Final Countdown
November 24, 2008
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1. Questions about next week? What about questions for next week’s
reading: none!!!! 2. Decide who goes first: Volunteers?
Name out of a hat? First day of presenters: Judy Ethridge, Ashley Adams, Philemon Amos, Bert Doernbrack, Colleen Donnelly, Mac Elmore, Kelley Griffin, Stephen Mercier, Todd Ollis, Danielle Turbyfield. These are rather informal 5-10 minutes presentations of
your research project. Handouts and /
or visuals are fine, so long as they don’t take up too much time. However, let me say that putting together a
one-page handout that clearly states your thesis (the basic point of your
project), the organization of the project, and some zinger detail or two from
the work is excellent. This kind of
thing not only helps your fellow students listen to and understand your
presentation, but it also helps you think clearer about the big picture of
what you are doing. Second day of presenters: Danielle Davidson,
Alex Davis, Abbey Frasier, Arielle Korsgaard, Sarah
Lewis, Randie Mayo, Noah Steed, Stephanie Urich, Initia Von Tonder, Lametrica Andrews. 3. Some stuff from last time. Some recap on the videotape;
perhaps a little more videotape H. Rap Brown and Tupac and Eminen – and a close
on the chapter which is about the English of African Americans more than just
AAVE. What is the difference between
African American English and AAVE? Final Touch on signifyn’
and Bakhtin’s concept of double voicing and
carnivalizing of authoritative or official discourse: Monkey as a trickster figure? |
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Questions for chapters 17-19 Chapter 17 is a bit on the OED and
a bit on the late 19th century and HEL. The big picture of this era is
bound up in what I call the Victorian cultural paradox: on the one hand it is
the biggest period of growth, of material growth, of standard of living, of
English expansion, industrial and technological growth, of literature,
culture, education and science. However, at the same time this was
a period when some of the most deeply held beliefs, religious beliefs and
cultural beliefs. The period of
colonial or imperial expansion brought lots of goodies, of course, but at a
great cost, a cost of exploiting almost enslaving a people and of course
actual slave trade had only recently been outlawed in 1. In what ways is the OED a
product of Victorian reading and writing habits? p. 235: Look at p. 235-236: The great
collaborative process of collecting for the OED points to Victorian literacy
habits, greatly increased Lieracy rates from Victorian times are measured by
historians by signatures on wedding contracts. In the 1840s, 1/3 of the
bridegrooms and 1/2 of the brides signed with at least a crude mark. By the
1900s, 97% of all grooms and brides signed their names. 2. When did the NED become the
OED? 1933 when the first edition was
published, but it was not Murray who brought it out, he died in 1915. 3. What was the Scriptorium?
From Wikipedia: In preparation for the work ahead,
Murray built a corrugated-iron shed in the grounds of
Mill Hill School, called the Scriptorium,
to house his small team of assistants as well as the flood of slips (bearing quotations
illustrating the use of words to be defined in the dictionary) which started
to flow in on foot of his appeal. As work continued on the early part of the
dictionary,
The
pillar
box at In the summer of 1884, Murray and his
family moved to a large house on the Banbury Road in north Oxford.
4. In what OED entry is pp. 236-240: Pioneer or Pigeon-hole? Actually it is the second,
pigeon-hole, see page 239. There But the first word, pioneer, has a sly connection in one
of the quotations defining the word by reference to the philologer, who is
the pioneer of the abstruser sciences,” which means
the philologer and by implication the lexicographer will be able to pave a
way for the rest of us to understand the meaning of these sciences, make them
less abstruse. So there is a
self-reflexive moment there as well. Lerer wants to connect, where he
can, politics and language, and here he wants to connect colonial ideology
and lexicography. The philologer is
forging a path, blazing a trail, in the new sciences, in a new way and new
territory like the missionaries in Africa, Dr. Livingstone and Pigeon-hole works in a similar
way; it was simply The fact that he refers to himself
in the dictionary on this subject indicates perhaps the importance of this
tool for his work. 5.What is the connection between the OED
and Middlemarch? p. 240 and following: The first connection is that
Middlemarch is just one of the many, many sources of quotations of
definitions in the OED. Ms. B.E. McAllum, we know, was the reader who contributed nearly
200 definitions to the dictionary. First of all, Middlemarch is a
massive Victorian novel by Georgia Eliot, nom-de-plume of Mary Ann Evans,
published in serial format from 1870-1871 and in a one-volume format in 1874
about a small town in 1830. A wonderful, mythopoeic work,
about small town issues that resonate out to the largest concerns of (Dorothea Brooke, Will Ladislaw The more interesting connection is
the analogy between Edward Casaubon and Sir James A.H. Murray. Casaubon is working on “The Key to
All Mythologies” by reading, marking, and collecting. He is a gatherer of primary sources in the
same mode as The German work on folktale,
language, and the so-called higher criticism was famous in the 19th
century. The Brothers Grimm – Jacob Grimm
and Grimm’s Law (1922) Schlegel, Erasmus Rask – same
subjects at about the same time. Leopold Ranke – founder of modern
history (1830’s) Following this we think of Marx
and Engels, later 19th century Also, the Higher Criticism of the
Bible during this time, Strauss, Schleiermacher, Feuerbach. Also this is the period of George Eliot actually translated
David Strauss’ Life of Christ (Leben Jesu) in 1846, a shocking book to Christians because of
its radical historicist approach that denied Christ’s divinity. 6. What is the problem with quiz
and protocol? p. 244: They are words that don’t
seem to be acceptable to the great descriptivists
of the OED. The list them but assign them
to non-British usages – US or |
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Chapter 18 7. In what ways is the casualty of
war language? p. 246: Terry Jones said it was
grammar, but George Orwell (1946) said words, and, of course, the answer is
all of the above. The first thing to mention is the
wartime euphemism – pacification, collateral damage, pre-dawn vertical
insertion, anti-personnel grenade, terminate with extreme predudice. But then there is the range of
slang that makes light or bearable the death and dismemberment, perhaps, of
the war – fragging Better site with an excerpt from Embrace the Suck. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7457988 Here is more: http://www.allwords.com/Slang_Military_Slang_Jargon.php Lots of obscene slang as well: the
F and S words that perpetuate a distancing and a
rebelliousness about military life, war life. We might consider it a type of signifyn except it is less covert and certainly less
artistic. 8. What are the origins of jeep,
G.I., and gremlin? GP (General Purpose Vehicles) –
Jeep; GI (Government Issue, Ground Infantry – GI or Grunt; Gremlin (a Fremlin beer inspired goblin) Lerer tries to make a literary
history point in this chapter with the notion that journalism changed in 20th
century war reporting and inspired something more of a first person,
eye-witness account of war and a way of writing about war. Also, he claims there arose a more direct kind of poetry, honest and plain
poetry, coming out of the modern wars.
Wilfred Owen and Randell Jarrell. Slang from the wars seems to be a
huge industry for some linguists; the bibliography is extensive. |
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Chapter 19 This concluding chapter merely
points to the phenomena of World Englishes but also
continues the notion of an always changing English,
changing as a result of new technologies – war, internet, fashion, music,
etc. And it is always changing as new
voices enter the domain, young creative voices and voices from different
language environments. 10. What is World English? p. 263: Braj Kachru,
The Handbook of World Englishes (2006) divides the English speaking world
into three circles. Inner circle – mostly native
speakers, Outer circle – former commonwealth
countries, English is usually an official language – India, Pakistan,
Nigeria, Phillipines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Expanding circle – the rest of the
world wherein English is growing as a lingua franca. These languages, some of them, are
growing into their own norms; they are not the same as Brit or US English;
they are varieties, some standards and some not so. 9. What is the Hobson-Jobson? p. 259 ff: A book of words in
English with Indian origin or that came out of Some of these new words get in a
burlesque metaphors – cowboy cadillac; Fun with British dialect: Geordia http://www.jardmail.co.uk/attachments/windaz2000.gif The language will not be still and
will not completely bow down to any linguist or lexicographer or nag in the
newspapers. From Chaucer’s pilgrims,
Shakespeare’s stage, Johnson’s collection, and the ever exploding big bang of
the internet, new words and idioms flow in and out of English and by the
little Germanic grammar structure that we still have we try to prevent
overflow and inundation. |
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9. What
is “signifyin’”? p.
232-233: Signifying Monkey – best
articulated by Henry Louis Gates from Black traditions in the past have suffered from
both the lack of sophisticated scholarly attention and a Eurocentric bias in
the critical discourses. In The Signifying Monkey, Mr. Gates explores
the relationship between black vernacular tradition and African American
literary tradition. He seeks to find a system of rhetoric for interpreting
black literature -- our texts. The collection of essays is separated
into two parts. The first part deals with the theory of African and African
American traditions and the importance of "Signifyin(g)," a
theory that arises from the black tradition itself. In the second part Mr.
Gates applies theories to interpret African American literature tradition
from Slave narratives to Zora Neale Hurston to
Alice Walker. This volume is closely intertwined with Figures in Black
which left off where The Signifying Monkey begins. On Signifyin(g) and Talking Books "The Monkey tales inscribe a dictum about
interpretation, whereas the language of Signifyin(g) address the nature and application of rhetoric."
(Signifying Monkey, 85) 10. What
is the American legacy of certain Wolof words? p. 234: Hep, hip from Wolof hepi, hipi (to open one’s eyes,
become aware) -kat from Wolof meaning person Cool from
Mandingo suma, literally cool but figuratively calm
or slow. Dig from
Wolof deg, meaning to understand. Others at
this web site: http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/definitions/aave.html |