Transcript LANGUAGE IN LITERATURE

LANGUAGE IN LITERATURE
BBL 3207
SEMESTER 1 2012/2013
DR. IDA BAIZURA BAHAR
2. Graphological Level
 Design, layout, spelling and lettering
 The typographical arrangement of words is as important in
conveying the intended effect
she loves me
she loves me not
she loves
she loves me
she
she loves
she
- Emmet Williams
3. Grammatical Level
 Grammar itself is also composed of a number of levels.
Sentences
composed of one or more clauses (or
"simple sentences").
Clauses
composed of one or more phrases.
Phrases
Words
composed of one or more words.
Words
 Word class:
 noun (N),
 verb (V),
 adjective (A)
 adverb (Adv).
3. Grammatical Level
 Sentence structure:
 Single – a sentence with only one verb group
 Compound – sentences / clauses linked simply (and, but)
 Complex – sentences where subordinate clauses are bound together
by more complex connectives and punctuation
 Consider the sentence,
 'The audience might like the play but I hate it'.
 Using round brackets to indicate the phrases and square
brackets to indicate the clauses, we can show the sentence's
structure as follows:
 [ ( The audience) ( might like ) ( the play ) ] [ but ( I ) ( hate )
( it ) ]
 The sentence thus consists of two coordinated clauses (ie
two simple sentences joined together as one sentence). In
the first clause each constituent phrase consists of two
words, and in the second clause each phrase consists of one
word.
3. Grammatical Level
 Identifying elements of simple sentences  functions of words
and phrases in sentences: subject, predicate, object, complement,
adverbial
Predicators
consist of verb phrases (e.g. 'ate', 'had been eating', 'is', 'was being') which can be
used to express tense and aspect)
function as the centre of English sentences and clauses, around which everything
else revolves they express actions (e.g. 'hit'), processes (e.g. 'changed', 'decided')
and linking relations (e.g. 'is', 'seemed') they are the most obligatory of English
sentence constituents Note that we use the term 'predicator' to be able to distinguish
the form-property (VP: verb/verb phrase) from its function in the sentence so that this
difference can parallel those for the other SPOCA elements (see below)
Examples Mary loves John (transitive predicator), John had been running
(intransitive predicator), John seems quiet (linking predicator)
Subjects
Objects
consist of noun phrases (NPs) (e.g. 'a student', 'John')
function as
the topic of the sentence, and the 'doer' of any action expressed by a dynamic
predicator and normally come before that predicator subjects are the next most
obligatory element after predicators
Examples Mary loves John, The exhausted student had been running, John seems
quiet
consist of noun phrases (NPs)
function as
the 'receiver' of any action expressed by a dynamic predicator, where relevant and
normally come immediately after that predicator
objects are obligatory with transitive predicators (but do not occur with intransitive or
linking predicators)
Examples Mary loves John, The exhausted student had eaten all his food, Mary has
the biggest ice cream
Complements consist of noun phrases (e.g. 'a student') or adjective phrases
(e.g. 'very happy') and normally come immediately after a linking
predicator (when they are subject complements) or an object (if
they are object complements) Complements are obligatory with
linking predicators
function as
the specification of some attribute or role of the subject (usually) or
the object (sometimes) of the sentence
Examples John is a student, The exhausted student is ill, Mary
made her mother very angry
Adverbials
consist of adverb phrases (AdvPs: e.g. 'soon', 'then' 'very quickly',
prepositional phrases (PPs: e.g. 'up the road', 'in a minute' or noun
phrases (e.g. 'last Tuesday', 'the day before last')
function as
the specification of a condition related to the predicator (e.g. when,
where or how the predicator process occurred)
adverbs are the most optional of the SPOCA elements and can
normally occur in more positions than the other SPOCA elements,
though the most normal position for most adverbials is at the ends
of clauses
Examples Then John walked up the road, The exhausted student
became ill last Thursday, Next Mary stupidly made her mother very
angry on her wedding anniversary
Words and Tropes: Transference of Meaning
 Trope: (Greek tropein, to turn) involves a deviation
from the ordinary and principal signification or meaning of a
word. Metaphor, metonymy, personification, simile,
and synecdoche are sometimes referred to as the principal
tropes.
 Involves transference:
 Trope—transference of meaning
 Scheme—transference of order
More on Foregrounding,
Deviation and Parallelism
Foregrounding:
some parts of texts had more effect on readers than others in terms of
interpretation, because the textual parts were linguistically deviant or
specially patterned in some way, thus making them psychologically
salient (or 'foregrounded') for readers (Short 1996)
Deviation:
exploits choice and frustrates expectations that are set up either by the
linguistic system or by changing the pattern set up within the poem at
some expected point (Herman 1998).
Parallelism:
defined as where some features are held constant, usually structural
features, while others, usually lexical items - for example, words or
idioms - are varied (Short 1996).
Foregrounding
 Earlier it has been stated how foregrounding , deviation and
parallelism are special characteristics of literary language or
contribute to the literariness of language.
 One way to produce foregrounding in a text, then, is through
linguistic deviation. Another way is to introduce extra linguistic
patterning into a text. The most common way of introducing this
extra patterning is by repeating linguistic structures more often
than we would normally expect to make parts of texts PARALLEL
with one another.
 This: linguistic deviation + lingustic paralellism = produce the
effect of foregrounding
Sound Parallelism
 how sound patterns contribute to the meaning and effects of
poems: alliteration, assonance and rhyme,
 and also how particular sounds and groups of sounds 'mimic'
phenomena in the world to create effects like onomatopoeia
Sound Parallelism
•Words that sound like what they mean
•Most obvious examples are onomatopoeic:
‘hiss’ or ‘shush’
Example:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
(John Keats, 'To Autumn')