dependent on phonic distinctions perceived

within the broader language where they are used, such as in metrical conventions related to syllabic weight in

early Germanic languages, syllabic length in Kalevala-meter, or the potential for tonal parallelism in a tonal

language like Chinese.


20

to produce formal, metrical parallelism that simultaneously demarcates units of expression

(cf. Harvilahti 2015) and situates lines in relation to one another – indeed facilitating

parallelism “as the metered frame for [...] variability” (Silverstein 1984: 183). Thus different

types of parallelism function in complementary ways. This may be synchronized, as when

semantic parallelism co-occurs with metrical parallelism, or they may offer alternative

strategies for producing text cohesion in a sequence of expressions. For example, Saarinen

presents an example of semantic parallelism in which alliteration is absent from lines

exhibiting lexical repetition by beginning with yhen [‘one-GEN’]: the strategy of semantic

parallelism between lines is given precedence over phonic parallelism within each line, yet

cohesion is not threatened. In this case, the repetition of words in each line clearly marks

each line as a unit of expression in relation to co-occurring lines and may function as an

alternative to alliteration in individual lines. In other cases and traditions, precedence of

parallelism in verbalization over canonical parallelism in phonic structures may be

complemented by alternative strategies of integrating verses into the acoustic texture of a

poem (cf. Frog & Stepanova 2011: 201). This can be observed, for example, in a case of an

Old Norse eddic poem in which parallels in narrative content are highlighted by parallelism

and repetition in the formulaic expression of verbalization. In one case, variation of the verb

sofa [‘to sleep’] for eta [‘to eat’] in variations of a repeating formulaic line disrupts metrical

alliteration (át–átta [‘ate–eight’] in the preceding use) and phonic parallelism between

adjacent lines appears as an alternative or strategic variation on alliteration within the line:

Svaf vætr Freyja átta nóttum Freyja did not sleep for eight nights

svá var hún óðfús í iötunheima she was so madly eager to come to giantland

(Þrymskviða 28.5–8.)

It is important to acknowledge parallelism at the level of sounds or signals because these are

subtly in the background of many of the types of parallelism discussed, especially where

several different types of parallelism may be used in combination with one another in

complex ways (cf. Bauman, this volume; Frog, this volume). At the same time, parallelism at

this level of texture of expression also raises questions about the potential distance between

expressions at which parallelism can still be recognized as a connecting and structuring

device. For example, Old English poetry exhibits a so-called ‘echo-word’ (Beaty 1934) or

‘responsion’ (Foley 1991 [1993]) that, rather than being the repetition of a word per se, is a

word paired with as second word “echoing its identical sound in a different meaning,

connotation, or association” (Beaty 1934: 366) – i.e. a parallel phonic sequence of a syllable


21

or more, as opposed to alliteration and rhyme building from syllable onsets or endings.

Responsions function as indicators of connectedness in sequences of text and can be used for

emphasis or rhetorical effect.8 Like the parallel lines addressed by Lukin, the larger phonic

sequences seem to allow this type of parallelism to be distributed at greater distances through

a text, although “usually no more than about twenty lines away, and often much closer”

(Foley 1991 [1993]: 340–341). Of course, sensitivity to recognize such patterns is dependent

on competence in a tradition and the expectations internalized with its conventions. This

nevertheless emphasizes that the surface texture of sounds and signals may potentially involve

quite complex parallelisms no less than semantic, grammatical and metrical parallelism,

although these parallelisms may be easily overlooked and taken for granted.

Parallelism as a constraint on the phonic texture of expression also has implications for

word choice and can shape the semantics of expression. In this volume, Sykäri looks at how

rhyme as a form of parallelism connecting couplets of text is realized in improvisation. She

considers the impacts of phonic parallelism linking couplets on choices made in verbalization

and the content of expressions, taking account of cognitive implications in the generative

production of verses. Roper turns attention to alliteration as a phenomenon internal to a

poetic line rather than linking lines into couplets or more complex units in the manner of end-

rhyme. Turning from the impact of phonic requirements on the generative production of

verses, he gives attention to the role of these different varieties of phonic parallelism in the

historical shaping of a poetic system and its conventions, setting out to test a hypothesis of

Arvo Krikmann that alliteration is conducive to semantic parallelism whereas end-rhyme of

lines is antithetical to it. The role of phonic parallelism in shaping expression should not be

underestimated, nor the degree to which certain forms of parallelism may be more or less

conducive to use in combination with one another – and consequently that the prominence of

one form of parallelism as a conventional strategy in expression may reduce the conventional

use of one or more others.

Parallelism, the Lexicon, and the Historical Construction of Tradition

A broad theme recurring among these papers is the position of parallelism in the historical

construction of traditions and their use. Fox centers his discussion on the adaptation of

Rotenese ritual discourse through the cultural transition to Christianity and its reinvention in

8 Foley (1991 [1993]: 340–344) highlights networks of responsions associated with narrative content. However,

phonic responsions can also create meaningful indexes between different elements of a poem. For example, in

the description of the murder of the Old Norse god Baldr by the god Hǫðr, the second half-line describing the

fatal shot – Hǫðr nam scióta [‘Hǫðr took to shooting’] (Vǫluspá 32.4) has a responsion in a corresponding

second half-line describing an oath to take revenge on Baldrs andscota [‘the enemy of Baldr’].


22

relation to the new religion. Roper similarly considers continuity and change in the

prominence of differing types of parallelism in relation to the displacement of alliteration by

end-rhyme as the variety of preferred phonic parallelism. This theme is not prominent or

even necessarily present in the majority of these papers, yet the historically constructed nature

of traditions remains in the background of these works. In some cases, this is mentioned in

passing, such as touching on the question of whether parallelism in the present of a tradition is

rooted in a remote linguistic-cultural heritage (e.g. Lukin, this volume). Most prominent in

this area of topics is, however, the relationship of parallelism to the historical construction of

the lexicon or linguistic register of a particular genre or variety of discourse.

The conventional language and patterns of language use of a poetic tradition – its

linguistic register – are outcomes of social historical processes. Although conventions of a

poetic system vary from tradition to tradition, they nevertheless inevitably involve realizing

language in phonic, syllabic and semantic environments that motivate contextual variation in

lexical choices. Canonical semantic parallelism is a complementary factor in this process

owing to its demand for lexical variation in expressions that mean the same thing, an issue

also relevant to traditions of canonical phonic parallelism such as alliteration, as Roper has

discussed elsewhere (2012). Canonical parallelism produces a functional need for vocabulary

capable of generating semantically appropriate expressions. The poetic lexicon evolves

accordingly, potentially developing and maintaining a rich diversity of dialectal vocabulary,

loan-words and archaisms relative to conventions of the poetic system (see Foley 1999;

Coleman 1999), which may also involve significant flex or deviation from the use of the same

words in other contexts (Roper 2012; cf. also Frog 2014: 106–117). This issue is

foregrounded by Fox in what he terms “dialect concatenation” (see Fox, this volume:

Appendix; Fox 2014).

Fox uses the term dialect concatenation to describe the outcome of two, complementaty

(and not always distinguishable) processes. On the one hand, lexical items may continue to

be used in a poetic register while dropping out of use in other forms of discourse within one

language dialect, although they retain currency in other dialects of the same language. On the

other hand, contacts between groups speaking different dialects or different languages present

additional expressive resources that can be capitalized on and assimilated into the available

resources of the poetic lexicon. In Rotenese discourse, the maintenance of such an

exceptional lexicon correlates prominently with the need for equivalent word-pairs in

semantic parallelism. This process involves both the suspension of archaisms as well as the

assimilation of vocabulary from other dialects. In other traditions, assimilated lexical material


23

from other languages may be more observable, such as the Russian loans in the register of

Karelian laments (Stepanova, this volume) or Malay loans in Bandanese (Kaartinen, this

volume). It should be mentioned that the distinction between ‘dialect’ and ‘language’ may,

for users, be more a question of social identity than linguistic affinity, or more a question of

registers of linguistic competence associated with certain types of interaction rather than others:

“in real life speakers may use the full range of linguistic resources at their disposal, in many

cases regardless of how they are associated with different ‘languages’” (Møller & Jørgensen

2011: 100). As Fox emphasizes, this sort of concatenation is a phenomenon current in the present

of each tradition while the lexicon simultaneously reflects the outcomes of historical linguistic-

cultural contacts between different groups that has shaped the poetic register (or indeed any

register). It is useful to keep in mind the historical constructedness of conventions of different

types of parallelism in relation to one another and to the construction of the poetic register because

these may have implications for understanding a tradition in the period it is documented.

Approaching the functioning of vocabulary with special compositional functions in the

dynamics of a register of poetic discourse presents certain methodological issues in. Fox (1977:

72) has earlier criticized “simplistic categorization based on synonymy and antonymy [....] of

word pairs” which “generally assigns each pair to a specific category without examining the

possibility of systemic connections among lexical elements in different paired relations.” As

a consequence, the model becomes not only ideal, but may even be misrepresentative of how

language actually works in a traditional system (cf. Frog 2014). In an appendix to the present

discussion, Fox proposes new tools and methodological strategies for developing dynamic

approaches to how such language may function in practice and to the potentially extended

semantic networks in which certain lexical items may engage. This presents possible areas

for future research, especially for considering relationships between these semantic networks

and forms of parallelism, as well as between the complementary interaction of semantic

parallelism and phonic parallelism in traditions such as Finnic and Germanic alliterative verse.

Looking beyond Language

Language is only one aspect of performative practices. Several of the discussions introduced

here carry the discussion of parallelism to the consideration of relationships between

linguistic expression and other aspects of performance. Kati Kallio takes as her focus the

relationship between traditional uses of melody and the use of semantically parallel lines in

kalevalaic poetry, considering how these interact in practice in different regions of the

tradition and in the variation in strategies used by different singers. Her discussion offers


24

important insights regarding how parallelism and repetition may be employed in the formal

structuring of the progression of text, as well as how weak the alignment of musical structures

and semantic content can potentially be. Bauman also considers the relevance of intonational

structures that also link with parallelism and repetition for rhetorical effects. These types of

interactions between linguistic and para-linguistic features of expression are advanced to

consider parallelism across linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of a performance.

Addressed individually, linguistic parallelism or phonic parallelism are describable as

‘recurrent returns’ – they take place in sequential series through the process of performance in

time. Taken together, however, they can be concurrent forms of parallelism that may be

complementary, contrastive, or potentially interconnected in complex ways. Language is a

system of signification, and there is no reason to believe that ‘parallelism’ is not possible in

other systems of signification as well. Similarly, sounds provide a phonic medium through

which language is communicated, but this is only one among multiple media in expression.

Thus it must be considered that ‘parallelism’ may be possible in other media as well. Like

phonic parallelism, systems of signification that can function independent of language may

exhibit their own forms of parallelism but also be coordinated with linguistic expression. It

therefore becomes reasonable to consider whether gestures co-occurring with linguistic

expression may also present a form of parallelism (Lindfors, this volume). In other words, if

they are measured according to the same rhythms (cf. Silverstein’s “metered frame”) and

communicate equivalent content via alternative sets of signs, they are directly comparable to

linguistic parallelism in which equivalent content via alternative sets of signs (i.e. different

words). The difference is that when expression is in one signification system such as language,

equivalent expressions necessarily occur sequentially (at least for a single oral performer),

whereas the distribution across systems of signification alleviates that constraint and allows

equivalent expressions to be simultaneous. Such parallelism can also be considered between

linguistic expression and the choreography of movement (Roper, this volume). These

considerations can be extended to the signs that are communicated through language and other

systems of expression, such as motifs and narrative sequences (whether ‘told’ or ‘enacted’).

This presents the question of parallelism at the level of narrative elements and how that

interacts with parallelism in the verbalized surface of expression (Lukin, this volume), as well

as how to regard ‘recurrent returns’ at a level of larger structures in performance (Roper, this

volume). Engaging the interactions of these different systems for communication and

multiple orders of representation presents new challenges for considerations of parallelism

and possibilities for new directions of research in the future (see Frog, this volume).


25

Concluding Remarks

The preceding discussion is not intended to be exhaustive but rather to outline some issues

relevant to consideration in the present context which may stimulate ways of thinking about

and looking at parallelism when reading through the papers in this volume, and also in the

discussion surrounding presentations at Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance.

Although this survey has not led to a single, unifying theory of ‘what parallelism is’, it

nevertheless draws attention to a few points which might be summarized explicitly. First, as

James Wilce (2009: 34) has observed: parallelism is “not a single feature but a set of

relations.” Parallelism is characterized by creating implications of relatedness: elements in a

parallel construction index one another and are interpreted in relation to one another

(Silverstien 1984), although it should not be underestimated that there may be a semantic

hierarchy of one element being e.g. semantically more significant than another (cf. Steinitz

1934: 136; Anttonen 1994: 123). The production of this relatedness is also a creation of

linkages that produce the (impression of) cohesion and coherence of text and especially at the

level of a segment or sequence of text that is more closely related internally than to what

precedes and follows it “by concentrated unities or discontinuities of formal texture (semantic

and non-), and by uniformities in grouping morphology itself” (Cureton 1992: 141). Parallel

expressions “contribute to the stylistic and thematic centering of the discourse in its indexical

context” (Hanks 1987: 686). It can be a resource or a strategy to match or construct rhythms

in discourse (cf. Cureton 1992; Kallio, this volume) or to construe correlations for comparison

that generate emphasis or interpretations. The production of parallelism appears especially

connected by indications of semantic or formal ‘sameness’, inciting an index of identification,

which appears complemented by some type of difference or differentiation (although it is

unclear whether similar patterns of repetition should also be regarded as a form of

parallelism). This in itself is of especial importance for many areas of research on cultural

expression owing to the potential for evidence of parallelism to provide “an objective criterion

of what in the given speech community acts as a correspondence” (Jakobson 1987 [1956]: 111).

Parallelism is frequently discussed in terms of dyadic, binary or paired elements,

suggesting a two-part structure. Two elements presents a minimum for parallelism and two-

element parallelism is a basic and pervasive structure, but this should not be mistaken for a

defining feature. Semantic, grammatical, metrical, phonic and other forms of parallelism may

also extend across three or more equivalent units, as addressed in several papers of this

collection. There may also be structural hierarchies of complementary parallelism, such as


26

parallel sets of parallel lines, which need not necessarily be symmetrical. Multiple forms of

parallelism can complement one another or interact in other ways, as was illustrated in the

cases of negative parallelism addressed above. These relationships may also extend across

orders of representation – the verbal level of communication and the story or other material

communicated verbally – and there may be complex structures of parallelism at all of these

levels (Frog, this volume). Beginning with an approach to parallelism in terms of dyadic

structures has practical value as a frame of reference, and as a potential tool for approaching

complex structures of interrelated parallelism. Nevertheless, it is necessary to maintain an

awareness that not all structures may be reducible to a two-part structure.

The ability to apprehend co-occurring elements as related through parallelism appears to

be conditioned by proximity constraints. This is an area that presents additional issues and

questions. Although sensitivity to different types of parallelism may be tradition-dependent,

it might be hypothesized that the more extensive and complex the parallel expression, the

greater the distance possible between it and the initial element or referential target. On the

other hand, that distance can presumably also be increased where the target is more marked

and socially recognizable. Where expressions are socially recognizable, then it raises

questions of whether ‘parallelism’ can be apprehended when the referent is not present in a

text at all, such as in misquotations of the Bible (Bauman, this volume). It is only a short step

from considering misquotation of a socially recognized referent as a form of parallelism to

considering parody of a tradition as a socially recognizable entity also as a form of parallelism

(cf. Bauman, this volume). Thus one of the major questions remains: what are the bounds of

parallelism versus ‘not parallelism’?

Parallelism appears to be a fundamental aspect of human expression that potentially

permeates all level of discourse. On the other hand, the term and concept of ‘parallelism’ is,

more than anything, a tool with which we can address different phenomena with different

goals. Uncovering a profound definition of ‘parallelism’ that provides a basis for the full

scope of its different uses has great appeal and would prove itself a valuable frame of

reference for future research. Nevertheless, like so many terms and concepts in research on

aspects of cultural expression, it has, as yet, no monolithic definition, nor would a monolithic

definition necessarily provide the best tool for all research investigations. Instead,

‘parallelism’ can be calibrated in relation to research materials and the questions with which

they are interrogated – calibrated as ‘parallelism of a certain type’ or as a culture-dependent or

even genre-dependent form of such a type.


27

Acknowledgements

Parallelism in Verbal Art and Performance has been made possible thanks to support from the

Academy of Finland research project “Oral and Literary Culture in the Medieval and Early Modern

Baltic Sea Region: Cultural Transfer, Linguistic Registers and Communicative Networks” (2011–

2014) of the Finnish Literature Society, the Academy of Finland research project “Oral Poetry, Mythic

Knowledge, and Vernacular Imagination: Interfaces of Individual Expression and Collective

Traditions in Pre-modern Northeast Europe” (2012–2016) of Folklore Studies, University of Helsinki,

and the Research Community “Cultural Meanings and Vernacular Genres (CMVG)” of Folklore

Studies, University of Helsinki. The venue has been generously provided by the Finnish Literature

Society. This event would never have been realized were it not for the enthusiasm of the keynote

speakers, and we are grateful that they could join us. Although we have received assistance and

support from many individuals in realizing this event, all of which has been tremendously appreciated,

special thanks must be given to Ilona Pikkanen, Karina Lukin, Ulla Savolainen and Eila Stepanova,

whose hard work and diligence with practical matters surrounding the event have insured that

everything runs smoothly, invisibly, leaving the rest of us without stress or concerns.

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A Preface to Parallelism

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