Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication [1st ed.] 978-3-030-12589-9;978-3-030-12590-5

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xi
Front Matter ....Pages 1-1
“Ey, Homeboy, Ich Bin Kein Hustler”: English Borrowings in German Hip-Hop Songs (Emilia Pankanin)....Pages 3-15
Spanish Borrowings in American Slang and Their Semantic Fields (Małgorzata Kowalczyk, Maciej Widawski)....Pages 17-28
“I’ll Give Them a Piece of My Mind”: Translating the Idiomatic Language of Vasily Shukshin (Filip Tołkaczewski)....Pages 29-44
“Mountains of Whipped Cream”, King Matt and the Discursive Presence of the Translator (Michał Borodo)....Pages 45-59
Constructing One’s Self-Identity Through Food: Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Flann O’Brien (Dariusz Pestka)....Pages 61-70
Front Matter ....Pages 71-71
Memoirs of the Beat Generation Women as an Antidote to Nostalgia for the Fifties (Anna Słonina)....Pages 73-85
“The Best Town by a Dam-Site:” Celebrating Memory in a Midwestern Small Town (Karl Wood)....Pages 87-102
(Re)Constructing the Sixties: On Psychedelic Experience in Sleep’s Dopesmoker (Tymon Adamczewski)....Pages 103-113
Performativity Revisited: J. L. Austin and His Legacy (Wiesław Oleksy)....Pages 115-138
In Search of Innocence: Images of Central and Eastern European Anti-communist Resistance in Left-Wing British Political Drama (Paweł Schreiber)....Pages 139-152
Front Matter ....Pages 153-153
How Fundamental and Ubiquitous Really Is Metonymy? (Wojciech Wachowski)....Pages 155-173
The Three Major Experiments in Psychophysiology (Psycholinguistic Experiments) and Their Recourse to Ecolinguistics (Stanisław Puppel)....Pages 175-183
“Birds Are Not Octopus:” Searching for Stages in Second Language Writing Development (Barbara Nykiel-Herbert)....Pages 185-206
The Convergence of Art, Perception and Cognition with Western and Eastern Writing Traditions (Jacek Mianowski)....Pages 207-218
Metaphor and Metonymy in a Culture of Food and Feasting: A Study Based on Selected Ancient Greek Comedies (Waldemar Szefliński, Wojciech Wachowski)....Pages 219-235

Citation preview

Second Language Learning and Teaching Issues in Literature and Culture

Jacek Mianowski Michał Borodo Paweł Schreiber Editors

Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication

Second Language Learning and Teaching Issues in Literature and Culture

Series Editor Mirosław Pawlak, Faculty of Pedagogy and Fine Arts, Adam Mickiewicz University, Kalisz, Poland

The subseries Issues in Literature and Culture constitutes an important extension of the series Second Language Learning and Teaching. Firstly, the processes of learning and teaching foreign or second languages somewhat inevitably involve to a greater or lesser extent getting to know the literature and culture of those languages. Secondly, there are important pedagogical issues that need to be taken into consideration when teaching about the literatures and cultures in a foreign language, not least because such instruction can in and of itself contribute to greater mastery of the target language. Therefore, the books included in the subseries deal, on the one hand, with a variety of issues related to English language literature and culture and, on the other, they shed light on how such issues can best be learned and taught, as well as how instruction of this kind can enhance the mastery of second and foreign languages.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13879

Jacek Mianowski Michał Borodo Paweł Schreiber •

•

Editors

Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication

123

Editors Jacek Mianowski Department of English Linguistics Kazimierz Wielki University Bydgoszcz, Poland

Michał Borodo Department of English Linguistics Kazimierz Wielki University Bydgoszcz, Poland

Paweł Schreiber Department of English Linguistics Kazimierz Wielki University Bydgoszcz, Poland

ISSN 2193-7648 ISSN 2193-7656 (electronic) Second Language Learning and Teaching ISSN 2365-967X ISSN 2365-9688 (electronic) Issues in Literature and Culture ISBN 978-3-030-12589-9 ISBN 978-3-030-12590-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019930274 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part I

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Constructing Identity Through Words and Images

“Ey, Homeboy, Ich Bin Kein Hustler”: English Borrowings in German Hip-Hop Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Emilia Pankanin

3

Spanish Borrowings in American Slang and Their Semantic Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Małgorzata Kowalczyk and Maciej Widawski

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“I’ll Give Them a Piece of My Mind”: Translating the Idiomatic Language of Vasily Shukshin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Filip Tołkaczewski

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“Mountains of Whipped Cream”, King Matt and the Discursive Presence of the Translator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michał Borodo

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Constructing One’s Self-Identity Through Food: Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Flann O’Brien . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dariusz Pestka

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Part II

Reimagining the Past and Celebrating Memory

Memoirs of the Beat Generation Women as an Antidote to Nostalgia for the Fifties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anna Słonina

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“The Best Town by a Dam-Site:” Celebrating Memory in a Midwestern Small Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Karl Wood

87

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Contents

(Re)Constructing the Sixties: On Psychedelic Experience in Sleep’s Dopesmoker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Tymon Adamczewski Performativity Revisited: J. L. Austin and His Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Wiesław Oleksy In Search of Innocence: Images of Central and Eastern European Anti-communist Resistance in Left-Wing British Political Drama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Paweł Schreiber Part III

Focusing on Language, Perception and Cognition

How Fundamental and Ubiquitous Really Is Metonymy? . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Wojciech Wachowski The Three Major Experiments in Psychophysiology (Psycholinguistic Experiments) and Their Recourse to Ecolinguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Stanisław Puppel “Birds Are Not Octopus:” Searching for Stages in Second Language Writing Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Barbara Nykiel-Herbert The Convergence of Art, Perception and Cognition with Western and Eastern Writing Traditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Jacek Mianowski Metaphor and Metonymy in a Culture of Food and Feasting: A Study Based on Selected Ancient Greek Comedies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 Waldemar Szefliński and Wojciech Wachowski

Editors and Contributors

About the Editors Jacek Mianowski is Assistant Professor in Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. His areas of academic research include anthropological linguistics, ethnography of communication, emergence and evolution of writing systems, and game studies. He has conducted research at such academic centres as National University of Ireland (Galway), The British Library, Cardiff University, University of Nottingham. His recent publication is Ethnolinguistics, Cultural Change and Early Scripts from England and Wales (2016). Michał Borodo is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He has published on various topics in Translation Studies, and his main research interests include translation and language in the context of globalization and glocalization, the translation of children’s and young adults’ literature, the translation of comics as well as translator training. His recent book publications include Translation, Globalization and Younger Audiences: The Situation in Poland (2017) and the co-edited volumes Moving Texts, Migrating People and Minority Languages (2017) and Zooming In: Micro-Scale Perspectives on Cognition, Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication (2017). Paweł Schreiber is Assistant Professor at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. His main research interests include historical drama and its links to contemporary methodology of history, and representations of central and eastern Europe in post-war British drama.

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Editors and Contributors

Contributors Tymon Adamczewski Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Michał Borodo Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Małgorzata Kowalczyk Pomeranian University, Słupsk, Poland Jacek Mianowski Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Barbara Nykiel-Herbert Lingworks, Reno, NV, USA Wiesław Oleksy University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland Emilia Pankanin Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Dariusz Pestka Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland Stanisław Puppel Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland Paweł Schreiber Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Anna Słonina Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Waldemar Szefliński Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Filip Tołkaczewski Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Wojciech Wachowski Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Maciej Widawski Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Karl Wood Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland

Introduction

The present volume provides analysis of a variety of topics and current issues in linguistics and literary studies, looking especially at the phenomena of memory, identity and cognition. Firstly, it provides analysis of how identity is constructed through concrete practices of language users, language learners, writers, artists and translators. This part of the volume focuses on the interactions between English and other languages, be it through borrowings or translation. If language can be seen as a crucial foundation of identity, it is also worth noting that no language is a stable and discrete whole—it always enters into relations with other languages, which in turn influence the most basic aspects of the speakers’ identities. In the second part of the book, the problems of identity are viewed through a different focus—that of memory. On the one hand, it can create nostalgic views, which can be used to reinforce certain aspects of personal and collective identities. On the other, it needs constant review and re-evaluation, which can be both illuminating and, at times, painful. The third part returns to the problems of language, this time in its relation to human cognition. Moving between psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics and language acquisition, it shows how the most basic levels of language influence the way we perceive and understand the world. The chapters in the first part of the volume concentrate on the ways in which identity is constructed through words and images, offering examples of concrete practices of language users, writers, artists and translators. In the opening chapter, Emilia Pankanin notes that English borrowings have become omnipresent in German in recent decades, which is particularly well observable in German hip-hop songs, the subject of her study. Pankanin’s key objective is to examine the degree of integration of the extracted English vocabulary into German and to demonstrate their relationship with the lexical fields of African American hip-hop slang. Also preoccupied with slang, Małgorzata Kowalczyk and Maciej Widawski explore the semantic fields of Spanish borrowings used in contemporary American slang. Focusing on this increasingly visible part of informal English lexicon used in the USA, they provide an insight into what members of this community of language uses regard as socially and culturally significant for their identity. The next two articles in this section are concerned with translation issues. Filip Tołkaczewski ix

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Introduction

concentrates on the English language translations of Vasily Shukshin, a Russian writer, actor and film director, whose works have been so far translated into about fifty languages. Shuskin is particularly well known for his short stories, which are dialogue-driven and filled with colloquialisms, archaisms, jargons, dialects and idiomatic expressions, the main focus of Tołkaczewski’s contribution. Similarly preoccupied with translation, Michał Borodo analyses translators’ discursive presence in two American versions of Janusz Korczak’s children’s classic Król Maciuś Pierwszy. Produced in different socio-historical circumstances, these American translations exhibit widely differing strategies, ranging from omission and mitigation of potentially controversial passages, to addition and amplification, with the aim of catering for the tastes of younger audiences. Last but not least, Dariusz Pestka focuses on the relationship between aesthetics and ethics and the issues of identity, eating habits and attitudes to food. Offering a postromantic, modernist and postmodernist perspective, he illustrates this chapter with the material extracted from Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and James Joyce’s Ulysses. The second part of the volume concentrates on the notion of memory, shedding light on the idea of re-imagining and coming to terms with the past. Anna Słonina describes the memoirs of women associated with the Beat Generation and confronts their accounts with the more widespread nostalgic image of the counterculture of the 1950s. The testimony of the women marginalized by their Beat partners makes it necessary to re-evaluate the usually accepted narratives about the decade. Karl Wood underlines the importance of small towns in American culture. In his view, these tight-knit communities were the birthplace of the most original and influential entrepreneurs. Yet, the middle of the twentieth century has become a period of a decline, caused by returning economic issues. What has, however, remained is an everlasting concept of “Americanness”, a somewhat nostalgic set of communal principles and life values. Tymon Adamczewski presents the heritage of the psychedelic culture of the 1960s and shows how it is re-evaluated and remixed decades later. The most important example discussed here is the music of the band Sleep, which, especially in its album Dopesmoker, refers to the psychedelic tradition, but also creatively modifies it in many ways. Wiesław Oleksy argues that there is a philological space for combining literary and linguistic studies. In his view, J. L. Austin’s notion of performativity can be exploited not only in a speech act analysis of Szymborska’s The Joy of Writing, but also in the scope of language teaching, aligned with Hymes’ concept of communicative competence and notions related to his approach to language use. Paweł Schreiber examines the ways in which left-wing British political drama regarded the anti-communist opposition in central and eastern Europe. For the playwrights associated with the left, it was an opportunity not only to comment on the present, but also to return to the sources of the Russian revolution and try to re-evaluate it in view of the later development of the Soviet Union—all in order to better understand their own identity as supporters of socialist and communist movements. In its final part, the volume examines the relationship between cognition, perception and language use. The part opens with Wojciech Wachowski’s in-depth

Introduction

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discussion of metonymy, which is presented from a broad linguistic, psychological and biophysical perspective. As is convincingly argued by Wachowski, it is an omnipresent phenomenon and a crucial mechanism indispensable to perception and cognition. It can be argued that most psycholinguistic research derives from a dual trajectory. At its core, as Stanisław Puppel suggests, lies the constant need to derive facts from experiments and to assess the entity of theoretical assumptions in a practical manner. The second cornerstone of psycholinguistics is the necessity of providing leeway for new research. This was achieved by means of theoretical work, where the focus was on the nature of human cognition and language. Barbara Nykiel-Herbert emphasizes the importance of writing as an integral element to second language learning. As the current state of research in this field may seem insufficient, Nykiel-Herbert explores a multitude of factors involved in the development of L2 writing competence. She pays attention to primary school-aged learners, whose cognitive, linguistic and cultural backgrounds, as well as previous school experience, constitute a varied research background. This leads to the assumption that there is no predictable sequence in L2 writing acquisition. Jacek Mianowski explores the relationship between cognition and writing, within both the Eastern and Western perspectives. He argues that the change in medium, from voice-to-ear to eye-to-paper, made it possible to converge the practice of storing information with the practice of artistic expression. Mianowski indicates that the tendency to intersect on a single point on a horizon may be pinpointed as the key factor in the evolution of art and writing, both within the Romano-Latin and oriental traditions. Waldemar Szefliński and Wojciech Wachowski investigate the metaphoric and metonymic paradigms of the ancient Greek language. To this extent, feasting and food were used in the ancient Greece as both sources and targets of metaphoric and metonymic operations. This pertains not only to indirect literary references, but also to a distinct way of thinking. In their view, such approach allows not only for a better understanding of ancient Greek culture, but also allows to figuratively “go to the poet’s land”. All of the authors featured in the volume have one thing in common—it is their present or former association with the Department of English Studies at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Its history began in 1975, when it was established by Prof. Aleksander Szwedek. During the four decades of its existence, one of its defining features has always been an emphasis on its interdisciplinary character, combining linguistics, literature and cultural studies. The present volume maintains this attitude, showing similar issues from the perspective of different disciplines. It is also meant to celebrate the forty years of English studies in Bydgoszcz, presenting the diversity of research conducted by the scholars who have contributed to them over the years. Michał Borodo Jacek Mianowski Paweł Schreiber

Part I

Constructing Identity Through Words and Images

“Ey, Homeboy, Ich Bin Kein Hustler”: English Borrowings in German Hip-Hop Songs Emilia Pankanin

Abstract The contact between English and German is not a recent phenomenon, yet it is in the last decades that English borrowings have become omnipresent in the German language. It is especially visible in German hip-hop songs, which therefore constitute the subject of this study. The key objective of the article is to assess the degree of integration of the extracted vocabulary, to estimate its frequency of use and to identify its link to African American hip-hop. The analysis has shown that the extracted vocabulary has been well adapted into the German language and that there is a close link between lexical fields in African American hip-hop slang and the vocabulary applied in German hip-hop songs.

1 English-German Language Contact English-German lexical exchange is not a recent phenomenon. The contacts between English and German may be traced back to the fifth century when the Anglo-Saxon tribes from today’s Germany and Denmark invaded Britain. Successively, the lexical exchange continued, enriching German in the Middle Ages with such words as, for example, heilig (“holy”) or Dock (Busse & Görlach, 2004, p. 13). However, as stated by Busse and Görlach (ibid.), the contact between English and German has intensified since the middle of the seventeenth century. In the following decades and centuries, borrowings from English were derived from such spheres as literature, architecture, science, technology (as a result of the Industrial Revolution) and social life. The most noteworthy period in the history of English-German language contact is the post-war phase, however. Then, English became omnipresent in many parts “Ey, Homeboy, Ich Bin Kein Hustler”: As this line from “Da bin, da bleib”, a song by Kool Savas (2004), is emblematic of the current trends observable in hip-hop music in Germany, it has been selected as the title of the present article. E. Pankanin (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_1

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of Europe, which was observable in a massive influx of new vocabulary. Since the 1990s the spread of English lexis via the Internet has been another turning point in the mutual history of English and German. Additionally, the process of globalization and the expansion of multinational corporations worldwide significantly contributed to English borrowings entering the German language (Busse & Görlach, 2004, p. 14). So pervasive are English borrowings in German nowadays that every year a jury comprising prominent German linguists assembles to choose the English word of the year (German “Anglizismus des Jahres”). This year’s winner was the word Influencer, followed by Blockchain and nice.1 However, there are also groups of language activists who critically evaluate the influx of English borrowings into German. A good example is the German Language Association (Der Verein für Deutsche Sprache) which established an index of English Borrowings in German with the aim of encouraging German speakers to use German words instead of, as stated on the official website, “fashionable” English expressions: “It [the association] aims at encouraging users of German to use native German words, instead of English counterparts, in every context in which the use of foreign words cannot be justified” (my translation).2 English linguistic contribution to German has gained on significance in the last decades. Consequently, the process of borrowing vocabulary from English has become a subject of interest for many linguists. The major resources for such research have been popular magazines, for example, Der Spiegel (Yang, 1990), Juice and Backspin (Schroeder-Krohn, 2015). A significant number of analyses based on youth magazines is good evidence of the fact that a large number of borrowings from English in German have roots in the language of the youth, which may be illustrated with the following examples: Ich bin ein echter Pro darin, schlechte Witze zu erzählen3 (Bravo, 2018), afb (100% Prozent der Jugendsprache, 2018).4 Nevertheless, the spread of English borrowings on such a large scale can also be the result of social media and Internet forums, which facilitate communication among people all over the world. Another source of English borrowings that are easily accessible are German hip-hop songs and therefore it is their lexical inventory that constitutes the basis of this study.

2 The Theoretical Context Prior to linguistic analysis, the terminological clarification of what can be regarded as borrowing, is necessary. According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (Matthews, 1997, p. 44), borrowing is a “conventional term for the

1

www.anglizismusdesjahres.de/anglizismen-des-jahres/adj-2017. www.vds-ev.de/denglisch-und-anglizismen/anglizismenindex/ueber-den-index. 3 “I am a real pro (professional) at telling bad jokes” (my translation). 4 The abbreviation “afb” is used in Internet slang and stands for “Away From Brain”. 2

“Ey, Homeboy, Ich Bin Kein Hustler”: English Borrowings …

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introduction into language a of specific words, constructions or morphological elements of language b (…)”. In the present study, English serves as “language b” and German as “language a”. Another definition of borrowing has been offered by a prominent American linguist Einar Haugen (1950, p. 212): “Borrowing is the attempted reproduction in one language of patterns previously found in another”. Thomason-Grey and Kaufman (1991, p. 37), on the other hand, define borrowing as: “(…) the incorporation of foreign features into a group’s native language by speakers of that language: the native language is maintained but is changed by the addition of the incorporated features”. Görlach and Busse (2004, p. 29) identify three groups of borrowings in the German language: (1) “totally unadapted and not felt to be part of German, e.g., quotation words, code-switching, foreignisms” (2) “words still looking foreign in form (the so-called Fremdwörter, aliens)” (3) “fully integrated items (Lehnwörter, denizens)” Busse and Görlach offer a wide categorization of borrowings, ranging from totally unintegrated to fully integrated words. The division into three groups refers to the degree of assimilation of borrowed lexis. It should be noted that borrowings may adapt into a language to a greater or lesser extent. In order to measure their integration the following parameters can be taken into consideration: spelling, pronunciation, inflexion, word formation, syntactic compatibility, meaning and stylistic neutrality (Görlach, 2003, p. 32). Görlach observes, however, that aside from the mentioned parameters there are such sociolinguistic categories as age, education and social background, which may also influence the adaptation of borrowings. This may be illustrated by the word Teenager, the pronunciation of which differs depending on what age or social group speakers belong to (Görlach, 2003, p. 32).

3 Hip-Hop Music Before attempting to define the language used in hip-hop songs and identifying its target group, the origins of the hip-hop genre and its most salient characteristics should be firstly taken into consideration. The hip-hop music style is based on rhyming speech.5 The term “hip-hop” itself was introduced in 1975 by Keith Cowboy, the front man of the group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (Edwards, 2015, p. 3). Therefore, hip-hop originated in the USA in multiethnic groups, especially in African-American communities. It served predominantly as a means of artistic expression and a means of communication between members of these communities. Moreover, it promoted African-American culture in the world (Garcarz, 2013, p. 163). The term hip-hop, however, “cannot be viewed simply as 5

www.britannica.com/art/hip-hop.

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an expression of African-American culture; it has become a vehicle for global youth affiliations and a tool for reworking identity all over the world” (Mitchell, 2001, pp. 1–2). The language of hip-hop, often called “Hip-hop Talk” or “Hip-hop Speech” should not be seen as part of slang used exclusively by African Americans, as not all African Americans are creators and fervid enthusiasts of hip-hop music (Widawski, 2015, p. 6–7). As a means of expression, hip-hop culture has become an international phenomenon. It was in 1993 that hip-hop music reached the reunited German audience causing German rap recordings to mushroom on the music market. Among the most successful rap music performers were the band Die Fantastischen Vier, Advanced Chemistry and Cora E (Mitchell, 2001, p. 119, 122). Another example of a rapper, well-known in Germany, but also in Poland, is Illmat!c. Already in the 1990s and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, his songs written in cooperation with Moses Pelham and Xavier Naidoo contained a significant number of English borrowings, or were sung fully in English.6 Nowadays, many more German rappers and hip-hop songs are becoming increasingly popular with over 300 million streams on Spotify.7 German enthusiasts of this kind of music have got a wide choice of German hip-hop songs in this application, including such albums as “German rap”, liked by more than seven thousand users, or a playlist “German Hip Hop Classics/Deutsche Hip Hop Klassiker”. African American hip-hop songs contain a significant number of slang expressions (Garcarz, 2013). These lexical domains seem to overlap with the semantic fields that can be found in the German hip-hop songs presented in this article. In order to find certain similarities between them, the major semantic fields of hip-hop slang lexicon should be elaborated on. According to Garcarz (2013, p. 201), they are closely connected with the African-American community. Garcarz (2013, pp. 202–288) differentiates the following semantic fields of the analyzed hip-hop slang lexicon: (1) Crime gangsterhood and illegal activity (e.g., baby gangsta, crook); (2) Attitudes, behaviors and mental states (e.g., get an attitude, jack move) (3) Body and physical appearance (e.g., afro, booty); (4) Entertainment (e.g., fly girl, krunk); (5) Fashion, clothes and dress code (e.g., afro, khaki); (6) Four physical spaces of hip-hop: DJing, MCing, Breakdancing and Tagging (e.g., bust a rhyme, boombox); (7) Intoxication: drugs and alcohol (e.g., dope sack, weed); (8) Knowledge, thoughts and opinions (e.g., assed out, bootylicious); (9) Location, situation and movement (e.g., West Coast, O-Town); (10) Money and possession (e.g., hustler, scrilla); (11) People and relationships (e.g., diss, homeboy); (12) Police, law and prison (e.g., drap, slob); (13) Sex and sexuality (e.g., booty, hoe); (14) Street speech, society and ghetto subculture (e.g., black ass, crack); (15) Vehicles and transportation (e.g., floss, hooptie); (16) Violence and weapons

A song that may serve as an example here is: “Skills”, Illmat!c feat. Xavier Naidoo & Moses Pelham. 7 Deutsche Welle. “The Dark Side of Rap—Is German Hip-Hop Anti-Semitic?”, Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl6fy-475Bo. 6

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(e.g., cap, gauge); (17) Miscellany (e.g., snap! whoo!). As exemplified above, African-American hip-hop slang, although constrained to particular semantic groups, encompasses an extensive variety of topics.

4 Empirical Study The analysis has been conducted with regard to African American slang lexical items and other informal expressions. Sixty English borrowings found in selected German hip-hop songs have been examined. As the analysis of their semantics constitutes an important part of the study, the vocabulary has been divided into semantic fields and presented within the semantic fields in an alphabetical order. Its usage is illustrated with the passages from selected songs written by the following German rap music performers: Kontra K, Bonez MC & RAF Camora, Kollegah, Bushido & Shandy and CRO.8 The choice of the musicians in question was intentional and can be justified. They are renowned rappers, nominees to and holders of ECHO awards9 who have sold thousands of music albums in Germany. Apart from that, they are highly recognized by the German hip-hop magazine Juice, “the biggest rap and hip-hop magazine since 1997 in Europe”.10 The lyrics of their songs have thus reached a wide audience and may influence communication habits of some speakers of German. Apart from the contextual usage and definitions of the extracted words, their articles and classifications into parts of speech are provided. Another aspect taken into consideration is the register of the lexis. Some of the extracted words have been classified as belonging to informal language. This was determined on the basis of the entries of The Oxford Dictionary of English. To make the glossary clearer, each word is provided with an abbreviation standing for the part of speech (n. for a noun, v. for a verb, adj. for an adjective). The lexis has also been labeled with excl. (exclamation) and off., as the analyzed songs contain offensive words. The key objectives of the article include the assessment of the degree of integration of the extracted lexical items into the German language system, the frequency of use of English borrowings in German rap songs and finally, their link to African American hip-hop slang.

8

Kontra K—“Spring” (2015), Bonez MC & RAF Camora—“Palmen aus Plastik” (2016), Kollegah —“Westside” (2009/2017), CRO—“Unendlichkeit” (2017), Bushido feat. Shandy—“Panamera Flow” (2012). 9 www.echopop.de/pop-startseite. 10 www.juice.de.

8

4.1

E. Pankanin

Drug Scene

With regard to the semantic field classified as DRUG SCENE, twelve lexical items have been identified. These include: auf Turkey sein phr. INFORMAL. To experience drug withdrawal: ‘Mein Sound ist Heroin, schon wie auf Turkey is er mal nicht da’ (Kontra K, 2015). Blunts n. INFORMAL. Marihuana cigarettes; joints: ‘Chill’ am Balkon, rauch’ Blunts und ich träume’ (Bonez MC & RAF Camora, 2016). Crack n. An illegal drug (cocaine): ‘Ich hab was du brauchst, reiner Stoff, guter Pusher| Was für Crack, ich gebe dir Rap’ (Kontra K, 2015). Ecstasydealer n. A person trafficking in ecstasy: ‘War ich hier Ecstasydealer, importierte Gras aus Maastricht’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). high adj. INFORMAL. Under the influence of illegal drugs: ‘Gute Reise, denn ich schick dich auf einen Trip, du wirst high und willst nie wieder zurück’ (Kontra K, 2015). Joint n. INFORMAL. A Marijuana cigarette: ‘Dicker, was brauchst du, alles da, schnipp deinen Joint weg’ (Kontra K, 2015). Kick n. INFORMAL. A thrill, a stimulant: ‘Eine Kick, eine Drum, ein Wort direkt ins Blut und du fliegst’ (Kontra K, 2015). Pusher n. INFORMAL. A person trafficking in illegal drugs: ‘Ich hab was du brauchst, reiner Stoff, guter Pusher’ (KontraK, 2015). smoken v. to smoke: ‘Smoke den Blunt bei Sonnenuntergang’ (Kollegah, 2009/ 2017). Trip n. INFORMAL. An experience of hallucinations caused by illegal drugs: ‘Gute Reise, den ich schick dich auf einen Trip, du wirst high und willst nie wieder zurück’ (Kontra K, 2015). Turn n. A state of intoxication, a state under the influence of drugs, especially hashish or marihuana: ‘Was für Crack, ich gebe dir Rap und nach der Hook kommt der Turn’ (Kontra K, 2015). Weed n. INFORMAL. A cigarette; Marijuana: ‘Ich verbrenne mein Weed unter Palmen aus Plastik’ (RAF Camora & Bonez MC, 2016). The group mainly consists of lexis referring to states of intoxication and drug types. Almost 70% of the vocabulary has been identified as part of informal language. A noteworthy example here is the word Turn. Whereas the Duden dictionary defines it as “besonders durch Haschisch, Marihuana bewirkter Zustand” (Eng. A state of intoxication, a state under the influence of drugs, especially hashish or marihuana), both The Oxford English Dictionary and The Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary do not provide such a definition of the term. This may suggest that the word Turn either entered the German language and adopted a new meaning or is used by a specific closed group and therefore has not been registered in the given dictionaries of English.

“Ey, Homeboy, Ich Bin Kein Hustler”: English Borrowings …

4.2

9

Hip-Hop Music

The words in this section come from the hip-hop music scene. The group involves mostly nouns that refer to hip-hop music and its creators. An interesting example here is the word Punker, which may have a double meaning in the presented context. On the one hand, it may refer to a punk rock musician who makes rap music. On the other hand, it may be interpreted as an invective, as another meaning of the word is “someone unimportant or worthless”.11 Backpack n. A person who follows in somebody’s footsteps12: ‘Jeder Atemzug ein Flashback, ob Gangster oder Backpack’ (Kontra K, 2015). Beat n. The sound of a drum: ‘Der Boden vibriert und dein Herzschlag auf dem Beat’ (Kontra K, 2015). Charts n. A music list (ranking) of the best-selling singles: ‘Damals mit der MPC vom Zimmer in die Charts’ (CRO, 2017). Drum n. A musical instrument: ‘Eine Kick, eine Drum, ein Wort direkt ins Blut und du fliegst’ (Kontra K, 2015). Fans n. Advocates, enthusiastic supporters of a person, sports team (here: of a rapper): ‘Du stehst vor hunderttausend Fans und weißt irgendwann ist der Moment vorbei’ (CRO, 2017). Hook n. A catchy melody, part of a song: ‘Was für Crack, ich gebe dir Rap und nach der Hook kommt der Turn’ (Kontra K, 2015). Punker n. A punk rock musician, sometimes someone unimportant: ‘Ey was rappst du Punker in Tracks’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). Rap n. A type of music characterized by fast rhythm and the use of spoken words rather than singing: ‘Ich gebe dir Rap’ (Kontra K, 2015). rappen v. to rap, to perform rap music: ‘Ey was rappst du Punker’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). Rapper n. People who rap: ‘Wir haben die besseren Frauen, wir haben die besseren Rapper’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). Stagetime n. A period of time a singer (here: a rapper) spends on the stage: ‘Mitternacht ist Stagetime, Late-Night – Panamera Flow’ (Bushido & Shindy, 2012). Sound n. Music: ‘Mein Sound ist Heroin’ (Kontra K, 2015). Tracks n. Recordings: ‘Kollegahtracks laufen in den Autos’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017).

11

www.dictionary.com/browse/punker. www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=backpack.

12

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4.3

E. Pankanin

Money and Power

The present section includes ten notions related to the semantic field concerned with money and authority. Boss n. INFORMAL. The chief person who gives orders: ‘Kollegah der Boss in die Streets wie ein Presslufthammer’ (Kollegah 2009/2017). Business n. A commercial operation, selling goods and making a profit: ‘Scheiß auf Platin und das Business, denn es geht vorbei’ (CRO, 2017). Bodyguards n. People whose role is to protect a person or people from danger: ‘Es ist die Westside, wo die Rapper keine Bodyguards haben’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). Cash n. Money: ‘Doch wozu Girls, Cash, pretty things, ‘n wunderschönen Benz in weiß?’ (CRO, 2017). Cops n. INFORMAL. Police officers, police: ‘Cops nerven, Kopfschmerzen - Paracetamol’ (Bushido & Shindy, 2012). Gangster n. A criminal, a member of a gang: ‘Jeder Atemzug, ein Flashback, ob Gangster oder Backpack’ (Kontra K, 2015). Ghettohustler n. INFORMAL. People active in a closed area (ghetto) whose objective is to deceive people: ‘Ey jetzt die Westside back du Bastard, ich komm mit Ghettohustlern’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). King n. A title of a male ruler, a leader of a group: ‘Ich bin der einzig wahre, dreizehn Jahre King’ (Bushido & Shindy, 2012). Mafiaclans n. Groups of people belonging to mafia: ‘Mafiaclans, es ist die Westside, wo die Rapper keine Bodyguards haben’ (Kollegah, 2009/ 2017). Money n. A medium (coins or notes) used to buy things: ‘Scheiß auf Money’ (CRO, 2017).

4.4

Relationships

The group presented in this section involves five lexical items related to relationships. Most of them refer to women, one of them can be used pejoratively. Baby affect. n. INFORMAL. A term used when addressing a lover; darling, dear: ‘Der Benz frisch gewaschen, Baby, Kokosnussduft, Tausend Fotos im Suff, was für ne Karriere!’ (Bonez MC & RAF Camora, 2016). Bitch off. n. INFORMAL. An offensive term for a woman; also: a girlfriend, a sexy girl: ‘Instyle-Cover-Bitch’ (Bushido & Shandy, 2012). Girls n. ‘Doch wozu Girls, Cash, pretty things, ‘n wunderschönen Benz in weiß?’ (CRO, 2017).

“Ey, Homeboy, Ich Bin Kein Hustler”: English Borrowings …

11

Kid n. INFORMAL. A child: ‘Kid, als ich noch jünger war wie Sektenmitglieder’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). Nacktpics n. PICS: INFORMAL. Nude pictures: ‘Bitches schicken Shindy cool Nacktpicks per Whatsapp’ (Bushido & Shindy, 2012).

4.5

Communication

The group below includes mostly exclamations. The majority of them are used in informal, conversational language. This may be illustrated with the following lexical items: okay excl. INFORMAL. Used to express acceptance; yes: ‘Wer würde meinen und wer fänd ‘es ganz okay?’ (CRO, 2017). sorry excl. An apology: ‘Es ist schon spat, ich weiß, sorry, doch mir fehl n Reim’ (CRO, 2017). yeah adv. INFORMAL. Yes: ‘Yeah, yeah, ich weiß, wir haben zu wenig Zeit’ (CRO, 2017). yo excl. INFORMAL. A kind of greeting used among people who know each other; an exclamation to catch somebody’s attention: ‘Yo, schwarzer Dresscode’ (Bushido & Shindy, 2012).

4.6

City Life

This semantic group includes words related to transport (Spaceship), distance (back), free time (chillen) and parts of a city (Westside). back adj. Remote, far away: ‘Ey jetzt ist die Westside back du Bastard’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). chillen v. INFORMAL. To relax: ‘Chill’ am Balkon, rauch’ Blunts’ (Bonez MC & RAF Camora, 2016). City n. A large town, area: ‘Die City, wo heftige Gangstercrews dich knallen’ (Bonez MC & RAF Camora, 2016). Hype n. INFORMAL. A situation in which something/somebody or their behavior is widely discussed in the media to catch the interest of the viewers/ receivers: ‘Meine Welt ist aus Plastik, doch macht nix, ich wäre auch 187, wenn es diesen Hype nicht mehr gäbe’ (Bonez MC & RAF Camora, 2016). Spaceship n. A brand-new car with navigation, GPS, television13: ‘Spaceship, Facelift, Panamera-Flow’ (Bushido & Shindy, 2012). 13

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spaceship.

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E. Pankanin

Streets n. Streets: ‘Wenn ich heut bei Nacht im Benz durch die Streets Westdeutschlands roll (…)’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017). Ticket n. A small piece of paper used as evidence for paying a fare or an admission fee: ‘Das hier ist mein Ticket in die Ewigkeit’ (CRO, 2017). Westside n. A city in Iowa, United States or a west side of a city: ‘Ich mach Cash an der Westside’ (Kollegah, 2009/2017).

4.7

Physical Appearance and State of Mind

This semantic group encompasses six lexical items referring both to appearance and state of mind. The former encompasses a way of dressing and adjectives describing appearance. The latter is related to mind and memory. Dresscode n. A way of dressing in a particular group: ‘Ey yo, schwarzer Dresscode’ (Bushido & Shindy, 2012). Facelift n. Plastic surgery done on the face and neck: ‘Ey yo, schwarzer Dresscode, Spaceship, Facelift – Panamera-Flow’ (Bushido & Shindy, 2012). fake adj. Not genuine, imitated: ‘Fingernagel fake’ (Bonez MC & RAF Camora, 2016). fancy adj. Elegant, luxurious, desired: ‘Und all der ganze fancy Scheiß’ (CRO, 2017). Flashback n. A sudden and vivid recollection of an event: ‘Jeder Atemzug, ein Flashback, ob Gangster oder Backpack’ (Kontra K, 2015). Update n. An act of modernizing something: ‘Vollkommen frei wie das Update für Körper und Geist’ (Kontra K, 2015).

4.8

Miscellanious

The final group consists of lexis that cannot be categorized because it does not refer to any semantic field related to hip-hop music. Countdown n. The period of time leading to an event of special importance: ‘Countdown zu Zukunft, Camora ist endlich lebendig’ (Bonez MC & RAF Camora, 2016). Ghost n. A spectre, esprit: ‘RA wie n Ghost ganz oben am Gebäude’ (Bonez MC & RAF Camora, 2016). Skyline n. Horizon: ‘Die Sonne scheint hinter der Skyline wie niemals (…)’ (RAF Camora & Bonez MC, 2016).

“Ey, Homeboy, Ich Bin Kein Hustler”: English Borrowings …

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The fifty-one extracted lexical items have been categorized into eight semantic fields. The largest semantic groups differentiated in the article, i.e., HIP-HOP MUSIC and DRUG SCENE, correspond to the two groups of African-American slang lexis proposed by Garcarz, that is “Four Physical Spaces of Hip-Hop: DJing, Breakdancing and Tagging” and “Crime, Gangstergood and Illegal Activity” (Garcarz, 2013, p. 213, 223).

4.9

English Borrowings Versus German Counterparts

Table 1 presents English borrowings in the alphabetical order with their suggested German counterparts. The table encompasses only those lexical items which were used in the German hip-hop songs with articles, that is the words that have been assimilated to certain degree in the German language. Noteworthy are also the criteria adopted by German speakers while determining the grammatical gender of the analyzed words. The German counterparts in the table were determined on the basis of the entries from Deutsch-Englisch Wörterbuch.14 Words in their plural forms applied by the rappers have not been here taken into consideration. Among the analyzed vocabulary there are twenty lexical items that can be classified as belonging to informal language. They constitute approximately 33% of all English borrowings found in the analyzed German songs. English borrowings amount statistically to about 5% of all words used in the analyzed songs, which does not seem to constitute a substantial proportion. The highest number of English borrowings are nouns (47), followed by adjectives (4), verbs (3), exclamations (2), an adverb and a prepositional phrase. The extracted vocabulary has been well integrated into the German language, as 80% of it can be found in the Duden dictionary. Another factor worth discussing is the use of articles. Most of the articles attributed to the borrowed words correspond to the articles of their German counterparts (e.g., das Weed—das Kraut). This suggests that it is the semantic criterion that determines grammatical gender of English borrowings in German.

5 Conclusion The study has proved that there is a link between the semantic fields in African-American hip-hop slang and the vocabulary applied in the analyzed German hip-hop songs. More than one third of the analyzed vocabulary originates from informal language. Semantically, a significant number of words refer to the drug scene, city and some acts against the authorities. The dominant part of speech among the extracted words is a noun. In the analyzed hip-hop songs, nouns

14

www.dict.cc.

14

E. Pankanin

Table 1 English borrowings and their German counterparts English borrowing

German counterpart

(der) Beat (der) Boss (das) Business (das) Cash (die) City (die) Drum (das/der) Flashback (der) Gangster (der) Ghost (die) Hook (der) Hype (der) Joint (die) Kick (der) King (der) Punker (der) Pusher (der) Rap (der) Rapper (die) Skyline (der) Sound (das) Ticket (der) Trip (der) Turn (das) Update (das) Weed

der Rhytmus der Chef das Geschäft das Geld/das Bargeld/die Kohle die Stadt die Trommel das Wiedererleben/der Rückblick der Gangster/das Bandenmitglied der Geist die Hook/die Hookline (no German counterpart) der Rummel der Joint (no German counterpart) der Nervenkitzel der König der Musiker des Punkrocks der Drogenhändler der Rap (no German counterpart) der Rapper (no German counterpart) der Horizont der Schall die Eintrittskarte/der Schein der Drogenrausch der Doppelschlag die Fortschreibung/dieAktualisierung das Kraut

borrowed from English seem to be well-adapted in the German language, as a significant number of the English borrowings that appear in the analyzed songs adopted German grammatical gender. Taking into account the popularity of hip-hop songs in Germany nowadays, a further analysis of their vocabulary should be conducted. After determining the intended audience of German hip-hop music, the influence of English borrowings from African-American slang on this group of language users should be further analyzed.

References Langenscheidt. (2018). 100% der Jugendsprache 2018 (Deutsch-Englisch). München: Langenscheidt. Bravo. (2018, April). 30 Facts über Karol & Ruggero. Bravo 10, p. 10.

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Busse, U., & Görlach, M. (2004). German. In M. Görlach (Ed.), English in Europe (pp. 13–36). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Deutsche Welle. (2018, April 26). The dark side of rap—Is German hip-hop anti-semitic? Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl6fy-475Bo. Edwards, P. (2015). The concise guide to hip-hop music. A fresh look at the art of hip-hop, from old-school beats to freestyle rap. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Garcarz, M. (2013). African American hip hop slang. A sociolinguistic study of street speech. Wrocław: Oficyna Wydawnicza ATUT. Görlach, M. (Ed.). (2004). English in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Görlach, M. (2003). English words abroad. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Haugen, E. (1950). The analysis of linguistic borrowing. Language, 26, 210–231. Matthews, P. H. (Ed.). (1997). The concise Oxford dictionary of linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mitchell, T. (Ed.). (2001). Global noise: Rap and hip hop outside the USA. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. Schroeder-Krohn, D. (2015). Hip hop slang meets printed media. Eine Studie zu Anglizismen in der deutschen Pressesprache von Hip-Hop-Magazinen. Hamburg: Disserta Verlag. Thomason-Grey, S., & Kaufman, T. (1991). Language contact, creolization and genetic linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press. Verein Deutsche Sprache. Der Anglizismen-Index. (2017). Retrieved from www.vds-ev.de/ denglisch-und-anglizismen/anglizismenindex/ueber-den-index. Widawski, M. (2015). African American slang. A linguistic description. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yang, W. (1990). Anglizismen im Deutschen: Am Beispiel des Nachrichtenmagazins ‘Der Spiegel’. Tübingen: Max Niemayer Verlag.

Emilia Pankanin is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz. Her main areas of interest are English and German informal language, language varieties and language change. She is currently researching English loanwords in the German informal language. Her recent papers include The characteristics of the lexis of the GDR in the interwar period and The Reality of East Germany reflected in the German lexis. Is “Ostalgie” still present in today’s German? (2017).

Spanish Borrowings in American Slang and Their Semantic Fields Małgorzata Kowalczyk and Maciej Widawski

Abstract This introductory presentation explores the main semantic fields of Spanish borrowings used in contemporary American slang, a growing part of informal English lexicon used in the United States. Semantic fields are a serviceable tool in lexical studies, providing an insight into what members of a given community regard as socially and culturally important; they are especially telling in case of slang borrowings. This presentation explores such fields based on quantitative analysis of expressions extracted from a sizable database of citations from various sources such as press, television, film, literature, and conversations with native speakers, collected during field trips to the United States.

1 Introductory Remarks The aim of this presentation is to explore the main semantic fields of Spanish borrowings used in contemporary American slang. These borrowings constitute a vibrant and growing part of American slang, which reflects the expanding social, cultural, and political importance of Latin Americans in the United States, the largest non-white ethnic group in the country. This influence is perceptible in the increasingly pervasive use of Spanish, which indirectly affects speech patterns of Americans via borrowings, including those in slang. This presentation attempts to answer the fundamental question: What are Spanish borrowings in American slang about? Based on quantitative assessment, it presents a representative selection of these expressions categorized into the main thematic categories, called semantic fields. Such categories are often useful in providing an insight into what users of these expressions regard as socially and culturally important. All expressions and M. Kowalczyk (&) Pomeranian University, Słupsk, Poland e-mail: [email protected] M. Widawski Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_2

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their contextual examples come from a sizable database of citations taken from contemporary American sources such as press, television, film, literature, and conversations with native speakers. The material—which also served as the basis for much larger work on Spanish borrowings in slang (see Widawski & Kowalczyk, 2015)—was collected during several field trips to the United States, partially funded by the Santander Universidades Research Grant, and especially during research at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of New Mexico.

2 Part One: Foundations While this presentation is written in the fashion of descriptive rather than theoretical linguistics, a brief explanation of the underlying concepts may be in order. As used in the title, the term slang refers to the most informal type of vocabulary; slang is also one of the most salient characteristics of vernacular American English and a significant feature of American popular culture. As observed by Chapman (in Kipfer & Chapman, 2007, p. ix) and Coleman (2012, pp. 12–17), since slang has been used to refer to various types of language, often in a discordant way, it may be advisable to define it precisely. Let us quote here an extensive definition which defines main features of slang, taken from Widawski (2015, p. 8). Accordingly, Slang is a highly informal and unconventional type of vocabulary. It is perceived as deeply expressive, attractively catchy, and deliberately undignified. It consists of standard expressions modified in some way or appended with new meanings, and sometimes of entirely novel expressions. Slang is coined chiefly by members of social, occupational or ethnic groups which are typically separate from mainstream society, yet it is often adopted by larger social segments. It is employed in place of standard expressions to convey some extra information of a psychological, social or rhetorical nature. It thus provides alternative, highly informal synonyms for referents already named in the language, but sometimes gives names for referents for which there are no standard expressions, or which have yet to be named.

This presentation discusses slang expressions understood in the above way. The term borrowing (alternatively labeled loanword) can be broadly defined as taking a word or phrase from one language into another or as the item so taken (McArthur, 1992, p. 141). Various typological classifications of borrowings have been proposed; this study includes most types of borrowings (see classifications by Haugen, 1950 or Mańczak-Wohlfeld, 1995, 2006) but the focus is necessarily on their semantic fields rather than their typology. Additionally, borrowing may refer to various levels of language, such as phonological, lexical, syntactical ones, so it is essential to stress that this presentation is quintessentially about lexical borrowings, and not any other. Finally, the obvious focus here is on expressions borrowed from Spanish. While there have been several studies of Spanish borrowings in English (see, for instance, Gonzales, 1996 or Fought, 2003), not much has been written on such borrowings as functioning in American slang. The notable exception is an

Spanish Borrowings in American Slang and Their Semantic Fields

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chapter by Murray (1996), yet it is largely restricted to the semantic field of narcotics, and consists chiefly of an alphabetical listing of annotated expressions without any citational evidence. Hence the idea to research the subject. The term semantic field (also called lexical field) can be defined as a group, pattern, or framework of related words that covers or refers to an aspect of the world (McArthur, 1992, p. 913). The lexicon of any language can be divided into such thematic categories, for example, a semantic field for buildings may contain apartments, condos, duplexes or villas, whereas the one for flowers may include carnations, orchids, roses, tulips and so on. Various theoretical approaches to semantic fields have been proposed (see, for instance, Crystal, 2005, p. 194), yet they are beyond this presentation. Importantly, while devising a complete list of semantic fields is impossible, such categorization is very useful. This is because, as observed by Pearce (2007, p. 165), grouping expressions thematically can provide an insight into what a linguistic community regards as socially and culturally important: a proliferation of terms within a particular field may suggest that it is of particular significance. It is also linked with the concept of overlexicalization, a proliferation of synonyms or quasi-synonyms for the same entity, concept or activity, an indicator of concern with a particular area of meaning, with particular usage in slang (ibid, p. 135). In this way, semantic fields offer valuable insight into what a given language community considers socially and culturally important. Naturally, one should hold one reservation: generalizations are based here not on standard vocabulary but its very informal part and thus, as observed by Lighter (1994, p. xii), they might bear features of caricature; yet, to employ Lighter’s metaphor, even caricatures can be useful in that they highlight certain characteristics which might otherwise go unnoticed. Reservations aside, Spanish borrowings in American slang can also be categorized in the above way. While they include expressions for a wide variety of themes, certain semantic fields are exceptionally vast. These can be divided into two main categories: common (or general) fields which are shared with general American slang, and culture-specific fields which are inherent to the Latin American experience. Both will be explored on the following pages. Finally, it would be advisable to briefly describe the methodological foundations of this study (for a more detailed description, see Widawski & Kowalczyk, 2015). They stem from the philosophy of sociolinguistics and descriptive linguistics, with the focus on authentic lexical material from a large database of contextual examples (see Chambers, 2008 or Sakel & Everett, 2012). Accordingly, the idea behind the project was to get as much exposure to Spanish borrowings in American slang as possible, and to record their usage in natural contexts. To that end, citations have been collected from diverse contemporary sources including film, television, magazines, literature, the Internet, and utterances by native speakers. The material was collected through extensive fieldwork in the United States in recent years, and research at academic institutions such as the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Arizona, and the University of New Mexico. The methods of data collection were diverse but traditional: data were recorded in the form of written notes or dictaphone recordings, which were systematically entered into the

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database; the Internet was used extensively, and a sizable portion of citations was taken directly from online sources, especially the so-called news aggregators (see Kowalczyk, 2011). The outcome was a database of several thousand citations which translated into approximately 1000 representative expressions which in turn served as the basis for the study.

3 Part Two: General Fields 3.1

Categorization

Let us start our exploration with emotive categorization. This is definitely the largest lexical field of Spanish borrowings in American slang. This is because categorization is often linked with emotions, and verbalizing emotions is one of the slang’s most salient characteristics. Additionally, the great proliferation and excessive synonymity of expressions within this field can be explained by the above-mentioned overlexicalization. This vast theme is the most prominent and constitutes the hefty 40% of all expressions. It comprises expressions for all sorts of evaluative categorization: that of people, things, states, actions, and qualities. Interestingly, as evidenced by our database, the expressions within this field are frequently polarized into either very positive or very negative, just as our likes and dislikes, in about the same proportions. Here is a selection of expressions within the subfield of negative categorization: I never trusted Charlene, that bruja [= contemptible woman thought to have evil influence] —Scooby-Doo and the Monster of Mexico, film, 2003 You’re turning into a cabron [= contemptible man, especially if also stupid and brutish]— Mambo Kings, film, 1992 Here one becomes a man because the special forces are not for culeros [= cowards]—Pedro Noguera, 2012 I have no doubt that Governor Doofus is el sleazo [= contemptible, corrupt and immoral], but the CA electorate re-elected him—Free Republic, 2003 Oh! That son of puta [= contemptible person]! He did it on purpose!—Scanner Darkly, film, 2006

Nearly half of expressions within this field falls into the subcategory of positive cagetorization. These expressions refer principally to people, things, and qualities viewed as positive, with varying degrees of appreciation. Consider this selection of examples: Dangelo promises to spend $14 million to repair the YMCA. Sounds chido [= excellent], right?—OC Weekly, 2008 Frazier is en fuego [= excellent] indeed, so is the whole team. Go Gators!—Miami Herald, 2014

Spanish Borrowings in American Slang and Their Semantic Fields

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“You’re abandoning me, hija [= woman you like]?” “I just need a little time for myself”— Off The Map, film, 2011 Mija [= woman you like], look at me! Nothing about you is pathetic—Grey’s Anatomny, ABC-TV series, 2013 We were always good friends. We had this good simpatico [= affability] between us—Last Play at Shea, film, 2010

3.2

Intoxication

Intoxication by drugs is usually considered one of the largest semantic fields in general slang, and not surprisingly is the largest general category of Spanish borrowings in American slang, totaling 15% of all expressions in our database. This can be attributed to the reasons mentioned above. Being intoxicated is socially taboo and may be punishable under the law, yet at the same time, it is something inherently human and encountered in all cultures. As noted by Chapman (1986, p. xxiv), the use of slang is often a verbal attempt to convey our understanding and awareness of the condition. Another reason is the connection between the world of drugs or alcohol and the criminal underworld, itself a birthing ground for slang. This vast semantic field includes various expressions for drugs and alcohol, their types, quality, quantity, and packaging, as well as getting intoxicated. As for drugs, this subfield is so vast that it can be split into two themes, the first one being hard drugs: Many of them spend their meager earnings on basuco [= cocaine paste]—South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 1989 Both cocaine and bombitas [= amphetamine pills or capsules] are stimulants—Life, 1985 Even some of the street names for cocaine – lady, girl, mistress, dama blanca [= cocaine] – link the drug to women—New York Times, 1985 I had some hombrecitos [= hallucinogenic mushrooms] last night, man, I was tripping out —Urban Dictionary, 2011 Interestingly, he had not given up the tecata [= heroin]—David Montejano, 2012

The second theme is soft drugs, especially marijuana, which has generated several dozens of synonyms. Consider the following selection: These local mothers have got a hundred keys of chiba [= marijuana] and I don’t know it?— Super Troopers, film, 2001 I’m smoking a frajo [= marijuana cigarette] in my room, cuz I’m too lazy to get up— Twitter, 2014 How about a greefer [= marijuana cigarette]? It will make you feel good—UCLA Student, 2013 My grandfather smoked loco weed [= marijuana] at the insistence of tribal Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma—Portland Press Herald, 2011

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M. Kowalczyk and M. Widawski What happens if you smoke yerba buena [= marijuana]? Bad effects? Good effects?— Okay Magazine, 2014

Interestingly, when compared to drugs, intoxication with alcohol is a much less prominent semantic field in Spanish borrowings in American slang. Still, there are numerous expressions which cover states, actions, people and things connected with alcohol and its effects. See the following: Back in the day I used to drink Adios Motherfuckers [= strong cocktails including vodka, rum, tequila, gin, blue Curaçao, sour mix and 7-Up or ginger ale]—Cafe Mom, 2011 This 4th of July be sure to have a cold chela [= beer, especially lager or pale ale] and some delicious food—Cosmopolitan, 2014 Throw in an extra $10 for a bottle of dago red [= cheap red wine, especially of Italian or Spanish origin]—Los Angeles Times, 2008 Well, we got pisto [= alcoholic beverage, especially beer], we got frajos. Only one thing’s missin’: biyatches!—Harsh Times, film, 2006 I meant to pick up some vino [= wine, especially cheap] on my way, but I blew it—Scent of a Woman, film, 1992

3.3

Human Body

The semantic field human body belongs to the so-called general themes because it is central to and characteristic of any slang in any language. This is linked with human ability to experience the world via senses, and know the functions of our bodies. At the same time, social standards of propriety impose a different perception of this physical aspect: while the common attitudes toward body and its functions have become more tolerant in recent decades, this theme still constitutes a powerful sociocultural taboo. And taboo is a birthing ground for slang which flourishes around themes considered socially unacceptable. It is thus no surprise that the body is also one of the largest general semantic fields of Spanish borrowings in American slang, comprising roughly 6% of all expressions. It includes two subfields, the first being human body, which includes expressions for the body in general, body sizes, shapes, parts, and many others. The selection below is a mere sample: He was rough with her in the bed, and punished her with his bicho [= penis] —Elmore Leonard, 1985 Draymond immediately advised officials that he didn’t try to deliberately kick Adams in his cojones [= testicles]?—Source, 2016 Trucker is ignoring me because he has found an illegal tranny from Juarez that has a tight culo [= anus]—Topix, 2013 And guess what! The chick took off her panties and showed me her cucaracha [= vagina] —UNM Student, 2014 These are the hugest tetas [= female breats] I’ve ever seen in my life—Washington Heights, film, 2003

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The second subfield within this large semantic field is physiology. It covers expressions for various bodily functions, states, processes, and results. Again, all these constitute verbal and societal taboos which, although not tolerated in standard language, are tolerated in slang. Consider the following: She can’t get impregnated by me if she rubs all my mecos [= semen] all over her panocha —Soy Chicano, 2005 Dude, wait a minute, you got some mierda [= excrement] on your shoes—UCB Student, 2013 Man, he got pushed so hard, little nigga cut a pedo [= gas expelled from anus]—Facebook, 2014 “Did you see the look on her face?” “Speedy Gonzales [= man who ejaculates prematurely]!”—Smallville, WB-TV series, 2003 She is no longer dancing in that corner, but rather, tossing her tacos [= vomiting] all over the floor—Blogspot, 2007

3.4

Sexuality

Another semantic field within the general themes is sexuality. It is also one of the largest in slang, and is probably universal in all languages. This is again because sex is the most primal human activity. At the same time, while the norms for accepting sexuality have changed, sex still constitutes to be a powerful sociocultural taboo. Additionally, as observed by Chapman (1986, p. xxvi), the visible overlexicalization in this semantic field suggests that the standard vocabulary referring to sex is often either inadequate or overly scientific, and slang comes in handy by providing various types of alternative, expressive vocabulary. This is also true about Spanish borrowing in American slang, although our findings show that this semantic field seems somewhat underrepresented when compared with that in general American slang, with 5% of all expressions belonging to this category. It comprises expressions for a variety of things, people, states and activities. Interestingly, one of the most frequent subfields here is sexual preferences, especially referring to homosexuality, which may be linked to the fact that it is an exceptionally strong taboo in Latin American culture. This may be illustrated with the following examples: I asked my girl if she’d ever take it up the booty, and she said that’s for culeros [= homosexual men]—Yahoo Answers, 2009 While in Miami on Spring Break, I was called a maricón [= homosexual man] more than once—Michigan Daily, 2005 She’s at some marimacha [= “manish” or aggressive lesbian] collective she’s part of. Not a dick for miles—Orange Is the New Black, Netflix-TV series, 2013 Jump off the nearest bridge, the world will not miss a puto [= homosexual man] like you— OC Weekly, 2014

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M. Kowalczyk and M. Widawski You’re just Hispanic-looking enough to appeal to some of the taco queens [= white gay people who prefer Hispanic partners] I know—Word Press, 2004

Naturally, this semantic field is not confined to homosexuality, but covers expressions for various activities, people, things related to sex and sexuality, such as types of sexual activity, sexual attractiveness, sex for profit, and many others. The following is a selection of representative examples: Hola, Marcela! Aren’t you looking caliente [= sexually attractive] today!—30 min or Less, film, 2011 So you want some coño [= sex]? You better show me some money first—Meme Generator, 2014 How did he became a lobo [= male who frequents bars alone in the hope of finding a sexual companion]?—Be Careful, film, 1022 “Now you say something nice.” “You give a fantastic mamada [= fellatio]”—UCLA Student, 2016 Your sister told you I’m some puta [= sexually promiscuous woman] chasing after a rich white boy—Bring It On, film, 2009

4 Part Three: Culture-Specific Themes 4.1

Latin American Experience

The semantic fields of Spanish borrowings in American slang can also refer to less universal themes. In contrast to the general slang themes discussed above, these are more culture-specific and cover themes, the first being Latin American experience. Expressions belonging in this field often serve the referential functions of providing labels for concepts and experiences that are particular to Latin American culture and lifestyle. Put differently, these are the expressions which, to paraphrase Pearce (2007, p. 165), grouped together can provide an insight into what Latin Americans regard as socially and culturally important. Naturally, this is a fairly large field— constituting roughly 17% of the database—including expressions for various people, things, actions and qualities, that go beyond the confines of this presentation. Let us then present here just two selected subfields, one of which is the vital and ever-present theme of immigration. Consider the following sample: I showed his picture to the alambristas [= Mexicans illegally present in the U.S.] there, but no one had seen him—San Diego Reader, 2001 Contemporary fronterizos [= people who live near the U.S.-Mexico border] in Southern Arizona refuse to accept the separation between North and South—Examiner, 2011 You should call la migra [= the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service], man. That bitch ain’t legal—Southland, NBC-TV series, 2010 The mojados [= illegal immigrants to the U.S. from Mexico] risked exposure by consenting to be filmed—New York Times, 2005

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There are more Norwegians in the US than Norway, and Tijuaneros [= immigrants from Tijuana] in S.D. So what!—Twitter, 2014

The other notable semantic subfield pertinent to Latin American experience selected here involves expressions for whites. Much like with negative categorization, many of these may be considered negative, with varying degree of offensiveness: I am not interested in hostages. The Americanos [= Americans, especially if white] will die —MacGyver, ABC-TV series, 1988 Working for Anglos [= white persons] now posed no problems. It would just be a job— Spanglish, film, 2004 Hey there, blanca [= white woman]! I was wondering if I could trouble you for a drink— Soul Plane, film, 2004 She’s a gringa [= white female from an English-speaking country] from California— Beverly Hills Chihuahua, film, 2008 “Andale, andale!” “So you speak Spanish, guero [= white person]?”—Bound by Honor, film, 1993

4.2

Latin Americans

Latin Americans is another significant culture-specific semantic field in Spanish borrowings in American slang. It groups expressions pertaining to Latin Americans and life seen from Latin American perspective. Many are used in group-identification function of slang to signal either group solidarity or dissociation from the dominant culture. Expressions of this kind constitute roughly 8% of our database. Here is a selection of general expressions from this vast field, some of which may be considered offensive: There is a lot of Españols [= speakers of Spanish] down here—Pinstagram, 2014 You don’t have to be extremely intelligent to figure out where this all could lead if it can be done by some Juan Doe [= unidentified Hispanic male]—Free Republic, 2005 We’re able to deduce that Juanita Doe [= unidentified Hispanic female] was crossing the Gulf of Mexico into the Keys—Vulture, 2015 She is a taco belle [= Latin American woman, especially if attractive] who has already won the heart of a handsome rancher—Washington Post, 1993 Where’s your empathy, vato [= any person of Latin American descent]?—UCSD Student, 2014

The expressions within this semantic field may also be more specific and may refer to a given subgroup of Latin Americans, such as Mexican Americans, Cuban Mexicans or Puerto-Rican Mexicans, or even more narrowly defined subgroups. Consider the following examples:

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M. Kowalczyk and M. Widawski Dawson does not express the views of Chicanas [= Mexican or Mexican-American women] who are in support of Hillary Clinton—Huffington Post, 2016 What the fuck are you so mad about, ese [= young man, especially Mexican]?—Ray Donovan, Showtime-TV series, 2016 It feels good to be a Nuyorican [= Puerto Rican, especially the one living in New York City] holding up a trombone instead of a tray—El Cantante, film, 2006 I told you I don’t want you playing with no pachuco [= young and tough Mexican-American]—My Family, film, 1995 Nobody’ll kick us out of this joint. They’re Tejanos [= Texans of Mexicans origin or descent], like us—Selena, film, 1997

4.3

Geography

Last but not least, let us present yet another interesting culture-specific semantic field: geography. As evidenced by Widawski and Kowalczyk (2011), geographical expressions, often loosely labeled toponyms, constitute a significant yet undervalued part of slang. They are semantically rich and culturally meaningful, telegraphically describing the characteristics of places to which they refer, explaining the motivations of their coiners, and revealing the attitudes of their users. These expressions are also popular in Spanish borrowings in American—constituting roughly 5% of the database —where they function in a unique way, reflecting a purely Latin American perspective. This field includes expressions for various cities and their parts, or geographical regions and districts. Here is a handful of examples referring to cities: His old man was originally from Crutches [= Las Cruces, New Mexico]—Facebook, 2014 The America’s Cup is coming back to Dago [= San Diego, California]?—Facebook, 2014 All their fellow soldiers from El Chuco [= El Paso, Texas] shared one thing in common: their love for this country—El Paso Herald-Post, 2016 It’s all happening now in El Lay [= Los Angeles, California]!—Los Angeles Times, 2014 How long is the travel from Tia Juana [= Tijuana, Mexico] to Palmdale?—Road Route Map, 2014

Another notable theme within the semantic field of geography involves expressions for various regions, areas or their parts, again viewed from Latin American perspective. Consider the following examples: They’re using it to exchange each of you who’s from out of state for cons from Califas [= California]—Bound by Honor, film, 1993 Chula Vista is jokingly dubbed “Chulajuana” [= Chula Vista, California], because it is becoming a de facto suburb of Tijuana—Los Angeles Times, 1997 Some major changes are coming to Loisaida [= Lower East Side of New York’s Manhattan]—East Village, 2009

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I’ve never been to P.R. [= Puerto Rico]. Where do I go? I’m hoping someone can advise the best place to go—Trip Advisor, 2009 “Where you live?” “I live next to Walmart, you know, in Taco Town [= Mexican or Mexican-American neighborhood]”—Urban Dictionary, 2009

5 Conclusions Based on a sizable database of real-life contextual examples from contemporary American sources, this introductory exploration has presented the main semantic fields of Spanish borrowings used in contemporary American slang. These include semantic fields common to general American slang such as positive and negative categorization, intoxication by drugs or alcohol, human body and its physiology, as well as sex and sexuality. They also include culture-specific fields pertinent to and exclusive of Latin American life, such as Latin American experience, Latin Americans, as well as geography as seen from the viewpoint of Latin Americans. Significantly, all of these—and especially the culture-specific themes—prove very useful and telling. They provide an insight into what users of these expressions regard as socially and culturally important since the proliferation of expressions within a particular field usually suggests that it is of particular significance for their users. Moreover, as attested by the high frequency of usage in the mainstream American media, these expressions constitute a vibrant part of American slang, which reflects the growing importance of Latin Americans in the United States.

References Chambers, J. (2008). Sociolinguistic theory (revised ed.) Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell Publishers. Chapman, R. (1986). New dictionary of American slang. New York: Harper and Row. Coleman, J. (2012). The life of slang. New York: Oxford University Press. Crystal, D. (2005). How language works. New York: Avery and Penguin Group. Fought, C. (2003). Chicano English in context. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Gonzalez, R. F. (1996). Spanish loanwords in the English language. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Haugen, E. (1950). The analysis of linguistic borrowing. In Lingua. (Vol. 2). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Kipfer, B., & Chapman, R. (2007). Dictionary of American slang. New York: Harper Collins Publishers. Kowalczyk, M. (2011). The Applications of news aggregators in dictionary making. Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny, LVIII(4), 457–471. Lighter, J. (1994). Random house historical dictionary of American slang. New York: Random House. Mańczak-Wohlfeld, E. (1995). Tendencje rozwojowe zapożyczeń angielskich w języku polskim. Kraków: Universitas. Mańczak-Wohlfeld, E. (2006). Angielsko-polskie kontakty językowe. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.

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McArthur, T. (1992). Oxford companion to the English language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murray, T. (1996). Spanish loanwords in contemporary American slang. In F. R. Gonzalez (Ed.), Spanish loanwords in the English language (pp. 105–137). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Pearce, M. (2007). The Routledge dictionary of English language studies. New York: Routledge. Sakel, J., & Everett, D. (2012). Linguistic fieldwork. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Widawski, M. (2015). African American slang: A linguistic description. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Widawski, M., & Kowalczyk, M. (2011). The dictionary of city names in American slang. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag. Widawski, M., & Kowalczyk, M. (2015). The dictionary of Spanish loanwords in American slang. Gdańsk: WUG.

Małgorzata Kowalczyk is a sociolinguist and lexicographer. She specializes in lexical variation and its documentation, especially in an educational context. She has conducted research at such academic centers as the University of California at Los Angeles, and as Visiting Professor, at the University of California at Berkeley. Currently, she is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the Pomeranian Academy in Słupsk. Her book publications include Black Lexicon (2012), Americanisms (2013), Bazinga! A Dictionary of Colloquial English Interjections (2014) and The Dictionary of Spanish Loanwords in American Slang (2015). Maciej Widawski is a sociolinguist and applied linguist. He specializes in language variation and its description, especially in an educational context. He has studied informal language since the early 1990s, doing extensive fieldwork and conducting research at such academic centers as the University of California Berkeley and, as Fulbright Scholar, at the University of Tennessee. Currently, he is Professor and Chair of English Linguistics at the UKW University in Bydgoszcz. His numerous book publications include The Polish-English Dictionary of Slang and Colloquialism (1998) and African American Slang: A Linguistic Description (2015).

“I’ll Give Them a Piece of My Mind”: Translating the Idiomatic Language of Vasily Shukshin Filip Tołkaczewski

Abstract The present article deals with the translation of occasional idiomatic expressions of Vasily Shukshin. In the first section the author presents the publishing history of the English language translations, lists the names of the translators, and subsequently defines and classifies the writer’s innovations. Universal and specific criteria of determining which units are probable pieces of the writer’s craftsmanship are also specified by the author. The following sections present the nature of Shukshinian modifications, dividing them into structural-and-semantic, structural, and semantic. This part of the article examines several translations of the same passage and discusses single English equivalents, illustrating individual translators’ choices. In the present study Russian is the source language, whereas English is the target language.

1 Introduction Vasily Makarovich Shukshin was a Russian writer, actor, and film director from the Altay region, who created in the second half of the 20th century and specialized in rural themes. His works have been translated into about fifty languages (Чecнoкoвa, 1999, p. 9). Despite dying suddenly at a fairly young age, he is still a recognizable figure in Russia and around the world. Every year since 1976 admirers of Shukshin’s talent have gathered in Barnaul, Biysk and his home village Srostki to remember the writer and his works. This Shukshinian festival is a tribute to the memory of the great creator paid by his compatriots. Famous writers, theatre and film actors are honorable guests of this event. Amongst all the literary genres that V. Shukshin produced it is short stories that are the most recognizable. They are dialogue-driven, which allowed the writer to reproduce the natural speech of his characters and flesh them out. For this reason the reader may encounter many examples of colloquial speech, jargon, archaisms, F. Tołkaczewski (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_3

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Siberian dialect and idiomatic expressions. These, however, are not the only peculiarities to be found. Both words and idioms were sometimes modified in terms of their semantics or form and sometimes both. This is an intended effect of Shukshin’s artistic activity. The writer either modified already-existing units of language or created his very own. He did not exhibit a particular tendency to create new words, but was deemed a proficient user of idioms, which appear frequently throughout his works—5594 are estimated to have occurred in his literary works (Bopoбьeвa, 2002, p. 11; Coлoвьeвa, 2004, p. 208; Eлиcтpaтoв, 2001, p. 8; Marszałek & Tołkaczewski, 2018, pp. 129–132). Some of them are common and used in everyday Russian, some have hallmarks of dialectal or colloquial speech, yet there are also others that emanate a creative particle from within (Чyвaкин, 2004, pp. 164–170). The last group poses the greatest challenge for translators. The goal of this article is to present occasional idiomatic expressions in selected short stories of Vasily Shukshin and to analyze the ways of dealing with them by translators into English. Although Shukshin’s language has been a subject of translation studies (Aндpиeнкo & Бeлoycoвa, 2017; Дeмидoвa, 2015, 2016; Givens, 1995; Mapьин & Чecнoкoвa, 2001), the issue of translating his structural and semantic modifications of idiomatic expressions into English has yet to be analyzed. The study material consists of occasional idiomatic expressions which are a probable result of Shukshin’s craftsmanship (dictionaries of the writer’s language that are referred to in the later sections provide definitions but do not include hints as to which units are occasional—no labels of this type are supplied). They have been extracted from selected short stories. The empirical section shall be limited to the presentation of selected examples and their respective translations.

2 The Publishing History of the English Translations The initial stage of translating Shukshin’s works into English may be traced back to the 1970s when a collection of selected short stories entitled I Want to Live was published (1973, translated by R. Daglish). In subsequent years more translations were published: Snowball Berry Red and Other Stories (1979, translated by D. M. Fiene, G. A. Hosking, J. Nelson, B. N. Peskin, G. Gutsche, W. G. Fiedorow, & G. Kolodziej), Roubles in Words, Kopeks in Figures (1985, translated by N. Word & D. Iliffe), Short Stories (1990, translated by R. Daglish, H. Smith, E. Bromfield & K. M. Cook) and Stories from a Siberian Village (1996, translated by L. Michael & J. Givens). They all contributed to the popularization of Shukshin in the English-speaking world. Thus far fifty-six works have been made available to the English-speaking audience. This number includes fifty-three translations of short stories, two translations of novellas, and a translation of a fairy tale. There exist different versions of the same short stories: eighteen of them have two variants, three of them possess three translated versions and there is one short story translated four times.

“I’ll Give Them a Piece of My Mind” …

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3 Idiomatic Expressions In both of the compared languages there are many different terms that can be used in reference to the idiomatic expression. About seventy different terms have appeared in various fields of research conducted in English, for example: collocations, FEI (fixed expressions including idioms), fixed expressions, formulaic language, formulaic speech, formulae, frozen phrases, idiomatic, idioms, lexicalized phrases, multiword units, set phrases, etc. While there is some degree of terminological duplication, several of these names are not synonymous. They exhibit some conceptual discrepancies, and thus should not be used in the same contexts (Wray, 2002, pp. 8–9). This, in turn, may lead to confusion and that is why there have been some attempts to create a universal term. A noteworthy attempt was made by Wray, who proposed the term formulaic sequence and defined it in the following way: a sequence, continuous or discontinuous, of words or other elements, which is, or appears to be, prefabricated: that is, stored and retrieved whole from memory at the time of use, rather than being subject to generation or analysis by the language grammar (2002, p. 9).

The word idiom can be found in both English and Russian, though its understanding varies. The difference arises due to terminological traditions in different languages. Thus, “in English the term ‘idiom’ can be traditionally used in the sense of ‘phraseme,’ i.e., it may be understood as an umbrella term for all possible fixed expressions. This use is very uncommon in Russian (…)” (Brown, 2006, p. 515). In Slavonic linguistic traditions phraseological unit is used as a superordinate term for multi-word units (Moon, 1998, p. 5). Apart from the broad understanding of the term idiom in Anglo-American traditions there is also a narrower one, which is closer to that of Russian. This use of idiom restricts it to a particular kind of unit that is often called pure idiom, which may be defined as follows: “A pure idiom is a non-literal set expression whose meaning is not a compositional function of its syntactic constituents but which always has a homonymous literal counterpart” (Cowie, 1988, p. 133; Fernando & Flavell, 1981, p. 48). The present article adopts the broad understanding of idiomatic expressions, which means that within the scope of interest included are not only idiomatic expressions but also proverbs, sayings, winged words, as well as similes. They all can be characterized as multi-word units that are institutionalized and retrievable from memory as a whole (cf. Müldner-Nieckowski, 2007, p. 100).

4 Occasional Idiomatic Expressions With historical development of a language its idiomatic expressions often evolve. Both their form and meaning can undergo modification. Establishing these structural-and-semantic modifications contributes towards them being accepted by

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language users, and thus becoming the norm. This is reflected in their inclusion in dictionaries (Chlebda, 2001, pp. 189–190). Numerous modifications are occasional in nature and are not created with the intention of being incorporated in language. They are an artistic means for writers so as to prevent tautology, enliven language, be used as an important means of expression, introduce a play on words and their meaning by creating associations with traditional fixed expressions. The purpose of such units is to make language less official and more individual. Their existence is determined by the author’s realization of his or her creative idea (cf. Dziamska-Lenart, 2004, p. 145; Majkowska, 1988, pp. 145–149; Markowski 2007, pp. 249–251; Pajdzińska, 1993, p. 7; Pędyczak, 1984, p. 30; Tpeтьякoвa, 2011, p. 161). By extension, occasional idiomatic expressions: (1) posses traits of idiomatic expressions, (2) are restricted to a single context of use, (3) do not constitute a part of general set of idiomatic expressions of a given language, (4) are individually created, (5) are not retrieved but created every time in the process of communication, (6) are presented as individual in a lexical, semantic and syntactic sense, (7) are characterized as being expressive, which is their inseparable attribute, (8) require context to decode their meanings, (9) belong to a specific author, which is the basic requirement that has to be met in order to consider them occasional (cf. Бypoв & Кpивeцкaя, 2008, pp. 7–9; Pędyczak, 1984, pp. 22–24; see also Лыкoв, 1976, p. 11). New lexical creations can be described with a general term coinage, but to avoid ambiguity a distinction between a neologism and an occasional usage should be made. The former is used with the intention of introducing a name for a new idea or object, whereas the latter is “for temporary use, to solve an immediate problem of communication” (Crystal, 1995, p. 132). The term nonce word is used to refer to such units (Crystal, 1995, p. 132; Grambs, 1984, p. 245; Steinmetz & Kipfer 2006, pp. 228–229) and it might be extended to nonce phrase (Fowler & Fowler, 1908, p. 19). However, the term occasionalism will be used hereinafter, as it bears more resemblance to the Russian term okkazionalizm (oккaзиoнaлизм) and can be used in reference to both words and idioms (see e.g., Xaнпиpa, 1972, pp. 24, 262; Фeльдмaн, 1957, p. 66; Лoпaтин, 1973, p. 65).

5 Typology and Criteria of Identification of Shukshin’s Occasional Idiomatic Expressions What is characteristic of the writer’s idiostyle is a tendency to create occasional variants of the idiomatic expressions that already exist in Russian, as well as a tendency to create entirely new units that are not derived from the previously-existing fixed expressions. On the basis of their origins and the range of modifications introduced the following groups can be distinguished:

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(1) structural-and-semantic idiomatic expressions (derived or non-derived from standard units); (2) structural idiomatic expressions (resulting from structure modification of standard units); (3) semantic idiomatic expressions (with standard structure but their meaning altered). The expressions considered Shukshinian are those metaphorical multi-word units and non-standard forms of idiomatic expressions which were not registered at the time when Shukshin was artistically active. Those units did not constitute a part of the set of Russian fixed expressions but were an intentional artistic means of the writer. They occurred only once in a specific text and their meaning could be decoded only in a particular context. Two kinds of criteria are used to determine if a given unit is occasional. These are either universal or specific. The former allow to recognize occasional idiomatic expressions, whereas the latter determine the type of modification— structural-and-semantic, structural, or semantic. The following criteria have been adopted as universal: (a) a unit is not included in either general dictionaries or dictionaries of idioms, proverbs, sayings, winged words, colloquial Russian, sociolects, vulgarisms, as well as dialect dictionaries, e.g.: cкaкaть кaк блoxa нa зepкaлe; (b) a unit is exemplified in dictionaries only with quotes from Shukshin, e.g.: Пeтyx жapeный в зaд нe клeвaл (found in RASNL)1 or Зaпac кapмaн нe тpeт (BSRRR); (c) there is confirmation in The Russian National Corpus (Haциoнaльный кopпyc pyccкoгo языкa henceforth referred to as RNC) that a given phrase had not been used before Shukshin, e.g.: дeлaть финт yшaми.

6 Difficulties Related to Identification and Translation of Idioms As far as the sheer difficulty of translation is concerned, idiomatic expressions are ranked high (Bлaxoв & Флopин, 1980, p. 179). The very nature of idioms themselves makes them a daunting task for translators. They are part of the untranslatable or are difficult to translate, which is considered by many to be their key feature. Not only have translators to determine that they are dealing with an idiom but they also have to understand it correctly so as to convey the original message. To do that, the translator has to be acquainted with the basic issues of idiomacity, be able to isolate fixed phrases, recognize their meaning and convey their expressive

1

Dictionaries and their respective abbreviations are listed at the end of the article.

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and stylistic functions (Peцкep, 1974, p. 145). What is an additional complication that the translator has to face, both in the process of identification and translation of an idiom, is writers’ tendency for creative modification of such units both structurally and semantically. This may be a trap, for such occasional variants are not found in dictionaries. Hence every occasionalism presents a separate challenge which requires an individual and innovative approach from the translator, since “the real work of the translator starts where the dictionary ends” (Pleciński, 2010, pp. 147–148). Such a predicament raises doubts as to whether the translator is dealing with an idiomatic expression or a non-idiomatic phrase. The meaning itself is not always obvious, as it can be literal or figurative. Difficulties arise in the initial stage of idiom translation, when the units have to identified and separated from the non-idiomatic ones. According to Kazakova the most efficient way is to develop a habit of searching for units that make little to no sense, for it is them that are the most likely to possess a figurative meaning (Кaзaкoвa, 2001, p. 130). Apart from the identification process, another important aspect of idiom translation is reproducing their culture-specific elements. Yet another problem may be related to the capacity for recognizing a different meaning despite seemingly similar structure, as in the case of every tree is known by its (his) fruit and as the tree, so the fruit. Each of them means something else and creates dissimilar associations. Moreover, proper names, surnames of famous people, country-specific realities, winged words or pieces of historical information that are contained in idiomatic expressions are a real challenge as well (Кaзaкoвa, 2001, pp. 131–139). The danger of incorrect interpretation of the meaning of idiomatic expressions that have the same or a similar set of components is described by Parizoska. She warns that this misleading closeness may lead to potential errors in translation. Such units may convey a partially or entirely different meaning. The translator may focus only on the structural similarities between the two languages and assume that a given phrase is an equivalent. This phenomenon is known as false pairs, and it is vital that it be taken into consideration not only on a word level but also while dealing with multi-word units such as idioms. It is possible to distinguish the following false pairs: (1) the meaning in the source langue is narrower than in the target language, (2) the meaning in the source langue is broader than in the target language or (3) there is no conceptual equivalence (Parizoska, 2005, pp. 327–329).

7 Translations of Shukshin’s Creations The following section comprises a presentation of selected creations or modifications of Shukshin and their respective translations. The material is divided into three groups, i.e., structural-and-semantic, structural, and semantic.

“I’ll Give Them a Piece of My Mind” …

7.1

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Structural-and-Semantic Idiomatic Expressions

This group consists of units that are either created in their entirety by Shukshin or are derivatives of standard units. Context is provided for better understanding of the author’s idea. In Shukshin’s Mиль пapдoн, мaдaм!, the main character Bronka Pupkov is telling an imaginary story of his attempt on the life of Hitler. Intrigued and impatient, his listeners keep asking him questions. The speaker does not want to be interrupted and replies in the way presented in Table 1. The original ктo c пepeбивoм, тoмy—c пepeвивoм denotes ‘a response to a person who interrupts someone who is having a conversation or is telling a story’ (SYVS). The 1979 translation by Hosking contains winged words attributed to Oliver Goldsmith (an 18th-century Irish playwright), which implies that only an uninterrupted story can be true. In a way it is also a reply but may be less clear for the reader than the 1990 version. Smith’s idea of stacking three different idioms in such a way that they follow one another directly seems to be an interesting choice. The combination of their meanings reproduces the main character’s intention quite accurately and can be read like a definition of the writer’s idea (cf. ODEI, FISD, NAID). In this way the idiomatic nature of Shukshin’s creation is retained and the meaning is easy to grasp. Non-idiomatic translation if you start to interrupt introduces a threat I’ll twist your you-know-what, which seems to be inappropriate in the context of a friendly gathering. Thus it appears to be the least accurate way of rendering the occasional idiom. The next example comes from the short story Cyд. Alla Grebenshchikova, a haughty but incautious woman, does not admit to starting a fire which destroyed her neighbor’s newly built bathhouse. She refuses to take responsibility and claims that it was a case of spontaneous combustion. The heroine’s behavior is illustrated in Table 2. Shukshin’s нaвecить зaнaвecки нa глaзa means ‘to say or claim something, without listening to others’ (SYVS). Translators used two techniques: idiomatic and non-idiomatic translation. Although in both cases the author’s meaning was rendered in English, the creative particle was partly lost in translation. In contrast to the Table 1 The original excerpt from Mиль пapдoн, мaдaм! and its English translations The original

Translation by Hosking

Translation by Smith

Translation by Michael and Givens

– A пpи чeм тyт вы? – Ктo c пepeбивoм, тoмy – c пepeвивoм (Mиль пapдoн, мaдaм!, p. 257)

“Where do you come in?” “Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies. (…)” (Mille Pardons, Madame!, 1979, p. 46)

“So where did you fit in?” the hunters inquired. “Hold your horses, fellows. Don’t get me off track, or I’ll never get to the point. (…)” (I Beg Your Pardon, Madam!, 1990, p. 128)

“And what do you have to do with it?” “If you start to interrupt, I’ll twist your you-know-what. (…)” (Mille Pardons, Madame!, 1996, p. 94)

Шyкшин (2012)

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Table 2 The original excerpt from Cyд and its English translations The original

Translation by Ward and Iliffe

Translation by Smith

Oбъяcнeниe c Гpeбeнщикoвoй вышлo бecтoлкoвoe: Гpeбeнщикoвa нaвecилa зaнaвecки нa глaзa и cтaлa yвepять cтpaxoвoгo aгeнтa, чтo нaвoз зaгopeлcя caм (Cyд, p. 346)

When he tried to discuss the matter with Alla, he couldn’t get any sense out of her. She just shut her eyes to what had happened and swore blind to the insurance agent that the manure had caught fire all by itself (The Court Case, 1985, p. 98)

The explanation Alia Grebenshchikova offered was absolutely ridiculous: she pretended she didn’t know anything about it and told the insurance agent the manure had caught on fire by itself (The Fatback, 1990, p. 146)

Table 3 The original excerpt from И paзыгpaлиcь жe кoни в пoлe and its English translation The original

Translation by Daglish

– Пpиeдy, пoйдy к тoй кoмиccии(…) Я им cкaжy пapy лacкoвыx (И paзыгpaлиcь жe кoни в пoлe, p. 139)

“When I get back I’ll go and see that commission(…) I’ll give them a piece of my mind. (…)” (See the Horses Gallop, 1973, p. 141)

1990 translation, the 1985 version exhibits a higher degree of structural closeness with the original. Shut one’s eyes might have been used on purpose in reference to the original form, since it possesses an identical component eyes [глaзa]. The translation by Ward and Iliffe is more successful than Smith’s. Despite being stylistically neutral, it bears some resemblance to the Shukshin’s innovation, as it is idiomatic. The 1990 translation is composed of regular building-blocks and is devoid of the freshness characteristic of the writer’s style. In Shukshin’s И paзыгpaлиcь жe кoни в пoлe, Kondrat Lyutayev, chairman of a collective farm in the Altai steppes, is very proud of his horse Buyan and wants to send him to an exhibition. After the horse is disqualified by a commission, Lyutayev gets angry with this decision and expresses his irritation with the words shown in Table 3. The writer’s cкaзaть пapy лacкoвыx denotes ‘to express disapproval of someone in a rough way’ (BSRP). Shukshian idiom cкaзaть пapy лacкoвыx is a play on words and senses. It literally means to say a pair of tender [words]. Hence it is the context that creates a figurative meaning, oozing with irony. This meaning is absent from the English idiom. The translation equivalent does not have an ambiguous form, so in spite of being stylistically marked and semantically close it does not evoke the same range of feelings as the original. The following example is a continuation of the aforementioned situation. Lyutayev comes to see the horse that was qualified by the commission. He is disappointed with its slender build and expresses it a contemptuous way, which can be seen in Table 4. The author’s вopoбьинoe кoлeнo can be defined as follows: ‘about a weak chest ’ (SYVS). This translation exemplifies a successful use of

“I’ll Give Them a Piece of My Mind” …

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Table 4 The original excerpt from И paзыгpaлиcь жe кoни в пoлe and its English translation The original

Translation by Daglish

Гляди cюдa – этo гpyдь? Этo вopoбьинoe кoлeнo, a нe гpyдь (И paзыгpaлиcь жe кoни в пoлe, p. 138)

‘Look at this—call this a chest? It’s a sparrow’s knee—not a chest.’ (See the Horses Gallop, 1973, p. 140)

calquing. Probably the translator did not find an English equivalent but that did not prevent him from faithfully conveying both semantics and structure of the authorial unit. The result creates the same impression as in the original, for вopoбьинoe кoлeнo equals sparrow’s knee both literally and figuratively.

7.2

Structural Idiomatic Expressions

This group consists of the units that came into being as a result of various structural modifications of registered multi-word units. However, none of these changes led to a semantic shift. One of the methods of idiom modification that Shukshin made use of was ellipsis of non-optional components of an idiomatic phrase already existing in language. This may be illustrated with oднoй нoгoй cтoять [to stand with one foot], where the author omitted в мoгилe [in the grave]. Shukshin’s Кaк пoмиpaл cтapик is a story about a gravely ill old man who is on his deathbed. He is losing his strength, lacks appetite, and only asks for a glass of vodka, which he considers a cure for everything. His wife agrees to this request, yet expresses her displeasure in the way shown in Table 5. Table 5 The original excerpt from Кaк пoмиpaл cтapик and its English translations The original

Translation by Hosking

Translation by Ward and Iliffe

Translation by Smith

– Xoть cчac-тo нe epeпeньcя! – тoжe c дocaдoй cкaзaлa cтapyxa. – «Cyндyки»(…) Oднoй yж нoгoй тaм cтoит, a ишo шeбapшит кoгo-тo (Кaк пoмиpaл cтapик, p. 239)

“You and your dunderheads. One foot in the grave, and there you are mad as a wet hen. (…)” (How the Old Man Died, 1979, p. 98)

“Calm down!” retorted the old woman, equally annoyed. “As if I’d hide it away! One foot in the grave and still complaining. (…)” (The Old Man’s Dying, 1985, p. 85)

“Just don’t get all hoofy!” said the old woman, vexed herself now. “‘Blockhead.’ He’s got one foot in the grave, and he’s still making a fuss. (…)” (How the Old Man Died, 1990, p. 33)

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The original oднoй нoгoй cтoять denotes ‘to be dying, to be near death’ (SFPS). The translators recognized the Russian normative fixed phrase (cтoять oднoй нoгoй в мoгилe), despite Shukshin’s modifications. Each time it was reproduced by means of an English idiom (cf. CALD) with identical meaning but different structure. However, only in two out of three cases an attempt at recreating Shukshin’s modification can be observed. The latest translation by Smith lacks occasional omission. The two previous translations do include non-optional component omission but it was the verb (have) that was dropped instead of the prepositional phrase (in the grave). Thus Hosking’s and Ward and Iliffe’s translations can regarded as more creative and faithful to the original. The following idiomatic expression is a result of Shukshin’s modification which involved changing the nominal component from гaлимaтью [rubbish, nonsense in the accusative case] to бpeдятинy [rubbish, nonsense], thus creating a new unrecorded variant. Numerous variants have been previously recorded, but Shukshin was the first one to invent this particular form. Monya Kvasov, the main character of Shukshin’s Упopный, works as a driver. He is convinced he succeeded in inventing a perpetual-motion machine. Excited, Monya informs a local engineer about it, but is met only with criticism, which is illustrated in Table 6. The author’s бpeдятинy нecти means ‘to talk nonsense, rubbish’ (SFPS). In both cases the meaning was recreated by an accurate definition, but the unusual form was not reproduced. The informal word gibberish is closer to the speech of Shukshinian characters than neutral nonsense (cf. MEDAL). Another example of structural modification is a substitution of the noun пpoфeccop [professor] for дoктop [equivalent to PhD]. Andrei, the carpenter, buys a microscope and for fear that his wife will be displeased, he decides to keep it secret from her. When she finds out that the microscope was bought from the household budget and was not a reward for Andrei’s hard work, she is angry and starts an argument with her husband addressing him in the way demonstrated in Table 7. The writer’s дoктop киcлыx щeй has the following meaning: ‘disdainfully and ironically about a person who considers themselves wise and educated’ (SYVS). In the Table 6 The original excerpt from Упopный and its English translations The original

Translation by Smith

Translation by Michael and Givens

– Boт видишь(…) Чeгo жe ты тaкyю бpeдятинy нeceшь cидишь? Caм шoфep, c тexникoй знaкoм(…) Чтo, нeyжeли вepишь в этoт cвoй двигaтeль? (Упopный, p. 571)

“So why are you going around talking nonsense? You’re a truck-driver, and you know something about technical matters. Therefore, I find it hard to believe that you actually take this perpetual motion machine nonsense seriously.” (The Stubborn Fellow, 1990, p. 350)

“So how come you’re sitting here talking such gibberish? You’re a driver, you’re familiar with machinery(…) You don’t really believe in this invention of yours, do you?” (Stubborn, 1996, p. 170)

“I’ll Give Them a Piece of My Mind” …

39

Table 7 The original excerpt from Mикpocкoп and its English translations The original

Translation by Ward and Iliffe

Translation by Michael and Givens

Cтapший cынишкaпятиклaccник зacмeялcя. Maть дaлa eмy пoдзaтыльник. Пoтoм пoдвeлa к микpocкoпy млaдшиx. – Hy-кa, ты, дoктop киcлыx щeй!.. Дaй дeтям пocмoтpeть. Уcтaвилcя(…) (Mикpocкoп, p. 307)

The elder son, the elevenyear old, started to laugh. Zoya gave him a cuff round the ear. Then she brought the smaller children to have a look. “Alright, Professor! Let the kids have a look. Hogging it all the time.” (The Microscope, 1985, p. 18)

The older son, the fifthgrader, burst out laughing. His mother whacked him on the back of the head. Then she brought the younger kids over to the microscope. “Okay you, Mr. Ph. D. of sour cabbage soup! Give the children a look. Quit hoggin’ it.” (The Microscope, 1996, p. 33)

1985 translation the translators did not make an attempt to reproduce Shukshinian form and instead used the word Professor which only expresses irony. The 1996 version is an almost exact calque of the Russian occassionalism, but the question about how understandable it is for the English-speaking audience remains open. The Russian reader is more likely to properly decode the figurative meaning of this innovation, as the phrase existed before Shukshin in two different variants, whereas speakers of English have never had a chance to see an equivalent phrase in their language, so even if the meaning can be grasped from the context, the phrase remains foreign in English and is not likely to evoke similar associations without further explanation. In the next idiomatic expression Shukshin only changed the numeral from пять [five] to вoceмь [eight] to adjust it to the context of his story. Bronka Pupkov, the main character of Mиль пapдoн, мaдaм!, in his youth accidently shot off two of his fingers while he was out hunting. Shukshin’s modification and its respective translations can be seen in Table 8. The original знaть кaк cвoи вoceмь пaльцeв denotes ‘to know something very well, thoroughly’ In the above cases, units in the target language were modeled on the source language. Some additional elements were introduced in the 1979 and 1990 translations. Both of them include as well as and in one case one can also notice the word remaining. Both translations should be considered successful. Yet even more successful was the translation by Michael and Givens. It was a clever attempt to render the creative aspect of Shukshin’s language by means of introducing modifications to an English idiom to know something like the back of one’s hand (cf. CALD).

7.3

Semantic Idiomatic Expressions

Units belonging to this category had their meaning changed by Shukshin, yet no structural modifications were made. To retain his credibility, Bronka Pupkov says that many war heroes remain unknown and this is the reason why people do not know about his assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler. His words are presented in Table 9.

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Table 8 The original excerpt from Mиль пapдoн, мaдaм! and its English translations The original

Translation by Hosking

Translation by Smith

Translation by Michael and Givens

Бpoнькa ждaл гopoдcкиx oxoтникoв кaк пpaздникa. И кoгдa oни пpиxoдили, oн был гoтoв – xoть нa нeдeлю, xoть нa мecяц. Mecтa здeшниe oн знaл кaк cвoи вoceмь пaльцeв, oxoтник был yмный и yдaчливый (Mиль пapдoн, мaдaм!, p. 255)

Bronka always looked forward to the hunting parties as kind of festival. And whenever they came, he was always willing to take off as much time as they liked— a week, a month. He knew the area as well as his eight fingers, and he had a real flair for hunting (Mille Pardons, Madame!, 1979, p. 42)

For Bronka, acting as a guide for hunters from the city was a real holiday. Whenever they came around, he was always willing to go with them for a week or even a month. He knew the area as well as he did his remaining eight fingers, and moreover he was a clever and lucky hunter (I Beg Your Pardon, Madam!, 1990, p. 123)

Bronka awaited the arrival of city hunters like a holiday. And when they came, he was ready —whether for a week or for a month. He knew the local country like the back of his eight-fingered hands. And he was a clever, lucky hunter (Mille Pardons, Madame!, 1996, p. 90)

Table 9 The original excerpt from Mиль пapдoн, мaдaм! and its English translations The original

Translation by Hosking

Translation by Smith

Translation by Michael and Givens

B этoм-тo вcя тpaгeдия, чтo мнoгo гepoeв ocтaютcя пoд cyкнoм (Mиль пapдoн, мaдaм!, p. 256)

“(…) That’s the whole tragedy, that so many heroes remain unsung.” (Mille Pardons, Madame!, 1979, p. 42)

“(…) The tragedy of it is that so many heroes remain unsung.” (I Beg Your Pardon, Madam!, 1990, p. 125)

“(…) That’s the whole tragedy, that many heroes are still under wraps.” (Mille Pardons, Madame!, 1996, p. 92)

The Russian idiom ocтaвaтьcя пoд cyкнoм had its semantics changed to ‘to be unknown’ (SFPS). The traditional meaning of this idiomatic expression in Russian refers to things that have either been forgotten or not taken care of and is not related to people (RNC).2 Semantic shift was correctly recognized and conveyed in the English versions. Yet the 1996 translation by means of the semantically close idiom be under wraps seems to be more accurate than the non-idiomatic phrase remain unsung applied in the two previous translations (cf. AHD). Even though the translations by Hosking and Smith recreate the semantic innovation, they lack figurativeness.

2

First recorded use in RNC dates back to 1848.

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Table 10 The original excerpt from Macтep and its English translations The original

Translation by Fiedorow

Translation by Cook

Oн мoг тaкoй шкaф излaдить, чтo y людeй глaзa paзбeгaлиcь. Пpиeзжaли издaлeкa, пpocили cдeлaть, плaтили бoльшиe дeньги (Macтep, p. 376)

You ought to see the kind of cupboard he could make; it would dumbfound you. People came from afar, asked him to build things for and offered large sums of money (The Master, 1979, p. 105)

He could make a cupboard that fair took your breath away. People came from all over and offered him plenty of cash to make them things (A Master Craftsman, 1990, p. 193)

In Chebrovka village lives Syomka Rys, who is the finest carpenter in the region. He is so skilful that people come from afar and are overwhelmed with the beauty of the furniture he makes, which is shown in Table 10. In the context of Shukshin’s short story Macтep the Russian глaзa paзбeгaютcя y кoгo means ‘to be staggered or surprised’. The original meaning that is fixed in Russian can be defined as follows ‘to be unable to concentrate, focus on one thing because of overwhelming sensations’ (FSRY). Both translations convey the new Shukshinian sense. Fiedorow reduced the occasional idiomatic expression to a single word dumbfound, whereas Cook applied an English idiom take one’s breath away. Translating an idiom with another idiom seems the most appropriate solution, since it reproduces not only the meaning but also the way of expressing ideas.

8 Conclusion The analysis of the studied material is a testimony to the proper identification of authorial units in the original texts both in terms of their form and meaning. The decisions regarding translation of the same source language units are sometimes diverse and sometimes similar. The translators mainly focus on conveying meaning and, to a lesser degree, on recreating the author’s manner. They use idiomatic expressions of the target language as translation equivalents, recreating their form and meaning in accordance to what is registered in dictionaries or by introducing modifications (ellipsis or addition of components), and also by copying the structure of Shukshin’s creations. They also render their meaning into English by means of non-idiomatic phrases, single words and by defining units from the original text. Modifications of normative English idioms and calques of the structure of authorial units which acquire a new meaning in a given context, thus becoming understandable for speakers of English, are deemed to be the most accurate solutions. This way, not only meaning is recreated but also the author’s inventiveness, the exception being a calque of a culture specific phrase, where the writer makes a modification of an idiom that is well-known to a Russian speaker. The idiom in question contains the name of a soup (киcлыe щи) which can be easily prepared.

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This, in turn, creates connotations that may not be obvious for a foreign reader without further explanation. Occasional units appearing in the translated texts and structural calques are in the minority in the studied material. They are dominated by normative idiomatic expressions with equivalent semantics but dissimilar form but also by non-idiomatic semantic equivalents. It is not always the case that Shukshin’s individualism can be found in translation. Many translation equivalents are stylistically charged, which undoubtedly constitutes some compensation for the author’s creations. It allows to imitate characters’ speech and reproduce the range of emotions and opinions. As far as stylistics is concerned, descriptive translation is the most neutral. The comparison of translation techniques applied in order to render authorial units belonging to the class of structural-and-semantic, structural or semantic does not allow to observe any major differences. The only exception is the fact that the translators did not utilize modified forms of English idiomatic expressions while recreating semantic occasionalisms. The translation of idiomatic expressions, especially their artistic innovations, is a daunting task which requires a perfect command of both languages and a creative approach on the translators’ part.

Source material Shukshin, V. (1973). I want to live. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Shukshin, V. (1979). Snowball Berry Red and other stories. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis Publishers. Shukshin, V. (1985). Roubles in words, Kopeks in figures. London: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd. Shukshin, V. (1990). Short stories. Moscow: Raduga Publishers. Shukshin, V. (1996). Stories from a Siberian Village. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. Шyкшин, B. M. (2012). Пoлнoe coбpaниe paccкaзoв в oднoм тoмe. Mocквa: Экcмo.

References Brown, K. (Ed.). (2006). Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (Vol. V). Amsterdam: Elsevier. Chlebda, W. (2015). Frazeologia. In S. Gajda (Ed.), Język polski (pp. 178–206). Opole: Instytut Filologii Polskiej. Cowie, A. P. (2016). Stable and creative aspects of vocabulary use. In R. Carter & M. J. McCarthy (Eds.), Vocabulary and language teaching (pp. 126–139). London: Longman. Crystal, D. (2001). The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dziamska-Lenart, G. (1973). Innowacje frazeologiczne w powojennej felietonistyce polskiej. Poznań: Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Fernando, Ch., & Flavell, R. H. (1976). On idiom: Critical view and perspectives. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Fowler, H. W., & Fowler, F. G. (2001). The King’s English. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Grambs, D. (1974). Words about words. New York: Mc Graw-Hill Book Company.

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Majkowska, G. (2011). Klasyfikacja semantyczna zamierzonych modyfikacji związków frazeologicznych. In M. Basaj & D. Rytel (Eds.), Z problemów frazeologii polskiej i słowiańskiej (Vol. V, pp. 143–163). Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wydawnictwo PAN. Markowski, A. (2007). Kultura języka polskiego. Teoria. Zagadnienia leksykalne. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Marszałek, M., & Tołkaczewski, F. (1972). Индивидyaльнo-aвтopcкaя лeкcикa в пpoизвeдeнияx Bacилия Шyкшинa. Slavia Orientalis, LXVII(1), 129–142. Moon, R. (1999). Fixed expressions and idioms in English. A corpus-based approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Müldner-Nieckowski, P. (2004). Frazeologia poszerzona. Studium leksykograficzne. Warszawa: Oficyna Wydawnicza Volumen. Pajdzińska, A. (2006). Frazeologizmy jako tworzywo współczesnej poezji. Lublin: Agencja Wydawniczo-Handlowa Antoni Dudek. Parizoska, J. (2001). False pairs in phraseology. In C. Cosme, C. Gouverneur, F. Meunier, & M. Paquot (Eds.), Phraseology 2005. The many faces of Phraseology. An interdisciplinary conference (pp. 327–329). Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre for English Corpus Linguistics. Pędyczak, S. (1988). O rozwoju zasobu frazeologicznego współczesnego języka rosyjskiego. Warszawa: PWN. Pleciński, J. (2010). Neologizmy autorskie w przekładzie. Vitorio Kali: “Terramoto” (“Trzęsienie ziemi”). In K. Hejwowski (Ed.), Tłumaczenie – leksyka, frazeologia, styl (pp. 146–151). Warszawa: Instytut Lingwistyki Stosowanej UW. Steinmetz, S., & Kipfer, B. A. (2004). The life of language: The fascinating ways words are born, live & die. New York, NY: Random House Reference. Wray, A. (1981). Formulaic language and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aндpиeнкo, A. A. & Бeлoycoвa, H. B. (2017). Интepтeкcтyaльныe включeния кaк cpeдcтвo coздaния иpoнии и cпocoбы иx пepeвoдa нa aнглийcкий язык (нa мaтepиaлe пpoизвeдeний B. M. Шyкшинa). In Text. Literary Work. Reader: Materials of the IV International Scientific Conference on May 20–21, 2017 (pp. 43 48). Prague: Sociosféra. Бypoв, A. A., & Кpивeцкaя, Э. C. (1984). Oккaзиoнaльнaя фpaзeoлoгичecкaя нoминaция кaк cpeдcтвo выpaжeния языкoвoй личнocти aвтopa xyдoжecтвeннoгo тeкcтa (мoнoгpaфия). Пятигopcк: ПГЛУ-ПГTУ. Bлaxoв, C., & Флopин, C. (1988). Heпepeвoдимoe в пepeвoдe. Mocквa: Международные отношения. Гивeнc, Дж. (1995). Лeкcикo-ceмaнтичecкиe ocoбeннocти paccкaзa в aнглийcкoм пepeвoдe. In B. A. Чecнoкoвa (Ed.), Paccкaз B. M. Шyкшинa «Cpeзaл»: Пpoблeмы aнaлизa, интepпpeтaции, пepeвoдa (pp. 112–121). Бapнayл: Изд-вo Aлт. yн-тa. Дeмидoвa, E. B. (2015). Пepeвoды paccкaзoв B. M. Шyкшинa нa aнглийcкий язык кaк тpaнcлятop нaциoнaльнoй и peгиoнaльнoй лингвoкyльтypы. In И. A. Шyшapинa (Ed.), Филoлoгичecкиe знaния нa coвpeмeннoм этaпe: cбopник cтaтeй (pp. 10 14). Кypгaн: Издвo Кypгaнcкoгo гocyдapcтвeннoгo yнивepcитeтa. Дeмидoвa, E. B. (1998). Aнглoязычныe пepeвoды paccкaзoв B. M. Шyкшинa в пpocтpaнcтвe мeжкyльтypнoй кoммyникaции (к пocтaнoвкe пpoблeмы). Cимвoл нayки, 2, 65–66. Кaзaкoвa, T. A. (2007). Пpaктичecкиe ocнoвы пepeвoдa. CПб: Издaтeльcтвo Coюз. Лoпaтин, B. B. (1993). Poждeниe cлoвa. Heoлoгизмы и oккaзиoнaльныe oбpaзoвaния. Mocквa: Hayкa. Лыкoв, A. Г. (2005). Coвpeмeннaя pyccкaя лeкcикoлoгия (pyccкoe oккaзиoнaльнoe cлoвo). Mocквa: Bыcшaя шкoлa. Mapьин, Д. B. & Чecнoкoвa, B. A. (2001). Пpoзa B. M. Шyкшинa в мeжкyльтypнoй кoммyникaции (нa мaтepиaлe aнглoязычныx пepeвoдoв). In A. A. Чyвaкин (Ed.), Язык пpoзы B. M. Шyкшинa. Teopия. Haблюдeния. Лeкcикoгpaфичecкoe oпиcaниe: cб. cт. (pp. 27–38). Бapнayл: Изд-вo Aлт. yн-тa. Peцкep, Я. И. (2010). Teopия пepeвoдa и пepeвoдчecкaя пpaктикa: Oчepки лингвиcтичecкoй тeopии пepeвoдa. Mocквa: Meждyнapoдныe oтнoшeния.

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Tpeтьякoвa, И. Ю. (2006). Oккaзиoнaлныe фpaзeoлoгизмы и кoнтeкcт. Яpocлaвcкий пeдaгoгичecкий вecтник, 1(2), 161–163. Фeльдмaн, H. И. (2002). Oккaзиoнaльныe cлoвa и лeкcикoгpaфия. Boпpocы языкoзнaния, 4, 64–73. Xaнпиpa, Э. И. (1972). Oккaзиoнaльныe элeмeнты в coвpeмeннoй peчи. In B. Д. Лeвин (Ed.), Cтилиcтичecкиe иccлeдoвaния (нa мaтepиaлe coвpeмeннoгo pyccкoгo языкa) (pp. 245– 317). Mocквa: Hayкa. Чecнoкoвa, B. A. (1999). Издaния, библиoгpaфия, пepeвoды. In C. M. Кoзлoвa (Ed.), Tвopчecтвo B. M. Шyкшинa в coвpeмeннoм миpe (pp. 6–11). Бapнayл: Изд вo AГУ. Чyвaкин, A. A. (Ed.). (2004). Tвopчecтвo B.M. Шyкшинa. Энциклoпeдичecкий cлoвapь cпpaвoчник (Vol. 1). Бapнayл: Изд.-вo AГУ.

Dictionaries AHD. (2016). The American heritage dictionary of the English language. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. BSRP—Moкиeнкo, B. M. & Hикитинa, T. Г. (2007). Бoльшoй cлoвapь pyccкиx пoгoвopoк. Mocквa: OЛMA Meдиa Гpyпп. BSRRR—Xимик, B. B. (2004). Бoльшoй cлoвapь pyccкoй paзгoвopнoй экcпpeccивнoй peчи. CПб: Hopинт. CALD—MacIntosh, C. (Ed.). (2013). Cambridge advanced learner’s dictionary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. FISD. (2017). The Farlex idioms and slang dictionary. USA, Ireland. FSRY—Moлoткoв, A. И. Ed. (1967). Фpaзeoлoгичecкий cлoвapь pyccкoгo языкa. Mocквa: Coвeтcкaя Энциклoпeдия. MEDAL. (2007). Macmillan English dictionary for advanced learners. Oxford: Macmillan Education. NAID—Spears, R. A. (1994). NTC’s American idioms dictionary. Lincolnwood (Chicago), IL: NTC Publishing Group. ODEI—Ayto, J. (Ed.). (2009). Oxford dictionary of English idioms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. RANSL—Квeceлeвич, Д. И. (2002). Pyccкo-aнглийcкий cлoвapь нeнopмaтивнoй лeкcики [Dictionary of Unconvential Russian. Russian-English]. Mocквa: Acтpeль, ACT. RNC—Haциoнaльный кopпyc pyccкoгo языкa. Retrieved from http://ruscorpora.ru/search-main. html. SFPS—Coлoвьeвa, A. Д. (2004). Cлoвapь фpaзeoлoгизмoв в пpoизвeдeнияx B. M. Шyкшинa. In A.A. Чyвaкин (Ed.), Tвopчecтвo B. M. Шyкшинa. Энциклoпeдичecкий cлoвapьcпpaвoчник (Vol. 1, pp. 208–331). Бapнayл: Изд.-вo AГУ. SYVS—Eлиcтpaтoв, B. C. (2001). Cлoвapь языкa Bacилия Шyкшинa. Mocквa: Aзбyкoвник, Pyccкиe cлoвapи. Bopoбьeвa, И. A. (2002). Cлoвapь диaлeктизмoв в пpoизвeдeнияx B. M. Шyкшинa. Бapнayл: Изд.-вo AГУ.

Filip Tołkaczewski is a PhD student of linguistics and lecturer in the Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He has published on topics in Translation Studies and his main research interests include translation and the language of Vasily Shukshin, especially his lexical creations and modification of single- and multi-word units. His publications include Okazjonalizmy Wasilija Szukszyna w przekładzie na język polski (2017) and the co-written article Индивидуально-авторская лексика в произведениях Василия Шукшина (2018).

“Mountains of Whipped Cream”, King Matt and the Discursive Presence of the Translator Michał Borodo

Abstract The article focuses on translators’ discursive presence in two American translations of Polish children’s classic Król Maciuś Pierwszy (1923), that is Matthew the Young King (1945) and King Matt the First (1986). More specifically, it demonstrates how in different socio-historical circumstances the two translations communicated references to eating and drinking and descriptions of various food items and alcoholic drinks to younger readers. The translations in question exhibit widely differing approaches and strategies of children’s literature translators in this respect, ranging from omission and mitigation of potentially controversial passages, through addition and amplification, with the aim of catering for the tastes of younger audiences, to foreignization.

1 Introduction References to eating and drinking and descriptions of exquisite dishes and mouth-watering delicacies abound in children’s fiction. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the main protagonist’s constant shrinking and growing is always the consequence of either eating or drinking. Food is a central motif in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, from the omnipresent, distasteful cabbage served in Charlie’s poor family, through the famous chocolate bars with five golden tickets, to the fabulous interiors of Mr. Wonka’s factory, filled by Dahl with all kinds of candy. From the house made of candy and cake in Hansel and Gretel, through Winnie-the-Pooh’s affinity to honey, to the detailed descriptions of extraordinary dishes and memorable feasts prepared for Hogwarts students in Harry Potter, the passages describing eating and drinking are a vital ingredient of some of the greatest literature for younger readers. An intriguing question from the point of view of translation is what happens to such descriptions in a different language and in a new cultural milieu. After all, food M. Borodo (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_4

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is a particularly strong marker of culture. According to Chiaro and Rossato, food “is the cornerstone of life and lies at the heart of our cultural identity” (2015, p. 239), the reason why it is important “to pay attention to our awareness of its cultural and social significance as well as how practices related to it travel in time and space across languages and cultures” (2015, p. 237). This appears to be especially relevant in the case of children’s literature. How to communicate (potentially incomprehensible) references to unfamiliar dishes or (potentially controversial) references to alcoholic drinks to younger readers? How are such references dealt with if the original and its translations span over a longer period of time? The English translations examined in this article exhibit different approaches and strategies of children’s literature translators, ranging from omission and mitigation, through addition and amplification, to foreignization. The article will examine these questions with a focus on the discursive presence of the translator (Hermans, 1996), in the context of selected theoretical perspectives on translated children’s literature (Shavit, 1986; Stolt, 1978; Oittinen, 1990, 2000; O’Sullivan, 2005) and with reference to translators’ treatment of cultural specificity (Venuti, 1995). The illustrative material used in this study has been derived from two American translations of Polish all-time children’s classic, Król Maciuś Pierwszy, written in 1923 by the Polish-Jewish writer and pedagogue Janusz Korczak. The first of these translations, entitled Matthew the Young King, was created by Edith and Sidney Sulkin and published in New York in 1945. The second translation, by Richard Lourie, appeared in America in 1986 under the title King Matt the First.

2 The Translator’s Discursive Presence The concept of the discursive presence of the translator was introduced into translation studies by Hermans (1996), who argues that “it is not only reasonable but necessary to postulate the presence of the Translator’s discursive presence in translated fiction” (p. 42). Hermans (1996) begins his essay with a reference to interpreting, observing that we have been conditioned to perceive the voice of the interpreter as “a carrier without a substance of its own” (p. 23). He then refers to literary translation, with regard to which he poses several questions: Does the translator, the manual labour done, disappear without textual trace, speaking entirely ‘under erasure’? Can translators usurp the original voice and in the same move evacuate their own enunciatory space? Exactly whose voice comes to us when we read translated discourse? (Hermans, 1996, p. 26)

Commenting on the plurivocal nature of translated narrative discourse, Hermans (1996, p. 27) notes that in such discourse one can discern “a ‘second’ voice”, that is “the Translator’s voice, as an index of the Translator’s discursive presence.” This voice may either “remain entirely hidden behind that of the Narrator” or become

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“most directly and forcefully present when it breaks through the surface of the text speaking for itself, in its own name, for example in a paratextual Translator’s Note” (Hermans, 1996, p. 27). Hermans (1996) specifies that the voice of the translator manifests itself in three cases in particular. Firstly, it may be seen when in a new cultural and socio-historical context the culturally embedded source text is reoriented towards the new reader, different from that of the original, to safeguard communication with the new target audience (p. 28). It also manifests itself when the translator explicitly intervenes into discourse when confronted with the demanding task of recreating wordplay, polysemy or other comparable devices, which are sometimes rendered discreetly and imperceptibly for the reader but sometimes through the use of notes and brackets, immediately revealing the translator’s presence (Hermans, 1996, p. 29). The third case mentioned by Hermans (1996) is referred to as “contextual overdetermination”, which concerns the situations in which the links between different narrative levels or in the chain of character identification are made more explicit by the translator (pp. 38–41). Interestingly, speaking in favour of the plurivocal nature of translation and critically of perceiving translation as transparent, secondary and derivative, Hermans sometimes himself uses the terms suggestive of the approach he criticizes. This is noticeable when, for example, he refers to the translator as “co-producing the discourse, shadowing, mimicking and, as it were, counterfeiting the Narrator’s words” or when he notes that “the Translator’s voice insinuates itself into the discourse” (Hermans, 1996, p. 43, emphasis mine), in which cases the references to “counterfeiting” and “insinuating” possess negative overtones. According to O’Sullivan (2005), translated children’s literature constitutes a particularly fertile ground for the study of translators’ discursive presence. Created with a young audience in mind, it is often transformed to a much greater extent than translated literature for adults, influenced by translators’ perception of children’s capabilities, needs, wants, understanding of the notion of childhood in a particular culture and of what is appropriate for children at different stages of their development (O’Sullivan, 2005, p. 110). O’Sullivan points to two levels on which it is possible to identify the discursive presence of the translator. On the one hand, she mentions translators’ paratextual interventions, such as the addition of explanatory footnotes, forewords, glossaries, etc., where the voice of the translator can be clearly heard (O’Sullivan, 2005, p. 109). The other level she distinguishes is the discursive level. Here, “the voice of the narrator of the translation” can either mimic the original narrator, retaining the address of the original, or it can be dislocated from the original narrator, taking control of the original text and appropriating it, effectively transforming the original address (ibid.). Such transformations are illustrated by O’Sullivan, (2005, pp. 114–129) with the examples of “amplifying narration”, the effect achieved through introducing explanatory additions or didactic comments into the running text, “reductive narration”, concerned with suppressing and omitting the original humour or parody, as well as what she refers to as “drowning out” the original narrator, which strategy seems to have been more common in earlier translations of children’s literature.

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Translators’ discursive presence may also be linked to the socio-literary norms exerting influence on the choices made in the process of rendering children’s books from one language into another. Stolt (1978, p. 134), for example, distinguishes three trends noticeable in the decisions made by translators and publishers. She points to the educational trend, which manifests itself in introducing didacticism and censoring the elements considered unsuitable. The second trend concerns the adjustments of the original text to children’s needs and capabilities, as they are perceived by adults, in which case the “generally accepted and wide-spread custom of substituting names” may serve as an illustration (Stolt, 1978, p. 136). The third tendency is referred to as “sentimentalizing” and “prettifying” books in translation, or, to repeat after the children’s author Astrid Lindgren, “the ambition of many a translator to make everything a bit more beautiful and more full of genuine feeling” (as cited in Stolt, 1978, p. 137). In a similar vein, Shavit (1986, p. 113) writes of the educational trend and the comprehensibility constraint on translated children’s books. According to the latter constraint, the original text should be adjusted to children’s capabilities, as they are construed in society, whereas the educational constraint requires that the reading be in some way valuable for the child and the subjects considered inappropriate deleted (Shavit, 1986, p. 113). Among the controversial subjects which have been traditionally censored in translations for children one can mention death, violence, religion, sex, nudity, eroticism, bodily functions, racial issues, children’s improper conduct and criticism of adults, among others (e.g., O’Sullivan, 2005, pp. 82–91; Thomson-Wohlgemuth, 2004; Van Coillie, 2011). Some theoreticians go as far as to claim that in the case of children’ literature certain far-reaching translational interventions are advisable or even necessary, arguing that the translator should enter into a dialogical relationship with the original text, expressing it in new ways and transforming if necessary. Oittinen (1990, p. 49), for example, claims that: The assumption is made that denying or relativizing the authority of the original inevitably leads to disrespect for it. This is not the case. On the contrary, a dialogic relationship rather than submission to the authority of the original means placing a high value on the original and finding ways to express the original in a fresh and living way for the reading child.

Oittinen’s liberal thinking is also noticeable when she repeats after the Swedish children’s writer Lennart Hellsing that: “[e]ven tales by H. C. Andersen should be adapted to keep them readable; they must be adapted or die” (2000, p. 80) or when she suggests that it may be acceptable to omit “less successful elements in the original” that could “weaken the translation” (2000, p. 163). Finally, in a broader sense, translators’ discursive presence is also noticeable in their consistent and deliberate use of certain culture-specific expressions and the employment of either domesticating or foreignizing translation strategies. The two terms were introduced into translation studies by Venuti (1995, p. 20), who claims that the translator is confronted with a choice between domestication, that is the “reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values” and foreignization, whose aim is “to register the linguistic and cultural difference of the foreign text”.

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A domesticated translation will “conform to values currently dominating the target-language culture, taking a conservative and openly assimilationist approach to the foreign text, appropriating it to support domestic canons, publishing trends, political alignments” (Venuti, 1998, p. 240). A foreignized translation, on the other hand, will preserve cultural difference through foregrounding the foreignness of the source text. It may also take the form of a linguistically disturbing and defamiliarizing version, for example when the translator deliberately retains a culture-specific item from the source culture, which is not immediately understandable in the target culture. The discursive presence is thus not merely the effect of the intrinsic features of the target language imposing themselves on the translated text. It reveals itself in the idiosyncratic decisions of translators, who may resort to various additions, omissions and modifications, either adapting or foregrounding cultural specificity, explicating what remains inexplicit in the original, using glossaries, forewords, footnotes and notes, simplifying, sentimentalizing or dramatizing the original, omitting controversial or humorous content or resorting to didacticism. To repeat after Munday (2008, p. 13), who examines Latin American writing in English translation, “[a]lthough the words of the ST [Source Text] are a basic constraint against which the TT [Target Text] choices may be measured, the translator may deliberately choose to subvert them or may unconsciously distort them”. Before examining concrete translators’ discursive presence, however, some contextual information about the two American translations of the 1923 Polish children’s classic should be provided.

3 The American Translators of the Novel The first American translation of Korczak’s Król Maciuś Pierwszy was jointly created by Edith and Sidney Sulkin, who were a married couple at the time, and published by New York-based Roy Publishers in 1945. Edith was “born in Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution. She spent her early years in Eastern Europe. Educated in England, she came to the United States on Labor Day of 1939, four days after the outbreak of World War II” (Exton, 2001, p. 389). During her early years, spent in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, she was constantly on the move, attending twelve schools in five different countries, including Poland, Czechoslovakia, Germany and Britain (Sulkin, [1947] 2000, p. 5). In 1939, Edith’s family safely reached America and settled in New York, in Manhattan. As a polyglot, familiar with several European languages, Edith Sulkin began the career of a translator, journalist and editor. She is also the author of Continent in Limbo ([1947] 2000), which recounts her trip across post-war Europe, the semi-autobiographical An Invented Life (2001) as well as the collection entitled The Golden Village and Other Stories (2003). Sidney Sulkin, born in Boston in 1918 as a son of immigrants from Eastern Europe, also pursued the career of a journalist, editor, writer and translator. A graduate of Harvard University, he worked as a “chief of worldwide English

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programs at the Voice of America and chief of news of the American Broadcasting Station in Europe” as well as a special correspondent for CBS (Levy, 1995). He is the author of The Family Man, a novel published in 1962, and the collection of short stories and poetry published under the title The Secret Seed in 1983. Matthew the Young King was apparently the only children’s book translated by Edith and Sidney Sulkin into English. In all probability, it had no re-editions after 1945. The second translation of Korczak’s classic was created forty years later by Richard Lourie. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1940, he comes from the family of Lithuanian Jews who emigrated to the USA. Lourie recalls that he felt very American as a child but at the same time was growing up in the family which retained some of their Eastern customs that Lourie associates with the Russian Empire (Lourie, 2013a, c). He knew many Russian words from home and was always intrigued by Russia, the land of the ‘enemy’, situated behind the Iron Curtain, but also the country associated with his family’s history. After reading Crime and Punishment, which made a profound impression on the seventeen-year-old would-be translator, Lourie (2013b) decided to read the novel in the original. He also made a decision to study Russian literature and moved from Boston to Berkeley, where he met Czesław Miłosz, who became his mentor and then a colleague in Berkeley, and with whom he developed a close relationship which lasted for forty-four years (Lourie 2013c). Apart from King Matt the First, Lourie translated more than forty books from Polish and Russian into English, for example Czesław Miłosz’s Visions from San Francisco Bay (1975), Tadeusz Konwicki’s The Polish Complex (1982) and Minor Apocalypse (1983) and My Century: The Odyssey of a Polish Intellectual (1988), an abridged version of Aleksander Wat’s Mój wiek. He is also a journalist and political commentator, and the author of fiction and non-fiction, including such titles as Hunting the Devil (1993), The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin: A Novel (1999), Sakharov: A Biography (2002), A Hatred for Tulips (2007) and Putin: His Downfall and Russia’s Coming Crash (2017). Lourie’s 1986 translation of King Matt the First was re-published in 2004, by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, and in 2015 by Vintage Classics, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

4 Mountains of Whipped Cream or the Best Dried Kielbasa? The American translations by Lourie and the Sulkins differ in a number of ways, with the 1945 text being a free translation, containing numerous deletions and additions, and the 1986 translation being much more accurate, even literal in places. This may be illustrated with the passages in Table 1, focusing on the ministers’ visit at a café after they were released from prison by King Matt. The two translated passages differ significantly. While in the opening sentence both Lourie and the Sulkins inform the reader about the ministers’ release and visit

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Table 1 The ministers’ visit at a café in the translations by Lourie and the Sulkins Korczak (1923)

Lourie (1986)

The Sulkins (1945)

Jak tylko ministrowie wyszli z więzienia, zaraz poszli do cukierni na kawę ze śmietanką i ciastka z kremem. (…) Zjedli po cztery ciastka z kremem, wypili kawę ze śmietanką i poszli do domu (Korczak, 1923/1992, p. 73)

As soon as the ministers were released from prison, they went straight to a café for coffee and cream cake. (…) They each ate four cream cakes, drank their coffee, and went home (Korczak, 1986, p. 105)

Immediately after their release from prison the Ministers stopped at a restaurant for coffee and cake. They ordered large slices of cake with mountains of whipped cream (…) each of them gobbled up four huge slices of cake. Finally, when they could eat no more, they went home (Korczak, 1945, p. 117)

at a café, the Sulkins decided to amplify some of the meanings in the sentences that follow. In the 1945 version, the ministers order no ordinary cakes, but “large slices of cake with mountains of whipped cream”. Then, whereas in the original the ministers “each ate four cream cakes”, in the 1945 translation they “gobbled up huge slices of cake”. It is thus again emphasized that the slices of cake were exceptionally large and were not simply consumed but eaten greedily and completely. Following this, in the original the ministers drink their coffee and go home. Coffee is omitted from the translation by the Sulkins, who instead continue describing the eating experience, noting that the ministers went home “when they could eat no more”. The Sulkins thus amplified several references to eating in this passage. The slices of cakes are “large” and “huge”, with “mountains of whipped cream”, and are “gobbled up” by the ministers, who “could eat no more” in the end. Instead of aiming at creating a semantically accurate translation, the Sulkins decided to cater for the tastes of younger readers, humorously exploiting the theme of children’s fantasies about mouth-watering delicacies and extraordinary dishes. What could be funnier from a child’s perspective than serious and elegantly dressed adults greedily eating “slices of cake with mountains of whipped cream”, ending up completely full and unable to eat any more? The discursive presence of the translators reveals itself in this passage in that a fairly ordinary visit at a café was transformed into a comical and exaggerated description of a feast during which gluttonous ministers devour gargantuan quantities of cream cake. A similar tendency to amplify and modify certain aspects of Korczak’s original is also observable in another passage, presented in Table 2, which describes dinner prepared by the royal cook for the ministers. While in the original the royal cook set out “the silver dishes” and poured the wine into “the carafes”, in the translation by the Sulkins he set out “silver platters laden with food” and poured the wine into “golden goblets”. In the 1945 translation, the platters are heavily loaded with food, which remains inexplicit in the original, whereas the carafes, traditionally glass containers, were replaced with goblets made of gold. Unlike the more down-to-earth passage in original, the description is more

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Table 2 Dinner prepared by the royal cook in the translations by Lourie and the Sulkins Korczak (1923)

Lourie (1986)

The Sulkins (1945)

Kucharz ustawił srebrne talerze, nalał do butelek najlepszego wina, bo chciał zostać na dworze i po śmierci starego króla. Więc ministrowie tak sobie jedzą i piją i już im nawet zrobiło się wesoło; a w sali tymczasem zebrali się doktorzy (Korczak, 1923/ 1992, p. 11)

The cook set out the silver dishes and poured the best wine into the carafes, because he wanted to stay at court even after the death of the king. And so the ministers began eating and drinking and even began to grow merry. Meanwhile, the doctors had gathered in the hall (Korczak, 1986, p. 6)

The steward placed silver platters laden with food on the table and poured the best Royal wines into golden goblets. Then Ministers ate and drank and patted their stomachs with satisfaction, while in the Council Chamber the learned doctors held a consultation (Korczak, 1945, p. 18)

expressive, rich in detail and fairy-tale like. The Sulkins also transformed the passage in other ways. For example, while in Lourie’s translation the ministers “began to grow merry”, the Sulkins rephrased this with “[they] patted their stomachs with satisfaction”, adding vivid detail and reinforcing the ministers’ state of mind with physical gestures. They also omitted a reference to the calculating attitude of the royal cook, who “wanted to stay at court even after the death of the old king”, perhaps with the aim of sparing such “unpleasantries” of the adult world to younger readers. In essence, the Sulkins’ is a more free and expressive translation of the feasting scene, in which some aspects were mitigated and amplified. Mitigation of contentious material, by the way, is a recurrent strategy in the translation by the Sulkins, as the examples below will demonstrate. Few subjects seem to be more controversial in children’s literature than young children drinking alcohol, and the stronger the alcohol, the more controversial such examples might seem. When young King Matt and his best friend Felek join the army, they learn “the soldiers’ ways”, which involves drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and using strong language. Lourie retained such passages, whereas the Sulkins often omitted them from their translation, as is demonstrated in Table 3. The American translators clearly adopted different strategies with regard to the passage in Table 3. While Lourie created an accurate translation, the Sulkins condensed it considerably, omitting the references to children drinking and smoking or being offered alcohol and cigarettes. Thus “Felek drank vodka and smoked cigarettes” from the original was left out and the reference to Matt being offered alcohol and cigarettes was replaced with a vague and much more general “Matthew was younger and Philip made a point of it always, forgetting that Matthew was King”. The 1945 American version was apparently an attempt to protect the “vulnerable” young reader from the “evils” of adult life. Resorting to omission and mitigation, the Sulkins decided to subvert and distort the original, intruding into translated discourse. The 1986 translation, on the other hand, made no concessions for the child reader. It may be assumed that the latter was also partly aimed at adult readers who could be interested in the book because of its pedagogical value and

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Table 3 The treatment of a reference to Felek drinking and smoking by Lourie and the Sulkins Korczak (1923)

Lourie (1986)

The Sulkins (1945)

Felek jeden jedyny wiedział, że Maciuś jest królem. (…) Ale zawsze nie było to w porządku, że go Felek traktował jak równego sobie. I żeby jeszcze jak równego, ale nie. Ponieważ Maciuś był młodszy, więc Felek go lekceważył. Felek pił wódkę i palił papierosy, a jak Maciusia chciał kto poczęstować, zaraz mówił: – Jemu nie dawajcie on mały. Maciuś nie lubił pić ani palić, ale chciał sam powiedzieć, że dziękuje, a nie—żeby Felek mówił za niego (Korczak, 1923/1992, p. 52)

Felek was the only one who knew that Matt was the king. True, Matt had asked him to call him Tomek. But it wasn’t right for Felek to treat him as an equal. And he didn’t even do that. Matt was younger, and so Felek was disrespectful to him. Felek drank vodka and smoked cigarettes, but whenever someone wanted to treat Matt to some, Felek would say right away: “Don’t give him any, he’s too little.” Matt didn’t like drinking or smoking, but he wanted to say no, thank you, himself, and not have Felek answer for him (Korczak, 1986, p. 71)

For Philip was the only one who knew that Matthew was King. It was true Matthew himself had asked Philip to call him Tommy, but it wasn’t quite right for Philip to treat him as a perfect equal or worse. Also Matthew was younger and Philip made a point of it always, forgetting that Matthew was King (Korczak, 1945, p. 82)

the figure of the author, a renowned pediatrician and pedagogue. Furthermore, Lourie’s was also a second translation and if he was aware of the 1945 translation he may have decided to take it as his goal to produce an accurate English translation of the novel for the first time in history. This would be in line with the so-called “retranslation hypothesis”, according to which the first translation is often culturally assimilated and less exact than the re-translations that follow (Bensimon, 1990; Gambier, 1994). While the passage in Table 3 implies that Matt neither smoked cigarettes nor drank alcohol, the examination of another excerpt, presented in Table 4, reveals that this is not entirely true. Almost half of the original excerpt in Table 4 was erased from the translation by the Sulkins. The idea of a ten-year-old drinking alcohol together with grown-ups was apparently too much to accept for the Sulkins, who omitted this reference altogether. What makes this particular reference even more controversial is the fact that the cognac drunk by Matt and his comrades originally belonged to the boy’s tutor and was stolen by Matt from the royal pantry. Lourie, on the other hand, did not find this passage problematic and retained it in its entirety. After being addressed with “[a]ll right, then, little buddy, have a drink of this”, the boy was finally “drinking what kings drink”. The Sulkins’ discursive presence also reveals itself here in other ways. For example, they decided to replace cognac with brandy and wine and referred to the tutor as “cross”, which is congruent with other descriptions of the tutor in the novel, but does not appear in the original passage in question. The Sulkins also modified the soldiers’ reaction to being offered cognac

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Table 4 The treatment of a reference to Matt drinking alcohol by Lourie and the Sulkins Korczak (1923)

Lourie (1986)

The Sulkins (1945)

Koniak i łosoś szybko rozchmurzyły oblicza żołnierzy. – Królewski koniak, królewski łosoś— chwalili. Nie bez radości przyglądał się Maciuś, jak koniak guwernera zapijali żołnierze. – No, mały kamracie, golnij i ty krzynę; zobaczymy, czy umiesz wojować. Nareszcie Maciuś pije to, co pijali królowie (Korczak, 1923/1992, pp. 33–34)

But the sight of the cognac and salmon quickly changed the expressions of the soldiers’ faces. “Royal cognac, royal salmon”, said the soldiers in praise. It gave Matt pleasure to watch the soldiers drink his tutor’s cognac. “All right, then, little buddy, have a drink of this, we’ll see if you know how to fight.” At last, Matt was drinking what kings drink (Korczak, 1986, p. 43)

The brandy and salmon quickly brightened the soldiers’ faces. “Royal brandy and Royal salmon”, they smacked their lips. And Matthew watched with pleasure as they drank up the cross tutor’s wine (Korczak, 1945, p. 55)

and salmon, replacing the original “chwalili” [praised], expressed as “said the soldiers in praise” by Lourie, with “they smacked their lips”. This is reminiscent of the strategy noticeable in one of the previous examples (inserting “patting stomachs with satisfaction” in place of “beginning to grow merry”), based on introducing more tangible, physical descriptions in order to express more abstract, emotional states and reactions. Another example illustrating the divergent translation strategies adopted by Lourie and the Sulkins with regard to eating and drinking is presented in Table 5. Unlike Lourie, the Sulkins entirely omitted the reference to the Prime Minister’s habit to drink alcohol with his meal, supposedly in order not to set a “bad habit” for the young reader. Thus the information about the Prime Minister drinking a glass of vodka and wine on a regular basis, and five glasses of vodka on this particular occasion, does not appear at all in the 1945 American version. The Sulkins’ aversion to vodka is also noticeable in other passages, for example in Chap. 11. When Matt triumphantly returns from a reconnaissance mission behind the enemy lines, his division is awarded “a whole keg of vodka” (Korczak, 1986, p. 73), which is a source of great joy for the soldiers. The passage was eliminated by the Sulkins, who also significantly condensed this chapter’s ending. One other modification which stands out in Table 5 relates to the form of punishment employed by the Prime Minister towards his children. Korczak makes it clear that the Prime Minister’s children were quiet for fear of getting a beating. Lourie’s reference to “spanking” is less threatening than the Polish “oberwać”, which is broader and could point to other types of violence. Lourie’s version, although close in tone,

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Table 5 The treatment of a reference to the Prime Minister’s dinner in Lourie and the Sulkins Korczak (1923)

Lourie (1986)

The Sulkins (1945)

Prezes ministrów wrócił do domu taki zły, że żona bała się nawet zapytać, co się stało. Prezes jadł obiad i nic nie mówił, a dzieci siedziały cichutko, żeby nie oberwać. Prezes ministrów wypijał przed obiadem kieliszek wódki, a podczas obiadu pił tylko wino. A dziś wino odepchnął i wypił pięć kieliszków wódki (Korczak, 1923/1992, p. 90)

The Prime Minister returned home in such a bad mood that his wife was even afraid to ask him what happened. The Prime Minister ate his dinner without saying a word. His children were very quiet, so they wouldn’t be spanked. The Prime Minister usually drank a glass of vodka before dinner but only drank wine with his meal. That day, he pushed the wine aside and drank five glasses of vodka (Korczak, 1986, p. 133)

The Prime Minister was so enraged when he came home that his wife was afraid to ask what was the matter. His children sat in silence for fear of being scolded (Korczak, 1945, p. 139)

could thus be read as slightly more gentle than the original. In the Sulkins’ more radical version, however, the children merely fear being “scolded”, the idea of physical punishment replaced with a verbal reprimand. Yet another reference to food items and alcohol is shown in Table 6. The passage centres on Matt, who, after returning from the front to the capital, wakes up in his palace and communicates to his servants, in a robust and soldier-like manner, that he is hungry.

Table 6 The treatment of selected food items and Matt’s language by Lourie and the Sulkins Korczak (1923)

Lourie (1986)

The Sulkins (1945)

– Źryć dawajcie, do stu piorunów!—huknął Maciuś, aż lokaje zbledli ze strachu jak papier. W minutę na łóżku, koło łóżka i pod łóżkiem stało już ze sto półmisków z jedzeniem i przysmakami. – Zabrać mi w tej chwili te zamorskie frykasy— huknął Maciuś—chcę kiełbasy z kapustą i piwa! Rety babskie, w pałacowym kredensie ani kawałka kiełbasy! (Korczak, 1923/ 1992, p. 62)

“Gimme some food, damn it!” Matt bellowed. His terrified footmen turned white as ghosts. One minute later, there were a hundred dishes with food and dainty tidbits on his bed, beside his bed, and even under his bed. “Take these foreign fricassees away that minute”, roared Matt. “I want kielbasa, cabbage, and beer.” But, good Lord, there wasn’t a single piece of kielbasa in the entire royal pantry (Korczak, 1986, p. 87)

“Food, food”, he shouted when he woke. The servants paled with fright. A few minutes later there were platters of delicacies heaped on the bed, beside the bed and even under the bed. “Take those fancy things away”, Matthew shouted. “I want plain sausage with cabbage!” Oh, what a mixup! There wasn’t a piece of sausage in the Royal cupboard (Korczak, 1945, pp. 98–99)

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In both versions the servants pale with fright, but it is in the translation by Lourie that the young king’s words have more potential to frighten. Compare “Gimme some food, damn it!” with “Food, food”. Matt’s exclamation from the 1945 translation is nothing but a pale imitation of the original. Equally interesting are the differences in the translations of the closing sentences. Here, Lourie uses the word “kielbasa”, the Polish for a “sausage” and a borrowing rooted in Polish culture, only occasionally used in English. Lourie’s discursive presence clearly reveals itself here in that he deliberately retains a culture-specific item, which may not be immediately understandable in the target culture. On the other hand, Lourie’s choice of “kielbasa” over the Sulkins’ “sausage” may be explained by the increase in the borrowing’s visibility in English in the second half of the twentieth century. Another expression which is worth mentioning is the phrase “rety babskie”, rendered by the Sulkins with “what a mixup”, and with an equally bland, almost pious, “good Lord” by Lourie. In the closing sentences of the same passage, the Sulkins omit a reference to Matt demanding an alcoholic drink for himself, a recurrent discursive pattern in their translation. Thus, the original “chcę kiełbasy z kapustą i piwa” appeared as “I want kielbasa, cabbage, and beer” in 1986, but as “I want plain sausage with cabbage!” in 1945. To use culinary terms, the translation served to the American reader by the Sulkins may be characterized as insipid and bland, lacking the flavour of the original. On the other hand, their “watered-down” translation might be more suitable when served to younger children in comparison with Lourie’s “savoury” version, which contains strong language, an intensely foreignized expression and a reference to alcohol. It may also be noted that as a result of these differences the overall image of the central protagonist was partly modified. Matt comes across as no more than a naughty younger boy in the 1945 version, but more of a rude and troublesome teenager in the 1986 American translation. Other, comparable references to food items, alcohol and tobacco appear in Felek’s letter to King Matt, presented in Table 7. Note the Sulkins’ decision to

Table 7 The treatment of the references to sausage, tobacco and vodka by Lourie and the Sulkins Korczak (1923)

Lourie (1986)

The Sulkins (1945)

Dziś albo jutro w nocy uciekam z domu. Byłem na kolei. Żołnierze obiecali mnie wziąć ze sobą. Jeśli wasza królewska mość chce mi dać jakieś polecenie, czekam o godzinie siódmej. Przydałaby mi się na drogę kiełbasa, najlepiej suszona, flaszka wódki i trochę tytoniu (Korczak, 1923/1992, p. 32)

I’m running away from home tonight or tomorrow night. I was at the railroad station. The soldiers promised to take me with them. If Your Royal Highness wishes to give me any orders, I’ll be waiting at seven o’clock. The best dried kielbasa, a canteen full of vodka, and a little tobacco would come in handy for the road (Korczak, 1986, pp. 36–37)

I’m running away from home. The soldiers down at the railrod stashun sed they would take me with them. King, if you have a message for me I’ll be there at seven. I could use a bottle of wine and sum tobaco for the soldiers. And sum sausage for myself (Korczak, 1945, p. 49)

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introduce typographical errors in the letter, with the aim of amplifying the humorous effect and emphasizing that the author is only a young boy, unaccustomed to reading and writing. The differences between the two versions are once again striking. The original “kiełbasa” was rendered as “the best dried kielbasa” by Lourie, but “sum sausage” by the Sulkins. Then, “flaszka wódki” was translated as “a canteen full of vodka” in 1986, but was replaced with “a bottle of wine” in 1945. Lourie’s translation, with his recurrent use of “kielbasa” and “vodka”, as opposed to sausage and wine, is thus much more source-culture-oriented in comparison with the Sulkins’ version. Interestingly, in the first American translation it is also clearly stated that the bottle of wine and tobacco are not going to be used by Felek himself, but are reserved exclusively “for the solders”. This information appears neither in the original nor in the 1986 translation.

5 Conclusion The discursive presence of the American translators of Korczak’s children’s classic reveals itself on several different planes with regard to their treatment of the numerous references to eating and drinking in the novel. The Sulkins transformed the original text with a new target reader in mind, resorting to amplification (mountains of whipped cream) and mitigation (omission of references to drinking alcohol). To refer to Oittinen (1990, p. 49), they entered into a dialogical relationship with the original text, appropriating it and expressing it in new ways for the young reader, and to refer to O’Sullivan (2005, p. 109), here the voice of the narrator of the translation became “dislocated from the original narrator, taking control of the original text and appropriating it”. Lourie, on the other hand, retains the sense of Korczak’s novel more closely and his discursive presence is less intense, although it is worth pointing out that he also departs from, or even mitigates, the tone of the original (vide his treatment of a reference to children getting a beating or the almost pious “good Lord”). With regard to the novel’s cultural specificity, on the other hand, Lourie created a foreignized, “savoury” version, consistently retaining the original references to “kielbasa” and “vodka”. The Sulkins omitted and domesticated such references, using the equivalents that would sound more familiar to the American ear. In essence, the Sulkins created a version oriented towards the target culture and suitable for younger children, whereas Lourie’s is a more source-culture-oriented translation, which is more suitable for older readers.

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References Bensimon, P. (1990). Présentation. Palimpsestes, 13(4), ix–xiii. Chiaro, D., & Rossato, L. (2015). Food and translation, translation and food. The Translator, 21(3), 237–243. Exton, E. (2001). An invented life. Lincoln: Authors Choice Press. Gambier, Y. (1994). La retraduction, retour et detour. Meta, 39(3), 413–417. Hermans, T. (1996). The translator’s voice in translated narrative. Target, 8(1), 23–48. Korczak, J. ([1923] 1992). Król Maciuś Pierwszy. Król Maciuś na wyspie bezludnej. Warszawa: Latona. Korczak, J. (1945). Matthew the young king (Edith and Sidney Sulkin, Trans.). New York: Roy Publishers. Korczak, J. (1986). King matt the first (Richard Lourie, Trans.) New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Levy, C. (1995, July 6). Writer, editor Sidney Sulkin dies at age 77. Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1995/07/06/writer-editor-sidney-sulkindies-at-age-77/3f1ddf9f-992b-498d-bd06-f5d81ba0fee9/?utm_term=.15a21387a23d. Lourie, R. (2013a, May 24). Interview by A. Szwedowicz. Retrieved from http://dzieje.pl/ aktualnosci/richard-lourie-historia-nie-jest-sprawiedliwa. Lourie, R. (2013b, July 17). Interview. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 8waIYFewS3A. Lourie, R. (2013c, July 26). Interview. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= 0ylQe6akGEI. Munday, J. (2008). Style and ideology in translation: Latin American writing in English. New York: Routledge. Oittinen, R. (1990). The dialogic relation of text and illustration: A translatological view. TextConText, 1, 40–53. Oittinen, R. (2000). Translating for children. London: Garland Publishing. O’Sullivan, E. (2005). Comparative children’s literature. London: Routledge. Shavit, Z. (1986). Poetics of children’s literature. London: University of Georgia Press. Stolt, B. (1978). How Emil becomes Michel—on the translation of children’s books. In G. Klingberg, M. Orvig, & S. Amor (Eds.), Children’s books in translation: The situation and the problems (pp. 130–146). Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Sulkin, E. ([1947] 2000). Continent in Limbo. San Jose & New York: Authors Choice Press. Thomson-Wohlgemuth, G. (2004). Children’s literature in translation from East to West. In S. Chapleau (Ed.), New voices in children’s literature criticism (pp. 119–128). Lichfield: Pied Piper Publishing. Van Coillie, J. (2011). Nie ma śpiącej królewny bez kolców. Tłumaczenie baśni. Propozycja modelu analizy porównawczej. Przekładaniec, 22/23, 11–35. Venuti, L. (1995). The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation. London: Routledge. Venuti, L. (1998). Strategies of Translation. In M. Baker (Ed.), Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies (pp. 240–244). London: Routledge.

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Michał Borodo is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He has published on various topics in Translation Studies and his main research interests include translation and language in the context of globalization and glocalization, the translation of children’s and young adults’ literature, the translation of comics as well as translator training. His recent book publications include Translation, Globalization and Younger Audiences: The Situation in Poland (2017) and the co-edited volumes Moving Texts, Migrating People and Minority Languages (2017) and Zooming In: Micro-Scale Perspectives on Cognition, Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication (2017).

Constructing One’s Self-Identity Through Food: Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and Flann O’Brien Dariusz Pestka

Abstract Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest is substantially different from his three society comedies, as it disposes of their lofty ideas and high-flown rhetoric and replaces it with the land of relativity and ethical rebellion where traditional values are undermined by dandies. Their controversial theories are reflected not only in their conversation and way of life, it is also their clothes and meals that reveal their specific philosophy of nonconformity. In Ulysses food and meals intertwine with disparate plot strands, enhancing the major motifs and delineating the characters’ natural disposition. Like the other characters in Joyce’s novel, Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus are determined by their attitude to eating habits. In Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds, the subject of food is introduced as early as the first sentence of the novel, where the act of chewing bread is compared with the notion of a literary project. Thus the relation of aesthetics and ethics can be viewed from three different perspectives: Post-Romantic fusion, Modernist separation, and Postmodernist promise of a renewed reconciliation, which, in reality, proves to be a fake, imaginary imitation of integrity in the contemporary, disjointed world.

1 Introduction Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds are selected to reflect the changing ideas concerning personality psychology as expressed by the relationship of the external and internal reality. The differences between the characters from the three above-mentioned works will be illustrated by their eating habits and attitudes to food. The three writers are the exponents of Post-Romanticism, Modernism and Postmodernism, respectively. Post-Romantic features quite diverse, and whereas some of them stem from Romanticism itself, others were considerably transformed in the era when the D. Pestka (&) Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_5

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Victorian concept of realism coexisted with the Decadent glorification of artificiality. Therefore, following the Romantic idea of individualism, Wilde rejects its tribute to nature and replaces it with the Aesthetic exaltation of art and even the Decadent elevation of the artificial. In consequence, Wilde’s work is abundant in paradoxes and undermining irony, but essentially he attempts to reconcile the opposites: the aesthetics with the ethics as well as the spiritual with the realistic. Conversely, Joyce treats his work in a truly Modernist manner; as a unique, complex and unified object of art authenticated by its author. Enhancing its profundity, he attempts to extend human knowledge and concentrates not merely on the physical and the objective, but introduces the analysis of the subconscious and unconscious. Finally, O’Brien with his novel forms a bridge between Modernism and Postmodernism, focusing his attention on intertextuality, deconstructing his master narrative, which is split into several sub-narratives, and blurring the distinction between the high and low culture. As a result, his characters are complex neither in traditional psychological terms nor in a Modernist manner emphasizing their inner emotions. They are instead physical and literal to the point of being mechanical, acting like flat characters from cartoons. At the same time, there is something that is parallel in the works of the three writers, namely the parodic-travestying form which, as Bakhtin has it, “provide the corrective of laughter and criticism to all existing straightforward genres, languages, styles, voices; to force men to experience a different and contradictory reality” (Bakhtin, 2000, p. 118).

2 Dining and Wining Paradise: The Importance of Being Earnest Unlike in his three preceding society comedies, in Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, the conventional gravity and solemnity are dismissed, and the world of the play is unequivocally ruled by dandies, who provide it with their subversive logic, according to which the main characters’ alleged subterfuge turns out to be the truth of their lives: as it were, Jack, unwittingly though, has always been Ernest, Algernon’s brother. The dandiacal creed, in Wildean understanding, is not merely related to impressive clothing and dining; it constitutes a philosophy of life. Still, simple pleasures are reckoned as the last refuge of the complex, and in view of this, feasting is inextricably connected with wit and contemplation. From the very start, the subject of food and drink determines the relationship between the characters. When Algernon implies that his butler Lane may have stolen eight bottles of wine, he tries to investigate why a bachelor’s servants always drink champagne. In response, he learns that in married households the champagne is of the worst sort. Interestingly, in real life Lane’s false propriety might sound display of sheer impudence, but here its function is to preview the tone of the play and prepare the audience for unnatural “sense of propriety out of all proportion”

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(Poague, 1973, p. 252). Algernon pretends to be astonished and exclaims: “Good heavens. Is marriage so demoralizing as that?” (Wilde, 1948, p. 321). Algernon, having taken Lane’s remark verbatim, transposes his servant’s words into a solemn key and attacks the social institution of marriage. Food sanctions one’s position in society and testifies to one’s superiority to others. Conversely, it might be a mere cover hiding one’s weakness and compensating for one’s constant struggle to maintain this position. The latter tendency is particularly visible in Algernon’s behaviour. As early as the second scene, Jack enters and, seeing the table, has the following exchange with Algernon: Algernon: How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town? Jack: Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see Algy! Algernon (stiffly): I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o’clock. (…) Jack: Hallo! Why all these cups? Why cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who is coming to tea? Algernon: Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen (Wilde, 1948, p. 322).

In his play on words, Jack inverses the conventional utterance that it is permissible for the young to be extravagant. In reply, Algernon undercuts his friend’s emotional reaction to Gwendolen’s visit, to whom he is going to propose. As the dialogue continues, Algernon does not allow Jack to eat the cucumber sandwiches ordered for Lady Bracknell, who does not appear to be very fond of Jack. Instead, he treats Jack with bread and butter, favoured by Gwendolen: (Jack puts out his hand to take a sandwich. Algernon at once interferes). Algernon: Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. (Takes one and eats it). Jack: Well, you have been eating them all the time. Algernon: That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. (Takes plate from below). Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter. Jack: (Advancing to the table and helping himself). And very good bread and butter it is too. Algernon: Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat it as if you were married to her already, and I don’t think you ever will be. Jack: Why on earth do you say that? Algernon: Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right (Wilde, 1948, p. 323).

As in the whole play, food is used as a weapon of domination and possession. Jack is prevented from consuming what is designed for Lady Bracknell, who questions his eligibility for her daughter. At the same time, he should not eat too much bread and butter as his marriage to Gwendolen is far from being feasible.

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Having repressed Jack, Algernon ironically juxtaposes the figurative and the literal, and equating them produces a seemingly logical conclusion that “girls never marry the men they flirt with” (Wilde, 1948, p. 323), adhering to their sense of decorum, distinctly equated here with their moral integrity. Algernon alters a commonplace cliché into its opposite, constructing a verbal witticism with an iridescent novelty with “a semblance of new vitality” (Sullivan, 1972, p. 23). In accordance with the symmetrical quality of the play, the cucumber sandwiches scene in Act One corresponds to the muffins scene at the end of in Act Two. Gwendolen and Cecily pretend to be offended by their suitors’ frauds, especially by the fact they are not named Ernests, and they have retired into Jack’s mansion, while the young men are sitting in the garden, arguing and eating muffins. Jack.: There is certainly no chance of your marrying Miss Cardew. Algernon: I don’t think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss Fairfax being united. Jack: Well, that is no business of yours. Algernon: If it was my business, I wouldn’t talk about it. (Begins to eat muffins). It is very vulgar to talk about one’s business. Only people like stock-brokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties. Jack: How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless. Algernon: Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them. Jack.: I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances. Algernon: When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. (Rising). Jack: (Rising). Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. (Takes muffins from Algernon). (Wilde, 1948, pp. 356–357).

Jack’s argument is overcome by Algernon’s irony of comparison. As a result, Jack’s argument is deflated by juxtaposition with a trivial matter, and the quarrel turns into the subject of eating or not eating muffins. Algernon adds a Freudian sounding explanation of his gluttony, which can be interpreted in more universal terms, where food disguises the reality with its obsessive symbols of power and property. The muffin combat continues and it reaches its climax the moment Jack abandons his moral position when the last muffin has been seized by Algernon. The third act opens with Gwendolen and Cecily “at the window, looking out into the garden” (Wilde, 1948, p. 358). They comment on the men’s behaviour: Gwendolen: The fact that they did not follow us at once into the house, as any one else would have done, seems to me to show that they have some sense of shame left. Cecily: They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance (Wilde, 1948, p. 358).

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Through representation by means of the opposite, Cecily evaluates the fact of eating muffins, replacing a potentially derogatory remark with an ostensibly approving statement. Admittedly, what the dandy always seeks and believes in is the perfection of pure, aesthetic form. Conventional values are often distorted and juxtaposed with the transgressor’s creed to inspire the audience with ambivalent feelings. The effect is augmented by the comedy’s impeccably perfected style aspiring to the condition of the hyper-smoothened artefact grounded in “the flawless encapsulation of the insignificant in a word or phrase and the significant arrangement of these into a finely artificial wholeness” (Sullivan, 1972, p. 24). In view of this, the muffin scene is not merely trivial and simplistic in its repetitiveness of farcical jokes, as it constitutes “a gestural counterpoint to the sentimental affairs of the heart which form the largely unspoken structure within the sequence” (Raby, 1988, p. 124). On the whole, a great many aphorisms concerning food and drink are dispersed throughout Wilde’s writings, but it is only in The Importance of Being Earnest that feeding becomes one of the driving forces of the comedy. Feasting and dining both represent Algernon’s sensuality and rapacity, as well as his and Jack’s desperate fight for individuality that might be continuously repressed in the real world. But even if this world does not exist here in the full sense of the word, it is represented partly by Lady Bracknell’s domination. Conversely, neither lady Bracknell nor any other character in the play is to be analyzed in terms of their complexity, a psychological premise has to be discounted as totally irrelevant. The reduction of the dramatis personae’s individuality is emphasized by their almost uniform gestures and reactions underlined by the extreme insouciance and flippancy. Thus ironically, in their odd, operatic-like formality, Wilde’s characters do not clash with the external world, “but are endowed with an enviable control over it” (Jackson, 1980, p. xxvii). Pleasure-loving and seeking escape from the boring society building its hypocritical values on moral earnestness and sententiousness, the dandiacal characters choose to live in their own fantasy land, populated by Algernons and their different strategies of Bunburying as well as Ernests leading a double life. Consistently then, being overfed and overdressed is to testify to one’s intellectual superiority—provided it is illuminated by a philosophical creed of a consummate dandy, detached emotionally from the insulting mediocrity of aristocracy, but above all, of omnipresent and inquisitive middle class.

3 The Sensual Versus the Spiritual: Ulysses Whereas in The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde parodies the Victorian sentimental drama and his own society comedies, in Ulysses Joyce travesties Odyssey. Despite the conspicuous differences between Wilde’s play and Joyce’s novel, both works free “the object from the power of language (…) [destroy] the homogenizing power of myth over language [and liberate] consciousness from the power of the direct word” (Bakhtin, 2000, p. 119). Food items give the impression of being

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deliberately selected and carefully presented by James Joyce throughout the text in Ulysses. It is in the very first words of the novel that the association between one’s well-being and food is emphasized. In eighteen episodes, Joyce uses Homer’s epic as a framework for his novel. Various scenes introduce different bodily organs and they have allotted hours of the day, which reflects the passing of time. The initial lines of the novel “Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead” and the way he addresses Stephen Dedalus—as “fearful jesuit” (Joyce, 1992, p. 1) emphasizes a contrast between sensual wealth and ascetic scarcity. According to Budgen (1972, p. 21), it was Joyce himself who referred to Ulysses as a “coloured anatomical chart of the human body”, as the corporeal is incorporated in the text. This insistence on the carnal is at the same time what distinguishes the novel from the selected episodes from the Odyssey to which it corresponds. Unlike Yeats, Joyce discarded the lofty idea of heroics, he was sceptical of grand sensational, national narratives thinking them not to be relevant to the real characteristics of the Irish. Therefore, he chose to concentrate on the mundane rather than the refined and spiritual, arguing “that the ordinary was the proper domain of the artist” (Kiberd, 1992, p. xii). In view of this, Leopold Bloom is the right protagonist for the narrative. As an individual he can be categorized as a contemporary ‘everyman’, with no outstanding features to uplift him to a superior position in society. He is by no means reminiscent of the great mythical characters of religion, culture or literature, he has inherited nothing from Jesus or Faust. Nevertheless, there is something Bloom, with his Jewish mentality, shares with the Irish; not the fighting Irish, but those whom Joyce wanted to depict “as a quiescent, long-suffering but astute people” (Kiberd, 1992, p. xiv). Accordingly, Bloom is introduced in Episode 4, “Calypso”, while preparing breakfast for his wife Molly, cooking a pork kidney for himself and then eating his lunch. Interestingly, the utterances delineating the process of consumption and digestion reflect the act of rumination figuratively and literally, as his contemplations are enhanced by his chewing cud: Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts E and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel a bit peckish. The coals were reddening. Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn’t like her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high (Joyce, 1992, p. 65).

Some other significant episodes related to food and drink are “Lestrygonians”, which corresponds to Ulysses’ adventure in the land of the cannibals: “Cyclops”, occurring in a pub where Bloom meets a character called “the citizen”; or “Ithaca”,

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when he has come back home and makes a cup of cocoa for Stephen. Thus, in Episode 12, “Lestrygonians”, inspired by Homer’s depiction of the cannibalistic tribe Odysseus and his crew narrowly escape, Bloom realizes not merely the pleasures, but also the risks, of incorporating. He enters the Burton restaurant and is disgusted with the men eating there like animals: Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New set of microbes. A man with an infant’s saucestained napkin tucked round him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser’s eyes. Bitten off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see us (Joyce, 1992, p. 215).

In this section, Bloom interprets the world as taken in through the mouth. The vocabulary of descriptions and references revolve around eating and drinking, which constructs “a basic analogy between the processes of incorporating and digesting food in the stomach and the formation of the ‘self’ through internalizing the environment” (Lawrence, 2010, p. 120). In this, way, analyzing his revulsion at the men gulping chunks of meat voraciously, he realizes that people are like theoretical constructs feeding on ideas of others: “Hate people all round you. (…) Soup, joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you’re chewing. Then who’d wash up all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on tabloids that time” (Joyce, 1992, p. 215). On the whole, the two protagonists, like many other characters of the novel, are largely affected by their attitude to eating habits. However, Leopold Bloom’s contemplation of food and celebration of eating habits are distinctly contrasted with Stephen Dedalus’s dismissal of consumption and digestive functions as unworthy of his lofty struggle to dedicate himself fully to the abstract and the aesthetic. In consequence, he is defined not by his gluttony, or even eating with relish, but by ascetic indifference to feasting. Thus Stephen keeps his bodily functions suppressed and the food symbolism he is attached to is far from being earthly and literal. Rather it remains spiritualized as it was in the previous stage of his life described in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, he himself being “a priest of eternal imagination, transmuting the daily bread into the radiant body of everliving life” (Joyce, 1976, p. 221).

4 Chewing and Creativity: At Swim-Two-Birds The narrative of Flann O’Brien’s At Swim-Two-Birds is initiated by an unnamed student of literature living with his fault-finding uncle. The first lines of the novel introduce the young man as entirely uninterested in his university study, all his attention being proportionately divided between the chewing of an enormous portion of bread and the subject of his spare-time literary project:

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Conspicuously, O’Brien shares Joyce’s awareness of the limitations of the conventional novel and an interest in creating a method with which to reveal the workings of consciousness. At the same time, the narrator of At Swim-Two-Birds strikingly fuses the approaches of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, inheriting from the former the passion for literary creativity and artistic speculations, and from the latter the tendency to transform and internalize the external reality through a process of digestion and absorption. This is what distinguishes him from Stephen’s Modernist ocularcentrism grounded on intellectual predilection for vision over other senses in epistemological ranking. His predisposition to discern the physical and the material is augmented in his satirical attitude to the corporeal features of others. This feature is disclosed when he is disturbed by his uncle and landlord, who sententiously reprimands him for his laziness: My uncle drained away the remainder of his tea and arranged his cup and saucer in the centre of his bacon plate in a token that his meal was at an end. He then blessed himself and sat for a time drawing air into his mouth with a hissing sound in an attempt to extract food stuff from the crevices of his dentures. Subsequently he pursed his mouth and swallowed something (O’Brien 2001, p. 11).

Characteristically, the stature of the student’s uncle is belittled by being perceived exclusively from a physical stance, which forms a parallelism to the way Bloom beholds the men devouring food at the Burton Hotel. The fictitious story the narrator proceeds to tell discloses three unrelated subplots in the three separate openings, the first concerning “the Pooka MacPhellimey, a member of the devil class” (O’Brien, 2001, p. 9), the second is about Mr John Furriskey, a seemingly ordinary man, except that he was born at the age of twenty five, and the third is an adaptation of Irish legends featuring Finn Mac Cool, the legendary hero of old Ireland, and mad King Sweeney. Incidentally, Mr. John Furriskey is a fictitious character created by Dermot Trellis, who is another of the student’s fictitious characters. What is outstanding about these stories is their attention to detail and the merging of the fantastic and the concrete. It is particularly the character of Finn Mac Cool that incarnates heroism as well as athletic build and great stature: “Though not mentally robust, he was a man of superb physique and development. Each of his thighs was as thick as a horse’s belly, narrowing to a calf as thick as the belly of the foal” (O’Brien, 2001, p. 9). A special emphasis is laid on his enormous appetite: “The neck to him was as the bole of a great oak, knotted and seized together with muscle-humps and carbuncles of tangled sinew, the better for good feasting and contending with the bards” (O’Brien, 2001, p. 14).

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5 Physicality in a Fragmented World At Swim-Two-Birds is both a tribute to and a parody of Modernist procedures epitomised in Ulysses or “The Waste Land”, where the principle of complexity is so predominant that surface parallelisms turn out to form ironic contrasts and vice versa, and where by means of literary allusions mere buffoonery and mockery are transposed into philosophical musings. Moreover, the very method of parodying as well as self-parodying adopted by Joyce is likewise travestied in At Swim-TwoBirds. Stemming from the Cervantic convention, which in the 18th-century England found its best expression in Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, O’Brien’s novel is steeped in that part of the genre’s tradition. In Bakhtin’s terms, this convention is conditioned by “linguistic consciousness—parodying the direct word, direct style, exploring its limits, its absurd sides” (Bakhtin, 2000, p. 119) where the consequent boundary separates diverse registers and styles from one another. In view of this, the direct verbal expression, in the past novelistic tradition taken seriously by the author and meant to be treated likewise by the reader, in contemporary parodic literature is oriented not only toward the object, but also toward a linguistic artefact itself. In this respect, the progression from The Importance of Being Earnest through Ulysses to At Swim-Two-Birds appears to have been not only consistent, but also inevitable. Conversely, judging the line of development from Post-Romantic aestheticism through Modernism to Postmodernism, character analysis was augmented by intellectual and subconscious interpretations to be finally replaced by physicality and literalness. In this way, the Wildean attempt at fusing aesthetics and ethics, followed by the Joycean separation of the soul from the body, is ostensibly reconciled in the person of the young student. However, the solution is truly Postmodernist, as neither the young lounger’s clumsy external appearance nor his disorderly, disintegrating and uncontrollable fiction are close enough to the Modernist search for significance in a fragmented world.

References Bakhtin, M. (2000). From the prehistory of novelistic discourse. In D. Lodge (Ed.), Modern criticism and theory. London: Longman. Budgen, F. (1972). James Joyce and the making of “Ulysses”. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jackson, R. (1980). Introduction. In O. Wilde (Ed.), The importance of being earnest. London: Ernest Benn Limited. Joyce, J. (1992). Ulysses. London: Penguin Books. Joyce, J. (1976). A portrait of the artist as a young man. London: Penguin Books. Kiberd, D. (1992). Introduction. In J. Joyce, Ulysses (pp. ix–lxxx). London: Penguin Books. Lawrence, K. R. (2010). Who’s afraid of James Joyce?. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. O’Brien, F. (2001). At swim-two-birds. London: Penguin Books.

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Poague, L.A. (1973). The importance of being earnest—The texture of Wilde’s irony. Modern Drama, XVI, 251–257. Raby, P. (1988). Oscar Wilde. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sullivan, K. (1972). Oscar Wilde. New York: Columbia University Press. Wilde, O. (1948). The importance of being earnest. In G. F. Maine (Ed.), The works of Oscar Wilde (pp. 321–370). London: Collins Clear Type Press.

Dariusz Pestka is Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics, at Collegium Medicum (Bydgoszcz) of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. He has published on various topics in Literature and Cultural Studies and his main research interests include Post-Romantic literature; Modernist and early Post-Modernist writers; interplay between literature, music and visual arts. His recent publications include Oscar Wilde’s Travelling across Time: In the Wake of the Romantic Heritage, Anticipating Modernism and Postmodernism (2018), Paradoksy Oscara Wilde`a a stereotypy i szablony w komunikacji językowej (2017), Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita:” Peace of Mind—Reward or Punishment? (2015).

Part II

Reimagining the Past and Celebrating Memory

Memoirs of the Beat Generation Women as an Antidote to Nostalgia for the Fifties Anna Słonina

Abstract This paper is an attempt to discuss nostalgia and memory in relation to life-writing, specifically to memoirs by the women of the Beat Generation. Two memoirs have been chosen for this purpose: Bonnie Bremser’s Troia: Mexican Memoirs and Nobody’s Wife: The Smart Aleck and the King of the Beats by Joan Haverty Kerouac. The Seventies in the United States witnessed a powerful wave of omnipresent nostalgia for the “Good Old Days”—it became known as a decade of the Fifties revival. The ubiquitous nostalgia was a phenomenon on a national scale with people recalling the Fifties as an era of stability, peace, and amusement. Some critics suggest that the reason for such a massive, collective longing for a past decade can be found in the nation’s dissatisfaction with the present. Nostalgic reminiscing offered comfort and distraction from everyday hardships in a time of crisis. However, nostalgia—as comforting as it may be—also produces distortions in one’s perception of the past and misrepresentations of the longed-for decade. Some scholars agree that nostalgia has both selective and inventive powers—it affects the way we choose our memories, select them from a pool of recollections, and how we tailor them to our current situation. By means of nostalgia not only do we recollect the past, but we also construct it. Such collective nostalgia differs significantly from nostalgia experienced on an individual level. Svetlana Boym’s concepts of restorative and reflective nostalgia help describe these differences. In this article the collective nostalgia for the Fifties is contrasted with nostalgia as experienced by an individual. Nostalgia is then discussed with reference to memoirs in which memory plays a crucial role. Memoirs of women of the Beat Generation discussed here, whose artistic and literary work in the Fifties was neglected and overshadowed by the male Beats, can be treated as an antidote to nostalgia, as they present a vision of the Fifties which stands in stark contrast with the rose-tinted general, nostalgic view of the decade.

A. Słonina (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_6

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1 Introduction Scanlan (2004) in his work on nostalgia states that: (…) nostalgia was not, and is not, simple. It can cross several registers simultaneously. It can be felt culturally or individually, directly or indirectly. Indeed, cultural critics are beginning to understand that nostalgia is always complicated (…) (p. 3).

With the abundance of theories on the subject of nostalgia appearing in various fields of knowledge—cultural studies, literary criticism, or psychology—finding one quintessential characteristic of nostalgia seems to be a futile attempt. In this paper I follow Scanlan’s (2004) lead that “nostalgia has an uncanny ability to exceed any constraining definition” (p. 4), and instead of trying to define the term and grasp its meaning completely, I present a number of ideas regarding nostalgia with reference to memory (as well as collective memory) and memoirs. The paper is an attempt to reach a better understanding of what nostalgia is, and to present the ideas and conclusions that follow the analysis of the two abovementioned memoirs with relation to the concept of nostalgia. Firstly, considerable attention is given to “the nostalgia wave” (Meyers, 2009, p. 738) of the 1970s and reasons for the ubiquitous longing for the Fifties as a better era. The relation between nostalgia and memory is touched upon, with nostalgia presented as a force which can distort the image of past events and make our memory selective, as well as inventive to some extent. What follows is a discussion of nostalgia with regards to women Beat writers. First, I juxtapose collective nostalgia with individual and personal type of nostalgia as experienced by female Beats, taking into consideration the mainstream and the countercultural features. After commenting on a shared experience of the Beat women, I move on to discuss in more detail two memoirs written by women associated with the Beat movement. The first one is Bonnie Bremser’s Troia: Mexican Memoirs—a typically “beat” memoir, while the second—Nobody’s Wife: The Smart Aleck and the King of the Beats—is a memoir written by Joan Haverty Kerouac who never saw herself as a member of the group, yet was involved in a relationship with the group’s most famous writer. The paper ends with some final thoughts on the definition-evading, clarification-resistant nostalgia.

2 The 1970s Nostalgia for the Fifties Miller and Nowak (1977) in their book The Fifties: The Way We Really Were offer a critical approach to the excessive nostalgia of the Seventies for “The Fabulous Fifties” (p. 3). In 1972 one could read in a Newsweek article “Yearning for the Fifties: The Good Old Days” that it was a “simple decade, when hip was hep, good was boss”, while Life magazine recalled the Fifties as “the sunnier time” calling the era “The Nifty Fifties” (p. 4). Massive nostalgia for the decade became a

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“national craze” (p. 4) and could be easily noticed in popular culture. It could be observed in the revival of the decade’s rock music with music companies reissuing “oldies” hits on special golden records, while pubs and clubs across the country organized special nights with Fifties’ music, trivia and quizzes about the longed-for days. It could also be noticed in cinemas with an enormous success and popularity of films presenting an image of the Fifties centred on youth, innocence and enjoyment (e.g., American Graffiti, Let the Good Times Roll, or The Way We Were). Jameson (1991) in his book Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism devotes one chapter to the concept of “nostalgia film” (pp. 279–296), which does not traditionally represent the historical content of a past era, but presents the past as a “fashion plate and glossy image” (p. 118). Jameson points to George Lucas’s American Graffiti, which tried to recapture the essence of the Eisenhower era, as the motion picture which initiated this new aesthetic of what the French call la mode retro (p. 19). Jameson observes that for most Americans the 1950s “remain the privileged lost object of desire” as the time of well-being, affluence and stability (p. 19). Miller and Nowak (1977) consider the reasons for such ubiquitous nostalgic perception of the Fifties in American society and they conclude that “periods of intense longing for an earlier era indicate that people are discontented with the present” (p. 5) and that periods of crisis, whether financial, ethical or moral, are conducive to nostalgic, sentimental recollections of past decades, which in effect start to be seen through rose-tinted glasses. People overwhelmed by the tumultuous decades of the Sixties and Seventies—the Vietnam War, the assassinations of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, as well as the Watergate Scandal and the Manson case—longed for a simpler, happier time; the time of “I like Ike”, “Leave it to the Beaver”, “hula hoops, bunny hops, 3-D movies (…), tail-finned Cadillacs” (p. 3). One of the DJs playing the oldies hits in the Seventies’ nightclub described the phenomenon this way: “my audience wants to forget its problems and return to—or at least recall—those happy high-school times—the prom, no wars, no riots, no protests, the convertibles and the drive-ins” (p. 4). Nostalgia is therefore a means to escape the present by indulging in memories of the past; it is a “pleasant distraction” (Miller & Nowak, 1977, p. 5). Meyers (2009) in his article on nostalgia and advertising states that “nostalgia is perceived as an escapist outlet from real-life social and economic distress” (p. 739). Yet, as we can see from memories of people, so to speak ‘afflicted’ with nostalgia, the past appears in the minds of the nostalgists as fragmented, incomplete, distorted, for nostalgia can cause people to be extremely selective. Miller and Nowak (1977) aptly note that: “No one is staging a House Un-American Activities Committee revival, or longing for the good old days of nuclear brinksmanship and the deadly H-bomb tests” (pp. 5– 6). Literary theorist Hutcheon (2000) explains that: “Nostalgic distancing sanitizes as it selects, making the past feel complete, stable, coherent, safe (…) in other words, making it so very unlike the present” (p. 195). Howard (2012) in his article “Nostalgia” refers to “nostalgia’s psychology” as understood by Hutcheon: when one starts perceiving the present times as negative, they tend to retreat into the past, which becomes, however, often idealized and imagined rather than real (p. 643).

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In this understanding of nostalgia, the past is constructed rather than recollected, while “nostalgia imaginatively projects desirable features onto the past, rather than represents qualities which the past possessed” (Howard, 2012, p. 643). Therefore, not only does our memory select and filter events and emotions from the past, but it may also construct new memories which may be divergent from reality and facts. A similar approach to memory as having a creative power is expressed by Grigorii Sereda who asserts that “memory does not retain, but creates” (cited in Zinchenko, p. 85) and that the experiences that we keep in our memory undergo constant changes; they are re-constructed and re-shaped rather than unchangeable and firmly fixed—we tailor them to our needs and the reality that surrounds us (Zinchenko, 2011, p. 85). Also, Couser (2012) in his book on memoirs states that “memory is actively constructive rather than passively mimetic” (p. 74). It is possible, then, that it is nostalgia that makes our memory both selective and inventive to some extent, depriving us of the ability to critically evaluate the past. It can also be stated that what we forget or choose to forget (either voluntarily or perhaps on a subconscious level) is as important as what we remember. What is more, it might be even suggested that back in the Seventies—the time of the Fifties revival—the media by presenting nostalgic images of the by-gone era inserted a “bug” of nostalgia into people’s minds, which penetrated their memory and distorted their recollections. Also, through advertising that often uses nostalgic images the bug can take its toll—Meyers (2009) suggests that advertising portrays the past not as it actually was but “as it should have been” (p. 737). Perhaps our memory works along the same lines, showing us a more colourful and vivid picture of the past than it really was. Of course, when talking about the Fifties revival what we are discussing is the prevailing nostalgic tendency in American society—a national, collective type of nostalgia rather than a unique, individual experience. Davis (1974) states that: Collective nostalgia refers to that condition in which symbolic objects are of a highly public, widely shared, and familiar character, those symbolic resources from the past that can trigger wave upon wave of nostalgic feeling in millions of persons at the same time (pp. 122–123).

Thus a Cadillac, Rebel Without a Cause movie poster, or Presley’s song will probably evoke nostalgia in most people who share the same history and culture and who came of age in the Fifties in the United States. Although the collective and private memories often overlap, obviously not everyone fell into the “nostalgia trap”, to borrow Coontz’s (1992) expression.

3 Anti-nostalgic Memoirists Similarly, not everyone in the Fifties fell into the conformist, materialistic suburban trap of the American Dream—members of the Beat Generation certainly did not. Neither did the Beat women. If nostalgia is what Mills and Coleman (1994) define

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as “bittersweet recall of emotional past events” (p. 205), then the memoirs of women of the Beat Generation seem to be devoid of nostalgia; they often consist of bitter rather than “bittersweet” recollections which evoke feelings of fear, anger, and hopelessness rather than that “pleasant, warm, fuzzy feeling” (Poore, Meerzon & Meyer-Dinkgrafe, 2013, p. 15) which nostalgia has the power to generate. It seems to make perfect sense—the massive nostalgia for the Fifties was the mainstream nostalgia and what was being longed for was the “essence” of the decade, namely “domesticity, religiosity, respectability, security through compliance with the system” (Miller & Nowak, 1977, p. 7), in other words, everything that the Beat Generation loathed and criticized. Thus, it is clear that the female Beat writers did not feel a nostalgic yearning for these values. It is highly probable, however, that when writing their memoirs they indulged, at least to some extent, in the nostalgic emotion that reminiscing inevitably brings about. Yet their nostalgic feelings were directed at personal events, close friends, youth rather than the general sense of the “Nifty Fifties.” What seems fitting here is the distinction between two kinds of nostalgia as proposed by Boym (2001)—restorative and reflective nostalgia. While the former “evokes national past” and “gravitates toward collective pictorial symbols”, the latter “is more about individual and cultural memory” and “is more oriented toward an individual narrative that savours details and memorial signs” (p. 49). Here, the collective nostalgia for the Fifties bears the characteristics of restorative nostalgia which sees the past as a “perfect snapshot” and “a value for the present” (p. 49), whereas the nostalgia experienced in writing about the past is “reflective” as it meditates on “history and passage of time” (p. 49). Although women Beat writers could have been touched by nostalgia in the process of working on their memoirs, it is not a prevailing emotion in their work; in fact, it hardly ever emanates from the pages of their manuscripts. An author can at times feel nostalgic when writing about the past; this however does not mean that the text itself will ooze nostalgia. As Lyons (2006) noticed “nostalgia is a condition of the imagination and the imagination can be controlled” (p. 97); therefore, the author has the capability of taming and silencing nostalgia if he or she desires so Boym (2001) also states that reflective nostalgia does not exclude critical thinking and “affective memories do not absolve one from compassion, judgment or critical reflection” (p. 50). In most cases, however, it seems that the female Beat writers did not have to struggle to overcome nostalgia or the fear it could make their writing sentimental, as what they describe are often not the happiest moments in their lives. Waldman (2000), in the Foreword to Brenda Knight’s comprehensive study of female Beat writers, notes that they were often dominated by men in their relationships, determined to aid their husbands’ literary careers while forgetting about their own talents and keeping their artistic aspirations and work a secret. Such intense commitment to their men often led these women to “drug dependencies, painful abortions, alienation from family” (p. x). Thus, the Beat women’s memoirs often touch upon difficult topics and problems a young woman had to deal with having decided to live outside of the secure conformity of the mainstream culture, while the Beat—predominantly male—circle did not offer much support. The women often

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recall sexual assaults and being treated like a sexual object, the hardship of being the only person supporting their families, the need to cope with their partners’ drug addiction, unwanted pregnancies—the effect of the newly acquired sexual freedom yet insufficient knowledge of or access to birth control, or the society’s stigmatization and lack of respect. Howard (2012) discusses what he calls “poverty of the present requirement” which is based on the presumption that in order for nostalgia to occur one needs to perceive the past as “preferable to the present” (p. 643). In line with this view, one can assume that most female writers of the Beat Generation did not perceive their past as better than the time during which they were involved in writing their memoirs. It seems unlikely that the female Beats should feel nostalgic about their past, or to be more specific, about the painful experiences they went through. Yet, there are no simple, unequivocal answers when it comes to nostalgia. The above are merely general statements on the relation between Beat women’s memoirs and nostalgia. Although common features can be found among these memoirs, they constitute unique and highly individual pieces of autobiographical narrative and as such require a separate analysis and commentary. Due to space limitations, only two selected memoirs of the Beat women will be discussed.

3.1

Troia: Mexican Memoirs by Bonnie Bremser (a.K.a. Brenda Frazer)

Already in the introduction to the 2007 re-edition of the memoir we discover that the book starts with the author’s “emotional suffering and her sense of spiritual abandonment” (Charters, 2007, p. iv) which her writing is infused with. We are warned by Charters (2007) who quotes William Carlos Williams’ words from his preface to Howl and Other Poems—“Hold back the edges of your gowns. Ladies, we are going through hell” (p. iv). Mexican Memoirs tells a story of a young (merely twenty-three years old) woman who follows her husband Ray Bremser—a Beat poet—to Mexico in the early 1960s. His reason for leaving the United States is to escape a prison sentence for armed robbery, which he claims he was not a part of. Bonnie’s motivation is much less pragmatic; she leaves the country with their baby daughter Rachel for a simple reason—For Love of Ray, as the title of the book’s British edition reads. In Mexico Bremser becomes a prostitute in order to support her family, or as Ann Charters puts it “to support Ray while he wrote his poetry” (p. vi), and also to earn money for drugs, to which both she and her husband are addicted. Eventually, she and Ray decide to give up their baby daughter for adoption. The book ends with Bonnie coming back to New York, again to re-unite with her husband. Bremser describes her Mexican experience honestly and in a blunt manner. Throughout her memoir the feeling of despair and loneliness abounds:

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I wake with a headache and not much enthusiasm about anything and lonesome — I had probably awakened for a few moments at dawn but that was too excruciatingly lonely for me to abide — there was nothing facing me but hustling until the work was done and the rent and bills to be paid (…) (Bremser, 2007, p. 65).

About “hustling” and the way she feels in a relationship with Ray she says: “It has no rewards for me; I am alone, lonely, bugged, feeling more and more unloved, as if each trick I turn is a negative score on the happiness list” (Bremser, 2007, p. 158). Her relationship with Ray was filled with violence, quarrels, as well as lack of compassion and understanding on his part: “(…) Ray had a lot of time to be involved in other thoughts—and I found that he got tired of consoling me for my hard lot” (p. 150); when it came to Bonnie’s prostitution Ray claimed that he “suffers as much as I do” and that it was “my own gig and my own problem” (p. 159). At the time that Bonnie was earning money, he would spend time writing: I had some vision of writing being fun, a pleasure, a game that he was indulging in behind my back, while I had to go out and get drunk and sick and fucked, and come back to loneliness, or quarrels (Bremser, 2007, p. 159).

Their quarrels caused the woman’s utter despair “(…) I was scared and my pride was unable to take further falls and admissions of permanent despair that such fights could exist between us.” (Bremser, 2007, p. 154). The arguments also meant violence: So Ray got just as unreasonably hot in return and belted me one right there on the street and then when I try to protest he gave me another one, and then when I got mad and tried to hit him, he hit me again, and each blow was a resounding slap that cleared my head for new comprehensions (Bremser, 2007, pp. 153–154).

From the memoir emerges a picture of a woman desperately in love with her husband, capable of going to any lengths to keep him beside her, as she sees no life without him: “I was ready to die, but scared that once he left there would be nothing else but death” (Bremser, 2007, p. 155). Dealing with the omnipresent “hardship, dread, and worry” which made her weak, she considered committing suicide after a “scene” with Ray, but after walking away, he returned and pleaded with her to stop crying, reassuring her how much he needs her (p. 155). It seems that Bremser, busy at work on her memoir, did not fulfil the “poverty of the present requirement” (Howard, 2012, p. 643) described earlier; thus nostalgia for such a dreadful and painful period in the author’s life was unlikely to embrace her. In fact, re-living past events more often than not brought suffering back, yet the author was determined to continue writing —“Damn the pain; it must be written” (Bremser, 2007). In the book itself, we see no traces of nostalgic longing or nostalgic memories. Curiously enough, in an interview with Nancy Grace, Brenda Frazer states that: “In many ways, especially remembering times when [our daughter] Rachel was still with us and Ray was free, that writing was an escape to a better time” (Grace & Johnson, 2004, p. 113). It is difficult for one to grasp how such a painful period in one’s life could be considered happier or better. To understand this, one needs to discover the situation of the writer when she was reminiscing and putting her

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memories on paper—it was shortly after she had returned to New York from Mexico, Ray was in prison (she had demanded that he turn himself in, as she could not continue a life of an outlaw’s wife), her daughter was no longer with her, and she was coping with the effects of heroin withdrawal, as well as the feeling of guilt that her husband was in prison on her request. She was alone and had to deal with her solitude on her own (pp. 121–123). Thus, in some respects the past could have seemed preferable to her, as back then she was not alone, even if she felt lonely. Nevertheless, nostalgia remains to be non-existent in the text, and the process of thinking about the “mess that I experienced over that year” caused “emotional pain”, while writing became a form of therapy (p. 121). The question one may ask, however, is whether the author experienced the feeling of nostalgia when reminiscing and putting her memories on paper. We can apply “the poverty of the present model” (Howard, 2012, p. 646) when discussing Mexican Memoirs, as the past of the author appears to us tragically sad, even traumatic. We assume that the author felt the same way about it, which in turn excludes the presence of nostalgia, as it is supposed to be directed at and invoked by happy memories in our past. Then, however, we find out that the author considers the time she recalls in her memoir as “a better time” (Grace & Johnson, 2004, p. 113), yet at the same time realizing that her experience was painful. Here a counterexample to the “poverty of the present requirement” could be applied—“Proustian nostalgia for bad times” (Howard, 2012, p. 647). In this type of nostalgia the nostalgist knows “how bad it was at the time, but I now long for it” (Howard, 2012, p. 647). In this model recalling sad or atrocious events does not prevent the person from experiencing nostalgia, which gives us “a shiver of pleasure” at the outset of a particular memory. A similar reflection can be found in Bremser’s words: in looking back, what’s important is not the technique or lack of it, but those few minutes when you overcome the frustration, bridge a gap, and hold something incredibly beautiful to you: the point where you don’t see yourself anymore but you are there, and OBOY, that’s the way you really are(…)” (Bremser, 2007, p. 1).

In this sense nostalgia acquires the quality and power of time-travel, and what becomes its main feature is the sheer pleasure that retrieving memories can give us. Or perhaps, as Hutcheon (2000) points out, nostalgia is a reaction to the sad fact of irreversibility of time, the impossibility of returning to one’s past, to one’s youth and as such it must be an inseparable part of reminiscing which will always make us realize that we cannot, in fact, go back in time (p. 194). Another characteristic of nostalgia which becomes visible here is its ephemerality—it is often momentary and can abandon us as quickly and unexpectedly as it embraced us. What is more, nostalgia is an extremely individual and personal matter—we might assume that someone is nostalgic or not, yet the only person truly capable of stating whether this is the case is the person who feels it. It is important to note, however, that Frazer wrote her memoir soon after the nightmarish time in Mexico; thus her memories were still “fresh” and vivid. At this point another prerequisite for nostalgia to take place comes into play—age. Meyers (2009) expresses the idea that:

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(…) the tendency to engage in nostalgic feelings varies over the course of the individual’s life: ‘nostalgia-proneness’ has been hypothesized to peak as individuals move into middle age and during their retirement years (p. 738).

Taking into consideration Meyer’s assumptions it can be suggested that perhaps it is not the age that determines our tendency to indulge in nostalgia, but the amount of time that needs to pass in order for our memories to acquire, as Howard (2012) puts it “a gold patina” (p. 648). This however is usually simultaneous with the time of reaching retirement, which additionally holds two characteristics that could possibly and considerably enhance nostalgia—more free time to think about the past, and the heightened awareness of inevitable death. Brenda Frazer is now retired and working on a prequel and sequel to Mexican Memoirs, as we find out from the book’s cover information. One can only suspect that the following books will be more nostalgic.

3.2

Joan Haverty Kerouac’s Nobody’s Wife

In contrast to Bremser’s memoir, Haverty’s book was written when her life was slowly coming to an end. Joan Haverty Kerouac was the second wife of the author of On the Road and a mother of his only child Janet (Jan) Kerouac. Throughout his life Jack Kerouac claimed that he was not her father, despite her “striking resemblance to him” (Charters, 2000, p. ix) and for a long time evaded paying child support. Joan Kerouac, before suing Jack about financial backing, expressed her feelings towards her ex-husband in an article: “My Ex-Husband, Jack Kerouac, Is an Ingrate” published in a scandal magazine “Confidential” in 1961 (Knight, 2004, p. 88). It was the only piece of her writing that was published during her life. Nobody’s Wife was edited and published after her death. Haverty started writing her memoir soon after she was diagnosed with breast cancer—according to the doctors she would not live longer than two years. Yet, she was determined to finish the book and had been working on it for ten years, sadly leaving the disordered manuscript unfinished. Haverty’s memoir is a “poignant description of the perils of heart and spirit facing a bright, insightful female barely out of girlhood seeking an independent life in early 1950s’ New York” (Charters, 2000, p. xi). One of such perils was sexual abuse and being treated as a sexual object and men’s property. Haverty (2000) writes: I gave some thought to Steen’s remark to Cliff. This was the implication of what he’d said: that a man could treat an unattached woman any way he pleased, but an attached woman was a different story. So he would have respect for what he considered to be another man’s property, but would have no respect for the woman herself (p. 14).

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We discover the rules governing male-female relations in the words of Joan’s friend Bill: When women are protected they are respected. The only way a woman can fully be respected is to be somebody’s wife. But there are always those who run around freely and do everything just as they like. That’s what kind of a woman you are (…) (p. 22).

To this statement Joan answers that she would rather be “nobody’s wife” and that she would “give up the respect, for the time being” (p. 22). It was a brave resolution, yet it soon emerged that being an unmarried, independent, and, what is more, young and beautiful girl in a big city was a dangerous task. She recalls a conversation with her seamstress co-workers, which shows how serious and widespread the problem of rape was: “I’ve had a couple of close calls just in the past few weeks” (Haverty, 2000, p. 107). When one of them is asked what she would do in a rape situation, she answers “I think I’d give in (…). It would be too hard to figure out what sort of quirky personality I was dealing with. You just never know what’s going to arouse a stranger” (p. 107). The girls’ words express fear and the feeling of powerlessness that accompanied being a woman in the Fifties. Joan herself was a victim of attempted rape, hardly escaping her oppressor, who nevertheless managed to assault her physically leaving her in mental distress: I went to the bathroom mirror to see what was happening to my face, and I was horrified. My left eye was almost swollen shut and a bluish color was already showing me where the bruises would be. I was furious and humiliated. He had treated me like trash (Haverty, 2000, pp. 116–117).

Joan’s experience was not an isolated case, and probably a great number of women suffered from similar assaults in the fifties. Haverty’s memoir in this respect provides a truthful and vivid account of the problems single women had to cope with in the era of the earlier quoted—“domesticity, religiosity, respectability” (Miller & Nowak, 1977, p. 7) and thus can serve as an antidote to the nostalgically distorted vision of the decade. On the other hand, apart from touching upon the difficult situation of independent single women, the memoir also depicts Joan’s friendship with Bill Cannastra. Parts of the book devoted to the deep understanding and innocent love they shared, are the most nostalgic pieces of her writing. It seems that the author falls under the spell of nostalgia, when she recalls their friendship in a romanticized and perhaps idealized manner; this is how she describes their first meeting: Contained in him, radiating from him, was a singular quality that pervaded my mind like a song from far away. An instant of recognition echoed some moment in eternity when all was, or would be, innocence. I felt as though I had just set down a burden I had carried too long. I held my breath, dazzled by the sunlight behind him, until our eyes met and he came to sit down across from me (Haverty, 2000, p. 19).

Set beside fact-oriented biographies in which we could find out merely that Bill Cannastra was “something of a hell-raiser who had met a terrible end when his body got jammed in the window of a moving subway train” (Campbell, 2001, p. 104), Haverty’s memoir serves as a nostalgic, emotional alternative. In the sphere

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of life-writing, it seems that nostalgia is nowhere to be found among biographies, while in memoirs, which constitute personal recollections of the time past, nostalgic memories are more likely to appear. Nostalgia could be found in one more aspect when discussing Haverty’s memoir; namely, in the motivation for writing the book. Of course, one can only speculate about the motives that led Joan Haverty to write a memoir about that particular period of her life—the time of her youthful friendship with Bill Cannastra, and unsuccessful marriage to Jack Kerouac—and not another, for example, motherhood. Her daughter wonders regretfully in the Introduction to her mother’s memoir: (…) one thing I realized a few years ago is that the stories of my childhood perished along with my mother. (…) I’m sorry she didn’t write all those years as a part of her book. (…) I have to be content now with just having what I recall (Kerouac, 2000, p. vii).

Among other motivations for writing her memoir, which I discuss in the article “Nobody’s Wife: Dethroning the ‘King of the Beats’” (Słonina, 2015, pp. 130– 131), nostalgia could be suggested. Motivation here can be understood as Berntsen explains it: “some pre-existing state of the subject—such as a need or desire— which plays an enabling or casual role in triggering a memory” (Howard, 2012, p. 645). Nostalgia here can be the force which drives us to recall and re-live past events in order to make meaning of them, for nostalgia can be perceived as “a defense mechanism to reinforce a person’s self-value” (Meyers, 2009, p. 738). It might be true for Haverty who had to face the fact that her life was coming to an end. Devoting the last years of her life to recalling and writing about the past could have been a method of coming to terms with her present situation and increasing her self-esteem. According to Meyers (2009) “the nostalgic perception of the past portrays it as a happy and meaningful experience” (p. 738); in this sense Haverty’s perception of her past could be called nostalgic, as it surely portrays her experience as significant and purposeful, if not always completely happy.

4 Conclusions It has been shown in the first part of this paper that nostalgia has the power to distort our perception of the past. Therefore, it can be concluded that a memoirist should avoid nostalgia, as he or she is expected to give a truthful account of the past because the genre belongs to the realm of nonfiction (Couser, 2012, p. 80). Thus, the moral obligation to tell the truth successfully deprives the writer/memoirist of the freedom to feel nostalgic about the past, and what is more important to give a nostalgic—in the sense falsified/distorted—representation of past events. However, there is also the possibility that the author may not be aware that their account of the past is affected by nostalgia, in which case they cannot be blamed for deliberately producing a falsified portrayal of the past, as they remained truthful in depicting their memories; and memories, as Schacter (1996) has aptly remarked, are “records of how we have experienced events, not replicas of the events themselves” (p. 6).

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What is more, a memoirist as a writer cannot escape artistic creativity and since, as Charles Maier suggests “Nostalgia is to memory as kitsch is to art” (cited in Boym, 2001, p. xiv), while a memoir is based on memories, we may assume that an overly nostalgic writer faces the danger of producing perhaps not the most refined text. For such features nostalgia has been criticized for a long time. Recent research, however, shows that nostalgia cannot be viewed only as having negative effects on history, culture, art and the way we remember the past. There is a myriad of possible conceptions and interpretations regarding nostalgia. One of such possibilities is perceiving it as a force that motivates us to try and connect our present selves with our past selves. The mere need of being involved in the process of recalling the past can be perceived as a nostalgia-driven activity. In such an understanding of nostalgia it is not of utmost significance whether the memories are of happy or sorrowful times in our lives, rather it is the motivation that stands behind the act of reminiscing. After all, when recalling past events we will surely stumble on happy as well as sad moments which will often intersect and overlap. Thus, we may feel a wave of sweet nostalgia when thinking about a pleasant past experience which in an instant can be followed by a painful experience, while the nostalgic feeling will linger and perhaps aid us in perceiving the experience as valuable and meaningful, since because of it our identity was formed and shaped. The experience, then, was not without a purpose. Perhaps nostalgic memories help us find this purpose. Wilson (1999) in her article “‘Remember When(…)’ A Consideration of the Concept of Nostalgia” asks the question: “does the ‘nostalgiac’ truly long to go back in time?” and aptly notices in the answer that: “(…) it is more a longing to recapture a mood or spirit of a previous time. Or, perhaps, to rediscover a former self (…)” (p. 296). This statement perfectly expresses the need probably most memoirists feel. This is also the case with women Beat writers who in their memoirs endeavoured to show what life was like in the Fifties. Some of their memories can serve as an antidote to the Seventies’ collective nostalgia which distorted and idealized the image of the past decade. Jameson (1991), whose observations on “nostalgia film” have been mentioned in this article, has stated that “a history lesson is the best cure for nostalgic pathos” (p. 156); perhaps memoirs of Beat Women by presenting both positive and negative recollections of the past can too become a cure to the pathos of nostalgia about the Fifties.

References Boym, S. (2001). The future of nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Bremser, B. (2007). Troia: Mexican memoirs. London: Dalkey Archive. Campbell, J. (2001). This is the beat generation: New York, San Francisco, Paris. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Charters, A. (2000). Foreword to nobody’s wife: The smart aleck and the king of the beats, by Joan Haverty Kerouac (pp. ix-xi). Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company.

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Charters, A. (2007). Introduction to Troia: Mexican memoirs, by Bonnie Bremser (pp. i–vii). London: Dalkey Archive. Coontz, S. (1992). The way we never were: American families and the nostalgia trap. New York: Basic Books. Couser, G. T. (2012). Memoir: An introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Davis, F. (1974). Yearning for yesterday: A sociology of nostalgia. New York: Free Press. Grace, N. M., & Johnson, R. C. (2004). Breaking the rule of cool: Interviewing and reading women beat writers. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. Haverty, J. (2000). Nobody’s wife: The smart aleck and the king of the beats. Berkeley California: Creative Arts Book Company. Howard, S. A. (2012). Nostalgia. Analysis, 72(4), 641–650. Hutcheon, L. (2000). Irony, nostalgia, and the postmodern. In R. Vervliet & A. Estor (Eds.), Methods for the study of literature as cultural memory (pp. 189–207). Amsterdam: Rodopi. Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke UP. Kerouac, J. (2000). Introduction to nobody’s wife: The smart aleck and the king of the beats, by Joan Haverty Kerouac (pp. v–viii). Berkeley California: Creative Arts Book Company. Knight, B. (2004). Women of the beat generation: The writers, artists and muses at the heart of a revolution. New York: MJF Books. Lyons, J. D. (2006). The Ancients ironic nostalgia. Paragraph. A Journal of Modern Critical Theory, 29(1), 94–107. Meyers, O. (2009). The engine’s in the front, but its heart’s in the same place: Advertising, nostalgia, and the construction of commodities as realms of memory. The Journal of Popular Culture, 42(4), 733–755. Miller, D. T., & Nowak, M. (1977). The fifties: The way we really were. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company. Mills, M. A., & Coleman, P. G. (1994). Nostalgic memories in dementia—A case study. International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 38, 203–219. Poore, B., Meerzon,Y., & Meyer-Dinkgrafe, D. (2013). Nostalgia. In D. Meyer-Dinkgrafe (Ed.), Observing theatre: Spirituality and subjectivity in the performing arts. Consciousness, literature and the arts (Vol. 36, pp. 15–60). Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi. Scanlan, S. (2004). Introduction: Nostalgia. Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, 5, 3–9. Schacter, L. D. (1996). Searching for memory: The brain, the mind, and the past. New York: Basic Books. Słonina, A. (2015). Nobody’s wife: Dethroning the “King of the beats.” Coming to know Joan Haverty Kerouac. In F. Forsgren & M. J. Prince (Eds.), Out of the shadows. Beat women are not beaten women (pp. 108–131). Kristiansand: Portal Books. Waldman, A. (2000). Foreword to women of the beat generation: The writers, artists and muses at the heart of a revolution, by Brenda Knight (pp. ix–xii). New York: MJF Books. Wilson, J. L. (1999). “Remember When…”: A consideration of the concept of nostalgia. Et Cetera, 56(3), 296–304. Zinchenko, A. V. (2011). Nostalgia: Dialogue between memory and knowing. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 49(3), 84–97.

Anna Słonina is Research Assistant in the Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. She is currently working towards her PhD with a dissertation titled Women of the Beat Generation: Autobiographical and Feminist Perspectives. Her main research interests include life writing (memoirs in particular), feminism and women’s studies, the Beat Generation and female writers of the Beat Generation. Her last publications are: “Nobody’s Wife: Dethroning the ‘King of the Beats’. Coming to know Joan Haverty Kerouac” in Out of the Shadows: Beat Women are Not Beaten Women (2015), and “Mary Borden’s ‘The Forbidden Zone: A Nurses Impressions of the First World War’” in Re-Imagining the First World War: New Perspectives in Anglophone Literature and Culture (2015).

“The Best Town by a Dam-Site:” Celebrating Memory in a Midwestern Small Town Karl Wood

Abstract Small towns have long occupied an important symbolic position in American culture. They have been frequently (and one might argue accurately) represented as tight-knit, even stifling communities from which the best and brightest do their best to escape. Since the mid-twentieth century at least, confronted with a social and economic decline that continues strongly into the present day, they have also been regarded nostalgically, as fading centers of an American heartland, the seat of the values of community and of a unique ‘Americanness’ being lost in the tide of change. As these communities have diminished, a veritable cottage industry of commemorative albums has appeared in small towns across the United States, often increasing in volume and scope as the town’s livelihood dwindles. While these volumes can be seen simply as antiquarian curiosities, attempts to set into aspic the ephemera of a vanishing way of life, they can also be regarded as valuable expressions of memory of what are remembered as better times in declining communities once seen as the backbone of American society, the home of that powerful American cultural metaphor, Main Street. The purpose of this paper is to examine three such albums produced between 1960 and 2010 in one small town, Marseilles, Illinois, a community in the American Midwest region, (the so-called “heartland” of the United States), with a view to examining the way a rather unremarkable small Midwestern town has celebrated its memory in a reconstruction an idealized image of its own past as reassurance in a troubling present.

1 Heart of the Heartland From a bird’s-eye perspective, the camera sweeps across a vast landscape of cornfields, bathed in the warmth of the late summer sun, cascading to the horizon. We watch as they are worked by massive combines bringing in the rich harvest of K. Wood (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_7

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corn for the year, the dust rising high into an endless sky. It feels familiar, reassuring, evocative of bounty and golden pastoral beauty, but pastoral on a massive scale. Our attention is drawn in closer, now to a water tower, the town name proudly emblazoned on one side, which looms over a small town of solid churches and modest homes. Closer, we hover over Main Street, as it must be, now nearly empty except for a tractor passing through, a lone pickup truck parked on the street, passed by three (stray?) dogs running loose down what should be the beating heart of a thriving town. Finally, we move to a yard between two houses, and hear the first sound—the slam of a screened porch door. In the opening scenes of his 1999 film The Straight Story, David Lynch leaves us no doubt: we are, we can only be, in the American Midwest. Lynch is able to use this imagery so skillfully for it is so deeply rooted in the American consciousness. Our particular town in Lynch’s tale in Laurens, Iowa, but it could be any of thousands of others scattered across the region known as the American Midwest. Thought of as the American heartland, its precise geographical location is a somewhat contentious issue, but typically includes the vast, largely flat expanses of states ranging from Ohio in the east, through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota, usually the Dakotas and Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, the last few sometimes also being thought of as part of the West. What is important in the cultural imagination of the Midwest, is that it seen as a place that is remarkably ordinary, and indistinct; dull, perhaps, perhaps oppressively so, yet at the same time one might contend that it is the place thought of the locale of an imaginary ‘Anytown, USA’, the imagined location of the iconic Main Street. Of course, there is no single such place in reality—the closest might be the hyperreal fantasy of Disney’s Main St. USA, which purveys an idealized serving of commercialized memory and antiseptic regional pastiche to tourists around the globe— yet, this place of the imagination, the “iconically very persistent” (Francaviglia, 1996, p. 191) image of Main Street in a Midwestern small town in a sense represents the symbolic heart of the heartland. If we imagine it, it might be as a casserole served at countless church pot-luck suppers: rather white, no doubt smothered in bright yellow melted cheese from Wisconsin, somewhat flavorless, yet unquestionably American in nature.1 Small towns abound across the United States, yet “perhaps no other region in the US is so closely associated with the image of small town life as the Midwest.” (Mahoney, 2007, p. 1077). And in this, it is regarded, both by outsiders and Midwesterners themselves, as quite unexceptional. Indeed, Midwesterners if anything take pride in being “normal”: “the pleasant combination of non-distinctive qualities.” (Etcheson, 2001, p. 79). This is not just a figment of cultural imagination, but it both influenced and was reinforced by social science. The classic sociological studies by Robert and Helen Lynd, Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture (1929) and Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (1937), despite their authors’ admonition that their findings could only be 1

Cognoscenti might consider the addition of tater tots to this casserole.

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applied cautiously to the country as a whole, rapidly entered into the popular imagination as “Americans quickly began to view the city2 as a representative slice of the nation and scholars (…) repeatedly returned to study to measure the degree of change in American culture and society over the course of the twentieth century” (Connolly, 2005, p. 212). The popular perception of a Midwestern town being representative of mainstream America was taken up not only by hosts of journalists and many of their readers, but also by none less than the likes of John Dewey, who referred to ‘Middletown’ as “Anytown” and, surprisingly, given his usual sense of cynicism, H. L. Mencken (Igo, 2005, p. 247, 239). And so, the Midwestern small town has long occupied a central place in the American imagination of its mainstream. It is also a place which has long been felt to ‘have seen better days,’ undergoing the processes of rural depopulation linked with the consolidation of agriculture and the decline of family farming, closures of many of the small factories that once provided many in these small towns with their livelihoods, and simply the longstanding trend of people to move away to larger urban areas in search of better opportunities. Indeed, “most depictions of the region’s recent history view it as a sad tale of (…) dying communities” (Wuthnow, 2011, p. x), even as the region as a whole may be undergoing a deep and to some, positive transformation into a more modern economic model. Some who remain in smaller towns cling to a positive outlook about their communities, even if the face of the adversity of economic upheaval (Wuthnow, 2011, p. 129). This sense of positivity could of course be rooted in a long tradition of what is known as ‘town boosterism’—a sort of cheerleading for a town, often led by the local chamber of commerce, or it could also simply be a Midwestern character trait to accent the positive (or to leave town…) This paper seeks to examine how the past has been imagined in one Midwestern small town, Marseilles, Illinois. As a town which has not necessarily benefited much from the transformation Wuthnow describes, it seems to find solace in celebrating what it has been in the past, and what it might hope to still become again. The primary material subject to analysis here is a series of three commemorative volumes prepared by committees of civic organizations assembled for the 125th, 150th and 175th anniversary of the founding of the town. Prepared with the support of local businesses and the municipal authorities, the volumes celebrate the modest history of the town representing not only into their own past, but investing this with a meaning and significance that reaches into a symbolic space far beyond the contemporary reality of the places themselves.

Middletown was a consciously chosen ‘generic’ name for Muncie, Indiana.

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2 Remembering a Rather Unexceptional Place Called Home Marseilles, Illinois, like hundreds of similar towns across the American Midwest, prides itself on its ‘pioneer’ heritage. Typically, it reminisces about its log-cabin and roadside tavern beginnings, has located the gravesite of the “first white child born” in the town, and retains a commemorative plaque for its founder. This sense of history suggests the mainstream ‘story of America:’ farming families braving the dangers of the wilderness to stamp out a town and establish ‘civilization’ in the middle of a primeval forest. Significant is the mention of the “first white child” born in the area, in this case one George Galloway, born in 1828 (Marseilles, Illinois, 1985, p. 9). Although the local antiquarian tradition does not entirely ignore the presence of Native Americans, it does postulate that in essence by the time the story of our small town begins, the native peoples had essentially vanished from the area. Curiously enough, the 1960 rendering of the tale is at least sympathetic to the local Native Americans and their plight in the largely untold tale of removal. While it presents the area as largely vacant by the time that settlers reached the area, it acknowledges in a three-paragraph section that the native peoples had been “tricked into making treaties” and “were shamefully treated by many white settlers and by military officials”, and even that “[t]heir last hopeless gesture of resentment, the Black Hawk War of 1832, had much justification.” (Carney, 1960, p. 2). This rendering is well within the version of the history of westward settlement that we might term the ‘March of Civilization vs. the Noble Savage’ that minimizes the value and sophistication of Native cultures: while it was of course tragic and even unjust that Native Americans (or here, of course, “the Indians” would be the term used) were removed from their land, theirs was a lost cause from the beginning, for civilization —as represented by white settlers of European origin—was on the march, and was clearly superior, hence the “hopelessness” of resistance. What is perhaps even more intriguing than this rather mainstream expression of presumed cultural superiority in 1960 is that as the volume of the works devoted to local town history and remembrance grow, even this brief mention virtually disappears. The most recent rendition of this history compiled in 2009—nearly ten times the length of the 1960 booklet—makes scant reference to the existence of native cultures or their forcible eradication and removal. The section devoted to natives essentially can be reduced to a statement along the lines that ‘once there were Indians here, and probably there was a French and Indian trading post nearby, but nobody really knows’. All that really survives is local legends about a long-forgotten distant past (Main St. & More, 2009, p. 8). In contrast to scholarly literature which has increasingly documented and discussed the history of settlement and the construction of an American Empire, local remembrance has, it seems, grown increasingly whitewashed over time. However significant the omission of the tale of removal in the story of our small town, it is no doubt reflective of the narrative the authors of these local histories

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seek to tell—their own. It is the tale of what now is the town of Marseilles and how it came to be, and so their focus lies elsewhere. Here the legendary pioneer beginnings, so important in the mainstream imagination of the origins of what is now America, are soon eclipsed by what is in fact much more significant in the development of Marseilles and hundreds of other small towns across the American Midwest. This is the story of commercial speculation and development. Like many other small towns, Marseilles began as a plan for business development. Originally founded by one Lovell Kimball as a townsite along the Illinois River to support his business enterprises, the town was planned and registered in 1835, the name chosen in the belief that Marseilles in Southern France was a major industrial city, the kind of settlement that Kimball had hoped to establish in the Illinois River Valley. This, not uncharacteristically for the founding of Midwestern small towns, was not a simple ‘clean’ operation by Kimball, who was not the first entrepreneur on the site. Instead, one Ephraim Sprague had first set up a water-powered sawmill on the site a few years before, hoping to supply the area with lumber for the construction of farms and towns. Kimball, arriving in 1833, recognized that Sprague had yet to finalize his claim to the water power, and built his own mill upstream from his rival, diverting the stream and handily making the claim for himself. Outdone by a more adroit entrepreneur better equipped to exploit the system, Sprague was ruined, but before leaving the area for good, local legend has it, placed a curse on the townsite, praying that “fire should burn and flood should wash away everything in Marseilles, as long as the memory of Kimball should last” (Carney, 1960, p. 4). Yet Marseilles, now recognizing Kimball, not Sprague, as its founder, grew and began to thrive. Its speculative beginnings were in fact rather typical. What enabled it to thrive where other towns failed and disappeared was its location on the Illinois River—a major artery in the overall Mississippi system, and more importantly, perhaps, the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, completed in 1848, linking Chicago and the Great Lakes to the interior and the Mississippi River. Bolstered by rich coal deposits in the area (some within the townsite itself), Marseilles soon grew into a small manufacturing center with furniture factories, brickyards, paper mills and many other small industries. The most important of these for local pride was the Marseilles Manufacturing Company, which produced agricultural equipment in the town from its establishment in 1867 by two Adams brothers from Massachusetts (related to the family that produced two presidents) until it was finally sold with its patents in 1912 to the John Deere company, when the local factory was closed, and the workers allowed to transfer to main Deere factory in Moline, Illinois (Carney, 1960, pp. 28–31). These small manufacturers, as in many thriving towns in the Midwest, provided the economic backbone for Marseilles, and along with the canal and the Rock Island Railroad (which arrived in Marseilles in 1853) drew business and employment to the growing town. With businesses came many new faces to the small town. Throughout the antiquarian works, there is a palpable sense of pride over the diverse ethnic origins of the people who came to create the town: “[L]aborers from Ireland (…) Germans (…) soon appeared on Main Street (…) settlers from England and Scotland (… a) few Welsh” and, after about 1900, “Italians as a new element”

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(Carney, 1960, pp. 8–9). One other element deemed worthy of mention were migrants from Kentucky, who arrived at more or less the same time as the Italians, and as Carney describes it, they quickly adapted to working in the town’s factories despite the fact that their “previous experience had been mainly in farming and lumbering” (Carney, 1960, p. 9) and they remained in the town. If we were then to take a stroll on a Saturday afternoon down Main Street and its environs in Marseilles during its heyday around 1910 (largely regarded as the high point for small town culture, not only in the Midwest), we would encounter many of these people, workers and professionals alike, as well as farm families for the surrounding countryside. We would find such retail establishments as Chandler’s Hardware Store, the Galloway Grocery, dry goods merchants, auto repair shops and dealers, clothiers, milliners, shoe stores, drugstores, butchers, bakers and a confectioner. Turning a corner, we might find one of the town’s three practicing physicians or its two dentists, or other professionals such as the town lawyers, the banker or the editor of the local newspaper. Proceeding down Main Street, past the railroad station and toward the river, we would find the town’s factories, artisans, and machine makers (Marseilles, Illinois, 1985, p. 142). We might stop and visit for a spell at one of the several restaurants, or perhaps at the drugstore soda fountain. The town gathered and mingled on Main Street on such days. The town had quite a bit to offer in the way of social and leisure opportunities. Along Main Street, there was an Opera House which, typically in Midwestern towns, hosted not opera, but Vaudeville, Chautauqua or religious revival meetings. Marseilles, like many small towns across the Midwest before the arrival of television, was quite proud of its amateur baseball team, the Browns. In the summertime, much of the town might come out to watch the local heroes take on the arch-rival team from nearby Streator. After a much hoped-for victory, that evening there might be a dance held outdoors with music provided by one of the three town bands. As the dance came to a close at a respectable hour, some young couples might slip away and stroll under the trees along—the almost too perfectly named—Lovers’ Lane. As idyllic (or, depending on one’s proclivities, insipid) as the above portrait may sound, it does proceed from the recollections of long-time town residents, as published in the 1985 and 2009 commemorative volumes. Marseilles could, in fact, boast of a rich and varied social life, under a (at times strained) veneer of harmony and equality. Social life tended to cluster around voluntary associations, as it did in many small towns in the Midwest. Here, some social hierarchy was evident. One can with some justification assume that what went on behind closed doors in Marseilles was similar to what has been documented for other, similar towns. The ‘best’ families tended to associate either through the Masonic Lodge or the Rotary Club. Membership in these associations was restricted to men, which clearly meant that the men selected their own peers as it were. Yet often the ladies’ association (The Order of the Eastern Star, in the case of the Masons) filled a ‘gatekeeper’ function: the wives in the ‘best’ families would often test the quality of a new candidate for membership on the basis of his wife’s performance, at a luncheon or card game. If the new arrival was deemed a lady (by other ladies, it is understood)

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then the family would be considered ‘of quality’ or ‘good people’ and the husband admitted to membership in the local lodge (Lingeman, 1980, pp. 405–406).3 A prevailing popular image holds that (nearly) everyone in small towns was more or less middle class—the wealthy, for example merchants or manufacturers who employed at most 100 people, were well-off, yet hardly rich in the sense of the wealth that one would find in cities. Solid working families—so called ‘nice people’—might associate through many of the other respectable, yet lesser, organizations, such as the Lion’s Club or veterans’ associations, which were active in the community, for example in building a community swimming pool for the town with fundraising activities and donated materials and labor to make up the rest. Of great significance also were the churches: in 1960, there were no fewer than a dozen active churches (yet, notably, no synagogue). Much as in other areas, the antiquarian histories emphasize the harmony among the different groups and cooperation in sharing facilities, for example, when the local Roman Catholic parish suffered a fire during the 1940s. Other strong municipal organizations helped foster a sense of a cohesive community. By the middle of the twentieth century, Marseilles could boast several grade schools and a high school, serving the many children of families in the town. Established in 1905 and built in part with a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, the public library gave the town a reading room and modest, yet respectable collection. Other public services were part of the community fabric: a volunteer fire department, a small police service, and the Marseilles Nursing Service, founded from surplus Red Cross funds after World War I, which proudly provided public health services and education to the community. Even labor relations are presented in a harmonious light. One might imagine that labor-management relations were not entirely agreeable, given that in Chicago, less than 100 miles away from Marseilles and accessible by rail, was the scene of many struggles in US labor history: the Haymarket Affair and the Pullman Strike come immediately to mind as examples discordant industrial relations that could take place in the Midwest. Yet memory would have it that, at least at the Marseilles Manufacturing Company, “relations between management and workers seemed to be on a friendly basis at all times” (Carney, 1960, p. 29). Even when the company was sold to John Deere in 1912, “arrangements were made to provide employment for all workers who would move to Moline” (Carney, 1960, p. 31). While our local history does express some doubt on just how ‘affectionate’ the practice of giving holiday gifts was to foremen, for example, “at a time when seniority rights were unheard of, and

3

Lingeman's characterizations of small town social life are based at least in part on the sociological community studies of W. Lloyd Warner and his study of small town life in Morris, Illinois, published in 1947 under the title Jonesville. Morris is located 19 miles (ca. 30 km) east of Marseilles down the Illinois River and US Route 6. That these followed in the footsteps of Middletown in seeking another Midwestern location, seems significant, though Warner is better known for his less ‘typical’ study of Newburyport, Massachusetts. See Connolly (2005), p. 219.

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hiring and firing was at the whim of the foreman” (Carney, 1960, p. 30), this is tempered with an elegy for the small-town family firm, largely a thing of the past by the 1960s, as juxtaposed with the profit-seeking cool calculations of Big Industry.

3 Rose-Colored Remembrance Of course, it is fair to ask if a certain disharmony in the ‘ideal’ small town is not being masked already in 1960 in the mists of selective memory. One wonders, for example, when the local Gum’s Creek coal mine was closed finally during the Depression, after several decades of turnovers in ownership and “management problems”, (Marseilles, Illinois, 1985, p. 84), if relations were so fraternal, or when many other businesses or factories closed over the years, if the ends were indeed quite so amicable. Yet there is no mention of strife or discord in any of the local histories, not even in the pages devoted to local labor unions (active since the Depression). At most there is a discernible underlying sense of injustice at jobs having been relocated—a lament common to small towns across the United States (and elsewhere, for the matter). When jobs evaporated, workers must have sought employment opportunities elsewhere. Much as the doubt expressed about whether presented foremen with presentation watches was friendly or not, between the lines we can find cracks in the image of a harmonious small town. Characteristic for Midwestern discourse regarding uncomfortable social conflicts or realities is a tendency that more is “implied than developed, more assumed than explained” (Cayton, 2001, p. 144). Here, in these local histories, veiled references, phrased in the most perfect Midwestern-ese idiom of “saying something nice”, suggest to the reader familiar with this Midwestern form of expression that all was not always moderate accord. The reference to the migrants from Kentucky above, for example, gives only faint praise to their ability to adjust to low-status factory work, and also includes that they had a very different background than others in the town, not owing to their ethnicity, which was English and Scots-Irish, but their “mountaineer” background. This difference, evidently, was not easily assimilable, as “no other groups in the community keep in such close touch with their former homes, or make such frequent visits to them” (Carney, 1960, p. 9). One could, of course, interpret this statement positively, that the migrants maintained links with their extended families. Conversely, one could equally interpret it as an expression of disdain, as a coded message that these migrants did not constitute part of the community. While behind closed doors the ‘nice people’ of town might speak in disdainful hushed tones of the ‘hillbilly’ element that did not fit in, but tended to congregate in a particular part of town and patronize one particular saloon known for playing bluegrass music, one would never say such a thing publicly, and certainly not in the pages of a commemorative history of the town its boosters were so proud of.4

To this day, the division between ‘local’ and ‘hillbilly’ remains perceptible in Marseilles, with some residents derisively referring to those with roots in Kentucky as residing in a separate parallel

4

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Other veiled references suggest a similar tale, one which touches on questions of gender roles, as well. The key to ‘respectability’ as a family within the small-town world of Marseilles would be a solidly middle-class existence, which naturally implied hegemonically ‘traditional’ middle-class gender role ideals. A middling, but solid family would be one in which the wife cared for all the household responsibilities herself; a well-to-do family could be defined as one that could afford household help, and a struggling family as one in which the wife took in the laundry of the well-to-do in order to make ends meet. Yet here, too, are quite understated, yet related elements that do not quite ‘fit’ with this picture. Women were certainly to be found working outside of the home, either by choice or out of economic necessity. Several were important in the town as shopkeepers, sometimes independently or in partnership with a spouse; others were active in professions, primarily those regarded as gender-appropriate such as teachers or (by the 1950s) even principals; other professional women led the Marseilles Nursing Service. Many working-class women worked outside of the home out of economic necessity: perhaps by taking on housekeeping or childcare responsibilities for more affluent families or seeking and finding employment in many of the small factories in town or in the nearby larger town of Ottawa, which as accessible by Interurban commuter train and often offered better wages. It should be noted that one of the more attractive employment options for young women in Ottawa was working at the Radium Dial Company, which offered relatively high wages to its young female employees—over 100 in 1925. The ‘catch’ however, was that the work involved dangerous work with radioactive paint for then fashionable luminous watch dials. While the women were assured that the paint was safe, and in fact, would give them a healthy “glow in their cheeks”, many women suffered illness or died from radiation poisoning in what became known as the Radium Girls scandal (Clark, 1997, p. 99–100). Although women from Marseilles were also employed at the factory and were almost certainly affected, this chapter of local history makes no appearance in the memory recorded on the pages of the local histories.5 Perhaps understandably, local histories focus instead on the employment opportunities available in Marseilles itself, and here, differences of social class and social hierarchy become evident in references to “overall girls” in the notes of a town old timer. These initially were women working in the roofing plant to fill labor shortages in 1917—the women worked only with each other and only with a male boss. That this occurred should not surprise at all, as countless women entered the male-dominated workplaces at this time in most countries at war. Significant here, town, called “Martucky”, and protesting that not all town residents are ‘hicks,’ reflecting the more general ‘nice people’ versus ‘not nice’ class divide. 5 It does survive in living memory, however. The author’s grandmother grew up in Marseilles and, after training in Chicago and working in St. Louis, returned and worked for the community nursing service in the 1940s. She rarely spoke of the young girls who worked for Radium Dial in Ottawa, which operated there in the 1920s and 1930s, and only in outraged and pained tones of the illnesses some of them suffered from.

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however, is the final note, almost an afterthought, that “these girls were usually from southern states” (Main St. & More, 2009, p. 29). Whether because of their regional cultural affiliation that seemed ill-suited to a prosperous Midwestern town or simply because of their social class which meant that often women had to work in low-status jobs, these “overall girls” (and presumably their families) lived at the margins of Marseilles, both spatially in a separate part of town as well as socially. Importantly, however, the migrants from Kentucky, as English and Scots-Irish in origin, did at least fit into the town’s vision of its understanding of ethnic diversity. While one can hardly look at this particular population diversity as typical for the United States or even the region as a whole, its reality is nonetheless revealing of the construct of the nature of the imaginary ‘normal’ small town. Diversity, in the concrete case of Marseilles and, more importantly, in the imagined small town, means a variety of white people from primarily Northern (and Northwestern) European origin, with some ‘ethnic’ element—such as Italians, Czechs or perhaps Poles—mixed into give a bit of flavor to the casserole.

4 Omissions or Oversights Like the synagogue in the list of religious associations, conspicuously absent in the story of Marseilles are people of color. Except for the distant past of Native Americans and an entry in the 2010 edition for Uncle Wong’s restaurant (est. 2004) with clearly Asian proprietors (Main St. and More, 2009, p. 264), we find no reference in any of the local histories to any individual, family or group that was not white. While one might imagine that perhaps there is an “untold story” of a small, segregated community of African-Americans living on the margins, people whose lives and history and are excluded from the main narrative, it does not seem that this is the product of some subterfuge or concealment. This perhaps, should not surprise. While the Midwest may commonly perceived as “aside from Montana(…) ‘the whitest place you’ll ever go” (Etcheson, 2001, p. 87), it should be recognized that racial diversity, if perhaps to a lesser extent than other regions, has been and continues to be an important element in the American Midwest, or even that “race and racism has been at the center of its collective identity” (Cayton, 2001: 145), speaking of the region as a whole. This diversity, however, is hardly universally distributed, but has tended to be concentrated in certain areas in what one might call a form of de facto segregation (as opposed to historic de jure segregation under Jim Crow in the South), enforced by practice, not by law directly. African-Americans have been in the state of Illinois since its beginnings. As well-known local lore has it, one of the founders of Chicago was a black man, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable (after whom the Chicago museum of African-American history is named). The notorious Dred Scott case of 1857—testing the limits of slavery and freedom on the eve of the Civil War, was based on a slave’s claim to freedom after having been in a free state—Illinois. The state was a major

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destination in the Great Migration of African-Americans from the rural South in the twentieth century. Yet in large part, whatever the period, we do not find many—if any—African-Americans in the small towns of the Midwest, small towns such as Marseilles. Census data tends to confirm this. The 1860 Census, for example, shows only a handful of black individuals in the county, and in the township all of two isolated individuals, Noah Phillips, age 50, of mixed race, a farm laborer born in Maryland, and twelve pages later (and hence probably not related, or at least certainly not part of the same household) William Phillips, age 16, black, born in New York (1860 Census data facsimile available at www.ancestry.com). Until about 1900, such small numbers could be found in rural Midwestern areas, and African-Americans had a small, but noteworthy role in many locales, but the lure of greater economic opportunities as well as “an eruption of anti-black violence that generally occurred outside of metropolitan centers [and l]ynchings in rural areas and small towns (…) made security in greater numbers [i.e., in larger cities] seem prudent” (Blocker, 2007, p. 1100). Census trends from 1920 to the present suggest that what few African-Americans there were in the county (about 0.5% on average prior to 2000) tended to be in the larger towns such as Ottawa, the county seat, and perhaps a corner of nearby Streator. Smaller towns, such as Marseilles were unlikely to have any non-white residents at all, at least not who could not ‘pass’ for white. This pattern continues into the present. As part of a greater trend of “ethnic minorities filling the ranks of labor” in so-called “lead towns” (Davies, Amato, & Pichaske, 2003, p. 377) such as Ottawa, greater LaSalle County has recently begun to see the arrival of African-Americans, Asians and in particular Latinos, yet these numbers remain quite small: 5.2% Latino and 1.5% African-American in 2000, growing to 8 and 1.9% respectively in 2010. These figures are rather low when compared to a national average, and low for the state of Illinois as a whole (both groups around 15% in 2010), but the figures for Marseilles are lower still. In 2000, when the African-American population of the county as a whole had trebled from the historical average, to 1.5%, the number of African-American residents of Marseilles was all of four. By 2010, this figure had grown to eighteen (out of a total population of 5093), approaching the historical 0.5% for the county. The number of Latinos is higher and growing: from 83 in 2000 to 284 in 2010 (1920, 1930, 1960, 1990, 2000 and 2010 United States Census data retrieved from www.census.gov). In regard to its ethnic composition, one can hardly regard Marseilles as a ‘typical’ American community, representative of the country as a whole, yet it is fairly typical for a small town of the American Midwest in this respect. Diverse ethnic populations are certainly present in the region, but in large part, this diversity is found in larger urban areas such as Chicago. Yet Chicago is hardly ‘typical’ for the region. For the construct of the “normal” small town of the American Midwest, both in its self-understanding and in how it tends to be seen from the outside, ethnic diversity means a diversity of European stock.

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5 The Bygone Best Days This concept of a small-town world as a close-knit community of equal white individuals and families “was a creation of a particular era, now gone” (Hoover, 2007, p. 1091). While some no doubt welcome and embrace the arrival (still limited) of ethnic minorities to their communities as a fresh element that might invigorate their small towns, others, no doubt, see this ‘browning’ of their Main Street as a threat and sign of decline. Yet the Midwestern small town has been in decline for decades as businesses disappeared and the most talented individuals often migrated to cities or suburban areas. Despite the efforts of local chambers of commerce and town boosters to put a happy spin on the situation, for example Marseilles’ 1985 sesquicentennial slogan “Say Mar-Sales. Where life begins at 150”, (Marseilles, Illinois, 1985: front cover) it has been clear from the 1980s forward, [h]owever one counted numbers, money and power, the tally was the same: the small town was manifestly diminished. Its streets had fallen apart; its commercial class had vanished. (…) The situation required a dramatic accounting: the midwestern town can be pronounced stone dead (Davies et al., 2003, p. 4).

The causes for this are manifold: a changing environment in which economic and social power is increasingly concentrated in urban areas, as well as the forces of globalization, the general depopulation of rural areas owing to greater corporate ownership of agricultural land and the demise of the iconic ‘family farm’ to name only briefly a few of the key forces. But social forces played a role as well. As national urban-driven consumer culture arrived in small towns during the Twentieth century, bolstered by advertising and the mass media, the draw of city (or suburban) lights proved for many irresistible. Equally as important, perhaps, was for many the prospect of an escape from the stifling side of a small, close-knit community, the narrow perspectives and conformity of the kind described by authors such as Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis in the 1920s. Marseilles was no exception to these trends. A comparison of the business directories from 1916, 1960, 1985 and 2010 are striking. Where as late as 1960 the town could boast of a wide range of services and employers similar to those found in 1916, manufacturing was already in decline, and the generally upbeat history ends on a rather ambivalent note, telling of how the “United Progressive Citizens Corporation, a nonprofit organization of members of labor unions, keeps up a steady interest to bring new industries to Marseilles” but ending with how the group saved a local plant on Commercial Street slated for destruction by purchasing it and keeping it ready to lease or sell at a bargain rate. Nevertheless, the section concludes, “the search for a new tenant continues” (Carney, 1960, p. 44–45). The National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) box plant, once the pride of the town as “the largest industrial building in the state outside of Chicago, and the first air-conditioned factory in this part of the country” (Carney, 1960, p. 35) was sold by the company and the most important paper-mill operations closed in 1984 with grave implications. As was written in 1985 “if the paper mill is not put back into

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production, the loss of revenue to the city in taxes, plus the loss of employment will have a serious effect to [sic] the city” (Marseilles, Illinois, 1985, p. 92) The box folding operations continued for a time, but when these were finally shut down in 2006, the closure affected “about 85 workers at the former Nabisco plant, founded in 1902, (…) which employed 500 at its height” (Main St. & More, 2009, p. 220). The building was purchased by a private investor, and now stands an empty shell, gutted for its metal fittings and equipment for scrap. This series of industrial closures, as was sensed with dread in 1960 and 1985, had a severe effect on the town. Businesses along Main Street disappeared, as is chronicled in painstaking detail in the 2010 volume. In a tome of 372 pages, much is devoted to the history of each Main Street address, which testifies to the closure of long established grocers, hardware stores, clothiers and electronics stores, once the anchors of Main Street, and their replacement by a handful of small shops and business ventures. Many once proud addresses with solid brick edifices suggesting permanence and stability now stand vacant. A few businesses soldier on: one independent grocery store continues to offer its services after the national chain, A & P, closed its store in 1982. Uncle Wong occupies a space in the same building, a storefront previously home to a laundromat for decades. A small bank sits at the edge of the parking lot, near a generic gas station that replaced a distinctive 1920s art deco building that was razed in the 1980s, and a café and a few services such as insurance agencies or the funeral home continue. But other family businesses that served the community for decades have either left or simply disappeared. In a most telling advertisement in the 2010 commemorative volume, one attorney writes in large block letters “YOU GET MY VOTE MARSEILLES FOR THE CITY OF CHAMPIONS” before promoting her services: “Who are you kidding? It’s not getting any better! File For Bankruptcy. Affordable Fees and Payment Plans to Fit Your Needs. Don’t Risk Losing Your House Or Car” [capitalization original] (Main St. & More, 2009, p. 252). Ironically, or perhaps not, the attorney, who was listed in 1985 as having practiced at 493 Main Street, Marseilles, since 1971, now offers her services from the “Log Cabin on the River” not in town, but in Ottawa. With the decline of business, the community obviously was affected deeply. Today, public services still protect the community, and the Marseilles Nursing Service maintains in its tradition of serving the community. One grade school has survived in town, but in 1986 the high school, once home of the locally loved Marseilles Panthers, was closed, the district consolidated and the students sent—of course—to Ottawa. The old solid buildings were either sold and torn down, converted into apartments, or sit vacant, waiting for a buyer. Civic organizations such as the Masons, the Lions Club, the American Legion and the Rotary Club do continue, but with much diminished numbers. Churches continue their work, although their number has declined to seven from thirteen in 1960. Yet the town endures, cultivating its memories and honoring its legacy. Many local residents take pride in how it was the first town in the United States to have a memorial to a war in progress—the Middle Eastern Conflicts Memorial Wall, built in 2004, a series of granite reflective blocks on the banks of the Illinois River, engraved with the names of military casualties since 1979 much as the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC.

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Many have chosen to remain in Marseilles, quite evidently proud of this place that they call home. The population in general has aged, as the children of families follow a familiar pattern and leave for the broader horizons and prospects of other towns or cities. For some, Marseilles has become an affordable bedroom community, as the small new development of suburban-style subdivision housing near the Interstate 80 exchange suggests, and some limited employment opportunities remain. Yet the character of the intimate, integrated and prosperous small town is no more. What continues, however, and thrives more than ever, is commemoration of the past. As the town declined, the volume of detail and reminiscences in the commemorative books ballooned: from a scant, but well-written 54 booklet-style pages in 1960, to 144 large format pages with many more pictures and stories of what used to be in 1985. This volume, at least, tries to maintain an optimistic note for the future, at least in its boosterish slogan (yet more modest than the 1960 “The best town by a dam-site”). By 2009, however, such aspirations have largely vanished, and what we have is 372 pages, quite reminiscent in size and feel to the telephone directory of a small city, filled with fond and loving memories, and tenacious pride in what still remains. The local library, a Carnegie library from 1903, still maintains a local history room in its basement, lovingly curated by a retired volunteer. But characteristically unarticulated, but plainly evident between the lines, is a sadness over what has been lost. Proceeding from the production of the 2009 volume, an interest group has sprung up on Facebook, where residents as well as ‘outsiders’ who have a connection to the town can share photos, memories and stories, connecting their story to a larger story of a changing country and a changing world. Non-resident participants include people who may have grown up in town, but have left, or their children or grandchildren who now live in widely-flung suburban areas across the entire country. Perhaps they have some early childhood memories of Main Street when it still had businesses, when people greeted each other and stopped to chat. Perhaps they only know it’s where their ancestors came from and remember it only by a treasured photograph or heirloom from a dear and now deceased relative. Wherever they are, all are contributing to an imaginary romanticization of the past, best “imagineered” by Disney on Main Street, USA, of a “simpler, more cohesive sense of community than their malls and shopping strips, attenuated by the libertine automobile, could provide” (Franklin, 1996, p. xii). Changing times were certainly not kind to towns like Marseilles. The recreated memory of an ideal small town evokes a portrait painted in tones of Frank Capra. Yet much as it is often overlooked that George Bailey, Capra’s small-town Everyman of heroic (un)common decency in It’s a Wonderful Life, was driven to the brink of suicide by the machinations of the town miser and saved only by divine intervention, the town’s reality was not as ideal as one might like to remember, either. Perhaps it is the nature, indeed the function of celebratory memory to blend out such unpleasantries. In the contemporary United States, many feel great anxiety about the new changing times, their changing country and what they feel to be an

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uncertain future in an unpredictable and seemingly capricious world. An idealized imagined past of a ‘normal’ and stable small town in which George Bailey prevails, can provide succor, however fleeting to those seeking a mooring in turbulent times.

References Blocker, J. S. (2007). Small town life: Ethnicity and race. In R. Sisson, C. Zacher, & A. Cayton (Eds.), The American midwest: An interpretative encyclopedia (pp. 1099–1100). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Carney, M. V. (1960). The story of Marseilles (pp. 1835–1960). Marseilles, IL: Historical Booklet Committee. Cayton, A. R. L. (2001). The anti-region: Place and identity in the history of the American Midwest. In A. R. L. Cayton & S. E. Gray (Eds.), The identity of the American Midwest: Essays on regional history (pp. 140–159). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Clark, C. (1997). Radium girls. Women and industrial health reform (pp. 1910–1935). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Connolly, J. J. (2005). The legacies of Middletown: Introduction. Indiana Magazine of History, 101(3), 211–225. Davies, R. O., Amato, J. A., & Pichaske, D. R. (2003). A place called home: Writings on the Midwestern small town. Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society; Borealis Books. Etcheson, N. (2001). Barbecued kentuckians and six-foot texas rangers: The construction of Midwestern identity. In A. R. L. Cayton & S. E. Gray (Eds.), The identity of the American Midwest: Essays on regional history (pp. 78–90). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Francaviglia, R. V. (1996). Main street revisited: Time, space, and image building in small town America. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Franklin, W. (1996). Forward. In R. V. Francaviglia (Ed.), Main street revisited: Time, space, and image building in small town America (pp. xi–xiii). Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Hoover, D. (2007). Social structure. In R. Sisson, C. Zacher, & A. Cayton (Eds.), The American Midwest: An interpretative encyclopedia (pp. 1089–1091). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Igo, S. E. (2005). Middletown, Muncie, and ‘typical America’. Indiana Magazine of History, 101 (3), 239–266. Lingeman, R. (1980). Small town America: A narrative history 1620-the Present. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Lynd, R. S., & Lynd, H. M. (1929). Middletown: A study in contemporary American culture. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company. Lynd, R. S., & Lynd, H. M. (1937). Middletown in transition: A study in cultural conflicts. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company. Mahoney, T. R. (2007). Small town life: Overview. In R. Sisson, C. Zacher & A. Cayton (Eds.), The American Midwest: An interpretative encyclopedia (pp. 1077–1081). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Main St. & More. Marseilles—2010. (2009). Marseilles, IL: Main St. & More Committee. Marseilles, Illinois. 1835–1985. (1985). Marseilles and coal city. IL: Historical Booklet Committee; Bailey Printing. United States Census Bureau. (1860). Census data from the 1860 Census available in facsimile format through www.ancestry.com. Accessed November 11, 2017.

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United States Census Bureau. Census data from the 1920, 1930, 1960, 2000 and 2010 censuses. http://factfinder.census.gov/. Accessed November 11, 2017. Wuthnow, R. (2011). Remaking the heartland. Middle America since the 1950s. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Karl Wood holds a PhD in History from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and is on the staff in the Department of English Studies at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland, where he teaches courses in American Cultural Studies. His academic interests and publications include American suburbia and masculinity studies, as well as work in memory studies and the cultural history of medicine.

(Re)Constructing the Sixties: On Psychedelic Experience in Sleep’s Dopesmoker Tymon Adamczewski

Abstract The article discusses the notion of psychedelic experience within the context of the sixties cultural heritage. A particular psychedelic coding is identified within the artistic production of the decade as one of the key elements in attempts at recording and (re)producing forms of perception-enhancing experiences. The main point of focus for the analysis are the contemporary renditions of the sixties in musical forms. The article provides a brief historical context of the sixties’ American counterculture and the psychedelic music of the time when psychoactive substances were not only referenced in the song titles or song lyrics but did actively influence and shape the forms of musical expression. It is argued that similar traits can further be identified in one of the key compositions for the heavy stoner rock genre, Sleep’s Dopesmoker (2003), and that the track, as a daring formal and artistic experiment in expressionism, manages to demonstrate what might be conceptualized as the sixties’ remainders, especially that it successfully goes beyond the merely nostalgic sentimentalism about the past.

1 Introduction The year 2018 seems to be an appropriate date to reconsider the heritage of the tumultuous 1968 and the sixties in general. It may provide us with a seemingly safe historical distance from which to look at things, as well as with cool-headed approach to more nostalgic renditions. While the swinging decade’s tremors and its revolutions are still felt today in many areas of politics and culture, the very scope of the changes the decade wrought is of such multifarious quality that it invariably necessitates disparate discursive strategies to speak about these times or about their consequences. The sixties can thus be the subject of almost anything: from enthusiastic reverence, through disturbing sentimentalism, to downright criticism; including but not limited to the strong academic reconsiderations of the decade in T. Adamczewski (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_8

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the humanities. Within such a broad spectrum of perspectives on otherwise disparate elements from the past, it is artistic production that can in many respects serve as a record of this undoubtedly captivating zeitgeist. It can allow us not only to trace the multifaceted revolutions and social transformations as reflected in cultural texts of the era but also offer a look into the constructedness of the decade. The nostalgic cultural longevity of the sixties renderings as a time of carefree youthful authenticity has been undermined for some time now. As Neil Young, one of the decade’s icons, illustrates on his 2012 album entitled Psychedelic Pill, musical production can offer more than a trippy journey to revisit the past. The opening track, entitled “Driftin’ Back”, is a monumental almost 28-minute commentary on the countercultural times which follows the form of an ascending, slowly-unwinding, almost tantric-like coil of concentric musical meandering. Young opens with acoustic incantations for a journey into the depths of memory (‘Hey now now, hey now now/ I’m drifting back’) in the hope of tapping into what he once lived through: Dreaming about the way things sound now Write about them in my book Worry that you can’t hear me now And feel the time I took To help you feel this feeling Let you ride along Dreaming about the way you feel now When you hear my song (Neil Young, “Driftin’ Back”)

Taking us through the images which set out to reconstruct his sixties experience, in many ways symptomatic for the bulk of a generation, the track slowly unfolds in its own dreamy and hypnotic pacing. We hear comments about expectations of an iconic Jesus-like messiah about to announce his sacred gospel to the followers ‘pushing in front of this cave.’ In its attempts to bring back the zeitgeist both in form and content, Young references popular music’s growing political potential at the time. Symptomatically, as some more conservative critics (cf. Kimball, 2000) would surely be keen to point out, the track may also be seen as a record of disillusionment with a ‘profit-making ethic’ (Marwick, 1998, p. 13) the decade was already dominated by when it was at the peak of its momentum: Here’s how I got my mantra Gave them thirty five bucks now Gave it to the Maharishi It went to the organization Excuse my religion Dreaming bout the way things feel now

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Write it in my book Blocking out all the thoughts now (Neil Young, “Driftin’ Back”)

Coming from one of the original sixties icon, such a re-evaluation of the decade, both, explores and replicates past musical forms, especially in its psychedelic coding typical for the time it addresses. Similarly, it also reveals the sixties’ status as a cultural construct. Neil Young’s work, through its very repetitive nature, on top of its length and form, makes an explicit reference to the psychedelic experience, evidencing the importance of popular music for the people whom David Pichaske (1989) aptly termed ‘a generation in motion.’ It also points to the music’s subsequent commercialization in later decades. Above all, however, it demonstrates the way in which many of the era’s texts and achievements seem to haunt contemporary culture. While numerous commentaries about the sixties are clearly verbalized in either positive or negative estimations, I would like to look into their perpetual cultural existence and constructed status of the decade using one of its significant elements: psychedelia. It is in some contemporary musical pieces, especially in what many term stoner rock, that explicit references to the psychedelic experience, very much in vein with the sixties’ one, can be traced. The term itself, as I will attempt to argue, allows to understand both the importance of consciousness altering substances (like LSD or cannabis) on form and content of artistic production at the time, but can also serve as a document of endeavours aiming to transcend the limitations of the artistic medium, which mirror a political and social significance of cultural practices. It can also be useful to think about the constructed status of the sixties and everything that such label may connote. It is in this context that I would like to read Sleep’s Dopesmoker (2003/2015), one of stoner rock’s most notorious pieces—not only as a text heavily indebted to the sixties origins, but also as one which in its artistic programming attempts to replicate, repeat and simulate aspects of the psychedelic experience. One question I would like to address in what follows is a comparison between Sleep’s work, seen as an ‘authentic’ attempt to revisit the sixties, and more nostalgic renditions of the decade.

2 Psychedelic Experience and Music Psychedelia—as undoubtedly many hippies would agree—is about manifesting the soul. OED tells us it is a combination of the Greek etymon for psyche and a word indicating the activity of revealing or making manifest. It thus stands for anything that is mind- or soul- revealing, but owing to its relationship to drugs (or illicit substances in general) it is also tied to transgressive behaviours, which result in producing “an alteration in the mind, esp. an apparent expansion of consciousness often accompanied by hallucinations” (still OED). While these hallucinations do not have to be solely of visual nature, images and visual elements play an

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undoubtedly important role here. Psychedelic drugs were repeatedly associated with effecting feelings of expanded perception or a heightened sense of emotions— sensations which later many artists would attempt to imitate either in graphic or musical form of intense, vivid colours forming fluid swirling patterns we now traditionally associate with the hippie era. As the decade progressed, the visual aesthetics acquired a soundtrack. Originating largely in the sixties, psychedelic music is, not surprisingly, associated with psychedelic drugs. It might generally be seen as an attempt to render the experience of using mind-altering substances through experimentation with exotic instrumentation, low-paced time signatures, dreamy sound effects and long guitar solos, all of which are often accompanied by surrealistic lyrics. Although references to substances like these could be traced back even to the beginning of the 20th century in American songwriting tradition (cf. Perone, 2004, p. 111), and the timeframe for psychedelia coincides with the American sixties counterculture, the popularity of this kind of music was not limited to the US, nor was it strictly related to the revolutionary decade. Nevertheless, I would like to limit my interests here precisely to the USA because of the sheer number of bands and because of the fact that it is in the sixties that both content and form seemed to be most saturated with marijuana or acid references. In works by numerous American artists popular around the year 1967 reference to drugs abound: these include titles (Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”), content (Jefferson’s Airplane’s “White Rabbit”), or form (“Light My Fire”, “The End” by the Doors); the latter group, as was the strategy of many other artists, would often incorporate uncommon musical scales, eg. from Eastern music, to the effect of evoking an unusual trance-like ambience. The altered-states of consciousness were also associated with the search for new means of expression to artistically represent them. Hendrix pioneered many of now widely used recording studio and sound techniques1 while “emphasizing the use of special effects, electronically altered voices and instruments, and rapid panning between the stereo channels” (Perone, 2004, p. 24)—with his first studio album (Are You Experienced? [1967]) making a title reference to being in the know about the heightened perception. All of these practices can further be seen as attempts at transcending the traditionally understood musical medium. Following the customary rendering of these developments, one might claim that popular music went beyond the materiality and limits of the turntable to electrify generations struggling for a change in the world. It is easy to see that popular music certainly was of pivotal cultural significance: it provided forms of the generational protest as well as the space for manifestation of belonging to a given social group. Mirroring the social position and function of jazz in the 1950s, a decade later, the varied types of rock music offered cultural identification for many young people which was coupled with the notion of

1

The technological innovations aiming to render the altered states were often used, as in Hendrix case, to explicitly allude to the religious, mind-opening experience, doubtlessly shared by many of his fans-turned followers.

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transgressing cultural norms or taboo breaking. Apart from politically involved protest songs by the likes of Joan Baez or Bob Dylan, the music became a site of youth counterculture celebration. In contrast to the 1950s mode of performing it in enclosed spaces of clubs, musical sounds in the sixties started to pour out into the open in order to be performed outdoors and for larger audiences. In this way both live performances and music itself started embodying an insistence on varied communication channels to a much more intensive degree. Through employing multiple modes—including sight, sound and the aesthetic experience—music was frequently conceptualized and performed not only as a social or political message, but because of the inclusiveness of such media as the live gig or a musical record it also functioned as a spiritual experience or of a rite of passage. Mariusz Czubaj (2005, p. 202), for example, aptly demonstrates the importance of images2 and imagery in the cultural representation of the sixties. The decade is indeed typified by plurality of happenings and their respective power lies in their very longevity, i.e., long-lasting influence on culture. In terms of iconic snapshots, the sixties might thus be represented by an image of Hendrix’s guitar burning at Monterey Pop Festival in 1967—an event interpreted equally as a fertility ritual, connoting ideas of sensuality and sexuality, but also, as the critic argues, that of a sacrifice. Its significance is very much akin to an act of communication with some other dimension, performed by a priest who is accompanied by faithful followers. Reaching out to the non-aesthetic layers of music at the time, i.e., ones connected with social and political contexts, was however a two-edged process and partly accounted for psychedelic music being a relatively short-lived phenomenon. According to Perone (2004, p. 26), by the latter part of the decade, at the peak of its popularity, the term “psychedelic” was already over-exploited, with its haze in pop music effectively dissolving already by 1968 which meant a return to roots of plain rock for some best known bands (cf. Hicks, 1999, p. 63). The popularity of such generic stylistics also seems to run its course with numerous bands employing psyched poetics irrespective of their musical style or actual usage of psychoactive substances. This was also associated with the general political disillusionment with the hippy utopian ideas, especially in the face of such shattering events as the Manson murders, The Rolling Stones Altamont Concert or when Height Ashbury turned into a drug ghetto with “hard drugs and lack of police presence” (Powell Cohen, 2008, p. 77). This was the dark side of the otherwise utopian hippie explorations of the self: the drug use did not only attract charges of political passivity but also had to face the outbursts of heroin-tinged harsh reality. It seems that the hippie psychedelic explorations were focused too much on the self to affect a huge political change. However, they did affect the music. Putting the social context aside for the time being, the disparate shapes and sizes of psychedelic music might suggest a hazy drug-induced lack of cohesion, but as a 2

Compare a similar strategy of thinking about the sixties in terms of images in a recent book by Jerzy Jarniewicz (2016), All You Need is Love—sceny z życia kontrkultury [Scenes from the Life of Counterculture], where photographic stills from the time become the starting point for discussion about various significant traits of the epoch.

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genre it does contain some fairly fixed formal traits which allow for some systematization. One key feature within its stylistics is its link with a broad understanding of fluidity and the significance of visual experience. Symptomatically, much of the art and music classified under the rubric of psychedelic typifies the attempt to record or reproduce a particularly fuzzy perception of reality, often expressed in correspondingly floating terms. Consequently, the generally understood fluidity in psychedelia seems to evoke what Sheila Whiteley called ‘psychedelic coding’ (2005, p. 8). Psychedelic experience can thus involve ‘changes in time (and other sensory perception); diminished inhibitions and symbolic overtones, [as well as] heightened sensations.’ Musically, it focuses on alternative meanings and involves a correlation of drug experience and stylistic characteristics. All of these effects, obviously, correspond to the psychedelic mind-altering or pharmacologically-induced experiences (e.g., taking LSD). Drawing on Timothy Leary, aka the Acid Pope of the time, Michael Hicks (1999, p. 63) suggested a useful differentiation of such experiences. It includes dechronicisation or depersonalization and within music these effects can be rendered by both lengthening of the song and slowing it down. Since music is the key point here, the slowdown can be measured and Hicks successfully demonstrates how the tune’s tempo, among other aspects, leads on to produce a sense of psychedelic perception with the example of Vanilla Fudge’s 1967 cover version of the Supremes’ “You Keep Me Hanging On.” In one respect such obvious lengthening of the songs registers a change in the structure and format of the tracks: popular music could now employ “long introductions and codas” as well as “long solos or jams.” The original number became a jump-off point for explorations of the temporal moment and stretching it as long as possible so as to mirror the experience of a slowed-down consciousness. Even if, on the critical side, one can easily note that the rationale behind that might be the lack of technical skill, such aesthetic strategies are ultimately about dechronicisation, in other words, about the passage of time, a “quasi-hypnotic repetition and the absence of musical goals [which dramatically] change the sense of time passage” (Hicks, 1999, p. 64). One additional effect of the psychedelic fluidity is the political one. The latter two aspects associated with the drug-induced sense of flow and instability also produce mellowing waves of sound, corresponding to the flattening out of any hierarchies. Moreover, they also cause an oscillation between far and near, evoking the ebb and flow of presence and absence—a trait visible not only in the sheer volume at which the bands would play, but also achieving the dissolution of the “barrier between the music and the listener;” often through the use of artificial reverberation intended to evoke the enormous sense of space (Hicks, 1999, p. 65). The visceral dimension of the music in this case meant that it was thus also not only heard but felt. Symptomatically for the decade, psychedelic music was resonant with revolutionary notes and, as Hicks rightly suggests (Hicks, 1999, p. 66), while “psychedelic drugs transformed fixed shapes into shifting shapes”, psychedelic fluidity additionally managed to dynamise “musical parameters previously stable in rock”, activating in turn “the music’s essential form, harmony, timbre, articulation, and spatial deployment.”

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3 Masterpiece of Stoner Stoner rock is a varied, internally disparate, and indeed a somewhat fluid musical genre. It is associated with the 1990s American indie scene which in certain significant ways shares features with the sixties’ music. While bands like Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age or Fu Manchu, because of their geographical origin in California are often more readily tagged as desert rock, the name stoner seems to be a much more overarching term, connoting all that is at the same time heavy and revered in rock music (including ‘doom-’ or ‘sludge metal’). The term thus binds differing musical production which bases the sound and its general weighty ambience on the distorted, often tuned-down guitars accompanied by slow paced riffs repeated in a trance-like manner, embodying a melange of heavy rock, blues and psychedelia. The sixties, certainly, are an important point of reference for many stoner bands, especially that several artists within the genre attempt to explicitly tap into the achievements of some of the now classic bands. Such approach however frequently employs the outward understanding of the sixties as a construct. Sleep’s bassist and vocalist Al Cisneros, for example, interviewed for a documentary attempting to situate stoner rock within the American underground tradition, readily points to Black Sabbath and explains that one common practice for the stoner musicians was to build on a riff or a musical theme taken from their favourite bands from the sixties (Serbalus, 2009; my emphasis). While the Birmingham heavy metal rockers fronted by Ozzy Osbourne chronologically were not a sixties band—as their first LP came out in 1970—Cisneros seems to refer to the decade as a general time of origin for numerous contemporary bands, a period of mythical heavy metal past which many musicians willingly look up to for inspiration. This however also testifies to the constructed character of the sixties’ existence in popular conscience and illustrates the selective filtering the decade is subject to in order to reach the desired effect. A similar procedure of borrowing from the reservoir of the days gone by typifies many stoner records and is further visible in attempts at reviving the sonic texture of the ‘mythical’ epoch through the use of original vintage instruments (in vein with constructing such retro myths, cf. Uncle Acid). The records now are also frequently issued on LPs—an endemic sixties format—and seem to produce a multimodal experience through psychedelic sleeve artwork (Dead Meadow, Sleep, etc.). Such strategies may well be construed as yet another attempt at transgressing the music’s aural dimension, but—as the case of stoner seems to show—equally constitute a certain mode of repetition and replication which runs parallel to the general perception of the past haunting our present. In this context, Sleep’s “Dopesmoker” is one of the prime examples of, both, the stoner genre and bold sonic explorations akin to the ones actually characteristic for the sixties psychedelia. The composition’s origins date back to mid 1990s when the Northern California heavy metal band Sleep were working on a daring piece entitled Jerusalem. Following their previous successful outing, Sleep’s Holy Mountain (1992), the original single 52-minute-long track did not meet the

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expectations of the record label and resulted in an almost legendary status surrounding the trio. The musicians preferred to disband than to yield in to the demands of the company so the music itself was eventually shelved until its official release at the end of the decade. The musical limbo, blocking audiences from listening to the material, resulted in stories of struggles with the label company and with the production process, due to the very length and complexity of the piece. These aspects are frequently taken as a sign of non-conformity and contribute to the myth-making and authenticating process surrounding the whole track. It is in such a vein that J. Bennett, for example, employs grandiose terminology to describe Jerusalem—the initial version of the composition; the track is thus referred to as a ‘stoner epic’, a ‘riff-hypnosis’ or ‘the best 52-minute song of all time’ (Bennett, 2009, p. 292). What eventually saw the light of day as Dopesmoker is one continuous and fearless 63-minute track made up of several altering sections.3 The lyrics are explicit about cannabis use in a very sixties perspective and the whole composition successfully employs the poetics of psychedelic experience. Dopesmoker opens with a panning echoed fuzzed guitar which relatively quickly turns into the droning sounds of what is the driving force behind the piece—a monotonous and steady guitar riff. The unhurried but persistent musical journey is first extended in scope when the rhythm section steps in to occupy the bottom end of the sound spectrum (2:40 approx.) and further increased when the vocals enter the scene well into the seventh minute of the track. The lyrics, delivered in a groaning moan evocative of „Gregorian chants as interpreted through the ears of Black Sabbath” (Rivadavia), announce an escapist credo: “Drop out of life with bong in hand/ Follow the smoke toward the riff filled land.” What slowly unfolds is perhaps not the most original narrative about a holy procession of the ‘weedians’ to a promised land, but fittingly employs images of the Holy Mountain of Zion and a caravan migrating through the “deep sandscape” which correspond to the vast sonic terrain sketched with musical instruments. This slowly-paced pilgrimage pervades the lyrics with Biblical imagery and terminology: Lungsmen unearth the creed of Hasheeshian Procession of the weed–priests to cross the sands Desert legion smoke–covenant is complete Herb bails retied on to backs of beasts Arise arise arise – The Son of the God of Israel Jordan river flows on evermore Bathe in glow of sunlight’s beating rays They feel the serpent’s standard rule our days (Sleep, “Dopesmoker”)

3

The inner sleeve of Southern Lord 2012 LP reissue reports as many as 37 sections, some of which are repeated up to four times.

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The downtempo trek of the “stoner caravan” explores the experience of cannabis use through surrealist imagery filtered by references to the Holy Land, sacred places, or the appearance of various religious themes (Nazareth, Holy Mountain, Rastafarian religion). The absurdist and heavily metaphorical story not only demonstrates how the members of an ‘enlightened’ order (‘weedians’/‘hasheeshians’) spread their practical knowledge and mystical accounts of the spiritual importance of altered states of mind, but through its lyrics also reverberates with references to the sixties ‘drop out’ politics—a time when the ‘plants’ would secure prophetic vision (‘seer’s holy prophecy’). Even if the effect of fusing biblical and spiritual-oriented diction with colloquial weed terminology produces a humorous effect (‘onward caravan prepare new bong’), the track manages to connect with the cultural practices of using psychoactive substances associated with the symbolic and spiritual treatment of drugs for the hippies. In opposition to any sacral meaning of alcohol, traditionally associated more with the parents’ generation, psychedelic drugs and marijuana were used and intended to perform an ontological transformation of self-perception together with heightened and expanded awareness. While drug use might be a significant aspect of a musician’s life, within stoner rock, also as illustrated by the records, such experience is ultimately connected with psychedelia. The psychedelic coding in stoner rock—and in Sleep’s composition in particular—seems to echo the countercultural treatment of time. Visible not only in the lyrics (a trend already present on Sleep’s Holy Mountain), the psychedelic programming employs heavy riffs, pounding drums, droning vocals and wailing guitar solos, all of which are accompanied by various forms of slowdown which stemming from the attempts to represent acid and drug trips. Additionally, the surrealist and absurdist lyrics can be viewed as thematising the extension of the temporal dimension: even if they merely take the form of repetition (e.g., Iron Butterfly’s psychedelic classic “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”) or the random association stylistics which pick on the uncanny in reality (almost any of Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett’s work), all of such practices can be seen as a way of commenting on the passing of materiality, often in the context of searching for the self. Sleep’s Dopesmoker plays out these aspects in the form of a the spiritual quest where being high evokes Buddhist meditation, mirroring in turn the countercultural urge of separation from the materialistic culture of late sixties America. On top of evoking the notion of a journey—graphically rendered through the iconic caravan reissue artwork—at an instrumental level, the composition attempts to represent the flow of time which originally could be seen as going against the traditional 3:50 min for a track to be playable on the radio (and marketed as a commodity). In this way it also attempts to tap into the ‘circular cultures’ like Indian, Hindu or Tibetan ones. Nevertheless, repetition also stems from the simple appreciation of the pleasure of playing and listening to a riff which is good (Serbalus, 2009), especially when it is mixed with the sheer sensory and visceral feeling, or with attempts at evoking such feelings through slowdown, volume and saturation.

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4 Conclusion Psychedelic experience was part and parcel of the sixties counterculture. It seems that the unwaning popularity of the decade is symptomatic for the Western culture in general where the past returns in various guises. Interestingly, the most iconic elements of the sixties, despite of the seminal importance of the revolutions of the time, can also be looked at negatively. If we are to believe Jean Baudrillard’s observation (2009, p. 3) about following the sixties ‘orgy of liberation’ leaving us merely with the possibility of repetition, or the necessity of simulating the liberation (‘now everything has been liberated’), than Sleeps’s Dopesmoker might easily be seen as an attempt to revisit the past in a repetitive way. From a larger perspective nostalgia for the sixties—construed as anything: from times of juvenile carefree revolutionary freedom, through utopian hippy alternate lifestyles, to times of original authenticity—has for some time now been the subject of critical attention. Studies like that of Svetlana Boym (2001) on nostalgia might be instructive in understanding the constructive character of collective memory, while Tara Brabazon’s (2018) article on digitalized memory has recently shown how the very marketing of past musical material deliberately capitalises on the audience collector’s attitudes. Various reissues or deluxe editions seem to vampirise on audiences’ longings for a return to the times of their youth or to revisit the experimental experiences they lived through. In this context, one way of looking at the reworking of the sixties and past decades is thus to see commercial reasons—label companies can look for a secure income; but the other perspective seems to point to more artistic reasons. While the myth-making processes surrounding the troubled origins of Sleep’s Dopesmoker may follow the procedures of nostalgic coating typical for deliberately constructed sixties-feel programming, the track’s challenging form also indicates an adventurous expressionism which attempts to render psychedelic experience not only in terms of content but also because of formal and musical features such as the slowdown. I would argue that, on closer inspection, the composition still contains a tint of the original sixties revolutionary remainder. This is not simply because its ebb and flow of sounds might be associated with flattening out of hierarchies, or because the lyrics play on the sanctified approach to drug use symptomatic for the sixties counterculture, but perhaps even more so because it still manages to produce a multimodal experience which effectively manages to shake its audience from the complacency of standardized commodity consumption.

References Baudrillard, J. (2009). The transparency of evil. Essays on extreme phenomena. London: Verso. Bennet, J. (2009). The making of Sleep’s Jerusalem. In A. Mudrian (Ed.), Precious metal: Decibel presents the stories behind 25 extreme metal masterpieces (pp. 292–303). Cambridge: Da Capo Press.

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Brabazon, T. (2018). Blunting the cutting edge? Analogue memorabilia and digitalised memory. KOME—An International Journal of Pure Communication Inquiry, 6(1), 63–74. https://doi. org/10.17646/kome.2018.14. Boym, S. (2001). The future of nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Czubaj, M. (2005) Jeźdzcy po burzy. 11 fragmentów o rewolucji. In W. Burszta, M. Czubaj & M. Rychlewski (Eds.), Kontrkultura. Co nam z tamtych lat? (pp. 201–211). Warszawa: SWPS Academica. Hicks, M. (1999). Sixties rock: Garage, psychedelic, and other satisfactions. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Jarniewicz, J. (2016). All you need is love—Sceny z życia kontrkultury. Kraków: Znak. Kimball, R. (2000). The long march: How the cultural revolution of the 1960s changed America. San Francisco: Encounter Books. Marwick, A. (1998). The sixities. Cultural revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958–c.1974. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. Perone, J. E. (2004). Music of the counterculture Era. Westport, CT, London: Greenwood Press. Pichaske, D. ([1979] 1989). A generation in motion: Popular music and culture in the sixties. Granite Falls: Ellis Press. Powell Cohen, K. (2008). Images of America: San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury. Mount Pleasant: Arcadia Publishing. Rivadavia, E. Sleep—Dopesmoker—Allmusic review. Retrieved from https://www.allmusic.com/ album/dopesmoker–mw0000027601. Serbalus, J. (2009). Such hawks such hounds: Scenes from the American hard rock underground [DVD]. USA: Long Song Pictures. Sleep (2003/2012). Dopesmoker [LP]. Los Angeles: The southern lord recordings. Whiteley, S. ([1992] 2005). The space between the notes. Rock and the counter-culture. London and New York: Routledge. Young, N. with Crazy Horse (2012). Psychedelic Pill [CD]. Reprise Records.

Tymon Adamczewski is Assistant Professor at the English Department of Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. His academic interests revolve around the critical discourses of contemporary literary studies and their relationship with Jacques Derrida’s thought, as well as the notion of experience in reading and interpretation. He is the author of Following the Textual Revolution: The Standardization of Radical Critical Theories of the 1960s (McFarland 2016) and his recent publications include Counterpath to Identity: Robert M. Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (in Travel and Identity: Studies in Literature, Culture and Language, Springer 2018) or ‘Listening to images, reading the records: The inclusive experience in British progressive rock of the 1960s and 1970s’ (NJES. Nordic Journal of English Studies—2018, Vol. 17). He explores the heritage of counterculture and the sixties within cultural production and likes listening to LPs.

Performativity Revisited: J. L. Austin and His Legacy Wiesław Oleksy

Abstract The paper introduces J. L. Austin’s basic notions with a view to show how they pertain to the concept of performativity, which constitutes the point of departure for the discussion of Austin’s impact in two research areas: literary criticism and communicative language teaching. Prior to the presentation of the appropriations of Austin’s ideas in the two areas, some criticism directed at Austin is dealt with. The section on literary speech acts begins with an overview of some approaches to literary criticism inspired by speech act theory and contains an analysis of fragments of Szymborska’s poem “The joy of writing” from the vantage point of speech act analysis. The last section is devoted to communicative language teaching and attempts to show that D. Hymes’ concept of communicative competence and notions related to his approach to language use have been influenced by Austin’s work.

1 Introductory Remarks The paper begins with a brief outline of the basic assumptions of Austin’s approach to linguistic communication, particularly to his distinction between constative and performative utterances, which contributed significantly to the development of ordinary language philosophy and linguistic pragmatics. Then, some criticism directed at J. L. Austin is dealt with. The next sections, which constitute the bulk of the paper, offer a discussion of the impact of Austin’s ground-breaking work on performativity in two areas: literary criticism and communicative language teaching. The part of the paper devoted to literary criticism sketches some of the approaches to literary speech acts and contains an analysis of a fragment of W. Szymborska’s poem “The joy of writing.” The section on communicative language teaching deals with the difference of approach to language competence as represented by N. Chomsky and D. Hymes and attempts to show that D. Hymes’ seminal W. Oleksy (&) University of Łódź, Łódź, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_9

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work on communicative competence was influenced by Austin’s ideas. The two areas, literary criticism and communicative language teaching, have little in common both in terms of the methodologies they standardly employ and in terms of the data they use for research purposes. Yet, literary criticism and communicative language teaching have benefited in various ways by the appropriation of Austin’s ideas, and this aspect of Austin’s legacy is seldom dealt with in a single work. This paper is an attempt to contribute to filling up some of this lacuna.

2 Constatives Versus Performatives As is well known, John L. Austin, an Oxford philosopher, has been widely acknowledged to have initiated research on the use of language expressions which, when uttered in an appropriate context, constitute the performance of some actions.1 His initial proposal was to classify English verbs into two categories: constative verbs and performative verbs, which later led him to distinguish more productive categories of constative utterances and performative utterances (Austin occasionally used the terms constative sentences and performative sentences), in short, constatives and performatives. In the final, though not quite conclusive phase of his research project, he elaborated on what he called locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts, and by doing so Austin laid foundation for one of the crucial branches of linguistic pragmatics, that is Speech Act Theory.

2.1

Utterance Versus Sentence

The term utterance, rather than sentence, is of a paramount importance here because it draws our attention to the use of language in a communicative context, i.e., a situation in which a speaker utters something in the presence of a hearer and is thus engaged in a verbal interaction which, in turn, is defined by a number of situational, linguistic, and social contexts. An analysis which concentrates on the role and function of a language unit, for example a sentence, in a communicative interaction is very much different from an analysis in which the focus is on the internal structure of a sentence in order to scrutinize its syntactic and semantic properties. Needless to say, the analytical process of sentence parsing is typically devoid of any social and communicative background. The analyst is not taking into account who the speaker and the interlocutor are, and what purposes the analyzed sentence might have served. An example of such an analysis was famously proposed by Chomsky (1965) in his much acclaimed and influential generative-transformational project,

Most influentially in the book which was published posthumously under the title “How to do things with words” (Austin, 1962).

1

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in which the complex process of the generation of sentences and their simultaneous analysis and description (represented in deep structure) was executed by a sophisticated apparatus called Generative Transformation Grammar (TGG). In Chomsky’s view, TGG represented the knowledge of how language works (Chomsky’s competence) from the vantage point of an idealized (native) speaker/ hearer who produced grammatically and semantically well-formed sentences. TGG was designed, according to Chomsky, so as to represent the ideal speaker’s knowledge of his/her mother tongue in a manner that excluded any chance of an error. TGG generated perfectly grammatical sentences by means of a set of phrase structure and transformational rules which accounted for the phonetic, morphological, syntactic and semantic properties of the generated sentence. The end product of the generation process was called the surface structure and it represented, according to Chomsky, the actual sentence, i.e., the level of performance. In fact, the performance thus understood was indicative of how the grammatical apparatus performed, not how a speaker performed. This way, TGG disregarded the social, cultural, and communicative contexts in which the generated sentences might have been used. In short, TGG operated in a social and communicative vacuum. Robinson (2006), when dealing with the difference between the two approaches to linguistic analysis, one that is concentrated on the internal structure of language à la Chomsky, and one which is interested in how language is used in society in interactive, communicative situations, calls the difference between the former and the latter approach as the difference between language as machine and language as drama.

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Performativity

Interestingly enough, a completely different proposal than that which was formulated by Chomsky, came from Austin at almost the same time.2 For Austin the focus of analysis was not how the language was constructed internally but how it functioned externally, that is how the speakers use utterances to achieve intended communicative and social goals. Thus, the use of language became the central focus of investigation. Very generally and briefly, Austin (1962) proposed that constative utterances describe the world and have truth values, i.e., they can be true or false, while performative utterances are used to perform actions which might not have been performed without the use of a particular language expression. By the very use of a performative utterance the speaker intends something to happen, be it a verbal response, a physical act or action, or behavior on the part of the interlocutor. Without the utterance of a particular language expression that the speaker uses on The first proposal of what eventually led to TGG was Chomsky’s book Syntactic Structures which was published in 1957 (Chomsky, 1957). Austin gave his James Lectures at Harvard University in 1955. At the time when Austin gave his lectures at Harvard University, Chomsky worked at MIT, just across the street, one might say.

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the occasion, the purported action would probably have not materialized. The use of these expressions in a communicative context triggers actions which the speaker intends the interlocutor to perform. For example, to give the speaker information about something (questions), to do something that the speaker wishes to be done (requests), or to oblige himself/herself to perform an action on behalf of the interlocutor (promises). While constatives describe the world, truly or not, performatives change the world: something happens that would not have happened without the speaker’s uttering something. Let’s have a look at 1–3 below. 1. John loves Mary. 2. A kilo of stones is heavier than a kilo of feather. 3. Pass the pepper, please. (1) can be true or false as the case might be: (1) is true if indeed John loves Mary, but if that is not the case, then (1) is false. (2) is false no matter in what circumstances it was uttered. Both (1) and (2) state, describe, or report on the state of affairs, and they both are subject of verification as to their being true or false. (1– 2) are examples of constatives. However, in the case of (3) it does not even make sense to verify it for truth or falsity. (3) is neither true nor false. It has not been uttered by the speaker in order to report, or to make a statement about anything. Instead, the utterance of (3) was most likely used by the speaker to make somebody at the table pass him/her the pepper shaker. (3) can be happy or unhappy, i.e., felicitous or infelicitous, to use Austin’s terminology. The utterance of Pass the pepper, please, is felicitous if it is uttered in appropriate circumstances, e.g., at table while having a meal, rather than while playing table tennis (unless an unusual situational context is construed in which passing the pepper while playing table tennis somehow makes sense for the players) counts as the performance of the act of requesting someone to pass the pepper. And this is crucial in the case of performatives: they are used to perform actions which one way or another change the world in some way. Someone needed pepper and in order to have it, he/she uttered (3). Needless to say, the speaker of (3) might have tried to achieve the same effect by uttering a number of other expressions, of which the utterance of “Pepper!” is the shortest though not a very polite way of asking for pepper. Moving the pepper shaker from one place on the table to another changes the world. A bit, one might observe. However, things might look dramatically different if someone (e.g., the captain of a bomber plane) says to one of the crew on board the plane: 4. Drop the bombs! Pretty soon the whole area beneath the plane will be flooded with bombs. The world beneath the plane will no doubt look very much different. Both utterances, (3) and (4), a request to pass the pepper, and an order to drop the bombs, demonstrate how the use of words may change the world. They show how things can be done with words.

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In terms of the theory of speech acts the difference between constatives and performatives, which has just been discussed briefly above, is presented as the difference in direction of fit. Constatives, which describe, report, or make a statement about the world, represent a word-to-world direction of fit, i.e., words fit the world. Performatives, which change the world by creating a new state of affairs, represent a world-to word direction of fit, i.e., world fits the words. The former describe, etc., the state of affairs in the world truly or falsely, and it is the world which is the stimulus for the words to be uttered: the world is antecedent to the words. In the case of performatives, the situation is just the opposite: the words are the stimulus to bring about a new state of affairs, and thus the words are uttered to bring about a change in the world: the words are antecedent to the world. There is also another difference between constatives and performatives which is seldom, if ever, discussed in the literature on speech acts. The material world exists no matter whether anyone describes it, or reports on it, or makes a statement about it, etc. The material world exists independently of words. In the case of performatives, however, for the world to come to existence, so to say, someone must utter something. Someone utters, for example (3) or (4), and a new world is created, provided that all other conditions, e.g., felicity conditions, which are required for a performative utterance to be effective, had been met. In this case, the world’s existence depends on words. One provision to be made at this point is that “world” is understood in this context in a narrow sense, as a substitute of such expressions as “state of affairs”, “act”, or “action that is to be performed”, etc. A very convincing illustration of the difference between constatives and performatives was given by Searle, Austin’s student and follower, who elaborated Austin’s work and is widely acclaimed as the founder of Speech Act Theory3 Searle made the distinction between constatives and performatives very clear in his paper entitled “How performatives work” (Searle, 1989, p. 536): “I can’t fix the roof by saying, ‘I fix the roof’ and I can’t fry an egg by saying, ‘I fry an egg,’ but I can promise to come and see you just by saying, ‘I promise to come and see you.’” Without going into much detail concerning decades of scholarly disputes among linguists and language philosophers (and numerous scholars working in other areas of humanities and social sciences) about weaknesses and advantages of Austin’s original proposal, it suffices to add that Austin re-formulated his initial distinction between performatives and constatives and proposed a more general theory of illocutions and then speech acts, which in turn, was given a more elaborate and complex shape by Searle (1969). For lack of space, the transition from the constative/performative dichotomy to the theory of illocutions and then speech acts will not be dealt with. More importantly, for the purposes of this paper it is worth stressing that Austin’s concept of performativity has been enjoying popularity among scholars of various persuasions and fields of research, despite the criticism directed at Austin. Some of the criticism will be presented in the subsequent section of the paper.

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Fundamental for Speech Acts Theory was his book Speech Acts (Searle, 1969).

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In most general terms, what seems to have been appealing in Austin’s approach was the introduction into scholarly discourse of the concept of performativity, the power of language to change the state of affairs, to change the world, by the very use of language. The concept of performativity as proposed by Austin and developed further by others, notably by Searle, has proved to be very productive and inspired scholars not only in the areas of the philosophy of language and linguistics, but also in such diverse areas as, economy,4 law,5 religion,6 gender studies,7 literary criticism, and a number of other areas. Austin’s impact on various research areas has been recently pointed out by Gustafsson and Sørli (2015), editors of a collective volume entitled “The philosophy of J. L. Austin” who stress in the introduction to the volume that Austin’s work “(…) deserves a more central place not only in mainstream philosophical discussion but it can also serve as food for thought and intellectual inspiration (…) in many different ways in which his ideas have influenced later developments, in philosophy and elsewhere” (Gustafsson & Sørli, 2015, p. 2).

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How Performatives Work

In what follows, a few examples of the performative use of language will be discussed in order to show how the use of language changes extra-linguistic reality.8 The first example to be dealt with is in the area of linguistics, linguistic pragmatics to be precise, and concerns the speech act of betting. If you say to your friend: “I bet you a bottle of wine that my car is faster than yours” and your friend responds: “OK. You’re on”, then this exchange means that both you and your friend have performed an act of betting. By doing this, both you and your friend accept that the one who loses the race, say, between Bydgoszcz and Toruń, is obligated to present the winner with a bottle of wine. How does this bet change the world, one may ask? It does, because the car race will have to takes place, the loser of the race will have to spend money and buy a bottle of wine, etc. These events would not have happened without the bet. It can be added in passing that the speech act of betting is different from a number of other speech acts in that its felicitous performance requires the interlocutor to accept whatever the speaker offers as the subject matter of betting. This kind of agreement is not required in the case of other speech acts, e.g., promises, or orders. One can promise something to somebody by

4

See Blok (2013), Azuelos-Atlas (2007). See Amselek (1988). 6 See Botha (2007). 7 See Butler (1990). 8 Since Austin, the research in linguistic pragmatics has enjoyed a rapid development: numerous conferences and seminars, specialized journals, scholarly associations (notably International Pragmatics Association-IPrA), and university programs have sprung up all over the world. 5

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simply saying “I promise (…) X”, or one can order somebody to do something by saying “Do (…) X.” The interlocutor’s consent is not required for these acts, a promise and an order, to be felicitous speech acts, because a promise and an order are speech acts which are performed solely by the speaker. What makes betting different from them is the fact that a bet will not be successfully performed, and therefore binding, if the interlocutor does not confirm that he/she accepts the bet.9 Betting, in the sense discussed above, is a speech act which is jointly performed by the speaker and the interlocutor. The next example involves an indirect speech act, i.e., a speech act whose performative (illocutionary) force is not expressed overtly but has to be inferred from the context in which it is used, or in Grice’s terms (Grice, 1975), its force is implicated. The example is borrowed from a much discussed in the linguistic literature verbal interaction between the imaginary Duke of Bordello and his butler, originally provided by Gordon and Lakoff (1971).10 The duke says: “It’s cold in here” to which the butler responds “I’ll close the window, sir.” And he closes the window. Without going into a detailed discussion about why the butler closes the window upon hearing the duke utter “It’s cold in here” (various aspects of this conversation can be found in Gordon and Lakoff (1971), Cole (1975), and Oleksy (1982), to mention just a few relevant papers), it is important to mention that an utterance of “It’s cold in here”, which looks like a constative, i.e., a statement which reports on of the state of affairs concerning temperature in the room in which the duke and his butler find themselves, turns out to be a performative. It constitutes the performance of the speech act of order, given the social status of the duke and the butler. This example is similar to the speech act of requesting discussed above in (3). The difference between the two speech acts, a request and an order, is that ordering to be felicitous, among other conditions that have to be met, requires the speaker to have a social, or organizational, or other status that allows him/her to give orders to the interlocutor. The speech act of requesting is not restricted by this kind of condition, to be felicitously performed.11 What matters for the discussion here is that in both cases, betting and ordering, as well as in the case of requesting, the world has changed as a result of the performative use of language.

In the case of betting, the word “bet”, or a phrase which contains the word “bet”, has to be used by the one who offers to bet while the other participant has to confirm the bet verbally, or in a manner conventionally accepted in that language, or culture, e.g., by a handshake. 10 See Gordon and Lakoff (1971), Cole (1975), Oleksy (1982). 11 It was Searle (1969) who pioneered the research on felicity conditions for speech acts by demonstrating how such conditions could be formulated for the speech act of promising. Since Searle (1969), it has been assumed that every speech act can be defined in terms of felicity conditions, i.e., a set of necessary and sufficient conditions which uniquely (though there is a degree of overlap among felicity conditions for various speech acts) delineate every speech act and guarantee its felicitous performance. 9

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Criticism of Austin’s Approach

Assuming that the difference between performatives and constatives is well understood, it is time now to turn to some of the criticisms directed at Austin. However, it is important to stress that Austin’s concept of performativity understood as the power of language to affect the non-linguistic reality and bring about changes in it has not been contested or questioned, to the best knowledge of this author. One of Austin’s critics was the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who for some time was engaged in hot disputes with Searle (1977) over Austin’s approach to the status of speech acts in literary works, and more generally Austin’s treatment of the performative use of language outside verbal, communicative exchanges. The issue at stake was what constitutes a legitimate performance of a speech act (Derrida, 1988). Derrida questioned some of the restrictions on the felicitous use of performatives that Austin proposed in an attempt to delineate the legitimate performance of speech acts. Austin claimed that only the use of ordinary spoken language constituted the performance of a speech act, and, additionally, the canonical form of a performative utterance should have a strict syntactic form,12 so that the use of a past tense in a performative utterance, and hence a speech act, would invalidate the speech act status of this utterance, as would the use of the object of the performative verb other than the pronoun “you.” Austin also insisted that the felicitous use of a speech act assumed the presence of both the speaker and the addressee at the scene of every verbal performance. As is well known, Austin’s work was further developed by Searle (1969) who refined and made precise the concept of illocutionary force by proposing that every speech act could be best characterized by a set of (necessary and sufficient) conditions which guarantee the successful and felicitous performance of a speech act. The felicity conditions in Searle’s approach related to the performance of speech acts in ordinary verbal exchanges, not to the speech acts which may occur in literary works or other written uses of language. What is more, Austin claimed that the use of language in literary works was not serious and therefore the speech acts which occurred in literary works were parasitic: “(…) a performative utterance will (…) be in a peculiar way hollow or void if said by an actor on the stage, or if introduced in a poem (…)” (Austin, 1962, p. 22). Derrida questioned the restrictive approach proposed by Austin and convincingly argued that written language, not only the language of poetry and fiction, but also the language of historical and legal documents, possessed the performative power. Therefore, speech acts performed in a play are, according to Derrida, legitimate speech acts, not “parasites.” Indeed, if we return to the case of betting and assume that the exchange dealt with above (in which two people betted whose car was

12

The canonical form of a performative utterance is expressed by means of the syntactic properties of the performative utterance/sentence: subject ‘I,’ object ‘you,’ a performative verb as the predicate, present tense, etc. Both direct and indirect speech acts are reducible to the canonical form which expresses the deep structure of a speech act in terms of TGG model.

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faster), was taking place on the stage, not in real life, we have to accept that although the act of betting does not oblige one who loses the race in a play, to present the other actor, the winner of the race in a play, with a bottle of wine, yet the obligation holds for the characters in the play. Furthermore, this obligation will most likely be understood as binding by the audience in a theater. It is thus important to assume that speech acts which occur in works of literature could be treated as legitimate speech acts within the fictitious world created by the author, be it a poet, a novelist, or a film director. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain why readers and onlookers are affected emotionally by the language used in the works of fiction and film. That is to say, the perlocutionary effect of a speech act used outside the ordinary spoken language still holds, contrary to what Austin claimed. In more general terms, the dispute initiated by Derrida boils down to the fundamental issues of (a) whether language represents nothing but the real world, (b) whether the use of speech acts is limited to face-to-face verbal interaction which assumes the presence of both the speaker and the addressee at the same time and place, and (c) whether the use of speech acts is restricted to instances in which they occur in oral communication. Austin claimed to the effect that only ordinary language expressions were genuine speech acts whereas the language of fiction was not authentic, and was therefore parasitic on the ordinary language. Contrary to Austin, Derrida pointed out that speech acts which occur in written texts were as much authentic speech acts as the ones used in oral communication. Derrida’s argument rests on the assumption that language possesses a property that Derrida named iterability, i.e., the property of speech acts to retain their performative power irrespectively of the temporal context of their use and the presence of the performers. In other words, in Derrida’s view, the illocutionary force of a speech act is extemporal and repetitive, and it holds in absence of the subject who issued it.13 Derrida’s contribution provided an additional argument for the study of speech acts beyond the ordinary language, in the written texts of fiction, poetry, and other types of discourse.14 Derrida (2002) was also at odds with Austin when it comes to the performative nature of historical texts. On the basis of his analysis of the American Declaration of Independence he showed that the written act of the declaration created a new, formerly un-existent state of affairs, namely the free and independent states of America. That document, concluded Derrida, created a new political entity and therefore the Declaration of Independence was a performative act, a speech act which changed the world politically and its performative power has been preserved despite the lapse of time (Derrida, 2002).15

13

See Glendinnig’s (2011) chapter on discussion of iterability. An extensive discussion on normal versus parasitic speech acts can be found in Halion (1989). 15 Petrey (1990) offers a through discussion of Derrida’s account of the Declaration of Independence. 14

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By way of commentary, it can be added that the performative power of written documents pointed out by Derrida, particularly their iterable character, is also present in all sorts of regulations, legal documents, statutes, rules of the game of any sort, etc., as well as in public notices and announcements, including traffic signs. The sign “Stop” obligates drivers to perform an action which makes the vehicle stop. Moreover, despite the seeming anonymity of authorship of a number of written documents their authorship is in principle recoverable and can be traced back to their author/authors or a body of individuals who act in their own right or represent an institution, an organization, or an office of authority. So, the Declaration of Independence is believed to have been authored by five people: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingstone, and Thomas Jefferson, who were appointed by the Second Continental Congress to draw up a declaration. In very much the same fashion, legal documents are drafted by appointed bodies and approved of, strictly speaking voted in, by a national parliament or a local authority.

3 Speech Acts and Literature A brief discussion of Derrida’s comments on the parasitic versus normal speech acts brings us to the appropriation of the concept of performativity and speech acts in literary works. When it comes to discussing literary criticism which utilizes Austin’s concepts, one is faced with a somewhat paradoxical situation: the rejection of Austin’s insistence that only ordinary (spoken) language can be used performatively resulted in numerous research works which, while rejecting his dismissal of the performative power of language used in literary works stressed the importance of Austin’s ideas, especially the concept of performativity, in the study of literary texts. This paradox is well reflected in the literature on the topic of speech acts in literary works, as evidenced in the publications of Ohmann (1971), Levin (1976), Altieri (1975), and Petrey (1990), to mention just a few scholars whose work is often discussed in research on literary speech acts.

3.1

Mimetic Speech Acts

The title of Ohmann’s paper “Speech acts and the definition of literature” (Ohmann, 1971) is symptomatic of the dilemmas that literary critics grappled with in the early seventies. One might expect that Ohmann will show how the theory of speech acts can be applied to literature. And Ohmann does that, however, in a bit round-about way. On the one hand, Ohmann accepts Austin’s position that speech acts used in literary works are different from the ones used in ordinary language and he calls them

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quasi-speech-acts: “(…) the quasi-speech-acts of literature are not carrying on the world’s business—describing, urging, contracting, etc.” (Ohmann, 1971, p. 17). On the other hand, Ohmann claims that literary speech acts possess illocutionary forces but their force is imitative, it is mimetic and therefore it is different from the illocutionary force of a “normal” speech act. Ohmann’s definition of a literary work in terms of speech acts is the following: “A literary work is a discourse whose sentences lack the illocutionary force that would normally attach to them. Its illocutionary force is ‘mimetic.’ By ‘mimetic,’ I mean purportedly imitative (…) a literary work purportedly imitates (or reports) a series of speech acts (…)” (Ohmann, 1971, p. 14). Petrey’s approach to the performative use of language in literary works is similar to Ohmann’s: “(…) literature is an illocutionary act even if its illocutionary force is vastly different from that of ordinary language.” (Petrey, 1990, p. 55). According to Ohmann, the burden of interpretation of literary discourse from the speech act perspective, that is of defining to which category of speech act a portion of the literary discourse belongs, rests with the reader: “A literary work creates a ‘world.’ It does so (…) by providing the reader with impaired and incomplete speech acts which he completes by supplying the appropriate circumstances.” (Ohmann, 1971, p. 17). Following Ohmann’s approach to literary discourse in the context of speech acts one would have to believe that there is something to be completed in order to assign a speech act value to the first line of Shakespeare’s sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to the summer’s day?” But it seems that there is nothing missing from this sentence for it to be interpreted as a rhetorical question: the poet is asking himself whether he can compare somebody to a summer’s day. Under this interpretation the line from sonnet 18 is neither impaired nor incomplete as a speech act. However, it is also possible to interpret this line differently: the poet is addressing the question to the lyrical subject, not to himself, and therefore the line is not a rhetorical question but a Yes/No question. In the same fashion, the second line of the sonnet: “Thou art more lovely and more temperate” can be interpreted as a constative which states a fact truly or not, and it can also be understood as a speech act of complimenting. Both interpretations rest with the reader, to repeat Ohmann’s statement.

3.2

Literary Speech Act as a Higher S

Another attempt to incorporate speech acts into literary research was presented by Levin (1976) who showed how a poem could be accounted for in terms of the TGG model. Levin’s goal is made sufficiently clear in the title of his paper: “Concerning what kind of speech act a poem is.” His answer to the question posited in the title rests upon the ideas proposed by Ross, who is believed to have formulated the

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so-called Performative Hypothesis in the article “On declarative sentences” (Ross, 1970).16 Borrowing the concept of the higher S from Ross, Levin proposes that a deep structure of a poem contains a higher S which represents the illocutionary force of a poem and has the following form: “I imagine myself in and invite you to conceive a world in which (…)” (Levin, 1976, p. 150). Then, Levin further explains that “The assumption is that the deep structure of every poem contains [the above formula] as its topmost sentence (…)” (Levin, 1976, p. 150). Thus, the first line of Yeats’ poem “Among school children”, continues Levin, is to be understood as implicitly beginning: “I imagine myself in and invite you to conceive a world in which (I say to you) I walk through the long schoolroom questioning.” Levin’s analysis is problematic on several accounts. First of all, Levin assumes that the first line of a poem is decisive in assigning the poem to this or that speech act category, yet it is very unlikely that any poem in its entirety can be defined as a single speech act. In fact, Levin’s formula at best accounts merely for this portion of a poem which contains a speech act, quite often one line of a poem. Secondly, the very formula Levin proposes as the higher S in the deep structure of a poem contains a number of sentences (in terms of the TGG model) which precede the sentence which defines the content of the speech act. Thus, the speech act of questioning represented by “I ask you (…)” is preceded by three sentences: “I imagine myself in”, “I invite you to (…)”, and “I say to you.” A question then arises whether the examples given by Levin are simultaneously cases of invitations, questions, or other speech acts. Thirdly, the formula proposed by Levin as the topmost sentence does not conform to the concept of the higher S as formulated in the Performative Hypothesis which assumes that there is one topmost S which represents the illocutionary force of what follows in the lower S, and that the higher S defines what kind of speech act the given utterance is. Levin’s formula will result in what might be called an illocutionary conflict: the deep structure will contain several sentences, each one of them a candidate to define a different speech act: an invitation and an order. The latter will be the case of Austin’s example “Go and catch a falling star”.17 On Levin’s interpretation this line from Donne’s poem will be interpreted according to his formula as follows: ‘I imagine myself in and invite you to conceive a world in which (I order you) to go and catch a falling star’. This line will have to be interpreted as having the illocutionary force of both an invitation and an order. Additionally, there is a problem with the beginning of Levin’s formula, i.e., “I imagine myself in (…)” Levin insists that the verb “imagine (…) is in this context a performative verb: the act of imagining has been performed; it is not merely reported” (Levin, 1976, p. 151). His interpretation of the subject 16

The Performative Hypothesis was an attempt to account for speech acts in terms of the TGG model. The performative sentence in this approach was represented as the highest S in the deep structure of every performative. In the case of indirect performatives the higher S was deleted by the relevant transformational rule. 17 Austin used this example to argue that a speech act used in a poem, in this case an order, is not a real speech act, because nobody expects the reader to catch a falling star. According to Austin, the poet only pretends he/she is issuing an order.

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pronoun “I” and the object “myself” in this sentence is very interesting. Unlike, for example, “I shave myself”, wherein “I” and “myself” refer to the same person, the “I” in “I imagine myself”, Levin insists, refers to the poet in the real world and “myself” refers to the poet’s persona, the poet’s projection of himself/herself in another world, the world created by the poet’s imagination. Interesting as it is, this interpretation would certainly pose a serious problem for the TGG model to process the formula which Levin proposes. Despite the above criticism of Levin’s approach to poetic speech acts it has to be admitted that his was an interesting and novel attempt to combine the then current version of TGG and the “mimetic” approach to literary speech acts.

3.3

Poetry as Action

A few years after the publication of Ohmann’s (1971) account of how speech act theory could be applied to literary works Altieri (1975) proposed a more comprehensive treatment of poetic speech acts. In his account poetry is best seen not as an act but as a series of actions: (a) a reader’s reactions, when a poem is spoken, (b) a reader’s response to sensuous qualities of sound, when the poem is read, (c) the author’s act of speech and the performance of the author’s verbal, structural, and rhythmic skills (Altieri, 1975, p. 107). Altieri then defines three different forms of action that a poem can display: it can present forms of dramatic narrative (…) it can foreground the process of reflection in a dramatized lyric persona (…) it can foreground the activity of an implicit author who shows signs of his artistic effort to give form to the flux of experience or tries by manipulating language and structure to incorporate the perspective of his dramatized speaker (…) (Altieri, 1975, p. 108).

Fifteen years or so after the publication of Ohmann (1971), Altieri (1975) and Levin (1976), Miller (2005) identified the author, the narrator and characters, and the reader as the three entities which participate in the performative doing things with words: 1. The author’s act of writing is a doing that takes the form of putting things in this way or that. 2. The narrators and characters in a work of fiction may utter speech acts that are a form of doing things with words (…). 3. The reader, in his or her turn, in acts of teaching, criticism, or informal comment, may do things by putting a reading into words (Miller, 2005, p. 2). An excellent exemplification of how authors do things with words, and the one which shows that the author is perfectly aware of what is happening during the

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process of writing a poem is Wisława Szymborska’s18 poem “Radość pisania”19 (The Joy of writing). The original version of the fragments of Szymborska’s poem in Polish discussed here will be given in the footnotes. The English translation of these fragments is this author’s. Where is this written deer running through the written forest: To the written spring to drink water from (…)?20

This is a powerful piece of writing to demonstrate how poetry is performed by the author. We can imagine a poet over a sheet of paper. We can even hear the rustling sound of the pen (or pencil) as it moves on the paper. No doubt, the poet is involved in the act of performing poetry, what Miller calls “the author’s act of writing.” Writing poetry is thus both a mental and a physical activity. The scene created by Szymborska in the performative act of writing is trivial and even kitschy. On the one hand, it is a landshaft picture: a deer drinking water from a pond in a forest. On the other, it is like a film clip: the deer is running through a forest. Typical for Szymborska’s poetry, a trivial fragment of reality becomes a springboard to reflect upon the poet’s creative power, and the joy that she derives from the creative power of words. We see a running deer, a forest, and a pond full of water. At the same time, the repeated use of the word written stresses the fact that all this is a fictional world, not reality. A few lines later in the poem the author’s performative activity is again reinforced: Silence-this word also rustles on the paper: And shakes the branches evoked by the word forest.21

The word silence is not only used to add up to the tranquility of the scene but to show that the poet is performing the act of writing, the act of scribbling the word on a sheet of paper and this makes a rustling sound, which metaphorically shakes the branches of the trees which only exist because the poet created the word forest which was also written on the sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here, if I so command Not a leaf will fall without my consent.22 There is then a world Whose fate I rule at my independent will?

18

Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012), a Polish poet who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. 19 Szymborska (1967). 20 “Dokąd biegnie ta napisana sarna przez napisany las? Czy z napisanej wody pić.” 21 “Cisza - ten wyraz też szeleści po papierze i rozgarnia spowodowane słowem las gałęzie.” 22 “Na zawsze, jeśli każę, nic się tu nie stanie. Bez mojej woli nawet liść nie spadnie.”

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A time I bind with chains of signs? An existence I order to last forever?23

It follows from the above that writing a poem can be compared to painting a picture: the poet’s activity is a physical exercise of moving a pen on a sheet of paper, very much like moving a brush on a canvas by a painter. The poet is aware of being able to create a world by means of words, to display her verbal skills, and at the same time to provide a commentary on the performative power of writing. And there is a reward for all this: the joy of writing. The joy of writing The chance of preserving The revenge of a mortal hand.24

The mortal hand of a poet creates an immortal world of words and this way the created world will last forever. The three final lines of Szymborska’s poem echo the last lines of Shakespeare’s sonnet 18: “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” The analysis of the above fragments of Szymborska’s poem have, hopefully, illustrated the performative character of poetry. It is also possible to perform a speech act analysis of the poem. The first line of the poem is either a rhetorical question that the poet addresses to herself or a Wh-question directed at the reader. Under both interpretations the question form of the opening line of the poem engages the reader in the creative process right at the beginning of the poem. The same goal is achieved in the second line which is a Yes/No question in the original Polish version. The poet answers this question in the positive: the deer is drinking water from the pond. However, all this is hypothetical and all depends on the poet’s will: “Nothing will ever happen here, if I so command”, because “There is then a world Whose fate I rule at my independent will?”, muses the poet. Returning to Miller (2001, 2005), whose work on literary speech acts has been well appreciated by a number of scholars, he argues, as was mentioned above, that the author’s work has a performative character, and Szymborska’s poem illustrates this in an ingenious way. In Miller’s account, the narrators and characters in a work of fiction also perform speech acts, and finally, he acknowledges the perlocutionary effect of a work of fiction upon readers. Admittedly, the appropriation of Austin by literary critics and theoreticians shows the productivity and analytic potential of Austin’s concepts. Pavel (1981) points out four areas in which the contribution of speech act theory to literary criticism and literary theory has been especially fruitful: (a) speech act theory has influenced the very definition of literature, (b) it has stimulated reflection on literary genres, (c) it has become a basis of the semantics of literary fiction, and

“Jest więc taki świat, nad którym los sprawuję niezależny? Czas, który wiążę łańcuchami znaków? Istnienie na mój rozkaz nieustanne?” 24 “Radość pisania. Możność utrwalania. Zemsta ręki śmiertelnej.” 23

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(d) the notions elaborated by language philosophers have become useful tools in the analysis of poetry and drama. In the 1970s the first attempts at the incorporation of Austin’s concepts in works of literature boiled down to deliberations how to utilize speech act theory in literary criticism. Once it became evident that literary criticism could benefit from the appropriation of Austin’s ideas, and other language philosophers’ for that matter, the attention was turned to the demonstration of how to apply speech act approach to concrete works of fiction (e.g., Bernaerts, 2010; Bushell, 2009). For example, Bernaerts analyzed how speech acts function in a novel by K. Kesey “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and concluded that the characters in the novel used speech acts to achieve specific purposes. When the Big Nurse Ratchet punishes McMurphy by ordering him to clean the latrine McMurphy “thanks” her by saying: “I personally thank you for the honor.” The use of “personally” and “honor” in the context in which McMurphy utters his “thanks” to the Big Nurse make it clear that McMurphy is far from thanking her. Instead, he ironically makes fun of her. His utterance is not a speech act of thanking, despite the use of the performative “I thank you (…)” because it does not meet the felicity conditions for the speech act of thanking, among which is a feeling of gratitude on the part of the speaker for something done/said to him/her. Cleaning a latrine is hardly a job for doing which one would be grateful to anybody. The following works, arranged here in a chronological order of their publication, and the ones discussed in the text of this paper, are representative of the developments in the area of literary criticism inspired by Austin’s concept of performativity: Tanaka (1972), van Dijk (1976), Hancher (1975), Pratt (1977), Woodmansee (1978), Margolis (1979), Felman (1983), Fish (1982), Johnson (1980), Petrey (1990), Esterhammer (1994), Rabinowitz (1995), van Oort (1995), Gorman (2001), Sell (2000), Allington (2008), Hornsby (2008), Jones (2012), Mole (2013).

4 Speech Acts and Communicative Language Teaching The next exemplification of Austin’s impact that will be discussed in this paper is in the field of communicative language teaching whose underpinning idea was not to teach learners how to control the grammatical structures of a (foreign) language but how to perform in that language in order to effectively communicate with others. The shift of attention from the grammatical structures to communicative skills has been known as the communicative turn in language teaching and learning.25 The overlap between Austin’s research on language use and Dell Hymes’ seminal contributions (Hymes, 1967, 1972a, 1972b, 1974, 1989) to anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics (especially the notions of ethnography of speaking and

25

See Stalmaszczyk and Oleksy (2014).

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ethnography of communication that he proposed and elaborated), and language teaching methodology, notably his concept of communicative competence, seems to indicate that what we are dealing with is not merely a coincidence. Therefore, it will be claimed that Austin’s original conception of performativity as an important feature of language use, as well as his work on the appropriateness of speech acts, must have influenced Hymes’ approach to communicative interaction. However, unlike the vast majority of scholars whose research was discussed in the section on literary speech acts, who express their indebtedness to Austin despite his rejection of literary speech acts, Hymes very rarely, if ever, admits his affinity with Austin, and never gives a reference to Austin’s publications.

4.1

Linguistic Competence and Communicative Competence

As pointed out in Stalmaszczyk and Oleksy (2014), the communicative turn in language teaching owes much to Austin’s ideas developed at Oxford and continued on both sides of the Atlantic. A prominent voice in the debate on the methodology and theory of communicative language teaching came from Hymes who coined the name and elaborated the notion of communicative competence, understood as “What a speaker needs to know to communicate effectively (…) the ability to perform.” (Gumperz & Hymes, 1972, p. 7). Thus performance in a foreign language became the central object of study for Hymes, contrary to Chomsky’s downgrading of performance and his preference for studying linguistic competence of an ideal speaker/hearer. Both Chomsky and Hymes devoted much effort to the study of competence as a theoretical concept and both of them have exerted a profound impact on a generation of scholars working in the fields of linguistics, sociolinguistics, and language teaching and learning. However, it is of paramount importance at this point to stress that Hymes’ understanding of the concept of competence was strikingly different from Chomsky’s. As was remarked at the beginning of this paper, for Chomsky competence meant the knowledge of the abstract rules of a language, that is the language code. A quotation from Chomsky will clarify his understanding of competence: Linguistic theory is concerned primarily with an ideal speaker-listener, in a completely homogeneous speech-community, who knows its language perfectly and is unaffected by such grammatically irrelevant conditions as memory limitations, distractions, shifts of attention and interest, and errors (random or characteristic) in applying his knowledge of the language in actual performance (Chomsky, 1965, p. 4).

If the above is to equip speakers with the “knowledge of the language in actual performance” then Hymes would be in disagreement with Chomsky. For Hymes, actual performance was not solely dependent upon grammatical correctness but predominantly upon the social status and relationship between participants, as well as the cultural and social context in which verbal action was taking place: “(…) the level of speech acts mediates immediately between the usual levels of grammar and

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the rest of a speech event or situation in that it implicates both linguistic form and social norms” (Hymes, 1974, p. 57). Another point of difference between Chomsky and Hymes was the way they looked at performance as an object of study. Chomsky did not pay much attention to performance since his research agenda was focused on language code. As is evident from the above quotation from Chomsky (1965) performance, i.e., the actual production of sentences, was not the primary object of study within the TGG, because performance was the subject of various incidental circumstances, such as memory lapses, hesitations, repetitions, and the like on the part of the speaker. Unlike Chomsky, Hymes made performance the central object of his investigations and he questioned the validity of the primacy of Chomsky’s competence and the marginalization of performance. He stressed that performance usually happens in heterogeneous speech communities, which are diversified culturally and socially and the cultural and social factors matter when it comes to communication in concrete situations. His famous statement “[t]here are rules of use without which the rules of grammar would be useless” (Hymes, 1972b, p. 280) makes it clear that his agenda and Chomsky’s were far apart. While Chomsky’s competence concentrated on the abstract rules of language Hymes sought to discover rules which underlie language use in socio-cultural contexts. This perspective, it will be claimed, must have been inspired by the work of ordinary language philosophers, especially Austin and Searle, although Hymes rarely admits that directly. On a number of occasions, he parenthetically mentions the names of Austin and Searle, stressing the importance of the contribution of language philosophers to the understanding of language use but he almost never gives reference to Austin, though, as will be pointed out in the following part of this paper, Hymes was familiar with Austin’s “How to do things with words.” The quotation from Hymes (1972b) included below shows that even though he alludes to Austin he does not give any reference to Austin’s work in the list of references of his paper. Instead, he gives a reference to Searle (1969, 1977), which suggests that his familiarity with Austin’s work is due to Searle. One special importance of linguistic routines is that they may have the property that the late English philosopher Austin dubbed performative (Searle, 1967). That is, the saying does not simply stand for, refer to, some other thing: it is itself the thing in question. To say ‘I solemny vow’ is to ‘solemny vow’ (Hymes, 1972b, p. 290).

In his book “Foundations in sociolinguistics. An ethnographic approach” (Hymes, 1974) both Austin’s and Searle’s names occur twice each but again, Austin is not listed in the Bibliography (Hymes, 1974, p. 43). (…) treatments of verbal art of necessity draw distinctions and make assumptions as to notions with which a descriptive model of speaking must deal, as does much work in philosophy, most notably in recent years “ordinary language” philosophy and the work of J. L. Austin, John Searle, and others on “illocutionary acts”, or performatives.

Austin’s name appears the second time on page 81, this time on the occasion of Hymes’ critique of the lack of connection between sociolinguistic research and linguistic reality.

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One can fail to connect sociology with linguistic reality. Thus, Turner (1969) provides a sympathetic but sound critique of the late J. L. Austin’s work on certain types of verbs called “performatives”, which has stimulated so much current interest in speech acts (Hymes, 1974, p. 81).

Here again, Turner (1969) is listed in the Bibliography of Hymes (1974) but not Austin. So much for the lack of references to Austin in the reference lists of Hymes’ publications. The above quotations from Hymes show that his thinking about language use was influenced by Austin and Searle and other language philosophers. Interestingly, Swan (2007) is the only writer on the topic, to the best of the author’s knowledge, who pointed to the link between communicative language teaching as pioneered by Hymes and the philosophy of language. In his paper Swan stressed that Hymes played an important role in bringing about the communicative turn in language teaching and added “(…) some intellectual kudos to applied linguistics by forging a link with the work of linguistic philosophers such as Searle and Austin, who were also looking, broadly speaking, at what people do with language” (Swan, 2007, p. 2).

4.2

Speech Situations, Speech Events, Speech Acts

In order to make judgements about Austin’s influence upon Hymes, which is assumed in this paper, it is important to have a close look at the latter’s terminological apparatus. In his influential paper: “On communicative competence” (Hymes, 1972b) and earlier works (e.g., Hymes, 1967) he uses the term speech act: (…) children also acquire knowledge of a set of ways in which sentences are used. From a finite experience of speech acts and their interdependence with sociocultural features, they develop a general theory of the speaking appropriate in their community, which they employ, like other forms of tacit cultural knowledge (…) in conducting and interpreting social life (Hymes, 1972b, p. 281).

Also in Hymes (1974, p. 52) the whole section is devoted to speech act which “(…) represents a level distinct from the sentence, and not identifiable with any single portion of other levels of grammar (…)” (Hymes, 1974, pp. 52–53). Hymes’ approach to speech acts is deeply rooted in the sociolinguistic and ethnographic perception of communicative interaction and this makes his treatment of speech acts very much different from Austin’s. First, speech acts for Hymes are the minimal units of speech events which constitute speech situations.26 A speech event is a communicative activity which may consist of a single speech act or it may contain several speech acts. He gives the following example of what the three

It should be added that Austin also uses the term speech situation: “Once we realize that what we have to study is not the sentence but the issuing of an utterance in a speech situation(…)” (Austin, p. 138).

26

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communicative entities are: “(…) a party (speech situation), a conversation during the party (speech event), a joke within the conversation (speech act).” (Hymes, 1974, p. 52). He then continues on the same page: “Thus, a joke [speech act] [Hymes’ insertion] may be embedded in a private conversation, a lecture, a formal introduction.” From the above it follows that Hymes’ perception of speech acts is different from Austin’s who, as has become a standard in the philosophy of language and linguistic pragmatics, considered a speech act to be reducible to a single utterance/sentence. From the above quote it follows that Hymes perceives a speech act as a unit which may consist of several utterances/sentences. It is probably possible to tell a joke in one sentence but usually it takes several sentences to tell a joke, as the majority of jokes have the form of mini stories with embedded linguistic material in them, which can hardly pass for a single speech act. Second, Hymes distinguishes sharply speech acts from grammatical units like sentences. In his the assignment of speech acts, e.g., a command or a request, to this or that category, is not solely dependent upon their grammatical form but also upon the social status and relationship between participants, as well as the cultural and social context in which verbal action is taking place: “(…) the level of speech acts mediates immediately between the usual levels of grammar and the rest of a speech event or situation in that it implicates both linguistic form and social norms” (Hymes, 1972a, p. 57). In Hymes (1974) he concentrates on the relationship between an utterance/ sentence and its status as a speech act in a conversational interaction and concludes that one and the same utterance/sentence may be interpreted differently: “(…) a sentence interrogative in form may be now a request, now a command, now a statement; a request may be manifested by a sentence that is now interrogative, now declarative, now imperative in form; (…)” (Hymes, 1974, p. 53). Still another difference between Hymes and language philosophers like Austin and Searle concerns the way speech acts are defined. In the philosophical and linguistic tradition since Searle (1965) speech acts have been defined in terms of felicity conditions, whereas Hymes defines speech acts in an integrative way in terms of communicative functions they perform in the given speech situation as defined by cultural and social contexts. The integration of communication and culture requires, according to Hymes, addressing the following questions: 1. “Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible. 2. Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible in virtue of the means of implementation available. 3. Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate (adequate, happy, successful) in relation to a context in which it is used and evaluated, and: 4. Whether (and to what degree) something is in fact done, actually performed, and what it’s doing entails” (Hymes, 1972b, pp. 283–286). Interestingly, what Hymes proposes in (3) above bears a striking resemblance to Austin’s appropriateness conditions. In order to account for the systematic and principled analysis of communicative interaction in its entirety Hymes proposed an

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analytic model and represented it in the form of the acronym SPEAKING (Hymes, 1972a, pp. 52–65). The model contains eight classes: 1. (S) Setting and Scene: Setting: time and place of a speech act, physical circumstances in which it is used, scene: cultural and psychological circumstances. 2. (P) Participants: speaker/sender, addressee, hearer/receiver/audience. 3. (E) Ends: purposes-outcomes, purposes-goals. 4. (A) Act Sequence: form and order of speech event. 5. (K) Key: tone, manner, or spirit in which the speech act is performed. 6. (I) Instrumentalities: forms and styles of speech (formal, informal, casual, etc. 7. (N) Norms: social rules acceptable in a community in which speech is performed, the participants’ actions and reactions. 8. (G) Genre: oral and written categories such as anecdote, poem, tale, proverb, prayer, lecture, commercial, etc. The central unit of analysis in Hymes’ SPEAKING Model is speech act, which provides yet another argument for the affinity between research in the philosophy of language and the research paradigm proposed by Hymes. The last, and most compelling argument which is indicative of Hymes’ familiarity with Austin’s work is a recently discovered source by this author. On the basis of this source it is possible to state that it is beyond any doubt that Hymes was familiar with Austin’s work because in 1965 he published a review of “How to do things with words”! This fact has never been mentioned by any of the scholars writing on Hymes and this source is not listed in Hymes’ publications. It is a strange review indeed. The text of the review contains slightly over 700 words, of which almost half is devoted to Urmson, the editor of “How to do things with words.” The fact remains however, that Hymes must have read “How to do things with words.” Below is presented that part of the review which refers to Austin, except for 3 sentences: In Austin’s view of performative utterances as not true or false reports, but as happy or unhappy, there emerges a conception that answers to the grammatical in reference-based grammar, the appropriate in cultural behavior generally. These conceptions, if taken as criterial and carried through, have profound implications for cultural theory and ethnographic practice. Most importantly, he suggests the moral that “The total speech act in the total speech situation is the only actual phenomenon which, in the last resort, we are engaged in elucidating” (p. 147), and calls for prolonged field work (p. 148). If philosophers have come, can ethnographers lag far behind? A satisfactory typology and theory of speech acts needs the contributions of both (Hymes, 1965, p. 588).

Certainly, Hymes did not lag behind and he was a very influential and prolific writer in the area of communicative language teaching, ethnography of communication, and sociolinguistics. Although he was not profusely outspoken about his indebtedness to ordinary language philosophers, especially to Austin, he nevertheless was affected by Austin’s research, as the above discussion has hopefully shown. Why he never admitted his indebtedness to Austin remains a mystery.

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5 Conclusions In the above an overview of approaches to literary speech acts and communicative language teaching was presented from the perspective of the performative functions of language as proposed and developed by Austin. In both cases, though to varying degrees, the impact of Austin’s work has been demonstrated on the basis of relevant bibliographic data. In the case of literary approaches to speech acts the data was drawn from the published sources of a number of authors and in the case of communicative language teaching the data was represented by Hymes’ scholarly output. A difference was noted between the way literary critics utilized Austin’s proposals and the way Hymes approached the same issue. Despite the fact that Austin was very negatively disposed toward treating speech acts in works of literature on a par with speech acts occurring in ordinary language, the majority of literary scholars acknowledged their appreciation of Austin’s work in their publications. Hymes, on his part, never gave any reference to Austin’s publications, save for a few casual mentions of his name and the review of “How to do things with words”, which is a formal requirement of any review.

References Allington, D. (2008). How to do things with literature: Blasphemous speech acts, satanic intentions, and the uncommunicativeness of verses. Poetics Today, 2(3), 473–523. Altieri, C. (1975). The poem as act: A way to reconcile presentational and mimetic theories. The Iowa Review, 6(3), 103–124. Amselek, P. (1988). Philosophy of law and the theory of speech acts. Ratio Juris, 1, 187–223. Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Azuelos-Atlas, S. (2007). A pragmatic analysis of legal proof of criminal intent. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Bernaerts, L. (2010). Interactions in “Cuckoo’s Nest”: Elements of a narrative speech-act analysis. Narrative, 18(3), 276–299. Blok, V. (2013). The power of speech acts. Reflections on a performative concept of ethical oaths in economics and business. Review of Social Economy, 71(2), 187–208. Botha, E. (2007). Speech act theory and biblical interpretation. Neotestamentica, 41(2), 274–294. Bushell, S. (2009). The making of meaning in Wordsworth’s “Home at Grassmere”: Speech acts, microanalysis and “Freud’s slips”. Studies in Romanticism, 48(3), 391–421. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge. Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton. Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cole, P. (1975). The synchronic and diachronic status of conversational implicature. In P. Cole & P. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3. Speech acts (pp. 257–283). New York: Academic Press. Derrida, J. (1988). Signature event context. In J. Derrida (Ed.), Limited Inc. (pp. 1–9). Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Derrida, J. (2002). Negotiations, interventions and interviews, 1971–2001. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Esterhammer, A. (1994). Creating states: Studies in the performative language of John Milton and William Blake. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Felman, S. (1983). The literary speech act. Don Juan with Austin, or seduction in two languages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Fish, S. (1982). With the compliments of the author: Reflections on Austin and Derrida. Critical Inquiry, 8, 693–721. Glendinnig, S. (2011). Derrida: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gordon, G., & Lakoff, G. (1971). Conversational postulates. CLS, 7, 63–85. Gorman, D. (2001). The use and abuse of speech-act theory in criticism: A corrective note. Poetics Today, 22(3), 669–670. Grice, P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics 3. Speech acts (pp. 41–58). New York: Academic Press. Gumperz, J., & Hymes, D. (1972). The ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc. Gustafsson, M., & Sørli, R. (Eds.). (2015). The philosophy of J. L. Austin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halion, K. (1989). Speech acts and deconstruction: A defense of the distinction between normal and parasitic speech acts (Doctoral dissertation). McMaster University, Canada. Hancher, M. (1975). Understanding poetic speech acts. College English, 36, 632–639. Hornsby, J. (2008). Speech acts and performatives. In E. Lepore & B. Smith (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy of language (pp. 87–102). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hymes, D. (1965). Review of How to do things with words by J. L. Austin (1962). American Anthropologist, 67(2), 587–588. Hymes, D. (1967). Models of the interaction of language and social setting. Journal of Social Issues, 23(2), 8–28. Hymes, D. (1972a). Towards communicative competence. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hymes, D. (1972b). On communicative competence. In J. Pride & J. Holmes (Eds.), Sociolinguistics: Selected reading (pp. 269–293). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics. An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Hymes, D. (1989). Ways of speaking. In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking (pp. 433–451). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson, B. (1980). Poetry and performative language: Mallarme and Austin. In B. Johnson (Ed.), The critical difference: Essays in the contemporary rhetoric of reading (pp. 52–66). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Jones, T. (2012). Poetic language. Theory and practice from the Renaissance to the present. Edingburgh: Edingburgh University Press. Levin, S. (1976). What kind of speech act a poem is. In T. van Dijk (Ed.), Pragmatics of language and literature (pp. 141–160). Dordrecht: North-Holland Publishing Company. Margolis, J. (1979). Literature and speech acts. Philosophy and Literature, 3(1), 39–52. Miller, H. (2001). Speech acts in literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Miller, H. (2005). Literature as conduct. Speech acts in Henry James. New York: Fordham University Press. Mole, C. (2013). The performative limits of poetry. British Journal of Aestetics, 63(1), 55–70. Ohmann, R. (1971). Speech acts and the definition of literature. Philosophy and Rhetoric, 4, 1–19. Oleksy, W. (1982). Remarks on the literal meaning of ‘It’s cold in here’. Studia Filologiczne. Filologia Angielska, WSP Bydgoszcz, 17, 93–101. Pavel, T. (1981). Ontological issues in poetics: Speech acts and fictional worlds. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 40(2), 167–178. Petrey, S. (1990). Speech acts and literary theory. New York & London: Routledge. Pratt, M. (1977). Toward a speech-act theory of literary discourse. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rabinowitz, P. (1995). Speech act theory and literary studies. In R. Selden (Ed.), The Cambridge history of literary criticism (pp. 347–374). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Robinson, D. (2006). Introducing performative pragmatics. New York & London: Routledge.

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Ross, R. (1970). On declarative sentences. In R. Jacobs & P. Rosenbaum (Eds.), Readings in English transformational grammar (pp. 222–272). Weltham, MA: Ginn and Co. Searle, J. (1965). What is a speech act. In M. Black (Ed.), Philosophy in America (pp. 221–239). Searle, J. (1967). A classification of illocutionary acts. Language in Society, 5, 1–23. Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Searle, J. (1977). Reiterating the differences: A reply to Derrida. Glyph, 1, 198–208. Searle, J. (1989). How performatives work. Linguistics and Philosophy, 12(5), 535–558. Sell, R. (2000). Literature as communication. The foundations of mediating criticism. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Stalmaszczyk, P., & Oleksy, W. (2014). Philosophical and communicative turns in the study of language. In W. Szubko-Sitarek, Ł. Salski, & P. Stalmaszczyk (Eds.), Language learning, discourse and communication (pp. 229–246). Heidelberg: Springer. Swan, M. (2007). A critical look at the communicative approach. ELT Journal, 39, 2–12. Szymborska, W. (1967). Sto pociech. Kraków: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy. Tanaka, R. (1972). Action and meaning in literary theory. Journal of Literary Semantics, 1, 41–56. Turner, R. (1969). Words, utterances and activities. In J. Douglas (Ed.), Existential sociology (pp. 165–187). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. van Dijk, T. (Ed.). (1976). Pragmatics of language and literature. Dordrecht: North-Holland Publishing Company. van Oort, R. (1995). The anthropology of speech-act literary criticism: A review article. Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology, 1(2), 1–12. Woodmansee, M. (1978). Speech-act theory and the perpetuation of the doctrine of literary autonomy. Centrum, 6(2), 75–89.

Wiesław Oleksy studied English Philology at the Catholic University of Lublin and linguistics at Warsaw University, University of Kansas, and Cambridge University. He was one of the founding fathers of the Department of English Philology at the Pedagogical University of Bydgoszcz and on several occasions served as the acting chair of the Department. He authored, edited and co-edited nine books and published over seventy book chapters and journal articles in Canada, Germany, Holland, Finland, UK, USA, and Poland in the area of contrastive linguistics, speech act theory, and media studies. Among them Questions in English and Polish (Edmonton: Linguistic Research), Contractive Pragmatics (Amsterdam: J. Benjamins), “Gender bias in Polish media” (London: Routledge).

In Search of Innocence: Images of Central and Eastern European Anti-communist Resistance in Left-Wing British Political Drama Paweł Schreiber

Abstract The article describes the image of Central and Eastern European anti-communist resistance in selected British political plays written by authors identifying as left-wing. The plays range from the 1956 “living newspaper” World at Edge to David Edgar’s 1983 Maydays. The article explores ways in which Eastern European dissidents are used by the British left in order to rediscover and reinforce its own identity in the face of the failing reputation of Soviet communism, especially after the Hungarian uprising and the Prague Spring. Eastern European dissent is also viewed as a phenomenon capable of salvaging the crucial tenets of the Russian revolution without the need to excuse or obscure the later Soviet atrocities perpetrated in the name of communism.

1 Introduction The great wave of British political drama which started in 1956 with the premiere of John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger and represented by such works as the Wesker trilogy or John Arden’s Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance, was concerned first and foremost with the country’s own problems, most notably the strong class divisions. The problems of Eastern European communism entered only plays performed by the much more marginal theatres of the radical left. Thus, paradoxically, it was the communist-inclined part of early post-war British theatre that was the first to deal with anti-communist resistance in Central and Eastern Europe. The first impulse to do so came from the uprising in Hungary, which proved to be a traumatic moment for the radical Western European left—here, the Soviet Union, seen by many as a positive model alternative to capitalist states, revealed itself as a cruel oppressor. The second shock, further dividing the radical left, was the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Both called for a major reevaluation. In Britain, one of its results was a series of major theatrical plays depicting the Eastern European P. Schreiber (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_10

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anti-communist resistance and juxtaposing them with the changes taking place within the British left. Works such as Howard Brenton’s Weapons of Happiness or David Edgar’s Maydays confronted British communists and socialists with traumatised exiles from the Soviet Bloc. In his landmark work Inventing Eastern Europe, Wolff (1994, p. 5) presents the popular Western idea of Eastern Europe as an invention of the Enlightenment, which “had to invent Western Europe and Eastern Europe together, as complementary concepts, defining each other by opposition and adjacency”. The West was the rational, ordered part of the continent, measuring itself against the chaotic, unruly, and, most importantly, uncivilised East. The West could complete the construction of its own identity by having a necessary Other it could compare itself to. Wolff (1994, 90) points out that the function of this image took precedence over its factual contents and “Eastern Europe was constructed by the combined conceptions of travelers in the imagination and imaginative travelers”, freely mixing the fact with convenient or picturesque fiction. Vesna Goldsworthy (1998, p. 2) develops a similar approach to the Western creation of the East in her notion of “imaginative colonisation”, referring to the treatment of the Balkans in British literature. Goldsworthy (1998, p. 1) notes that Britain hardly had any colonial presence in the Balkans—its only colony in the area was the island of Vis, which, furthermore, remained in British possession for only 3 years, between 1811 and 1814. In spite of that, “Britain’s impact on the way the Balkans are seen and imagined throughout the world far outweighs the achievements of its rivals” (Goldsworthy, 1998, p. 1). In Said’s Orientalism, imagining and knowing the Orient was shown not as an exercise in theory, different from the practices of colonial exploitation, but as another form of practice, underlying colonialism and making it possible. Goldsworthy (1998, p. 2) shows a situation in which no direct colonial exploitation takes place, and yet there is a sinister process at work, as the fictitious images of the Balkans, when accepted by the British audience, have a very direct influence on political and economic reality—they can determine “the extent of foreign loans and investments, the level of military and humanitarian aid, and the speed at which individual Balkan countries are allowed to join ‘Europe’, NATO or any other international organisation or club”. Like ordinary colonisation, literary colonisation also has recognisable stages: it starts with the appearance of travel writers, adventurers and explorers, whose task is to perform reconnaissance in the new territory. These surveyors prepare it for processing by another set of pioneers—novelists, playwrights and poets, who create influential works of literature. Then it is time for the final stages—popular fiction and the film industry, which “can begin the full commercial exploitation of the appropriated territory” (Goldsworthy, 1998, p. 3), usually to the detriment of the exploited area. An interesting twist when it comes to the radical left’s attitude towards the East is that in many cases the relationship between the two halves of Europe is reversed in comparison to the processes described by Wolff and Goldsworthy. Because of the Russian revolution, it is the East that sparked the original impulse of enlightenment which the left is trying to realise in the West. Even the growing knowledge about the dark side of the Soviet Union could not dismantle the view of the Russian

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revolution as the great liberating event to be followed by other countries, the weaknesses of the regime resulting from human error. However, apart from the primacy of the Eastern progressive experience over the Western lack of development, the other elements of the process are familiar. It starts with the surveyors—British socialists visiting the Soviet Union in the years after the revolution and bringing back selective accounts, which omit the negative aspects of the post-revolutionary society in the name of creating a powerful example that could help the social change in Britain (a process described in detail by Wright, 2007, pp. 129–339). The Utopian view of the revolution becomes an imaginative construct whose main purpose is not representation, but the reinforcement of the left’s own identity, just like the disordered, wild East of the eighteenth-century writers and intellectuals was meant to reinforce the West’s self-image as ordered and rational.

2 World on Edge The earliest reaction to the Soviet intervention in Hungary in British theatre came from the Unity Theatre London, one of the important pioneers of documentary theatre in Britain. The group was founded in 1936 as a part of the broader Unity Theatre network of left-wing amateur theatres. In the second half of the 1940s, the London branch of Unity became a professional theatre (Kershaw, 2004, p. 354) and prevailed into the 1950s, when most other Unity ventures were already disbanded (Davies, 1987, p. 149). Its most famous performances were created according to the format of the so-called Living Newspaper, created in the USA by Hallie Flanagan, head of the Federal Theatre Project—a New Deal program supporting the performing arts during the Great Depression (Witham, 2009, p. 58); Colin Chambers (2009, p. 40) also notices the sources of the American Living Newspapers in Soviet workers’ theatre. Living Newspapers were short plays commenting on the most recent news; John Allen, one of the directors of Unity, wanted them be similar to the newsreel or the popular magazine Picture Post (Chambers, 2009, p. 41). In 1956, the company staged a living newspaper entitled World on Edge (written by Eric Paice and Roger Woddis), devoted to the Suez Crisis and the Soviet intervention in Hungary. As Colin Chambers notes, while the previous Unity productions presented very strong views and did not leave much room for debate, here “the certainty of Unity’s previous living newspapers are abandoned” (Chambers, 2009, p. 41): the sub-title of the play is “All Your Answers Questioned”. Of course, the reason for the questioning was the Soviet violence in Hungary. It literally disrupts the text of the play. The second act starts with a scene in which an Editor reads letters sent to his newspaper. Each one is followed with a short ironic scene, revealing the hypocrisy of the views it presents. All of them concern the Suez Crisis. Suddenly, the Editor is interrupted by a Voice from the audience, demanding that he change the subject:

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VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: Hungary! EDITOR (pretending he hasn’t heard): (…) This letter deals with (…) VOICE: What about Hungary? ED: Now quiet please, we deal with that when we come to it. VOICE: You deal with it now! ED (fumbling): Now look(…) Look(…) We’re trying to be fair and present everybody’s point of view(…) VOICE: Why are you frightened to say anything about Hungary! ED: We’re not frightened to say anything(…) We’re trying to say(…) (…) ED (gets up from his desk and goes center stage) You’ve got a lot to say for yourself, why don’t you come down here and say it. (…) Put the house lights up. (…) Come up on the stage and say what you want to say! (pp. 33–4; all quotations from World on Edge based on Paice & Woodis, 1995).

The Interrupter enters the stage and makes a short emotional statement about the atrocities performed by the Soviets in Hungary, which prompts an argument first in the audience, and then among the crew of the Unity Theatre, whose Secretary criticises the Soviet Union, while some of the actors defend it. The argument deteriorates into complete chaos. The Editor ends it and moves on to the next scene, in which a middle-aged working-class woman confronts a Soviet soldier, on the one hand defending him from a mob intent on lynching him, and on the other— denouncing the Soviet atrocities. For her—like for many British Communists—the invasion of Hungary was the first disappointment with the Soviet Union: WOMAN: (…) I brought up my kids to believe in you – you were something to love and live up to. What are you now? Don’t you see? They don’t believe in you anymore. All the wonderful things you’ve done – 40 years of – of splendor – blown away overnight (p. 36).

She slaps him on the face, which prompts the onstage crowd to scream “Kill the swine!”. However, the woman “cries out in a voice from the depths of her being: No! I am the only one that’s got the right to hit him!” (p. 36). Hungary was a scandal that shook the beliefs of the British communists. In the script, it appears in its full destructive potential, breaking the integrity of the performance itself. However, the disruption is fully under the playwrights’ control— anticipating the reaction of the audience which could threaten the cognitive and ideological matrix of the radical left, the authors decided to introduce the controversial subject and then weaken its impact by constructing the character of the Woman, who attacks the aggression on Hungary, but defends the Soviet Union as a whole, reserving the right to attack it for its enthusiasts. The shock caused by the intervention is there, but the way of thinking about the history of the Soviet Union remains largely intact. This proved insufficient—the British communists were disappointed with the critical elements of the play, which also caused friction within the ensemble; as Chambers (2009, p. 46) puts it, “the consensus needed for this strand of documentary drama to flourish had finally cracked, and was never

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recovered”. World on Edge was the last of Unity’s Living Newspapers and the beginning of a long, but steady decline of the company. Ultimately, the most important problem of World on Edge is not Hungary, but the threatened identity of the British communists. The strategy used here is to appeal to an image of original innocence which could redeem the imperfect present —even when the innocence can be problematic (the “40 years of splendor” mentioned in World on Edge included the rise of Stalinism, the gulag system and the famine in the Ukraine).

3 Weapons of Happiness After Hungary it was still possible to attempt to salvage the positive aspects of the Soviet Union. After Czechslovakia, the knowledge about the dark side of Soviet communism was much more widespread, and thus more difficult to ignore or deny. This shift is visible in Trevor Griffiths’ Occupations (1970), where Soviet communism is viewed as less idealistic and more involved in the realpolitik of the day. The play is set in 1920, when thousands of Italian workers occupied their factories. It shows a confrontation between the idealist Antonio Gramsci and Kabak, an emissary from the Soviet Union, whose idea of the revolution is much more pragmatic, leaning towards moral compromises unacceptable for Gramsci. Finally, when the occupations fail, Kabak is ready to strike a deal with the factory owners, beneficial to his government. For Gramsci, the revolution is first and foremost an expression of his love of the working class. For Kabak—and the Soviet Union—the revolution is a matter of careful calculation. Griffiths was prompted to write the play by the failure of the socialist revolution in 1968, when the power of enthusiasm was not enough to carry the effort (Garner, 1999, p. 49). The central dilemma of the play is the question to what extent an idealism like Gramsci’s has to be tempered by the unpleasant (but perhaps necessary) cynical pragmatism represented by Kabak. Like the authors of World on Edge, Griffiths was strongly criticised for his deconstruction of the innocent image of the early days of Soviet communism. The most notable example was Tom Nairn’s article “Mucking About with Love and Revolution”. For Nairn (1971, p. 19), Griffiths’ criticism of the Soviet Union is much too strong and revolutionary pragmatism does not have to be cynical: “one can certainly doubt whether any revolution will ever be regulated by love, without falling straight into the arms of Kabak”. Significantly, Nairn (1971, p. 19) suggests that Griffiths’ idea of Kabak is “conflating different epochs of communist history together”, creating a character which refers to Stalinist machinations during the Spanish civil war and the Soviet deals with capitalist companies from the 1960s— and thus overshadowing the original Leninist communism with the results of later degeneration. Griffiths’ reply to Nairn’s article shows that both the playwright and his critic are searching for a space of innocence in the early years of the Soviet revolution—for Nairn it would be the original Soviet Union, while Griffiths clings to Gramsci’s idealism (painfully unable to conduct an efficient revolution)—despite

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Nairn’s claims that Gramsci was “hard, even harsh”, Griffiths (1971, p. 22) emphasises his good-naturedness and the fact that “there is no doubt that ‘love’ was a basic reference for much of his social thought.” Howard Brenton’s play Weapons of Happiness (1976) can be seen as a continuation of the effort Griffiths took in Occupations. While Griffiths preferred to use earlier history of European communism as an illustration of the failure of 1968, in Brentont’s play the contemporary British context is present much more directly. The plot revolves around a strike in a crisp factory, led by a group of naive, young socialists, including the charismatic, idealistic and determined Janice. The other major protagonist is an older worker—Josef, a refugee from Czechoslovakia. His experience of Stalinist terror has made him much more disillusioned and sceptical towards the perspective of a major social and political change in Britain. Once again, the play is based on the debate between an idealist and a disillusioned pragmatist, but the background built by Brenton is completely different. Josef is no ordinary immigrant. His full name is Josef Frank—a former Deputy General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). The real Frank was sentenced in the Slánsky Trial—a late Stalinist purge within the KSČ, whose main target was Rudolf Slánsky, the General Secretary of the KSČ. The original pretext was the suggested discovery of a Titoist plot within the party, but this changed as Beria suggested to focus on Zionism rather than Titoism as the reason for the accusations (Judt, 2005, p. 185). The show trial became one of numerous anti-Semitic witch-hunts of the 1950s. Tony Judt quotes the newspaper Rudé Právo, giving an account of the proceedings: “only cynical Zionists without a fatherland(…) clever cosmopolitans who have sold out to the dollar. They were guided in this criminal activity by Zionism, bourgeois Jewish nationalism, racial chauvinism” (Judt, 2005, p. 186). The trial ended in the executions of eleven high-ranking Communist Party members, including Frank, Slánsky and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Clementis. It was part of a broader operation by which Stalin meant to purge the leaderships of Central and Eastern European communist parties—its Czechoslovakian part was modeled on a trial in Hungary, which led to the execution of the country’s Minister of Interior, Làszló Rajk, among others (Hodos, 1987, pp. 73–4). In Brenton’s play, Frank was not executed, but survived the imprisonment and torture, and ultimately fled to Britain, where he was originally offered a post at Cambridge University, which he refused, preferring to start work at the crisp factory. Even though he simply wants to escape from his past, his conversations with Janice show that, despite his suffering, he has retained a strong belief in communism. When he becomes involved in the strike (partly against his own will), he views the situation in the factory as a continuation of what happened to him in Czechoslovakia. The British scenes, like Frank’s interrogation by the police and factory management, seamlessly turn into scenes from his traumatic past—in Frank’s memories the factory owner becomes the Soviet general Beshchasnov (sent from Moscow to orchestrate the trial), while the policeman and the trade union representative act as the interrogators. The inept British strike and the clumsy response of the authorities may seem watered down and caricatured in comparison

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with Frank’s memories of Soviet oppression, but in Brenton’s play the two situations are the same on the most basic level—they show the failure of a revolutionary project in the face of a cruel system. The inexperienced British strikers do not realise how much they can lose. The veteran of the Eastern European struggle for the rights of the working class realises it very well, because he has already seen a violent collapse of revolutionary ideals. The young rebels from the crisp factory are clearly modeled on the protesters from 1968. Christopher Innes notes that Brenton’s choice of a victim of the Slánsky trial may have been motivated by a direct connection to the year—Frank and the other officials executed in 1952 were rehabilitated during the Prague Spring (Innes, 2002, p. 208). In the play, Frank’s memories of his private conversations with Clementis before and during the trial show two communists with strong beliefs trying to negotiate with a brutal system led by a grotesque mad tyrant. Frank claims it is his “duty to argue in the interests of the Czechoslovak working class” (p. 203; all quotations from Weapons of Happiness based on Brenton, 2014) and the two men have a following exchange: CLEMENTIS: We are in Russia. We are not mere National Governments, bargaining our national interests. We share a deeper responsibility (…) FRANK: The communist nation is world wide. CLEMENTIS: The communist nation is world wide. Yes. FRANK: Yes! A pause. And that is why I saw the Soviet Minister of Trade last night at Party Level. Not as a mere trade delegate with a begging bowl. But as a fellow communist (pp. 203–4).

This spirited attitude is met with cynicism from the Soviet side—minister Mikoyan cares about his country’s interests more than Frank’s worries about the fate of the revolution in Czechoslovakia. Telling about it to Clementis, the shocked Frank says: “This brutality. (…) Don’t they know we love this country? That it is an honour for us to stand here on the socialist earth of Soviet Russia? That the allegiance is to what happened here, always?” (p. 204). When, a moment later, Clementis tells Frank that Mikoyan agreed to all Czechoslovakian demands because of Stalin’s direct intervention, the two men still apparently do not realise they are pawns in the dictator’s game: CLEMENTIS: Stalin intervened personally. (…) FRANK: An enormous relief. Stalin. CLEMENTIS: A very great man. FRANK: Just like that. JOSEF FRANK laughs. I feel(…) Shaky! CLEMENTIS: The relief is enormous. CLEMENTIS laughs. A pause.

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CLEMENTIS: We have done right. The right thing for the working class. It cannot be wrong. Not if Stalin has agreed. A pause. Can it (p. 205).

The scene of Frank’s death during the escape after the failed strike further reinforces his naive idealism and his connection to the events of 1968, both in Czechoslovakia and in the West. It is a dream vision in which Frank covers the barrel of a Russian tank with his coat. Stalin, standing next to the tank, comments: “Incurable romantic” (p. 249). The idealistic sensibilities of 1968 are transferred onto the early 1950s, allowing Brenton to build a clear-cut opposition between the innocent communists, victims of the Slánsky trial, and the cynical dictator distorting the original impact of the revolution. This approach is problematic from the historical point of view, as one cannot separate the victims of the Slánsky from the Stalinist apparatus. They were an active part of the regime. The line separating the perpetrators from the potential victims of the show trials was very thin. Judt (2005, p. 185) mentions that “[a]t first Gottwald was reluctant to have Slánsky arrested— the two of them had worked closely together in purging their colleagues over the past three years and if the General Secretary was implicated, Gottwald himself might be next”. In order to make his fictitious Josef Frank a more distinct figure, Brenton has to downplay the involvement of Czechoslovakian communists in Stalinist power struggles and emphasise Stalin’s personal responsibility for the atrocities of the show trials. The attribution of the evils of post-war communism to Stalin and his henchmen alone makes it possible to lift the blame from the ideas and the system, allowing to preserve the purity of the images of the revolution and the communist resistance to Nazism, both of which are strongly emphasised in the play. In this vision, disregarding the purges of the 1930s, the development of the Gulag system and the violence involved in the communist rise to power in the late 1940s, the “40 years of splendor” come to a sudden surprising end in the 1950s, and the early post-war communists can be seen as role models for a new generation of left-wing idealists.

4 Maydays David Edgar’s Maydays (1983) also explores the relationship between the British left and the Soviet Union through the figure of an Eastern European exile arriving in Britain. The epic scope of the play shows the developments between 1945 and the late 1970s. The setting alternates between Britain, where the play traces the lives of two left-wing activists from two different generations, the older Jeremy Crowther and the younger Martin Glass, and Eastern Europe (first Hungary, then the Soviet Union), where it shows the life of Pavel Lermontov, a Soviet dissident. The play juxtaposes two opposite trajectories—while the Western protagonists become more

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and more disillusioned, moving from their left-wing beliefs towards the Conservative establishment of the late 1970s, Lermontov evolves from a being tool of the Soviet regime towards dissent and activism for which he is imprisoned, and later forced to emigrate to Britain. Maydays became a contentious play, strongly criticised by some for, as Hewitt and Reinelt (2018, p. 83) put it, “wash[ing] the Left’s dirty linen in public”—it presents the radical British left as a constantly arguing group, whose devotion to the party line rather than their own conscience later leads many of its members to the opposite camp, in search of a strong authority. The crucial points of the play are, once again, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. 1956 makes Jeremy resign from his Party membership. He later relates it to young Martin Glass as follows: Well, it was really very simple. They sent this apparatchik up, to explain the line. Those brave, wild revolutionaries in the streets of Budapest, ‘objectively’ the agents of imperialism. And I thought then – oh, come on, do you really want this man to run the country? And I left. And it was – just like that (p. 207; all quotations from Maydays based on Edgar, 1997).

In the meantime, Lermontov is involved in pacifying the Hungarian uprising as a Red Army lieutenant. He questions prisoners, among them Miklos Paloczi, a young communist supporting the uprising, who makes him reconsider the point of the Soviet intervention. Convinced by his idealism, Lermontov lets him to escape from the interrogation room—but not before asking the stenographer, a country girl, to go out. In 1968 Lermontov writes a petition in defence a group of Soviet citizens protesting in the Red Square against the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It took place on August 25, and even though there were only seven protesters, the demonstration became a landmark event for the dissident movement in the Soviet Union. Some of the dissidents involved were later locked up at psychiatric hospitals, a move which prompted a strong response in the West and ultimately led to the resignation of the Soviet All-Union Society of Neuropathologists and Psychiatrists from the World Psychiatric Association, anticipating its possible expulsion (Bonnie, 2002, p. 137). The decision to support the dissidents will lead Lermontov to the Soviet labour camps. In 1969 Jeremy is a professor of English studies at Leeds University. During student riots, he no longer feels connected to the young rebels and he retires to his office, where he reads a letter to the editor of the Times concerning Lermontov’s fate; the train of events following the letter will finally lead to Lermontov’s coming to Britain in 1978, at a time preceding the Conservative victory and Margaret Thatcher’s first premiership. It is then that Lermontov is to be awarded a special prize by a think-tank led by Hugh Trelawney, dreaming about an authoritarian, conservative Britain. Before the award ceremony, Lermontov is reunited with the two other protagonists of the Hungarian scene. Miklos Paloczi, the captive he let escape, invited him to England and is now in Trelawney’s camp, urging the dissident to support the newly emerging Conservative order. However, before Lermontov goes to deliver his acceptance speech, he is also confronted by Clara,

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the stenographer who assisted him in Budapest, now a prominent Soviet journalist, who also took an active part in the media campaign against Lermontov at home. She warns him he is about to enter “the camp of the most bellicose cold war imperialists” (p. 308), and reminds him of the great achievements of the Russian revolution, like “the five year plan. Those thousands upon thousands of young party cadres, laying pipelines across Russia’s freezing wastes (…) Those superhuman tasks”(p. 308). For Clara, the most important aspect of these great endeavours is that they were entirely voluntary: “You see, it just isn’t true, that the only way that people will do anything is if they’re bribed or forced at the point of a revolver” (p. 308). However, such a state does not last indefinitely: “People get tired. They can’t go on. (…) Even the most heroic superman flops down onto the ground, and realises that he’s just a normal human being after all. And turns his eyes to people who will tell him what to do” (pp. 308–9). This can be seen as Clara’s explanation of what went wrong with the Russian revolution—and the system in which her role was to attack the dissident Lermontov. In this fragment, Clara suggests a monumental vision of the revolution very similar to that appearing in the previous plays discussed here—the Woman’s “40 years of splendor” in World at Edge and Josef Frank’s Moscow pledge” [t]hat the allegiance is to what happened here, always” in Weapons of Happiness. The later disappointment is not due to the nature of the revolution itself, but because of the weakness of the people participating in it. As Hewitt and Reinelt (2018, 77) notice, the play constantly refers (directly or indirectly) to Lenin’s saying “Revolutions are a festival of the oppressed and exploited”, which not only gives it dramatic structure (77), but also allows it to create a “multifaceted image of revolutionary ardour” (79), in which they stress the risky elements: “the volatility of radical mass movements, the risks of too much or too little discipline, the sometimes unpredictable nature of their expressions, and their possibilities for celebration and destruction” (79). The whole play could be seen as a meditation on revolution—and a catalogue of the weaknesses of the British left and its failures to stand up to the tasks of leading a social and economic revolution. Clara’s explanation of the disappointments of the Soviet way can also be applied to the British revolutionaries-to-be. Clara’s vision of the nature of the revolution as a superhuman task undertaken by “thousands upon thousands” of their own will, becomes the most important argument in one of the most powerful scenes of the play—Lermontov’s refusal to accept the prize offered to him by the Conservatives. He dismisses their idea of authority as the basis of society by comparing it to the Soviet order: “If you really want to see a nation, strong and tough and virile, marching to a single rhythm, banged out with a hammer on a rail, then—please, gentlemen—come to my country” (p. 314). He continues, mildly accusing his listeners: “Yours are not gaolers’ faces. But perhaps they are faces of the people who employ the gaolers” (p. 316), and finally refers to Clara’s description of the early years of the Soviet Union: “Faces which cannot remember, if they ever knew, the superhuman things that people can achieve, when for a moment they forget what they’ve been told they are” (p. 316). The history of

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the Soviet revolutionary effort is the ultimate argument the Soviet dissident can level against the Conservative establishment, trying to take advantage of his dramatic personal story. Lermontov’s link with the early years of the revolution is also suggested in a passage which presents him in the context of a quasi-mythical figure. While in the labour camp, he tells his fellow prisoners the legend of a “prisoner who fought at Kronstadt” kept “on further reaches of this wilderness of camps”, who has seen Utopia’s refuse pile up all around him, all those years: all those generations of class enemies, class traitors, ists and iks and ites (…) Until the pile of shit and sewerage, the effluent of paradise, rose up to drown the spires and steeples of the city(…) And through all of them this old man passes, like a ghost, our Holy Fool. And having seen it all, he says nothing (p. 247).

Lermontov is identified with the Prisoner when he is finally released and transported to the West. He faces a group of journalists and, asked to make a statement, answers: “Now I am free to say what I like. (…) I find(…) I have no words to say” (p. 279). Though unaware of it, he is one of the incarnations of the spirit of Kronstadt, the beginning of the revolution. His silence also means he cannot criticise the revolution itself—he has seen more of its terrible consequences than anybody else, but he remains loyal to the original heroic impulse. Definitely, it is the Prisoner who should have the most evident moral right to accuse communism, but he refuses to do that in the way expected by his Western friends. Like the Woman in World on Edge, he chooses to slap rather than attack the Soviet revolution; this choice deprives other characters of the right to attack it either. In Weapons of Happiness, Josef Frank was an overtly fictitious variation on an authentic figure. The construction of Lermontov as a dissident is grounded in historical events, like the Hungarian uprising or the 1968 demonstration in the Red Square, but presenting him in the context of the story of the Prisoner also reveals that in many ways he is a fantasy, a figure grounded not only in revolutionary hagiography, but in the earlier Russian Orthodox tradition of the yurodive—holy fools, oscillating between holiness and madness, renouncing earthly goods and reasoning in favour of the divine idea. The mythical figure incarnated in Lermontov preserves the original superhuman innocence of the revolution and carries it through all the atrocities of the Soviet regime. A closer look at Lermontov’s vision of the revolution reveals certain contradictions. On the one hand, he is inspired by Clara’s description of the enthusiasm of the five-year plan, “thousands upon thousands of young party cadres, laying pipelines across Russia’s freezing wastes”, and on the other—sarcastically criticises nations “strong and virile, marching to a single rhythm, banged out by a hammer on a rail”, but in fact leaving their independence in the hands of a superior authority. The crux of Lermontov’s most powerful speech in the play is the opposition between these two images; what he does not seem to realise is that to a large extent they are in fact the same. Clara’s account of the first five-year plan does not take into account the fact that young party cadres were not the only people working

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across Russia’s freezing wastes—at the same time, the Gulag system was rapidly developing, which had a considerable influence on the country’s industrial and economic growth. Like in Weapons of Happiness, facts are sacrificed in order to construct a Utopian image, conflating the positive image of the Russian revolution cherished by the left and the positive image of the Eastern dissident, praised by the critics of the Soviet Union.

5 Conclusion The images of Eastern European resistance against communism in British political plays by authors identifying themselves with the left are usually constructed in such a way as to reinforce the identity of the political movement, facing several crises in its attitude towards Soviet communism, once giving it much of its ideology, and ultimately seen as a distortion of the original ideas of the revolution. The figures of dissidents appearing in plays such as Weapons of Happiness and Maydays are consciously built as either former or still believing communists, and their experiences in the East are treated as a prelude to their final coming to Britain and confrontation with the British left. The history of the Soviet Bloc is presented with many omissions, making it easier to construct a relatively simple opposition between the original idea and the human errors leading to the dark aspects of Soviet communism. These distortions of historical material can be seen as another example of the usual treatment of the European East by the West, in which the East is (re) imagined in order to serve the ideological needs of the West. However, there is also a positive side to those images—while the usual Western practice as described by Wolff and Goldsworthy would be to construct patronising accounts of the chaotic East waiting for Western agency, the plays in question show an opposite situation, in which it is the Eastern agency that reinvigorates the impotent Western left. Perhaps even more importantly, the West needs to understand and internalise the Eastern experience—it is incomplete without it. The Cold War Europe is not about the East trying to reach the Western plenty, but about two sides of the same traumatic conflict waiting to be reunited. The most significant flaw present in the plays discussed here is that while they try to hint at a common European experience and point out the possible links between the two halves of the continent, in their descriptions of the East they follow the more traditional, patronising accounts and focus predominantly on exotic difference. The consumerist, degenerate West is starkly contrasted with the spirited Czechs, Slovaks and Russians subjected to totalitarian tyranny, and the shadow of Stalin (explicit in Weapons of Happiness, more implicit in Maydays) is constantly present. It is interesting to confront such images with Václav Havel’s essay The Power of the Powerless, describing the realities of the Eastern Bloc and its dissident movements in 1978:

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Finally, if an atmosphere of revolutionary excitement, heroism, dedication, and boisterous violence on all sides characterizes classical dictatorships, then the last traces of such an atmosphere have vanished from the Soviet bloc. (…) the hierarchy of values existing in the developed countries of the West has, in essence, appeared in our society (the long period of co-existence with the West has only hastened this process). In other words, what we have here is simply another form of the consumer and industrial society, with all its concomitant social, intellectual, and psychological consequences. It is impossible to understand the nature of power in our system properly without taking this into account (Havel, 2018).

The actual Eastern dissident in the late 1970s lives in a world that is quite different from that imagined by Brenton and Edgar in their plays. The strong contrast between the East and the West, so important for the strategies of constructing local European identities, has been considerably weakened, perhaps signaling the birth of a broader, pan-European point of view in which the Eastern and Western experiences are not opposed, but complementary.

References Bonnie, R. (2002). Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union and in China: complexities and controversies. The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 30, 136– 144. Brenton, H. (2014). Weapons of happiness. In Plays (Vol. 1, pp. 179–254). London: Bloomsbury. Chambers, C. (2009). History in the driving seat: Unity theatre and the embrace of the real. In A. Forsyth & C. Megson C (Eds.), Get real: Documentary theatre past and present (pp. 38–54). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Davies, A. (1987). Other theatres. The development of alternative and experimental theatre in Britain. London: Macmillan Education. Edgar, D. (1997). Maydays. In Plays (Vol. 3, pp. 185–326). London: Methuen. Garner, S. (1999). Trevor Griffiths: Politics, drama, history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goldsworthy, V. (1998). Inventing Ruritania. Imperialism of the imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press. Griffiths T (1971, December 8). Defense of occupations. 7 Days, 7, 22. Havel, V. (2018). The power of the powerless. New York: Vintage. Hewitt, G., & Reinelt, J. (2018). The political theatre of David Edgar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hodos, G. (1987). Show trials: Stalinist Purges in Eastern Europe, 1948–1954. Westport: Praeger. Innes, C. (2002). Modern British drama: the twentieth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Judt, T. (2005). Postwar. A history of Europe since 1945. New York: Penguin Press. Kershaw, B. (2004). The Cambridge history of British theatre (Vol. 3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nairn, T. (1971, November 10). Mucking about with love and revolution. Gramsci on stage at the place. 7 Days, 3, 18–19. Paice, E. & Woodis, R. (1995). World on edge. A living newspaper. In A. Favorini (Ed.), Voicings. Ten plays form the documentary theater (pp. 27–43). Ann Arbor: Ecco Press.

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Witham, B. (2009). The federal theatre project. A case study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wolff, L. (1994). Inventing Eastern Europe: The map of civilization on the mind of the enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Wright, P. (2007). Iron curtain: From stage to cold war. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Paweł Schreiber is Assistant Professor at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz (Poland). His main research interests include historical drama and its links to contemporary methodology of history, and representations of Central and Eastern Europe in post-war British drama.

Part III

Focusing on Language, Perception and Cognition

How Fundamental and Ubiquitous Really Is Metonymy? Wojciech Wachowski

Abstract In the classical theory, metonymy is often defined as a figure of speech which operates on names of things. In Cognitive Linguistics, however, metonymy is normally understood as a particular type of mental mapping and a very basic cognitive mechanism (probably more basic than metaphor) rather than a simple linguistic matter (Barnden, 2010; Barcelona, 2003a, b, c, d; Dirven and Pörings, 2003; Goosens, 1990; Haser, 2005; Kosecki, 2007; Nerlich and Clarke, 1999, Nerlich and Clarke, 2001; Panther and Radden, 1999; Panthe and Thornburg, 2004, Panther and Thornburg, 2007; Ruiz de Mendoza, 2003). The first aim of this article is to shed some light on how basic the mechanism is. The article presents metonymy from a broad perspective, incorporating, apart from linguistic, also psychological and biophysical studies. The observations of psychologists (Michotte et al., 1964), biophysicists (e.g., Eagleman, 2001; Nieder, 2002), linguists (e.g., Gardner & Gardner, 1969; Kwiatkowska, 2007), or even technologists (e.g., Klein, 2008) lead to the conclusion that the mechanism of metonymy is indispensable to perception and cognition and, as such, is not only characteristic of humans, but has also been developed in other animate beings. Another aim of this article is to demonstrate that metonymy is an omnipresent phenomenon. It is demonstrated that metonymy is frequently used outside language, e.g., in visual arts, that it is used in reasoning and that it may serve the function of providing understanding.

1 Introduction The theoretical framework for this article is provided by the school of thought known as Cognitive Linguistics,1 which grew out of the work of a number of scholars active in the 1970s and 1980s, who investigated the relation of language and mind. The 1

By Cognitive Linguistics the author means the second generation of cognitive science, as described e.g., by Lakoff (1987, pp. XI–XVII) or Lakoff and Johnson (1999, p. 77).

W. Wachowski (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_11

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major theoretical foundations of Cognitive Linguistics were laid by Charles Fillmore (e.g., in Frames and the Semantics of Understanding, 1985), George Lakoff (e.g., in Women Fire and Dangerous Things, 1987) and Ronald Langacker (e.g., in the two volumes of Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, 1987, 1991) and in Concept Image and Symbol, 1990). For many, however, the publication that actually launched the cognitivist movement is George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By (1980) (Haser, 2005, p. 1). In their work Lakoff and Johnson showed that metaphor is not merely an artful rhetorical device but an important cognitive mechanism which structures “the way we think, what we experience and what we do every day” (1980, p. 3). The enormous popularity of Lakoff and Johnson’s work resulted in a wave of scholarly interest in metaphor. According to van Noppen and Hols (1990), the number of publications related to metaphor only from 1985 to 1990 is about 3500. For a time metaphor received so much scholarly attention in the field that another equally, if not more, important cognitive mechanism—metonymy—went virtually unnoticed.2 This oversight is currently being redressed and metonymy is beginning to receive the scholarly attention it deserves.3 In their works cognitive linguists often note that metonymy may actually be even more “pervasive in everyday life” than metaphor and that “our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally” not only metaphorical but also, if not mainly, metonymical in nature. The aim of this article is to shed some more light on how fundamental and ubiquitous metonymy really is.

2 Metonymy—The Traditional and Cognitive Definition The name metonymy is derived from the Greek lesxmtlίa (metōnymía) and literally means a change of name.4 The definitions of metonymy presented in the sources which represent a more traditional understanding of the phenomenon seem to reflect what the name implies. For example, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1985), “metonymy is a figure of speech in which the name of an object or concept is replaced with a word closely related to or suggested by the original.” According to Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (1971), “metonymy is a figure of speech that consists in using the name of one thing for that of something else with which it is associated.” The traditional definition of metonymy is thus composed of three elements: 2

In Lakoff and Johnson’s book (1980), for example, only one chapter (out of 30) is dedicated to metonymy. 3 cf. Barcelona (2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d), Croft (1993), Dirven and Pörings (2003), Goosens (1990), Haser (2005), Kosecki (2007), Nerlich and Clarke (1999, 2001), Panther and Radden (1999), Panther and Thornburg (2004, 2007), Ruiz de Mendoza (2003), Seto (1995, 1999), or Barnden (2010). 4 From lesά, metá, “after, beyond, changed” and -xmtlίa, -ōnymía, a suffix used to name figures of speech (Oxford English Dictionary, 1989).

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1. Metonymy operates on names of things. 2. Metonymy involves the substitution of the name of one thing for that of another thing. 3. The two things are closely related and the relationship between them is usually located in the world of reality. This rather straightforward understanding of metonymy has been challenged by Cognitive Linguistics, which makes the following assumptions5: 1. Metonymy is a conceptual phenomenon rather than a linguistic matter. 2. Metonymy is a cognitive process (in a metonymic model one concept is not merely substituted for another one, but appears to be understood by means of its relation to the other concept). 3. Metonymy operates within an idealised cognitive model (contiguity relationships need not be physical, but can be conceptual only). Based on these assumptions, Kövecses and Radden (1998, p. 38) proposed a new definition of metonymy: “Metonymy is a cognitive process in which one conceptual entity, the vehicle, provides mental access to another conceptual entity, the target, within the same idealized cognitive model.”

3 Metonymy—How Fundamental Is It? Associating parts with wholes and creating other metonymic links, e.g., between the cause and the effect, are basic cognitive skills without which life would probably be impossible. Quite importantly, the skills are not only characteristic of humans, but also of other animate beings.

3.1

Metonymy in Psychology

At the beginning of the 20th century the importance of the PART-WHOLE schema to perception and cognition was noted by Gestalt psychologists. They observed that we often experience things that are not part of our simple sensations and formulated a few principles of Gestalt systems. One of them is emergence. The principle is well demonstrated by the Dog Picture (Fig. 1), which depicts a Dalmatian dog sniffing the ground (Marr, 1982, p. 101). The Dalmatian is recognized by identifying its parts (ears, head, paws, etc.) and then inferring its shape from those parts. Another Gestalt principle—reification is, as Favera and Medeiros note, “the constructive or generative aspect of perception whereby the experienced percept 5

cf. Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Langacker (1984, 1987, 1990, 2008), Lakoff (1987), Lakoff and Turner (1989), Kövecses and Radden (1998), Koch (1999), Panther and Thornburg (2004, 2007), or Barcelona (2003a, 2003b, 2003c).

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Fig. 1 The dog picture (Marr, 1982, p. 101)

contains more explicit spatial information than the sensory stimulus on which it is based” (2007, p. 842). A classic example which illustrates the above mentioned principle is the Kanizsa Triangle (Fig. 2). The Kanizsa Triangle is a figure which consists of three black circles with equal wedges cut out of them facing the center point and three black angles on a white background (Nanay, 2007, p. 1334). Many observers, however, looking at the figure would probably “see” a white equilateral triangle on top of three black disks (ignoring the gaps and completing contour lines). The perception of the figure has also been thoroughly examined experimentally. Lee and Nguyen note that Fig. 2 The Kanizsa triangle (Kanizsa & Metelli, 1961)

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Fig. 3 The law of prägnanz

although there is no activation of the cells in the retina that would correspond to the sides of the triangle, we do find such corresponding activation patterns in the primary visual cortex, which is the earliest stage of visual processing (qtd. in Nanay, 2007, p. 1334).6

There is another fundamental principle of Gestalt perception, namely the law of prägnanz. According to this principle, we tend to order our experience in a regular, symmetrical, and simple manner. For example, one is likely to perceive a set of dots outlining the shape of a star as a star, rather than simply a set of dots. We are, for example, somehow able to see the shape in Fig. 3 as a letter B.7 In Cognitive Linguistics the ability is known as partial sanctioning (Langacker, 1987, pp. 65–73). It is based on the idea that we manage to categorise the hardly identical ‘things’ and ‘events’ in the Lebenswelt and doing so we allow a certain degree of tolerance in membership. For example, all figures which have three connecting sides are normally categorised by human beings as triangles, regardless of their shape and size (Glynn, 2006, p. 7). The importance of the PART-WHOLE schema in perception was also noted by Albert Michotte, who formulated the theory of amodal perception. According to this theory, we tend to fully perceive physical structures even though they are only partially visible (cf. Michotte et al. 1964). Nanay (2007, p. 1331) describes amodal perception is the following way: 6

The phenomenon is also called modal completion. Some researchers do not draw a difference between amodal perception and modal completion or complementation (e.g., Noë, 2002), whereas others do differentiate between them. According to Nanay, for example, “in the case of amodal perception, we are aware of objects behind an occluder, whereas in the case of modal completion, we are visually aware of an object in front of inducers” (2007, p. 1334). Still, as Noë observes (2002), the neural mechanisms responsible for both processes are the same in early vision and they only differ in a very late stage of visual processing. 7 Source: Boeree (www.webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/gestalt.html).

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Typically only three sides of a non-transparent cube are visible. The other three are not visible – we are aware of them “amodally.” The same goes for houses or for any ordinary objects. We perceive the back side of any (non-transparent) object only amodally. It is very difficult to come up with a scenario, where one perceives, but does not perceive amodally.

3.2

Metonymy in Animals

Metonymy is fundamental to perception and cognition and it seems to have developed not only in humans but also in other animate beings. As Kwiatkowska notes (2007, pp. 298–299),8 the very basic, seemingly inborn cognitive mechanism of metonymy is a sort of cognitive prerequisite that lets animals and humans participate in the processes of recognising the physical world. It involves the ability to perceive part-whole relations and the very general expectation that entities belong to species/categories, and that they enter into relations with other entities.

Also the studies of biophysicists and psychologists show that the ability to recover wholes from parts is not characteristic exclusively of humans, but has also developed in certain species of animals. Eagleman (2001) and Nieder (2002), for example, have demonstrated that mammals, birds, and insects are able to perceive illusory contours similarly to humans. Illusory contours lack a physical counterpart, but monkeys, cats, owls and bees perceive them as if they were real borders. In all of these species, a neural correlate for such perceptual completion phenomena has been described. The robustness of neuronal responses and the abundance of cells argue that such neurons might indeed represent a neural correlate for illusory contour perception (Nieder, 2002, p. 249).

Animals then, like humans, seem to associate parts with wholes and fill in the ‘missing’ parts of a picture. Research has also shown that animals are perfectly able to make other mental associations and use such relations as, for example, CAUSE FOR EFFECT. Klein, for example, who has studied the behaviour of crows, notes how surprisingly well the birds have adapted to living in urban environments. In Japan, for instance, crows have devised a way of eating things they cannot normally manage to eat because of shells that are too hard. Crows reportedly swoop down and drop a nut onto a pedestrian crossing in oncoming traffic. Then, they wait for a car to run over the nut. When this happens, crows wait by the curb until the light stops the traffic, then cross to the middle with the pedestrians and grab the nuts.9 As Nerlich (2010, p. 299) writes, “metonymy is based on our world-knowledge about space and time, cause 8

Other linguists have arrived at similar conclusions. Panther and Thornburg, for example, claim PART-WHOLE, CAUSE-EFFECT, PERSON-ROLE, that such conceptual metonymies as REPRESENTATION-REPRESENTED, are “multipurpose conceptual devices not restricted to language but used in other semiotic systems and thought as well” (2004, pp. 94–95). 9 Source: www.blog.ted.com/2008/05/joshua_klein.php.

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and effect [and] part and whole.” The observation made by Klein suggests that crows have and use such knowledge. Kwiatkowska comes to similar conclusions and claims that animals, when communicating their emotions (such as friendliness, hostility, playfulness, dominance, or aggression) through particular positions of their bodies or body parts, use “sign metonymy of the classical kind, where a FORM stands for some CONCEPT” (2007, p. 298). Kwiatkowska also argues that animals use other metonymic relations. A cat will appear from nowhere when you open the fridge (…), proving that it shares with humans the ability to associate a CONTAINER with its CONTENT (…) A dog will run to the door and sit there, all ready to go, the moment he sees his mistress reach for the leash [proving] that he has internalised a script, a scenario of a walk, in which the leash, plays a prominent part.

Also the well-known experiment carried out by Gardner and Gardner (1969) seems to point to the fact that at least chimpanzees, use the GENERIC FOR SPECIFIC synecdochical relation.10 Washoe (the chimpanzee who took part in the experiment and was taught to use sign language) reportedly used more than a hundred words/ signs (such as window, woman, fruit or the famous water bird). Most, if not all, of the words used by the chimpanzee denoted categories. Washoe, however, most of the time, used them with reference to one element of a given category. For example, when she wanted a banana she would sign: more fruit, or when she spotted and pointed at a particular swan she would sign: water bird. It seems then that she produced what we could call without much exaggeration sign synecdoche (GENERIC FOR SPECIFIC). Kwiatkowska (2007, p. 298) suggests that the ability may be characteristic of other species of animals too. In a documentary on the Animal Planet channel, a woman told a story of her dog who had been hit by a car. He survived, but he was afraid of all cars from then on; the woman even claimed that he hid under the bed whenever he was confronted with her son’s toy car!11

4 Metonymy—How Ubiquitous Is It? In the traditional approach metonymy is perceived as a phenomenon limited to language, especially literary language, which merely operates on names of things. According to the cognitive view, however, metonymy is a natural way of cognizing

10

The division into a taxonomical relation (synecdoche) and partonomical relation (metonymy) was suggested by e.g., Seto (1995, 1999) and Nerlich (1999, 2010). 11 This example may seem anecdotal, but if it turned out to be true, it would point to the advanced ability of dogs to include even very non-prototypical members into categories. The ability is known in Cognitive Linguistics as partial sanctioning (Langacker, 1987, pp. 65–73).

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for humans and does not even need to be related to language. In Kövecses and Radden’s definition of metonymy (1998, p. 38) quoted above (Sect. 2), language is not mentioned at all. The definition suggests that metonymy is a mental operation which may, but does not have to be, realised in language.

4.1

Pre-linguistic and Non-linguistic Metonymy

In Metaphors We Live By (1980), Lakoff and Johnson noted that people not only speak, but, more importantly, think metonymically, and metonymies used in language are mere reflections of some basic cognitive mechanism. They illustrated their point in the following way: If you ask me to show you a picture of my son and I show you a picture of his face, you will be satisfied. You will consider yourself to have seen a picture of him. But if I show you a picture of his body without his face, you will consider it strange and will not be satisfied. You might even ask, “But what does he look like?” Thus the metonymy THE FACE FOR THE PERSON is not merely a matter of language (1980, p. 37).

As Radden and Kövecses note, the fact that we “derive the basic information about a person from the person’s face” is, in our culture, “reflected in the tradition of portraits in painting and photography” (1999, p. 18). Caricaturists, for example, usually concentrate on the face of the depicted person only. They present the rest of the body as either disproportionately small or they do not depict it at all (Fig. 4).12 The face is, at least in many contexts, the most salient part of the human body and thus often comes to ‘stand for’ the body as a whole. This does not mean, however, that other, more peripheral or, at first glance, less important parts cannot play such a role. As mentioned in the previous section, recovering wholes from parts, sometimes even from the most peripheral ones, is one of the most basic cognitive abilities without which life would probably be impossible. The PART-WHOLE metonymy, however, is hardly the only metonymic relation that can be found ‘outside language’. In fact, so can virtually all others. The EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy, for instance, seems very well suited for the visual medium. A terrorist attack or war, for example, will normally be metonymically represented in television news by a series of shots depicting dead bodies, gutted buildings and the like. Nervousness is often represented by shaky hands and anger by redness in the face. Panther and Thornburg (2007, p. 242) note that from a semiotic perspective, metonymy is related to indexicality. If, for example, Mary has rented a parking space and finds out that her parking space has been taken by another car, she might become red in the face. An outside observer might interpret this as an index

12

Source: http://www.courtjones.com.

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Fig. 4 Shakespeare caricature (Jones 2008)

(more specifically, a symptom) that Mary is angry. This metonymic [interpretation] is induced by the BODILY REACTION FOR EMOTION metonymy, which is a special case of the more general EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy.13

The CONTAINER FOR CONTENT is another frequently used type of pictorial metonymy (used, for example, in visual advertising).14 As Kwiatkowska argues, [c]igarette ads do not show the cigarettes, but their packets, and ads for perfumes do not show the liquid itself, but the container it comes in. There are also bottles standing for alcoholic beverages, containers for milk or soft cheese, jars for facial creams, tubes for toothpaste, boxes for washing powder, and so on (2007, p. 302).

The metonymy could obviously have a linguistic form. As Panther and Thornburg add, “the same observer might also verbalize his thinking by saying Mary is red in the face, thereby metonymically evoking the target content ‘Mary is angry’” (2007, p. 242). 14 Source: www.euro-cig.com. 13

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Fig. 5 Guernica (1937) by Pablo Picasso (www.picasso.com)

The above-mentioned metonymic relations can also be found in painting, film, or sculpture. Jakobson notes for instance “the manifestly metonymical orientation of cubism” (1971, p. 92). The famous painting by Pablo Picasso (a co-founder of the Cubist movement) entitled Guernica (Fig. 5), depicts the bombing of the city of Guernica in Spain by Spanish Nationalist forces on 26 April 1937, during the Spanish Civil War. The painting provides numerous examples of metonymy: • the flaming buildings and crumbling walls ‘stand for’ the destructive power of war; • the shape and posture of the bodies ‘stand for’ protest; • the newspaper print used in the painting ‘stands for’ the way Picasso learned of the massacre; • the broken sword near the bottom of the painting ‘stands for’ the defeat of the people at the hand of their tormentors (Ray, 2006, pp. 168–171). Finally, the painting as a whole is an example of the EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy. It does not depict the perpetrators or the air raid itself. Instead, it shows the effect of the raid: dead, injured, dismembered and torn bodies. All the above mentioned examples refer to the sense of sight. It seems, however, that metonymy can also be triggered by other physiological modes of perception such as hearing, taste, smell, or touch.15 If we hear a thunderclap, for instance, we know that it is a sound that normally accompanies an atmospheric discharge and that it is probably raining somewhere close by. We can usually recognize an apple only by its taste or smell and we normally recognize a mosquito when it has bitten us or a fly when it sits on the nape of our neck even if we do not see them.

15 Amodal perception, mentioned in Sect. 3.1, is not an exclusively visual phenomenon either. Nanay notes, for example, that “when we hold a glass, we are (amodally) aware of those parts of the glass that we do not have any tactile contact with” (2007, p. 1331).

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165

Linguistic Metonymy

As Kwiatkowska notes (2007, p. 299), the mechanism of metonymy is a “cognitive prerequisite that lets animals and humans participate in the processes of recognising the physical world” which “language obviously started to reflect.” Such “linguistically reflected” metonymies are defined by Panther and Thornburg in the following way: The source content and the target content of metonymy (…) should be understood in [their] broadest sense, including lexical concepts (words) but also thoughts (propositional contents). When the source content is expressed by a linguistic sign (a lexeme or a syntagmatic combination of lexemes), one can speak of a linguistic metonymy (2007, p. 240).

Linguistic metonymy has been divided in this article into two categories. The division was inspired by Gibbs (1999, p. 69), who suggests a distinction between “processing metonymic language” (understanding utterances like Paris has dropped hemlines this year) and “metonymic processing of language” (“understanding the gaps in narrative by inferring some rich source of information, like a script, from the simple mention of some salient part of that language”). Interestingly, The division seems to be in accordance, at least to a certain extent, with Warren’s (2003), who suggests there are two types of metonymy: (a) referential metonymy (where the source expression brings about (superficial) violation of truth conditions), for example: • She married money. [rich person] • Give me a hand. [help] (2003, p. 115) (b) propositional (where the source expression does not bring about violation of truth conditions), for example: • A: How did you get to the airport? B: I waved down a taxi. [A taxi took me there] (Gibbs qtd. in Warren 2003, p. 114) • It won’t happen while I still breathe. [live] (Halliday qtd. in Warren 2003, p. 114).

4.2.1

Processing Metonymic Language

As mentioned above, linguistic metonymies are reflections of some cognitive phenomena rather than mere artful deviations from the ordinary significations of words. One of such phenomena reflected by linguistic metonymies is the fact that some less inclusive part may evoke some more inclusive part and vice versa. The face, for example, being, in many contexts, the most salient part of the human body, may come to ‘stand for’ the body as a whole. And vice versa, the pronoun which is,

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at least theoretically, capable of activating the whole may evoke only the person’s face.16 This becomes evident if we consider the following exchange17:

(1)

a.

Normal:

A: Is she pretty? B: Yes, but she’s got bandy legs.

b.

Strange:

A: Is she pretty? B: Yes, but she’s got an ugly face.

If the pronoun she did not evoke the girl’s face, Examples (1a) and (1b) would both sound equally natural (the girl in question is pretty, but not flawless). THE FACE FOR THE PERSON metonymy is, as Radden and Kövecses note (1999, p. 18), “part of our everyday way of thinking about people”. It is thus also part of our everyday way of speaking about people, e.g., (2) I was greeted by smiling faces (=I was greeted by people who smiled) (The Cambridge International Dictionary of English). (3) I’d like to talk to you face-to-face instead of on the phone (=I’d like to talk to you in person) (The Cambridge International Dictionary of English). (4) I don’t like the plans, but I’d find it hard to tell him to his face (=I’d find it hard to tell him in person) (The Cambridge International Dictionary of English). (5) Goodall makes the top 200—but his face doesn’t fit for Davis Cup (=Goodall’s appearance or personality are not suitable for Davis Cup) (Dickson, The Daily Mail, 27 Aug. 2008). Also the names of a large recruitment company Face-Fit Group18 and an enormously popular social networking website Facebook19 are based on THE FACE FOR THE PERSON metonymy. Other metonymic schemata seem to be equally productive. As Radden and Kövecses note, “metonymy, like metaphor, (…) is subject to general and systematic principles” (1999, p. 18). Lakoff and Johnson made an attempt at providing a list of metonymic types (1980, pp. 38–39), each of which is capable of yielding an infinite number of linguistic expressions, e.g.,

16

Metonymy is often a reversible phenomenon. It may be argued that the sentence: She’s pretty, but she’s got an ugly face is semantically well formed and the metonymic link between FACE and PERSON, although strong, can be explicitly cancelled without contradiction. The example used here is not supposed to suggest otherwise, but only to show that the relationship is so strong that in many contexts the concept PERSON is automatically activated by the lexeme face and vice versa. 18 If someone's face fits, their appearance or/and personality are suitable for a job or other activity. 19 The website probably took its name from books called “face books” sometimes given to students by university administrations at the start of the academic year. The “face books” were supposed to help students get to know each other better. 17

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(6)

THE PART FOR THE WHOLE

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20

• Get your butt over here. • We don’t hire longhairs. (7)

PRODUCER FOR PRODUCT

• He bought a Ford. • He’s got a Picasso in his den. (8)

OBJECT USED FOR USER

• The sax has the flu today. • The gun he hired wanted fifty grand. (9)

CONTROLLER FOR CONTROLLED

• Nixon bombed Hanoi. • Napoleon lost at Waterloo. Because metonymy is not a mere artful deviation from the ordinary signification of a word, it is most often used unconsciously and automatically. What is more, a metonymic mode of expression is sometimes so natural that it cannot even be replaced with the literal one. For example in: (10) Your dog bit my cat (Langacker, 1990, p. 190), the ‘literal’ mode of expression (the dog’s teeth) cannot be used. Metonymy also makes us perceive certain seemingly anomalous utterances as more natural. According to Gernsbacher, for example, “people rate as more natural and are faster to understand (…) pair[s] of sentences with ‘conceptual anaphors’ than they do pairs of sentences with appropriate (…) pronouns” (qtd. in Gibbs, 1999, p. 68). What this means is that although pronouns must seemingly agree in person, number and case with their antecedents, owing to our ability to think metonymically this is not always so. Let us consider the following example:

(11) a. Natural:

I need to call the garage (where my car was being serviced). They said they’d have it ready by five o’clock.

b. Unnatural: I need to call the garage (where my car was being serviced). It said it would have it ready by five o’clock. The second exchange sounds unnatural because the garage (a singular entity) metonymically refers to THE PEOPLE WORKING IN THE GARAGE (some conceptual set).

20

See also Wachowski (2015) for a discussion on the

PARS PRO TOTO

relations.

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Metonymy may also help us make sense of tautological statements. Let us consider the following exchange between a mother and a father: (12) Mother: Did the children ever clean up their rooms? Father: Well, boys will be boys (Gibbs, 1999, p. 73). Although the phrase boys will be boys seems to contribute no new information to the conversation, it is easily understandable and does convey a particular meaning. To comprehend it, we resort to our knowledge (in the case of boys to their stereotypical image) and on such a basis we create a possible interpretation of the phrase (e.g., “boys will be unruly and it is often difficult to get them to do what you want”). In this exchange the father “refers to a general category (boys) to refer to specific salient parts or attributes of that category (unruly behaviour)” (Gibbs and McCarrell as qtd. in Gibbs, 1999, p. 73). There is also evidence that metonymy and synecdoche play a role in reasoning. Cognitive reference points, for example, which often ‘stand for’ other elements of their categories, help us make approximations and estimate size. The cognitive reference points can have either biological bases (such as the primary colours or the basic emotions) or cultural bases (e.g., the Seven Deadly Sins) (Lakoff, 1987, p. 89). A hundred, for example, is perceived as a basic number, and is a culturally stipulated cognitive reference point. Thus, it is often used to ‘stand for’ other non-basic numbers. (13) I’ve told you a hundred times (Radden and Kövecses, 1999, p. 49) is often used for: I’ve told you several times. We also seem to reason by means of typical examples (Lakoff, 1987, p. 86). We make inferences on their basis and generalize knowledge about more typical cases to less typical ones. Research by Rips showed, for example, that subjects inferred that if the robins, on a certain island, which are more typical birds, got a disease, then the ducks, which are less typical birds, would as well, but not the converse (qtd. in Lakoff, 1987, p. 86). Robins then, for the informants of the above mentioned research, evoked the whole BIRD category. Ducks on the other hand, which are less typical birds, did not. Metonymy also helps us create and understand neologisms, as in: (14) He is going to OJ his way out of his marriage (Gibbs, 1999, p. 65). In order to understand what is meant by OJ, we have to, as in the case of other examples mentioned above, resort to our experience and knowledge of the world. O. J. Simpson was a famous American football player and actor accused of murdering his wife. Drawing a metonymic inference based on the above mentioned salient fact from Simpson’s life (alleged murder), one can easily interpret He is going to OJ his way out of his marriage as He is going to murder his wife in order to get out of his marriage.

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4.2.2

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Metonymic Processing of Language

Levinson notes that our articulatory system is relatively slow and we are normally only able to produce about seven syllables or eighteen segments per second (2000, p. 382). Therefore, in order to accelerate the communication process, we encode only the strict (but sufficient) minimum of information and leave the recovery of the intended meaning to the hearer. The recovery of the intended meaning, as for example Barcelona (2003a, 2003b) or Panther and Thornburg (2004) note, is often guided by conceptual metonymy. To use Barcelona’s words (2003b, p. 97), “metonymies often provide ‘ready-made’ pointers towards plausible inferential pathways in the interpretation of (…) any kind of discourse.” Let us analyse a few examples of metonymically guided inference. Just as we are amodally aware of the parts of physical structures which are not visible (Michotte et al. 1964), we are also normally aware of or able to recover the entire idealised cognitive model (or structured scenario) from one of its elements.21 For example, we are usually able to infer the entire ICM of travelling from one place to another from a mere mention of one of its parts. The ICM of travelling from one place to another usually involves the following events: a. b. c. d. e.

Precondition—you have access to the vehicle, Embarkation—you get into the vehicle and start it up, Centre—you drive (row, fly, etc.), Finish—you park and get out, End point—you are at your destination (Lakoff, 1987, p. 78).

Normally, if we want to say that we got somewhere and completed the above-mentioned series of activities, we mention only one element of the scenario which metonymically evokes all the other parts. For example, B’s answer in:

(15)

A:

How did you get to the airport?

B:

I waved down a taxi.

would normally be understood as “I hailed a taxi, had it stop and pick me up, and then I had it take me to the airport” (Gibbs, 1999, p. 67). In the brief exchange, the precondition ‘stands for’ the whole model. Still, other parts of the model might also be used in the same way. B might answer, for instance: (16) I drove my car, where the centre would ‘stand for’ the whole model, or: (17) I hopped on a bus (Lakoff, 1987, p. 79), where the embarkation would evoke the rest of the model. Radden and Kövecses give other examples of the same sort (1999, p. 33):

21

See Sect. 3.1 on amodal perception.

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(18) They went to the altar, where an initial element ‘stands for’ the whole ICM and: (19) Our teacher had 100 essays to grade, where the final element ‘stands for’ an ICM involving reading, correcting and marking the papers. Owing to the same metonymic relationship (PART FOR WHOLE), we are able to “make meaningful sense of seemingly anomalous and disconnected statements in texts” (Gibbs, 1999, p. 68).22 Let us consider the following example: (20) John was hungry and went into a restaurant. He ordered a lobster from the waiter. It took a long time to prepare. Because of this he only put down a small tip when he left. The above mentioned story is seemingly incoherent and seemingly there is no connection between its parts. Nevertheless, activating our knowledge of the activities we normally perform in a restaurant we are able to fill in the gaps in the story and make sense of it. As Ungerer and Schmid note (1996: 216), the script may be so powerful that when we form a mental representation of the story we do not even notice that the important eating scene is not expressed linguistically. The potential of scripts, and incidentally also frames, to ensure that the right inferences are made is especially important in face-to-face conversation. Here speakers often rely very much on the hearer’s knowledge of a script when they leave out details or whole stages in their description of an event.

5 Conclusions The fact that metonymy is a fundamental and omnipresent perceptual and cognitive mechanism seems to be confirmed by the studies of psychologists, biophysicists, linguists, or even technologists. Metonymy is used in reasoning and serves the function of providing understanding. It helps us draw inferences about what is meant on the basis of a subpart of an idealised cognitive model (or a structured scenario), create and comprehend novel words and phrases or even make approximations and estimate size. Thanks to our ability to think metonymically, we also create, are able to understand, and even perceive as more natural utterances which might at first glance appear anomalous. We may perceive as more natural pronouns, which do not agree in person, number or case with their antecedents, we make sense of seemingly incoherent stories and we are able to comprehend seemingly 22

In the same way we are able to infer the shape of an object from some of its disconnected parts. The principle (called emergence by Gestalt psychologists) is demonstrated in Sect. 3.1 by the Dog Picture (Fig. 1).

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nonsensical, tautological statements. Metonymy is obviously used in language, but first and foremost it is a multipurpose device used in thought and the linguistic instances of metonymy seem to be mere reflections of certain general cognitive phenomena.

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Kanizsa, G., & Metelli, F. (1961). Recherches experimentales sur le perception visuelle d’attraction [Experimental research on visual perception of attraction]. Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, 4, 385–420. Klein, J. (2008). Retrieved from http://blog.ted.com/2008/05/joshua_klein.php. Accessed 12 July 2009. Koch, P. (1999). Frame and contiguity. On the cognitive bases of metonymy and certain types of word formation. In Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 139–167). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Kosecki, K. (Ed.). (2007). Perspectives on Metonymy: Proceedings of the International Conference “Perspectives on Metonymy”, held in Łódź, Poland, May 6–7, 2005. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Kövecses, Z., & Radden, G. (1998). Metonymy: Developing a cognitive linguistic view. Cognitive Linguistics, 9, 37–77. Kwiatkowska, A. (2007). Pre-linguistic and non-linguistic metonymy. In Perspectives on Metonymy: Proceedings of the International Conference “Perspectives on Metonymy”, held in Łódź, Poland (pp. 297–309). Accessed 6–7 May 2005. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh. The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books. Lakoff, G., & Turner, M. (1989). More than cool reason: A field guide to poetic metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago. Langacker, R. W. (1984). Active zones. Berkeley Linguistics Society, 10, 172–188. Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar. Theoretical prerequisites (Vol. 1). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. W. (1990). Concept, image, and symbol: The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Langacker, R. W. (1991). Foundations of cognitive grammar. Descriptive application (Vol. 2). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. W. (2008). Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Lee, T. S., & Nguyen, M. (2001). Dynamics of subjective contour formation in the early visual cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 98, 1907–1911. Levinson, S. C. (2000). Presumptive meanings: The theory of generalized conversational implicature. MIT Press. Marr, D. (1982). Vision: A computational investigation into the human representation and processing of visual information. New York: Freeman. “Metonymy”. (1985). In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com. “Metonymy”. (1971). In Webster’s third new international dictionary of the English language. Chicago: Merriam Co. Michotte, A., Thinés, G., & Crabbé, G. (1964). Les complements amodaux des structures perceptive. In G. Thinés, A. Costall, & G. Butterworth (Eds.), Michotte’s experimental phenomenology of perception (pp. 140–167), Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Nanay, B. (2007). Four theories of amodal perception. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2007) (pp. 1331–1336). Nerlich, B., & Clarke, D. D. (1999). Synecdoche as a cognitive and communicative strategy. Historical Semantics and Cognition, 197–214. Nerlich, B., & Clarke, D. D. (2001). Elements for an integral theory of semantic change and semantic development. Studia Anglica Resoviensia, 2, 71–84. Nerlich, B. (2010). Synecdoche: A trope, a whole trope, and nothing but a trope? In Tropical truth (s): The epistemology of metaphor and other tropes (pp. 297–319).

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Nieder, A. (2002). Seeing more than meets the eye: Processing of illusory contours in animals. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 188, 249–260. Noë, A. (2002). Is the visual world a grand illusion? Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9, 1–12. Van Noppen, J. P. & Hols, E. (Eds.). (1990). Metaphor II: A classified bibliography of publications, 1985 to 1990: 5. Library and information sources in linguistics. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Oxford University Press. (1992). Oxford English dictionary on CD-ROM (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford Univversity Press. Panther, K. U., & Radden, G. (Eds.). (1999). Metonymy in language and thought. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Panther, K. U., & Thornburg, L. (2004). The role of conceptual metonymy in meaning construction. metaphorik.de (pp. 91–116). http://www.metaphorik.de/06/pantherthornburg.pdf. Accessed June 2004. Panther, K. U. & Thornburg, L. (2007). Metonymy. The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 236–263). Radden, G., & Kövecses, Z. (1999). Towards a theory of metonymy. In Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 17–59). Ray, B. (2006). Analyzing political art to get at historical fact: Guernica and the Spanish civil war. The Social Studies, 97, 168–171. Ruiz de Mendoza, F. (2003). The role of mappings and domains in understanding metonymy. In Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads. A cognitive perspective (pp. 109–132). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Seto, K. (1995). On the cognitive triangle: The relation between metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche. Unpublished manuscript. Seto, K. (1999). Distinguishing metonymy from synecdoche. In Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 91–120). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Ungerer, F., & Schmid, H. J. (1996). An introduction to cognitive linguistics. London, New York: Longman. Wachowski, W. (2015). Are metonymic PART FOR WHOLE relations a mere illusion (pp. 397–406). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Warren, B. (2003). An alternative account of the interpretation of referential metonymy and metaphor. In R. Dirven & R. Pörings (Eds.), Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast (pp. 113–132). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Wojciech Wachowski is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He has published on various topics in linguistics, particularly cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics. His main research interests include metonymy and metaphor, and teacher and translator training. His recent book publications include the co-edited volumes Moving Texts, Migrating People and Minority Languages (2017) and Zooming In: Micro-Scale Perspectives on Cognition, Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication (2017). His monograph, Towards a Better Understanding of Metonymy, is forthcoming in 2019.

The Three Major Experiments in Psychophysiology (Psycholinguistic Experiments) and Their Recourse to Ecolinguistics Stanisław Puppel

Abstract Throughout its entire course of really vigorous development, psycholinguistics has pursued two lines of scholarly endeavour. Firstly, from its very first days it has always been trying to be experimental in nature. It means that its major assumptions have always been subject to some kind of testing, either in natural or laboratory settings. Secondly, it has followed a theoretical (and somewhat speculative) path, which means that a number of assumptions have been put forth and have been given the right of conduct in psycholinguistics without subsequent experimental work. This has been done in order to provide some kind of leeway which would allow those involved in psycholinguistic research to theorize about the seeming nature of human cognition and language. Both approaches have turned out to be extremely fruitful for the establishment of the identity of psycholinguistics as an autonomous subdiscipline of the study of language.

1 Introduction In the present essay, it is the experimental orientation which is highlighted on the assumption that the experimental current in fact constitutes a major line of pursuit in both psychological (also psychophysiological) and psycholinguistic studies. As may most naturally be expected, the selection of the experiments to be described here is far from being exhaustive, for it appears quite an impossible task to present an authoritative discussion of a really imposing plethora of past and on-going experiments in psycholinguistics in a short communication designed to serve as an introductory review of some very selected problems within experimental psycholinguistics. The selection is, however, thought to be representative for that line of psycholinguistic investigations. It is further supported by the author’s conviction that the three experiments described here have contributed decisively to the development of

S. Puppel (&) Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_12

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psycholinguistics on the one hand, and to the deepening of our joint understanding of the phenomenon of language and its neural-cognitive bases, on the other. In the essay, an assumption is forwarded that the overall shape of psycholinguistics may be expressed as a relationship between language (L) and the mind (M)brain (B) complex (which is further extended to artificial intelligence (AI)). The shape may be illustrated by means of the following diagram (Psycholinguistics Schema, hence PSchema) (Fig. 1). The bidirectional arrows indicate connectivities existing between (and across) the respective levels.

Fig. 1 The psycholinguistics Schema/Pschema. S—system; St—system statics; Pr—processes; D—system dynamism; MTs—mental states; BTs—brain tasks; CTs—computer tasks

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Although the present short essay is addressed to a general linguistic audience, it is especially addressed to the students of psycholinguistics who may feel the need to obtain a more systematic information on the most pivotal experiments in the area of human psychophysiology and their direct relations to psycholinguistics where the very mental nature of language is of major concern. That is why the experiments have been identified here as psycholinguistic experiments. The present description follows the PSchema proposed in the Introduction, although the AI extension is not addressed here. In addition, each description is further defined as pertaining to a particular element of the PSchema. For example, an experiment characterized as “L-D-Pr” is understood as belonging to the following levels of the PSchema: “Language-Dynamism-Processes (either Production or Perception)”, while an experiment specified as “M-D-Pr-MTs” is understood as belonging to the following levels of the PSchema: “Mind-Dynamism-Processes-Mental Tasks.” In the essay the following major psycholinguistic experiments have been described: Wertheimer’s psychophysical isomorphism experiments, Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiments, and the phoneme restoration effect experiments.

2 Description of the Experiments 1. Wertheimer’s Psychophysical Isomorphism Experiments PSchema specification: M-D-Pr (Perception)-MTs Central hypothesis: Appropriate aspects of the physiological processes in man are matched by appropriate aspects of the conscious (i.e., mental) processes. In other words, there may occur a one-to-one correspondence between a physiological process and an element of man’s consciousness. Hence, some kind of isomorphism (i.e., sameness of form, from the Greek iso, sameness + morphe, form) is postulated to exist between the quality of psychological events and the physical world of underlying physiological processes. Brief Description of the Experiments Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), one of the founders of Gestalt psychology, proceeded with an original experiment in the field of perception understood as a mental task. In the experiment, first administered with his own participation and later on with the participation of Wolfgang Köhler and Kurt Koffka, Wertheimer was able to state that the perception of the movement, for example, of a series of lines would give one the sensation of seeing one line after another, two lines standing next to each other, or a line moving from one location to another under the condition of varying the time interval between the exposure of the lines. Wertheimer called the

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phenomenon the phi phenomenon (see particularly Koffka, 1935; Köhler, 1940, 1959; Wertheimer, 1912a, 1912b, and the bibliography pertaining to the section). Interpretation of the Experiments Wertheimer’s experiments are paramount to the assumption that one can make about the persistence of (human) vision and its subsequent influence on the establishment of persistence of perception, in general. This fact, in turn, has a direct bearing on the notion of stability of perception which is a key characteristic in language and its design. That is why one may firmly assume that the phenomenon of stability of perception lies at the heart of “languaging”, or construction (manufacture) of the language code, in which stable linguistic entities participate as its most relevant constituents. 2. Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning Experiments PSchema specification: B-D-Pr (Perception/Production)-BTs Central hypothesis: If there occurs nervous stimulation of the specific areas in the animal’s (in Pavlov’s experiments it was the dog) brain, specific reflexes are elicited. Brief Description of the Experiments A great Russian physiologist, Ivan Pietrovich Pavlov (1849–1936), introduced the concept of classical conditioning while conducting pioneering research on unconditional neural responses which he connected with digestive processes in dogs. It is also referred to in pertinent literature as Pavlovian conditioning. In his experiments, he first presented dogs with food (unconditioned stimulus, US) and then measured their natural salivary response (unconditioned response, UR). Next, he began ringing a bell (conditioned stimulus, CS) a moment before he would present the food. At first, the dogs would salivate only after food had been presented. However, later on, when they learned to associate the sound of the bell with food presentation, they would start salivating when only the sound of the bell had been presented (conditioned response, CR). The basic Stimulus-response formula within classical conditioning, proposed by Pavlov, has the following shape: Phase one: US ! UR (it involves: primary stimulus presentation, followed by stimulus discrimination, followed by response). Phase two: CS ! US ! UR (it involves: secondary stimulus presentation coupled with primary stimulus presentation, followed by stimulus discrimination, followed by response). Phase three: CS ! CR (it involves: secondary stimulus presentation, followed by secondary stimulus discrimination, followed by response).

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where: US unconditioned stimulus (i.e., an element that can elicit a response) UR unconditioned response (i.e., a response that is elicited by a stimulus) CS conditioned stimulus (i.e., a new stimulus that is presented the same time the old stimulus is presented) CR conditioned response (i.e., the new response that is created by way of associating a new stimulus. Interpretation of the Experiments Pavlov’s experiments have led to the establishment of the following: – stimulus discrimination: an animal can learn to discriminate between different stimuli, – stimulus generalization: the animal can learn to respond to a particular stimulus and subsequently can learn to respond to similar stimuli, – higher order conditioning: the animal can learn to provide a particular response not only to one category of stimuli (e.g., sounds) but also to a different category of stimuli (e.g., the dog could easily learn to salivate at the flash of the light). It should be stated at this point that Pavlov’s experiments are not directly related to the study of psycholinguistics. However, they do relate to it indirectly in the sense that the experiments in which Pavlov discovered that animals use an association mechanism in reacting to environmental stimuli, have provided a strong basis which has enabled psychologists to formulate a mechanistic theory of human behaviour (or behavioural tasks, BTs), known as the doctrine of behaviourism. This doctrine, which has concentrated on the study of overt behaviours of animals and humans (i.e., those behaviours that can be observed and measured), has turned out to be extremely influential over a number of decades (namely, in the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s of the twentieth century). The experiments may also be related to the Statics of the Brain (see the PSchema) in the sense that they may be of help in throwing light on the properties of the brain which may include the following: – an ability to extract features, – an ability to associate features, – an ability to organize features into categories. It is in this sense that Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiments should be regarded as providing the basis for future mentalistic orientation in psycholinguistic studies, especially with regard to the problem of first and second language learning which is generally based on the presence of discrete language entities of various sizes, relations holding between/among them and the learner’s ability to manage them (see Pavlov, 1927; and the bibliography pertaining to the section).

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3. The Phoneme Restoration Effect Experiment PSchema specification: L-D-Pr (Perception) Central hypothesis: The phoneme restoration effect is a phenomenon which is connected with the fact that contextual information (which may also be of syntactic nature) influences the entire process of speech perception in an individual human communicator. Brief Description of the Experiment A team of American psycholinguists, Richard M. Warren and Roslyn P. Warren, and their associates, conducted an experiment in which listeners were asked to provide a missing sound in some sentence context. Originally, the listeners were asked to do so with regard to the following sentences: 1. 2. 3. 4.

It It It It

was was was was

found found found found

that that that that

the the the the

___eel was on the axle. __eel was on the shoe. __eel was on the orange. __eel was on the table.

In each of the above sentences, a word was replaced by some noise followed by the sequence ‘__eel’, followed by the contextual cues. The participants of the experiment were asked to decide what word they had heard. Subsequently, the respondents’ perception of the above sequence turned out to be different in each of the four sentences and resulted in the provision of the following words: 1. 2. 3. 4.

– – – –

‘wheel’ ‘heel’ ‘peel’ ‘meal’.

Interpretation of the Experiment The results of the experiment are considered to represent a classical indication of the significance, in fact, of direct primacy of the sentential context and, indirectly, overall meaning, in our daily perception of speech. More specifically, they have demonstrated that the context (or, the environment) of the segmental speech units is basically two-fold: (1) the importance of the preceding and following sounds, and (2) the importance of the lexical-syntactic-semantic elements. Thus, the experiment may also be regarded as supporting the multi-storey view of the structure of language. In this sense, it dovetails to the Statics of language (see the PSchema). Since the early experimental work, the problem of phoneme restoration has been recognized as a classical psycholinguistic problem. It has been further investigated and some of the more important findings have been the following ones: – phonemes have psychological reality since they can be restored (i.e., retrieved from long-term memory) under pragmatic and contextual guidance, – voiced sounds are generally more effectively restored,

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– vowels are more effectively restored owing to their greater temporal continuity than voiced consonants, – unvoiced consonants are less effectively restored owing to their weak temporal continuity, – in order to be better restored, the latter need the receiver’s additional knowledge of the lexical-syntactic-semantic nature. All this allows one to state that the phonemes as the building blocks of the oral/ vocal plane of language expression (phonological/phonetic entities) are not equal in their restoration power. The latter is clearly indicative of their autonomous (i.e., independent) status within the universality of the phonological system and thus allows one to firmly assume that phonemicisation is one of the dimensions of language entitiation (see particularly Warren, 1970; Warren, Obusek, & Ackroff, 1972; Warren & Warren, 1970; and the bibliography pertaining to the section).

3 Conclusions The descriptions of the three major psycholinguistic (psychophysiological) experiments contained therein, while being pivotal to the development of psycholinguistics, have a clear bearing on the ecological status of natural languages, organized around the key notions of resources and sustainability. Therefore, their results lead one to the following conclusions which have recourse to ecolinguistics: – stability of human perception is underlying to the stability (and long-term sustainability) of various units of language organization (here most notably the phonological entities), – the performative/expressive/communicative potential of human language(s) has an evolutionarily established neural basis, necessary for the establishment of natural languages as holistic cognitive-behavioural entities, – the central process of human language entitiation is consequent upon the combined processes of reception/perception, – subsequently, the problem of language contact, which in fact is resource-based, requires the presence of well-established linguistic entities of various sizes, – the ecolinguistic need/postulate to sustain any natural language resources is based on the prior establishment of the stability of perception and subsequent entitiation (cf. Puppel, 2001, 2006, 2011, 2012, 2016).

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References References to the Section on Wertheimer’s Psychophysical Isomorphism Experiments Boring, E. G. (1942). Sensation and perception in the history of experimental psychology. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Boring, E. G. (1950). A history of experimental psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Ellis, W. D. (1938). A source book of gestalt psychology. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Koffka, K. (1935). Principles of gestalt psychology. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Köhler, W. (1929/1947). Gestalt psychology. New York: Liverlight. Köhler, W. (1940). Dynamics in psychology. New York: Liverlight. Köhler, W. (1959). Gestalt psychology today. American Psychologist, 14, 727–734. Sills, D. L., & Johnson, A. (Eds.). (1968). The international encyclopedia of the social sciences. New York: Macmillan and the Free Press. Wertheimer, M. (1912a). Experimentelle Studien über das Sehen von Bewegung. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 61, 161–265. Wertheimer, M. (1912b). Über das Denken der Naturvölker, I: Zahlen and Zahlgebilde. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 60, 321–378. Wertheimer, M. (1925). Drei Abhandlungen zur Gestalttheorie. Erlangen: Philosophische Akademie. Wertheimer, M. (1945/1959). Productive thinking. New York: Harper and Row.

References to Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning Experiments Babkin, B. P. (1949). Pavlov: A biography. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Dembo, M. H. (1994). Applying educational psychology (5th ed.). White Plains, NY: Longman Publishing Group. Hothersall, D. (1995). History of psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill. Morris, C. G., & Maisto, A. A. (1999). Understanding psychology (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned reflexes. London: Oxford University Press.

References to the Phoneme Restoration Effect Experiment Bregman, A. S. (1990). Auditory scene analysis. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Rabiner, L. R., & Juang, B. H. (1999). Fundamentals of speech recognition (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Warren, R. M. (1970). Perceptual restoration of missing speech sounds. Science, 167, 392–393. Warren, R. M., Obusek, C. J., & Ackroff, J. M. (1972). Auditory induction: Perception synthesis of absent sounds. Science, 176, 1149–1151. Warren, R. M., & Sherman, G. L. (1974). Phonemic restoration based on subsequent context. Perception and Psychophysics, 16, 150–156. Warren, R. M., & Warren, R. P. (1970). Auditory illusions and confusions. Scientific American, 223, 30–36.

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Some Other Psycholinguistic and Ecolinguistic References Puppel, S. (2001). A concise guide to psycholinguistics. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie. Puppel, S. (2006). Phonological development: A brief survey. In J. Zybert (Ed.), Issues in foreign language learning and teaching (pp. 7–17). Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego. Puppel, S. (2011). The universal natural language preservation mechanism: An ecological approach. In S. Puppel (Ed.), Transkomunikacja. W stronę sprofilowania przestrzeni publicznej jako wielopłaszczyznowej przestrzeni komunikacyjnej (pp. 91–99). Poznań: Katedra Ekokomunikacji UAM/Zakład Graficzny UAM. Puppel, S. (2012). The human communication orders and the principle of natural language sustainability. Electronic Journal Oikeios Logos, 9, 1–14. Puppel, S. (2016). A foreign/semblant language—The case of a lean manufacturing of a didactically modified native language. In I. Bielak, T. Popescu, & M. Krawczak (Eds.), Bridges and not walls in the field of philology (pp. 45–55). Piła: Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa w Pile.

Stanisław Puppel is professor emeritus at Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in Poznań, Poland. He received his MA in English studies at AMU in 1971, obtained his PhD in English linguistics in 1979 and became professor of English linguistics in 1987. Since then he served in many academic functions: he was founder and head of the Department of English Philology at the University of Warmia and Mazuria (the years 1995–2000), he was founder and head of the Department of Language Acquisition in the School of English at AMU (the years 1995–2002), he was founder and head of the Department of Ecocommunication in the Faculty of Modern Languages and Literature at AMU (the years 2002–2018). He served as vice-dean of the Faculty of Modern Languages and Literature at AMU (the years 1990–1996) and dean of the Faculty of Modern Languages and Literature at AMU (the years 1996–2002). He authored, co-authored and (co)edited 34 book publications and published amply in the areas of contrastive English-Polish linguistics, psycholinguistics and ecolinguistics. He is the founder and editor-in chief of the following journals and publication series: Scripta Neophilolgica Posnaniensia, electronic journal Oikeios Logos, Scripta de Communicatione Posnaniensi. He serves on editorial boards of many linguistic journals.

“Birds Are Not Octopus:” Searching for Stages in Second Language Writing Development Barbara Nykiel-Herbert

Abstract The development of writing remains one of the least known aspects of second language learning. Learning to write is subject to a multitude of factors: cognitive, linguistic, social, cultural, and instructional. While the trajectory of writing development has been largely established for L1 speakers, no common developmental path for L2 learners has been found. Moreover, research agendas have favored college-level writing, leaving writing development in younger L2 learners underexplored. This case study tracks the development of writing in a 9-year-old beginning-level English Language Learner (ELL), a refugee with no previous schooling experience and no exposure to literacy in her mother tongue. Using the concept of writing purpose as the examination lens, the analysis of the subject’s writing samples reveals that her writing development falls into four distinct stages, each characterized by its own set of characteristics relating to content, text generation, and transcription. The article contemplates a possibility that, contrary to the current beliefs that L2 writing acquisition does not follow any predictable sequence, beginning L2 writers do progress through ordered stages, but the “variable noise” obscures the big picture. Since non-literate L2 learners do not experience a transfer of literacy knowledge and skills from L1, a longitudinal study of their writing development may allow us more accurate insights into the nature of this process.

1 Introduction Despite abundant literature on writing in a second language (L2), many areas of writing development, especially by novice learners, remain underexplored. One of them is a sequence in which writing concepts and skills may be acquired in children learning to write in L2. Learning to write is a function of cognitive and linguistic development, engagement with print, and opportunities to practice writing. One B. Nykiel-Herbert (&) Lingworks, Reno, NV, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_13

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characteristic shared by all children beginning to write in their mother tongue is their command of the language. L1 writers attempt to write what they can say and understand. In the course of normal development, children’s linguistic and literacy skills grow concurrently, following a certain order, which have been confirmed by multiple studies (Berman, 2004; Kroll & Vann, 1981; Puranik & Lonigan, 2009; Teale & Sulzby, 1986; Tolchinsky, 2016). By contrast, young L2 writers embark on writing with varying degrees of oral proficiency in the second language. Moreover, L2 learners may begin L2 instruction at an older age, and may already have attained age-appropriate writing proficiency in their mother tongue. Both knowledge about writing and specific writing skills acquired in mother tongue (L1) transfer to L2 writing (Sasaki, 2000). The large number of variables affecting writing in L2 “defy the present formulation of many general, authoritative conclusions about writing development or instruction for ELLs [English Language Learners]” (Cumming, 2016, p. 371). Writing acquisition in L2 is believed to be a non-linear process involving re-organization of whole systems rather than an accumulation of skills, characterized by regressions to lower levels of performance (Edelsky & Jilbert, 1985; Samway, 2006). However, despite recursive loops, L2 writing gains are steady over time. Like in L1 writing development, some L2 writing skills do not emerge until others have been mastered. It is therefore possible that writing acquisition in young L2 learners does indeed proceed in stages, but we simply can’t see the wood for the trees. Learning to write entirely through L2 provides a research context in which the “variable noise” is somewhat reduced. Since there is no transfer of literacy knowledge and skills from L1, the process starts virtually from zero. If the oral language skills are also at the beginning stage, we could observe a parallel development of both spoken and written skills and their mutually nurturing interdependence: writing benefitting from the growth of oral language, and oral language benefitting from print. School-age populations of non-literate ELLs do exist; in the wake of political conflicts and natural disasters, many older children and young adults arrive at resettlement destinations with little or no prior schooling (Hamayan, 1994; Sarroub, Pernicek, & Sweeney, 2007). Nonetheless research-based knowledge of how L2 writing develops in the absence of L1 literacy and minimal L2 oral skills is at best fragmentary. Most of what we know about L2 writing development by younger, less proficient ELLs comes from case studies within local contexts (Cumming, 2016). While lacking in scale, such case studies contribute “not only to an understanding of literacy development but also to the field of second language acquisition by capturing on paper the dynamic shifts of young learners’ language evolution” (Leki, Cumming, & Silva, 2008, p. 16). As Flyvbjerg notes, “a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars” and, therefore, an ineffective one (Flyvbjerg, 2006, p. 219). This case study hopes to contribute a piece to the collective puzzle of L2 writing development. The subject of the study, Shukriya, is a 9-year-old Kurdish refugee from rural Iraq resettled with her family to Binghamton, New York. Shukriya had

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spent her early years immersed in the rural, oral, non-literate culture of Kurdistan (Jwaideh, 2006) and had not attended school before her arrival in the US. The study examines the progress in Shukriya’s writing from pre-literacy to age-appropriate literate competency. In her third year of attending school, Shukriya, still testing non-literate, was included in a one-year intervention program that aimed to boost language and literacy skills of the lowest-performing ELLs at Edison Elementary, all of whom were Middle Eastern refugees. The program itself became the focus of a classroom ethnography study conducted for 10 months by this author with the assistance of four anthropology and linguistics student interns from Binghamton University. The data were collected at the school (classroom, lunchroom, playground), as well in the students’ homes and their neighborhood, through observations, audio-recordings (subsequently transcribed), and interviews. Throughout the project, the students’ written work was collected for individual writing assessment. Shukriya was selected for this study because she was the farthest behind the grade-level standards, but made the most progress during the intervention year compared to her classmates. She was also the most prolific writer in the group, providing enough samples to afford a comprehensive longitudinal analysis of her writing development. For the purpose of this study, 30 samples of Shukriya’s voluntary, unassisted writing as well as two literacy tests administered at a 12-month interval were analyzed in reference to print-based skills (letter formation, spelling, capitalization, text layout, etc.), language (vocabulary, grammar, invented spelling), and written discourse features (text organization, genre requirements, and rhetorical modes). The writing pieces were examined against the curricular content and instructional materials to determine where and when particular linguistic, rhetorical, and print-related elements present in the samples originated, and how they were applied and innovated upon by the writer.

2 Purpose as the Organizing Principle of Writing Development Cognitive models of writing recognize an act of writing as a process of translating thought into language, and subsequently mapping the units of language onto their graphic symbols (Flower & Hayes, 1981). I adopt the framework proposed by McCutchen (2011), which defines an act of writing as text production, and identifies its two major components: linguistic skills and the knowledge relevant to writing. The linguistic component consists of text generation (the process of turning an idea in one’s head into lexical, syntactic, and discourse units) and transcription (spelling and handwriting). The writing-relevant knowledge is the writer’s familiarity with topic/content and discourse formats. Becoming an expert writer requires increases in transcription fluency, linguistic sophistication, and an expansion of content and genre knowledge (McCutchen, 2011).

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The concept of planning strategies in writing is also useful for the present investigation. Bereiter and Scardamalia’s (1987) seminal work on children’s composition introduces a distinction between knowledge-telling and knowledge-transforming writing. The first is associated with local planning while generating text (also known as sentence-by-sentence, or “what next” strategy); the latter, termed “global planning”, involves forethought pertaining to the whole text. Given the multidimensional nature of writing, a comprehensive theory capable of predicting outcomes specifically for L2 writing cannot be developed (Cumming, 2013, p. 6254). Nevertheless, explorations of potential theoretical models of second language writing have at least stimulated thought. Grabe (2001) offers a “theory of purposes” as a possible framework to account for writing development longitudinally in both L1 and L2 that could be modified to include children’s writing. Grabe proposes five hierarchically-ordered levels of writing purposes, which demand progressively more advanced writing skills (2001, p. 50): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

To control the mechanical production aspect. To list, fill-in, repeat, paraphrase. To understand, remember, summarize simply. To learn, problem solve, summarize complexly, synthesize. a. To critique, persuade, interpret. b. To create an esthetic experience, to entertain.

Grabe offers his outline as an exploratory exercise rather as a model to follow; however, it proves useful as a lens for examining the longitudinal data in this study. Shukriya’s writing development appears to broadly follow Grabe’s purpose-oriented order. Upon resettlement in the US, Shukriya was enrolled at a public school, Edison Elementary, and placed in a mainstream classroom with one hour a day of ESL instruction. Her initial overall progress was slower than average; after 18 months at school, Shukriya’s oral English skills were still at the pre-production stage and she scored in the non-literate category of the Language Assessment Scales (LAS) test administered at the end of the year. Shukriya’s writing skills were limited to forming letters and copying strings of words, with nearly no comprehension. She could identify by sight a small number of high-frequency nouns (such as “boy” and “dog”), but could not use them actively. Shukriya’s lack of adequate progress prompted suspicions of learning disabilities. At the beginning of the following school year, Shukriya was included in an all-day intensive ESL intervention program designed to boost the academic performance of low-literacy ELLs in grades 3 through 5 (Nykiel-Herbert, 2010). During that year, Shukriya made unexpectedly fast progress in all English skills, testing “competent” on LAS at the end of the year. Using the emergence of progressively higher purpose levels as a guide, Shukriya’s writing development falls into four qualitatively different, chronologically ordered stages:

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Stage 1: Writing to learn the script (letter formation, copying words); Stage 2: Writing to demonstrate learning: copying, recalling, recounting, combining knowledge from various sources; Stage 3: Writing to record experiences: personal narratives; Stage 4: Writing to create and entertain: fiction. Each stage displays its own set of characteristics relating to the sources the writing draws on, content, organization, text generation, and transcription strategies. The progression from Stage 1 to Stage 4 shows the evolution of Shukriya’s ideas of what writing is for and what she can accomplish through it, accompanied by a steady growth in linguistic, rhetorical, and mechanical skills.

3 Stage 1: Writing to Learn the Script Shukriya spent her first 18 months at Edison engaged in activities that did little to promote her understanding of the language, literacy, or curricular content: copying letters and words, coloring pictures, and filling in worksheets with virtually no comprehension. Shukriya’s performance on the writing part of the LAS test at the end of her second school year (Sample 1) shows that she is unable to read and complete simple sentences; she copies the prompts and writes random strings of memorized words in the provided lines (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 Sample 1: Part of Shukriya’s LAS pre-test

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However, spending most of the instructional time on text-copying activities resulted in at least one benefit for Shukriya: handwriting fluency. At the onset of the intervention program, Shukriya’s handwriting skills were superior to most of her classmates’. While some of the students in the intervention class struggled with letter recognition and formation, managing to copy only one letter at a time from the board, Shukriya was able to copy whole words on sight. Handwriting automaticity positively affects text production since it frees the short term working memory from attention to letter-forming details (Fayol, 2016; McCutchen, 2006); we can thus surmise that Shukriya’s letter recognition and penmanship skills facilitated the next stage of her learning to write.

4 Stage 2: Writing to Demonstrate Knowledge Nearly all the students in the intervention class were refugees from the Middle East, most of whom lived in the same neighborhood. Being among friends with whom she could communicate in her mother tongue, increased Shukriya’s motivation and spurred her competitiveness. The weakest performer in the group, Shukriya spends a lot of time at home on her “writing homework” that she invents for herself. Shukriya’s purpose at this stage is to demonstrate her control of the schoolwork to her teachers and peer community. For the first 3 months, Shukriya’s voluntary writing consists of reproducing short expository texts or workbook activities used in class. Out of many types of texts available to her, including short fiction stories, poems, and current event reports, Shukriya focuses strictly on factual texts. The students from the Middle East demonstrated a highly developed sense of “true” and “fake” content, overwhelmingly favoring the first as worthy of study. This cultural view of what counts as valuable knowledge guides Shukriya’s topic choices in her Stage 2 writing. At first, Shukriya copies the already familiar short texts, but soon attempts to re-create such texts from memory. Samples 2 and 3 show the original source and Shukriya’s version of it, respectively (Figs. 2 and 3). Plant (Sample 3) is clearly not a straight copy of the source text (Sample 2), but its memory recall: verb forms are wrong, the articles are used incorrectly, and some words are misspelled. Moreover, Plant contains a two-line introduction. “This story is about” is a line frequently used in class; “grow up” appeared in a different instructional text. Plant shows that Shukriya is now aware of the difference between copying and creating one’s own text, and that the latter is valued higher as demonstration of learning. Over the next several weeks, Shukriya’s written pieces become longer and more elaborate, combining elements from more than once source. During a science unit on flying animals, the students learned about characteristics of birds and produced short texts about selected flying animals according to a pattern developed together through shared writing. Samples 4 and 5 show Shukriya’s work completed in class under the teacher’s supervision (Figs. 4 and 5).

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Fig. 2 Sample 2: Worksheet on plants

Fig. 3 Sample 3: Plant

At home, Shukriya generates, from memory, a list of bird facts. She composes her own, syntactically awkward introduction, and at the end, she adds an unexpected statement: “But octopus don’t have eggs.” A book about the octopus was read and discussed in class, but no statement about octopus eggs was ever made; Shukriya reaches this (false) conclusion on her own:

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Fig. 4 Sample 4: Hen

Sample 6: Birds

This story is about a Birds. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

I am tell you about this story that the birds are hen. and they has a two wings. and they have a feathers. The birds have two legs. The birds has beaek. The birds eat worems. The birds are not butterfly. And they are not a insect. and Birds have eggs. But octopus don’t have eggs.

In her next “assignment”, Shukriya revisits the comparison between birds and octopuses. She applies an already familiar rhetorical mode (comparison and contrast) to organize and integrate the old and the new information:

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Fig. 5 Sample 5: Bat

Sample 7: Birds Are Not Octopus

brids have eggs. The brids have two wings. And brids have a feathers. and The brids have two legs. Brids are not octopus because the [they] don’t have eggs and wings and feathers. The brids are not octopus because The brids have two legs and octopus have 6 legs.

While Sample 6 looks like an unordered list of remembered facts, Sample 7 has been planned as a “compare and contrast” piece. Organization-wise, it follows the pattern used in class, but the text itself has been at least partially generated and shows evidence of reasoning and problem-solving. Sentence 5 (in line 5) contrasts the presence and absence of the elements listed in Sentences 1 through 3 (eggs, wings, feathers); the content of Sentence 4 (line 4) referring to birds’ possession of legs, cannot be included in Sentence 5 because it would create an illogical,

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ambiguous statement (“Octopus don’t have two legs”). To solve this problem, Shukriya generates another sentence (line 6). Samples 3, 6, and 7 rely, both syntactically and lexically, on the written language that Shukriya is exposed to through reading and shared writing. Her spelling is exclusively sight-based, with spelling errors (e.g., beaek, worems, brids) resulting from imperfect recall. However, the spelling throughout each piece is consistent; for example, in Sample 7, the incorrect spelling “brids” is used 7 times, indicating the writer’s awareness that each word has only one correct spelling. Shukriya’s Stage 2 writing displays the following characteristics: • based entirely on print sources; • content draws strictly on factual knowledge; • composed predominantly out of memorized language chunks, but moving towards sentence generation; • follows organization patterns of source texts; • contains only print-based vocabulary; • contains only sight-based spelling.

5 Stage 3: Writing to Record and Share Personal Experiences At Stage 3, Shukriya employs an entirely new approach to text production: a full pivot from school knowledge and print-based language to experiential knowledge and oral language. At Stage 2, Shukriya attempts to add her own bits to her recall-based writing, but her linguistic abilities are insufficient for more extensive expression. At Stage 3, Shukriya’s language has reached a critical mass in syntax, lexicon, and phonology, to allow her to both generate novel sentences orally and transcribe them through invented spelling. Shukriya’s motivation for writing personal narratives (Samples 8, 9, and 10) was the teacher’s invitation to the class to share, orally, stories about events in their lives. Since oral storytelling is highly valued among the Kurds (Allison, 1996), some of the students, including Shukriya, began pre-writing and practicing what they intended to say so ensure a competent oral delivery. Within the next two months, Shukriya produces half a dozen pieces of writing recounting her personal experiences. While being perfectly aware that there is the right way to spell, Shukriya is forced to use words that she has never seen in print. Her invented spelling is based partly on associations of letters with sounds that she hears within particular words (such as in halpie for “hospital” and heple for “help”), and partly on visual patterns that she observes within English words (e.g., she adds the “suffix” -y freely to several words in Sample 8). Once she decides on her own spelling for a given word, she uses it consistently within the same piece; thus she spells “grandmother” as gormery in Sample 5, but as “gamidam” throughout Sample 10. Meticulous about correct spelling in any written work in class, and excelling at weekly spelling tests, Shukriya admits that the spelling in her stories in only “for herself.”

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Fig. 6 Sample 8: When I Was in Iraq (1)

Samples 8 and 9 are very similar in content, organization and language. Each is a list of events and situations from Shukriya’s life in Iraq, composed through the what-next strategy and organized primarily as couplets, i.e., thematic units of two sentences or clauses connected by “and” or “but”, which are typical of beginning L1 writing (Newkirk, 1987). Samples 8 and 9 are not technically narratives; however, such recounts of events are considered stories by young L1 writers (Kamberelis, 1999; Newkirk, 1987). Starting every sentence or couplet in the same way, in this case “When I was in Iroq”, is also characteristic of early L1 writing. It is interesting from the writing development perspective to find the same pattern used by an L2-writer who has never seen it before (Fig. 6). Sample 9: When I Was in Iraq (2)

This is store good When I was in Iroq I had so much fun because all of my cousins was in Iroq. When I was in Iroq I have so much friends to play what. And when I was 6 years old my cousin got hit by the car. When I came to America I miss my all cousins. When I was in Iroq my neighbor didn’t have any thing to eat But my mom gave them something to eat. When I was in Iroq I have fun with my friends. But one day my friends what [went] to somwere.

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Going Up to the Roof (Sample 10) represents a milestone in Shukriya’s writing development; besides a marked improvement in terms of length, fluency, and the use of conventional spelling, it is the first piece that narrates a complete event and shows evidence of global planning (Kigotho, 2007). The story relates a significant event in the life of her family, which Shukriya presents from an eyewitness perspective. In a lengthy preamble, characteristic of narratives in oral cultures, Shukriya establishes her credibility as a witness by calling on her grandmother’s authority. The story is chronologically sequenced, and includes a resolution. Shukriya also incorporates dialogue into her writing, with both direct and indirect speech. Oral narrative is a familiar territory for Shukriya in her mother tongue; she has reached the point in her language and writing acquisition where she is able to do so in English as well. Sample 10: Going Up to the Roof

One day I was going to my Gamidam’s [grandmother’s] house. She was going to her garden. I talked her may I come with you. She talked me to go ask your mother. Then I went to talk my mom, My mom said yes you may go with your Gamidam. When me and Gamidam went to the gardan. We start picging some vagtbles. Then we went to home. From the gardan I saw karwan in the roof. I went to talk my mom that Karwan is firing the roof. But my mother did not believy me. I talked her to come and look. When she came to look she beivled me. We start to get the stavs [stuff] out in the house. Because it was firit. [burnt] Then my Dad build a noter house for use [us] and a garden.

Shukriya’s language errors and innovations: confusing “talk” with “tell”; using nouns as verbs, as in “Karwan is firing the roof”; misusing prepositions, for example, “in the roof”; pluralizing uncountable nouns, e.g., “stavs” for “stuff”; and the colloquial use of “like” indicate that, at this stage, she generates the text from the oral language base. Going Up to the Roof is formatted as an illustrated story over several numbered pages in Shukriya’s notebook, with the title in all capital letters. Shukriya is well familiar with the storybook format, having by now read many children’s books. Moreover, as a form of language and literacy practice, the students have been making their own “books” based on traditional pattern stories into which they copied some lines of text and drew their own pictures. Going Up to the Roof is Shukriya’s first attempt to present an original story in this format, and suggests her

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Fig. 7 Sample 11: Going Up, p. 1

recognition of her personal narratives as storybook potential. The title, the “cover” illustration (the brother climbing up to the roof while the family is inside the house), the opening line, and the establishment of the author’s credibility all indicate that a fair amount of forward planning has gone into the production of this story (Figs. 7 and 8). Shukriya’s Stage 3 writing displays the following characteristics: • • • • •

draws on her experiential knowledge for content; generates texts based on oral language; uses mostly invented spelling; organizes the text into thematically linked couplets, moving on to short paragraphs; transitions from local to global planning.

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Fig. 8 Sample 12: Going Up, p. 3

6 Stage 4: Writing to Create and Entertain For Grabe, the pinnacle of purpose-oriented writing is “writing to create an aesthetic experience” by “violating composing norms in effective ways” (Grabe, 2001, p. 50). It would be unreasonable to expect that level of performance in children, since in order to consciously violate composing norms, writers first need to be able to follow them. Shukriya’s purpose at Stage 4 is conforming to the requirements of particular genres. Shukriya’s first fully invented story, A Little Boy, also presented in the form of an illustrated “storybook”, contains all the necessary elements of story grammar that she has learned about in class: characters, setting, plot, problem, and a resolution. However, an oral narrative manner, the story continues on after the main problem has been resolved (freeing Meel’s foot from a hole in the ground), to reassure the audience that the new friendship among the three boys was subsequently firmly cemented. The story is told almost entirely through dialogue, which is not a rhetorical mode favored by 9-year-olds.

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Sample 13: A Little Boy

One day a Little boy what to school / he maked a new friends / his friends said what is your name/ he said my name is jeao /oh I like the name / jeao said what is your names/ The two boy said my name is jacekme / and the black boy said my name is meel. Meel found something underground /jeao said to meel what is that that you found /Meel said it is neafeck. /Meel cry / He said my foots steak in here /Jeao said on how we will taket it of / We will haven to call jacekem / You stae here and I go and call jacekem /Meel cry he said plase don’t leave me in here /Jeao said don’t cry I can leave you here don’t cry it’s OK / Ok /Jeao wat to called Jacekme / Jacekme was not at home /Jeao cry to /And meel comes and said to jeao / Don’t cry I am Ok really meel said / I take my foots off / jacekme heaps me / he was at home / he wat to your house / jeao said I am not cry / yes you are / But now I am not cry. Why does you goes have class / because all people have class /so we have to have class to / now we are ecahests beast friend / yes we are / we will be tohegther for every /OK last don’t fait / OK / OK / Tomroow we will have a pare / OK / Today is my Bartherday / Can you come to my Bartherday sart/ We will because we are ecath beast friends / Thank you for come You wakem / Now is thame] for us to go home / meel said to his beats friends / Good by jeao said /Aret / we will miss echaer Jacekme said / of couse we will / They hug echaer and they said to echaer good by / They said we will miss echaer. / Jeao said is Thame for all us to go home. End of the story. It is all about 3 boys.

After her fiction debut, which she volunteers to read aloud in class, Shukriya continues to make up and write her own stories. She borrows ideas for topics, themes, and problems from the instructional resources, combining them in creative ways. An excellent example of this strategy is Space Rock (Sample 14). The idea of a moving rock comes from a wordless picture story, and the dream idea from a poem about dreams. At the same time, within the science component of the curriculum, the concepts of outer space were explored: planets, stars, the solar system, and space travel. Elements of all three themes have found their way into Space Rock. Shukriya goes beyond a conventional dream-story resolution (i.e., waking up) and adds an interesting twist to her plot: the protagonist and his friend construct a

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moving space rock and bring it to school for “show and tell”; this idea most likely derives from the school’s science fair, at which a number of student-designed contraptions were displayed. Sample 14: Space Rock

Once upon a time theer was a boy named Dylan. He was walking on the stret. He sayw some thing on the gorund. Dylan staring to pig it up. It was a space rock. He took it home. The space rock moved. When it staring to moved he wake up. When he wake up theer was nothing moving. It was his Dram. It was not real. Because he was just Darming because som people can Darm to, One day Dylan was going to school his friend and him made a space rock. Dylan and his friend telled the people how dose this space rock move.

Besides ideas for content, Shukriya makes use of the organizational patterns and rhetorical devices that she has encountered in her learning environment. One of the best examples of her use of print sources with no instructional mediation is Who Loves Rainbow? (Sample 15). While technically not a fiction story, this piece fits in with Shukriya’s Stage 4 writing because of its creative aspect and the evidence that it was globally planned. Who loves rainbow? engages an imaginary audience with a series of rhetorical questions; the pattern employed here is that of interactive discourse frequently found in instructional materials for content-area reading. This kind of rhetorical organization was never discussed or used as a model for writing in class; mere exposure to such a pattern was sufficient for Shukriya to incorporate it into her writing (Fig. 9).

Fig. 9 Sample 15: Who Loves Rainbow?

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In terms of text generation, Shukriya’s Stage 4 compositions rely on both written (as in Who loves rainbow?) and oral language (e.g., “his friend and him made a space rock”) patterns. Many of the grammar errors found in these texts are absent from Shukriya’s speech. When asked to read her stories aloud, Shukriya corrects most of the errors; for example, the sentence written as “Why does you goes have class” she reads aloud as “Why do you guys have class?” She also uses the proper reading intonation, pausing at natural phrase boundaries and ends of sentences, even if she has failed to use the appropriate punctuation marks in her written texts (the pauses she made while reading A Little Boy are indicated by slashes in the typed text in Sample 13). Some types of errors that Shukriya makes in writing, specifically those involving unnecessary inflectional suffixes (e.g., “Does big kids loves rainbow”) are highly unnatural in oral production; beginning and lower-intermediate English learners are much more likely to drop an inflectional suffix in speech than to add an unnecessary one, and Shukriya is not an exception. In Who Loves Rainbow? Shukriya’s choice of the third person singular verb form in the title is modeled on the titles of reading passages such as Who Collects Stamps? Trusting the printed word more than her own linguistic instinct, she continues using the same verb form, incorrectly, throughout the composition. At Stage 4, Shukriya’s spelling, which one would expect to improve over time, markedly deteriorates. Shukriya misspells many high frequency words that she used to spell correctly, and fails to keep her invented spelling consistent; for example, she spells “each other” as ecahest, ecath, and echaer within the same piece in Sample 13, and misspells the word “dream” as both dram and darm in Sample 14. She also pays much less attention to capitalization and punctuation in her Stage 4 pieces compared to Stages 2 and 3. Shukriya’s Stage 4 voluntary writing displays the following characteristics: • • • • •

the content draws on the literary sources as well as the author’s imagination; organization follows patterns of written discourse/genre conventions; text generation is based on both oral and written language patterns; both conventional and invented spelling; correctness not a priority; global planning.

7 Writing for a Grade: Outside the “Real” Writing Purposes? The samples used in the preceding sections represent Shukriya’s voluntary writing, which was not meant to be evaluated by the teacher. The later pieces contain proportionately more mechanical errors than the earlier ones. However, these errors are to some extent deliberate. In class, the students were encouraged to follow the writing process: compose drafts focusing on the content, share them for feedback, and subsequently revise and edit before presenting the final version. Following

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these steps would free the writers from attending to low-level skills in the initial composing stage, letting them concentrate on what they intended to say. Shukriya manifestly treats her voluntary pieces as drafts, while holding her classroom assignments to higher standards. Sample 16 is Shukriya’s class assignment that required retelling a story read in class from a character’s perspective. The assignment is not error-free, but it contains significantly fewer mechanical errors compared to Shukriya’s voluntary compositions produced around the same time. Sample 16: My Cousin’s Wedding

[Beginning provided by the prompt: Tomorrow, my cousin Nhlanhla is getting married. I am going to sing at my cousin’s wedding. But I have a sore throat. I can’t speak. How can I sing at Nhlanhla’s wedding?] I go to my cousin’s house. I tell them that I have a sore throat. My Aunt Senne gives me some vicks. I put it on my throat. But it didn’t work. Next my other

Fig. 10 Sample 17: Part of Shukriya’s LAS post-test

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aunt gives me raw eggs. But it doesn’t work. And my Gogo gives me garlic. But it doesn’t work. My Aunt gives me some tissue because I feel sad and I cry and I sit on the pins and needles. And I get hurt and I scream and my voice get beck. I was sing at my cousin’s wedding. When my voice get beck I have fun at my cousin’s wedding.

Shukriya’s Stage 4 voluntary compositions do not thus represent the full scope of her writing capabilities; she underutilizes her lower-level linguistic skills (transcription) in favor of higher-level ones (text generation). On the grade-appropriate literacy test at the end of the year, Shukriya completes the writing tasks with virtually no mechanical errors (Fig. 10). Shukriya’s performance on the LAS post-test exhibits her control of the standards according to the purpose of the task—which, in this case, is to demonstrate her writing competence. Her strategy to pass the test is to write in safe mode: i.e., use simple sentences and short, high-frequency words while avoiding “risky” vocabulary (e.g., she uses “person” instead of “crossing guard” even though she knows the term “crossing guard”, but the latter is harder to spell). The manner in which she handles the test shows Shukriya’s understanding that writing is a multi-purpose tool that can be strategically applied.

8 Conclusions The writer’s purpose has proved to be a useful criterion in search for recognizable stages in the writing development of a previously non-literate English Language Learner. The analysis of the data reveals the existence of four qualitatively distinct, chronologically sequenced stages of writing performance, each associated with a different overall writing purpose and a different set of characteristics. Growth is observed within each stage, but the shifts to the next stage are easily identifiable by changes in the content and genre choices, as well as planning, text generation, and transcription strategies. Moreover, although regressions to lower levels of performance do occur (Edelsky & Jilbert, 1985), they are not random, but reflect linguistic progress and/or deliberate strategic choices. At the transition to Stage 3, the growth of oral language and the grasp of the grapho-phonemic system liberates the writer from her exclusive reliance on print, allowing her to draw on oral language; the emergence of invented spelling at this point is thus not a step back, but a step forward. Likewise, the “regression” in language mechanics skills observed at Stage 4 is a pragmatic decision allowing the writer to attend to the creative, generative aspects of writing. For reasons of space, I have not elaborated on the role of the learning environment itself in the writing development presented in this study. Immersion

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(without explicit instruction) in a literate environment with continuous access to print resources, natural reading and writing activities, and abundant oral language interactions has been proven to promote young children’s literacy acquisition in mother tongue. The learning environment in which Shukriya was immersed during the intervention year was designed to imitate the natural literate environment experienced by middle-class children in Western societies: rich in resources and interactions with knowledgeable adults, with plenty of opportunities for individual explorations in addition to structured instructional input. Shukriya’s writing choices and the strengths she acquired reflect the influence of various literate sources as well as explicit instruction. The extent to which each of these factors separately affected the writing development trajectory in this particular case is not possible to determine on the basis of the available data. Whether or not similar development stages can be identified in L2 writing of other young learners is a matter for future investigations; further case studies focusing on the day-to-day growth of writing skills of non-literate beginner English Language Learners could potentially corroborate the findings of this study. The value of case studies lies not in their power to prove anything, but in their ability to provide empirical, contextual knowledge of how things happen in real life that we can learn from (Flyvbjerg, 2006). This study does not aspire to claim that all young second-language learners proceed through the same stages in their writing development; it only shows that the belief that no discernible stages exist in L2 writing development needs to be revised. This refers in particular to beginning L2 learners who are acquiring oral language and are learning to write at the same time without any mediating effects of mother tongue literacy. Since the acquisition of second language does move through stages, and since the literacy knowledge rests on the foundations of linguistic knowledge, the idea that the development of L2 writing advances in a step-by-step fashion concurrently with the development of language deserves serious contemplation. As Cumming (2013) concludes, “inquiry needs to continue to pursue theoretically informed analyses of the multiple dimensions of writing development” including “analyses of patterns in learner’s development, effective teaching/learning interactions, and institutional policies” (p. 6257). It is my hope that the present study contributes to these investigations and stimulates further attempts to map out the trajectory of writing development in second language learners.

References Allison, C. (1996). Old and new oral traditions in Badinan. In P. Kreyenbroek & C. Allison (Eds.), Kurdish culture and identity (pp. 29–47). London: Zed Books. Bereiter, C., & Scardamalia, M. (1987). The psychology of written composition. Hillsdale: Lawrence Earlbaum. Berman, R. A. (2004). Between emergence and mastery: The long developmental route of language acquisition. In R. A. Berman (Ed.), Language development across childhood and adolescence (pp. 3–24). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Cumming, A. (2013). Writing development in second language acquisition. In The encyclopedia of applied linguistics (pp. 6254–6258). Hoboken: Blackwell. Cumming, A. (2016). Writing development and instruction for English Learners. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (2nd ed., pp. 364–376). New York: The Guilford Press. Edelsky, C., & Jilbert, K. (1985). Bilingual children and writing: Lessons for all of us. Volta Review, 87(5), 57–72. Fayol, M. (2016). From language to text: The development of learning and translation. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (2nd ed., pp. 130–143). New York: The Guilford Press. Flower, L., & Hayes, J. (1981). A cognitive process theory of writing. College Composition and Communication, 32(4), 365–387. Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five misunderstandings about case-study research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12 (2), 219–245. Grabe, W. (2001). Notes toward a theory of second language writing. In T. Silva & P. K. Matsuda (Eds.), On second language writing (pp. 39–57). Mahwah: Lawrence Earlbaum. Hamayan, E. (1994). Language development of low-literacy students. In F. Genesee (Ed.), Educating second language children: The whole child, the whole curriculum, the whole community (pp. 278–300). New York: Cambridge University Press. Jwaideh, W. (2006). The Kurdish National Movement: Its origins and development. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Kamberelis, G. (1999). Genre development and learning: Children writing stories, science reports, and poems. Research in the Teaching of English, 33(4), 403–460. Kigotho, M. (2007). From writing recount to writing in true narrative. Paper presented at AARE International Conference, November 25–29, Notre Dame University, Fremantle Perth. Kroll, B., & Vann, R. (1981). Exploring speaking-writing relationships: Connections and contrasts. Urbana: National Councils of Teachers of English. Leki, I., Cumming, A., & Silva, T. (2008). A synthesis of research of second language writing in English. New York: Routledge. McCutchen, D. (2006). Cognitive factors in the development of children’s writing. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (pp. 115–130). New York: The Guilford Press. McCutchen, D. (2011). From novice to expert: Language and memory processes in the development of writing skill. Journal of Writing Research, 3(1), 51–68. Newkirk, T. (1987). The non-narrative writing of young children. Research in the teaching of English, 21(2), 121–144. Nykiel-Herbert, B. (2010). From a collection of aliens to a community of learners: The role of cultural factors in the acquisition of literacy by Iraqi refugee students with interrupted formal education. Multicultural Education, 17(3), 2–14. Puranik, C., & Lonigan, C. (2009). From scribbles to scrabble: Preschool children’s developing knowledge of written language. Reading and Writing, 24(5), 567–589. Samway, K. D. (2006). When English Language Learners write: Connecting research to practice, K–8. Portsmouth: Heinemann. Sarroub, L., Pernicek, T., & Sweeney, T. (2007). “I was bitten by a scorpion:” Reading in and out of school in a refugee’s life. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(8), 668–679. Sasaki, M. (2000). Toward an empirical model of EFL writing processes: An exploratory study. Journal of Second Language Writing, 9(3), 259–291.

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Teale, W., & Sulzby, E. (1986). Emergent literacy: Writing and reading. Westport and London: Ablex Publishing. Tolchinsky, L. (2016). From text to language and back. In C. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (2nd ed., pp. 144–159). New York: The Guilford Press.

Barbara Nykiel-Herbert After earning her doctorate in linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland in 1984, she embarked on a lifetime of adventure. Over the next 30 years she lived and worked in several countries, including the United States, South Africa, and Taiwan, teaching linguistics and English as a Second Language, developing English language textbooks, writing children’s storybooks, and conducting research in linguistic anthropology with her late husband, Bob Herbert. Having retired from her academic position at Youngstown State University in Ohio, she currently lives in Reno, NV, where she runs her own applied linguistics consultancy and volunteers as a court-appointed advocate for neglected and abused children.

The Convergence of Art, Perception and Cognition with Western and Eastern Writing Traditions Jacek Mianowski

Abstract The following article seeks to traverse the eastern and western approaches to the study, use and practice of writing and art. To this extent, the first aim is to discuss the two types of cognition in relation to writing. Secondly, the article tries to show that the change in medium, from voice-to-ear to eye-to-paper made it possible to converge the practice of storing information with the practice of artistic expression. In this view, the evolution of art and writing relied on human perception and may have been influenced by a variety of factors, one of which the tendency to converge on a specific point on a horizon. The third and final aim of the article is to address the notions of perception and cognition in relation to Romano-Latin writing traditions of the early Middle Ages. Ultimately, the article seeks to establish a connection between the Romano-Latin writing tradition and its derivatives, on the basis of several properties of visual perception and cognition.

1 Introduction It was noticed that symbols and icons create a ground for contact with empirical reality. If one considers that life is experienced and understood through images, it may be argued that Plato’s concept of eikon, an exact copy, has sieved into each and every creative human endeavour (Belting, 2001/2011, pp. 9–10). If this analogy is applied to the evolution of early European writing systems, it can be noticed that despite the obvious connections between the post-Roman writing tradition and its Germanic or Celtic counterparts, there is a discernible space for individual aesthetic permutation. One can also observe a wide array of differences between Latin script, devised as a means for storing large quantities of information, and runic or ogham scripts, which came into being with the aim of recreating the patterns found in nature.

J. Mianowski (&) Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_14

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The following article seeks to establish a connection between the two derivatives of the Romano-Latin writing tradition on the basis of several properties of visual perception and cognition. While bearing in mind Arnheim’s (1969/2011) differentiation between intuitive and intellectual cognition, it can be established that the evolution of early scripts used in Europe may have relied not only on the principle of data storage, but may have also served as a means of artistic expression or as a factor aiding the reformulation of social practices.

2 Human Analytic Matrix Image is integral to human life in a variety of ways. From an anthropological point of view, within the visual sphere of activity, people distinguish an image as a symbolic unit. The fact that an image consists of a dual meaning—an integral and an external image—determines its anthropological foundations. Images come to being as a creation of human perception. Moreover, they are not merely a simple result of production, as they also are created as a result of collective or individual symbolisation. One lives and understands the surrounding world through and by images and therefore it is the images that are the key to understanding the peculiarities of human perception (Belting, 2001/2011, pp. 10–12). It was Arnheim (1969/2011, pp. 23–24, 38–40), who noticed that all actions connected with receiving, storing and processing information—sensual perception, learning, memorising or thinking—belong to a wider category of perception. The process of perceiving, takes place in several stages. Despite its involuntary nature, it seeks to establish a starting point through which it can relate to a particular item in the real world. Hence, perception tries to capture the structural features of an item on the basis of sensual information. Therefore, if one considers the moon, it may seem to look like a round object, even though it is not round in all circumstances. Visual perception tries to create a connection between a particular item (the moon) and its most fundamental archetype (a circle). These archetypes constitute a wide range of visual categories. At the same time archetypes are, to a large extent, individual to every human mind. In each instance, an act of perception establishes a connection between an item and the archetype specific to a particular mind. Visual perception allows for establishing a common ground between the surrounding world and our mind. It creates an analytic matrix through which one can translate what one sees into something that can be easily understood. From a broader perspective, visual perception operates on three levels. Firstly, it captures forms and shapes of an item; secondly, it seeks to grasp the structural features of items (i.e., width, height, material, or calculating physics); and finally, it creates meaning (visual categories) by combining material from impulses of relatively simple shapes. The basic organisation of an archetype, featuring the most rudimentary contours and a mixture of colours, allows for distinguishing it from the surrounding reality, and therefore increases the chances of a proper decoding of visual stimuli. For each item encountered, the human mind establishes a template

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through which all other encounters are measured. Templates have a dual purpose; for one, they remain very general, and secondly, they are easy to identify. None of the items ever perceived is related to an individual shape—they relate to a template on which a given instance of perception is based (Arnheim, 1969/2011, pp. 38–40).

3 A Binary Approach to Cognition The act of processing information, undertaken by the human mind, would not be possible due to visual perception alone. Individual encounters of stimuli are unlikely to provide the necessary conditions for learning, remembering or any other form of cultural activity. Thoughts require shapes that can be obtained from an external medium—if a psychologist wants to describe a way of thinking, he or she has to point to a specific domain of reality, where the process is taking place. Cognition may be considered to be eidetic, as it seeks to recreate the observed reality. It may be therefore said that the human mind operates in two ways of cognition. Intuitive cognition allows for anticipating colours, shapes all relations between them. It transpires in the perception field, where an open game of mutually interacting powers takes place, with the result of establishing an image. Intellectual cognition identifies images differently (Arnheim, 1969/2011, p. 267). First, it allows the viewer to determine particular elements and relations. Each shape, colour or relation is described and a list of these items is created. Then, the viewer analyses the relations between all of the elements. When the process of data gathering is completed, the viewer tries to connect all the strings of information into a coherent image.1 The process is illustrated by Fig. 1. What is more, cognition relies also on previous experiences and allows establishing symbolic meaning. The ability to refer a sign to an object is, in a way, automatic and involuntary, although shaped through cultural contact. It is essential while learning to write, especially in western cultures which base their writing systems on the grapheme–morpheme correspondence.2

1

Ulrich (2011, pp. 101–102) presents a more aesthetics-oriented approach to perception and suggests that it incorporates numerous psychological processes that usually take place simultaneously, while the attributes of the object observed are being analysed. This multitude of mechanisms depends on time, with attributes like capturing light and motion (captured rapidly), or shape, symmetry, and temperature (taking more time). What is more, there is a distinction between aesthetic and analytical response, yet the boundary between the two relies, again, on the time it takes to observe a given object. If the aesthetic response to an object is positive, it will be more likely to initiate a positive analytical preference. 2 Aitchison (1992, p. 46) suggests that there may exist a correspondence between the style of reading and the ability to decipher writing. Reading aloud or silently, as well as reading quickly or slowly—all of these instances may relate to the amount of conversion taking place, when individual letters are assigned their sound variant, while words and meaning are put together.

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Fig. 1 Schematic illustration of human cognitive response to an artifact (e.g., a hammer) with a hypothetical trajectory of preference as a function of time for a particular individual. Attributes of the object, represented by nodes and labels, are inferred over time based on the sensory inputs, memory, and other attributes (Urich, 2011, p. 10)

At the same time, a script transcends beyond purely written communication and becomes a carrier for visual content in itself, thus establishing an entrance to a new dimension of (visual) information. Belting notes that [t]the corporeal act of speaking, in which voice and ear take part, is replaced in the act of reading script by the linear motion of the eye that travels across an artificial medium. (…) Mediality is yet another meaning when it comes to the images that provide scientists and doctors entrée to a world not directly accessible to our senses. The capacity of such images surpasses that of our ‘naked’ eye. They arm us with a kind of prosthesis, a tool (a terminology, if you will) that expands our natural powers of perception. As a result, our vision escapes our corporeal control (2001/2011, pp. 18–19).

Belting’s claims can be illustrated with the following examples (Fig. 2). The first and the second examples are written using runic and ogham scripts, both of which were coined as the result of coming into contact with Latin and Greek writing systems, and both are alphabetic.3 Additionally, the first two examples are in Old English (hors) and Old Irish (capall) respectively, which may hinder communication, if the reader lacks proficiency in both the language and the script. The ability to process such knowledge allows not only the access to information per se, but opens the door to the extra-textual dimension of visual information. 3

For a detailed discussion on the origin and principles of runic and ogham scripts see: McManus (1991), Looijenga (2003), Page (1973), Parsons (1999).

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Fig. 2 Runic, ogham, ideographic and Latin representations of the word horse

The Japanese (and earlier Chinese) ideogram uma (horse) underwent a completely different evolution. Although alphabetic writing can be used as a component of art, the relation between art and script is founded on different principles in the Japanese culture. This difference is visible on a cultural level, within an aspect that may initially seem abstract. To Barthes, the way stationery stores operate indicates the most fundamental difference between western and eastern perceptions of writing; The object of the Japanese stationary store is that ideographic writing which to our eyes seems to derive from painting, whereas quite simply it is painting’s inspiration (important that art should have a scriptural and not an expressive origin). (…) [S]ince in Japan the stroke excludes erasure or repetition (since the character is drawn alla prima), no invention of the eraser or its substitutes (…). Everything, in the instrumentation, is directed toward the paradox of an irreversible and fragile writing, which is simultaneously, contradictorily, incision and glissade (…) the erased stroke, which thereby becomes a secret, is impossible (Barthes, 1970/1989, pp. 85–86).

Writing, therefore, has to be both artistic in nature and form the constituent of art simultaneously, as there is no possibility of correcting the once drawn grapheme. The writer has to adapt a somewhat artistic approach to the act of writing. If a given script is ideographic or pictographic its initial requirements of visual capabilities are even greater (Mitchell, 2008/2012, pp. 153–154) (Fig. 3).

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Fig. 3 Historical forms of uma. Source https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%A6%AC, accessed 05.08.2018. Licensed under CC BY-SA

4 The Eye and Hand Human capability to see is one of the most fundamental elements of cultural practices. It can be viewed from both biological and cultural perspectives. A comparison to computer hardware and software may be applied here. The visual system, if it is supposed to work properly, has to be installed in the optimal moment of the evolution of a fully-developed organism. It is essential to learn both using and understanding visual sensations by coordinating them with touch. Proper seeing is an extension of touch, whereas pure visuality does not exist. In other words, mastering a writing system requires all of these senses to participate in the process (Mitchell, 2008/2012, pp. 154). Reading and writing are integrated into two-dimensional reality. The western perception of writing is linear, which means that there is a pre-set pattern of leading the eye through rows of letters, where our perception, equipped with the knowledge of the system, registers words first and seeks to establish meaning afterwards. Yet, the most prominent difference in how the East and the West perceive writing is based on a completely incompatible foundation. It was observed that [i]n the back and forth of intercultural exchange there were also encounters between traditions with conflicting notions of written vs. pictorial imagery. ‘In Europe,’ Gruzinski explains, ‘writing, under the impact of the phonetic model, is seen as the reproduction of words, and painting as the reproduction of the visible world. In China, by contrast, where writing is not limited to a representation of the word, painting claims a territory that relates to the visible world only as a relationship of contact and analogy, but not as a relationship of redundancy and reproduction’ (Gruzinski, 1990, p. 83, as cited in Belting, 2001/2011, pp. 34–35).

To better understand the essence of this issue one has to take a close look at the notion of Geometric Linear Perspective. Within western cultures three-dimensional representations of reality are habitually viewed as foreground-centred, backgroundhorizon, whereas eastern cultures have presented the horizon stretching from the frame to the centre of an image. This becomes more visible if one considers isometric (i.e., habitually favoured by western) versus axonometric (favoured by eastern) perspectives. The axonometric perspective distorts the object, but at the same time allows a lot more detail to be inserted within the image. The isometric perspective, on the other hand, allows the presentation to be more appealing to the eye by not distorting the object, yet it conceals the length relations between lines in axes (Lanigan, 2014, pp. 106–115). The contrast in perspective is visible in the eastern handscroll paintings (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 4 The Urashima handscroll, Japan, 1590–1620. By permission of The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (MS. Jap. c.4(R)). Source https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/ 5d7324df-cc8f-446d-8241-cea03e5ef16d

From the western perspective, there is not one central foreground point, but many such points, whereas the background tends to blend with the foreground. The scrolling effect allows for boundless adding of still new visual elements. For runic and ogham inscriptions, while bearing in mind their material peculiarities, it was not possible to extend art into a geometric third dimension. Yet, there seem to be several analogies between eastern and western representations of art and writing combined. For one, the way western and eastern scripts are written matters. Western cultures utilise alphabetic scripts, which usually make use of one main horizontal line, along which graphemes (or letters) are drawn. Known from typography as the baseline, it defines not only the horizontal organisation but also establishes space for vertical stem lines of letters and their lower/upper case.4 Each derivative of Latin or Greek scripts made use of various instalments of stem line (Fig. 5). Within the eastern perspective, on the other hand, the orientation of strokes is equally important as the order in which they are drawn. The step-by-step approach is recommended, with simpler graphemes becoming the building blocks for the more elaborate ones. Japanese calligraphy courses (see: Conning & Halpern, 2001, pp. 13–18) stress the idea that if one seeks to master kanji correctly, he or she should incorporate an eclectic, yet pedagogical approach, with a vast array of possible sources of mnemonic devices (Heising, 2007, pp. 6–7). The stroke order is therefore treated not only as one of the aids used in the learning process, but also as the means of getting one’s hand used to the specific ways of drawing points and lines, so that it resembles dancing (Lanigan, 2014, pp. 110–112) (Fig. 6). In terms of intertwining art with writing, the most striking feature is that within the eastern perspective writing is a fundamental element of art, deeply integrated into an image. Woodcut triptychs are a good example, as they were used as a means of visual storytelling (Fig. 7). 4

For a more detailed description of typological terms see: Solomon (1994, p. 89).

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Fig. 5 Ogham (top) and runic (Anglo-Saxon variant—down) scripts with their alphabetic values. Author’s illustrations, on the basis of Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Anglosaxonrunes-editable.svg?uselang=pl; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ogam1. png. Licensed under CC BY-SA.)

Fig. 6 Stroke order for Japanese kanji uma. Source https://jisho.org/search/%E9%A6%AC%20% 23kanji, accessed 30.07.2018. Image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Runic and ogham scripts were also drawn in a sequence. Drawn, however, is not a good term since both scripts were carved systems by design, developed for hard surfaces, i.e., wood, stone or metal. Within the milieu of runic and ogham scripts there also existed a form of calligraphy, yet the script itself was superior to the artistic expression, or in other words, art reinforced writing. One of numerous examples of ogham- and Latin-inscribed stones is the Trallwng stone (inside

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Fig. 7 Flourishing fireworks at Ryōkoku Bridge Kawabiraki (“opening the river” ceremony) in the eastern capital, by Kunisada Utagawa, 1858. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, reproduction number LC-DIG-jpd-01630. Source http:// www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2008660442/, accessed 02.08.2018

St. David’s church), dated to sixth or seventh century. Its frontal pane bares the Latin inscription, while the right-side edge contains the ogham one. The inscriptions state: [Ogham:] CUNACENN[IA]V[.]ILVVETO Cunacenni avi Ilvveto “[The stone] of Cunacennus, descendant of Ilvvetus” [Latin:] CVNOCENNIFILIVS| CUNOGENIHICIACIT Cunocenni filius|Cunocgeni hic iacit “[The stone] of Cunocennus. The son of Cunogenus lies here” (Redknap & Lewis, 2007, p. 242)

Informativity, by means of applying the two scripts, prioritised the message over art, while the ultimate goal of communication was to commemorate a particular person. Runic inscriptions, on the other hand, were often placed on portable objects, which may have been associated with magical or ritualistic properties (see: Elliott, 1957). One of such examples was discovered in 1981, in Undley. It is a golden bracteate, dated to the second half of the fifth century, with the following inscription: gagãga:maga:medu “*[magical]: reward (to a) kinsman” (Parsons, 1999, pp. 62–67)

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Both examples, although coming from two distinct (pre)writing traditions, share a certain, script-oriented feature. It may be argued that writing, even though used with a specific purpose in mind, was meant to be seen first-hand, while the artistic milieu that surrounded it was seen as the extension of the message.

5 The Social Dimension The western perspective on transmitting the written word, while often entailing artistic expression, tried to expand beyond the materiality of a given object. It was a common practice to make use of stone as the primary material to incise runic inscriptions. Stone, when combined with the script and the location, sought to achieve a social goal. Bearing in mind that incised rune stones were created in a orality-dominated society, it can be argued that the act of their placing was meant to achieve more than just to preserve words. One of the most vivid examples is the Ågersta stone from Sweden. It was suggested that (…) [b]ecause the Ågersta stone makes explicit what is only implicit in other inscriptions, it serves as an icon of the transition to literacy in a society which had previously been primarily oral. While the use of runes goes back to the second century A.D. in Scandinavia, so the phenomenon of literacy is not in itself new, the number of runic inscriptions rises dramatically in the late tenth and eleventh centuries. This may in part be an effect of random preservation, but I am convinced that it also results from the growth of a new type of literacy, a social literacy where written texts begin to take over some of the functions previously reserved for oral texts (Jesch, 1998, pp. 462, 476).

Carved scripts, although limited by the use of materials, aligned themselves well with artistic expression, thus creating an extra-textual dimension of an artefact. This dimension made use not only of the artefact itself, but, primarily, of the people involved in its circulation. Alphabetic carved scripts, due to their nature, were not intended to represent any kind of perspective beyond two dimensions. Incising runic or ogham graphemes on a stone surface, ornamenting the inscription, or adding paint to underline the most important elements all added to the symbolic value of the artefact. The process of incising, reading and interpreting engaged a multitude of people who constituted the third, social dimension, evolving around the reinterpretation of both text and art. As the idea of eidetic perspective could not be discerned from two-dimensional runic and ogham art. It was relocated into the cognitive and cultural practice of perception; participation in reading aloud, the awareness of the inscription’s existence, along with its legal, or otherwise collectively-paramount status—all that contributed to the social practice of a given society. Finally, it may be argued after Olson (1985, p. 15, as cited in Halverson, 1991, p. 639) that the cognitive approach to writing does not have to be limited to the results of literacy per se. Most importantly, writing, especially when intertwined with art, allows people to achieve goals previously not possible, or bring new objectives into perspective.

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6 Conclusion Images possess symbolical meaning, added through a collective effort and, as such, are the product of human perception. People live and understand the surrounding world through images, while perception establishes the common ground for their interpretation. The human mind has therefore the ability to create templates of what it records and constantly re-uses these templates for creating new objects. At the same time, it is essential to build up the bigger picture by combining all objects and record the relations between them. This ultimately leads to establishing symbolic meaning of the recorded objects. If this way of thinking is applied to the study of scripts, it can be observed that writing transcends beyond both the act of speaking and the act of reading of a written word. Writing contains both the ability to carry information and artistic expression. Visuality, understood as an integral component of both writing and art, is not inborn and has to be enabled within the human mind. Yet, the most fundamental difference lies within the way that eastern and western cultures approach writing. The western paradigm evolved around representing words and sounds, whereas art was seen as a representation of the visible world. The eastern paradigm, on the other hand, sought these two aspects as converging, if not integral. This allowed to incorporate a three-dimensional representation of the world into writing into the eastern perspective, whereas the western paradigm did not deem this initially as essential. This does seem to have an influence on the way a given script is taught and learned to be used. The western perspective, focused on representing the spoken word (letter-for-sound), approaches writing in a more utilitarian manner. The East, rather contrarily, pays attention to detail, with the orientation and order of strokes deemed equally important as grapheme meaning. This allows the artistic dimension to be infused into the writing itself. Finally, there exists a social dimension of both western and eastern writing systems, which is discernible from different components. For the East, social elements arise from the writing-art integration. For the West, the social dimension is included into the practice of reading, as well as the people, place and the situation in which reading takes place. All of these, aligned properly, helped to shape the western post-oral perception of writing.

References Aitchison, J. (1992). Introducing language and mind. New York, London: Penguin Books. Arnheim, R. (1969/2011). Visual thinking. Myślenie wzrokowe. Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria. Barthes, R. (1970/1989). Empire of signs. New York: Hill and Wang, The Noonday Press. Belting, H. (2001/2011). Bild-Anthropologie. Entwürfe für eine Bildwissenschaft. An anthropology of images. Picture, medium, body. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press. Conning, A. S., & Halpern, J. (Eds.). (2001). The Kodansha Kanji learner’s course: A step-by-step guide to mastering 2300 characters. New York: Kodansha USA Inc. Elliott, R. W. V. (1957). Runes, yews and magic. Speculum, 32(2), 250–261.

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Gruzinski, S. (1990). La guerre des images de Christophe Colomb à “Blade Runner” (1492– 2019). Paris: Fayard. Halverson, J. (1991). Olson on literacy. Language in Society, 20(4), 619–640 (1991). Heising, J. W. (2007). Remembering the Kanji: A complete course on how not to forget the meaning and writing of Japanese characters (Vol. 1). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Jesch, J. (1998). Still standing in Ågersta: Textuality and literacy in late viking-age rune stone inscriptions. In K. Düwel, S. Nowak (Eds.), Runeninschriften als quellen interdisdizplinärer forschung. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions in Göttingen, August 4–9, 1995 (pp. 462–475). Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter. Lanigan, R. L. (2014). Contact confusion in perception: West meets East, one actuality becomes two realities. In P. P. Chruszczewski, J. R. Rickford, K. Buczek, A. R. Knapik, & J. Mianowski (Eds.), Languages in contact 2012 (pp. 103–125). Wrocław: Wyższa Szkoła Filologiczna. Looijenga, T. (2003). Texts & contexts of the oldest runic inscriptions. Leiden, Boston: Brill. McManus, D. (1991). A guide to ogam. Maynooth: An Sagart. Mitchell, T. W. J. (2008/2012). Piśmienność wizualna czy wizualność piśmienna? Teksty Drugie: teoria literatury, krytyka, interpretacja, nr 1/2 (133–134) (pp. 153–163). Olson, D. R. (1985). Introduction. In D. R. Olson, N. Torrance, & A. Hildyard (Eds.), Literacy, language, and learning (pp. 1–15). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Page, R. I. (1973). An introduction to English runes. London: Methuen & Co Ltd. Parsons, D. N. (1999). Recasting the runes. The reform of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc. Uppsala: Institutionen för nordiska språk, Uppsala universitet. Redknap, M., Lewis, J. M. (Eds.). (2007). A corpus of early medieval inscribed stones and stone sculpture in wales. South-East Wales and the English Border (Vol. I). Cardiff: University of Wales Press in association with the University of Wales Board of Celtic Studies, the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru— National Museum Wales. Solomon, M. (1994). The art of typography. An introduction into Typo.icon.ography. New York: Art Direction Book Company. Ulrich, K. T. (2011). Design: Creation of artifacts in society. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved from http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/*ulrich/designbook.html.

Jacek Mianowski is Assistant Professor in Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. His areas of academic research include anthropological linguistics, ethnography of communication, emergence and evolution of writing systems, and game studies. He has conducted research at such academic centres as National University of Ireland (Galway), The British Library, Cardiff University, University of Nottingham. His recent publication is Ethnolinguistics, Cultural Change and Early Scripts from England and Wales (2016).

Metaphor and Metonymy in a Culture of Food and Feasting: A Study Based on Selected Ancient Greek Comedies Waldemar Szefliński and Wojciech Wachowski

Wer den Dichter will verstehen, Muẞ in Dichters Lande gehen. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1819) (Whoever wants to understand the poet must go into the poet’s land (translation by Wroth 2007: 68)).

Abstract In general, this article aims at exploring a selected fragment of the Ancient Greek language, namely the metaphors and metonymies related to food and feasting to be found in Old Attic Comedy. More specifically, the aim of the present article is twofold. First, it is to show how food and feasting were indirectly referred to in Ancient Greece by means of metaphor and metonymy. Second, it aims at investigating how food and feasting were used to metaphorically and metonymically talk and, more importantly, think about other spheres of life. In other words, the article is to show how food and feasting were used in Ancient Greece as both sources and targets of metaphoric and metonymic operations. Bearing in mind the Cognitive Linguistic principle of the embodiment of language, in order to analyze the selected linguistic expressions, the authors of this article also shed some light on the culture and the way of thinking of Ancient Greeks, or figuratively speaking, as Goethe would have put it, the authors “go to the poet’s land”.

W. Szefliński (&)
W. Wachowski Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland e-mail: [email protected] W. Wachowski e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. Mianowski et al. (eds.), Memory, Identity and Cognition: Explorations in Culture and Communication, Issues in Literature and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12590-5_15

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1 The Theoretical Framework—Metaphor and Metonymy1 The theoretical framework for this article is provided by the school of thought commonly known as Cognitive Linguistics.2 Cognitive Linguistics is now a coherent, identifiable approach that grew out of the work of a number of scholars active in the 1970s and 1980s, who investigated the relation of language and mind. In Cognitive Linguistics metaphor and metonymy are not normally understood as merely artful rhetorical devices, but as important cognitive mechanisms which structure “the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 3). Metaphor and metonymy may at first glance seem similar since they are both cognitive operations involving domains (or ICMs3) and mappings. Still, the cognitive linguistic literature provides a number of important differences between them (e.g., Barcelona, 2003; Barnden, 2010; Brdar & Brdar-Szabó, 2013; Dirven, 1993; Dirven & Pörings, 2003; Goossens, 1990; Górska & Radden, 2006; Glynn, 2006; Haser, 2005; Kosecki, 2007; Nerlich & Burkhart, 2010; Panther & Radden, 1999). First, it is the nature of the relationship between the vehicle and the target. In conceptual metaphors there are normally a few systematic conceptual correspondences between certain elements of the source domain and certain elements of the target domain. Metonymies on the other hand are normally characterized by a single mapping (Fig. 1). Second, metonymic mappings are in principle reversible. Thus, for example a given part may be used to activate the whole and vice versa. The bidirectional character of metonymy was implicitly noticed in traditional approaches by listing both directions of a metonymic relationship such as WHOLE FOR PART and PART FOR WHOLE, CAUSE FOR EFFECT and EFFECT FOR CAUSE (Radden & Kövecses, 1999). Metaphors on the other hand, which are often used to structure a more abstract concept by means of some more concrete one, tend to be unidirectional. The third difference between metaphor and metonymy is said to lie in the number of domains involved in the processes (cf. (Barcelona, 2003a, b, c; Croft, 2003; Dirven, 2003; Gibbs, 1999; Radden & Kövecses, 1999). As Gibbs notes (1999, p. 62), “in metaphor, there are two conceptual domains, and one is understood

1

An earlier version of this part of the article was published in an article entitled: A Few Remarks on the Distinction between Metaphor, Metonymy, and Synecdoche in Categorization in Discourse and Grammar edited by Fabiszak, Krawczak and Rokoszewska, Peter Lang Frankfurt am Main (2016), pp. 43–65. 2 By Cognitive Linguistics the authors mean the second generation of cognitive science, as described e.g., by Lakoff (1987, p. XI–XVII) or Lakoff and Johnson (1999, p. 77). 3 ICMs are Idealized Cognitive Models (as described e.g., by Lakoff and Johnson (1980)).

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Fig. 1 Metaphor and metonymy distinguished on the basis of the number of conceptual mappings (correspondences) involved (Brdar & Brdar-Szabó, 2013, p. 202)

Fig. 2 Metaphor and metonymy distinguished on the basis of domain inclusion (Brdar & Brdar-Szabó, 2013, p. 201)

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in terms of another”, and in metonymy “the mapping or connection is within the same domain or domain matrix.” The difference may be presented schematically as shown in Fig. 2.4

2 Old Comedy The linguistic data analyzed in the present article were taken from a number of Ancient Greek comedies of the period called Old Attic Comedy. The most commonly accepted understanding of the Greek comedy divides it into old, middle and new, where Old Comedy would be represented by both very early authors, such as Susarion and Magnes, as well as the classic ones, for example, Aristophanes, Eupolis and Cratinus. New Comedy would primarily be Menander’s comedy of manners and the transitional phase between the two would earn the name of Middle Comedy.5 The above division has obviously no clear-cut boundaries and the delineation tends to be problematic at points.6 Timewise, Old Comedy is most commonly set between the 480s and c. 385 BCE. The most characteristic aspect of Old Comedy, apart from the internal structure of the plays (far from being unanimous, exhibiting certain convergences nevertheless, as we can ascertain from the scanty legacy that has survived to modern times) is its topicality. The poets, in general, did not shy away from personal attacks upon the citizens deemed deserving it (misers, liars, bribe-takers, fools, buffoons, debauchers, effeminates, drunks, gluttons etc.), ridiculing politicians (Pericles, Cleon, Cleonymus and others), political agendas (war mongering, taking advantage of one’s position etc.), and social groups (court jurors, sycophants, soldiers and others). Obviously, food-related topics played a great part in the comic topicality, a small sample of which is presented and analyzed in this article.7

4

There is hardly any agreement among cognitive linguists concerning the definitions of and the differences between metaphor and metonymy (see e.g., Barnden (2010) or Wachowski (2016)). For example metonymy very often is, but does not have to be, a reversible process and metaphor may, but does not have to, involve many systematic conceptual correspondences between certain elements of the source domain and certain elements of the target domain. A more detailed discussion of the problematic issues, however, is beyond the scope of the present article. 5 Storey 2011, p. xvii, vol. I. 6 E.g., the last plays of Aristophanes (a classic Old Comedy author) tend to be perceived as beginning to show Middle Comedy traits. 7 Certainly, the vis comica of Old Comedy had a much broader scope than just the topics chosen by the poet. The comedy authors would jocularly incorporate various poetic genres into their plays, or parody fragments of works by other authors; new coinages would appear, puns, jokes, also sexual, or scatological were ubiquitous. Obviously, the spoken word did not constitute the limits for a comedy author. He would employ a whole range of the actors’ voice emission skills, their body language or stage movement abilities. He would also use stage props, stage machinery and buildings, actors’ costumes and masks, sometimes representing real individuals’ faces. An Old Comedy play, if successful, was a laughing feast for the audience.

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3 Ancient Greek Feasting It would not be much of an exaggeration to call Ancient Hellenes sympotic nations. Judging from the written word that has survived to our times, beginning with Homer through the very end of Antiquity, Hellenes centred their social lives around eating and drinking with their compatriots. Such an entertainment was held particularly by the rich or the upper class, but the guests could be virtually any citizen deemed worthy of company for some reason. The symposium (literally meaning ‘drinking together’) was of no lesser importance in the fifth century BCE Athens (the Old Comedy period), both at the level of an individual as well as that of the State. A convivium was a primarily male form of companionship, as can be expected from a male-dominated society. Men would meet in the late afternoon or early evening and dine together, which included (heavy) drinking and entertainment. Their spouses were excluded from the enterprise which would take part in the male quarters of the house. After a (multi-course) dinner, lavish sometimes but more often quite modest,8 the party proper would begin, with substantial wine drinking, song singing, intellectual discussions on virtually any topic of interest, reciting/speech competitions, live music and acrobat performance. Usually a symposiarch would be elected at the beginning of a symposium who was responsible for having wine and water mixed in the proportion he deemed appropriate, watching over the pace and order of toasts and controlling the competitions that the participants engaged in. The whole company would be reclining on couches arranged in a special shape, with small tables standing by each, on which food and drink would be displayed. The selected participants would often be joined by the friends of the invited or just chance guests. It is worth noting that the men were not devoid of female company altogether, as girl flute players, dancers and acrobats were customarily allowed in for the participants’ joy and female companionship in the form of often sophisticated and intellectually advanced “comrades”, called hetaerai, or courtesans, was a sought-after addition to many a dinner party. Another feasting occasion were state-organized festivals. All the Greek celebrations of that kind were meant to worship a particular god or gods and many of them concluded with a general feast of (meat) eating and wine drinking. An example of such a feast would be the Dionysia, a festival to celebrate the god Dionysus and the one which was primarily connected with staging of dramas (both tragedies and comedies) in Athens. One of the most important parts of the festival was a procession, a pompe, that carried Dionysus’ statue and numerous phalluses all the way to the theatre of Dionysus situated on the slope of the Acropolis. The procession was accompanied by bulls to be slaughtered before the god’s altar and whose meat would be distributed to the general populace. The second feasting

Ancient Greeks, of the classical period especially, prided themselves on being ‘moderate’ in eating and drinking, unlike ‘barbarians’, especially those to the East (e.g., Persians). 8

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aspect of the festival occurred afterwards when a komos, a procession of drinking and already drunk people, would form to parade through the streets of Athens. A number of competitions would take place during Greek festivals (perhaps all the festivals and social gatherings since Greeks were a highly competitive people), one of which, during another festival, was a wine-drinking competition in which the winner was the first man to empty a large wine-sack. Ancient Greeks certainly knew how to organize and enjoy a feast.

4 The Analysis The number of food-related metaphors and metonymies in Ancient Greek comedies is overwhelming and thus the present article naturally has to be selective. To see and appreciate the wealth of material for analysis let us for a start consider a quote from Amphictyons by Teleclides, an Old Comedy poet. (…) Every creek bed flowed with wine, barley loaves would fight with wheat breads about the lips of men begging them to gulp down the whitest loaves, if you please. Fish would come into your house, grill themselves, and then lie down on your tables. A river of broth flowed by the couches, carrying pieces of hot meat, while channels of sauces were there for those who wanted any – and no one would object when you dipped your morsel’ til it was soft and gulped it down. (…) Roasted thrushes with pastry would fly down your gullet, while about your jaws the jostling flat-buns made quite a din. (…) (fr. 1)9

Teleclides gives a description of the Golden Age10 and uses a general metonymy in which abundance of food (part) is supposed to evoke prosperity and ease of life of that time (whole). Interestingly, in order to describe the abundance of food he creatively exploits a number of ad hoc metaphors. Due to the fact that food and feasting constituted an important element of Ancient Greek culture, they were frequently used as vehicles of metonymic operations and image donors of metaphoric operations. For the same reason food and feasting were themselves also often thought of and talked about metonymically and metaphorically.

9

The translation by Storey (2011, p. 291, vol. III). The Golden Age, as part of Greek mythology, is first seen in Hesiod’s Works and Days. During that time there supposedly lived the best race of man, the golden race. The then mankind did not have to toil for food as the earth spontaneously provided it in abundance. People lived in peace, never aged and died quietly as if falling asleep. The subsequent ages represent the deterioration of mankind: silver, bronze, heroic and, current (for Hesiod) iron. The imagery of the Golden Age was a popular topic with Old Comedy authors. 10

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Food and Feasting as Metaphoric and Metonymic Targets

(1) (…) ἀkk’ oὐ cὰq ἔlahe saῦs’ ἐloῦ pέlpomsoc, ἀkkὰ lᾶkkom pίmeim, ἔpeis’ ἄideim jajῶc, Ctqajocίam sqάpefam11 Ctbaqίsidάc s’ eὐxvίac (…) He didn’t learn these things when I sent him to school but rather drinking, bad singing, Syracusan cuisine, Sybaritic feasting (...) (Aristophanes Banqueters, fr. 225)12

The first Aristophanic comedy, Banqueters, survives only in fragments. In the above one, we see the noun sqάpefa whose basic meaning is ‘table, esp. dining-table, eating-table’, but also, by metonymic extension, ‘table’ implies what is upon it, ‘meal’ (Liddell & Scott 1996, s.v. sqάpefa). It seems that Syracusan food was proverbial for luxurious food.13 Thus, in the fragment we see an example of metonymy in which Syracusan table evokes the meaning of (luxurious) cuisine and a way of eating. (2) sίϲ ἐjέqaϲe ϲuῶm, ὦ jajόdailom, ἴϲom ἴϲxi; Which of them, you poor fellow, mixed it half and half? (Archippus Amphitryon, fr. 2)14 (3) Diόmtre vaῖqe. lή si pέmse jaὶ dύo; Greetings, Dionysus, the five and two perhaps? (Eupolis Nanny-Goats, fr. 6)15

The above fragments are taken from other two Old Comedy poets, the second one being considered a classic Old Comedy author alongside Aristophanes and Cratinus. Both fragments mention a ratio of wine and water to be drunk on a given occasion. Greeks would frown upon the practice of drinking undiluted wine as being ‘barbaric’, that is a practice not belonging to their own culture. Undiluted wine was simply too strong to be drunk without exerting too hasty effects upon the drinker’s cognition and was believed to have a harmful impact on one’s mental health. As Edmonds wants it (1957, p. 319), “[t]hose who took their drinking

11

Bold font in all the original fragments and translations is the authors’ of the article. The original text and the fragment number after Kassel & Austin (1984, p. 135). The translation after Henderson (2007, p. 217). 13 cf. Liddell & Scott 1996, s.v. sqάpefa or Edmonds 1957, p. 635. See also the beginning of fragment 225 that reads: “The Sicilians and Syracusans are notorious for luxury” (Henderson 2007, p. 217). 14 The original text and the fragment number after Kassel & Austin (1991, p. 539). The translation is by Storey (2011, p. 103, vol. I). 15 The original text, the fragment number and the translation after Storey (2011, p. 56–57, vol. II). 12

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seriously drank two parts of wine to five of water (…)”, which is corroborated by another translator of Old Comedy authors, Storey (2011, p. 57, vol. II): “[a] normal ratio for wine drinking was five parts water to two parts wine (…).” Or, optionally, the usual drink could possibly be even a little less strong then that, i.e., have three parts of water to one part of wine.16 Thus, the drink in Example (2) would be unexceptionally strong and the one in Example (3) would be of normal strength, both concepts being expressed metonymically. (4) sὸm barikέx1 ὀuhaklὸm ἡ Botkὴ jakeῖ eἰ1 sὸ pqtsameῖom (…) The Council invites the King’s Eye to the Prytaneum (Aristophanes Acharnians 124–125)17

The above fragment comes from Aristophanes’ first extant comedy. In the Hellenistic world the Prytaneum was the major public hall, centre of government, repository of the sacred fire. In Athens it was situated near the Acropolis. Envoys from foreign cities and particularly worthy citizens were invited there for official meals. In the current scene a high-ranking emissary from the Persian king is being invited to such a meal upon his appearance before the Council. Interestingly, the notion of ‘meal’ or ‘eating’ is not present in the scene. In this example the place name Prytaneum metonymically evokes official meal. (5) eἶs’ ἐnέmife paqesίhei h’ ἡlῖm ὅkot1 ἐj jqibάmot boῦ1 (…) Then he threw us a party and served us up whole ox en casserole (Aristophanes Acharnians 85–86)

In the current scene, an Athenian envoy, upon his arrival back to Athens, relates the trip to the Assembly, mentioning the Persian king as a host. The verb paqesίhei, translated as ‘served up’, has the literal meaning of ‘put/stand beside’.18 A Greek

‘Wine, women and wisdom’ (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/ magazine/2017/01-02/ancient-greece-symposium-dinner-party/; access: January 10, 2018). 17 All the Acharnians excerpts are taken from Olson (2004). All the Acharnians translations, if not indicated otherwise, are by Henderson (1998a). 18 Olson (2004, p. 98), a renowned editor of Aristophanes, sees the lexeme’s meaning in this light, similarly to Abramowiczówna, the editor of the largest Greek-Polish dictionary (Abramowiczówna 1958–1965, s.v. paqasίhηli). Its English equivalent, A Greek-English Lexicon (Liddell & Scott 1996, s.v. paqasίhηli), gives a somewhat less interesting for us definition: ‘put before, serve up.’ It should be borne in mind, however, that the ‘put before’ translation should probably be viewed through our perspective, where food is placed ‘in front of’ us for us to eat it. The idea of placing food beside the eater seems to be fully corroborated in the light of the meaning of the particle paq (paqa) in the lexeme paqesίhei: its basic denotation (pertaining to the meaning of the preposition as answering the question ‘where’, of physical arrangements) is ‘by the side, beside’ (Liddell & Scott 1996, s.v. paqά). 16

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(male) would lie down on his left side to eat, thus food would be put beside him, rather than set before him on the table, like in our culture.19 Put beside is thus used metonymically here to mean serve food. There are also examples in which food and feasting are both the source and the target of metaphoric or metonymic operations. (6) oἱ bάqbaqoi cὰq ἄmdqa1 ἡcoῦmsai lόmot1 soὺ1 pkeῖrsa dtmalέmot1 uaceῖm se jaὶ pieῖm Barbarians, you see, recognize as real men only those who can gobble and guzzle the most (Aristophanes Acharnians 77–78)

In the above excerpt, the Athenian envoy we saw in Example (5) relates his oversees trip to the Assembly. The infinitive pieῖm synecdochically20 signifies ‘drinking wine’ and not drinking in general (e.g., water). This synecdochic GENERICFOR-SPECIFIC relation is corroborated by the whole tone of the utterer’s speech, centred around feasting.21 (7) ἀkk’ ἐpὶ saqίvei soὺ1 kόuot1 jqadaimέsx Let him shake his crests for salt fish (Aristophanes Acharnians 967)

In the current scene, Lamachus’ servant entreats the protagonist, Dikaiopolis, to sell him some fowl and fish for his master, a fear-inspiring warrior. Dikaiopolis vehemently objects to having anything to do to with general Lamachus and condescendingly responds by saying that the general may just as well shake his crests over salt fish.22 Salt fish here synecdochically refers to low quality, common food. sάqivo1 is ‘meat preserved by salting, picking, drying, or smoking, esp. dried or

19

Cf. Olson 2004, p. 98 footnote to v. 84–7. Synecdoche has been traditionally subsumed under metonymy (as a ‘pars pro toto’ or ‘totum pro parte’ relation). This is why examples of synecdoche are also included in the present article. Still, in recent scholarship synecdoche is also sometimes understood as being ‘independent’ from metonymy in that it is a C relation (category based) and metonymy is an E relation (based on partonomy) (cf. (Burkhardt, 1996; Nerlich & Clarke, 1999; or Nerlich, 2010; Seto, 1995, 1999)). In the present article GENERIC FOR SPECIFIC and SPECIFIC FOR GENERIC relations, being taxonomical, are referred to as synecdochic and other PART-WHOLE (partonomical) relations are referred to as metonymic. 21 E.g., ‘And when they regaled us they forced us to drink fine unmixed wine from goblets of crystal and gold.’ (v. 73–75 in Henderson’s translation; Henderson 1998a, p. 65). 22 As Sommerstein explains: ‘lit. “let him shake his crests for (= with a view to obtaining) salt fish”, i.e., “if he wants food, let him frighten the salt-fish vendors into giving it to him, because he won’t be able to frighten me”.’ (Sommerstein, 2015d, p. 204). 20

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smoked fish’ (Liddell & Scott 1996, s.v. sάqivo1). As Olson (2004, p. 309–310) notes, “[i]t was proverbially cheap (…) but appears often enough in banquet catalogues and the like (…) to show that it was regarded as cibus vilissimus.”23 (8) kacὸm saqάnaϲ pῖhi sὸm hakάϲϲiom Stir in some sea slug and drink (Ameipsias Sling, fr. 17)24

Ameipsias, a typical Old Comedy poet, although perhaps not of first rank, uses this slightly enigmatic phrase in one of his comedies. Edmonds, a classic translator of Attic Comedy, explains the fragment as meaning “to take poison.”25 Storey adds that “[a]s sea slug (lit. “sea hare”) was a known poison, this may just be a comic way of saying “drop dead!” (…)”26 Thus, drinking a sea-slug potion synecdochically refers to taking poison here.

4.2

Food and Feasting as Metonymic Vehicles or Metaphoric Image Donors

(9) (…) ἐloὶ d’ ἐpέsqewam oἱ heoὶ rpomdὰ1 poῆrai pqὸ1 Kajedailomίot1 lόmῳ To me have the gods commissioned the making of a treaty with the Spartans, and to me alone (Aristophanes Acharnians 51–52)

With the above fragment we are back to Acharnians, where the speaker, Amphitheos, boasts that the gods have chosen him as a peace-making envoy, he himself being immortal due to having deities in his family tree. Dikaiopolis, fed up with the war’s inconveniences and tired of his co-citizens’ inertia to end them, hires Amphitheos to negotiate for himself a private peace with the Spartans. The metonymic nature of Example (9) lies in the fact that the phrase rpomdὰ1 poῆrai has the meaning of “to pour libation (make a wine-offering)” and, by extension, “to make a peace treaty”, where wine-offering is an essential part of any peace-making (Liddell & Scott 1996, s.v. rpomdή). The overlapping meanings of the phrase are used throughout the play and especially in the scene where Amphitheos comes back with three peace treaties to offer to Dikaiopolis in the form of three wines of

i.e., most plain food. Cf. also Sommerstein’s remark: ‘[s]alt-fish was cheap and despised (…).’ (Sommerstein, 2015d, p. 204). 24 The original text and the fragment number after Kassel & Austin (1991, p. 205). The translation after Storey (2011, p. 77, vol. I). 25 The translator adds that the speaker is perhaps an Ionian doctor (Edmonds, 1957, p. 483). 26 Storey 2011, p. 77, vol. I. 23

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different tastes. Dikaiopolis sips from each and chooses the last one, the best in taste (smelling of nectar and ambrosia), most likely well-matured (perhaps thirty-year-old?), which metaphorically represents a long-lasting thirty-year-old peace (the best choice out of the three peace periods offered to him: 5, 10 and 30 years) (v. 195–200). (10) soῦsom lesὰ Risάkjot1 ἔpimom sὸm vqόmom All the while I was drinking with Sitalces (Aristophanes Acharnians 141)

Here we see another envoy’s report upon arriving home, who boasts about having had rather close relations with Sitalces (a famous king of part of Thrace on the Black See, an ally of Athens). In his utterance drinking synecdochically evokes all the activities connected with feasting. (11) pqόbaimέ mtm, ὦ htlέ∙ cqallὴ d’ aὑsηΐ. ἕrsηja1; oὐj eἶ jasapiὼm Eὐqipίdηm; Forward now, my soul; there’s your mark. You hesitate? Won’t you get going, now that you’ve downed a draught of Euripides? (Aristophanes Acharnians 483–484)

Example (11) is a very interesting, multifaceted figure. To appreciate its complexity, a word should be devoted to the broader context of the scene. Dikaiopolis, the protagonist making a private peace with the enemy in Example (9), finds himself in a perilous situation. His ‘treason’ does not escape the chorus consisting of a number of robust Sparta-loathing peasants, Acharnians, who threaten to kill him. He tricks them into an agreement according to which the chorus will hear Dikaiopolis and kill him only if he fails to persuade them. In order to prepare himself, the protagonist visits the dramatist Euripides and swindles him out of some stage props the playwright has used in his plays, particularly the beggar garb his characters allegedly wear. Thus clad, Dikaiopolis faces the Acharnians and delivers a speech in which he partially defends the Spartans and blames the Athenians for the outbreak of the war. Figuratively, what we see in Example (11) is an interplay of metonymy and metaphor. First, there is a metonymy reducing the ‘Euripides’ domain to his tragedy characters and finally to his characters’ clothes. Then a metaphor comes to the fore, in which ‘downing a draught of Euripides’ is not unlike drinking some wine. On top of that, one could notice here perhaps an echo of a supposedly common practice in Ancient Greece where fighting cocks would be fed garlic before the fight to boost their spirits. If so, another metaphor (and metonymy) could be found here: downing a gulp of Euripides would be very much like eating some garlic before a

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fight.27 The multifaceted figure may be in short presented in the following way: EURIPIDES = TYPICAL CHARACTERS OF HIS PLAYS = THE CHARACTERS’ CLOTHES (beggar garb) (WHOLE FOR PART)—metonymy 1; PUTTING ON THE CLOTHES (beggar garb) is like DRINKING WINE—metaphor 1; DRINKING WINE is like EATING GARLIC—metaphor 2; EATING GARLIC = BOOSTING SPIRITS (CAUSE FOR EFFECT) = PREPARING FOR THE FIGHT (PART FOR WHOLE)—metonymy 2. (12) (…) jaὶ pqώηm c’ ἐloῦ lᾶfam lelavόso1 ἐm Pύkῳ Kajxmijήm, pamotqcόsasά px1 paqadqalὼm ὑuaqpάra1 aὐsὸ1 paqέhηje sὴm ὑp’ ἐloῦ lelaclέmηm Yes, and the other day, when I’d kneaded a Laconian barley-cake at Pylos, he quite brazenly ran past me, snatched up the cake, and served it up himself – the one I had kneaded! (Aristophanes Knights 54–57)28

Knights is the second extant comedy by Aristophanes. In Example (12), the speaker, Demosthenes, one of the prominent Athenian generals, accuses the popular party leader, Cleon (called Paphlagon in the comedy), of dishonestly using his leadership by employing a ready-made strategic plan invented by Demosthenes. The idea was to capture the island of Sphacteria form the Spartan hands by attacking it from the promontory at Pylos (in the Peloponnese, the Spartan domain). The bold plan was already being employed and Cleon took it over when he became leader of the expedition, succeeded and called himself a victor. Almost the whole credit went to Cleon, who became a hero. The barley-cake in the example metaphorically refers to the victorious plan, the snatching-up of the cake represents the intellectual property theft and serving it up to himself29—taking credit for the deed.

27

Sommerstein (2015d, p. 179) observes the metaphor in this fragment of the comedy. Interestingly, Olson fails to see the figurative relationship between ‘Euripides’ and ‘garlic’ here on the grounds that Dikaiopolis is not preparing for combat but for a race (Olson 2004, p. 197–8, footnote to v. 483–5). However, Dikaiopolis is preparing for a serious argument with the chorus, so the combat idea does not seem altogether wrong, especially that Dikaiopolis is aware of what he risks meaning to defend the Spartans. The soliloquy he delivers later (497–556) would indeed resemble a combat rather than a race, it seems, and the chorus’s victory means Dikaiopolis’ death. Also, the very beginning of the quoted fragment is not unlike a hortative song a soldier would chant before battle. 28 The original text and the verse number after Henderson (1998a, p. 236). The translation by Sommerstein (2015a, p. 15–16). 29 Interestingly, the verb for ‘serve up’ used here, paqέhηje (paqasίhηli), is the very verb analyzed in Example (5).

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(13) ἐpίparsa keίna1 dηliόpqah’ ὁ bάrjamo1 He’s been licking, the malignant stool-pigeon, at confiscated cakes dotted with pickle (Aristophanes Knights 103)30

The above fragment is another violent attack upon the politician Cleon. In fact, this is the leitmotif of the comedy Knights, where he is ridiculed on various planes, particularly accused of a whole array of misdeeds, such as persecution of his political adversaries, theft, embezzlement or manipulating of the Athenian people as well as having utterly negative traits, such as low social status, lack of true political skills etc. Example (13) implies that Cleon is personally responsible for the seizure of certain citizens’ property and has financially benefited from it. The confiscated cakes,31 metaphorically refers to the confiscated property and licking them signifies taking part in the share. (14) oὐdὲ lὴm oὐd’ ἐm rekίmῳ roὐrsὶm oὐd’ ἐm pηcάmῳ∙ You haven’t even got past the soup course yet, or the salad either (Aristophanes Wasps 480)32

The excerpt is taken from yet another comedy by Aristophanes, produced in the year 422. The utterance comes from the chorus who argue with one of the main characters of the play, Bdelycleon (whose name is sometimes translated as Loathecleon—a citizen who dislikes the politician Cleon). The chorus consists of court jurors who adore Cleon, deeming him the guardian of Athenian democracy. Bdelycleon has enough of the squabble, but the chorus admonish him with a metaphoric phrase expressing the idea that the trouble Bdelycleon finds himself in now is in fact laughable in comparison with what lies ahead of him,33 and they even resort to open threats two verses down the text. The meaning of the idiom is expressed through food imagery. rέkimom is ‘celery’ and pήcamom can be rendered as ‘rue’—‘any strongly scented plant of the genus Ruta, esp. R. graveolens, having yellow flowers and leaves formerly used in

30

The original text and the verse number after Henderson (1998a, p. 240). The translation by Sommerstein (2015a, p. 21). 31 ἐpίparsa—‘Greek epipasta, cakes made of fine meal and sprinkled with a black, salty sauce.’ (Sommerstein, 2015a, p. 150); ἐpίparsom—‘a kind of cake with confits (or the like) upon it’ (Liddell & Scott 1996, s.v. ἐpίparla); dηliόpqah’ (dηliopqᾶsa)—‘goods confiscated by the State and put up for sale’ (Liddell & Scott 1996, s.v. dηlioeqceίη, Abramowiczówna 1958– 1965, s.v. dηliopqᾶsa). 32 The original text, the verse number and the translation after Henderson (1998b, p. 282, 283). 33 Sommerstein (2015c; 186) explains the phrase, ‘(…) the meaning is evidently that what is happening to Bdelycleon now is barely even a foretaste of what is going to happen to him later. (…).’ His rendition of the idiom is as follows: ‘Oh no, you haven’t even got to the celery yet, or the rue either’ (2015c: 51).

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medicine’ (Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. rue2). One interpretation would be that given in Liddell & Scott 1996 (s.v. pήcamom): oὐd’ ἐm rekίmῳ oὐd’ ἐm pηcάmῳ is proverbial, meaning ‘scarcely at the edge or beginning of a thing, because these herbs were planted for borders in gardens.’34 Another reading of the phrase in question would use eating imagery. A poor Greek, besides cakes and bread, would eat more of plants on an everyday basis than their better-off co-citizens, but did not have much of variety here due to the poor soil of Attica and high prices of many vegetables. Of course in rural areas occasional fowl, pig or game were to be enjoyed. A rich Athenian would have, however, animal flesh as a staple, together with bread and cakes. Meat was a true core of a meal, especially an afternoon or evening one. Various green foods were perhaps appetizers and additives to the main course: meat.35 One banquet described at a much later time, third century CE, yet perhaps not altogether differing from the more lavish banquets of the fifth century BCE Athens, may corroborate this interpretation. The Greek rhetorician and grammarian Athenaeus wrote Deipnosophistae in which he, among multiple other topics, discusses culinary tastes of Greeks (both present and past). In book II, he describes the menu for a banquet. Fruit and vegetables are considered starters, and the main course consists of various meats. Whichever interpretation out of the two given above we would prefer to subscribe to, the metaphor remains unchanged nevertheless. (15) ἢm d’ ἐcὼ eὖ pqάna1 ἔkhx pάkim, ἕnes’ ἐm ὥqᾳ jokkύqam lecάkηm jaὶ jόmdtkom ὄwom ἐp’ aὐsῇ But if I return with success, you’ll very soon be enjoying a great big bun, topped off with a nice knuckle sandwich (Aristophanes Peace 122–3)36

Trygaeus, the protagonist of Peace, flies up to heaven on a dung-beetle (a metaphoric parody of Bellerophon’s flight on Pegasus) to question Zeus why he means to destroy Hellas with war. When ascending, he converses with his daughters and shouts to them that now in fact there is scarcity of food and money at

34 This reading is rejected by Sommerstein (2015c, p. 186–7): ‘The scholia offer two explanations of why “in the celery and rue” should mean “just at the beginning”: (i) in herb gardens celery and rue were planted at the front, (ii) new-born babies were laid on celery (on this view the mention of rue is an irrelevant addition for comic effect). Neither explanation is convincing: (i) has the air of an ad hoc invention, and (ii) is open to the objection that the main ritual associations of celery were with death and mourning (…) and it was sacred to the underworld gods (…). Probably fifth-century Athenians had no idea what the origin of the idiom was.’ 35 Cf. Flacelière (1985, p. 149–151); Winniczuk (1983, p. 352–363). 36 The original text, the verse number and the translation after Henderson (1998b, p. 442, 443).

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home, but it will soon change if he successfully comes back (with peace). The idea is conveyed with food imagery: a great big bun metonymically evokes prosperity.37

5 Summary The language of Ancient Greece, being deeply embedded in the culture of that time, abounds in metaphors and metonymies related to food and feasting. As eating and drinking were important parts of social life in Ancient Greece, they were frequently used as metonymic vehicles and metaphoric image donors for other spheres of life. On the other hand, the subject matter was itself accessed metaphorically or metonymically as well. The examples analyzed in the article come from a number of Ancient Greek comedies representing the Old Attic Comedy period. The wealth of material for analysis available in them is overwhelming and the selection of examples was naturally based on purely subjective criteria. Due to understandable space restrictions the authors did not aim at presenting a comprehensive analysis, but only at illustrating a certain phenomenon.

References Abramowiczówna, Z. (Ed.). (1958–1965). Słownik grecko-polski. Warszawa: Panstwowe ́ wydawnictwo naukowe. Barcelona, A. (Ed.). (2003a). Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads. A cognitive perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Barcelona, A. (2003b). Introduction. The cognitive theory of metaphor and metonymy. In Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads (pp. 1–28). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Barcelona, A. (2003c). The case for a metonymic basis of pragmatic inferencing: Evidence from jokes and funny anecdotes. Metonymy and pragmatic inferencing (pp. 81–102). Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Barcelona, A. (2003d). Clarifying and applying the notions of metaphor and metonymy within cognitive linguistics. Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast, (pp. 207–277).

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One could argue that there is one more food-related metonymic expression in the fragment, i.e., ‘nice knuckle sandwich.’ Perhaps so, but it is not certain. Sommerstein (2015b, p. 15) translates the phrase jaὶ jόmdtkom ὄwom ἐp’ aὐsῇ as ‘and as savoury to go with it – a bunch of fives.’ He explains the fragment as follows (Sommerstein 2015b, p. 140), ‘a bunch of fives – Greek kondulon “a knuckle, a punch”, with a pun on kandaulos, a culinary delicacy of Lydian origin made of many ingredients (…).’ This reading is corroborated by Abramowiczówna (1958–1965, s.v. jόmdtko1). She interprets the passage (jokkύqam jaὶ jόmdtkom ὄwom ἐp’ aὐsῇ) as a proverb and gives its translation as ‘na pierwsze bułkę, na drugie szturchańca’ (‘a roll for the first course, a pushing for the second’—translation by the authors of the article). Henderson’s translation above seems to mean ‘knuckle’ as ‘a piece of meat with a joint in it.’ Sommerstein’s and Abramowiczówna’s understanding of the expression, however, may possibly be also hidden in the lexeme ‘knuckle’ here.

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Waldemar Szefliński is Teaching Assistant in the Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. His current research projects include: Semantic-derivational Analysis of the Anthroponyms in Aristophanes’ Acharnians and their translations into English and Polish (doctoral thesis—in progress); Metonymy in Aristophanes; Hate Speech in Old Attic Comedy. Wojciech Wachowski is Assistant Professor in the Institute of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland. He has published on various topics in linguistics, particularly cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics. His main research interests include metonymy and metaphor, and teacher and translator training. His recent book publications include the co-edited volumes Moving Texts, Migrating People and Minority Languages (2017) and Zooming In: Micro-Scale Perspectives on Cognition, Translation and Cross-Cultural Communication (2017). His monograph, Towards a Better Understanding of Metonymy, is forthcoming in 2019.