Ëåêöèè.Îðã


Ïîèñê:




B) Lexical and Syntactical Features of Verse 3 ñòðàíèöà




On the other hand, prose conversation between tragic characters retains much of the syllabic quality of blank verse, e.g. the conver­sation between Polonius and Hamlet ("Hamlet." Act II, Sc. 2).

A popular form of entertainment at the courts of Elizabeth and the Stuarts was the masque. The origin of the court masque must have been th£ performances presented at court on celebrated occasions, as a coronation, a peer's-marriage, the birth of a prince and similar events. These performances were short sketches with allusions to Greek and, Latin mythology, allegoric in nature, frequently accompanied by song and music and performed by the nobility. These masques are believed to be the earliest forms of what is now known as "spoken drama." The ref­erence to the events of the day and allegoric representation of the members of the nobility called forth the use of words and phrases alien to poetic diction, and passages of prose began to flood into the text of the plays.

But the drama of the seventeenth century still holds fast to poetic

diction and up to the decline of the theatre, which was caused by the Puritan Government Act of 1642, a spoken drama as we know it to-day had not seen the stage.

The revival of drama began only in the second half of the 18th century. But the ultimate shaping of the play as an independent form of literary work with its own laws of functioning, with its own characteristic language features was actually completed only at the end of the 19th century.

The natural conventionality of any literary work is most obvious in plays. People are made to talk to each other in front of an audience, and yet as if there were no audience. Dialogue, which, as has been pointed out, is by its very nature ephemeral, spontaneous, fleeting, is made last­ing. It is intended to be reproduced many times by different actors with different interpretations. The dialogue loses its colloquial essence and remains simply conversation in form. The individualization of each character's speech then becomes of paramount importance because it is the idiosyncrasy of expression which to some extent reveals the inner, psychological and intellectual traits of the characters. The playwright seeks to approximate a natural form of dialogue, a form as close to natu­ral living dialogue as the literary norms will allow. But at the same time he is bound by the aesthetico-cognitive function of the belles-lettres style and has to mould the conversation to suit the general aims of this style.

Thus the language of plays is a stylized type of the spoken variety of language. What then is this process of stylization that the language of plays undergoes? In what language peculiarities is the stylization

revealed?

The analysis of the language texture of plays has shown that the most characteristic feature here is, to use the term of the theory of in­formation, redundancy of information caused by the necessity to amp­lify the utterance. This is done for the sake of the audience. It has al­ready been pointed out that the spoken language tends to curtail utter­ances, sometime^ simplify ing the syntax to fragments of sentences with­out even showing the character of their interrelation. •

In plays the curtailment of utterances is not so extensive'as it is in natural dialogue. Besides, in lively conversation, even when a pro­longed utterance, a monologue, takes place, it is interspersed with the interlocutor's "signals of attention", as they may be called, for example: yes, yeah, oh, That's right,,so, I see;good, yes I know, oh-oh,fine, Oh, my goodness, oh dear, well, well^wgll, Well, I never!, and the like.

In plays these "signals of attention" are irrelevant and therefore done away with. The monologue in plays is never interrupted by any such exclamatory words on the part.of the person to whom the speech is addressed. Further, in plays the characters' utterances are generally much longer than in ordinary conversation.

Here is a short example of a dialogue between two characters from Bernard Shaw's play "Heartbreak House":

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER: Nurse, who is this misguided and unfortunate young lady?

NURSE: She says Miss Hessy invited her, sir.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER: And had she no friend, no parents to warn her against my daughter's invitations? This is a pretty sort of house, by heavens! A young and attractive lady is invited here. Her luggage is left on these steps, for hours; and she herself is deposited in the poop and abandoned, tired and starving..."

This passage is typical in many ways. First of all, the matter-of-fact dialogue between the captain and the nurse gradually flows into a mon­ologue in which elements of the spoken language and of emotive prose are merged. The monologue begins with the conjunction 'and' which serves to link the preceding question to the monologue. The question after 'and' is more of a "question-in-the-narrative" than a real question: the captain does not expect an answer and proceeds with his monologue. Then after an exclamatory 'This is a pretty sort of house, by heavens!', which is actual, common colloquial, there again comes an utterance intended to inform the audience of the Captain's attitude towards the House and the household. Mark also the professionalism 'poop' used to characterize the language of Shotover, a retired ship's captain. In fact, there is no dialogue, or, as Prof. Jakubinsky has it, a "false dialogue", or "monological dialogue", the nurse's remark being a kind of linking sentence between the two parts of the captain's monologue. These linking remarks serve to enliven the monologue, thus making it easier to grasp the meaning of the utterance.

The monological character of the dialogue in plays becomes ap­parent also by the fact that two or more questions may be asked one af­ter another, as in the following excerpts:

1. "LADY BRITOMART: Do you suppose this wicked and immoral tradition can be kept up for ever? Do you pretend that Stephen could not carry on the foundry just as well as all the oth­er sons of big business houses?"

2. "BARBARA: Dolly: were you really in earnest about it? Would you have joined if you had never seen me?" (Shaw)

Needless to say, in ordinary conversation we never use a succession of questions. Generally only one, perhaps two, questions are asked at a time, and if more are asked—then we already have a kind of emotion­al narrative; not a dialogue in the exact meaning of the word.

In ordinary conversation we generally find "sequence sentences" connected by "sequence signals". l These signals help^to establish the logical reference to what was said before, thus linking all sequential series of sentences into one whole.

These sequence signals are mostly pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, as in:

"The boy has just brought the evening paper. It is at the door," or: "Up to 1945 L. was with Johnson. Since he has worked with us." It must be remarked in passing that almost any lively dialogue will hold a sequence of sentences for only a short span, the nature of lively

These also are terms suggested by Charles Fries.

dialogue allowing digressions from the starting point. How often do we hear the phrase: "What was I going to say?" or "What was I driving at?" "How did we come to talk about this?"—to ascertain the initial topic of conversation which has been forgotten.

This is not the case in plays. The sequence of sentences reflecting the sequence of thought, being directed by the purport of the writer, will not allow any digressions from the course taken, unless this was the deliberate intention of the playwright. Therefore, unlike.the real, natural spoken variety of language, the language of plays is already purposeful. The sequence signals, which are not so apparent in lively conversation, become conspicuous in the language of plays. Here is an illustrative example of a span of thought expressed in a number of sentences all linked by the pronoun he and all referring to the first word of the utterance 'Dunn' which, in its turn, hooks the utterance to the preceding sentence:

"THE CAPTAIN: Dunn!. I had a boatswain whose name was Dunn, He was originally a pirate in China, He set up as a ship's chandler with stores which I have every reason to believe he stole from me. No doubt he became rich. Are you his daughter?"

The degree to which the norms of ordinary colloquial language are converted into those of the language of plays, that is, the degree to which "the spoken language is made literary" varies at different periods in the de­velopment of drama and depends also on the idiosyncrasies of the play­wright himself. Here are two illustrations, one taken from Oliver Goldsmith's play "The Good-Natured Man", an 18th century play, and the other from H. Pinter's play "The Birthday Party", a play of our time.

"MR. CROAKER:.. But can anything be more absurd, than to double*our distresses by our apprehensions, and put it in the power of every low fellow that can scrawl ten words of wretched spelling, to torment us?"

Compare this utterance with the following:

"GOLDBERG: What's your name now? *

STANLEY: Joe Soarp.

GOLDBERG: Is the number 846 possible or necessary? STANLEY: Neither.

GOLDBERG: Wrong! Is the number 846 possible or necessary? STANLEY: Both."

- Almost the whole play is composed of such short questions and an­swers tending to reproduce an actual communicative process where the sense is.vague to the outsider. Considerable effort on the part of- the audience is sometimes necessary in order to follow the trend of the con­versation and decode the playwright's purport. '

It may be remarked in passing that there is an analogous tendency in modern emotive prose where dialogue occupies considerable space.

In some of the novels it takes up three or four pages running, thus resembl­ing a play.

In summing up, it will not come amiss to state that any presentation of a play is an aesthetic procedure and the language of plays is of the type which is meant to be reproduced. Therefore, even when the language of a play approximates that of a real dialogue, it will none the less be "stylized". The ways and means this stylization is carried out are dif­ficult to observe without careful consideration. But they are there, and specification of these means will be a valuable contribution to linguistic science.

B. PUBLICISTS STYLE

The publicist i*c s tó I e of language became discernible as a sepa­rate style in the middle of the 18th century. It also falls into three va­rieties, each having its own distinctive features. Unlike other styles, the publicistic style has a spoken variety, namely, the î r a tor i ñ a I sub-style. The development of radio and television has brought into being another new spoken variety, namely, the radio and TV ñ î ò ò å n-t a r y. The other two substyles are the essay (moral, philosophical, lit­erary) and journalistic articles (political, social, economic) in newspapers, journals and magazines. Book reviews in journals, newspapers and magazines and also pamphlets are generally included among essays.

The general aim of publicistic style, which makes it stand out as a separate style, is to exert a constant and deep influence on public opin­ion, to convince the reader or the listener that the interpretation given by the writer or the speaker is the only correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech, essay or article not merely through logical argumentation but through emotional appeal as well. This brain-washing function is most effective in oratory, for here the most powerful instrument of persuasion, the human voice, is brought into play.

Due to its characteristic combination of logical argumentation and emotional appeal, publicistic style has features in common with the style of scientific prose, on the one hand, and that of emotive prose, on.the other. Its coherent and logical syntactical structure, with an expanded system of connectives and its careful paragraphing, makes it similar to scientific prose. Its emotional appeal is generally achieved by the use of words with emotive meaning, the use of imagery and other stylistic devices as in emotive prose; but the stylistic devices used in publicistic style are not fresh or genuine.- The individual element essential to the belles-lettres style is, as a rule, little in evidence here. This is in keeping with the general character of the style.

The manner of presenting ideas, however, brings this style closer to that of belles-lettres, in this case to emotive prose, as it is to a certain extent individual. Naturally, of course, essays and speeches have greater individuality than newspaper or magazine articles where the individual element is generally toned down and limited by the requirements of the style,

Further, publicistic style is characterized by brevity of expression. In some varieties of this style it becomes a leading feature, an important linguistic means. In essays brevity sometimes becomes epigrammatic.

ORATORY AND SPEECHES

The oratorical s ty I e of language is the oral subdivision of the publicistic style. It has already been pointed out that persuasion is the most obvious purpose of oratory.

"Oratorical speech", writes A. Potebnya, "seeks not only to secure the understanding and digesting of the idea, but also serves * simultaneously as a spring setting off a mood (which is the aim) that may lead to action." l

Direct contact with the listeners permits a combination of the syn­tactical, lexical and phonetic peculiarities of both the written and spoken varieties of language. In its leading features, however, oratorical style belongs to the written variety of language, though it is modified by the oral form of the utterance and the use of gestures. Certain typical fea­tures of the spoken variety of speech present in this style are: direct ad­dress to the audience (ladies and gentlemen, honourable member(s), the use of the 2nd person pronoun you, etc.), sometimes contractions (/'//, won't, haven't, isn't and,others) and the use of colloquial words.

This style is evident in speeches on political and social problems of the day, in orations and addresses on solemn occasions, as public weddings, funerals and jubilees, in sermons and debates and also in the speeches'of counsel and judges in courts of law.

Political speeches fall into two categories: parliamentary debates, and speeches at rallies, congresses, meetings and election campaigns.

Sermons deal mostly with religious subjects, ethics and morality; sometimes nowadays they take up social and political problems as well.

Orations on solemn public occasions are typical specimens of this style and not a few of their word sequences and phrases are ready-made phrases or cliches.

The sphere of application of oratory is confined to an appeal to an audience and therefore crucial issues in such spheres as science, art, literature, or business relations are not touched upon except perhaps by allusion..If such ðãîÛ¸òç are dealt with in oratorical style the ef­fect is humorous. The following extract from "Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" by Charles Dickens is ^ parody of an oration.

— "But I trust, Sir", said Pott, "that I have never abused the enormous power I wield. I trust, Sir, that I have never point­ed the noble instrument which is placed in my hands, against the sacred bosom of private life, of the tender breast of individual reputation;— I trust, Sir, that I have devoted my energies to—to endeavours—humble they may be, humble I know they are—to instil those principles of—which—are—."

— Here the editor of the Eatonswill Gazette appearing to ram­ble, Mr. Pickwick came to his relief, and said — "Certainly."—

The stylistic devices employed in oratorical style are determined by the conditions of communication. If the desire of the speaker is to rouse the audience and to keep it in suspense, he will use various traditional stylistic devices. But undue prominence given to,the form may lead to an exaggerated use of these devices, to embellishment.

Tradition is very powerful in oratorical style and the 16th century rhetorical principles laid down by Thomas Wilson in his "Arte of Rhe-torique" are sometimes still used in modern oratory, though, on the whole, modern oratory tends to lower its key more and more, confining itself to a quiet business-like exposition of ideas. Stylistic devices are closely interwoven and mutually complementary thus building up an intricate pattern. For example, antithesis is framed by parallel construc­tions, which, in their turn, are accompanied by repetition, while climax can be formed by repetitions of different kinds.

As the audience rely only on memory, the speaker often resorts to repetitions to enable his listeners to follow him and retain the main points of his speech. Repetition is also resorted to in order to convince the audience, to add weight to the speaker's opinion.

The following extract from the speech of the American Confederate general, A. P. Hill, on the ending of the Civil War in the U.S.A. is an example of anaphoric repetition:

"It is high time this people had recovered from the passions of war. It is high time that counsel were taken from statesmen” not demagogues'... It is high time the people of the North and the South understood each other and adopted means to inspire confidence in each other."

Further, anadiplosis is used:

"The South will not secede again. That was her great folly— folly against her own interest, not wrong against you.

A mere repetition of the same idea and in the same linguistic form may bore- the audience and destroy the speaker-audience contact, there­fore synonymic phrase repetition is used instead, thus fill'ing up the speech with details and embellishing it, as in this excerpt from a speech on Robert Burns:

"For Burns exalted our race, he hallowed Scotland and the Scottish tongue. Before his time we had f&r a long period been scarcely recognized', we had been falling out of the recollection of the world. From the time of the Union of the Crowns, and still more from the legislative union, Scotland had lapsed into obscuri­ty. Except for an occasional riot or a Jacobite rising, her exist­ence was almost forgotten."

Here synonymic phrase repetition ('been scarcely recognized', 'falling out of the recollection of the world', 'had lapsed into obscurity1, 'her existence was almost forgotten') is coupled with climax.

Repetition can be regarded as the most typical stylistic device of English oratorical style. Almost any piece of oratory will have parallel constructions, antithesis, suspense, climax, rhetorical questions and questions-in-the-narrative. It will be no exaggeration to say that almost all the typical syntactical stylistic devices can be found in English ora­tory. Questions are most frequent because they promote closer contact with the audience. The change of intonation breaks the monotony of the intonation pattern and revives the attention of the listeners.

The desire of the speaker to convince and to rouse his audience re­sults in the use of simile and metaphor, but these are generally traditio­nal ones, as fresh and genuine stylistic devices may divert the attention of the listeners away from the main point of the speech. Besides, unex­pected and original images are more difficult to grasp and the process takes time. If a genuine metaphor is used by an orator, it is usually a sustained one, as a series of related images is easier to grasp and facilitates the conception of facts identified one with another.

Allusions in oratorical style depend on the content of the speech and the level of the audience.

Special obligatory forms open up and end an oration, e.g. My Lords; Mr. President; Mr. Chairman; Your Worship; Ladies and Gentlemen, etc. At the end of his speech the speaker usually thanks the audience for their attention by saying: Thank you or Thank you very much. Ex­pressions of direct address may be repeated in the course of the speech and can be expressed differently: dear friends, my friends, Mark youl, Mindl

Here is a sample of the speech made by a member of the House of

Commons in Parliament in April 1956 when the problem of air pollution

was discussed. It is an ordinary speech almost devoid of any signs of

elevation so typical when the orator tries to convince the audience.

"There has been a tremendous change in the Minister's attitude

since the Bill was first brought Jo the House. When we embarked

upon the Committee stage we were begging for bread and he gave

us a stone. Now, seemingly, when we are coming to the end of

, the feast he is putting many sweats in front of us. The Minister

hopes that we shall accept this proposal without too critical an

examination. While welcoming the Minister's proposals about

the Clean Air Council up to a poftit, there should be no interference

with the council's accountability to Parliament because the

chairman of the council will be the Minister.

When the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) intro­duced a Private Bill, the Minister consulted at great length with interested bodies, and particularly with local authorities. It is within my knowledge that during those consultations sugges­tions were made to him by people who had practical experience. Those suggestions have not been accepted and woven into the Bill. I do not want the Clean Air Council to become a kind of smokescreen behind which the Minister makes a report to his own liking and which may contain views at variance with those of members of the council,

It is essential, if the council is to be effective, that it includes people who are interested and who have the knowledge and who have undertaken the scientific research involved. It must be remembered that they will have a great deal more knowledge of the subject than will the chairman of the council. They will, therefore, have a totally different point of view about what is happening in the country than will the Minister. We should provide that we have the uncompromising opinions of the members of the council, including those members appointed to it because of their know­ledge of the problems of various localities.

Another point with which I want to deal was touched upon by the hon. Member for Kidderminster. During the Committee stage we debated at great length the topic of research into noxious fumes, especially sulphuric oxides. We especially pleaded that the Clean Air Council should have co-ordinating powers so that it could co-ordinate the activities of bodies conducting research into problems of oxides and noxious fumes. Indeed, we thought that the Minister's opinion upon that subject was the same as ours. As the Bill is now drafted, certain powers are given to local authorities to contribute towards the cost of investigation and research into the pollution of the air.

We know that scientific and technical institutes and the fuel technology sections of some universities are conducting research into the problem of sulphuric pollution; yet we do not see any power given to the Clean Air Council to deal with the problem of sulphuric oxides, even though sulphuric pollution is one of the worst forms of air pollution. Will the Minister give us an as­surance that he will specially direct the attention of the Clean Air Council to its duties in co-ordinating research into the prob­lem of sulphuric oxides? Will he at the same time look again at the problem of Parliamentary accountability to make it possible for the council to give an annual report to the House, irrespec­tive of the opinions of the Minister?"

The ornamental elements in this speech are reduced to the minimum. It is a matter-of-fact speech where no high-flown words or elaborate sty­listic devices are to be found.

It will be of considerable interest to compare this speech to Byron-'s Maiden Speech in the House of Lords in defence of the Luddites, which can be regarded as a perfect specimen of oratorical style. Byron used his eloquence against the Bill providing capital punishment for the de­struction of machines. His purpose was to prevent the passage of the Bill, to get an impartial examination of the facts.

Byron's speech is rich in oratorical devices. All these devices are motivated, they are organically connected with the utterance: the form by no means dominates the content.

In contradistinction, an examination of the following speech will show that it is practically devoid 61 meaning. The speaker is merely seeking an effect.

"Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is indeed a great and undeserved privilege to address such an audience as I see before me. At no previous time in the history of human civilization have greater problems confronted and chal­lenged the ingenuity of man's intellect than now. Let us look around us. What do we see on the horizon? What forces are at work? Whither are we drifting? Under what mist of clouds does the future stand obscured?

My friends, casting aside the raiment of all human speech, the crucial test for the solution of all these intricate problems to which I have just alluded is the sheer and forceful application of those immutable laws which down the corridor of Time have always guided the hand of man, groping, as it were, for some faint beacon light for his hopes and aspirations. Without these great vital principles we are but puppets responding to whim and fancy, failing entirely to grasp the hidden meaning of it all. We must re-address ourselves to these questions which press for answer and solution. The issues cannot be avoided. There they stand. It is.upon you, and you, and yet even upon me, that the yoke of responsibility falls.

What, then, is our duty? Shall we continue to drift? No! With all the emphasis of my being I hurl back the message No! Drifting must stop. We must press onward and upward toward the ultimate goal to which all must aspire.

But I cannot conclude my remarks, dear friends, without touching briefly upon a subject which I know is steeped in your very consciousness. I refer to that spirit which gleams from the eyes of a new-born babe, that animates the toiling masses, that sways all the hosts of humanity past and present. Without this energizing principle all commerce, trade and industry are.hushed and will perish from.this earth as surely as the crimson sunset follows the golden sunshine. ^"

Mark you, I do not seek to unduly alarm or distress the mothers, fathers, sons and daughters gathered before me in this vast as­semblage, but I would indeed be recreant to a high resolve which I made as a youth if I did not at this time and in this place, and with the full realizing sense of responsibility which I assume, publicly declare and affirm my dedication and-my consecration to the eternal principles "and receipts of simple, ordinary, com­monplace justice." l

The proper evaluation of this speech should be: "Words, words, words." The whole speech is made to hide the fact that the speaker has no thought. Questions remain unanswered, climaxes are not motivated. What is the subject that 'cannot be left untouched'? This is really a masterpiece of eloquent emptiness and verbosity.

THE ESSAY

As a separate form of English literature the essay dates from the close of the 16th century. The name appears to have become common on the publication of Montaigne's "Essays", a literary form created by this French writer. The essay is a literary composition of moderate length on philosophical, social, aesthetic or literary subjects. It never goes deep into the subject, but merely touches upon the surface. Personality in the treatment of theme and naturalness of expression are two of the most obvious characteristics of the essay. An e s s à ó is rather a series of personal and witty comments than a finished argument or a conclusive examination of any matter. This literary genre has definite linguistic traits which shape it as a variety of publicistic style. Here is a part of an essay by Ben Jonson which illustrates this style in its most typicarl and original form as it was at the end of the 16th century:

"Language most shows a man; speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind. No glass renders a man's form or likeness so true, as his speech. Nay, it is likened.to a man; and as we consider feature and composition in a man, so words in language; in the greatness, aptness, sound, structure, and harmony of it. Some men are tall and big, so some language is high and great..Then the words are chosen, the sound ample, the composi­tion full, the absolution plenteous, and poured out, all grace, sinewy and strong. Some are little and dwarfs; so of speech, it is humble and low; the words are poor and flat; the members are periods thin and weak, without knitting or number. The middle are of just stature. There the language is plain and pleasing: even without stopping, round without swelling; all well turned, composed, eloquent, and accurate. The vicious language is vast and gaping; swelling and irregular; when it contends, high, full of rock, mountain and pointedness; as it affects to be low it is abject and creeps, full of bogs and holes."





Ïîäåëèòüñÿ ñ äðóçüÿìè:


Äàòà äîáàâëåíèÿ: 2016-11-19; Ìû ïîìîæåì â íàïèñàíèè âàøèõ ðàáîò!; ïðîñìîòðîâ: 1087 | Íàðóøåíèå àâòîðñêèõ ïðàâ


Ïîèñê íà ñàéòå:

Ëó÷øèå èçðå÷åíèÿ:

×òî ðàçóì ÷åëîâåêà ìîæåò ïîñòèãíóòü è âî ÷òî îí ìîæåò ïîâåðèòü, òîãî îí ñïîñîáåí äîñòè÷ü © Íàïîëåîí Õèëë
==> ÷èòàòü âñå èçðå÷åíèÿ...

798 - | 702 -


© 2015-2024 lektsii.org - Êîíòàêòû - Ïîñëåäíåå äîáàâëåíèå

Ãåí: 0.01 ñ.