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Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Inhaltsverzeichnis Artikel: Hartmut Stöckl Beyond Depicting. Language-Image-Links in the Service of Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Barbara Klein Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English: real-time studies based on the DCPSE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Gunther Kaltenböck English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope . . . . . . . . . 51 Nursen Gömceli Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ Reinterpretation of a Greek Myth: The Love of the Nightingale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Achim Hescher A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Dietmar Tatzl Make English a Part of Your Life: An EFL Learning Autonomy Project at University Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Konferenzbericht: Ludwig Deringer Current Research in North American English: The 2008 Meeting of the American Dialect Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Rezensionen: Wolfgang G. Müller Christoph Bode und Sebastian Domsch (eds.), British and European Romanticism. Selected papers from the Munich Conference of the German Society for English Romanticism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Inhalt 2 Thomas Kullmann Margarete Rubik und Elke Mettinger-Schartmann (eds.), A Breath of Fresh Eyre. Intertextual and Intermedial Reworkings of Jane Eyre . . . 165 Hans H. Hiebel Gesa Schubert, Die Kunst des Scheiterns. Die Entwicklung der kunsttheoretischen Ideen Samuel Becketts . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 Ulf Schulenberg François Cusset, French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Doris Mader Elke Huwiler, Erzählströme im Hörspiel. Zur Narratologie der elektroakustischen Kunst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Arno Löffler Renate Brosch, Short Story. Textsorte und Leseerfahrung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 Petra Eckhard Gerhard Stilz, Territorial Terrors. Contested Spaces in Colonial and Postcolonial Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Todd K. Bender Richard Gray and Waldemar Zacharasiewicz (eds.), Transatlantic Exchanges: The American South in Europe - Europe in the American South . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Der gesamte Inhalt der AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Band 1, 1976 - Band 32, 2007 ist nach Autoren alphabetisch geordnet abrufbar unter http: / / www-gewi.uni-graz.at/ staff/ kettemann This journal is abstracted in: ESSE (Norwich), MLA Bibliography (New York, NY), C doc du CNRS (Paris), CCL (Frankfurt), NCELL (Göttingen), JSJ (Philadelphia, PA), ERIC Clearinghouse on Lang and Ling (Washington, DC), LLBA (San Diego), ABELL (London). Gefördert vom Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung in Wien, der Steiermärkischen Landesregierung und der Stadt Graz Anfragen, Kommentare, Kritik, Mitteilungen und Manuskripte werden an den Herausgeber erbeten (Adresse siehe Umschlaginnenseite). Erscheint halbjährlich. Bezugspreis jährlich 78,- (Vorzugspreis für private Leser 56,-) zuzügl. Postgebühren. Einzelheft 44,-. Die Bezugsdauer verlängert sich jeweils um ein Jahr, wenn bis zum 15. November keine Abbestellung vorliegt. © 2009 Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5, D-72070 Tübingen E-mail: info@narr.de Internet: www.narr.de Die in der Zeitschrift veröffentlichten Beiträge sind urheberrechtlich geschützt. Alle Rechte, insbesondere das der Übersetzung in fremde Sprachen, sind vorbehalten: Kein Teil dieser Zeitschrift darf ohne schriftliche Genehmigung des Verlages in irgendeiner Form - durch Fotokopie, Mikrofilm oder andere Verfahren - reproduziert oder in eine von Maschinen, insbesondere von Datenverarbeitungsanlagen, verwendbare Sprache übertragen werden. Printed in Germany ISSN 0171-5410 1 The present article is the long version of a paper presented at the AILA world congress 2008 in Essen during a symposium entitled “Multimodal Communication in a Multilingual World”. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Beyond Depicting. Language-Image-Links in the Service of Advertising 1 Hartmut Stöckl The present contribution examines how the current trend in advertising towards more pictures and less text affects the linking of language and image. Investigations on a larger corpus (1.100 worldwide ads) are to substantiate the hypotheses that in this situation pictorial functions and linkage types diversify and language - even though quantitatively reduced - reclaims a pivotal part in making and managing meaning. After a brief consideration of multimodality and the semiotic and cognitive mode differences between language and image the article outlines a model which sets out to explain how recipients understand the kind of minimalist ads now in fashion. It rests on three interconnected tiers: recipients need to resolve indirectness (implicatures), trace secondary meanings of signs (connotations) and follow the networking of concepts (metaphor/ metonymy). The contribution then reviews approaches to the analysis and typology of language-image-links since Barthes’ first attempt (1977) and suggests that a complex methodology would need to take into account spatial syntax, inter-modal coherence, rhetorical-logical semantics and pragmatic functions between language and image. Using corpus evidence the article explains and illustrates five currently common textual patterns of linking image and language, which are based on pictorial functions and logical semantic ties. Pictures may engage the recipient in the very process of vision, they promote the management of concepts and reduce complexity, set up all kinds of semantic games that delay decoding and provoke the recipient by transgressing norms. Writing may also emulate pictures through typography and layout. Hartmut Stöckl 4 2 Cf. Halawa (2008: 20f.) “[…] dass Bilder omnipräsent sind, dass Menschen sich von ihnen angezogen fühlen und das Sehen offenbar immer mehr zu lieben scheinen als z.B. das Wort”. 3 Gieszinger (2000, 2001) has shown that since 1788 texts have indeed become shorter and more heavily structured typographically whereas the amount of pictures has increased. 1. Trends in Advertising The increasing dominance of images over words and their omnipresence in today’s communicative culture have often been deplored. Some fear that our penchant for pictures 2 might mutilate our ability to read. While I do not generally share those fears, advertising, though, clearly displays the trend targeted by cultural pessimists and preservationists of the logo-centric tradition. The genre relies ever more heavily on pictures of all kinds. At the same time texts are being cut down, sometimes leaving us just with brand name, headline or caption, and slogan 3 . However, current ads are hardly purely visual - they are semiotically minimalist combinations of word and image with a calculated division of communicative labour between the two. The trend towards a greater reliance on images is complemented by another interesting development. It seems the product advertised and its features no longer take centre stage. Instead, all sorts of ‘alien’, seemingly irrelevant content is pushed to the fore in order to make a more indirect, hidden, but recoverable connection to the product. Let me try to explain these two trends. 1.1 Why more pictures? Thanks to their semiotic and perceptual properties pictures are conducive to almost all persuasive functions adverts aim to fulfil. Most importantly, they are rich in information, strong in their impact on perception and memory and effective in conveying emotional appeals and imbuing messages with affective auras that help build brand identities (cf. Kroeber-Riel 1993: 53-96). In co-operation with language, pictures can flexibly perform the essential speech act functions required in advertising, i.e. presenting, describing, evaluating. So it would seem natural for advertisers to make ample use of imagery. Given that media technology facilitates higher picture quality and easier distribution, the trend is likely to persist. 1.2 Why do pictorial messages seemingly stray from the product? Both products and adverts operate in a highly competitive market. Owing to an exploding amount of communication exposure attention is scarce. As the use values of rivalling products often strongly converge, distinctions need to Beyond Depicting 5 Fig. 1: ADIDAS Football, TBWA/ Chiat/ Day 180 Amsterdam, USA 2004 (Wiedemann 2006: 472) be made in the act of communication through the quality and nature of the ads. So rather than explain exchangeable product features, in a context of consumers’ resistance to advertising it seems wise to turn the communicative act itself into an aesthetic event. The aim here is to offer symbolic worlds for social identification and brands which project group values and common sense. (cf. Stöckl 2003) 2. Hypothesis and Claims In what follows I should like to substantiate and explain a simple hypothesis about recent developments in the ways advertisers utilize the image. For convenience, my claim may be broken down into a few statements. 2.1 Language-Image-Links As in most genres the image alone cannot successfully communicate advertising messages. It is the alliance with language (and other modes, e.g. music, noise, typography), which provides pragmatic flexibility. So rather than study the picture in isolation it is vital to focus the language-image-link, i.e. the specific inter-play of linguistic and pictorial signs. Advertisers’ foremost strategic job is to conceive of ideas that can be expressed and work well in language-image-texts, even though the number of words needed to contextualize and semantically pin down the picture has, in fact, decreased. 2.2 Default and Diversification The ‘neutral’, default case of a language-image-link in advertising would seem to be what could be called ‘depiction’. (cf. fig. 1 and 2) The picture shows real-world objects (e.g. user, situation of product use, etc.) more or less closely related to the product advertised. Language is used to explain, evaluate and recommend the commodity. Historically, too, this seems to have been the first use of the image. Now, the accelerated development of image-making technology and our exposure to and experience with visual communication has fostered novel and diverse Hartmut Stöckl 6 4 Gaede (2002) classifies such norms and describes more or less systematic ways of breaking with them. Fig. 2: TIDE, Procter & Gamble, Saatchi & Saatchi, USA 2004 (Wiedemann 2006: 244) ways of using pictures in advertising. Advertisers in their innate desire to break with established norms 4 and in their creative playfulness are generating new types of languageimage-links, which go way beyond depicting. 2.3 Pragmatic Enablement This kind of diversification in linking language and image has a number of repercussions. First, it enables pictures to perform a variety of novel pragmatic functions. Second, it shifts the status and role of language in multi-modal advertising texts. Most importantly, diversifying the language-image-link makes advertising more attractive, culturally significant and an interesting benchmark in communicative strategies at large. What drives this trend is open to speculation. One may suspect technology is one of the essential factors. Communicative needs generated by a branch which hungers after the spectacular will be another. Certainly, our post-modern condition of an ‘anything-goes-philosophy’ with its recycling and cross-over of styles and trends as well as a greater cultural and cognitive autonomy of the recipient will have contributed to the trend, too. I will not speculate any further here. Instead let me continue with a look at how language and image differ from each other. 3. Multi-Modality and Transcriptivity Multi-modality, although perhaps not the most fortunate coinage, has become the standard term to describe texts and communicative events, which involve more than one signing system or semiotic resource. I should like to briefly highlight some crucial implications of this phenomenon: 1. If modes like language, image and sound combine, what seems most essential is that they are integrated and interrelated on a number of levels, i.e. in terms of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Individual signing resources must co-operate to build a connected text, which makes modes interlock smoothly and leads to a functional advantage in the given situation. Beyond Depicting 7 5 Some (Doelker 1997) have tried to develop an overtly analogous parallel between linguistic categories and the description of pictorial grammar. 6 Jäger (2002: 34) has called language an Archimedium, i.e. an ‘archetypal medium’. 2. In a cognitive light, multi-modality may be understood as a mental faculty or a type of intelligence which specializes in relating to one another information coded in different semiotics. Ludwig Jäger, who calls this phenomenon transcriptivity (2002: 34-39), has claimed that meaning can only ever be produced in a culture and made legible by way of ‘transcriptions’ from one mode/ medium/ text to another. This means that as sign users we permanently engage in commenting, paraphrasing and explicating one mode with the help of another. In this sense, multimodality would be a cultural technique, an essential competence enabling communication and mutual intelligibility. 3. Most importantly, linking various modes and rewriting (‘transcribing’) content from one mode/ text/ medium to another must follow techniques and conventions. So multimodality can also be seen as a patterned semiotic activity in the production and reception of texts. Especially within a genre like advertising it would seem inevitable that certain logical, semantic or rhetorical patterns of linking language and image would emerge in order to facilitate orientation and processing. Kress and van Leeuwen (1996, 2001) have sensitized us to the fact that every mode has a semiotic character all its own and that the various modes do not easily compare. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that language has often been used as a yardstick for comparison, either implicitly or explicitly 5 . This may be because, after all, language is still widely seen to be the most flexible and semantically potent mode 6 . I should like to follow Holly (2007: 392), who claims that every semiotic mode commands its own ‘autochthonic’ semantics, which is shaped both by potentials and assets as well as by weaknesses and shortcomings. The linking of modes, e.g. the language-image-link, will crucially depend on those ‘autochthonic’ semantics. So what can and cannot be done with language and image in a calculated combination essentially hinges upon their semiotic properties. I believe that too little attention has been devoted to this recently mainly because these issues were seen to be too ‘structuralist’ in nature and because the generalist and undifferentiated perspective of mode flexibility and individuality did not favour them. I suggest mode differences may be studied on four levels: (1.) semiotic, (2.) perceptual/ cognitive, (3.) semantic and (4.) pragmatic. For reasons of space, I will highlight just the most significant distinctions between image and language in the table below. Hartmut Stöckl 8 7 However, communicating sensory impressions (i.e. taste, smell, sound, etc.) comes up against some serious linguistic shortcomings, too. P ICTURE L ANGUAGE S EMIOTICS (sign system) continuous ‘flow’ of signs discrete, distinct signs integrative grammar (weak) combinatorial grammar (strong) spatial configurations linear units (syntagmatic) iconic (close to perception) arbitrary (removed from perception) P ERCEPTION / C OGNITION (understanding) simultaneous - holistic perception step-by-step quick slow (comparatively) strong in impact and memory weaker in impact and memory directly tied to emotions no direct tie to emotions S EMANTICS (meaning potential) surplus of ‘free-floating’ meaning (semantically dense) ‘anchored’ meaning (semantically scarce) vague and under-determined precise and determined (tendency) limited semantic range, e.g.: negation, modality, abstract reference, illocutions, linking of utterances unlimited semantic range P RAGMATICS (communicative functions) presentation of objects rich in perceptible properties narrating actions/ events in time indicating relational position of objects in space explaining logical relationships between entities emotional appeals all illocutions and speech events Table 1: A Comparison of Semiotic Modes - Picture vs. Language 1. Pictures are close to our perceptual experience (cf. Sachs-Hombach 2003: 73ff) and need no reor transcoding, as does language. A weak grammar (distinctive signs? combinatorial rules? ) allows for vague meaning potential but not for definite, fixed meanings. Context, therefore, is paramount. 2. Access to pictorial signs is quick and seemingly effortless (holistic). In terms of the image’s impact on understanding and memory, it outperforms language (cf. Kroeber-Riel 1993: 53-96), which is cumbersome in its linearity and step-by-step logics. 3. Pictures confront a number of semantic limitations: negating statements, expressing modality, definite illocutions and logically linking utterances all pose one or the other problem. Where language tends to be precise 7 and Beyond Depicting 9 8 ’a connection between the expected (i.e. the text type knowledge - H.S.) and the real text exemplar’ Fig. 3: NISSAN 350Z, TBWA Paris, Frankreich 2004 (Wiedemann 2006: 603) sufficiently determined, pictures mostly exhibit a surplus of meaning, which cannot easily be tied down (cf. Gombrich 1996: 41-44). 4. As a consequence of all these properties, pictures fulfil different communicative functions than language. Pictures present objects, locations and situations in all their perceptive wealth and they are good at evoking feelings and aura. However, pictures cannot tell a story, unless in a sequence; something language is quite good at. 4. Understanding Ads I have already said that current advertisers use few words and seemingly irrelevant pictorial contents to construct what may be called minimalist advertising. One of the questions that emerge is how recipients make meaning from these kinds of ads. Fix (2006: 265f.) has argued that understanding a text means to establish “den Bezug zwischen dem Erwarteten und dem realen Text” 8 . Even if we assume ads are easily recognized as such through their positioning in the media, their materiality (layout, picture dominance, logo, etc.) and their communicative situation, what remains obscure, however, is how recipients use their knowledge of the text type to generate sense from ads, which offer few explicit signs and messages. Advertisers obviously trust the decoding abilities of their potential audiences assuming they know how to read product and brand related meaning into whatever small semiotic offer there is. I propose that what must happen in the process of understanding the kind of semantically under-determined small or no copy ad in question here (cf. fig. 3) is mainly three things (cf. Stöckl 2008a: 173-180). Hartmut Stöckl 10 9 i.e. between what is said and what is meant 10 Implicatures, on the other hand, may be suspended, cancelled or reinforced so the advertiser remains free to use whatever sense is created by them in further arguments. 1. First, recipients notice a discrepancy between what they perceive and what they would normally have expected. A full-frontal open heart semantically clashes with car advertising. Since Grice’s co-operative principle (1975) this phenomenon has often been called implicature. Such obvious rifts between the signs presented and the meaning/ message intended 9 call for acts of inferring sense from context and background knowledge. Advertisers must trust that the implicatures they construct can be computed by the recipient, otherwise they would not design them 10 . However, because implicatures are equivocal they leave some space and leeway for individual interpretation. 2. Second, in order to come up with a relevant interpretation of the signs presented recipients must read them on various non-literal levels. The heart will - on a secondary level - be read as signifying emotion, love, passion, but also, more immediately and still non-literally, it will signify vital functions and beating/ pumping. Both Morris (1971) and Peirce (1966) have argued that making and conveying sense, which they called semiosis, is potentially unlimited, as every meaning of a sign can be read as another sign on a higher level. Barthes (1996) referred to this phenomenon as connotation or myth. Advertising clearly limits the potential of semiosis, as - according to their genre knowledge - recipients will read the signs in connection with the product, the brand and an obligatory positive evaluation. 3. Third, signs connect to concepts, which are organized in domains of knowledge and experience. Cognitive semantics has shown that these domains are systematically networked in the human mind so that one concept can easily call up another through metonymy or metaphor (cf. Kövecses 2002). Advertisers can rely on this and present one seemingly irrelevant sign knowing it will lead to another expectable concept in the given context. Using the heart the advertisers make sure that such connotations as centrality, vitality, passion and emotion (as elements of a source domain) can be projected onto the sports car (target domain) in question. Without explicitly stating it the ad highlights good engine properties and passionate driving/ engineering as brand values. What facilitates this reading is, of course, the ignition key lock that has been inserted into the heart. It acts as a metonymic pictorial symbol to convey the concept of ‘engine’, which in turn allows for the implied analogy between heart and engine. Beyond Depicting 11 11 ”The Rhetoric of the Image”, originally published in Communications in 1964. 5. The Language-Image-Link: Typological Approaches Since Barthes’ seminal essay (1977) 11 numerous attempts have been made to describe the kinds of relationships that language and image are capable of establishing (cf. Burger 2005: 389-424). Although prolific and uncontested in its usefulness, this branch of linguistics and communication studies has not had the impact and burgeoning development other disciplines took. Very likely this is due to some inherent difficulties, which do not allow for simple models and transparent terminologies. I should like to try and give a short account of major strands and perspectives within the field of studying the language-image-link. 1. At the beginning researchers like Durand (1987), Bonsiepe (1968) and later Gaede (1981), Rentel (2005) and Doelker (2007) emphasized that rhetorical figures (e.g. analogy, antithesis, climax, hyperbole, metaphor, etc.) and the logical operations underlying them can be used to describe what happens semantically between the pictorial and verbal parts of a text. While the feasibility of this approach has been amply demonstrated, it should also be clear that one of its weaknesses is terminological confusion and an obsession with too fine-grained a distinction between various types of language-image-links, which in fact often blur in analytical practice. 2. Another approach focuses on quite a generalized account of how content or information conveyed in picture and text might relate to one another. The work of Spillner (1982) and, more recently, Nöth (2000) are good examples. The terminology introduced makes distinctions such as (reciprocal) extension vs. determination (Spillner) or complementarity vs. contradiction and dominance vs. redundancy. A balanced, integrated and compact view is presented in Fill (2007: 135-149), who treats content linking as different types of ‘tension’ between picture and language. While some of the categories above are so basic that they have been taken up in later accounts, using them as the only criteria to build a descriptive typology of the language-image-link seems too broad and vague. 3. More precision was gained from approaches which modelled the link on various levels. Thus, Geiger and Henn-Memmesheimer (1998) mirror Morris’ old division of sign systems into semantics, syntax and pragmatics by claiming that to any language-image-link there is a content, a structural and a functional dimension. Later systems, e.g. by van Hartmut Stöckl 12 Fig. 4: STIHL Foliage Trimmer ‘Cut your Brush’ DDB Paris, France 2004 (Wiedemann 2006: 515) Leeuwen (2005) and Martinec and Salway (2005), also combine various levels and order them hierarchically. It is mainly generalized content, i.e. ‘information linking’ (van Leeuwen 2005: 219ff) (e.g. elaboration vs. extension, equal vs. unequal status) and logical relations (e.g. time, space, cause), they have in mind. 4. More recently two important points have been made. Language-imagelinks come as conventionalized patterns of reciprocal mode interaction and interlocking. Various levels of text are helpful in their description (e.g. spatial-syntactic, content-thematic, rhetorical-logical; Stöckl forthcoming). The patterns are clearly text-type-sensitive, so too generalized a perspective does not make sense. What seems most important is to ask which pragmatic functions pictures can fulfil in relation to language. Holly (2007: 411ff.) in a detailed analysis of a commercial highlights four major functions: authorize, socially address, ground meaning, and gloss over meaning. In order to illustrate my own system of analysing language-image-links I am now going to discuss a sample advert. I hope this will demonstrate the usefulness of applying levels and criteria. Despite these attempts at structural clarity, language-image-links also remain elusive to a certain degree as they may display a richness of meaning potential, which is hard to capture and account for by any theory. The sample text advertises a foliage trimmer by the German brand ‘stihl’ (cf. fig. 4). The only language in the ad is the slogan “cut your brush”. The image shows a man in a torn suit on the doorstep of a house, whose garden plants are growing into the house through the door. There are three levels to my analysis. Beyond Depicting 13 5.1 Form: Connectivity and Spatial Syntax In the ad the picture precedes the words of slogan and brand name. The recipients’ attention will, therefore, first be focused on the image, the content of which they will be trying to work out. Relating and integrating the verbal message into the overall text will only happen later. Cohesion between language and picture is created through the strict top-bottom layout - the small schematic depiction of the product advertised creates a kind of mediating formal and semantic link between pictorial and verbal information. 5.2 Content: Thematic Structure and Inter-modal Coherence Seen in relation to the verbal message, which is an imperative instruction, the picture provides a highly stereotyped situation. It provides the context for understanding the slogan. Coherence is established by mapping lexical elements - i.e. ‘cut’ and ‘brush’ - onto pictorial signs: ‘cut’ may metonymically be related to the torn suit and the injuries in the face; ‘brush’ is shown growing into the house through the door. The picture, though stereotyped, also reveals what may be called knowledge frame or script incongruence in exactly those details (i.e. injured salesman, plants growing wildly). Most importantly, content from picture and text elaborate one another, that is, they mutually explain, illustrate or complement one another. Recipients will understand the pictorial content as a hyperbolic, but plausible situation of product application or as a problem to which the advertised tool offers a solution. 5.3 Function: Rhetorical-Logical Semantics and Pragmatic Function Although pictures can be used to perform all sorts of speech functions (e.g. instruct, warn, etc.), their most basic and often also their only function is to represent an object or a situation. In our case it is a fictitious but imaginable situation, which - as we have said - contextualizes and complements the text. Image and language have been coordinated logically to the effect that the picture illustrates and instantiates the slogan, which in turn adds the speech of an indefinite voice which, however, could be attributed to the man depicted. We have seen that the analysis has tackled a number of issues: sequencing or spatial relation of picture and text, cohesion, relation of informational content in image and text, coherence, speech act functions and logical-rhetorical relations between the two modes. What seems most central is the functional role of the image and its logical-semantic ties with the text. Hartmut Stöckl 14 12 My research is based on the investigation of a rich corpus of ads from sources worldwide (with their texts mainly in English, though) in Wiedemann (2006), which comprises roughly 1.100 ads from diverse print media. Fig. 5: Typology of Pictorial Functions in Language-Image-Links for Advertising 6. Language-Image-Links in Advertising: Pictorial Functions We may well assume that the wealth of design options for linking language and image in advertising is stupendous. At the same time I believe that underneath the diversity on the surface there are more or less conventionalized patterns of language-image-links. They will have emerged from the common practice in a pragmatically clear-cut discourse domain. Both in production and reception such patterns in the mechanics of picture-wordinterrelations would seem to be helpful as they may channel creative ideas and enable easy orientation. Most importantly, however, the patterned nature of verbal-visual communication results from the original potentials and deficiencies of language and image, which in turn are sensitive to the functional demands of the text type advertising. In what follows I will attempt to show the diversity of linking language and image creating some order as I go along. Of course, typologies are always fraught with difficulties and completeness cannot be my aim here. However, I believe the types I suggest reflect current practice in advertising worldwide 12 and go some way towards outlining the pragmatic flexibility of pictures in combination with minimal text. For ease of orientation I have put the 13 types into five groups (cf. fig. 5). At the end, I will be able to further abstract from this and judge the functionality of pictures for advertising in general. Here is my typology. Beyond Depicting 15 Fig. 6: VIGLIETTI MOTORS, J. Walter Thompson, South Africa 2004 (Wiedemann 2006: 029) Ideally, I would now need to apply all my three analytical categories (i.e. form, content, function) to the linkage-types in question. However, all the details would take up too much space. The labels I used in the typology already indicate that what I am going to do instead is to mainly look at the function of the image in relation to the text and gauge the nature of the logical-semantic ties between the two modes. 6.1 Disappoint visual stereotypes (Vision) Pictures are all about seeing, while (written) texts are about reading. It is not surprising then that a number of language-image-links try to use the picture in order to engage the recipient in what could be called a prolonged visual experience. Instead of quickly glancing at a stereotyped and prototypical image the viewer is supposed to relish the second look or the intense inquisitive inspection of a designed optical surface. One way to do this is to use a picture which deliberately disappoints or runs counter to the regular look of things. In the ad for a South African importer of luxury sports cars (cf. fig. 6), for instance, an extremely low garage door will capture our attention and may lead to the following inferences: If you had a garage like this you would be a very special person. The only car that fits into it would be a sports car. The lower a sports car, the faster and/ or the more exquisite it is likely to be. The slogan “specialists in luxury sports cars” along with the logos of Ferrari and Maserati may focus our visual attention and help to detect the element that upsets our stereotypical perception. 6.2 Offer Visual Exploratory Terrain (Vision) Another way to engage the recipients in the very process of seeing is to offer them an exploratory visual terrain to inspect. Usually such pictures consist of a panoramic tableau of an accumulated multitude of objects. Thus in the Hartmut Stöckl 16 Fig. 7: SUZUKI JEEP, General Motors South Africa, Net#work BBDO, South Africa 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 609) ad for a four wheel drive jeep (cf. fig. 7) we are confronted with a vast collection of stamps showing various views of different African countries. Naturally, we first have to inspect the picture a while to get at the logical-semantic idea: the image elements shown and the names provided are supposed to illustrate potential destinations or situations of use for the advertised car. The slogan sums this up by claiming “Go anywhere. Do anything.” What seems obligatory for this kind of language-image-link, besides the accumulation of diverse objects, is the small size of the individual pictorial elements, so it really does take a while to work out an interpretation. 6.3 Toy with Perception (Vision) Visual perception is seemingly quick and effortless, yet it depends on context and can easily be deceived. The fact that any two objects may look alike or that you may see two things in one shape may also be exploited in the design of language-image-links. The ad for a ‘country spread’ (cf. fig. 8) shows this. Here rolls of margarine have been made to resemble rolls of hay - this optical analogy is supported by the linguistic polysemy of ‘roll’. What activates one or the other interpretation is verbal context cues, viz. either ‘spread’ or ‘country’. Beyond Depicting 17 Fig. 8: STORK MARGARINE, Unifoods, Herdbuoys McCann Erickson, South Africa 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 148) Fig. 9: NIKE BASKETBALL SHOES, DDB Paris, France 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 461) Another deception trick is more in the way of a calculated optical illusion than a semantic game. An advert for rechargeable batteries (Wiedemann 2006: 327), which claims “non-stop power”, shows wheels that look as if they were really turning. Of course, we know they cannot really do so, but our visual experience conjures up the illusion. The logical-semantic function of the image here would be to deliver some kind of evidence of the verbal claim. More than in any other language-image-links where intensifying and prolonging visual experience is the issue this case shows that the images in all these links are paramount, yet cannot communicate without a minimum of verbal context. 6.4 Ornament (Vision) In addition to representation, images also offer aesthetic pleasure through shapes, composition, colour and style. If this aspect dominates and there is little in terms of pictorial content, we might use the term ornament. Semioticians might argue that ornaments are not really pictures in the true sense, as they do not depict. While I do not subscribe to this point of view, it is interesting to see that ornaments also feature in advertising as ways to focus and deepen visual experience. In the Nike ad (cf. fig. 9), the shoe only emerges from a welter of shapes and colours, which as an overall impression convey the taste, feel and style of the 1970s. The text here merely contextualizes the image and adds information which could not have been communicated visually. Hartmut Stöckl 18 13 This phenomenon, which is both a cognitive activity as well as a structural property of texts, could also be called inter-modal coherence. Fig. 10: DURO SHOWER GEL, evyap, Medina Turgul DDB, Turkey 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 162) 6.5 Make Concepts Available (Semantic Management) I have said earlier that picture and text can only be integrated if the signs offered in both establish some kind of semantic connection. In a way, what recipients will be doing in order to understand language-image-links and build coherence is to continually map elements from the text onto the picture and vice versa. The easiest way for advertisers to make the logical semantic ties transparent is to reduce pictorial content to a few signs that easily connect to selected words in the text. The ad for a shower gel containing honey essence (cf. fig. 10) features the drain of a shower or bath, some drops of water and - inside the drain - the pattern of a honeycomb. The decontextualized pictorial minimalism achieved here will activate recipients’ thought processes: the metonymic connections (drain for shower and honeycomb for honey) are easily understood and form the very foundation of advertisers’ visual communication techniques. It is the small number of signs and their de-contextualized style that make the necessary concepts available effortlessly. Networking associations from pictorial elements is the central and most elementary task of a language-image-link in advertising 13 . Beyond Depicting 19 Fig. 11: YONG QUICK DRY CEMENT, Y&R Thailand, Thailand 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 345) 6.6 Suggest Evidence/ Proof (Semantic Management) Pictures are often taken for real; they are regarded as simulating reality. This is because pictures, especially photographs, are indexical and iconic in their semiotic nature. Even in an age of digital manipulation this cognitive tendency to treat pictures as factual traces of the real persists. So advertisers often use pictures in the service of creating evidence and proof of verbal claims. The ad for quick dry cement (cf. fig. 11) does exactly this: it shows a bucket in mid-air stuck to the ground through a stream of cement, suggesting that the cement dried up in the very process of pouring. Here is a good example to show that still images can be suggestive of action and that visual thinking goes way beyond what is visible in the frame. The logical pattern established in this very common type of language-image-link is that some more or less banal product quality will be substantiated or illustrated by a picture. Often those visual proofs are dramatized and exaggerated - advertisers would not get away with spelling out those pictorial contents in language. 6.7 Mix Knowledge Frames/ Scripts (Semantic Management) Pictures tap into our knowledge of the worlds and cultures around us - this is how they can make meaning at all. Knowledge is systematically Hartmut Stöckl 20 Fig. 12: FERNER JACOBSON, McCann Italy, Italy 2004 (Wiedemann 2006: 076) represented in our minds through semantic frames and scripts. We hold mental models of what we know. Pictures usually open certain knowledge frames and thus make meaning. Advertising messages can effectively be conveyed if frames or scripts are strategically combined. The ad for a fashion store (cf. fig. 12) uses a picture which shows belts in various colours in an ice bowl along with wafers. The frames of ‘clothing/ fashion accessories’ and ‘eating’ are mixed here so as to create an aesthetic visual arrangement. The semantic effect that emerges is that eating and shopping for clothes are somehow likened to one another. In addition the text “have a nice summer” highlights another shared feature, namely seasonal compatibility. Again, this calculated mix of semantic domains in the picture, which is mediated through verbal comments, must count as one of the basic techniques within the advertisers’ repertoire of language-imagelinks. 6.8 Construct Visual Models (Semantic Management) Pictures also command the great powers of the fictitious - they can develop and concoct worlds that diverge from what we are ordinarily capable of seeing. Here is the realm of the visual model or those pictures which use image-making technology (supersonic scans, x-ray, magnet resonance tomography, etc.). Their general aim is “dass sie Gegenständen, die andernfalls im Unbestimmten bleiben müssten oder die nicht ohne weiteres verfügbar sind, eine handhabbare und anschauliche Form geben” (Reichle/ Beyond Depicting 21 14 ’to give manageable and graphic shape to objects which would otherwise remain in the dark or not be immediately tangible’. 15 ’become highly valuable as they subdivide multitudinous relationships into a limited number of elements and thus help reduce complexity’. Fig. 13: VILLIGER BIKES, Leo Burnett, USA 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 525) Siegel/ Spelten 2008: 12) 14 . Also, such visual models “[gewinnen] entscheidenden Wert, da sie unüberschaubare Zusammenhänge in eine endliche Menge von Elementen gliedern und so Komplexität reduzieren helfen” (ibid.) 15 . For their argumentative and explanatory purposes, advertisers also construct visual models and use what is often called ‘technical’ images. In the ad for Villiger mountain bikes (cf. fig. 13), a skeleton model is complemented with a bowden cable connecting elbow and finger. The aim of the model here is to build an analogy between technology and human anatomy, which is facilitated by the slogan: “Learn more about the Villiger inside you”. Rhetorically, what is behind the language-image-link here is an attempt to present something inanimate as something animate. Visual models can take many shapes; their underlying principle is to show visual elements in spatial relations, from which all sort of logical connections may be derived. 6.9 Allude to Knowledge (Semantic Games) As opposed to neutral management, semantic games come as more refined attempts to toy with expectations as regards the networking of associations Hartmut Stöckl 22 Fig. 14: POLO FOX, Volkswagen, DDB, Belgium 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 625) Fig. 15: KELLOGG’S ALL-BRAN, Leo Burnett, Spain 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 108) through picture and text. Often those games, which delay the processes of generating sense, may be based on the simpler semantic management techniques. Their main aim is to be pragmatically indirect and to provoke the recipient to recover the communicative relevance of the pictures through more detailed reflection. In the ad for the Volkswagen Polo Fox (cf. fig. 14), an image of a chicken raising its wings and staring at the viewer with open eyes and beak first begs the question as to its significance in a car ad. However, when relating the chicken to the fox in the product name the allusion to the stereotypical animosity between the two animals may become clear. In the context of car advertising, of course, this game between text and picture will probably be read as a message to the business rival, who in face of the new car will take heed and ‘chicken out’. The kinds of knowledge alluded to in language-image-links can be diverse and range from the conventionalized and everyday to the more specialist and culture-dependent. 6.10 Symbolize (Semantic Games) Pictorial symbols emerge when visual signs allow for connotations on a secondary level or when shapes and colours through use elsewhere have become conventionalized and can now be adopted in novel contexts. The ad for a breakfast cereal (cf. fig. 15) thus shows nothing but the superman-logo Beyond Depicting 23 Fig. 16: LAXITTE, Generis, DDB, Belgium 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 190) in a slightly modified version, which resembles a schematic drawing of the gastrointestinal tract. Knowing that all-bran cereal is good for healthy digestion, the resulting message ought to be clear. It is, interestingly, one that again advertisers would not dare to spell out in text, because it is too banal. However, the adoption and creative use of a visual, pop-cultural symbol lets them get away with it quite well. 6.11 Mystify and Euphemize (Semantic Games) Pictorial content may also be out to hide, tone down or ameliorate messages, which had better not be communicated directly and explicitly. This mystifying and euphemizing function (cf. Stöckl 2008a) is important for advertisers mainly for two reasons. First, banalities about the product must be glossed over. Second, potentially risky messages, which result from the kind of product, e.g. home care and hygiene, must be avoided. The sample ad (cf. fig. 16) demonstrates an extreme case, where the scope of what can be depicted to advertise a laxative is rather narrow. The advertisers decided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the product by using a special kind of pack shot: the bottle has ripped the packet. Language features here as writing on the package and comes as an integral part of the picture. All it takes for the mechanics of words and picture to work in the interest of creating proof is the name of the product category. Everything else is selfexplanatory and, therefore, relieves the text producer from spelling it out. 6.12 Focus Pictorial Properties of Writing (Writing as Image) Occasionally, advertisers use writing alone. They will then make sure the text acquires a pictorial dimension. This may sound paradoxical, but thanks Hartmut Stöckl 24 16 For a concise treatment of the typography in ads cf. Stöckl 2008b. Fig. 17: NEUTROGENA ANTI-AGEING HANDCREAM, Johnson & Johnson, DDB Paris, France 2004 (Wiedemann 2006: 163) to a number of typographic properties, scripts can be designed and set on the page so as to communicate meaning over and above what the text is saying. 16 This phenomenon of the symbolic system of language transmuting to the iconic semiotics of images may be called typopictoriality (Weidemann 1997). A clever example is the advert for a hand cream (cf. fig. 17). Here, the text “the signs of ageing of your hands gradually fade away” is set in handwriting and makes a strong claim as to the product’s effects. This antiageing promise is supported by immediate visual evidence of a metaphoric kind. The style of writing changes from an adult’s at the beginning to a child’s at the end. 6.13 Provoke and Shock (Transgression of Norms) Seeing is a highly habitualized cognitive activity. So what we see in certain situations and how we see it generally comes as stereotyped, schematic pictorial content and, therefore, contains no surprise. At the same time our eyes continually hunger for new visual experience. Advertisers, therefore, are likely to gain attention when they show states of affairs and objects which stray from the conventionally expected and present perspectives that can hardly be adopted in everyday life. Gaede (2002) claims that advertisers are always out to break with what has become normative in order to be effective. He lists a number of norms that can systematically be manipulated, e.g. social, ethical, religious, moral, etc. In the ad for an anti-smoking Beyond Depicting 25 Fig. 18: ANTI-YOUTH SMOKING CAMPAIGN, Amerian Legacy Foundation, Arnold Worldwide, USA 2005 (Wiedemann 2006: 423) campaign (cf. fig. 18), we see an ear stitched onto the head so the person cannot hear. A knife bearing the inscription “seek truth” points at it as if it was about to open the stitches. Clearly, recipients may find this kind of imagery disturbing. They will, however, also try and work out its relevance in the context: Smokers have to be forced to listen and take seriously appeals to their health. This may hurt and come as a real, physical change to their lives. Pictures supposed to provoke and shock do so mainly by exposing recipients to a visual experience which is in some way socially tabooed or can hardly be made in ordinary life and then seek argumentative relevance from it by relating it to a verbal message in context. 7. Conclusions The exemplary ads discussed were supposed to demonstrate the functional diversity of the image as well as the rhetorical and logical-semantic richness of potential language-image-links. What should have become obvious is that, whatever the design behind image and linking might be, advertisers are keen to use them as strategic tools to effectively develop their arguments. Because the ads are semiotically minimalist, recipients need to invest some decoding efforts in order to generate communicative relevance and sense. Hartmut Stöckl 26 17 Cf. Liebert/ Metten (2007: 12) “[…] vier Kategorien, die mit dem Begriff der Täuschung verbunden sind: Idealisierungen, Phantasien, Dramatisierungen, Manipulationen.” 18 ’practical and theoretical picture competence’; cf. Hoffmann/ Rippl (2006: 7) “Dieser Bildermacht steht ein Mangel an praktischer und theoretischer Bildkompetenz gegenüber.” 19 Cf. Reichle/ Siegel/ Spelten (2007: 8) “Bilder sind so vielfältig, wie es unsere Sprache ist. Sie sind vielfältig nicht nur darin, dass jedes einzelne Bild ganz verschiedene Facetten in seinen Funktionen und Kontexten, in seiner Verwendung und Wirkung aufweist, sondern auch darin, dass ganz unterschiedliche Arten von Bildern existieren.” If we were to abstract from the details and judge the usefulness of pictures and language-image-links in the service of advertising, we would have to consider the following arguments: 1. Pictures offer and network associations which can be utilized in verbal statements. Often, semantic games are played in the semiotic space between language and image, which promote indirectness and delay decoding. 2. Pictures are used to highlight certain contents and hide others, usually those that are risky, banal or undesirable for whatever reason. 3. Pictures can reduce complexity by modelling and structuring reality. Technical images show objects not normally visible from perspectives otherwise unattainable. 4. Pictorial content and design may provoke and shock the audience, if they stray from expected norms. Generally, pictures address and position the viewer socially and aesthetically. In this sense, pictures are indexical of social tastes and life styles. 5. Most importantly, pictures command suggestive powers and can easily create illusions. The spectrum of rhetorical functions ranges from idealizing and imagination to dramatizing and manipulation. 17 Without a doubt we need more “praktische und theoretische Bildkompetenz” (Hoffmann/ Rippl 2006: 7) 18 to fully understand how language and picture cooperate. Just as language can be used in diverse ways, so pictures, too, exist in many types and varieties (Reichle/ Siegel/ Spelten 2007: 8) 19 . It is this fact which needs to sink in deeper and must sensitize us to the richness of pictorial species and styles and their differentiated use in various text genres. References Barthes, Roland (1996). “Connotation”. In: Paul Cobley (ed.). The Communication Theory Reader. London: Routledge. 129-133. Beyond Depicting 27 Barthes, Roland (1977). “Rhetoric of the Image”. In: Stephen Heath (ed.). Image, Music, Text. London: Fontana. 32-51. Bonsiepe, Gui (1968). “Visuell/ Verbale Rhetorik”. Format: Zeitschrift für visuelle Kommunikation 17. 11-18. Burger, Harald (2005). Mediensprache: Eine Einführung in Sprache und Kommunikationsformen der Massenmedien. Berlin: de Gruyter. Doelker, Christian (1997). Ein Bild ist mehr als ein Bild: Visuelle Kompetenz in der Multimedia-Gesellschaft. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Doelker, Christian (2007). “Figuren der visuellen Rhetorik in werblichen Gesamttexten”. In: J. Knape (ed.). Bildrhetorik. Baden-Baden: Koerner. 71-112. Durand, Jacques (1987). “Rhetorical Figures in the Advertising Image”. In: J.U. Sebeok (ed.). Marketing and Semiotics. Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter. 295-318. Fill, Alwin (2007). Das Prinzip Spannung: Sprachwissenschaftliche Betrachtungen zu einem universalen Phänomen. Tübingen: Narr. Fix, Ulla (2006). “Was heißt Texte kulturell verstehen? Ein- und Zuordnungsprozesse beim Verstehen von Texten als kulturellen Entitäten”. In: Hardarik Blühdorn et al. (eds.). Text - Verstehen: Grammatik und darüber hinaus. Berlin/ New York: de Gruyter. 254-276. Gaede, Werner (1981). Vom Wort zum Bild: Kreativ-Methoden der Visualisierung. München: Langen Müller/ Herbig. Gaede, Werner (2002). Abweichen von der Norm: Enzyklopädie kreativer Werbung. München: Langen Müller/ Herbig. Geiger, Susi / Beate Henn-Memmesheimer (1998). “Visuell-verbale Textgestaltung von Werbeanzeigen”. Kodikas/ Code - Ars Semeiotica 21: 1/ 2. 55-74. Gieszinger, Sabine (2000). “Two Hundred Years of Advertising in The Times. The Development of Text Type Markers”. In: Friedrich Ungerer (ed.). English Media Texts Past and Present. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 85-109. Gieszinger, Sabine (2001). The History of Advertising Language: The Advertisements in The Times from 1788 to 1996. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Gombrich, Ernst H. (1996). “The Visual Image: its Place in Communication”. In: Richard Woodfield (ed.). The Essential Gombrich: Selected Writings on Art and Culture. London: Phaidon. 41-64. Grice, Herbert Paul (1975). “Logic and Conversation”. In: Peter Cole / J.L. Morgan (eds.). Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 3: Speech acts. New York: Academic. 41-58. Halawa, Mark Ashraf (2008). Wie sind Bilder möglich: Argumente für eine semiotische Fundierung des Bildbegriffs. Köln: Halem. Hoffmann, Torsten / Gabriele Rippl (eds.) (2006). Bilder - ein (neues) Leitmedium? Göttingen: Wallstein. Holly, Werner (2007). “Audiovisuelle Hermeneutik: Am Beispiel des TV-Spots der Kampagne ‘Du bist Deutschland’”. In: Fritz Hermanns (ed.). Linguistische Hermeneutik. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 389-428. Jäger, Ludwig (2002). “Transkriptivität: Zur medialen Logik der kulturellen Semantik”. In: Ludwig Jäger / Georg Stanitzek (ed.). Transkribieren: Medien/ Lektüre. München: Fink. 19-41. Kövecses, Zoltan (2002). Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kress, Gunther / Theo van Leeuwen (1996). Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. Kress, Gunther / Theo van Leeuwen (2001). Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold. Hartmut Stöckl 28 Kroeber-Riel, Werner (1993). Bildkommunikation: Imagery-Strategien für die Werbung. München: Vahlen. Leeuwen, Theo van (2005). Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge. Liebert, Wolf-Andreas / Thomas Metten (ed.) (2007). Mit Bildern lügen. Köln: Halem. Martinec, Radan / Andrew Salway (2005). “A System for Image-Text-Relations in New (and Old) Media”. Visual Communication 4: 3. 337-371. Morris, Charles (1971). Writings on the General Theory of Signs. The Hague: Mouton. Nöth, Winfried (2000). “Der Zusammenhang von Text und Bild”. In: Klaus Brinker et al. (eds.). Text- und Gesprächslinguistik. Berlin: de Gruyter. 489-496. Peirce, Charles Sanders (1966). Selected Writings. New York: Dover. Reichle, Ingeborg / Steffen Siegel / Achim Spelten (ed.) (2007). Verwandte Bilder: Die Fragen der Bildwissenschaft. Berlin: Kadmos. Reichle, Ingeborg / Steffen Siegel / Achim Spelten (ed.) (2008). Visuelle Modelle. München: Fink. Rentel, Nadine (2005). Bild und Sprache in der Werbung: Die formale und inhaltliche Konnexion von verbalem und visuellem Teiltext in der französischen Anzeigenwerbung der Gegenwart. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. Sachs-Hombach, Klaus (2003). Das Bild als kommunikatives Medium: Elemente einer allgemeinen Bildwissenschaft. Köln: Halem. Spillner, Bernd (1982). “Stilanalyse semiotisch komplexer Texte: Zum Verhältnis von sprachlicher und bildicher Information in Werbeanzeigen”. Kodikas/ Code - Ars Semeiotica 4: 5. 91-106. Stöckl, Hartmut (2003). “‘Prickeln, Perlchen, Phantasie…’ Sozialer Stil in der Sektwerbung.” In: Stephan Habscheid / Ulla Fix (eds.). Gruppenstile: Zur sprachlichen Inszenierung sozialer Zugehörigkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. 211-233. Stöckl, Hartmut (2008a): “Was hat Werbung zu verbergen? Kleine Typologie des Verdeckens”. In: Steffen Pappert / Melani Schröter / Ulla Fix (eds.). Verschlüsseln, Verbergen, Verdecken in öffentlicher und institutioneller Kommunikation. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. 171-196. Stöckl, Hartmut (2008b): “Werbetypographie: Formen und Funktionen”. In: Gudrun Held / Sylvia Bendel (eds.). Werbung - grenzenlos: Multimodale Werbetexte im interkulturellen Vergleich. Frankfurt am Main: Lang. 13-36. Stöckl, Hartmut (forthcoming). “Sprache-Bild-Texte lesen: Bausteine zur Methodik einer Grundkompetenz”. In: Hajo Diekmannshenke / Michael Klemm / Hartmut Stöckl (eds.). Bildlinguistik. Berlin: Erich Schmidt. Weidemann, Kurt (1997). Wo der Buchstabe das Wort führt: Ansichten über Schrift und Typographie. Ostfildern: Cantz. Wiedemann, Julius (ed.) (2006). Advertising now: Print. Köln: Taschen. Hartmut Stöckl Fachbereich Anglistik Universität Salzburg 1 For further information on the structure and availability of the Brown family of corpora see the homepage of ICAME, the International Computer Archive of Modern/ Medieval English, at http: / / helmer.aksis.uib.no/ icame.html. For information on additional corpus sources mentioned see David Lee’s “Bookmarks for Corpus-Based Linguists” at http: / / devoted.to/ corpora. The corresponding information on the DCPSE can be obtained from http: / / www.ucl. ac.uk/ english-usage/ projects/ dcpse/ research.htm. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English: real-time studies based on the DCPSE Barbara Klein 1. Introduction In the early 1990s, the completion of the Freiburg updates of the LOB and Brown corpora inaugurated a small boom in the corpus-based study of ongoing grammatical change in English in real time (see Mair 2006b: 12-35 for a discussion of methodological issues and Mair and Leech 2006 for a survey of important results). Given the composition of the “Brown family” of corpora, this research was necessarily restricted to the study of written English, and the extent to which diachronic developments observed in the written data reflected parallel trends in the spoken language remained controversial. The year 2006 saw the release of the Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English (DCPSE), compiled by the Survey of English Usage at the University College London. The DCPSE is an 800,000 word corpus containing matching samples of spontaneous spoken British English from the London Lund Corpus (1958-77) and from the British component of the International Corpus of English (1990-92). For the first time, it is now possible to carry out “real time” studies on spoken data in roughly the same time span which is covered by the written Brown, LOB, Frown and F-LOB corpora. 1 The present paper uses the DCPSE to investigate three grammatical variables which have already been shown to be undergoing change in the written language: the s-genitive, the subjunctive, and a selection of modal Barbara Klein 30 2 Due to the F-LOB corpus still being under construction at that time, only F-LOBpress was available for her research. Therefore, the analyses in the other corpora were restricted to the press section to allow full comparability of data. 3 The relative frequency of nouns from LOB to F-LOB remained relatively stable; Mair et al. (2002) documented only a slight increase by 0.8% in the relevant text types. verbs. In order to facilitate comparability to previous work based on the Brown family of corpora, I selected the late 1950s (1958-1960) and the early 1990s (1990-1992). Since thirty years are too short to track a grammatical change running its course from its primary emergence to its completion, this paper should be considered as the study of recent episodes in ongoing processes of change. The overall aim is to shed light on the extent to which changes proceed along parallel lines in speech and writing. 2. The s-genitive Popular surveys on language change such as Barber (1964) or Potter (1969/ 75) have long argued that the frequency of the s-genitive is increasing in present-day English. Barber even claims a spread of the s-genitive to inanimate nouns, at the expense of semantically equivalent of-constructions (1964: 132). Even though these early studies made people aware of the issue, they are based on impressionistic observation only. Subsequent corpus-based research, however, has made clear that these impressions are not totally without foundation. Raab-Fischer (1995) investigates the press section of the LOB/ F-LOB and the Brown/ Frown corpora and shows that in newspaper language, 2 the s-genitive is increasing with all kinds of possessor nouns, however not necessarily with those nouns ranking highest on the gender scale. The of-construction is shown to be losing ground with all types of possessor nouns. On the basis of an extensive elicitation study, Rosenbach claims that the s-genitive is increasing in present-day English, and that this extension is more productive than has been assumed so far (2002: 161). Mair (2006a: 245-246), too, confirms the general rise in the frequency of s-genitives in press and academic writing. 3 However, he emphasizes that in his data the observed increase is not due to an increasing use of the s-genitive with inanimate nouns (which had been suggested as the responsible factor in other studies), but rather to a text-type specific desire in written genres to compress information. Given the relatively short period of investigation (c. 30 years), the statistical shifts are impressive. Mair and Leech (2006) as well as Leech and Smith (2006) report an increase in the frequency of s-genitives of 24.1%. Genitive-equivalent of-phrases, by contrast, decline by 23.4% (Mair and Leech 2006: 334). According to Leech and Smith, in present-day written British English, “the loss of of-genitives is very roughly commensurate with the gain of s-genitives” (2006: 197). Like Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 31 4 FRED (The Freiburg Corpus of English Dialects) contains dialectal speech by older speakers of British English, mainly recorded between 1970 and 1990. The CSAE (The Corpus of Spoken American English) consists of about 166,000 words of informal American English (Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi, forthcoming). 5 S-genitives were retrieved through the grammatical tagging of the corpus. For the ofconstructions a Fuzzy Tree Fragment had to be created manually. 6 I limited the comparison to the data of 1958 to 1960 and the year 1990 for two reasons: first, it would have been far too laborious to extract the interchangeable of-constructions from the whole of the ICE-corpus (1990-1992), since the Fuzzy Tree Fragment identified 4,510 potential s-genitive equivalents. Second, the number of words in LUND 1958-1960 (37,225) almost exactly matches the number of words in ICE 1990 (40,819), which makes it an ideal basis for comparisons. 7 Log likelihood is a measure of statistical significance: a value of 3.84 or more equates with chi-square values >0.05; a value of 6.63 or more equates with chi-square values >0.01. 8 The column headed “Diff (%)” gives the increase (+) or decrease (-) in occurrences as a percentage of the frequency in the 1958-60 data. Raab-Fischer, Hinrichs and Szmrecsanyi (2007) base their work on the press section of the LOB/ F-LOB and Brown/ Frown corpora. Another paper (2008) includes two non-matching spoken corpora (FRED and the CSAE 4 ). The authors argue that the increase in the s-genitive in press texts “may well reduce, at least partly, to an increasingly powerful tendency to code thematic NPs with the s-genitive” (2007: 468). They explain the increase in the s-genitive in terms of “economization”, the use of a more compact coding option in writing (2007: 469), as was also suspected by Mair (2006a: 245). The question is whether grammatical change is documented at such massive rates in writing, are these changes also happening in speech? On the basis of the DCPSE, as I will show below, this question has to be answered in the negative. For the identification of semantically equivalent s-genitives and of-constructions 5 , I used the criteria listed in Hinrichs and Szmreczanyi (2007: 446f.), Kreyer (2003: 170) and Raab-Fischer (1995: 127). Table 1 presents the results and shows no discernible diachronic trend: Table 1: Genitives interchangeable with of-phrases in two subsamples of DCPSE DCPSE 1958-60 1990 6 Log likhd 7 Diff (%) 8 total n/ 10,000 total n/ 10,000 s-genitive 67 18.00 74 18.13 0 + 0.72 of-construction 88 23.64 78 19.11 1.88 - 19.17 s-gen 1958-60 vs. 1990: not significant; of-construction 1958-60 vs. 1990: not significant Barbara Klein 32 The low log likelihood values demonstrate that, contrary to expectations, there is no significant change in the use of the forms in spontaneous spoken British English within the thirty years considered. The frequency of s-genitives remains stable, showing none of the drastic increase observed in writing. The use of the of-construction is decreasing slightly, yet below the degree of statistical significance. It has been argued that the s-genitive is spreading to inanimate possessor nouns in the written register (cf. Barber 1964: 132f.). Whatever the merit of this explanation may be for written data, it is irrelevant for the spoken language. A look at the types of s-genitive possessors in the DCPSE reveals that there are no instances of inanimate possessors in the years considered for this study. In sum, my analysis has illustrated that there is no diachronic change in genitive usage in spoken English. On the other hand, the increase of s-genitives in written English is so well documented that it cannot be doubted. The explanation for this discrepancy is that we are most likely not dealing with a genuine grammatical change here (in the sense of a change in the underlying system of choices and options), but with a stylistic development or an evolution of text-type specific norms in some written genres. Colloquialization, the drift toward more oral modes of expression in writing, has been named as an explanation for the spread of s-genitives in writing (cf. Leech and Smith 2006: 197). However, the increase in locative, temporal (Raab-Fischer 1995: 126) or abstract inanimate possessors (Dahl 1971: 170) can hardly be explained by colloquialization, since the DCPSE clearly indicates that these forms are not very frequent in speech. Rather, the increasing frequency of the s-genitive reflects a growing demand for economy in language, and an increase in the information-density of some written genres. 2. The subjunctive Toward the beginning of the 20 th century, most grammarians considered the English subjunctive a moribund form on the verge of disappearing from the language completely (cf. Jespersen 1905: 205, or Fowler 1926: 595). In the second half of the century, a comeback was noticed, especially in American English (cf. Hirtle 1964, Jacobsson 1975). Övergaard (1995) is the first systematic diachronic study to look at the developments of the subjunctive in the 20 th century, using different text corpora. She discovers a significant increase in the mandative subjunctive from 1960 to 1990 in British English, which she believes is due to American influence. In contrast to Övergaard (1995), Hundt (1998) is not able to confirm such a drastic increase in sub- Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 33 9 LOB, Brown, F-LOB, Frown, WCNZE = Wellington Corpus of Written New Zealand English (1980s), ACE = Australian Corpus of English (late 1980s), BNC = British National Corpus (spoken part) 10 Since her results are not statistically significant due to low numbers, the proclaimed trends still need to be checked on the basis of larger corpora. 11 The verb be is an exception, because its base form be is distinct to all singular and plural present indicative forms. Past subjunctive were is only non-ambiguous in the first and third person singular. junctives comparing LOB to F-LOB. Her overall results for corpora representing different varieties, 9 however, suggest that the subjunctive is becoming less formal (1998: 167). More recent studies by Serpollet (2001), Mair and Leech (2006), and Leech and Smith (2006) are all exclusively based on the Brown family of corpora. Serpollet (2001) reports a definite increase in the mandative subjunctive in British English, accompanied by a decline in periphrastic should. 10 Mair and Leech (2006: 328) speak more cautiously of a “modest revival” of the present subjunctive in British English alongside a continuing decline of the were-subjunctive. Apart from Hundt’s (1998) analysis of a sample of the spoken part of the BNC, there are no corpus-based studies on the use of the subjunctive in spoken English, let alone diachronic accounts of recent developments. In how far the spoken language has been affected by the revival of the mandative subjunctive is thus an issue that still needs to be looked into. The following analysis of the DCPSE covers both the mandative and the past subjunctive and will also examine the formulaic subjunctive and the subjunctive in clauses of condition and concession. In the analysis of the mandative subjunctive, modal-verb periphrases and indicative forms will also be considered. Since the present subjunctive is morphologically distinct from the indicative only in the third person singular, many ambiguous forms are expected. 11 Table 2 shows the total number of subjunctives and their periphrastic and indicative alternants in subordinate clauses governed by mandative expressions: Barbara Klein 34 12 Since the periods considered do not represent exactly the same number of words, the frequency of hits was normalized per 10,000 word tokens. 13 Hundt (1998) reports a decline of the mandative use of should by 17.28%, whereas Serpollet (2001) arrives at 46.45%, both relying on LOB and F-LOB. Table 2: Distribution of the mandative subjunctive and its alternants in two sub-samples of the DCSPE DCPSE 1958-1960 1990-1992 Log likhd Diff (%) total n/ 10,000 12 total n/ 10,000 Subjunctive 0 0.00 2 0.05 0.34 (+ 100.00) should 5 1.34 11 0.26 7.10* - 80.56 Other modals 2 0.54 9 0.21 1.14 - 60.24 Indicative 1 0.27 45 1.07 3.01 + 297.55 Non-distinct forms 0 0.00 10 0.24 1.69 (+ 100.00) Total mandative 8 2.15 77 1.83 0.18 - 14.88 * should 1958-60 vs. 1990-92: significant at p>0.01 The fact that there are effectively only two genuine subjunctive forms in the 458,587 words analysed is a clear indication of its insignificance in speech: (1) You remember she had insisted that they only do a small incision under local anaesthetic <DI-B80_12> (2) When we got the request for help we suggested that we look not at general loans <DI-G02_102>. Since the verb in (1) is not subject to the normal sequence of tenses - which would require backshifting the verb to did - and since phrase (2) forms its negation without do-support, they cannot be indicative. However, the subjunctive in (2) is somehow debatable, because, according to the rule of grammar books, not has to precede the verb in genuine subjunctive constructions. The subjunctive may be “alive and kicking” (Serpollet 2001: 531) in written English; it is still moribund, though, in contemporary spoken British English. The DCPSE data furthermore reveals that the frequency of the periphrastic construction with the modal should is on the decrease by 80.56% (significant at p > 0.01) in spoken British English, too. As the literature does not agree on the scope of the decline between the written corpora LOB and F-LOB due to different counting procedures, 13 it can only be said that the decline of periphrastic should seems to be more pronounced in Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 35 14 Log likelihood of 4.30 15 normalized per 10,000 word tokens: 1958-60: 1.61; 1990-92: 0.09. spoken English than in writing. In the DCPSE, modals other than should are also on the decline; one can however not generalize from these data, since the results are not statistically significant. The results for the indicative and non-distinct verb forms are very interesting within the scope of the DCPSE, though not significant enough statistically to be used as a basis from which any broad trends can be drawn. The frequency of indicatives replacing subjunctives in mandative construction indeed increases by 297.55% from 0.27 in the late 1950s to 1.07 hits per 10,000 word tokens in the early 1990s. Statements of the type (3) are becoming increasingly common. The question is, however, whether the nondistinct forms in the DCPSE exemplified in (4) actually represent genuine subjunctives or indicatives. (3) The key issue is how do we insure that the local government survives the poll tax <DI-D14_119> (4) I suggest that you sort of write or speak with Grandma <DI-C05_299> It is generally agreed that ambiguous forms should be added to the numerically more important group, which in this case obviously are the indicatives. Consequently, the inclusion of the non-distinct forms yields an increase in the frequency of indicatives by 385.89% 14 (significant at p > 0.05). This result is in line with the study on written British English by Hundt (1998), who also claims that the indicative is gaining ground. The synchronically most striking finding is that the indicative is the most frequent substitute for the genuine subjunctive in spoken British English of the early 1990s. Periphrasis by modals is used in about one quarter of all cases, while the genuine subjunctive is distinctly the least frequent option in mandative clauses. The formulaic subjunctive turned out to be, as expected, a relatively rare form. Nevertheless, it occurred more often than the genuine subjunctive. Even though one cannot speak of a drastic decline due to low numbers, there is still a slight decrease in its usage: down from 6 instances in the late 1950s to 4 examples in the early 1990s. 15 The formulaic expressions used remain the same, ranging from simple be it to far be it, so be it and if need be. It looks as if these kinds of expressions are generally quite rare in spontaneous speech - probably due to their archaic nature. Barbara Klein 36 The DCPSE offers very few examples of the use of the subjunctive in clauses of condition and concession. Although there is not a single form in the late 1950s, five attestations can be found in the years 1990 to 1992. Three are triggered by the expressions if, whether and even though, and involve the verb be as in (5) If we‘re advancing, even though that be quite slow, quite different attitudes prevail <DI-I01_55>. The other two examples contain the verb come used in a conditional sense. The frequency of were-subjunctives has not changed dramatically in spoken English within the thirty years considered either. Against the background of a continuing decline in writing (cf. Mair and Leech 2006: 329), it could be expected that were would be losing ground in speech as well. In fact, there is a modest decline (by 16.07%), which, however, involves very low overall numbers and is thus not statistically significant. Interestingly, was is on the decline in hypothetical clauses as well, dropping by 53.3% (significant at p > 0.05). Therefore, the assumption that the decline in past subjunctives is counterbalanced by an increase in indicative was turned out to be not true for spontaneous spoken language. From a synchronic point of view, it is worth mentioning that indicative was is still the most frequent option in hypothetical contexts. In the years 1990 to 1992, 79.57% of all conditional and concessive statements in the first and third person singular preferred indicative was to the formal were-subjunctive. Consequently, Johansson and Norheim’s argument that the “were-subjunctive is clearly the dominant choice in hypothetical-conditional clauses” (1988: 34) did not turn out to be true for spontaneous speech of the early 1990s. It should be noted, moreover, that the main use of the were-subjunctive is in the formula as it were, which is used almost twice as much as the genuine past subjunctive in the years 1990 to 1992. Most of the 35 uses of as it were concentrate on the two subcorpora B (informal face-to-face conversation) and I (assorted spontaneous), where the expression serves as a type of discourse marker. The use of this form in spoken American English has not been investigated so far. Johansson and Norheim (1988: 34) were, however, able to demonstrate that as it were is much more frequent in LOB than in the Brown corpus. Whether as it were is a Briticism in speech as well is a question which can only be answered by a synchronic comparison of British and American spoken corpora. Summing up, then, and looking at the results from a slightly different angle by combining the numbers of should and all other modals as well as the indicatives and the non-distinct forms, these are the salient developments in the thirty-year period under review: Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 37 Table 3: Distribution of should + other modals and indicative + non-distinct forms in mandative clauses DCPSE 1958-1960 1990-1992 Log likhd Diff (%) total n/ 10,000 total n/ 10,000 Subjunctive 0 0.00 2 0.05 0.34 (+ 100.00) Should + other modals 7 1.88 20 0.47 7.64 - 74.76 Indicative + non-distinct forms 1 0.27 55 1.31 4.30 + 385.89 should + other modals 1958-60 vs. 1990-92: significant at p>0.01; indicative + nondistinct forms 1958-60 vs. 1990-92: significant at p>0.05 While, in terms of the subjunctive, one cannot speak of any developments, since it is virtually not used, the indicative is gaining ground extensively in spoken mandative clauses. One could even assume that the moderate loss in should and other modals is in parts compensated by the increase in indicatives. These results raise the question why the subjunctive is “alive and kicking” in written British English, but hardly used in spontaneous speech. First of all, as in the case of the genitive, style and formality seem to play a pivotal role. Previous studies have shown that the development in written British English is remarkable, because the revival of the formal subjunctive cannot be explained by a colloquialization of the written norm. If it is thus due to an Americanization of British writing, one should be aware of the fact that such a process is apparently not at work in spoken British English. Why is the subjunctive in speech not subject to Americanization? Probably, as it is still, even in American writing, a formal way of expressing commands or propositions, which is not typical of spontaneous speech. Övergaard (1995: 89) attributes the increase in mandative subjunctives to the impact of American texts after World War II. The present DCPSE analysis shows that this influence has not affected spoken language. It looks as though British writers are embracing the subjunctive, because it is an optional stylistic device, which offers variation in writing whenever a more formal option is more appropriate. Like spoken British English, spoken American English has not been subject to real-time studies due to the lack of comparable corpora. Even though the role of the subjunctive in written American English has been thoroughly investigated, the only available source for speculations on the use of the subjunctive in speech are elicitation studies such as Nichols (1987) or Algeo (1988). These studies suggest that the subjunctive Barbara Klein 38 16 SEU: Survey of English Usage spoken “Mini-Corpus”. 80,000 words from selected categories of the years 1959-65. ICE-GB: International Corpus of English spoken “Mini-Corpus”. 80,000 words from selected categories of the years 1990-92. 17 Including needn’t, the form is decreasing by 40.2% (Leech 2003: 228). in American speech is not as rare as in British English, however, since these studies are not empirical and merely based on questionnaires, a diachronic set of comparable spoken corpora of American English is definitely required to find out whether the two varieties are diverging or converging. Once again, we have seen that a diachronic development in writing does not necessarily entail a corresponding trend in speech. 4. Modal auxiliaries must, have to, (have) got to, need (to), shall As several corpus-based studies have shown, modality and the modal verbs have been “on the move” (Leech 2003) in the recent past, at least in written English (Leech 2003, 2004b; Mair and Leech 2006; Leech and Smith 2006). Unlike the s-genitive with inanimate nouns or the subjunctive, modals are extensively used in spoken English, which is why Leech (2003, 2004b) carried out a pilot study on a small subsection of what was to become the DCPSE. Even though these “mini-corpora” were too small to retrieve any statistically significant trends, it still became apparent that changes in the use of the modal auxiliaries should be much more pronounced in spoken English than in writing. Table 4 summarizes Leech’s results for the verbs studied also in the present paper: Table 4: Frequencies of modals and semi-modals in written and spoken BE (Leech 2004b: 66ff.) Written British English LOB F-LOB (Diff %) Spoken British English mini corpora SEU ICE-GB 16 (Diff %) Modals: must - 29.0* - 60.7* shall - 43.7* - 34.6 need 17 - 43.6* (non-existent) Semi-modals: (HAVE) got to, gotta - 34.1 - 25.7 HAVE to + 9.0 + 31.6 NEED to + 249.1* + 650.0* * significant at p > 0.01. Note: CAPITALIZED forms represent all morphological variants. Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 39 Leech’s comparison of LOB and F-LOB reveals that all the central modals relevant to this study appear to be decreasing in their frequency in written British English. Among the group of the semi-modals considered, there is no clear overall picture. Whereas need to is increasing drastically, the increase in have to is less pronounced. (Have) got to, on the other hand, seems to be declining. Mair (2006b: 105) synchronically analyzed the Longman Spoken American Corpus and the conversation component of ICE-GB. He found out that have (got) to is much more common than must in the present-day speech of both varieties. He however attributes this change only to some extent to the fact that have to has additional syntactically-motivated uses. Like Smith (2003: 255), Mair claims that it is in particular the non-syntactically motivated forms that are increasing. Moreover, he concludes that have to is replacing must in its deontic use, but not in epistemic contexts (Mair 2006b: 105). According to the previous studies it seems as if the two registers, though at a different pace, are heading in the same direction. Even though being closely aligned in terms of the number of words, the provisional two mini corpora used are not as closely matched as the DCPSE regarding timeframe and transcription files. The DCPSE is thus expected to allow a more in-depth examination of ongoing changes. Unlike the genitive or the subjunctive, the semi-modals are characteristic of spoken language, which leads to the assumption that innovations in their use originate in spontaneous speech, and subsequently spread to writing. My paper will be limited to the modals and semi-modals that have been reported to be most innovative. Since need to is reported to increase dramatically, the analysis of must and have (got) to is necessary, because changes in need to are very likely to affect other modals expressing the same concepts of obligation and necessity. Shall is remarkable because it has been declining for at least two hundred years, and it will be interesting to find out which uses still survive in spoken British English. Barbara Klein 40 18 In order to corroborate this assumption, an auditory analysis is needed, which is however beyond the scope of my paper. Table 5 presents the frequencies of the modals and semi-modals of obligation and necessity, including negated forms and contractions. Table 5: Frequencies of the modals and semi-modals of obligation and necessity in two sub-samples of the DCPSE DCPSE 1958-1960 1990-1992 Log likhd Diff (%) total n/ 10,000 total n/ 10,000 must 38 10.21 195 4.63 16.61** - 54.67 (HAVE) got to 24 6.45 185 4.39 2.84 - 31.90 HAVE to 34 9.31 555 13.17 4.97* + 44.21 need 0 0.00 1 0.02 0.17 (+ 100.00) NEED to 1 0.27 116 2.75 13.15** + 924.80 Total 97 26.06 1052 24.97 0.16 - 4.19 *HAVE to 1958-60 vs.1990-92: significant at p>0.05; **must, need to 1958-60 vs.1990-92: significant at p>0.01. CAPITALIZED forms represent all morphological variants. The DCPSE data clearly indicate that, in spite of the overall stability, individual frequencies of modals and semi-modals of obligation and necessity have changed considerably within the thirty years examined. In the scope of this reallocation, core modal must has suffered most, dropping by 54.67% from 10.21 to 4.63 occurrences per 10.000 words. This decrease is not only statistically significant, but also much more pronounced than the decline in must in written British English (- 29.0%). Interestingly, (have) got to, though being considered as informal and characteristically British (cf. Huddleston and Pullum 2002: 113), is declining in the DCPSE almost to the same extent as in writing from LOB to F-LOB (- 34.1%). The proportion of examples in which have is omitted is negligibly small in both corpora. In the late 1950s corpus, have is dropped in none of the examples, and even in the early 1990s, have-omission amounts only to 3.78% of all instances of got to. It can however be suspected that even though have-omission is still rare, the phonetic reduction of got to gotta is already taking place in British speech. 18 The DCPSE furthermore shows that, unlike must and (have) got to, have to is increasingly used in British English, rising by 44.21%. While the written corpora only list an increase by 9.0%, Leech’s (2004b: 69) analysis of the Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 41 19 Two instances of shan’t are included in the 1990s. spoken mini corpora (increase by 31.6%) has already foreshadowed the growing importance of have to. In the case of need, the trends for auxiliary and main verb uses in spoken English are highly divergent. Auxiliary need followed by a bare verb form does not occur in the DCPSE. The only instance of modal usage is the negative contraction needn’t, which however only occurs once in the year 1992. On the basis of the DCPSE, it is thus possible to argue that need as an auxiliary verb remains virtually unused in present day spoken British English. Main verb need to, however, is drastically increasing in frequency, mounting from 0.27 to 2.75 occurrences per 10.000 words, which represents an extraordinary increase by 924.80%. The rise of need to, highly significant at the 1% level, is distinctly the most pronounced development among the modals and semi-modals. It is remarkable that this form was only very rarely used in the late 1950s, and is now ranking similar to (have) got to or must. Example (6) represents a typical use of need to: (6) I just need to check your blood pressure <DI-A10_197>. Similar to core modal must, shall has declined considerably in its frequency in spoken British English. The drop by 59.80% from the late 1950s to the early 1990s is statistically significant at p > 0.01. Table 6: Frequency of modal auxiliary shall in two sub-samples of the DCPSE DCPSE 1958-1960 1990-1992 Log likhd Diff (%) total n/ 10,000 total n/ 10,000 shall 20 5.37 91 19 2.16 11.14* - 59.80 * significant at p>0.01 In the field of the modals and semi-modals of obligation and necessity, a close look at the synchronic distribution is necessary for the sake of comparing the frequencies of the individual forms. Table 7 lists the verbs must, have to, have got to, and need to in their order of precedence in written (LOB/ F-LOB) and spoken British English (DCPSE). The numbers represent the normalized frequencies per 10,000 words. Barbara Klein 42 20 The numbers for the written corpora are adapted from the results by Smith (2003: 248), who normalized the frequencies per 100,000 words. Table 7: Modals and semi-modals of obligation and necessity in their order of precedence in speech and writing LOB 20 F-LOB DCPSE 1958-60 DCPSE 1990-92 rank n/ 10,000 n/ 10,000 n/ 10,000 n/ 10,000 1 must 11.41 HAVE to 8.17 must 10.21 HAVE to 13.17 2 HAVE to 7.53 must 8.07 HAVE to 9.13 must 4.63 3 (HAVE) 4.11 NEED to 1.96 (HAVE) 6.45 (HAVE) 4.39 got to got to got to 4 NEED to 0.54 (HAVE) 0.27 NEED to 0.27 NEED to 2.75 got to Total 23.59 18.50 26.06 24.94 Must and have to have changed places in both written and spoken British English within a thirty-year window. Whether this reversal is due to a replacement of must by have to is a question which cannot be answered straightforwardly, as there is a complex interaction of semantic and syntactic factors. The synchronic comparison of F-LOB and the 1990s DCPSE part furthermore shows that have to, as was suspected by Leech (2004b: 69), is used more frequently in speech than it is in writing. In addition, (have) got to, even though declining, is still more common in the spoken language of the early 1990s than in writing. Another interesting result of this ranking is the fact that need to, even though increasing dramatically in speech, is still the least frequently used option among the four verbs. Unlike the two preceding case studies, developments in speech and writing are broadly comparable with this variable. What divides writing and speech is not the presence or absence of a development but merely the speed at which these reorganizations in the modal system are happening: spontaneous speech clearly is more innovative here, and spoken corpora should therefore be the first choice for studying changes in the modals. Of course, the statistical survey needs to be continued by qualitative follow-up studies. The first step in the semantic analysis is the classification of the examples found according to various meanings and functions of the modals. Table 8 presents such a differentiated analysis for must in the DCPSE. Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 43 21 <DI-B44_161> Loose shirts over jeans has got to be a sort of temporary prejudice, hasn’t it 22 From LOB to F-LOB, Smith (2003: 257) documented a significant increase of epistemic have to by 225.0%. Log likelihood 10.0; significant at p < 0.01. Table 8: Meanings of must DCPSE 1958-1960 1990-1992 Log likhd Diff (%) frequency proportion frequency proportion must epistemic 15 39.47% 93 47.69% 4.05* - 45.23 must deontic 23 60.53% 102 52.31% 13.43** - 60.82 total 38 100.00% 195 100.00% - 54.67 *must epistemic 1958-60 vs. 1990-92: significant at p>0.05; **must deontic 1958-60 vs. 1990-92: significant at p>0.01 As these data reveal, must is losing ground both in its epistemic and in its deontic function. The decline in deontic uses is slightly more pronounced. Again, the situation in written British English is similar: Smith (2003: 257) compares LOB to F-LOB, and reports a decline in both meanings of must. As in speech, the drop of epistemic must in writing is less severe (epistemic: 13.2%; deontic: 33.5%). In the case of (have) got to, the overall usage in speech is different. Apart from one single exception 21 all examples of (have) got to in the two parts of the DCPSE considered are deontic, which means that the reported decline can only be affecting its deontic uses. Since the meaning of deontic (have) got to is closer to must than to have to, the decline makes sense. Surprisingly, all DCPSE examples of have to are deontic as well. Consequently, Leech’s (2004a: 81) assumption that epistemic have to is “growing more common in British English” appears to apply to written English exclusively. 22 Since it is generally agreed that need to is rarely able to express epistemic modality, it is not surprising that it is likewise exclusively used in its deontic sense in the DCPSE. The semantic decoding of the modals and semi-modals strongly suggests that the decrease in (have) got to and in the deontic uses of must is compensated by the respective increase in have to and need to. Since must and need to cannot be used interchangeably in all contexts, and since (have) got to is not the regular alternative in past contexts, I will limit my comparison to deontic must and deontic, non-syntactically motivated have to. The major aim is to discover whether spoken British English is moving away from expressions of authority toward more polite and less pushy modes of expression. In order to retrieve only relevant and comparable Barbara Klein 44 23 According to Smith (2003: 254), these are non-finite forms, negated forms expressing absent requirement as in you don’t have to and all past forms. forms, first all epistemic uses were eliminated from the overall number. In a second step, all syntactically motivated uses 23 of have to were extracted, in order to guarantee comparability to bare verb form must. Table 9 shows the frequencies of all interchangeable forms. Table 9: Deontic must and deontic, non-syntactically motivated have to DCPSE 1958-1960 1990-1992 Log likhd Diff (n/ 10,000) Diff (%) total n/ 10,000 total n/ 10,000 deontic must 23 6.18 102 2.42 13.43** - 3.76 - 60,82 non-syntactically motivated HAVE to 22 5.91 392 9.30 4.92* + 3.39 + 57.41 *HAVE to 1958-60 vs.1990-92: significant at p>0.05; **must 1958-60 vs.1990-92: significant at p>0.01 Capitalized HAVE here represents the present tense forms have and has. According to these data, it looks as if the increase in non-syntactically motivated have to, which is by definition in the majority of cases interchangeable with must, compensates for the decrease in deontic must. As we have seen before, must is not threatened by have to in epistemic function in spoken English. In regular finite, non-negated present tense, it appears as if have to was becoming more and more popular in present-day British English speech. Statements expressing obligation by the use of have to such as (7) are definitely widely spread today: (7) Oh you have to pay for these <DI-B25_50> However, it is absolutely essential to point out that it would be premature to deduce that there is a one-to-one replacement of must by have to. It is obvious that need to is also replacing must in some deontic contexts in the same way in which (have) got to can also be used instead of have to. The case of declining shall is different from the changes in the modals and semi-modals discussed so far, because over the centuries, some of its uses have gradually disappeared (cf. Gotti 2003: 278f.). Table 10 shows the development of the two main remaining usages in the second part of the twentieth century: Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 45 Table 10: Meanings of shall DCPSE 1958-1960 1990-1992 Log likhd Diff (%) frequency proportion frequency proportion shall volition 4 20.00% 43 47.25% 0.01 - 5.03 shall prediction 16 80.00% 48 52.75% 16.51* - 73.50 total 20 100.00% 91 100.00% 11.14* - 59.80 *shall prediction and total 1958-60 vs.1990-92: significant at p>0.01 According to the DCPSE data, shall has been losing ground both in expressing volition and prediction. The decline in its futurity meaning is clearly more distinct, which is probably due to modal will becoming more popular and replacing shall in future contexts. What is striking is the high number of “formulaic discourse structuring devices” (Mair 2006b: 102) of the type as we shall see, which are not productive, and thus hint at the fact that shall might become obsolete in the course of the following centuries. Since they encompass both the spoken and the written language, the developments in the field of modality probably reflect more genuinely grammatical changes than the shifts in the use of the genitive and the subjunctive. With the “emerging semi-modals” (cf. the title of Krug 2000) have to and need to, we are seeing grammaticalization at work. Colloquialization is “a tendency for features of conversational spoken language to infiltrate, and spread in the written language” (Leech 2004b: 75). Thereby, have to and need to provide prime examples. Their rate of increase in speech is three times that in writing, which suggests that the trend originated in spontaneous speech and subsequently spread to writing, where it is thus still lagging behind somewhat. Democratization, a “tendency to avoid unequal and face-threatening modes of interaction” (Leech 2004b: 75) is a socio-psychological model of language change, which can be perfectly applied to the decline in must and the respective rise in have to and need to. Myhill (1995), investigating the functions of a selection of modals before and after the American Civil War, argues that the “old” modals must, should, may, and shall were associated with hierarchical social relationships, with people controlling the actions of other people, and with absolute judgements based upon social decorum, principle and rules about societal expectations of certain types of people. The ‘new’ modals [i.e. have to, got to] are more personal, being used to give advice to an equal, make an emotional request, offer help or criticize one’s interlocutor (Myhill 1995: 157). Barbara Klein 46 Even though my paper is neither focused on American English nor on the time around the Civil War, Myhill’s description of the modals perfectly fits the trends observable in the DCPSE in the second half of the twentieth century. It is highly likely that the decline in must is the reflection of a societal tendency arising after World War II (cf. Mair and Hundt 1997: 78), which is characterized by a movement away from exercising authority openly and encourages more polite and egalitarian ways of formulating commands, orders or requests (see example 6). I conclude that in this area, changes in speech can be definitely considered prior to writing. Unlike the genitive and the subjunctive, the modals and semi-modals turned out to be not a mere stylistic option in writing, but a category of verbs whose origin lies in what the DCPSE represents: spontaneous spoken language. 5. Conclusion On the basis of the DCPSE corpus, this paper has identified and analyzed recent developments in the use of three grammatical variables within the span of one generation. They have turned out to be fairly heterogeneous both in the scope and in the potential causes of the observed changes. The genitive represents an area in which there is no significant ongoing change in present-day spoken English. Contrary to expectations raised by studies of written English, the frequencies of both s-genitives and equivalent of-constructions have remained stable within the thirty years documented in the DCPSE. Similarly, the use of the subjunctive has turned out to be more stable in speech than in writing. In speech, the present subjunctive is close to non-existent in British English. In mandative statements, the indicative is gaining ground, with even the should option declining. With modals and semi-modals, on the other hand, the diachronic dynamic seems to be greater in speech, with the changes originating there eventually being taken up in writing. This paper therefore provides evidence that one should not act on the general assumption that changes in speech always precede changes in writing. It appears as though changes in formal or stylistically optional grammatical elements in writing may progress independently of the spoken register. Beyond the immediate focus on three grammatical variables, the present paper can also be seen as a test for a new corpus resource, the DCPSE. In the compilation of this corpus, considerable efforts have been made by the compilers to control all variables in aligning the “older” London-Lund components with the “newer” ICE-GB ones, which has generally been successful. But some shortcomings remain. One is the number of years covered in the two parts of the corpus: while the 400,000 “new” words from ICE-GB Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 47 cover three years, the “old” LUND part is spread over nineteen years. Since the first priority of my study was an exact match of years in order to guarantee comparability to the written corpora, I had to work with corpus parts of different sizes. As a consequence, text categories could not be completely matched. This study is one of the first to be carried out on the basis of the DCPSE, and there will be more to follow. The field of phonetics will gain from this new corpus as well, since auditory files of the original recordings are included. In the vast field of morphosyntax, this paper can be considered as a mere starting point. As we have seen, the nature of the changes in speech and writing can vary considerably, which calls for further comparisons of the two registers using the DCPSE. In conclusion, it is imperative to emphasize the need for comparable corpora of spoken American English to create a set of spoken corpora similar to LOB and Brown, and their respective updates. In many ways, an American counterpart to the DCPSE would be the last piece of the puzzle, completing and uniting the existing corpora, and serving as a unique basis for an integrated study of regional variability and diachronic change in the recent history of spoken English. References Algeo, John (1988). “British and American grammatical differences.” International Journal of Lexicography 1. 1-31. Barber, Charles (1964). Linguistic Change in Present-Day English. London & Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. Dahl, Liisa (1971). “The s-genitive with non-personal nouns in modern English journalistic style.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 72. 140-172. Fowler, Henry W (1926). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. London: Milford. Gotti, Maurizio (2003). “Shall and will in contemporary English: a comparison with past uses.” In: Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug, and Frank Palmer (eds.).Modality in Contemporary English. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 267-300. Hinrichs, Lars and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (2007). “Recent changes in the function and frequency of Standard English genitive constructions: a multivariate analysis of tagged corpora.” English Language and Linguistics 11: 3. 437-474. Hirtle, Walter H (1964). “The English present subjunctive.” Canadian Journal of Linguistics 9. 75-82. Huddleston, Rodney and Geoffrey K. Pullum (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Hundt, Marianne (1998). “It is important that this study (should) be based on the analysis of parallel corpora: On the use of the mandative subjunctive in four major varieties of English.” In: Hans Lindquist et al. (eds.).The Major Varieties of English. Papers from MAVEN 97. Växjö: Acta Wexionensia. 159-175. Jacobsson, Bengt (1975). “How dead is the English subjunctive.” Moderna Språk 69. 218-231. Barbara Klein 48 Jespersen, Otto (1905). Growth and Structure of the English Language. Chicago: Chicago UP. Johansson, Stig and Else Helene Norheim (1988). “The subjunctive in British and American English.” ICAME Journal 12. 27-36. Kreyer, Rolf (2003). “Genitive and of-construction in modern written English. Processability and human involvement.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 8. 169-207. Krug, Manfred (2000). Emerging English Modals: A Corpus-Based Study of Grammaticalization. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Leech, Geoffrey (2003). “Modality on the move: The English modal auxiliaries 1961-1992.” In: Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug, and Frank Palmer (eds.).Modality in Contemporary English. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 223-240. Leech, Geoffrey (2004a). Meaning and the English Verb. Harlow: Longman/ Pearson. Leech, Geoffrey (2004b). “Recent grammatical change in English: data, description, theory.” In: Bengt Altenberg and Karin Ajimer (eds.).Advances in corpus linguistics. Proceedings of the 23 rd ICAME Conference, Gothenburg, 2002. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. 61-81. Leech, Geoffrey and Nicolas Smith (2006). “Recent grammatical change in written English 1961-1992: some preliminary findings of a comparison of American with British English.” In: Antoinette Renouf and Andrew Kehoe (eds.).The Changing Face of Corpus Linguistics. Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. 185-204. Mair, Christian und Marianne Hundt (1997). “The Corpus-Based Approach to Language Change in Progress.” In: Uwe Böker and Hans Sauer (eds.).Anglistentag 1996 Dresden. Trier: WVT. 71-82. Mair, Christian, Marianne Hundt, Geoffrey Leech and Nicholas Smith (2002). “Short-Term Diachronic Shifts in Part-of-Speech Frequencies: A Comparison of the Tagged LOB and F-LOB Corpora.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 7. 245-264. Mair, Christian (2006a). “Inflected genitives are spreading in present-day English, but not necessarily to inanimate nouns.” In: Christian Mair and Reinhard Heuberger (eds.). Corpora and the History of English: Festschrift für Manfred Markus. Heidelberg: Winter. 235-248. Mair, Christian (2006b). Twentieth Century English. History, Variation and Standardization. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Mair, Christian and Geoffrey Leech (2006). “Current Changes in English Syntax.” In: Bas Aarts and April McMahon (eds.).The Handbook of English Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. 318-342. Myhill, John (1995). “Change and continuity in the functions of the American English modals.” Linguistics 33. 157-211. Nichols, Ann Eljenholm (1987). “The suasive subjunctive: Alive and well in the upper Midwest.” American Speech 62. 140-153. Övergaard, Gerd (1995). The mandative subjunctive in American and British English. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell. Potter, Simeon (1969, 2 nd ed. 1975). Changing English. London: Deutsch. Raab-Fischer, Roswitha (1995). “Löst der Genitiv die of-Phrase ab? Eine korpusgestützte Studie zum Sprachwandel im heutigen Englisch.” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 43. 123-132. Rosenbach, Anette (2002). Genitive Variation in English: Conceptual Factors in Synchronic and Diachronic Studies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Ongoing grammatical change in spoken British English 49 Serpollet, Noëlle (2001). “The mandative subjunctive in British English seems to be alive and kicking…Is this due to the influence of American English? ” In: Paul Rayson, Andrew Wilson, Tony McEnery Andrew Hardie, and Shereen Khoja (eds.).Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2001 conference. Lancaster University: UCREL Technical Papers, vol. 13. 531-542. Smith, Nicholas (2003). “Changes in the modals and semi-modals of strong obligation and epistemic necessity in recent British English.” In: Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug, and Frank Palmer (eds.).Modality in Contemporary English. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 241-266. Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt and Lars Hinrichs (2008). “Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: a multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres.” In: Terttu Nevalainen, Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta, and Minna Korhonen (eds.).The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation: Corpus Evidence on English Past and Present. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Wallis, Sean and Bas Aarts. The Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English (DCPSE). CD-ROM. London: Survey of English Usage, UCL. Barbara Klein Englisches Seminar Universität Freiburg Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Postfach 25 60 · D-72015 Tübingen · Fax (0 7071) 97 97-11 Internet: www.narr.de · E-Mail: info@narr.de This introduction to linguistics is especially designed for students of English with a German-speaking background. It concentrates on the traditional core areas of linguistics without neglecting interdisciplinar y and applied branches. For this 4th, revised edition all chapters were updated and supplemented with historical content, and a chapter on the history of the English language was added. New: the comprehensive online-glossar y and online-exercises. „Gut verständlicher, instruktiver und teilweise auch recht detaillierter Einblick in fast alle wichtigen Gebiete und Disziplinen der Linguistik“ Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Paul Georg Meyer et al. Descriptive English Linguistics An Introduction narr studienbücher 4., überarb. und erw. Auflage 2008 XX, 375 Seiten, zahlreiche Abb. und Tab., €[D] 22,90/ SFr 41,00 ISBN 978-3-8233-6400-9 1 I would like to thank Henry Widdowson, Nikolaus Ritt, Herbert Schendl, Christiane Dalton- Puffer, Julia Hüttner, Ute Smit and the VIEWS team for their constructive feedback. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 1 Gunther Kaltenböck This paper offers a study of the use and communicative functions of comment clauses (CCs) such as I think or it seems in spoken English. Based on an analysis of 830 instances retrieved from the spoken section of the British component of the International Corpus of English, it is shown that the scope of CCs may not only be over an entire host clause, as is commonly assumed, but may also single out a phrasal constituent. Such phrasal scope is signalled by means of prosodic binding of the CC to the left or right and/ or positioning in the Host Construction. In contrast to clausal scope CCs, which function as epistemic shields (Prince et al. 1982), phrasal scope CCs function like approximators (ibid.). A third possible function identified is that of pleonastic uses of CCs. This structural or ‘filler’ function can be observed especially with high-frequency CCs which are prosodically integrated into the Host. The three different functions can be explained as different stages in an ongoing process of grammaticalisation of CCs away from epistemic markers to pleonastic structuring devices, with concomitant semantic bleaching and prosodic integration. 1. Introduction This paper investigates the use of English comment clauses in a corpus of modern British English, viz. the spoken section of ICE-GB, the British component of the International Corpus of English (cf. Nelson et al. 2002). This 600.000 word corpus comprises various different text types and yields a total of 830 instances of comment clauses (henceforth CCs), some illustrative examples of which are given in (1). Gunther Kaltenböck 52 (1a) You’ve got to I suppose have something very special to offer (s1a-033-154) (1b) She’s the first English girl I’ve spoken to for about three or four years I think (s1a-020-28) (1c) His problem it seems is insoluble (s2b-039-31) CCs are defined here as main clause supplements to another construction, the Host Construction (HC), to which they are related by linear adjacency but not syntactically, i.e. they are not constituents of the host (cf. Section 2 for details). The aim of the paper is to highlight the close link between the parameters position, scope and prosody, which so far has not received any attention in the literature. More specifically, I will show that the (semantic-pragmatic) scope of a CC may not only be clausal, i.e. covering the entire host clause, but also phrasal, e.g. over parts of the HC. These two scopes also differ in their communicative functions with clausal scope CCs functioning as “shields” (Prince et al. 1982) and phrasal scope CCs being similar to “approximators” (in Prince et al.’s 1982 terms). One of the factors contributing to such a narrowing of scope is that of the position of the CC in the HC. Another factor is that of the prosodic realisation of the CC. It is also possible to detect preferred prosodic patterns for certain positions as well as for certain lexical items, with high-frequency CCs being more prone to prosodic integration. This, in turn, can be taken as an indication of increasing grammaticalisation (or pragmaticalisation) of CCs away from epistemic comments to discourse markers with a predominantly structural function. The paper consists of two main parts. After a delimitation of the class in question (Section 2) and a brief discussion of data retrieval and frequencies of occurrence (Section 3), Section 4 explores the link between scope and position. Taking into account various factors influencing the scope of a CC (Section 4.1), it focuses on attested and preferred insertion points in the HC as well as links between position and phrasal or clausal scope (Section 4.2). The second part, Section 5, takes a closer look at the other conditioning factor of scope, the prosodic realisation of the CC. It identifies four different prosodic patterns (Section 5.1) and investigates possible correlations with position and lexical types (Section 5.2). The conclusion in Section 6 offers a brief conspectus. 2. Delimiting the class Following Quirk et al. (1972: 778-780, 1985: 1112-1118) and Leech and Svartvik (1975: 216-217) I define comment clause as a parenthetical clause which occurs initially, medially, or finally in a host construction and takes the English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 53 2 The term comment clause also figures in other studies, but often with different definitions (e.g. Petola 1983, Biber et al. 1999: 197). Various other terms have also been used, such as parenthetical (e.g. Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 895) or parenthetical verbs (e.g. Urmson 1952). For an overview of pertinent definitions cf. Kaltenböck (2005, 2007). 3 For a detailed discussion of the lexical predicates and semantic patterns of the CCs found in the corpus cf. Kaltenböck (2006b). form of a main clause (e.g. I believe) 2 . More precisely, I include only asyndetic clauses (i.e. without formal link) which are linked to the host in that they contain a syntactic gap (typically the complement of the verb) filled conceptually by the host clause. This restrictive definition is equivalent to Quirk et al.’s (1985) class I comment clauses, Peterson’s (1999) gap-containing parenthetical clause, or Schneider’s (2007) reduced parenthetical clauses and is illustrated by the examples in (1). CCs are closely related to other categories, especially reporting clauses, matrix clauses and discourse markers. For an operational definition, needed for corpus retrieval, it is necessary to delimit CCs from these with clear, i.e. formal, criteria (cf. Kaltenböck 2007 for details). CCs differ from reporting clauses, as in (2), semantically, as CCs typically make use of some verbs of thinking, as illustrated in example (1), while reporting clauses make use of message conveying verbs (reporting verbs, verba dicendi). Another difference is the preference of CCs for present tense, while reporting clauses typically relate to a past event. 3 (2) Britain he said could compete and win (s2b-005-129) Most importantly, however, reporting clauses can be identified by their choice of subject, which is typically third person as a result of their reporting function. In the present study I have adopted a restrictive view of reporting clauses which includes only cases of explicit third person source identification of the type ‘source = X’ (X 1 st or 2 nd person) and classifies all references to some unspecific source, such as the hearsay evidentials they say or it is reported, as commenting clauses. A particular problem for delimitation are CCs in clause-initial position, as in (3), where they are difficult to distinguish from matrix clauses, especially if the that-complementizer has been omitted. (3) I suppose (that) John has come back from London Various different views have been expressed on the status of such initial clauses with and without that complementizer. They are either taken to be parenthetical (e.g. Kärkkäinen 2003, Kruisinga 1932: 486, Ross 1973, Thompson 2002, Thompson & Mulac 1991), matrix clauses (e.g. Peterson 1999: 236, Stenström 1995: e.g. 293, 296, Svensson 1976: 375), or ambigu- Gunther Kaltenböck 54 4 For a discussion of the function of that-omission in a specific type of matrix clause cf. Kaltenböck (2006a). ous, i.e. allowing interpretation as both matrix clause and parenthetical clause depending on context and type of ‘matrix’ predicate (e.g. Aijmer 1972: 46, Biber et al. 1999: 197, Huddleston & Pullum 2002: 896, Quirk et al. 1985: 1113, Urmson 1952: 481). 4 The present study takes a cautious approach and excludes all instances of initial clauses with a that-complementizer from the class of CCs. Initial clauses without that are only taken into account if they are clearly separated from the complement/ host clause by means of a pause or some intervening material such as hesitation sounds (uh, uhm) or other fillers (you know, I mean). CCs also need to be distinguished from clausal discourse markers. This concerns a small set of clausal (i.e. verbal) elements such as I mean, I see, I think, you know, (you) see. All of these have previously been discussed under the heading of discourse marker (e.g. inter alia Erman 1987, Schiffrin 1987, Schourup 1985) as well as under the heading of CC (e.g. Petola 1983, Quirk et al. 1985, Biber et al. 1999). In the present study I include only I think in the class of CCs. First, I think is less formulaic, which is evidenced by its much greater variation in form (e.g. I don’t think, I thought, I certainly/ just think, we think, I would/ should think). Such variations are excluded from typical discourse markers such as I mean, you know (only in their uses as matrix clause is some variation possible). Second, I think differs from typical discourse markers in terms of distribution and possible syntactic functions, as shown by Stenström (1995: 293, 296). 3. Corpus retrieval and frequencies Delimiting the class of CCs as in Section 2 provides us with an operational definition for corpus retrieval. Extracting data from ICE-GB is greatly facilitated by its syntactic annotation (cf. Nelson et al. 2002 for details) and was effected in three steps. First, a nodal search for ‘detached function’, ‘clausal category’ and the feature ‘comment’ was carried out. In a second step these results were filtered manually to exclude other types of parenthetical clauses, such as reporting clauses, self-contained parenthetical clauses, and semantic-gap-fill or placeholder parenthetical clauses (for a description of each of these cf. Kaltenböck 2005, 2007). This yielded a total of 626 instances of CCs. Corpus annotation, however, turned out to be inconsistent (owing in part to classification as separate text units and therefore as independent main clauses rather than CCs), which made it necessary to run separate searches for each of the tokens found (e.g. I think, I’d have English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 55 thought) and analyse them manually. This yielded another 204 instances and increased the total number of CCs in the spoken part of ICE-GB to 830. The distribution of these 830 instances in the four spoken text categories of ICE-GB shows that there is a clear preference for the dialogic text types, as illustrated in Table 1. This can be taken as an indication of a strong interactive character of CCs (cf. Kaltenböck 2006b: 77-78 for further details). Table 1: Distribution of comment clauses in the ICE-GB text categories (normalised per 10,000 words) n 10,000 W Private dialogue (s1a) 327 16.35 Public dialogue (s1b) 281 17.56 Unscripted monologue (s2a) 157 11.21 Scripted monologue (s2b) 65 6.50 TOTAL 830 13.83 4. Position and scope One of the characteristics of CCs, and parenthetical clauses in general, is their positional flexibility. The view generally expressed in the literature is that they may take clause-initial, clause-medial, and clause-final position. The aim of this section is to investigate this distribution in more detail and highlight possible insertion points (niches) as well as positional preferences. This is particularly interesting in view of some constraints that have been stipulated, mainly within generative frameworks, on which position within the host can serve as a ‘niche’. These alleged constraints, however, have not so far been tested against larger corpus data. Identification of position is generally much less straightforward than some more theoretical discussions of parentheticals suggest. A case in point is the spoken example in (4). (4) [radio commentary] and those doors <,> are immediately before me in my high triforium position but far away it seems beyond the high altar which is immediately beneath me then the sacrarium the choir and after that the nave (s2a-020-10) Example (4) illustrates a number of important points. First, identification of position is closely linked to the question of scope, in other words the elements over which the CC operates (here either far away or beyond the high Gunther Kaltenböck 56 altar). Second, the scope of a CC cannot be determined by its position alone. For proper analysis we also need to take into account prosody, which in the present example clearly identifies far away as being within the scope of the CC. Third, contrary to the generally held view, not all CCs have clausal scope, i.e. over a host clause, but phrasal scope is also possible. I will discuss these issues in more detail in the following. Section 4.1 identifies different factors influencing scope. Section 4.2 takes up the question of phrasal vs. clausal scope and how it correlates with position. 4.1 Factors influencing scope The scope of a CC is of course not to be understood as syntactic scope (in terms of c-command) but in semantic-pragmatic terms, i.e. the topic to which the comment of the CC applies. To distinguish between the syntactic level of linear insertion in another construction and the semantic-pragmatic level of elements within the scope of a CC, I use the term HC for the former and Anchor for the latter. These two do not necessarily coincide such as when a CC is inserted in a clausal HC but has scope only over one of its constituents, e.g. an NP. As a semantic-pragmatic concept the exact scope of a CC results from the interaction of several factors (cf. also Schneider 2007: 195), the most important of which are the prosodic realisation of the CC, and the syntactic position of the CC in relation to the HC. (a) Prosodic features may be crucial in determining the scope of a CC. More precisely, what matters is whether the CC is intonationally linked to the previous or following material, i.e. whether it is integrated into the intonation domain (tone unit) on the left or right. The terminology employed here is right-bound and left-bound (cf. Section 5 for a detailed discussion). Leftor right-binding may be crucial in deciding whether the CC is, in fact, in initial or in final position, as illustrated by the examples in (5) (brackets indicate type of binding). (5a) Uhm <,> yeah I wasn’t doing very much I remember) I wasn’t there (s1a- 002-165) (5b) but these features and they’ll be familiar to you (I think they include such things as uh a certain distrust of fact (s2a-021-99) In their written form, attachment of the CCs in these examples is unclear. It is only their prosodic realisation that indicates their scope: (5a) is left-bound and therefore clause-final, whereas (5b) is right-bound and therefore in initial position. Prosodic realisation may also decide whether the scope is clausal or phrasal, as in the examples in (6), which are right-bound and therefore English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 57 phrasal, viz. over the NP an interesting document which […] and the PP at Brave respectively. Note that left-binding would change the scope to clausal in both. (6a) Nine is report too (I think an interesting document which uhm Professor Greenbaum initiated and which I hope everybody uh will have had a chance to digest (s1b-075-128) (6b) We’re going to have a very small set (I think at Brave for Edward <,> (s1b- 045-110) (b) In addition to prosodic binding the position of the CC in the HC may have an impact on its scope. A useful tool for establishing the scope of a CC is the movement test, i.e. moving the CC to a different position in the Host and checking whether its scope changes (cf. also Schneider 2007: 195). Thus it is possible to distinguish two types of CCs: those which have scope over an entire host clause, i.e. clausal scope, and those which have scope over a non-clausal construction, i.e. phrasal scope. For the latter we can distinguish two possibilities: either the scope extends only over part of an otherwise clausal HC, singling out, as it were, a particular constituent of this clause, the so-called Anchor, or the HC itself is non-clausal, i.e. an incomplete or elliptical clause. The different types of phrasal scope are illustrated by the examples in (7), where the CC in (7a) has scope over part of a clausal HC, viz. garages, and in (7b) it has scope over an elliptical HC (scope indicated by square brackets). (7a) and uhm you know a a flat space it’s got tents and well not tents but [just garages] I suppose (s1a-056-175) (7b) Well I suppose uhm [the <,> the standard kind of physiotherapy] <,> when you asked for it <,> uhm <,> and well sports I guess (s1a-003-3) There are also cases where the scope of a CC is to a certain extent ambiguous between phrasal and clausal scope. Take, for instance, example (8), where the scope of I think is ambiguous between covering the entire clause or simply the NP schizophrenia. (8) Uh or "> you could have depressive illness <,> or schizophrenia I think <,> (s1b-016-18) The general practice for such cases of ambiguity has been to classify them as clausal. Phrasal scope is reserved for cases which are beyond doubt, either for prosodic reasons or because of the results of the movement test or both. Gunther Kaltenböck 58 Delimitation of scope also requires taking into account the possibility of a semantic-pragmatic incompatibility of the CC and its Host, as in (9). (9) Uh in the subsequent peaceful settlement of the problems of the area the problem we hope of Saddam and his military machine will really be removed (s1b-027-82) Here the scope of the CC is clausal, i.e. over the entire HC. Phrasal scope over the NP into which the CC is embedded is excluded for semantic-pragmatic reasons: the mismatch of hope with problem. The semantics of hope is such that it requires the association with a desirable state of affairs, i.e. a situation where a problem has been removed. To conclude, although there is intrinsically no independent evidence for pragmatic scope, it can be identified with reasonable accuracy by the formal signs that are used to indicate it, viz. prosody and position. Each of these factors will be analysed in detail in the subsequent sections. 4.2 Corpus results After this brief discussion of factors influencing the scope of a CC, let us now turn to the analysis of the corpus data. The aim of this analysis is, first of all, a stocktaking of attested and preferred positions of CCs in the HC as well as an exploration of the link between scope and position. In fact, the corpus data show a clear correlation between scope and position, with some insertion points showing a propensity for either clausal or phrasal scope. The overview in Tables 2 and 3 takes into account this basic distinction by separating the syntactic environments with predominantly phrasal scope (Table 3) from those with predominantly clausal scope (Table 2). Let us first of all look at the attested positions of predominantly clausal CCs in Table 2, each of which is illustrated by an example in (10). (10) (Ai) I think <,> I’d like to answer that in a slightly different way (s1a-001-117) (Aii) So sometimes I suppose it happens to everybody (s1b-023-117) (Bi) And the Labour Party I believe want sanctions to work (s1b-35-28) (Bii) Uh Mr Sigrani <,> had i it would appear employed the debtor to do extensive uh electrical work (s2a-069-14) (Biii) The LSE would be doing that principally and you need I argue an a rulebased knowledge system before you can […] (s1a-024-87) (Biv) So I think from today’s session you’ve realised I hope that you shouldn’t start somebody on lifelong anti-hypertensive therapy based upon one single blood pressure measurement (s1b-004-273) (Bv) Uhm <,> the other thing is I guess "> to ask whether you’ve also considered the sort of occupational psychology areas (s1a-035-144) English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 59 (Bvi) Yeah but there’s another trilogy <,> which I believe is <,> supposed to be very good (s1a-016-206) (Bvii) He’s called Basil in the stables <,> and I’m told likes a pint of MacEwan’s with his feed (s2a-011-64) (Bviii) Now if you open it up <,> where you are very familiar <,> uh <,> page a hundred and uh "> eight <,> I think it is in mine […] (s2a-061-97) (Ci) I’ve got to go I’m afraid in an hour <,> (s1a-045-216) (Cii) and she uhm <,> uh was quite high up I think cos she had a degree (s1a-019-248) (Ciii) and that’s one of the main p the main things <,> that that prevents that <,> I’m sure (s1a-002-72) Table 2: Syntactic position of CCs with predominantly clausal scope (# = point of insertion, MV = main verb) Clausal scope Phrasal scope A. P RENUCLEAR P OSITION (i) Initial 69 - (ii) Adjunct # Subject: - Clausal Adjunct 2 1 - Non-clausal Adjunct 10 1 B. M IDDLE P OSITION (i) Subject # Verb: - Subject # MV 13 1 - Subject # Copula 40 1 - Subject # Aux + MV 32 - (ii) Aux # MV 27 2 (iii) MV # Non-clausal complementation: - MV # Object 14 6 - MV # Subject complement 25 9 - MV # Other complements 4 3 (iv) MV # Finite clausal complementation: - MV # Object clause 9 - - MV # Subject complement clause 6 - - MV # Complement clause 5 - (v) MV # Non-finite clausal complementation: - MV # Subject complement clause 1 - - MV # Extraposed complement clause 10 - - MV # Complement clause 5 - Gunther Kaltenböck 60 Clausal scope Phrasal scope 5 This category captures only CCs following the subordinator in adverbial clauses. Those preceding it are grouped under (Cii). 6 In all these cases of coordination the CC comes immediately after the coordinator. Cases of clausal coordination where the CC comes before the coordinator have been classified as final, i.e. (Ciii). (vi) Subordinate clause: - Subordinator # Adverbial clause 5 9 - - Subordinator # Noun clause 4 - - Relative element # Relative clause 69 - - Zero relative elem. # Relative clause 2 - - Noun # Relative element 9 - (vii) Coordination (various), after coordinator 6 6 9 (viii) Other 6 - C. P OSTNUCLEAR P OSITION (i) VP # Adjunct (non-clausal) 36 26 (ii) VP # Adjunct (clausal) - # Finite Adjunct 16 - - # Non-finite Adjunct 7 - (iii) Final 194 7 T OTAL 630 66 The overview in Table 2 shows that there are certain preferred positions for CCs. To bring out the distribution pattern more clearly, a schematic and somewhat simplified version of Table 1 is provided in Figure 1, representing the distribution of a total of 582 predominantly clausal CCs. Figure 1: Schematic and simplified representation of CC positions of 582 mainly clausal CCs We can see that CCs occur at all major constituent boundaries. This confirms Peterson’s (1999: 239) constraint I (based on Emonds 1973), which English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 61 stipulates that what follows a medial parenthetical must be a constituent of the Host. The most frequent place of insertion is clearly the final position, accounting for about one third of all clausal CCs (34.7%, 202 instances). The least frequent patterns are between clause-initial adjunct and subject and between auxiliary and main verb. The corpus data also show that some of the constraints stipulated for the insertion of parentheticals are not borne out by CCs. Compare for instance Jackendoff’s (1972: 98) claim that “[o]ne totally aberrant position for […] parenthesis is between the verb and the direct object” and Peterson’s (1999: 239) constraint II, which posits that a “parenthetical cannot (usually) intervene between a verb and its object” (cf. also Emonds 1973: 335-336). With a total of 29 CCs followed by (clausal and non-clausal) objects, this position is rare but clearly attested (cf. Biii and Biv above). Let us now turn to the insertion points with predominantly phrasal scope in Table 3, illustrated with examples in (11). We can see that phrasal scope is typically found with CCs occurring within an NP and is the only possibility in pre-head position in an NP or between a preposition and its NP complement. It is also, not surprisingly, the only scope possible with elliptical (i.e. non-verbal) HCs. (11) (a) I mean most pagan marriages like I think ninety per cent that’s what happens (s1a-071-243) (b) Father McDade d’you remember in I think lecture three uh Rabbi Sacks said at one point faith is not measured by acts of worship alone (s1b- 028-88) (ci) Uh in the uhm <,> I think October issue of Computational uh Linguistics there’s an attempt to do something of this type (s1a-024-105) (cii) W w we can only accomplish a cut in intrates rates interest rates however against the background I believe of a genuine a general realignment of European currencies (s2b-002-58) (d) But uh sort of in my teens and twenties (I suppose every Saturday one of my pleasures was to go to the local bookshop and buy another volume in the Everyman Library <,> or whatever (s1a-013-107) (e) Very good that I’m sure (s1a-003-40) (f) And Greg Lemond I would think having to now reconstruct himself after that terrible bashing her took yesterday in the mountains (s2a-016-40) Gunther Kaltenböck 62 Table 3: Syntactic position of CCs with predominantly phrasal scope Clausal scope Phrasal scope (a) Initial (elliptical/ non-clausal Host) - 14 (b) Within PP: P # NP - 25 (c) Within NP: - Prehead position - 10 - Posthead position 10 10 (d) Between adjuncts: A # A - 5 (e) Final (elliptical/ non-clausal Host) - 52 (f) Other (elliptical HC, phrase internal) - 8 TOTAL 10 124 The investigation of phrasal scope in the corpus data shows that there is a clear link to position. It is possible to distinguish the following three different groups. First, there are some positions that are exclusively linked to phrasal scope: between a preposition and its NP complement, between an NP head and its prehead dependent (determiner or adjective), and between two nonclausal adjuncts. The position between a preposition and its NP complement is not usually referred to in the literature but with 25 instances clearly attested in the corpus. This position attracts a certain type of CC. Almost half of the occurrences (10 out of 25) are made up by I don’t know. The remainder are I think, I suppose, I reckon or involve the predicate say, e.g. I say, let’s say. As for NP-internal position, insertion between the determiner and nondeterminer constituent of an NP is mentioned by Espinal (1991: 752, note 17) as a rare possibility. According to Taglicht (1998: 205), however, insertion of parentheticals between head and specifier is not possible in English. Again, this position is clearly attested in the corpus, as is insertion in post-head position in an NP. Second, there are positions in clausal HCs where phrasal scope may occur. Thus it is attested as a genuine alternative to clausal scope for the positions (Biii) between main verb and non-clausal complementation, (Bvii) in coordinate structures, (Ciii) in clause-final position, and especially (Ci) preceding a clause-final non-clausal adjunct. Phrasal scope is also possible but less likely in (Aii) between an initial adjunct and the subject, (Bi) between subject and verb, and (Bii) between auxiliary and main verb. In all these positions phrasal scope depends either on prosodic binding to the left or the right, or the presence of certain CC predicates (such as I don’t know, I’d say, let’s say), and, more generally speaking, on the availability of a phrasal constituent in the immediate vicinity of the CC. English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 63 7 These are typically CCs within PPs, within NPs (in pre-head position), and between Adjuncts and less typically CCs with elliptical/ incomplete HCs, whose missing parts are generally recoverable from the co(n)text and thus allow reconstruction of a complete host clause. Phrasal scope is also attested with non-clausal (i.e. incomplete or elliptical) HCs, where the CC occurs typically in final position but also initially and, rarely, internally (cf. Table 3: (a), (e), (f)). Third, there are also positions where phrasal scope is not attested. These are (Ai) initial position, (Bvi) both initially in matrix clauses and initially in subordinate clauses (typically following the subordinator), as well as (Biv, Bv) between main verb and clausal complementation. In the latter case phrasal scope seems to be ruled out simply by the lack of a non-clausal complement that could act as scope attractor (unlike Biii, where phrasal scope is relatively frequent). Generally, what emerges from the figures in Table 2 and 3 is that clausal scope is clearly the most frequent and therefore unmarked option. As indicated in Table 4, phrasal scope accounts for 22.9 percent of all CCs and is therefore the marked variant. Table 4: Clausal and phrasal scope of CCs n. % Clausal scope 640 77.1% Phrasal scope 190 22.9% TOTAL 830 100% The different scopes are also indicative of different communicative functions of the CCs. From the examples given above it can be seen that CCs with clausal scope express a degree of speaker commitment with regard to the proposition expressed. As such, they represent a particular type of hedge referred to by Prince et al. (1982) as shield, which in the terminology of Hare (1970) mitigates the neustic (cf. also Schneider 2007). Most cases of phrasal CC, on the other hand, have a different function. 7 As can be seen from examples (11a), (11b), (11c) above, for instance, the phrasal CC operates proposition-internally, i.e. on the phrastic (Hare 1970). In this function they qualify for classification as approximators (Prince at al. 1982) or what Caffi (1999) calls bushes. They still reduce speaker commitment but more indirectly by indicating that certain terms (e.g. 90%, lecture three, October issue) lack in precision. Approximative uses of CCs differ somewhat from prototypical approximators (e.g. sort of) since examples such as (11a), (11b), (11c) cannot be judged semantically false in contexts where the Gunther Kaltenböck 64 8 Cf. however Sadock (1972), who argues that even ordinary approximations have to be treated as almost unfalisfiable. 9 Bolinger (1989: 188) and Wichmann (2001: 188) also note the opposite possibility, viz. higher pitch. 10 For a more detailed discussion of the prosodic patterns of comment clauses cf. Kaltenböck (2008). factual content lies clearly outside a plausible categorical range, say, 10 per cent, lecture 51, February issue. 8 However, in such contexts examples (11a), (11b) and (11c) would be regarded as infelicitous or at least uncooperative. The approximative function thus derives via conversational implicature in accordance with conversational maxims. As such, they still reduce speaker commitment but more indirectly than epistemic shields. Apart from the functions of shield and approximator it is possible to identify a further pragmatic use of CCs, which can be linked to their prosodic realisation and will be discussed in Section 5.3. Section 5.3 also provides a possible explanation for the approximative uses of CCs in terms of grammaticalisation and concomitant semantic bleaching of high-frequency CCs, which results in increased diffusion of their scope so that they can operate also over non-clausal Anchors, i.e. have phrasal scope. 5. Position and prosody Having investigated the position of the CC and its link to scope in the previous section, let us now turn to the second decisive factor for scope: prosody. Previous studies have found considerable variation in the prosodic realisation of parentheticals. Among the prosodic features identified for parentheticals are usually the following, any of which can be suspended (as pointed out by Bolinger 1989: 186): separate tone unit, delimiting pauses (‘comma intonation’), lowered pitch, 9 terminal rise (rising contour), narrower pitch range, reduction in loudness, increased tempo (cf. e.g. Armstrong & Ward 1931: 27, Bolinger 1989: 186, Burton-Roberts 2006: 180, Cruttenden 1997: 71, 123, 173, Crystal 1969: 160, 174, D’Avis 2005: 259, Dehé 2007, Espinal 1991: 759, Fagyal 2002, Kutik et al. 1983, Nespor & Vogel 1986: 188, Quirk et al. 1985: 1112, Rouchota 1998: 101, Schneider 2007: 210-221, Selkirk 1984: 382, Stenström 1995: 292, Wichmann 2000: 100, Ziv 1985: 181-182). None of these studies include, however, a systematic prosodic analysis of CCs based on naturally occurring data or have linked the prosodic realisation of parentheticals to the question of scope. The aim of the present section is not to provide a detailed analysis of all prosodic aspects of CCs, but only those where prosody impinges on questions of scope and position of the CC. 10 As outlined in Section 4.1, prosodic English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 65 11 This implies that the CC itself does not carry pitch accent (i.e. a nuclear tone). There is, however, a small subgroup (of 17 instances) where the CC is prosodically linked to material on its immediate left but itself carries pitch accent. This prosodic pattern is very much restricted to CCs in clause-second position, typically following a subordinator of some sort. Because of the low number of occurrences, such cases were included under left-binding rather than as a separate category. binding to the left or right may decide whether a CC has to be classified as initial or final, or as having clausal or phrasal scope. Prosody, in other words, plays an important role for securing correct processing of the CC together with the intended Anchor (the HC or parts of it). As syntactically unattached, essentially ‘free-floating’ units, their insertion point alone often provides only insufficient information in that respect. Identifying a CC as leftor right-bound depends on the presence of a tone unit boundary immediately following or preceding it. What exactly constitutes a tone unit boundary is, of course, not always easy to determine (cf. e.g. Cruttenden 1997: 29-37). Phonetic cues such as pauses, anacrusis, final syllable lengthening or change of pitch level/ direction of unaccented syllables may provide some ‘external’ indication of a prosodic boundary but they are by no means conclusive. They may just as well simply be markers of hesitation. As noted by Cruttenden (1997: 32), for instance, “pause does not always mark intonation boundaries, nor are intonation boundaries always marked by pause” (cf. also Fagyal 2002: 94). These ‘external’ phonetic criteria therefore have to be complemented by ‘internal’ ones, i.e. whether the suspected tone unit in fact has the internal structure of one. By definition a tone unit must contain a pitch accent or nucleus (tonic). Analysis of the phonetic cues was carried out with the help of an acoustical analysis programme (PRAAT 4.4.33) and by listening to the stimuli, i.e. impressionistic listener perception (as suggested for instance by Wichmann 2001: 187, cf. also Peters 2006). Impressionistic analysis is not at all undesirable here since this is precisely what a speaker has to rely on in actual verbal interaction: correct processing of the prosodic signals by the listener. It lies in the nature of the speech material, however, that there are many indeterminate cases where a boundary cannot be unambiguously identified as such. These cases were generally classified as lacking an extra prosodic boundary. 5.1 Types of prosodic patterns All in all, it is possible to distinguish four different prosodic patterns of CCs. Apart from left-binding and right-binding we also find left-right binding and prosodic independence. These four will be discussed in turn below. In the case of left-binding the CC is integrated into the overall pitch contour of the preceding tone unit, i.e. completes it as (part of) its tail. 11 This Gunther Kaltenböck 66 12 The terminology of head, pre-head, tone unit, nucleus (or tonic), and tail referred to here is that of the British tradition of intonational analysis as discussed e.g. in Cruttenden (1997), Crystal (1969), Wichmann (2000). 13 Potentially ambiguous examples such as this one have been included as initial CCs despite the lack of intervening material between CC and HC (as specified in Section 2). form of prosodic integration was observed already by Armstrong and Ward (1931: 27f), Crystal (1969: 268) and Schubiger (1958: 98), who point out that parentheticals often continue a preceding tonal contour. Compare, for instance, example (12), repeated from (5a), where prosody classifies the CC as final: I remember is part of the previous intonation domain since it completes the pitch contour starting on I wasn’t doing […] by bringing it back down to its original level. The following string I wasn’t there forms its own contour. (12) yeah I wasn’t doing very much I remember) I wasn’t there (s1a-002-165) In the case of right-binding the CC is integrated into the overall pitch contour of the following tone unit, forming (part of) its head (or pre-head). 12 This is illustrated in (13), repeated from (5b), where the CC I think has to be classified as initial as it is part of the following tone unit. 13 This is indicated by the considerable step up in pitch (from around 100 Hz on you to around 180 Hz on think) as well as the anacrustic nature, i.e. greater speed, of the CC. English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 67 (13) but these features and they’ll be familiar to you (I think they include such things as uh a certain distrust of fact (s2a-021-99) CCs may also take the form of left-right binding, in which case the CC is integrated in the middle of a larger pitch contour. This form corresponds roughly with Wichmann’s (2001: 185) strategy of “prosodic integration”. Like left-bound or right-bound CCs, left-right bound CCs are integrated in a larger pitch contour, and as such, they do not contain an accented syllable, i.e. one that initiates a new pitch trend. Unlike left-bound or right-bound CCs, however, they are not in the immediate vicinity of a tone unit boundary. It is possible for a left-right bound CC to be separated from the HC by pauses (or some filler) since pauses are not necessarily boundary markers (as noted above). A typical example of a left-right bound CC is given in (14). (14) blinkered I think is a nice word if you’re describing someone that you don’t like (s1a-037-217) Unlike left-right bound CCs, independent CCs are prosodically unintegrated in the sense that they form a tone unit of their own. This implies that they Gunther Kaltenböck 68 14 The present framework does not take into account what are sometimes called compound tones (cf. e.g. Crystal & Davy 1975: 26, Stenström 199: 292), i.e. fall+rise (as opposed to a fall-rising tone). contain at least one accented syllable and are marked off from the HC by prosodic boundaries. 14 These boundaries may be indicated by pauses, but not necessarily so. Other boundary markers are, as noted above, anacrusis, final syllable lengthening, change of pitch level/ direction of unaccented syllables (cf. Cruttenden 1997: 35). A typical example of a prosodically independent CC is given in (15). (15) The LSE would be doing that principally and you need (I argue) an a rulebased knowledge system before you can articulate what a text grammar should be (s1a-024-87) A particular problem for identification of prosodic independence are CCs in final position (cf. Cruttenden 1997: 36-37 for final reporting clauses). The difficulty lies in establishing whether the final CC has its own nuclear tone, i.e. its own tone unit, or whether it is the continuation (Tail) of a nuclear tone preceding the CC and as such is part of that tone unit. A case in point is example (16), where there is only a slight rise in pitch on the CC after an immediately preceding nuclear fall. Unclear instances such as this one have been analysed as a continuation (Tail) of a preceding fall-rising tone and therefore coded as left-bound. Only where there is a distinct pitch change in the CC has it been classified as prosodically independent. English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 69 (16) They’d have to sell one I think) (s1a-017-142) A further problem for classification are instances of pitch continuation preceded by a pause, such as in example (17). (17) I was programming in Pascal which really wasn’t very exciting <,> I’m afraid) (s1a-008-1) This particular example of a CC, in principle, allows two different analyses, depending on one’s recognition of level tones and on how much weight is given to pauses as boundary markers. It could either be classified as prosodically independent with a level tone on afraid or as left-bound CC functioning as Tail of the preceding nuclear tone on exciting. In the present framework I follow Cruttenden (1997: e.g. 35; cf. also Fagyal 2002: 94) in taking the presence of pitch accent on the CC to be crucial and have therefore opted for the latter analysis. The same procedure applies, mutatis mutandis, for initial CCs (cf. Kaltenböck 2009 for details). Gunther Kaltenböck 70 15 Four soundfiles are missing in ICE-GB, viz. s1a-095-11, s1a-090-220, s1ab-063-192, s2a- 058-53. 5.2 Corpus results Let us now look at the frequencies of the four different prosodic types in the corpus and investigate possible correlations of prosody with position and lexical items. Table 5 gives the distribution of the four prosodic patterns according to text types. Table 5: Frequency of CCs according to prosodic binding and text types Private dialogue s1a Public dialogue s1b Unscripted monologue s2a Scripted monologue s2b Total L-bound 117 36.0% 73 26.1% 48 30.6% 25 38.5% 263 31.8% R-bound 55 16.9% 56 19.9% 26 16.6% 8 12.3% 145 17.6% L-R bd. 41 12.6% 92 32.7% 52 33.1% 13 20.0% 198 24.0% Independ. 112 34.5% 59 21.0% 30 19.1% 19 29.2% 220 26.6% Total 15 325 100% 280 100% 156 100% 65 100% 826 100% The figures show that all four prosodic types are substantially represented in the corpus, with left-binding being most frequent, followed by prosodic independence, left-right binding, and right-binding. The high frequency of left-bound CCs provides some support for Taglicht’s (1998: 196-197) principle of ‘Leftward Grouping of parentheticals’ based on introspective data. At the same time, however, the high frequencies of the other types demonstrate that ‘Leftward Grouping of parentheticals’ is no more than a general tendency when it comes to naturally occurring data. The results also contradict Quirk et al.’s (1985: 1112) claim that comment clauses “generally have a separate tone unit”. Only 26.6 percent of all CCs were prosodically independent, i.e. had a separate tone unit. To investigate possible correlations between prosody and position, Tables 6 and 7 break down the figures according to the position of CCs identified in Section 4. English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 71 16 Four soundfiles are missing in ICE-GB. Table 6: Prosodic patterns of CCs with predominantly clausal scope according to position (# = point of insertion, MV = main verb) Lbound Rbound L-R bound Indep. Total A. P RENUCLEAR POSITION (i) Initial 0 28 0 40 68 (ii) Adjunct # Subject: 6 5 2 1 14 B. M IDDLE POSITION (i) Subject # Verb 12 18 38 19 87 (ii) Aux # MV 2 5 11 11 29 (iii) MV # Non-clausal complem. 11 18 18 14 61 (iv) MV # Finite clausal complem. 8 0 7 4 19 (v) MV # Non-finite clausal compl. 6 0 3 7 16 (vi) Subordinate clauses - Subordinator # Adverbl/ N-cl. 5 2 5 1 13 - Relative el./ zero # Rel. clause 13 4 51 3 71 - Noun # Relative element 3 0 4 2 9 (vii) Coordinator # Clause/ Phrase 2 1 9 3 15 (viii) Other 0 0 6 0 6 C. P OSTNUCLEAR POSITION (i) VP # non-clausal Adjunct 11 20 18 13 62 (ii) VP # clausal Adjunct 9 6 3 5 23 (iii) Final 132 0 0 67 199 Total 16 220 107 175 190 692 Gunther Kaltenböck 72 Table 7: Prosodic patterns of CCs with predominantly phrasal scope according to position Lbound Rbound L-R bound Indep. Total (a) Initial (ellip./ non-clausal HC) 0 11 0 3 14 (b) Within PP: P # NP 2 12 5 6 25 (c) Within NP 5 11 11 3 30 (d) Between adjuncts: A # A 1 4 0 0 5 (e) Final (ellip./ non-clausal Host) 34 0 0 18 52 (f) Other 1 0 7 0 8 T OTAL 43 38 23 30 134 The corpus results show that non-clausal constituents attract prosodic scope (i.e. Ror L-binding) more than clausal ones. This is particularly obvious when we compare (Biii), ‘MV # non-clausal complementation’, with (Biv) and (Bv), ‘MV # clausal complementation’. In the former there is a clear preference for R-bound over L-bound, whereas in the latter two the reverse is true, with R-binding not occurring at all. The same pattern is noticeable when we compare (Ci), ‘VP # non-clausal Adjunct’, with (Cii), ‘clausal Adjunct’. The reason for this strong attractive force of non-clausal (phrasal) constituents seems to lie in their greater compactness and hence ability to function cognitively as ‘figure’ against the ‘ground’ provided by the clause as a whole. In the case of CCs inserted between MV and complement the choice between L-bound and R-bound prosody is even statistically highly significantly affected by the independent variables clausal and non-clausal complements ( 2 = 18.01 > 6.64, df = 1). The results also confirm Wichmann’s (2001: 185) assumption that medial CCs tend to be prosodically integrated, provided that we interpret “prosodically integrated” as including not only L-R bound, but also L-bound and R-bound: of a total of 493 CCs in non-peripheral position (i.e. excluding initial and final), only 18.7 percent (92 instances) are prosodically independent, the rest are either L-bound (19.7%, 97), R-bound (21.5%, 106), or, with a clear majority, L-R bound (40.1%, 198). Overall, the overwhelming majority of CCs is prosodically integrated in some form, i.e. either L-R bound, L-bound, or R-bound. This is especially true for CCs with high frequency such as I think, I suppose, which together account for 56 percent of all CCs in the corpus. The strong preference of short and high frequency CCs for prosodic integration lends support to the view that CCs are being grammaticalised (or pragmaticalised) into discourse English comment clauses: position, prosody, and scope 73 markers (cf. e.g. Traugott 1995: 38-39, Aijmer 1997: 3-10, Thompson & Mulac 1991, Mindt 2003), which are often fully integrated prosodically (e.g. Erman 1987: 57 for I mean, He & Lindsay 1998: 139 for you know). This grammaticalisation process involves bleaching of the epistemic meaning of the CC and increased use of the CC as a mainly textual device for linking purposes and the structuring of information flow (cf. e.g. Taglicht 1984: 22-28, Ziv 2002). The narrowing of scope from clausal to phrasal, discussed in Section 4, can be taken as an intermediary step in this development away from an epistemic comment to a pleonastic structuring device: although far from being purely structural devices, phrasal scope CCs have already moved away from a purely epistemic function (Prince et al.’s shield) acting more like approximators (as discussed in Section 4.2). Evidence for a structural or filler function of CCs also comes from cooccurrence facts. Thus, a substantial number of CCs occur together with disfluency phenomena such as fillers (e.g. you know, I mean), hesitation sounds (uhm, uh), word repetitions, pauses (<,> short, "> long), and backtracking/ restarts, as in (18). (18) I mean I think really uhm "> it’s very difficult to to to produce any form of art unless you are driven <,> (s1a-015-145) Disfluency features as these in the immediate environment of CCs are by no means rare, as illustrated in Table 8, and suggest a similar ‘filler’ function for CCs. Table 8: Disfluencies in the immediate co-text of CCs Preceding CC Following CC Filler (you know, I mean,like, oh) 54 51 Hesitation sound (uh, uhm), repetition 64 87 Pause 59 116 Backtracking/ restarts - 28 If we analyse the data according to the number of disfluency features irrespective of exact position (i.e. preceding or following the CC), we get the following overall results (Table 9). Gunther Kaltenböck 74 Table 9: Number of disfluency features immediately preceding or following CC 1 disfluency feature 198 2 disfluency features 78 3 disfluency features 25 4 disfluency features 5 Total 309 Thus, in 309 cases (of a total of 830 CCs) we find at least one disfluency feature in its immediate co-text (with a maximum of four, as in example 18). This seems to suggest that the use of CCs is often linked to online production difficulties with the CC playing more of a structural/ filling role rather than a commenting one. 6. Conclusion This paper has focussed on the complex interaction of the parameters of scope, position, and prosody in the case of naturally occurring instances of spoken CCs. It was shown that the (semantic-pragmatic) scope of a CC is influenced by two main factors, position and prosody. This interaction results in two types of scope: clausal, covering the entire Host Clause, or phrasal, i.e. singling out individual constituents (Anchors) or covering elliptical HCs. These two types of scope also differ in their communicative functions. While CCs with clausal scope represent epistemic shields (Prince et al. 1982) and as such express degree of speaker commitment with regard to the proposition expressed, CCs with phrasal scope qualify for classification as approximators (in Prince at al.’s 1982 terms) and as such operate proposition-internally. The prosodic analysis, which has identified four main patterns, has shown that the prosodic realisation of CCs in terms of leftor right-binding has an impact on their scope, but is also influenced by position and lexical type of CC. Generally speaking, there is a strong preference of CCs, especially high-frequency ones, for prosodic integration in some form. 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KG Postfach 25 60 · D-72015 Tübingen · Fax (0 7071) 97 97-11 Internet: www.narr.de · E-Mail: info@narr.de In the past, literar y critics have certainly examined the link between protagonists and external images in works of literature - usually by viewing projections in the Freudian sense as manifestations of displaced desires. However, an encompassing theory of how these external representations of the self are positioned in narrative and what the projectional matrix can reveal about the way subjectivity is presented and activated in works of literature has not yet been developed. Externalised Texts of the Self will close this blind spot in literary theory by devising a framework with the help of which the manifestations of projected images in literary texts can be adequately portrayed. To this end, four modern novels that sport a rich tapestry of projectional foils will be analysed in an effort to document the potential of the ‘Externalised Text of the Self’. Philip Griffiths Externalised Texts of the Self Projections of the Self in Selected Works of English Literature Mannheimer Beiträge zur Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft, Band 74 2009, 260 Seiten, €[D] 58,00/ SFr 98,00 ISBN 978-3-8233-6460-3 AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ Reinterpretation of a Greek Myth: The Love of the Nightingale Nursen Gömceli Timberlake Wertenbaker, who is put next to Caryl Churchill in the literary canon, is one of the most important and prolific women dramatists in contemporary British theatre. Having managed to gain international recognition in mainstream theatres, Timberlake Wertenbaker has developed a theatre of her own, which discusses a variety of subjects but is also rich in feminist debate. Yet, surprisingly, Wertenbaker has neither accepted to be categorised as a feminist dramatist nor has she ever regarded any of her plays as feminist. This study will analyse Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale (1988), which deals with the silencing of women by patriarchal power and elevates the radical feminist idea of sisterhood. It will thus try to reveal the playwright’s (radical) feminist stance in her early career. Timberlake Wertenbaker, whose dramatic career covers a period of more than twenty-five years, is one of the most significant women dramatists in today’s British theatrical scene. Having started her career by writing and producing plays for children in a small fringe company that she herself had established in Greece, Wertenbaker first encountered British audiences in her early career in several radical fringe theatres and other small theatre companies in London, such as the Shared Experience Company and the Women’s Theatre Group (cf. McDonough 1996: 406). During the season of 1984-1985, she began to work as a resident writer for the Royal Court Theatre, which has produced most of her notable plays (cf. Wilson 1993: 147; McDonough 1996: 406). Since then, Wertenbaker’s reputation as a dramatist has gradually increased and, as Susan Carlson observes, Timberlake Wertenbaker appeared as “one of several women playwrights, who, after beginning her work on the radical fringe, has found herself courted by more high-profile theatres” (1993: 268), including the Royal Nursen Gömceli 80 1 Throughout her dramatic career Timberlake Wertenbaker has written numerous plays for the stage as well as for radio and television. Her radio plays are Leocadia (1985), La Dispute (1987), Pellas and Melisande (1988), published in the first collection of her plays, Plays One (1996), and and Dianeira (1999), published in Plays Two (20029. Her television plays are Do Not Disturb (1991) and The Children (1992). Her early stage plays are This is No Place for Tallulah Bankhead (1978), The Third (1980), Second Sentence (1980), Case to Answer (1980), Breaking Through (1980), New Anatomies (1981), Inside Out (1982), Home Leave (1982) and Abel’s Sister (1984). Among these plays, only New Anatomies (1981), performed at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival by the Women’s Theatre Group, was published in Plays One (1996). The Grace of Mary Traverse (1985), Our Country’s Good (1988), The Love of the Nightingale (1988) and Three Birds Alighting on a Field (1991) are the other plays published in this collection. In the following years, Wertenbaker wrote The Break of Day (1995), After Darwin (1998), The Ash Girl (2000), and Credible Witness (2001), published in Plays Two (2002). Timberlake Wertenbaker’s most recent plays, not published yet, are Galileo’s Daughter (2004), Divine Intervention (2006) and Arden City (2007). Since the beginning of her career, Wertenbaker has received many awards for the plays she wrote. For instance, she received the Plays and Players Most Promising Playwright Award (1985) for The Grace of Mary Traverse; the Eileen Anderson Central Television Drama Award (1989) for The Love of the Nightingale; and the London Critics’ Circle Award for Best West End Play (1991), the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (1992) and the Writer’s Guild Award for Best West End Play (1992) for Three Birds Alighting on a Field. Our Country’s Good (1988), however, which dramatises the experiences of convicts taken to Australia for punishment and deals with such issues as the civilising effect of the theatre and the definition of justice, crime and civilisation, has brought Wertenbaker the most awards. These are the Lawrence Olivier Award and the Evening Standard Play of the Year Award (1988), the Outstanding Young Playwright Award from the Evening Standard (1988), the Antoinette Perry Award nomination for Best Play (1990), and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best New Foreign Play (1991) (Carlson 1993: 275; Chapman http: / / galenet.galegroup.com/ servlet/ LitRC? locID=hu_tr, 26.09.03). Thus, as Susan Carlson says, in her mid-career Our Country’s Good, staged in countries like Australia, Canada, the USA and Ireland, “transformed Wertenbaker from a woman of stature in British theatre to a writer speaking to and of the world” (1993: 268). Shakespeare Company. Today, as Richard Chapman comments, Wertenbaker is one of the few women dramatists in British theatre whose work has been produced on both sides of the Atlantic (http: / / galenet.galegroup. com/ servlet/ LitRC? locID=hu_tr, 26.09.03) 1 . In this article, one of the most widely staged plays of Timberlake Wertenbaker, The Love of the Nightingale (1988), will be analysed and the playwright’s (radical) feminist stance will be displayed even though she has consistently refused to be proclaimed, or labelled, as a ‘feminist’ writer. In a radio interview, for instance, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 20 June 1991, on being asked whether she “accepted the radical feminist label often attached to her work” (Goodman 1993: 33), Wertenbaker answers: No. Because I don’t think people know what they mean when they say ‘radical feminist’. I don’t know how I got that reputation. People used to ask me if I was a feminist, or a feminist writer. Well, of course I’m a feminist, but what does that mean? What’s so good about feminism is that it is so broad. (qtd. in Goodman 1993: 33-34). Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 81 2 The transcription of the radio programme Women’s Hour, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 5 July 2004, is my own. 3 Hereafter referred to as LN with the appropriate scene and page numbers. Likewise, in another interview broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 5 July 2004, Wertenbaker avoids describing herself as a feminist playwright. When the presenter comments and asks Wertenbaker, “You are always interested in your plays in female characters being in the foreground of the play, certainly in most of the work, and you’ve been described as a feminist playwright. How would you describe yourself? ”, Timberlake Wertenbaker replies as follows: Well, I never describe myself, I just sit there and write and hope for the best. And I’m always a little bit surprised when somebody asks me that question. I have to be truthful, I have never found a way of answering it and I think that I’m a playwright. And obviously I’m attracted to women characters because I can sense their complexity and I often see slightly simplified women characters on the stage I think […] (http: / / www.bbc.co.uk/ radio4/ womanshour/ 2004_27_mon_01.shtml, 30.07.04) 2 . Hence, Timberlake Wertenbaker has never been a self-proclaimed feminist playwright, and she has always refused to associate her work with feminism (cf. Carlson 1993: 278). However, a close reading of The Love of the Nightingale (1988) proves the opposite and explicitly reveals the playwright’s (radical) feminist stance in her early career. The Love of the Nightingale (1988), which, according to Elaine Aston, is a “modern feminist re-inscription of Greek theatre” (1994: 18), is one of the most outstanding plays of Timberlake Wertenbaker. In this play, Wertenbaker looks at gender issues from a feminist perspective and criticises the values and moral order of patriarchy for its hypocrisy and double standards. The Love of the Nightingale takes its source from the Philomele myth, which tells about the enforced silencing of Philomele by Tereus, her brother-in-law, who rapes her and then cuts out her tongue in order to prevent her from publicising his guilt. However, as different from the myth, which ignores to reflect the female perspective, in this play Wertenbaker puts Philomele as an unconventional young woman into the centre of action and portrays her as a female figure who refuses to obey the values of patriarchy. So, as the critic Paul Taylor has observed, The Love of the Nightingale “offers both a moving dramatisation of the Philomele and Tereus myth and a knowing [that is, feminist] deconstruction of it” (qtd. in Carlson 1993: 270). The Love of the Nightingale 3 , which is set in ancient Greece and which begins in medias res, opens with the fight of two soldiers, dramatising the war in Athens. As the two soldiers are fighting and cursing at each other, the Male Chorus interferes and informs the audience about the events taking Nursen Gömceli 82 place at the king’s palace: “Athens is at war, but in the palace of the Athenian king Pandion, two sisters discuss life’s charms and the attractions of men” (LN: Sc.1, 2). In the following scene, where the King’s two daughters are introduced, Procne and Philomele express their sadness about having to part from each other as Procne, the elder sister, is going to get married according her “parents’ will” (LN: Sc. 2, 4). Soon it is revealed that Procne’s enforced marriage is the outcome of an agreement between her father and Tereus, the king of Thrace. Since Athens has won the war with the help of Tereus, King Pandion decides to give him a reward to express his gratitude to the Thracian king and when Tereus indicates his intention that he wants to have one of his daughters, King Pandion agrees and gives Procne as a reward to the king of Thrace. In her new land Thrace, Procne gives birth to Tereus’s son, Itys. However, nothing makes her happy as she misses her sister very much. In the end, when Procne can no longer suppress her longing for her sister after a separation for five years, Tereus sets off for Athens to bring Philomele to Thrace. After he arrives in Athens at the end of a long journey, he takes King Pandion’s consent and so they leave for Thrace in the company of Tereus’s soldiers and Niobe, an old woman who will take care of Philomele during her parents’ absence. However, while sailing, Tereus, who has already fallen in love with his sister-in-law, continuously delays their arrival in Thrace so that he can be closer to Philomele. Being determined to have Philomele, he makes amorous advances to her, yet Philomele, whose only wish is to embrace her sister as soon as possible, constantly refuses him saying that she loves him only as a brother. In the end, believing that Philomele’s love for her sister hinders her from seeing him as a lover, Tereus makes up a story and tells her that Procne has died when she suddenly fell down into the river while waiting for their arrival on top of a mountain and that her body could not be found. Upon hearing this, Philomele screams and begins to cry in the arms of Tereus. As time passes, Tereus feels more and more attracted to his sister-in-law yet, one day, when he suddenly sees Philomele flirting with the Captain, he does not tolerate this and, maddened by anger and jealousy, he kills the Captain. Thus, having also removed the second person who, he believed, put a barrier between himself and his beloved one, Tereus decides to declare his love to his sister-in-law. Yet when she still rejects him and reveals her fear of him, Tereus takes advantage of Philomele’s helpless state and rapes her. In the palace, however, Procne, who has been waiting for their arrival for months, is deeply worried about Tereus and Philomele. She begs her ladiesin-waiting, who also act as the female chorus in the play, to tell her whatever they know about her sister and Tereus, but they do not disclose anything. Suddenly, Tereus enters with blood on his hands. In a state of shock, Procne asks him what has happened and once again Tereus tells a lie Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 83 explaining to her that he had to struggle with a “wild beast, or a god in disguise” (LN: Sc. 14, 32). As he expects, his silence about Philomele makes Procne think that Philomele has died and thus in grief she welcomes her husband. In the next scene, Philomele, who wants to get rid of “the smell of violence” (LN: Sc.15, 33) and “the smell of fear” (LN: Sc.15, 33) on her body, “is being washed by Niobe, her legs spread around a basin. Her head is down” (LN: Sc.15, 33). Just as she is quarrelling with Niobe, who advises her not to make Tereus angry since “he might still be interested” (LN: Sc.15, 33), Tereus enters. Contrary to what he expects, Philomele becomes furious when seeing Tereus, and she both humiliates him by teasing his manhood and threatens that she will reveal the whole truth about him to the people of Thrace. Nevertheless, Philomele’s daring words and her rebellious attitude lead to her own tragic end: Tereus cuts out her tongue. When Niobe encounters Philomele bleeding to death, she pities her and comments on her tragic state: “The silence of the dead can turn into a wild chorus. But the one alive who cannot speak, that one has truly lost all power” (LN: Sc.16, 36). However, Philomele’s clever act at the Bacchean feast attended only by women proves just the opposite. In the company of their servant, Niobe and Philomele join the feast carrying three huge dolls, which, as Niobe reports, were made by Philomele. As they are trying to move in the feast area, Niobe pushes Philomele into the crowd so that she can see the dancing acrobats. Philomele watches them until the acrobats finish their performance, but afterwards the space remains empty. Taking advantage of this opportunity, Philomele throws her dolls into the empty space encircled by the crowd. When seeing her, Niobe tries to take Philomele away from that place, but unknowingly Niobe herself becomes a part of Philomele’s dumb show. The scene is described in the stage directions as such: “Niobe grabs one of [the dolls] and tries to grab Philomele, but she is behind the second doll. Since the dolls are huge, the struggle seems to be between the two dolls. One is male, one is female, and the male one has a king’s crown” (LN: Sc.18, 40). While the crowd watching them “makes a wider circle and waits in silence” (LN: Sc.18, 40), Philomele continues to enact her rape and her further victimisation. As described in the stage directions, she “stages a very brutal illustration of the cutting of the female doll’s tongue. Blood cloth on the floor” (LN: Sc.18, 40). While she enacts the cutting of her tongue, the crowd continues to watch her very silently and Niobe stands still. “Then the servant comes inside the circle, holding a third doll, a queen” (LN: Sc.18, 40). It is at that very moment that Procne comes to the front of the circle formed by the crowd and watches the enactment of Philomele’s story. Meanwhile, “the Procne doll weeps” and “the two female dolls embrace” (LN: Sc.18, 40). After Procne has learnt the whole truth about Tereus, the two sisters collaborate and decide to have their revenge on him. As the women con- Nursen Gömceli 84 tinue to entertain themselves dancing and drinking inside the palace, where the two sisters are also present, Itys, who has noticed his sword in Philomele’s hand while secretly observing the Bacchean women through the window, rushes in to take back his weapon from Philomele. However, Philomele does not give it to him. While Procne holds Itys, Philomele “brings the sword down on his neck” (LN: Sc.20, 46) and the two sisters kill the child. At that very moment, thinking that the festivities have come to an end and ignorant about his son’s slaughter, Tereus enters the palace. When he comes across Philomele with her blood-covered hands, he is shocked. In anxiety, he tries to explain to Procne why he has exploited Philomele, but he cannot suppress Procne’s anger towards himself. Procne suddenly shows him the dead body of Itys covered in blood and speaks: “If you bend over the stream and search for your reflection Tereus, this is what it looks like” (LN: Sc.20, 47). Fearing the rage of the two sisters, with an instant decision, Tereus attempts to kill them both with Itys’ sword and he begins to run after them. However, he cannot catch them. As the myth goes, Philomele is metamorphosed into a nightingale, Procne into a swallow, and Tereus becomes a hoopoe. In the final scene of the play, Itys appears together with the birds; yet, only Philomele, the nightingale, talks with him. She asks Itys if he understood why Tereus’s violent act of cutting out her tongue had been wrong, but he cannot give an answer and so the play ends: ITYS. (Bored.) I don’t know. Why was it wrong? PHILOMELE. It was wrong because - ITYS. What does wrong mean? PHILOMELE. It is what isn’t right. ITYS. What is right? (The nightingale sings). Didn’t you want me to ask questions? (Fade) (LN: Sc.21, 49). As can be seen, in The Love of the Nightingale Timberlake Wertenbaker demonstrates the violation of women who refuse to yield to patriarchal authority and, around the central theme of the enforced silencing of women by men, she discusses such issues as rape and incest from a feminist perspective. Within the triangle of Procne, Tereus and Philomele, the playwright focuses on the tragedy of the two sisters and displays how they are victimised by patriarchal power. When Procne and Philomele are first introduced to the audience in Scene 2, it is clearly apparent that, contrary to Procne, Philomele does not conform to the traditional gender roles, that is, “the socially created expectations for masculine and feminine behaviour” (Lipman-Blumen 1984: 2) assigned by patriarchy. Procne’s first words, marking the beginning of the scene, disclose her sister’s unusual character: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 85 “Don’t say that Philomele” (LN: Sc. 2, 2). As they continue to converse, it is revealed that Procne feels disturbed and warns her sister because, believing that her marriage will enable Procne to learn everything about sexuality, Philomele not only asks Procne questions about sexuality and intercourse but also freely expresses her own feelings of sexual desire: “I envy you, sister, you’ll know everything then. What are they like? Men? ” (LN: Sc. 2, 2). Moreover, without any hesitation, she even speaks openly about her desire for love while watching Hippolytos, the play within the play dramatising Phaedra’s deep love towards her stepson Hippolytus, together with her parents and her brother-in-law. When the female chorus in Hippolytos states voicing Phaedra’s feelings: “[...] love, I beg you, pass me by” (LN: Sc. 5, 11), Philomele comments: “I would never say that, would you, brother Tereus? I want to feel everything there is to feel. Don’t you? ” (LN: Sc. 5, 11). Hence, Philomele does not feel the need to restrict herself either in speech or in thought. She freely talks about topics which are regarded as inappropriate for a woman to talk about in public, and thus she publicises her thoughts and feelings, which are supposed to be kept in the private sphere in the view of patriarchy. What characterizes Philomele as an unconventional woman is not only her outspoken nature in sexual matters, but also her inquisitive mind and disobedient character. Throughout their voyage to Thrace, she asks the Captain numerous questions about the lands she sees around and about women. Furthermore, she questions the Captain about goodness and truth, like a learned man passing on judgement on metaphysical issues denied to women, and she does this in a manly way, engaging in an “Athenian dialectic of logic, reminiscent of Plato’s dialogues” (Case 1991: 240): CAPTAIN. They [wild men in Mount Athos] worship male gods. They believe all harm in the world comes from women. PHILOMELE. Why do they believe that? (Pause.) You don’t agree with them, do you, Captain? CAPTAIN. I don’t know, miss. PHILOMELE. If you don’t disagree, you agree with them, Captain, that’s logic. CAPTAIN. Women are beautiful. PHILOMELE. But surely you believe that beauty is truth and goodness as well? CAPTAIN. That I don’t know. I would have to think about it. PHILOMELE. I’ll prove it to you now, I once heard a philosopher do it. I will begin by asking you a lot of questions. You answer yes or no. But you must pay attention. Are you ready? (LN: Sc.7, 15) Having thus achieved to attract his attention, Philomele even makes advances to seduce the Captain putting his hand on her breast, which rein- Nursen Gömceli 86 forces her role as the seductress: “You touched my hand on the ship once, by mistake, and once I fell against you, a wave, you blushed, I saw it, fear, desire, they’re the same, I’m not a child. Touch my hand again: prove you feel nothing” (LN: Sc.12, 27). Hence, as Sue-Ellen Case has put it, Philomele’s “unusually assertive nature, indicated by her ability to engage in philosophical discourse and her attempted seduction of the sea captain” (qtd. in McDonough 1996: 410) establish her as a considerably “distinctive” (qtd. in McDonough 1996: 410) female character who exceeds the boundaries of appropriate female behaviour in a patriarchal society. However, despite her characteristic traits, which make her quite different from conventional women, Philomele meets the same fate as many ordinary women. Although she continuously rejects Tereus’s advances, she cannot escape his sexual attack and eventually is raped by him. With her rape, Philomele does not only experience sexual violation but also psychological violence; from the high status of a noble princess she is lowered to the position of a victim of rape. Yet, Philomele still does not submit to Tereus after her rape, and instead of accepting her fate, as is traditionally expected of a woman, she begins to inquire into the reason behind his brutal act. Moreover, just as Tereus humiliated and degraded her by his brutal deed, so does she degrade him by her words, and she courageously threatens Tereus to reveal his crime “with suggestions of sexual fallibility” (http: / / www.didaskalia.net/ issues/ vol1no1/ mcdonald.html, 22.03.08): Did you tell [Procne] that despite my fear, your violence, when I saw you in your nakedness, I couldn’t help laughing because you were so shrivelled, so ridiculous and it is not the way it is on the statues? [...] Did you tell her I pitied her for having in her bed a man who could screech such quick and ugly pleasure, a man of jelly beneath his hard skin, did you tell her that? [...] There’s nothing inside you. You’re only full when you’re filled with violence. And they obey you? Look up to you? Have the men and women of Thrace seen you naked? Shall I tell them? Yes, I will tell (LN: Sc.15, 359: 35). Hence, as Marianne McDonald has pointed out, in Philomele’s protests, “the sexual imagery crosses into the political” and once again “the private invades the public” (http: / / www.didaskalia.net/ issues/ vol1no1/ mcdonald.html, 22.03.08). By asserting that she will reveal the whole truth about Tereus, Philomele intends not only to publicise but also to politicise the private. She knows that by humiliating Tereus sexually in front of the public, she will also be able to harm his imperial power and image, and thus reduce the king to nothing. She also makes a suggestion: “Wouldn’t you prefer someone with truth and goodness, self-control and reason? Let my sister rule in his place” (LN: Sc.15, 36). As can be inferred from her speech, Philomele does not only attribute positive qualities like reason, truth, goodness, and self-control Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 87 to a woman, but she also sees in her the capacity to rule a country. This can be interpreted as a revelation of Wertenbaker’s desire for a world ruled by women, which is a radical feminist attitude. Radical feminists strongly believe that patriarchy is at the root of all forms of oppression and so they demand the removal of all manmade structures (Case 1988: 63). Thus, radical feminists want to establish a structure that destroys patriarchal dominance, hence, defends mainly the primacy of the position of women (Aston 1994: 66). Consequently, it can be argued that through Philomele, Wertenbaker presents an optimistic view of women and takes a radical feminist approach in conveying the idea that if the world is ruled by women, it will be a better place to live in. Philomele’s rebellious and disobedient attitude, however, results in her own destruction: her tongue, with which she has voiced truths, is mutilated by Tereus before she can announce her rape to the Thracian people. With this final act of violence, Philomele’s exploitation takes its most brutal form, and she permanently loses her ability to speak. As a result, she encounters not only sexual and psychological violence, but also physical violence. In Scene 18, even though she has been deprived of her ability to speak, Philomele demonstrates how she achieves her goal of publicising Tereus’s guilt. Unlike Tereus, who resorted to violence and used his physical power either to inflict punishment on his victim or to satisfy his sexual desire, Philomele uses her intellectual power in realising her aim, and dramatising her rape and mutilation in a puppet play, she manages to expose Tereus’s brutality and hypocrisy to the women of Thrace. Thus, although she does not have a tongue to communicate her tragedy by words, Philomele can still express herself by the language of theatre. By this way, Wertenbaker displays not only the power of theatre as an efficient means of communicating ideas, but also the political aspect of performance. As Janet Brown writes in her article “Feminist Theory and Contemporary Drama”, in the feminist theatre of the late eighties and early nineties, a new understanding of the act of speech itself appeared. Accordingly, performance began to be “perceived as a political gesture, not merely a psychological or spiritual one” (Brown 1999: 157). Brown continues: “All performance arises from and expresses the community; it is public and therefore political in nature, impacting the larger society, and it operates in circular fashion, reaching backward in time to give speech to silenced forebears, and extending into the future, nurturing the next generation” (1999: 157). Thus, what Philomele does in her puppet play is in fact a political act which enables her not only to voice her own silencing and give voice to all silenced women through ages but also to warn the future generation of women about male hypocrisy and brutality. Taking advantage of the festival’s being a public spectacle, Philomele exposes Tereus’s ugliness to everyone attending the feast and so she both continues Nursen Gömceli 88 her rebellion in her silence and takes away from Tereus’s public image as the king. Furthermore, it is significant that Philomele publicly reveals the whole truth about Tereus at the Bacchean feast. The Bacchean feasts, or the Bacchanalia, were special celebrations with “both open and secret phases” (Jameson 1993: 54) held in the honour of Bacchus (Dionysus), the god of fertility. These festivities were mainly held at night and were open to “wild parties […] in the course of which wine flowed, social barriers were breached, and sexual indulgence was at least thought to occur” (Jameson 1993: 60). Interestingly enough, during these festivities, women, or the socalled bacchantes, “had their own rites for the god in which men had limited roles or were excluded” (Jameson 1993: 60). Referring to Allison Hersch’s article on the excesses and transgressions of the Bacchic rites, “‘How Sweet the Kill’: Orgiastic Female Violence” (1992), Jennifer Wagner also explains that the Bacchean feast was a specific occasion in which men were not allowed to take part (1995: 8). Moreover, as can be found in the Merriam- Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, it was even believed that during these festivities, which were closed to men, “Pentheus, the king of Thebes, was torn to pieces by the bacchantes when he attempted to spy on their activities” (“Bacchantes”). Thus, these festivities “were [held in] secret” (Jameson 1993: 61), and the god Bacchus was “seen as a liberating figure in whose worship women found a temporary escape from male domination” (Jameson 1993: 61). Consequently, during these celebrations, women were “freed of any restrictions on appearance and behaviour” (Wagner 1995: 8) and “gender norms [were] dispensed with, and female transgression authorised” (Wagner 1995: 8). Hence, elevating “the concept of the liberated women” (Jameson 1993: 62), the Bacchanalia were occasions that enabled women to release female energy, or what Emily Culpepper has named the “gynergy” (qtd. in Daly 1978: 13) within themselves, when they appeared in their “most powerful” (Wagner 1995: 8) state. So, in the play, on this specific occasion, Philomele has all the necessary “circumstances” (Wagner 1995: 8) that allow her to communicate her sexual violation and mutilation. As a result, Philomele in her tongueless state can voice and communicate much more than Tereus. In this respect, Wertenbaker also questions “the meaning and function of words” (Cousin 1996: 117) and contrasts the “speaking silence of Philomele” (Cousin 1996: 117) with Tereus’s ‘silent’ speeches. In Scene 20, after Tereus’s guilt is revealed to the public at the Bacchean feast, Procne underlines this contrast: TEREUS. I had wanted to say. PROCNE. Say what, Tereus? TEREUS. If I could explain. PROCNE. You have a tongue (LN: Sc.20, 46). Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 89 At the end of the play, appropriate to her talkative nature, it is Philomele who is transformed into a nightingale. Thus, having defeated Tereus, who represents male power, with the support of her sister Procne, Philomele regains her voice and she continues to ‘speak’ as a nightingale in a different dimension. Moreover, just as she used to ask a lot of questions in her former life as a human being, thus exposing her inquisitive mind, now she wants Itys to ask her questions. Her words, “(The Nightingale). And now, ask me some more questions” (LN: Sc.21, 48), mark the beginning of the last scene of the play. In this scene, Itys does not answer Philomele’s questions, but at least he begins to think about concepts like ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Here, it can be observed that some kind of communication between the male and the female has started with Philomele’s paving the way. As Christine Dymkowski asserts, “the asking and answering of questions demands genuine interaction and hopes for mutual understanding” (1997: 132). Hence, the last scene of the play, throughout which Philomele encourages Itys to ask her questions, both suggests hope for the future and implies that mutual understanding between the male and the female will transform “the unending cycle of violence and death into the possibility of life and hope” (Dymkowski 1997: 132). In The Love of the Nightingale, Philomele’s sister Procne, who is another stereotypical character, appears as a figure that enables the playwright to make the idea of enforced marriage an issue. Criticising this patriarchal tradition in marriage in her work Psychoanalysis and Feminism, the feminist writer and critic Juliet Mitchell claims that patriarchal ideology identifies women as objects of exchange. Mitchell’s major argument is that “the unconscious […] [is] the domain of the reproduction of culture or ideology” (1974: 413) and so patriarchal ideology that devalues women is reproduced in every form of society by the agency of the unconscious. Hence, she argues, to change women’s identity as exchange objects there must be a “cultural revolution” (1974: 414) in the basic ideology of human society. In the play, this patriarchal ideology determining women’s marital life is explicit. Being given by her father as a reward to Tereus for his support of the Athenian soldiers at war, Procne “serve[s] as currency in a transaction between two men” (Wilson 1993: 157): KING PANDION. She’s yours, Tereus. Procne - PROCNE. But, Father - KING PANDION. Your husband (LN: Sc.3, 5). Thus, Procne is given to Tereus simply like a commodity with the authority of her father and so she is passed from her father’s domain into her husband’s domain. In other words, she becomes an element of exchange in a marriage that functions like an “institution of ownership” (Case 1988: 8) where the man is the owner and the woman is the property. Indeed, as is Nursen Gömceli 90 also emphasised in the Greek word for marriage, ‘exdosis’, which means ‘loan’ (Case 1988: 8; “Loan”), Procne is given as a loan to her husband by her father with her marriage. She is still the property of patriarchy, but she is only transferred from one patriarchal authority to another. Consequently, not being given even the right to have a say in her marriage, Procne is totally under the control of patriarchal power. In her new life in Thrace, Procne is still confined to the domestic sphere, yet the void left by her sister’s absence cannot be filled. While she complains to the women in her court, her longing for her sister is revealed: “How we talked. Our words played, caressed each other, our words were tossed lightly, a challenge to catch. Where is she now? Who shares those games with her? Or is she silent too? ” (LN: Sc.4, 7). When Hero, one of her ladiesin-waiting, reminds Procne that she has a family, husband and a child, Procne explains the most important reason behind her longing for Philomele: “I cannot talk to my husband. I have nothing to say to my son” (LN: Sc.4, 7). Thus, being distanced from her only friend, and having no emotional and/ or intellectual contact with either her husband or her son, Procne finds herself in a state of complete silence in the absence of her sister. So, Wertenbaker demonstrates how men, with their controlling power as husbands or fathers, dominate women and separate them from each other. In this respect, it can be stated that Wertenbaker also highlights two important issues of radical feminist philosophy. One of them is the emphasis on the idea of sisterhood, saying that all women are sisters and cherishing women’s mutual understanding and support (Banks 1981: 232), and the other is the emphasis on the oppressive nature of patriarchy (Case 1988: 63). Although Procne has her female companions in her new life in Thrace, having neither an emotional nor a social or cultural bond to her women, she cannot be friends with them. Thus, she complains: “Where have the words gone? [...] There were so many. Everything that was had a word and every word was something. None of these meanings half in the shade, unclear” (LN: Sc.4, 7). When Iris tells her that “[they] speak the same language” (LN: Sc.4, 7), Procne draws her attention to the difference between the ways of communicating of the Athenians and the Thracians: “The words are the same, but point to different things. We aspire to clarity in sound, you like the silences in between” (LN: Sc.4, 7). Hence, coming from a cultural background that elevates the freedom of speech and thought into a land that favours the language of silence, as she claims, Procne cannot enjoy the pleasure and comfort of communicating her feelings and thoughts. Consequently, although Procne, unlike her sister, has the ability to speak, she is condemned to lead a life of silence and solitude for survival and ‘happiness’ in her marital life in the land of her husband. Furthermore, leading a life cut off from her roots in a remote land, Procne also experiences the oppressive state of being an outsider. As an Athenian Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 91 who is forced to continue her existence in a foreign land after her marriage, Procne cannot adapt to her new life in Thrace. Hence, even though she occupies the social status of a queen, in her new social and cultural environment, to which she has no ties except for her husband and son, Procne does not feel as part of the society she lives in. Her companions, the female chorus, express Procne’s boredom: HERO. She sits alone, hour after hour, turns her head away and laments. IRIS. We don’t know how to act, we don’t know what to say. HERO. She turns from us in grief. JUNE. Boredom. ECHO. Homesick. HERO. It is difficult to come to a strange land. HELEN. You’ll always be a guest there, never call it your own, never rest in the kindness of history. ECHO. Your story intermingled with events, no. You will be outside: IRIS. And if it is the land of your husband can you even say you have chosen it? (LN: Sc.4, 6). Thus, as Iris points out, although Procne lives in the land of her husband, she still feels as an outsider because she herself has not chosen her new land just as she did not choose her husband. Hence, a new life that is imposed upon her by patriarchal authority causes Procne to suffer from a life in isolation. While Procne is portrayed as a passive female character who submits to the decisions of the male power for most part of the play, in the last three scenes, she changes into a rebelling character like Philomele. To find out whether Philomele was exploited by Tereus, she, in a misogynist attitude, first accuses her sister of having seduced her husband or his soldiers: “How do I know you didn’t take him to your bed? [...] I have never seen him violent. He would not do this. He had to keep you back from his soldiers. Desire always burnt in you. Did you play with his sailors? Did you shame us all? ” (LN: Sc.18, 41). Hence, she not only attributes the role of the temptress to her sister but she also attaches “the stigma of shame” (Winston 1995: 514) to Philomele. Yet, after she decides that Philomele is innocent, she joins her sister in her desire for revenge. Thus, Procne, too, eventually rebels against the patriarchy represented by her husband and, like Medea in Euripides’ play, she slaughters her own son together with Philomele, which shows their way of establishing justice. In this scene, Wertenbaker explicitly emphasises the importance of female bonding, because it is through the collaboration of Philomele and Procne that an end is brought to male violence. According to radical feminist theory, breaking the tie between the father and the son and thus putting an end to male domination, which they see at the root of all forms of oppression, is a display of female supremacy (Banks 1981: 232; Nursen Gömceli 92 Wandor 1986: 133). Moreover, for radical feminists, the eradication of patriarchy is essential because according to their political theory the absence of men means to “heal their male-inflicted wounds, to strengthen their bond with other women, and to develop a distinctively female perspective on the world” (Jaggar 1983: 276). Consequently, in this scene, Wertenbaker “overturns the balance of power in favor of female supremacy” (Dolan 1991: 10) and, in a radical feminist approach, she demonstrates how women can subvert the male order if they collaborate with their ‘sisters’. Furthermore, Procne’s involvement in her son’s death, which is a very radical form of rebellion, bears several meanings. In the first place, it suggests that Procne will no longer obey the rules of patriarchy. This is also revealed in her revolt against Tereus: “I obeyed all rules: the rule of parents, the rule of marriage, the rules of my loneliness, you” (LN: Sc.20, 47). Moreover, since a child represents the future, the slaughter of Itys can also be interpreted as the destruction of the future of patriarchy. Later, in this scene, Procne adds: “There are no more rules. There is nothing. The world is bleak. The past a mockery. The future dead” (LN: Sc.20, 47). Meanwhile, she suddenly shows the dead body of Itys to Tereus and in an ironical tone she says, “I did nothing. As usual” (LN: Sc.20, 47). When Tereus looks at Philomele thinking that she has killed his son, Procne tells him that he himself was responsible for his son’s slaughter and so she “forces [Tereus] to confront his own guilt” (Winston 1995: 515): “No. You, Tereus. You bloodied the future. For all of us. We don’t want it” (LN: Sc.20, 47). It can be said that at this point in the play, Wertenbaker gives a pessimistic view of the future with regard to gender relations, and in a wider perspective, to human relations. In an interview published in Rage and Reason, the interviewer reminds the playwright that in the play it is not Tereus but Itys who is killed by Procne and Philomele for their suffering, and asks: “Does the future promise nothing but violence if justice remains absent and all members of society are not given their voice? ” (1997: 143). Wertenbaker answers: I did feel very strongly that if you can’t speak, if you don’t have the language, the only way you can express yourself is violently, and I think we have evidence of it all around. If you can speak, you can at least make your claims, hope to be listened to, make more claims, listen to the other side. Without that, yes. I think there will be nothing but violence. And the sections of society now, the people who have no voice, are violent, inevitably. If you refuse to listen to a section of society, you are silencing them (Stephenson and Langridge 1997: 143). Thus, in this scene of the play, although Wertenbaker starts out with feminist intentions, on a larger scale she gives the message that if there are people who are silenced and if people do not try to understand each other and Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 93 communicate with each other, the cycle of violence and revenge will continue forever. In the play, which develops around the theme of the silencing of women, Niobe is another stereotypical female character that represents a form of silence. Niobe stands for the women submissive to male authority, yet, contrary to Procne, who turns into a rebelling character towards the end of the play, Niobe yields to patriarchal power in all aspects. The reason behind her submission to male authority, however, is “self-preservation” (Wagner 1995: 8). Living in a patriarchal society, she is “well aware of power structures and the implications of yielding to it [sic]” (Wagner 1995: 8). Hence, in order to secure her survival in safety in a society that privileges the silent who submit to authority, she deliberately keeps silent. Thus, Niobe’s everlasting silence contrasts with Philomele’s silence, who never submits to male power, and with that of Procne, who later in the play decides to raise her voice against patriarchy. As illustrated above, Philomele is violently silenced by Tereus because she has not accepted the dominance of male power. She thus represents the silence which is imposed upon women by force or violence. Procne, on the other hand, chooses to break her silence contrary to Niobe, because of her changing stance against patriarchy. At the beginning, she allows herself to be manipulated by the male because, having listened to the advice of the Athenian philosophers, who reflected the male perspective, she believes that male domination over the female is “the measure” (LN: Sc.2, 4). Yet, when she becomes aware of the reality that men oppress and violate women if women rebel against their authority, Procne protests against men’s understanding of justice and puts an end to her silence. Niobe, however, neither falls into conflict with the social conventions of her society with regard to gender roles, like Philomele, nor does she, like Procne, eventually feel the need to react against the order of patriarchy. Since she is perfectly aware of the gender roles in a patriarchal society, which assign men to the position of the powerful while identifying women as the weaker sex, Niobe knows that her reaction against male power will cause her own destruction. Hence, believing that “silence is the only viable strategy for survival in the face of power” (Wilson 1993: 157), she willingly remains silent throughout the play. Nevertheless, Niobe’s conscious silence indirectly contributes to the violation of her own sex. In spite of the fact that she is quite aware of the results of leaving “a young girl and a man alone” (LN: Sc.7, 16), she deliberately refrains from protecting Philomele from Tereus’s sexual attack. As the rape scene takes place off-stage, Niobe appears and, hearing Philomele’s screams in the background, she speaks: “So, it’s happened. I’ve seen it coming for weeks. I could have warned her but what’s the point? Nowhere to go [...] Power is something you can’t resist. [...] Well I know. She’ll accept Nursen Gömceli 94 it in the end. Have to. We do” (LN: Sc.13, 30). Thus, by keeping silent, Niobe preserves her own survival but puts the existence of another person from her own sex in danger. However, it has to be emphasised that Niobe’s passivity towards Philomele’s rape does not result from a deliberate intention of oppressing Philomele, but from her fear of patriarchal power. Hence, Wertenbaker implies that women who remain silent in a male dominated society will be used as instruments for the destruction of their own sisters patriarchy. As Joe Winston points out in her article “Re-Casting the Phaedra Syndrome”, “the social reality of rape in a patriarchal society is that the stigma of shame will be attached to the woman” (1995: 514). In this play, Niobe, “as the voice of conventional social attitudes” (Winston 1995: 514), makes this attitude apparent in her speech in Scene 13 after Tereus has satisfied his sexual desire: “There. It’s finished now. A cool cloth. On her cheeks first. That’s where it hurts most. The shame … I know all about it” (LN: Sc.13, 31). Obviously, Niobe knows that if the truth is revealed to the public, in a social structure that favours the male, Tereus will not be questioned for his hypocritical and immoral deed, but Philomele will be stigmatised as a prostitute. Thus, not only will she have to feel the shame of rape but also to accept the guilt (Winston 1995: 514). Consequently, Niobe remains silent and displays her conventionality even after the rape: “In the meantime, get him to provide for you. They don’t like us so much afterwards, you know. Now he might still feel something. We must eat. Smile. Beg” (LN: Sc.15, 33). When Philomele reacts against Niobe’s hypocrisy saying “you’re worse than [Tereus]” (Sc.15, 33), Niobe makes her see the reality of patriarchy: “Don’t be so mighty, Philomele. You’re nothing now. Another victim. Grovel. Like the rest of us” (LN: Sc.15, 34). So she reminds Philomele that her status as the princess will no longer give her a privileged social status but as the victim of rape she will be seen as a fallen woman. Furthermore, before Philomele’s mutilation, she warns her: “Worse things can happen [...] Hold back your tongue, Philomele” (LN: Sc.15, 34). Indeed, in the play, Philomele’s mutilation is presented as an experience “more shocking” (Winston 1995: 515) than her rape because after her mutilation Philomele appears “crouched in a pool of blood” (LN: Sc.16, 36) in front of the audience, which demonstrates the outcome of an extreme form of patriarchal violence. In this scene, what Niobe says echoes the voice of patriarchy again: “She has lost her words, all of them. Now she is silent. For good. Of course, he could have killed her, that is the usual way of keeping people silent. But that might have made others talk” (LN: Sc.16, 36). Thus, a traditional woman absorbed into patriarchal society, Niobe accepts the values of patriarchy as well as the “patriarchal moral order which uses shame as a means to oppress [women]” (Winston 1995: 514). Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 95 Patriarchy in The Love of the Nightingale is represented by Tereus, King Pandion, the Captain, and Itys, as well as the soldiers in the background. Among these characters, King Pandion, the Captain, and Itys have a less significant role than Tereus in displaying the destructive effect of patriarchal power. Yet, on the whole, all of these male characters depict the controlling and prejudiced attitude of patriarchy in their relationships with women. Among these less significant male characters, Itys, representing the future of patriarchy, is an instrumental character that enables the playwright to display the influence of patriarchal mentality on the physical and mental development of children. As can be inferred from his dialogues with his parents, being the only boy of his family and the son of a king, he is brought up in a way to be equipped with manly qualities such as bravery and physical strength. Furthermore, his character being predominantly moulded by the male perspective, he has already formed an idea of gender categorisation even in his childhood. For example, as a ten-year-old child, he feels that bravery is a characteristic quality that belongs to the male and that fighting at war is the most evident display of possessing that quality. In order to prove that he will also be a brave man in the future, he demonstrates to his parents, “turning round with his spear in hand” (LN: Sc.14, 38), how he will fight when he grows up. So he begins to associate manliness with power, fighting and courage in his childhood. Moreover, Itys learns from his social environment that women are inferior to men and thus deserve to be devalued. When, for example, he reminds the two soldiers that they are not allowed to see the Bacchean women inside the palace, one of the soldiers, revealing his low opinion of women and in a manner aimed at influencing Itys, says: “It’s just women” (LN: Sc.19, 43). Thus, acquiring his gender identity through a male discourse that teaches him not only gender stereotyping but also gender polarisation, Itys, as a child, already believes that women are the weaker sex and so he has to keep away from women to develop manly feelings. Indeed, when his mother tells him about his aunt Philomele, Itys immediately reacts against her. The moment Procne states that “[he] would have liked [his aunt]” (LN: Sc.17, 37) if he had seen her, Itys makes his choice: “I have uncles. They’re strong” (LN: Sc.17, 37). Hence, before he even becomes an adult, he is conditioned by patriarchy to reject all things female in order to become a man and thus he begins to ‘other’ the female sex. Interpreted from a Freudian perspective, this separation of the boy from his mother, which is explained as the dissolution of the Oedipus complex in this theory, is essential to Itys’ achieving his self-identity and maleness (1977: 191). However, many feminist critics have argued that Freud’s theory of the boy’s turning away from his mother and all things female involves an inherent misogyny (Donovan 1985: 178). Moreover, they believe that this separation contributes to the establishment of patriarchal civilisation (Donovan 1985: 172). Thus, it may be argued that since Nursen Gömceli 96 Wertenbaker depicts patriarchy as the primary source of violence and oppression in the play, her portrayal of Itys reveals her radical feminist criticism of male discourse. Via Itys, she displays how the misogynist attitude of patriarchy is empowered and passed through new generations. With Tereus, however, Wertenbaker raises her most aggressive voice against patriarchy. Discussing primarily the issue of rape through Tereus, the playwright in fact subverts the phallocentric male discourse that dictates the superiority of male values and all things male. Hence, through the deeds of Tereus, Wertenbaker aims at exposing male hypocrisy in both the public and in the private spheres. To this end, the dramatist makes use of a metatheatrical device and so presents Euripides’ Hippolytos as a mini play within the play. Later, in the development of the play, with a reversal of gender roles she draws parallels between the characters of Hippolytos and the characters of her own play, The Love of the Nightingale. Accordingly, Tereus parallels Phaedra, who falls in love with her stepson Hippolytus, and Philomele parallels Hippolytus, the male victim of incestuous love. Moreover, just like Phaedra, who causes the death of Hippolytus when she lies to her husband Theseus that Hippolytus “dared to rape [her]” (LN: Sc.5, 12), Tereus causes the death of his own son Itys when his lies are revealed by the two sisters. As a result, while female desire, jealousy and hypocrisy are established as the causes of violence and disorder in the world of Euripides’ play, in Wertenbaker’s play, male desire and hypocrisy are presented as the causes of violence in the portrayal of Tereus (Winston 1995: 513). So, as Winston has observed, Wertenbaker’s play “identifies the destructive forces within society as emanating not from female sexuality but from acts of male violence” (1995: 513). In the play, Tereus’s guilt is not restricted to one particular crime. He is guilty not only of adultery but also of incest and rape. Furthermore, having killed the Captain and cut out Philomele’s tongue, he commits the crimes of murder and mutilation. Consequently, Tereus can be seen as the embodiment of the vices of the male world. At the beginning, when Tereus first watches the play dramatising Phaedra’s incestuous love for her stepson, he constantly comments on the action and condemns Phaedra for her love and mendacity. “Phaedra has lied! That’s vile” (LN: Sc.5, 12), he says and states that “she could keep silent” (LN: Sc.5, 11) about her amorous feelings for her stepson. Moreover, he remarks that “these plays condone vice” (LN: Sc.5, 10). However, later, when he falls in love with his sister-in-law, he does not keep silent about it but tells Philomele that he loves her in the way Phaedra loved Hippolytus: “I am Phaedra. (Pause.) I love you. That way” (LN: Sc.13, 29). At the same time, before he admits his love for Philomele, he tells lies to her about Procne whereas he disapproved of Phaedra’s behaviour when she had told a lie to her husband. Thus, Tereus not only exposes his double standards with regard to morals, but also displays his Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 97 gendered perspective in his real life experience. While he finds it immoral for a married woman to reveal her desire for someone else, he finds no fault with revealing his own desire for his wife’s sister. Moreover, in spite of having formerly criticised the play about Phaedra and Hippolytus for its immorality, he later uses it as a “justification for his own emotions” (Wagner 1995: 8). Hence, Tereus turns out to be a “moral hypocrite” (Winston 1995: 514) and Wertenbaker exposes how men can destroy ethical values for their own purpose. In the play, among the different types of crimes that Tereus commits, Wertenbaker focuses on rape. She demonstrates Tereus’s rape of Philomele not only as an act of violence but also as an exercise of power. When seeing that Philomele is afraid of him, Tereus immediately attacks her: “So, you are afraid. I know fear well. [...] I will have you in your fear” (LN: Sc.13, 30), he says, and the rape occurs. Wertenbaker portrays this scene as an exposure of Philomele’s fear of male power and Tereus’s will, or desire, for the female body. Thus, in a radical feminist view, entering Philomele’s body by force, Tereus takes the place of the oppressor whereas Philomele becomes the oppressed. Among all feminist positions, rape is discussed as a major issue only in radical feminist theory because unlike socialist feminism, which analyses women’s economic exploitation, and liberal feminism, which discusses women’s social oppression, it is the radical feminist position that primarily focuses on women’s sexual oppression (Banks 1981: 232; Jaggar 1983: 261). Thus, the discussion of rape receives its most in-depth treatment in radical feminist theory. A radical feminist view of rape is evident in the position of Susan Brownmiller, who says that rape is a man’s “basic weapon of force against women, the principal agent of his will and her fear […] his forcible entry into her body […] the vehicle of his victorious conquest over her being, the ultimate test of his superior strength” (qtd. in Jaggar 1983: 90). Similarly, the American feminist writers Barbara Mehrhof and Pamela Kearon’s ideas on rape, published in their article “Rape: An Act of Terror”, can be given as an example of the radical feminist understanding of rape. Mehrhof and Kearon claim that rape is “an effective political device […] not an arbitrary act of violence by one individual on another; it is a political act of oppression […] exercised by members of a powerful class on members of the powerless class” (qtd. in Donovan 1985: 146). As can be seen, radical feminists do not accept rape as an individual act but regard it as a political act that involves the oppressed and the oppressor, and they believe that rape is a display of male domination over the female. Consequently, radical feminists conceive rape as a “social, patriarchal weapon” (Case 1988: 66) that is used as a means of threat and violence against the female by male. Just as Tereus uses his sexual power in a destructive way, so does he use his physical power for destructive ends when Philomele “pledges to Nursen Gömceli 98 publicly shame him” (Winston 1995: 514) by telling the truth to the Thracians. Having no tolerance for a woman who talks to him in a threatening way, which means to undermine his patriarchal authority, Tereus finds a practical way of silencing that woman and he cuts out her tongue. This third act of violence committed by Tereus is a deed performed with the intention of saving both his male authority and his imperial power, which he admits afterwards: “You should have kept quiet. (Pause.) I did what I had to. (Pause.) You threatened the order of my rule. (Pause.) How could I allow rebellion? ” (LN: Sc.16, 36-37). As Joe Winston has explained, in her article “‘How Sweet the Kill’: Orgiastic Female Violence”, Allison Hersch, with reference to René Girard’s views on violence, states that “violence, as conceived of by Girard, is characteristically initiated and controlled by men - it is gendered power, aligned with the male, which is typically used to reify the stability of patriarchal structures” (qtd. in Winston 1995: 513). Indeed, in The Love of the Nightingale violence appears as a force to be identified with male power, and the basic motive behind Tereus’s violent acts is the concern for the preservation of patriarchal power structures. However, as Winston points out, within the power system of patriarchy, “social order is not synonymous with moral order” (1995: 513). By committing the crimes of rape, incest, adultery, and mutilation, which Tereus performs with the support of the phallocratic authority that gives him the right to set his own rules, he violates the moral order of society. Yet when Procne later asks at the palace, being confronted by Tereus, who is ignorant of his son’s slaughter, “What kept you silent? Shame? ” (Sc.20, 46), he simply answers, “No” (LN: Sc.20, 46). Thus once again Wertenbaker conveys the idea that in a patriarchal society men do not feel the sense of shame even if they may have destroyed the moral order because the moral order of patriarchy, in Tereus’s words, condones the vices of the male. Tereus’s excuse for his brutality, however, makes it clear that he still judges his deed only from the male perspective: “[Philomele] could only mock, and soon rebel, she was dangerous” (LN: Sc.20, 47). Thus, totally ignoring Philomele’s feelings, he justifies himself referring to a patriarchal law which orders that women rebelling against patriarchal authority must be silenced. Tereus continues to act and think within the ideology of patriarchy even after he encounters the dead body of his own son. In astonishment, he reacts against Procne: “Your own child! ” (LN: Sc.20, 47). Yet, in a simple response, Procne reminds Tereus that as the mother and the father of Itys, they both share the responsibility of the child: “Ours” (LN: Sc.20, 47), she replies. Here, apparently, Wertenbaker criticises patriarchal mentality. According to radical feminists, patriarchal ideology “defines women as beings whose special function is to gratify male sexual desire and to bear and raise children” (Jaggar 1983: 255). Thus, through Tereus, Wertenbaker reveals the gendered perspective of male society and criticises Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 99 the male practice of holding only the mother responsible for the raising of children. As can be observed, in The Love of the Nightingale Wertenbaker does not only discuss gender issues and demonstrate the vices and hypocrisy of patriarchy but she also questions the moral values of the male world. As Winston points out, by depending on ancient Greek theatre, which “essentially had a moral purpose” (1995: 517), and “[i]n choosing Greek mythology as source material to treat the subjects of rape and silence imposed on the voices of its victims, Wertenbaker is overtly signalling that her drama, too, is a moral one” (1995: 517-18). Yet, what makes Wertenbaker’s handling of these two myths, that of Philomele and that of Phaedra, most remarkable is the fact that she rewrites and interprets them from a female perspective, as a result of which her play can be understood as an example of feminist myth criticism. Feminist myth criticism, discussed in Mary Daly’s Gyn/ Ecolgy: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (1978), employs myths “as a means of redefining women’s culture and history” (Humm 1994: 54). By revising the myths reflecting the male perspective from the female viewpoint, feminist myth criticism aims to give a new cultural understanding of gender identity and to reveal the male bias against the female. By thus reinterpreting two ancient myths, traditionally narrated from the male perspective, Wertenbaker not only explores the female psyche present in these myths, but as a woman dramatist she also raises “the voices of women in giving dramatic expression to their moral interpretations of these myths” (Winston 1995: 518-19). This is a method mainly practised in radical feminist theatre (Case 1988: 69). Moreover, as Winston highlights, “in an artistically innovative style” (1995: 519), the playwright presents the readers/ audience a dialogical relationship between the two myths, “the one voiced from within a tradition of male discourse, the other chosen to interrogate that myth in the different voice of a woman” (1995: 518), and so she provides a feminist deconstruction of traditionally accepted male values. Furthermore, posing serious questions without giving answers to them, Wertenbaker’s critical re-visitation of the past leads the audience/ readers to question the values of male discourse sanctioned by patriarchal authority. Hence, it may be argued that the playwright also establishes a dialogical relationship between her play and the audience/ readers. This relationship is also achieved by the chorus, who addresses the audience at certain moments. In Scene 8, for instance, the male chorus says: “If you must think of anything, think of countries, silence, but we can’t rephrase it for you. If we could, why would we trouble to show you the myth? ” (LN: Sc.8, 19), thus inviting the audience/ readers to produce meaning. Moreover, in The Love of the Nightingale, some of the most important questions are raised by the female chorus. For most part of the play, the Nursen Gömceli 100 male and female choruses remain in the background and comment on the action and characters as in the Greek tradition. However, towards the end of the play, in Scene 20, the female chorus “drop their personae as the woman of the Thracian Court” (Wilson 1993: 158) and, addressing the audience, pose the questions central to Wertenbaker’s purpose: IRIS. To some questions there are no answers. We might ask you now: why does the Vulture eat Prometheus’s liver? He brought men intelligence. ECHO. Why did God want them stupid? IRIS. We can ask: why did Medea kill her children? JUNE. Why do countries make war? HELEN. Why are races exterminated? HERO. Why do white people cut off the words of blacks? IRIS. Why do people disappear? The ultimate silence. ECHO. Not even death recorded. HELEN. Why are little girls raped and murdered in the car parks of dark cities? IRIS. What makes the torturer smile? HERO. We can ask. Words will grope and probably not find. But if you silence the question. IRIS. Imprison the mind that asks. ECHO. Cut out its tongue. HERO. You will have this [the killing of Itys] (LN: Sc.20, 45). Hence, by making the chorus address the audience and highlight some of the important social and political problems of both contemporary times and the past within the context of a play set in ancient times, Wertenbaker both creates an alienation effect on the audience and builds a bridge between the past and the present, thus inviting the audience to re-evaluate what they see and hear on stage in a critical approach. As can be seen, in this open-ended play, which covers a period of more than ten years and is set in “three distinct places; in a civilised Athens with its theatre and philosophy, in the darker northern kingdom of Thrace, with its Dionysic rituals and secrecy, and on the sea voyage between the two” (Winston 1995: 512), Timberlake Wertenbaker primarily explores feminist issues such as the patriarchal silencing and oppression of women throughout ages, rape, incest, the brutality and phallocentricism of the male society, and the importance of female bonding, all themes peculiar to radical feminist drama (Aston 1999: 6; Case 1988: 66-74). However, the playwright also examines other themes, e.g. hypocrisy, adultery, the decay of moral values, the ill use of power, the desire for revenge and its destructive effects, alienation, and displacement. Moreover, the contrast of cultures also appears as a significant theme. While Athens is presented as the land of civilisation, philosophy, democracy, and freedom of speech, the Thracian culture is Timberlake Wertenbaker’s ‘Radical Feminist’ 101 identified as barbaric, uncivilised, and uncultivated. However, the one thing that brings these two contrasting cultures closer together, as conveyed by Wertenbaker, is the fact that women, either directly by force or indirectly, are silenced and oppressed in both cultures. On the whole, presenting its major themes “through a re-visitation and a revision of a [Greek] myth” (Case 1988: 69) and focusing on the relationship between ‘sisters’, The Love of the Nightingale appears as an illuminating example of radical feminist drama which underlines the importance of sisterhood, emphasises the commonality of women’s experiences, and depicts and protests rape as a political act that violates and oppresses women under male power. Consequently, highlighting the politics of radical feminist theory and dealing with the themes mainly peculiar to radical feminist drama, The Love of the Nightingale can be taken as irrefutable evidence for Timberlake Wertenbaker’s radical feminist stance in the early phase of her dramatic career. References Aston, Elaine (1994). An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre. London: Routledge. Aston, Elaine (1999). Feminist Theatre Practice: A Handbook. London: Routledge. “Bacchantes”. (1995). Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature. Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster. Banks, Olive (1981). Faces of Feminism: a Study of Feminism as a Social Movement. New York: Blackwell. Brown, Janet (1999). “Feminist Theory and Contemporary Drama”. In: Brenda Murphy (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights. New York: CUP. 155-172. Carlson, Susan (1993). “Issues of Identity, Nationality, and Performance: the Reception of Two Plays by Timberlake Wertenbaker”. New Theatre Quarterly 35. 267-289. Case, Sue-Ellen (1988). Feminism and Theatre. New York: Methuen. Case, Sue-Ellen (1991). “The Power of Sex: English Plays by Women 1958-1988”. New Theatre Quarterly 7. 238-245. Chapman, Richard. “Timberlake Wertenbaker”. Contemporary Authors. Literature Resource Center. InfoTrac. Hacettepe University Lib., Ankara. <http: / / galenet.galegroup. com/ servlet/ LitRC? locID=hu_tr>, 26 September 2003. Cousin, Geraldine (1996). Women in Dramatic Place and Time: Contemporary Female Characters on Stage. London: Routledge. Daly, Mary (1978). Gyn/ Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon. Dolan, Jill (1991). The Feminist Spectator as Critic. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P. Donovan, Josephine (1985). Feminist Theory. New York: Frederick Ungar. Dymkowski, Christine (1997). “The Play’s the Thing: The Metatheater of Timberlake Wertenbaker”. In: Nicole Boireau (ed.). Drama on Drama: Dimensions of Theatricality on the Contemporary British Stage. London: Macmillan. 121-135. Freud, Sigmund (1977). On Sexuality: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality and Other Works. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Nursen Gömceli 102 Goodman, Lizbeth (1993). Contemporary Feminist Theatres: to Each her Own. New York: Routledge. Humm, Maggie (1994). A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Feminist Literary Criticism. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Jaggar, Alison (1983). Feminist Politics and Human Nature. New Jersey: Rowman & Allanheld. Jameson, Michael (1993). “The Asexuality of Dionysus”. In: Thomas Carpenter / Christopher A. Faraone (eds.). Masks of Dionysus. New York: Cornell UP. 44-64. Lipman-Blumen, Jean (1984). Gender Roles and Power. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. “Loan”. (1961). In: D. David Lampe (ed.). A Patristic Greek Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press. McDonald, Marianne (n.d.). Rev. of The Love of the Nightingale, by Timberlake Wertenbaker. <http: / / www.didaskalia.net/ issues/ vol1no1/ mcdonald.html>, 22 March 2008. McDonough, Carla (1996). “Timberlake Wertenbaker”. In: William Demastes (ed.). British Playwrights 1956-1995 - A Research and Production Sourcebook. London: Greenwood. 406-415. Mitchell, Juliett (1974). Psychoanalysis and Feminism. New York: Vintage. Stephenson, Heidi / Natasha Langridge (1997). Rage and Reason: Women Playwrights on Playwriting. London: Methuen. Wagner, Jennifer (1995). “Formal Parody and Metamorphosis of Audience in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale”. Papers on Language and Literature 31. 15pp. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Bilkent University Lib., Ankara. <http: / / search.epnet.com/ direct.asp? an=950907250&&db=aph>, 30 October 2003. Wandor, Micheline (1986). Carry on, Understudies: Theatre and Sexual Politics. New York: Routledge. Wertenbaker, Timberlake (1989). The Love of the Nightingale. London: Faber and Faber. Wertenbaker, Timberlake (n.d.). Interview. Woman’s Hour <http: / / www.bbc.co.uk/ radio4/ womanshour>, 15 April 2008. Wilson, Ann (1993). “Forgiving History and Making New Worlds: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Recent Drama”. In: James Acheson (ed.). British and Irish Drama Since 1960. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 146-161. Winston, Joe (1995). “Re-casting the Phaedra Syndrome: Myth and Morality in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s The Love of the Nightingale”. Modern Drama 38. 510-519. Nursen Gömceli School of Foreign Languages Hacettepe University Ankara 1 In the meantime, Del Lungo’s paper “Pour une poétique de l’incipit” (1993) has been converted into a book, L’Incipit romanesque (2003). He refers to examples from 19 th and 20 th -century French novels. In the following, I will refer to the more concise paper from 1993. AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits Achim Hescher Numerous attempts have been made to deal with incipits. Seeking to avoid aporias from hitherto existing approaches (first sentence, theory of narrative modes, hermeneutical, etc.), the author of this paper has opted for a communicative approach based on Andrea Del Lungo (1993), who distinguishes four incipit functions: 1) the codifying function, 2) the interest-stirring function, 3) the informing function, and 4) the dramatizing function. This choice was made with respect to maximum teachability: best possible clarity combined with a realistic requirement of student competence in textual analysis. The author shows that only because of the ambivalent status of the information allocated in an incipit can the functions 3) and 4) be correlated, and he presents a functional graph in which to place incipits according to their type. From a number of viewpoints, and especially for teachers of literature, novel incipits are an engrossing phenomenon. Unlike novels, of course, and most short stories, which are extremely compact in their construction, incipits are shorter and more manageable with respect to the analysis of textual parameters. Unlike course syllabi, they might instil the intrinsic motivation to read the entire novel and thus serve a pedagogical function. Didactically, they represent the easiest kind of narrative text for students with little previous knowledge in rhetoric and/ or textual analysis and should therefore come first on the list of narrative genres to be worked on. If Peter Erlebach is right, a typology based on analytic description is the only appropriate way to deal with incipits (1990: 14). Yet, typologies vary in terms of abstractness, complexity, and (graphic) clarity - which you cannot overrate when it comes to teaching. The least abstract and most ‘straight forward’ typology for teaching purposes is Andrea Del Lungo’s functional approach from 1993/ 2003 1 , which largely borrows from ancient rhetoric. In Achim Hescher 104 2 All translations by myself, AH. the following, I will present (and question) the premises and give an outline of his typology. Further, I will try to make it work with more (graphic) clarity - which it is lacking in my view - especially when it is applied to individual incipits. The cardinal finding of this paper is the ambivalent status of the information given in the incipit, which varies according to the type of incipit. Del Lungo’s approach works only because of this ambivalence, a premise he does not account for but that brings about the very possibility to efficiently teach this type of approach, preferably at college or university. The advantage of a typology based on Del Lungo is that the schematization of individual items of incipit information can, as I propose in this paper, be used to make students aware of exactly this ambivalence. To begin with, Andrea Del Lungo refers to incipits as textual “fragments” (1993: 137). As a concept, I do not find this term very useful nor completely adequate since - unlike fragments in a straight sense - incipits do not exist in themselves: their borders, or, more concretely, where they end, often are not clear and must be negotiated (see below). Considering the information it gives away, the incipit represents a base which supports the entire novelesque construct. Thus Charles Grivel (1973: 91) writes: “Every constitutive element links up with it”. 2 Viewing the incipit as expositio, the information of the novel (l’information romanesque) is not evaluable at the beginning of a text and must spring from the decoding of the entire work (Grivel 1973: 90). From a hermeneutic point of view, Grivel (1973: 90) says, the meaning of a novel cannot be grasped from its beginning, since, in any case, no part of the text is capable in itself of retaining its meaning. Therefore, “the novelesque must precisely be considered as the retention of the signification it intends” (Grivel 1973: 90). Retention means to possess and hold back at the same time. In this respect, the incipit seems to be similar to a ‘fragment’, and then again it is different, since it does not possess nor give away anything from the whole. More concretely, it bears characteristic features which set it apart from the rest of the work despite the fact that it cannot be separated from it. This makes the hermeneutic status of the incipit highly ambiguous. From an ontological point of view, the incipit represents the “passage of the threshold between silence and discourse” (Raymond Jean, quoted in Del Lungo 1993: 133), between absence and the work of art. “Threshold” and “passage”, however, are metaphorical thinking constructs introduced to avoid essentialisms of the kind ‘incipit = x’. And indeed, there is nothing ‘essential’ to be said about an incipit, which becomes even more evident once we tackle the questions: Where does the incipit (materially) end (or: A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 105 what is not incipit anymore)? Where or what is/ are the border/ s of the incipit? Del Lungo expounds on these questions in terms of a break or shift (fracture, Del Lungo 1993: 135) that allow us to separate the incipit from the rest of the text. Considering the complexity of the modern novel in the way it codifies and orients the text and its reading, it is not enough to limit oneself to the novel’s first sentence, as certain critics (Claude Duchet, Raymond Jean) have it (Del Lungo 1993: 135). Del Lungo, with reference to Jean-Louis Cornille, proposes a list of potential breaks or limits: rhetorical, graphic, narratological and others. To render a complex and hence difficult phenomenon even more undecidable, there can be multiple breaks, he writes, and “it is often very arbitrary to choose the principal one” (Del Lungo 1993: 136). Although partly compatible with Del Lungo, Helmut Bonheim’s approach is less undecided but more difficult to teach because it presupposes that the students are knowledgeable in rhetoric and/ or discourse analysis: an opening or exposition is both a piece with the whole of what follows and yet is also an identifiable portion of a fictional text, usually over at a particular point. The theory of narrative modes can help us to find such points, when they exist, and help us define the kinds of openings with some degree of precision. This theory has it that all narrative consists of the two static modes, comment and description, and the two dynamic modes, speech and report. The static modes bring with them an identifiable exposition: since comment and description convey no sense of time passing, the story proper begins with a ‘One day…’ or ‘It was the afternoon of the 16 th of September when…’ - a deictic time reference, often accompanied by a shift from present to past. This is a signal that tells the reader that the beginning is over (Bonheim 1982: 193, my boldface). For several reasons, students will probably have to capitulate when they tackle modern or postmodern novels, the beginnings of which are not as clear-cut as Bonheim has it. What, for example, does a student make of an incipit like the one in William Faulkner’s Light in August (1932: 1): Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon amount the hill toward her, Lena thinks, ‘I have come from Alabama: a fur piece. All the way from Alabama a-walking. A fur piece.’ Thinking although I have not been quite a month on the road I am already in Mississippi, further from home than I have ever been before. I am now further from Doane’s Mill than I have been since I was twelve years old She had never been to Doane’s Mill until after her father and mother died […]. To begin with, even for experts it is at times extremely difficult to exactly distinguish description from report, as in the above case. For students, there is another major didactic problem: from their school grammars they have learned to distinguish between static (also referred to as ‘state’ or ‘stative’) Achim Hescher 106 3 The paratextual elements like the novel’s title are supposed to establish contact with the historical/ physical reader, i.e. “the public”, e.g. in a book shop when a potential reader gets interested in a novel (see Genette 1987: 78, 95). Anthony Nutall, interestingly, does not distinguish paratext from the actual incipit: “‘If on a winter’s night a traveller…’. These words plant certain hooks in the reader’s mind. ‘If’ implies an indefinite multitude of possible apodoses - ‘then’ clauses, which could follow; winter is more mysterious and therefore, paradoxically, more pregnant than summer; a traveller is necessarily a liminal figure, moving form this place to that as he passes from past to future. The words therefore compose an excellent opening” (Nutall 1992: Preface, vii). and dynamic verbs - which have absolutely nothing to do with static or dynamic modes of narration. Although sit does not figure among static or state verbs, in this incipit it describes a state (“Sitting beside the road”) - as opposed to think, which describes a process in a mentally active subject (“Lena thinks, ‘I have come from Alabama […]’”). So, is the first sentence of the Faulkner incipit report or description? To be honest, I would not want to decide for one nor the other, especially when I ponder the two kinds of thinking (“Lena thinks” plus follow-up in single inverted commas, and “Thinking” plus follow-up in italics). The case is not less intricate when I rephrase the first sentence from the Faulkner incipit according to Bonheim’s template sentence: ‘One day Lena was sitting beside the road thinking…’ - report or description? According to Bonheim, the incipit would be over with the sentence containing the tense shift (“She had never been […]”), but this is not convincing when I try to account for the next five and a half pages following the above quote, which are connected to its first two sentences through a number of textual markers. Perhaps there should be other or more than two parameters to determine incipit length. So much for where the beginning ends. To escape problems of exact demarcation, Del Lungo (1993: 137) describes the incipit as a “strategic zone” with mobile limits, whose extent can vary considerably. “Strategic” refers to a functional, communicative approach, which, it seems to me, is a reliable way out of hermeneutic or essentialist aporias. If we regard the text as a form of communication, the incipit represents the moment of establishing contact between an author and readers. This can be done in many different ways, directly or indirectly: the narrator can take the readers by the hand and arrange or design the key information - the information relevant for the actual story. Then again, the narrator may decide not to give the key information away from the start, s/ he may want to play with the readers, talk to them, as if s/ he wanted to establish a personal relationship, as in Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler (1979: 3): “You’ve set out to read the new novel If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino. Relax. Gather yourself. Brush aside every other thought. Let the world around you vanish in a haze.” 3 A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 107 4 Werner Wolf would count this function among “familiar framings”: “a consequence of the basic, orientating function of framings as codings of cognitive frames” (2006: 299, see also 300-303). 5 For reasons of simplicity and to avoid overlength, I decided to adopt Del Lungo’s terms. - As for the problem of demarcation, of ‘Where does the incipit end? ’, it is to be anticipated that demarcations may vary according to what functional aspect we are looking at, e.g. the fiction may be staged, all necessary information given, before the readers are seduced. Thus, the demarcation problem if we decide to stick with it remains to be solved. When a narrator keeps the flow of information sparse - information relevant for the progression of the story - the result can be ambiguous: readers may be captivated, irritated, or bored, in the worst case. We can find a good example of such a narrator in The Portrait of a Lady (1881: 5) by Henry James: Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not - some people of course never do - the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. As if it were not enough, we may even imagine incipits in which the narrator refuses communication or even reprimands, scolds, or mocks the readers, as Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s narrator in the novel Journey to the End of the Night (1952: 13): “If I wasn’t as constrained, as forced to make a living, I’ll tell you right away, I would conceal everything. I wouldn’t write one more line”. In this incipit, the readers are mocked and scorned by a narrator who implies that the readers may consider themselves lucky to receive something to read at all. So, anything can happen at the beginning of a novel. Yet, although the open genre of the novel continues to bring forth new incipit variants, we can distinguish, with Del Lungo, four basic functional features: 1) the framing 4 or codifying function, which establishes the text; 2) the interest-stirring function, which seduces the reader; 3) the informing function, which stages the fiction; and 4) the dramatizing function, which sets the story off (Del Lungo 1993: 138) 5 . 1) The codifying function installs the narrator, or a narrating voice, and other systemic structures and signals building up a horizon of expectation on the part of the reader. The narrating voice is thus given an identity. S/ He may or may not be part of the story or remain anonymous. More specifically, the incipit may look like this: You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Achim Hescher 108 6 Prefaces, as in many renowned 18 th -century novels which stage an editor, must be set apart from incipits. With reference to Genette, Del Lungo brings up the example of the préface actoriale, in which a character qualifies the ensuing narrative, saying that in such a preface, a “gliding inside the text […] is at work” (Del Lungo 1993: 137). Implicitly, Del Lungo suggests that such prefaces be counted among incipits when he talks about the incipit as a “zone […] of which the limits are often mobile and uncertain” (Del Lungo 1993: 137). Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly - Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is - and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before. Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave […] (Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884: 3) Huckleberry Finn is a good example of a text legitimizing itself through a justificative metadiscourse (Del Lungo 1993: 138) 6 referring to an authority (Huck, the narrator-protagonist), who, with slight restrictions (“mainly he told the truth”), like a witness, confirms the authenticity of “that book”, written by the author Mark Twain. The codes displayed in this incipit are twofold: besides the justificative metadiscourse, the diction imitates the vernacular of the novel’s setting, which signals that Huckleberry Finn is a realistic novel. Similarly, incipits are codified by other systemic structures, formula-like introductions or generic framings (Wolf 2006) with signal character such as Once upon a time, for instance, signifying the beginning of a fairy tale. In Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (1934), the formula characteristic is not so obvious in the actual incipit (“It was five o’clock on a winter’s morning in Syria. Alongside the platform at Aleppo stood the train grandly designated in railway guides as the Taurus Express […]”, 11), yet in combination with the reception-guiding paratexts (author’s name, title, cast of characters) it becomes inevitable to infer that a crime is going to happen and the case is going to be solved. These examples show what Del Lungo underscores right at the beginning of his paper: that an incipit normally inscribes the work in the history of a genre - e.g. realism or detective fiction - more or less explicitly, of which the cited specimens serve as models. Moreover, the incipit inscribes the work in an intertext of famous (and therefore familiar) “first sentences” and “stereotyped forms”. (Del Lungo 1993: 131) Thus, as Jean has it, an incipit does not come out of sheer nothingness (quoted in Del Lungo 1993: 133): it is doubly connective in that it is linked with other incipits and in that it links the work with other works of literature. A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 109 7 Dietrich Scholler, whom I owe particular thanks for introducing me to Del Lungo, critically elaborates on Del Lungo and applied his schema to modern French and German novels. He analyzes a “Cast” different in effect in Eckhard Henscheid’s novel Die Vollidioten [The Complete Jerks] (1978) (2001: 276-277). 8 According to Genette, we would have to count a “Cast of Characters” among paratexts (Genette 1987: 7-8) since it is something apart from the incipit. Del Lungo argues that there are some paratexts (like the préface actoriale) which are very closely connected to the incipit, “in which a sliding inside the text […] is at work” (Del Lungo 1993: 137). 2) The interest-stirring function goes back to the captatio benevolentiae in ancient rhetoric, which was supposed to invoke the goodwill of the audience right at the beginning (exordium) of a public discourse. In modern times, of course, the captatio is further meant to seduce the readers, to draw them into the happenings of the story. To name concrete strategies to seduce readers: there is anticipation alluding to happenings of the future events in the story. Agatha Christie’s incipit is, interestingly enough, preceded by a “Cast of Characters” 7 in which the “sleuth”, the detective, is presented as “Hercule Poirot - The Belgian sleuth [who] illustrates the efficacy of his methods when he comes face to face with a murderer on an international express”, or “Cyrus Hardman - An American commercial traveler who knows more than he tells and tells more than he knows” (7-8). In more than only Poirot’s and Hardman’s case, the “Cast of Characters” anticipates their roles and qualities, which will be relevant in the future solution of the murder case and thereby gets the readers interested. 8 Further, narrators sometimes alienate readers with a riddle (as you will see later in Henry James), or they may allude to uncertainty, alleging that an event might or might not happen or that something is or is not the case (“knows more than he tells and tells more than he knows”) and so forth. Del Lungo interprets the medias in res incipit as another strategy to stir interest in that it immediately draws the readers into the middle of the action and thus poses a preliminary riddle about the previous history of events - preliminary to the extent that the riddle will be solved relatively quickly as the narrative unfolds (Del Lungo 1993: 141). It goes without saying that there is an overlap between the riddle and uncertainty, the latter being the direct result of the former. 3) The informing function goes back to the rhetorical inventio, precisely to the underlying questions Who, What, Where, By Whose aid, Why, How, and When (Del Lungo 1993: 143), which would structure the outline of the subject in a public discourse. Achim Hescher 110 To know what this means in modern times, have a look at an extended version of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express incipit: 1. A N I MPORTANT P ASSENGER O N T HE T AURUS E XPRESS It was five o’ clock on a winter’s morning in Syria. Alongside the platform at Aleppo stood the train grandly designated in railway guides as the Taurus Express. It consisted of a kitchen and dining-car, a sleeping-car and two local coaches. By the step leading up into the sleeping-car stood a young French lieutenant, resplendent in uniform, conversing with a small man muffled up to the ears […] It was freezing cold, and this job of seeing off a distinguished stranger was not one to be envied, but Lieutenant Dubosc performed his part manfully […] there had come this Belgian stranger - all the way from England, it seemed. Here, the readers at first are given thematic information about the setting of the story: five o’ clock on a winter morning, the country (Syria), the historical city (Aleppo), the locus of the crime (Taurus Express, the different train wagons), weather and outside temperature. In addition, we read about an “important passenger” and protagonist (Hercule Poirot), the master mind, a “distinguished stranger”, as it is indicated in the chapter heading. Through these items plus the mentioning of the Belgian detective in the “Cast of Characters” it is clear that on this train a murder will soon be committed and that detective Poirot will solve the case. These bits of information add up to a sum total that one can chart on the following axis: scarcity of information (-) information saturation (+) As for the Christie incipit, one can establish a relatively high information saturation on the right end of the axis with regard to the subject and the further course of the narrative, whereas for James’ Portrait incipit (see above), the degree of information saturation will have to be charted on the left end. - Del Lungo concedes that “information saturation” does not mean ‘completeness’ since first, every element of the text may be potentially informative, and second, “every text shows marks of presence and absence, especially at the beginning” (Del Lungo 1993: 143). To illustrate this in the Portrait incipit above: the very first sentence presents extremely abstract and therefore imprecise information (“under certain circumstances”), clad in an alleged truism (“there are…”). The readers can neither know about the nature of the “circumstances” nor can they really judge the proposition. Although the “circumstances” are taken up in the following sentence, they remain as enigmatic as before since they are not further qualified. In addition, the narrator mentions “people” who allegedly never partake of the afternoon tea, without giving a reason nor an A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 111 9 In 1964, long before the postmodern ‘meta-‘ hype, Harald Weinrich (1964: 59) wrote that “this once […] is not another time, but another world, “ and “the preterite tense and the other tempora of the tense group II are thus a signal that we are dealing with a narration. It is not their task to announce something past. It would be illegitimate to identify something narrated with something past” (1964: 76). Thus understood, by the sheer use of specific tenses, a narrative discourse always and already conveys an element of its own metadiscourse. 10 Finally, Del Lungo divides incipit information into two classes: A) the thematic information referring to the story (see Christie incipit) and B) information about the fiction under scrutiny: B1) the metanarrative information (presenting what the text is about, or the ‘fiction talking about its fictionality’), and B2) the constitutive information (building the fictional universe). To be exact, Del Lungo starts out with the codifying function and says that the codes referred to in the incipit also actually represent information and thus a category of its own. I find this rather confusing with respect to the categories informing and decoding function. Viewing the didactic purpose of this article, I decided to do without this distinction. explanation of what kind of people he is referring to. Equally missing is the answer to the question why the situation would be “delightful”. - The third sentence of the Portrait incipit represents a metanarrative 9 reference to a “simple history”, and thus qualifies the narrative that will unfold. That the story is, after all, not as simple as the narrator has it (it spreads over 600 pages) leads to the assumption that the metanarrative reference is in itself a simplification and should be taken ironically. It is evident by now that the information presented in the Portrait incipit is too abstract, if not vague, and too logically incoherent to even constitute a satisfactory piece of the fictional universe to be built. - Nevertheless, all this is not a blank, not nothing, but very probably serves a certain purpose with regard to the novel as a whole. This kind of information is meant to create an ambiance, a continuum, represent a milieu, and so forth (see Erlebach 1990: 29). 10 It can be guessed from my last statement in the Portrait analysis that the kind of information presented in an incipit has a strong influence on the way the action is perceived by the readers. This is why the informative function is closely connected to 4) The dramatizing function. Manfred Pfister (1977) underscored the close connection between information allocation and action in the exposition of a drama. If the “point of attack” (the point where the action sets in) comes late, the dramatic incipit situation is preceded by an extensive previous history; consequently, there is a large quantity of information to be mediated in the exposition (Del Lungo 1993: 137). The dramatizing function, to speak with Del Lungo, affects the point of attack and the intensity of the mediated action. To illustrate this, I will analyze how Henry James’ Portrait incipit (1881: 5; my boldface) continues to unfold: The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left […] From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. Achim Hescher 112 11 Here, Del Lungo proposes a chart to illustrate the interrelatedness of the two functions (see 1993: 145). For teaching purposes, however, a graph seems distinctly clearer to me because of the increased number of ‘visual’ elements or symbols, which answers the needs of a majority of visual learner types among today’s students. The persons concerned in it were taking their pleasure quietly […] The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair […] In James’ Portrait incipit, there is scarcely any action at all. On the contrary, the atmosphere is utterly static, as if somebody froze time between 5 and 8 p.m. (see boldface). This, of course, is achieved through abounding description of which the information content is considerably redundant. One may chart the dramatic action of the Portrait incipit, similarly to the degree of information saturation, on the extreme left end of the dramatization axis: delayed dramatization (-) immediate dramatization (+) For an example of immediate dramatization, one may refer to Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses (1988: 3): ‘To be born again,’ sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, ‘first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-Taa! Tat-Taa! Rushdie’s narrative opens with the explosion of an airplane above London: among countless objects and soon-to-die bodies, the former actor and transmuted angel Gibreel tumbles down to earth with his buddy Saladin Chamcha, starts to fly and wakes up on a snowbound English beach. This utterly dramatic incipit will be charted on the extreme right end of the dramatization axis. To sum up: while the codifying and interest-stirring functions are not directly related to each other, the informing and dramatizing functions are closely connected. They bring forth a functional continuum resulting in four functional incipit types 11 : A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 113 In such a graph, Portrait of a Lady is charted in the bottom left quadrant on the extreme left of the dramatization axis and is called a suspensive incipit. I find this term well chosen because it is self-explanatory: suspensive incipits create a certain kind of suspense in that they make readers wait for something to happen - which is a very likely reader reaction in this case. To pin down the suspensiveness in the text and to find out more about the status of the information presented, we will look at a longer version of the Portrait incipit (James 1881: 5): Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea. There are circumstances in which, whether you partake of the tea or not - some people of course never do - the situation is in itself delightful. Those that I have in mind in beginning to unfold this simple history offered an admirable setting to an innocent pastime. The implements of the little feast had been disposed upon the lawn of an old English country-house, in what I should call the perfect middle of a splendid summer afternoon. Part of the afternoon had waned, but Achim Hescher 114 much of it was left […] From five o’clock to eight is on certain occasions a little eternity; but on such an occasion as this the interval could be only an eternity of pleasure. The persons concerned in it were taking their pleasure quietly […] The shadows on the perfect lawn were straight and angular; they were the shadows of an old man sitting in a deep wicker-chair near the low table on which the tea had been served, and of two younger men strolling to and fro, in desultory talk, in front of him. The old man had his cup in his hand; it was an unusually large cup, of a different pattern from the rest of the set, and painted in brilliant colours. He disposed of its contents with much circumspection, holding it for a long time close to his chin, with his face turned to the house. Let’s now jot down the items of information relevant for the respective function in the following chart: Portrait of a Lady incipit INFORMING FUNCTION (setting, characters, story time) DRAMATIZING FUNCTION (plot/ action) … afternoon tea … … part of the afternoon had waned, but much of it was left … … English country-house … splendid summer afternoon … … from five ‘o clock to eight … an eternity of pleasure. The persons concerned in it were not of the sex … … the shadows … were straight and angular … in a deep wicker chair near the low table on which the tea had been served … … an unusually large cup, of a different pattern … … with his face turned to the house. The persons … were taking their pleasure quietly. (-) … an old man was sitting … (-) … two younger men strolling to and fro. (-) … had his cup in his hand … (-) He disposed of its contents with much circumspection, holding it for a long time …, (-) Generally, it must be said that anything written in a narrative is ‘information’. Therefore, we must differentiate between the different kinds of information related to the setting, characters, story time - and action. Students will A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 115 12 An example of pure information of which nothing relates to dramatization is the “Cast of characters” in Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. certainly argue that some of the items related to and listed under “dramatization function” could as well be charted under “informing function” (see my highlighting), e.g. “old man sitting in a deep wicker chair”, because of their descriptive appearance, and the locational markers like the “wicker chair”. Also, it may be argued that the text here makes the first mention of the old man and informs the readers about the character(s) present in the scene - then again, the sitting in a wicker chair is nothing that would describe the essence of the old man and is therefore delayed action rather than information about character or setting. 12 Such classificatory ambiguities are not really a problem of the typology but a general characteristic of the suspensive incipit, of which the given information is highly redundant (see Del Lungo 143). Moreover, if we focus on the time and setting, we will find out the given items are indeed too scarce, too fragmentary, to allow the readers to build a ‘complete’ picture of the scene described (a “countryhouse”, a “splendid” afternoon, a “low table”, a cup with a “different” pattern). Here in turn, it could be objected that the mention of the “country-house” generates a concrete enough image because it is a well-known stereotype, too often encountered in 19 th -century art ( - we will find out, nonetheless, that the image to be created deviates considerably from the stereotype). If this is so, the subsequent information on tables and cups is doubly redundant since it does not really add anything to the image, which again supports my argumentation. Apart from this, the incipit introduces “persons”, i.e. characters of whom we do not know if they will be minor or major characters, plus it defines these characters ex negativo (“were not of the sex ...”), creating uncertainty and vagueness - which the incipit as a whole creates on three levels: on the level of character, action (“certain circumstances”, see above), and setting. As mentioned above, this redundant information is not ‘nothing’, it has a function precisely in that it creates an atmosphere, a milieu, and expectations on the side of the (educated) readers, who will not be bored but curious to see how the fragmentary bits and pieces of the ‘picture’ assemble as the narrative unfolds. Thus, students must be taught that the typology represented in the above graph is in no way deprecatory nor indicative with respect to the quality of the novel or of James’ artistic genius. Charts like the one above that classify information offer a great didactic advantage. Teachers of literature may present such a chart and delete, for instance, the dramatizing items (with the exception of the first one serving as an example) and have the students fill in the missing ones (or vice versa). This is certainly the easiest didactic level appropriate for students with little Achim Hescher 116 13 ”The house [...] was the most characteristic object in the peculiarly English picture I have attempted to sketch. (James 6) […] One of these [men] was a remarkably well-made man of five-and-thirty, with a face as English as that of the old gentleman I have just sketched […]” (7). previous knowledge in literary analysis since everybody who is not an expert in the field still has a more or less developed sense of ‘the dramatic’. Complexity increases when single items on either the left or the right side are deleted so that in the process of filling the gaps the different kinds of information become plausible. This, however, requires that the students know how to handle the basic tools of literary analysis (setting, story time, round and flat characters, etc.). Students will probably remark on the ambiguous status of individual dramatizing items that could be classified as description with regard to the items on setting and story time. Teachers should always take the students up on this since this will enhance their awareness of the kinds of information used in an incipit and their relevance for interpretation. Uncertainties or riddles generated in the incipit should be reconsidered after reading the rest of the novel, or at least a certain part of it. Principally, all the items of the incipit should be revaluated with hindsight regarding their functions for the entire work. This is why, for example, a university course should not be limited to the incipits themselves, neither in the classroom nor in essays or term papers the students write. I have argued that the Portrait incipit uses redundant information with regard to function. It does so by withholding it at first, giving it away piecemeal, by which not only inexperienced students of literature might be misled. This can be exemplified by the introduction of the Portrait’s first-mentioned character: … an old man sitting in a wicker chair … … the old man had a cup in his hand … … he disposed of its contents … … his chin … his face turned to the house … At first glance, the items of information seem to be rather unimportant details - which could be linked with the outspoken attitude of the first-person omniscient narrator, who claims that he only produces ‘sketches’ 13 of what he narrates: the change in steps from indefinite to definite article to pronoun to possessive pronoun suggests a move from the general to the individual/ personal, yet the given items are too disconnected to form a larger consis- A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 117 14 Frank Kermode (1974), analyzing the incipit of Ford M. Ford’s novel The Good Soldier (1915), calls the opening sentence outright deceptive with regard to possible reader expectations. In this context, he quotes James (from his critical essay “The New Novel”, 1914), who sees in such deceptions a feature that a novel principally ought to have and who speaks of a “baffled relation between the subject-matter and its emergence” (quoted in Kermode 1974: 109). Peter Erlebach asserts that if the incipit is overdemanding with regard to the readers’ decoding capacities and, as a consequence, with regard to meaning construction, there will be varying degrees of deception (1990: 29). 15 Grabes 1978: 413ff. Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan holds that subsequently received items of information are interpreted as consistent with the first received items (quoted in Schneider 2000: 28). More recently, Ansgar Nünning used, among others, the primacy effect in combination with the thesis of a general anthromorphization of textual phenomena to shift the primacy in narratology from the diegetic to the narrative illusion (2001: 25-27). tent entity. In fact, the step-by-step introduction of the old man brings the readers to expect him to be a central character - an expectation to be disappointed as the narrative unfolds 14 (see below). Such ‘hasty’ character construction, it has been established, is largely due to the primacy effect, a paradigm transposed from psychology to literary studies, and more specifically, to the reception and construction of literary characters. Herbert Grabes wrote as early as 1978 that under the (subconscious) use of the implicit personality theory, the very first bits of information about a character, be they as sparse and vague as they may, prevail in the readers’ imagination of a character and strongly influence the consideration of subsequent information. 15 Regarding the Portrait incipit, it is by no means surprising that readers construct a concrete and ‘important’ character despite the low quantity and quality of the first ‘incoming’ items of information. As a fact of the matter, it turns out in the following that the house is much more meaningful than the old man, the last one in a chain of owners (“a shrewd American banker”, James 1881: 6), that it bears an eventful history - Queen Elisabeth I spending a night in “a huge, magnificent, and terribly angular bed”, the house being “defaced in Cromwell’s wars, and then, under the Restoration, repaired and much enlarged” (James 1881: 6) - in comparison to all of which the old man is a bland quantity and the ongoing tea party mere nothingness. Indeed, the old man is not even signified by name (many pages later, he turns out to be Daniel Touchett, the uncle of the protagonist, Isabel Archer, and is not really important for the development of the plot). The house, however, is not just “an old English country house”, as the incipit has it. Knowing the continuation of the text, readers have to revaluate the items of information provided by the incipit - that is, what seemed to be disconnected and unimportant (the items of description of the old man) - are strategically arranged to underscore the old man’s unimportance as opposed to the historical setting, laden with happenings of weight, a witness to eventful past times. All this is underscored by the old man’s “face turned to the house”. Achim Hescher 118 16 Del Lungo does not elaborate on the pedagogical effect of seduction or possible misreadings. It is clear now that incipit information is strategically selected and arranged, and has to be revaluated after the reading of the whole novel: the static and uneventful atmosphere as well as the bland figure of the father (and the son, as it will turn out) blaze the trail for the arrival of his niece, Isabel Archer… the rest is (literary) history. To rephrase my point from above: no item of information is ‘lost’, ‘too much’, or insignificant. Students of literature must be aware that their appreciation of the information items from the incipit might be inadequate, that the novel, in stirring their interest, seduces (see Del Lungo 1993: 138 et passim, see also Scholler 2001) and misleads them (playing on the double meaning inherent in the German verführen), so that it takes a certain amount of reading experience to resist the temptation of misreading or misapprehension. 16 Therefore, teachers must make students aware of the status of incipit information and teach them how (not) to read specific information items. To complete my argument that the informing and dramatizing function must be comprehended as a functional continuum on the grounds of the ambivalent status of the allocated information, I will elaborate on another incipit from a novel by a contemporary writer, Monica Ali’s Brick Lane. The following analysis will show that, in contrast to the suspensive incipit (Henry James), in a progressive incipit, the dramatizing information items link up even more closely with the items representing the ‘setting of the stage’. An hour and forty-five minutes before Nazneen’s life began - began as it would proceed for quite some time, that is to say uncertainly - her mother Rupban felt an iron fist squeeze her belly. Rupban squatted on a low threelegged stool outside the kitchen hut. She was plucking a chicken because Hamid’s cousins had arrived from Jessore and there would be a feast. ‘Cheepy-cheepy, you are old and stringy,’ she said […] She pulled some more feathers and watched them float around her toes. ‘Aaah,’ she said. ‘Aaaah. Aaaah.’ Things occurred to her. For seven months she had been ripening, like a mango on a tree. Only seven months. She put those things that had occurred to her aside. For a while, an hour and a half, though she did not know it, until the men came in from the fields trailing dust and slapping their stomachs, Rupban clutched Cheepy-cheepy’s limp and bony neck and said only coming coming to all enquiries about the bird. The shadows of the children playing marbles and thumping each other grew long and spiky. The scent of fried cumin and cardamom drifted over the compound. The goats bleated high and thin. Rupban screamed white heat, red blood. Hamid ran from the latrine, although his business was unfinished. He ran across the vegetable plot, past the towers of rice stalk taller than the tallest building, over the dirt track that bounded the village, back to the compound and grabbed a club to kill the man who was killing his wife. He knew it was her. Who else could break glass with one screech? […] A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 119 [The midwife] picked up Nazneen by an ankle and blew disparagingly through her gums over the tiny blue body. (Monica Ali, Brick Lane, 2003: 11-12) As opposed to the medias in res incipit of the Portrait, the Brick Lane incipit represents an almost classical ab ovo beginning. In Manfred Pfister’s terms, the point of attack comes almost immediately at the beginning so that there is no need to mediate a previous history, and the expository information allocation is reduced to a definition of the situation according to characters (“Personal”), place, and time (Pfister 1977: 137). More exactly, the action is narrated from a point one hour and 45 minutes before the protagonist’s birth onward. Yet, it is very similar to James in its evoking uncertainty right in the opening sentence. Let’s break down the incipit into information items and juxtapose them in a chart like above: Brick Lane incipit INFORMING FUNCTION (setting, characters, story time) DRAMATIZING FUNCTION (plot/ action) An hour and forty-five minutes … … before Nazneen’s life began … as it would for quite some time, that is to say, uncertainly… For a while, an hour and a half … …her mother Rubpan … was plucking a chicken … (+/ -) Aaah … Aaaah. Aaaah. (+/ -) Things occurred to her. (+/ -) … men came in from the fields …(+) … Rubpan … said only coming coming … (+) The shadows ... grew long and spiky. (+) The scent of fried cumin and cardamom drifted over the compound. (+) The goats bleated high and thin. (++) Rubpan screamed white heat, red blood. (+++) Hamid ran from the latrine … He ran across … past … over … back to … … [Hamid] grabbed a club … (+++) [The midwife] picked up Nazneen by the ankle … (+++, climax) From its sheer graphic appearance, this chart looks very different compared to the one about the Portrait. Here, the dramatizing information items by far Achim Hescher 120 17 In fact, the Brick Lane incipit represents a flashback to the events happening before Nazneen’s birth, and the narration leading up to it would have to be uttered in the pluperfect. Therefore, the repeated use of the preterite tense is specifically dramatic. outnumber the stage-setting story items. However, many if not most of the dramatizing items also contain information about setting and characters (see highlighting). As a whole, however, the individual sentences represent actions or happenings in progress, which is underscored by the progressive form or by the dramatic use of the preterite tense (“Things occurred to her”/ “men came in”/ “shadows grew long”/ “the goats bleated”/ “Hamid ran”) in a pluperfect context. 17 Interjections (“Aaaah”) render the mother’s labor pains and through their repeated appearance represent the first step in the dramatization increase. The reference to the story time indicates that, for one and a half hours, Rubpan can suppress her thoughts (and worries) about giving birth. At the onset of the last quarter hour, the dramatization speed increases with the reference to the “men” coming in: this is underlined by Rubpan’s (italicized) coming coming utterances, which sonorously and semantically suggest Nazneen’s imminent birth. In contrast to the Portrait incipit (in which the shadows “were straight and angular”), the shadows, here, “grew long and spiky” (my italics). The dynamic verb grew, as opposed to the static copula were, connotes a further increase in dramatization as well as the “scent of fried cumin and cardamom”, which connotes that the food is frying. When Rubpan and the goats start to scream the dramatization has gathered its maximum intensity. At the same moment, her husband Hamid starts to run from the latrine, the rapidity of which is hinted at by a sequence of four adverbial clauses of place, introduced by a preposition. Dramatization has reached its peak when the midwife holds freshly born Nazneen by the ankle. The increasing dramatization further involves a blatant change in the ratio between story time and discourse time. The passage narrating the last fifteen minutes before Nazneen’s birth is (strictly speaking) two or three times as long as the one and a half hours before. This, of course, does not imply that every such discrepancy necessitate a high degree of dramatization. What makes this incipit striking is that while the narrative is picking up dramatic speed, the readers are getting more information about the setting and the characters (e.g. about the compound and the surrounding plots Hamid must run across to join Rubpan, or Hamid’s knowing that Rubpan can “break glass with one screech”). The more dramatic the action becomes, the more the readers complete the fictional stage, including the characters, before their mind’s eye. The results of this analysis speak in favor of my argument from above that the informing (‘stage-setting’) and the dramatizing function are interlocked. In contrast to the plurimedial drama (text), which accomplishes a non-negligible part of information allocation through extra- A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 121 linguistic devices such as stage setting, props, costumes, figure and physiognomy, gestures and facial play (Pfister 1977: 136), a novel incipit must rely on its verbal means so that in an opening like in Brick Lane the dramatizing information cannot really be separated from the expository information. As in the Portrait incipit, the status of the allocated information is ambivalent, though in a different way. - Charted in a functional graph, the Brick Lane incipit turns out to be progressive: This means that a high degree of information saturation goes along with (almost) immediate action (or an early point of attack). A considerable part of the incipit setting is constituted precisely through the action (and not through description). Besides the fact that static and dynamic narrative modes (see Bonheim 1982) are often difficult to tell apart, a basic major and commonly underestimated problem for students is to generally differentiate between mediated and unmediated narration, between telling and showing. Both school teachers and professors often take this competence for granted, Achim Hescher 122 18 Del Lungo does not supply a cogent argument to justify the interrelatedness of the two functions when he writes “qu’elles doivent répondre à la double exigence de l’incipit d’informer le lecteur et de le faire entrer dans l’histoire. Or, c’est justement à partir du croisement des deux axes représentant ces deux fonctions qu’on peut établir un classement possible des formes de début, qui se fonde sur ce qu’on pourrait appeler la ‘vitesse générale d’entrée’ dans l’histoire” (Del Lungo 1993: 145). The fact that you can draw a chart is no argument for the pertinence thereof, and the fact that they must inform the readers and introduce them to the action is evident from the start. which is a big mistake. However obvious mediation is marked in the text through a proper name or a personal pronoun and a verb of utterance or thought (in the broadest sense, like ‘Brenda said…’ or ‘I believed…’), my teaching experience has shown that students often do not realize this and thus have an additional problem engaging in analyses of the above type. That is why it is recommended to teachers of literature to make sure their clientele have understood these basics. It is the great advantage of the above charts juxtaposing the different kinds of information that they clearly demonstrate their ambivalence with regard to their informing and dramatizing functions. And only on such grounds can I legitimate the functional graph in which the two axes, information saturation and dramatization, intersect. 18 This, of course, must be instrumentalized for teaching. As in the Portrait chart, teachers can delete certain items on either side of the chart and have students fill them in. Ideally, this is done through overhead or on the laptop screen and projector. Students will certainly not fill in all the items correctly, so that the affiliation with the informing or the dramatizing function can be discussed in the plenary. Such discussions contribute, of course, to a general awareness raising on the part of the students with regard to the function and status of information in different kinds of incipits. If the ambivalence of the information stays unrecognized during the discussion, the teacher may always give the impulse, “Look at the items in the dramatizing function column. Is the information exclusively about action? ” Last but not least, the students should individually place the novel in a graphic schema as above - which is not as easy as it seems since even rudimentary arithmetic formalization is not everybody’s cup of tea, and my experience has shown that students need more time to do this than I thought. If every student has a transparency, one of them might just step out and put her/ his transparency on the overhead for everybody else to check, or for the plenary to discuss. As footnoted above, I haven chosen to adopt Del Lungo’s terms for the four different types of incipits as illustrated in the functional graph. It is certainly open to debate whether there are no clearer terms than “progressive” and “dynamic” or “suspensive” and “static” (if I choose to juxtapose them vertically in relation to their information content). Apart from that, and particularly for students, it is perhaps more significant to know what a static A Typology for Teaching Novel Incipits 123 and a dynamic incipit looks like in ‘real’ novelesque form. As an example of a static incipit (high information saturation, delayed action), I would refer to Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (1991: 3), of which the very first sentence, uttered by the narrator and serial killer Patrick Bateman (as it is to be found out later) makes the entire first paragraph: A BANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Misérables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce and Pierce and twenty-six doesn’t seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, “Be My Baby” on WYNN, and the driver, black, not American, does so. Indeed, this neurotic rendering of countless (and obviously equally weighty) bits of information - besides the highly symbolic quote from Dante’s Divina Commedia (“Inferno”, Canto Terzo) - is in stark contrast to what is actually happening: the first chapter of the novel (“April Fools”) consists but of an innocuous taxi ride through Manhattan to Evelyn’s, where Bateman and friends will have dinner, and a lot of meaningless babble accompanying or better constituting the action. For a specimen of a dynamic incipit (immediate action, low information saturation) you may look at the above quoted incipit of The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, whose narrator recounts the fall of the archangel Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha from an exploded passenger plane above London, a considerable part of which consists in Farishta’s interjections or calls directed to Chamcha. As the rather young history of the novel has shown, anything can happen in an incipit, and the readers are not spared extremes. By the aid of this typology, students and teachers can categorize incipits and assign them a place in a functional and illustrative construct. After reading the whole novel, it is possible (and mandatory) to revaluate the incipit with regard to its function for the entire work: Will we read it differently the second time? Was our first reading of it a misreading? Did it send us on the wrong track, and were we surprised at a later point? Is it related to the ending of the novel? Last but not least, we may study novel incipits of one period in literary history and try to find out to what degree incipits of a certain type are representative of a period, of a certain ‘kind’ of novel of this period, or of a certain author. References Ali, Monica (2003). Brick Lane. London: Black Swan. Bonheim, Helmut (1982). “How Stories Begin: Devices of Exposition in 600 English, American and Canadian Short Stories”. In: Herbert Grabes / Hans-Jürgen Diller / Hans Achim Hescher 124 Bungert (eds.). REAL. The Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature. Vol. 1. Berlin: De Gruyter. 191-226. Calvino, Italo (1979). Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore [If on a winter’s night a traveler]. Torino: Einaudi. Céline, Louis-Ferdinand (1952). Voyage au bout de la nuit [Journey to the End of the Night]. Paris: Gallimard. Christie, Agatha (1973, originally 1934). Murder on the Orient Express. New York: Pocket Books. Del Lungo, Andrea (1993). “Pour une poétique de l’incipit”. Poétique 94. 131-152. Del Lungo, Andrea (2003). L’Incipit romanesque. Paris: Le Seuil, coll. “Poétique”. Ellis, Bret Easton (1991). American Psycho. New York: Random House (Vintage). Erlebach, Peter (1990). Theorie und Praxis des Romaneingangs: Untersuchungen zur Poetik des englischen Romans. Heidelberg: Winter. Faulkner, William (1972, repr. of the original edition 1932). Light in August. New York: Vintage. Genette, Gérard (1987). Seuils. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Grabes, Herbert (1978). “Wie aus Sätzen Personen werden … Über die Erforschung literarischer Figuren”. Poetica 10. 405-428. Grivel, Charles (1973). Production de l’intérêt romanesque. La Haye-Paris: Mouton. James, Henry (1997, originally 1881). Portrait of a Lady. London/ New York: Penguin, 1997. Kermode, Frank (1974). “Novels: Recognition and Deception”. Critical Inquiry 1. 103-121. Nünning, Ansgar (2001). “Mimesis des Erzählens. Prolegomena zu einer Wirkungsästhetik, Typologie und Funktionsgeschichte des Akts des Erzählens und der Metanarration”. In: Jörg Helbig (ed.). Erzählen und Erzähltheorie im 20. Jahrhundert. Heidelberg: Winter. 13-47. Nutall, Anthony D. (1992). Openings. Narrative Beginnings from the Epic to the Novel. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Pfister, Manfred (1997, 9 th repr., originally 1977). Das Drama. München: Fink (UTB). Rushdie, Salman (1988). The Satanic Verses. Dover, Delaware: The Consortium. Schneider, Ralf (2000). Grundriss zur kognitiven Theorie der Figurenrezeption am Beispiel des viktorianischen Romans. Tübingen: Stauffenburg. Scholler, Dietrich (2001). “Der Romananfang als Ort der Leserverführung”. In: Frank Wanning / Anke Wortmann (eds.). Gefährliche Verbindungen. Verführung und Literatur. Berlin: Weidler. 271-283. Twain, Mark (1999, originally 1884). The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Oxford World Classics). Oxford: Oxford UP. Weinrich, Harald (1964). Tempus. Besprochene und erzählte Welt. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Wolf, Werner (2006). “Defamiliarized Initial Framings in Fiction”. In: Werner Wolf / Walter Bernhart (eds.). Framing Borders in Literature and Other Media. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 295-328. Achim Hescher Institut für Fremdsprachliche Philologien/ Fach Anglistik Universität Koblenz-Landau AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Make English a Part of Your Life: An EFL Learning Autonomy Project at University Level Dietmar Tatzl The present article introduces a method to improve the English language skills of advanced learners by means of a learning autonomy project at university level. For two months, 38 students carried out tasks they had chosen from a project handout which aimed at fostering learner autonomy and showing students ways of encountering the language in their daily lives. The assignment demanded their pro-active engagement with using the language, yet in a motivating manner. The results of the project suggest that learner autonomy may be facilitated by drawing on real-life sources that are available to students in modern cities all over the world. Even though it remains difficult to evaluate the direct linguistic gains from such a project, we may conclude that the approach discussed in this article increases students’ awareness of, interest in and engagement with the English language around them, which may also lead to linguistic gains in the long run. Introduction In our high-technology world, there is generally widespread global access to English, and this facilitates English language learning and teaching. This article aims at presenting a method to enhance the linguistic proficiency of advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The idea of developing such a method originated in my English language courses at FH JOANNEUM, University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria, where students kept asking me what they could do to improve their English in the long term. These English courses are embedded in the Degree Programme in Aviation, which educates students in the fields of Aeronautical Engineering, Avionics and Air Traffic Control Technology, Aviation Management and Piloting. Since English constitutes the lingua franca in aviation, six semesters of language training are obligatory for our students. Further, in Austria pupils usually Dietmar Tatzl 126 1 The CEFR-level B2 is described as follows: “Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/ her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and independent disadvantages of various options” (Council of Europe n.d.: 24). attend English classes for eight years at secondary level, so that most of the first-year students at university already have a solid basis in this language, which in the main corresponds to level B2 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). 1 In practice, however, their competency very often depends on the school they come from because in Austria there is no standard Matura or school-leaving examination, with the general tendency that technical schools frequently neglect English in their curriculum or reduce it to an accompanying subject, whereas grammar schools rather promote language training. Naturally, this results in a discrepancy of skills in a first-year English course at university, especially so as English is not tested during the general entry examinations that applicants have to take for a study place at FH JOANNEUM. The English in the Degree Programme in Aviation consists of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in technology, engineering and business, including meeting and presentation skills, and only a small amount of General English in the first two semesters of study. 1 The Project Outline The project discussed in this paper is suitable for advanced learners in any university context, possibly even for mature learners at secondary-school level. It was carried out in the first-semester English language course with learners who would attend five additional semesters of English language training until graduation. The reason for introducing the concept of learning autonomy in this course at such an early stage was mainly to maximize the potential outcome for students, who theoretically may profit from the awareness of learning opportunities around them and from initiating a habit of working with the English language during their whole education and beyond. For two months, 38 students participated in the project, 31 of them male and 7 female. An assignment was designed which aimed at fostering learner autonomy and showing students ways of encountering the language when no teacher was there to assist them. The assignment was integrated in the lives of the learners outside the classroom and demanded their pro-active engagement with using the language, yet in a motivating manner. Thus, the introductory handout had to stimulate learners’ interests (see Appendix). Make English a Part of Your Life 127 2 The term English is meant to include all English-speaking cultures. 3 See Cortés/ Sánchez Lujan (2005: 134) and Breen/ Mann (1997: 134-136) for characteristics of autonomous learners. According to Breen and Mann (1997: 145-148), teachers most likely to succeed in autonomous learning settings possess a sense of self-awareness, belief and trust in learners and a desire to foster autonomy. In the classroom, they are a resource, share decisions, facilitate collaborative evaluation, manage risks and show patience (also cf. Voller 1997). These interests were assumed to derive from general and typical pastimes and occupations of young people in an industrialized nation, such as going to the cinema; watching movies; listening to music; reading books, magazines and newspapers; going out with friends; and the like. The handout therefore included some photographs of city-centre spots which have a distinct relation to the English language or culture 2 as well as to potential fields of interest for learners, so that the participants in the project were prompted to look for such places and instances themselves. With regard to “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” I considered it necessary to integrate the autonomous learning gain into the regular assessment of the course because I wanted to credit the effort that students had spent on the various activities. The project was worth 30 percent of the overall grade, with the mid-term exam accounting for 20 percent, the final exam for 30 percent and students’ participation in class and an oral presentation for 20 percent. 1.1 The Rationale behind the Project It is obvious that the approach introduced here already demands a certain degree of maturity from learners, but it also fosters independent learning and autonomy at the same time. Some definitions of autonomy need to be considered. According to Kartal (2005), the concept of autonomy incorporates pedagogy, psychology and sociology. Cortés and Sánchez Lujan (2005: 134) emphasize the aspects of “self-direction and self-regulation” when individuals control the learning process. 3 In other words, autonomous learning “takes place in situations in which the teacher is expected to provide a learning environment where the learners are given the possibility consciously to be involved in their own learning and thus become autonomous learners” (Dam 2000: 49). For the present project, this means that students decide for themselves when they want to learn, what they want to learn and with whom they want to learn. St. Louis (2006) summarizes two classic descriptions of learner autonomy: “Holec (1981) defined autonomy as ‘… the ability to take charge of one’s learning …’ while Little (1991) sees it as the learner’s psychological relation to the content and process of learning, his or her capacity for critical reflection, detachment, decision making, and independent action”. These are also essential characteristics of our project, in which learners take independent steps towards autonomy in an Dietmar Tatzl 128 environment defined by the teacher and reflect on their learning experiences. According to Nunan (1996: 13), there are “degrees of autonomy”, which frees learners and teachers from the thought that they must achieve complete autonomy. The fully autonomous learner “operates independently of classroom, teacher or textbook” and therefore “is an ideal, rather than a reality” (Nunan 1997: 193). These thoughts form the foundation for the method presented in this article. It is further evident that developing learner autonomy depends on students’ willingness to learn and take over responsibility for their learning, which is sometimes a pedagogical challenge (Legenhausen 1999: 66-67). However, the general readiness for self-directed learning does not necessarily correlate to the effectiveness of promoting autonomy (Lai 1999: 163). St. Louis (2006) emphasizes the role of the Internet in this context: “Interest and motivation are […] two important factors in learning, and the Internet offers a wide variety of different topics suited to individual tastes and learning styles, as the information can be received through text, audio or video, images and graphics”. Especially short video news reports, film clips and advertisements may boost students’ motivation (cf. Wagener 2006: 280). A small pilot research project at the University of Chester investigating student learning with distance-learning material based on online video yielded fruitful results and indicates that “the benefits of encouraging regular independent listening practice via short video clips can be quite considerable and that these benefits are also widely perceived amongst the students themselves” (Wagener 2006: 286). In our project, the Internet plays an important part as a resource of real-life English language materials as well. Yet it also has a serious drawback: it tempts learners to plagiarism unlike any other medium (cf. McDevitt 2004: 8), so that teachers have to think of profound countermeasures, which may take up quite some time, in order to maintain common standards of academic work and sincerity. As briefly hinted before, in an autonomous learning environment it is essential that students are given the freedom of choice concerning the activities they want to engage in (cf. Legenhausen 1999: 67; Esch 1996: 39-40). This means the possibility of “determining the objectives; - defining the contents and progressions; - selecting methods and techniques to be used; - monitoring the procedure of acquisition properly speaking (rhythm, time, place, etc.); - evaluating what has been acquired” (Holec 1981: 3 qtd. in Nunan 1996: 15). According to Nunan (1996: 21), the teacher introduces a variety of learning activities and tasks and helps learners identify their learning style preferences as a starting point. The list of “input” and “output channels” on the initial handout for “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” constitutes such an introduction of activities. In agreement with Nunan, it is preceded by an analysis of learning styles and preferences taken from Rosenberg (2001: 15-23). Make English a Part of Your Life 129 4 Cf. Breton 1999: 124-126; Marques 1999: 175; Ribé 1999: 90. Another key notion in this context is the “authenticity of social interactions”, which means that “the activities enacted in the classroom should result from the students’ interests and wants, and only be constrained by the learning objectives as defined by the curriculum” (Legenhausen 1999: 67). Similarly, McDevitt (2004: 6-7) argues for a “project-based, collaborative approach” because in this way “language is freed to assume its natural role of the medium rather than the message”. 4 If these observations are true for in-class material and interactions, they are even more so for students’ contact with the language outside the classroom. In other words, choice, authenticity and the language as the medium of communication form the cornerstones of the learning approach introduced in this article. The role of the teacher in an autonomous learning environment is to “systematically initiate awareness-raising processes which refer to all aspects of the learning/ teaching undertaking” by means of activities which focus on the learning process as such, language forms and functions, communication as a process and information gathering and processing, so that learners are put “in the roles of researchers” (Legenhausen 1999: 67). Furthermore, the teacher needs to ensure that the classroom procedures are communicated to learners and the learning process is documented and evaluated by students and the instructor, and that project and learning results are “made public, and are thus recycled as new - learner-produced - learning materials into the overall process” (Legenhausen 1999: 67). Therefore, in “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” an introductory handout was provided by the teacher, and students were asked to prepare a “Project Folder” for documenting their activities as well as a poster for presenting their project results. One of the most critical issues related to autonomy and independent learning is the question of how to evaluate the learning gain. It is difficult to measure progress for students and teachers alike. Morrison (2005: 286-287), who investigated ways of evaluating learning gain in a self-access language learning centre at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, concludes that such an evaluation will not be possible in the form of “objective measurements and scores that reflect quantifiable instances of learning by the student body as a whole which are validated by an evaluator external to the learning process”, or, in other terms, learner self-assessment constitutes the principal tool for identifying the outcome of the learning process, and the “learning gain being sought will not primarily be found in traditional types of language assessments” but will be “based upon perceptual rather than objective, verifiable data”. These findings connected with the self-access centre are valid for other areas of autonomous learning as well. Dam and Dietmar Tatzl 130 Legenhausen (1999: 98) infer that it is the “constant dialogue” between learners and teacher that results in a “heightened awareness of learning and of achievement levels in the various linguistic skills”. According to Thomson (1996: 89), project-based self-assessment is highly valuable to foster autonomous learning, which is why it has been chosen as the type of assessment for “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” as well. Dam (2000: 56) summarizes the successes usually achieved with autonomous learning: “motivation and engagement on the part of the learners • socially responsible learners • the teacher’s insight into the individual learner’s needs and ways of learning • the satisfaction deriving from the fact that the teacher has become a co-learner”. The success of autonomous learning very much depends on the learning styles and degree of involvement of each individual student, yet, in the main, research suggests that teachers may expect fruitful outcomes: “By being encouraged and even forced to constantly interact in meaningful ways, autonomous learners develop not only an oral communicative competence but also an astonishingly high degree of grammatical proficiency” (Legenhausen 1999: 75). In order to measure the success of the project presented in this article, it is necessary to formulate my understanding of what constitutes autonomous language learning. This is best achieved by listing what, according to my definition of autonomy, learners are supposed to do. Thus, they • initiate independent language interaction, • use the language as a medium for real-life needs, • display confidence when speaking and writing in the target language, • are aware of the possibilities of applying the target language in their close environment, • explore new ways of entering into contact with the target language. 1.2 The Project’s Components and Tasks The project “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” consisted of three major phases: (1) the practical phase, (2) the documentation phase, and (3) the feedback and assessment phase, with the practical and documentation phases overlapping. (1) At the beginning of the practical phase, which lasted for two months, the project was introduced to the students in a regular lesson of my firstsemester English language course by means of an introductory handout (see Appendix). This handout included a short initial statement on the role of English in today’s professional world and motivational material such as Make English a Part of Your Life 131 5 The table is based on suggestions of my own and others found in various articles, e.g. Thomson 1996: 84; Ryan 1997: 217. The resident foreign community, as Ryan (ibid.) remarks, may constitute a valuable resource for English language learners as well. He expresses a note of caution concerning texts produced by the advertising and design industries often found on “T-shirts, posters and fashion accessories” (1997: 218), though. However, it is especially those items that hold a great fascination for young people, which turns them into means of strengthening learners’ motivation. But the playfulness and linguistic deficiencies of such creations must be communicated to learners. photographs and humorous quotations in order to prompt students to selfactivity. The aims of the project were described in the introductory handout as well. The project was designed to motivate and encourage learners to use the English language in different situations on a daily basis, which corresponds to a natural integration of English in the lives of learners. It aimed at promoting learner autonomy and enabling students to make their own decisions about how to learn, what to practise and in which areas they wanted to improve their English. The project was intended to help them feel comfortable and at ease with the language in instances when no teacher was there to assist them. In other words, students were asked to “live with” English, which means that they should do things they normally do, but not in their mother tongue. As Little and Dam (1998) observe, “the ultimate measure of success in second or foreign language learning is the extent to which the target language becomes a fully integrated part of the learner’s identity”, so that “autonomous learners are in the fullest sense users of the language they are learning” (Little 1990: 13). These were the thoughts which also constitute the core of this project. The next section in the introductory handout explained the concrete task for learners. They had to pick six ideas from a table or find other activities not listed and try them out over a period of two months. These activities were divided into different “input” and “output channels”, corresponding to receptive and productive skills respectively. For the communication of the task, the more common and specific terms in linguistic research, receptive and productive skills, were replaced by clearer and more easily understandable terms from a student’s point of view. For instance, students could select English as the language for the menu on their mobile phones (input) and agree to speak English with one or two close friends or colleagues on the phone (output). In this way, they employed an everyday activity to practise their language skills. The following table shows a selection of various activities 5 that are at hand for learners of English in cities and small towns in most parts of the world. They were therefore easy to employ in a learning autonomy project such as “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” Dietmar Tatzl 132 6 A warning has to be voiced concerning students’ contacts to companies, embassies or other organizations as suggested in the table above. They should only be used sparingly because the institutions affected would probably not appreciate a flood of similar requests from the same source. Alternatively and preferably, students may write to each other in groups simulating different companies. Input Channels (Reading/ Listening) Output Channels (Writing/ Speaking) menus on electronic devices (mobile phone, camera, DVD-player, computer, and the like) e-mails/ sms/ phone calls to friends or colleagues (selected group) technical manuals (any machine and device) traditional penfriends, online chat rooms daily newspapers diary magazines and journals blogs (web logs) books (English bookshops or libraries) personal website Internet (large amount of online sources) shopping lists TV news channels (BBC, CNN) to-do lists radio news notes to roommate(s)/ flatmate(s) music channels on TV and radio English/ American dinner with friends (students may cook typical meals based on original recipes and speak English) movies in English (DVDs with or without subtitles; some TV stations broadcast selected movies or series dubbed and in original) business correspondence (students may write to British or US companies for information or advertising material; to be used sparingly) 6 English cinemas theme parties (Halloween, British music) English plays (Vienna’s English Theatre) regular English table with friends public evening lectures on various topics hosted by the British Council, the American Embassy or other institutions contact British Council, American Embassy or other institutions for possible workshops they organize (to be used sparingly) book a tour in English through your home city pub quizzes listen to the English audio-guide in museums and at exhibitions English board and card games order from the English menu in restaurants any other methods you can think of pub quizzes English board and card games any other methods you can think of Table 1: The original table of activities as passed on to students in the introductory handout to the project Make English a Part of Your Life 133 It was stated that “spoken interaction is the primary mode of language use” (Mauranen 2005: 275-276), but the model of “self-access is strong in the domain of receptive skills” (Littlewood 1997: 91), whereas with regard to productive skills, it is stronger in the domains of “pre-communicative work” and “communicative language practice” than in “authentic communication” (ibid.: 91). Self-access also plays a role in our project, but not in the traditional sense of material provided in a learning centre. Instead, we needed to extend our understanding of the term so that the whole environment becomes one huge “self-access centre”, so to speak. The choice of “input channels” is almost unlimited, but the activities offered in this project had to match the individual preferences and tastes of learners. Indeed, one of the most important aspects of this approach was to let students choose areas of their lives in which they would use English. Ideally and most promisingly, any activity they enjoy doing will be best suited to combining with language learning because then motivation will be high. Ryan (1997: 223) underscores this principle when he writes that “enjoyment and interest are important criteria in selecting resources”. In other words, if somebody’s favourite pastime is riding, they could read special magazines on horses and equitation in English instead of their mother tongue. As Little (1997: 231) remarks, authentic texts are crucial for building confidence in target-language interaction and for combining language learning and language use in an effective way. He concludes that “authentic texts can help to foster learner autonomy because that too depends on the conscious interaction of learner and user perspectives” (1997: 235). It is also necessary to choose activities learners are accustomed to doing anyway but that can be easily conducted in English in order to make the learning process as attractive as possible. “Output channels” are less authentic in an environment where the language to be learnt is not used as a mother tongue by a majority of speakers. Nevertheless, there were ways of meaningfully integrating speaking and writing skills into this project, for instance by communicating with a group of colleagues in English face-to-face, on the phone or through electronic mail. Even though this may appear awkward to students at the beginning due to the lack of the extrinsic necessity of switching to English for such purposes, they will discover the merits of such tasks as soon as the activities have become a habit. Such merits may be a feeling of belonging to a global community of future professionals well versed in a foreign language, a sense of increasing one’s career chances on a competitive and international job market by speaking English, the realization of what practising the language means for each learner’s individual learning gain or simply the joy of communicating with a group of friends and colleagues. The Internet provides a huge amount of sources relevant to our purpose, but it is necessary to distinguish between reliable, professional and informa- Dietmar Tatzl 134 7 I am aware that the definition of what qualifies as authentic material is controversial, yet I take authentic to mean real-world material that has not been adapted for language learning situations in any way. tive websites on the one hand, and low-quality, dubious and even criminal websites on the other. Although even special learning sites often “lack the reflections of pedagogical scenarios and learning theories” (Kartal 2005), such learning sites do not influence the value of the Internet for our project because learners are encouraged to work with authentic material instead of prepared exercises and tasks. 7 The question of the reliability of a site, however, must be answered by learners themselves and can be considered to be part of the autonomous learning process. (2) For the documentation phase, which overlapped with the end of the practical phase, students were asked to compose a “Project Folder”. This folder consisted of a cover page, a short reflection on the reasons for learning English entitled “Why I Want to Improve My English”, an individual “Description of the Project” and a poster presenting the results. In the project descriptions, students had to discuss the activities they had selected, give reasons for their choices, explain which skills they had practised most and why, analyse which methods had worked best for them, share their experiences with the whole task and measure their progress in the form of free verbal assessment. On the posters, students were asked to briefly summarize the project results and the major aspects graphically, promoting the activities they had chosen. For motivational reasons, the posters were put up in the classroom and on a notice board outside the seminar room in order to make them publicly visible. (3) The feedback and assessment phase started on the day when learners had to hand in their written project descriptions, and it lasted for two weeks. The principal document in this phase was the “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheet (see Appendix), which was filled in by the teacher. Hence, this phase was teacher-centred and focused on the assessment of students’ achievements in the project, based on the folder that they had to hand in. The “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheet contained four categories: (a) “Project Folder”, (b) “Language”, (c) “Activities Chosen” and (d) “Students’ Personal Reflections”. In the first category, it was checked whether learners had included all the necessary parts in the project folder and had structured it appropriately. The second category dealt with language mistakes in their written English, and the third category concentrated on the activities they had chosen and their relevance to the project’s goals. In accordance with the tendency towards self-assessment in autonomous learning, the last category was especially revealing because it analysed students’ Make English a Part of Your Life 135 experiences with the activities they had selected for the project. Nevertheless, all four assessment criteria contributed equally to the project mark. The feedback and assessment phase ended with an oral feedback session for each student, in which I told them their mark, drew their attention to the language areas they might want to improve in the future and gave them a chance to make concluding comments on the whole project or certain aspects thereof. 1.3 Data 1.3.1 Collecting Data The principal means of collecting data was the students’ own “Description of the Project” in the “Project Folder”. Students were asked to write a project description in which they presented the activities they had picked, gave reasons for their choices, explained which skills they practised most and why, analysed which methods worked best for them, shared their experiences with the selection of the activities and measured their progress in their own words. There were no given categories they had to rate, but learners were free to decide how they wanted to approach the description and which parts of the project they wanted to emphasize in their texts. Thus, the method chosen for gaining data was free verbal assessment. The information gathered from these project descriptions was then transferred to the teacher’s “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheet (see Appendix), according to the four categories mentioned above: the folder, the language, the relevance of the activities and the student’s personal reflection. The first two categories were not relevant for the collecting of data for this article because they served the sole purpose of assessing the organization of the project folders and learners’ language skills as demonstrated in the written project descriptions - two criteria difficult to link with linguistic learning gains derived from the project. Nevertheless, I deemed it necessary to assess students’ competence in English at some stage in the project in order to give students qualified feedback for their further improvement. The remaining two categories, however, represent the core data for the subsequent analysis. They contain the types of activities chosen (“Activities Chosen”) and students’ self-reflections on their learning progress (“Students’ Personal Reflections”). After having transferred the data from the written project descriptions to the teacher’s “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheets, I drew up two tables including all the activities that were either suggested by the introductory handout or added by students themselves. For reasons of clarity, I separated the analysis of the “Input Channels” from that of the “Output Channels” for this article. Each of the two tables contains six columns. The Dietmar Tatzl 136 first column lists all the types of activities in the project. The second column shows the number of learners who worked with these tasks (“Chosen by number of students”). The division of the remaining headings is derived from the learners’ own observations about the activities and their impact on each student’s individual improvement. In other words, students preferred to write about the usefulness of the activities (hence the columns “Useful for improving English” and “Not useful for improving English”) and their degree of difficulty, which always depends on the material chosen in each individual case, though (hence the columns “Difficult” and “Easy”). Most comments on the project tasks revolved around these four classifications, which is why they were integrated in the tables for the analysis. 1.3.2 Results of Data The data collected from the students’ “Project Folders” and transferred to the teacher’s “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheets generated the following results: Input channel activities (reading/ listening) Chosen by number of students Considered by students to be Useful for improving English Not useful for improving English Difficult Easy menu on mobile phone 25 8 6 1 1 menu on camera 0 0 0 0 0 menu on MP3-player 1 0 0 0 0 menu on DVD-player 1 0 0 0 0 menus on computer/ laptop and programmes 8 4 1 0 0 technical manuals (any machine and device) 1 0 0 0 0 daily newspapers 7 5 0 1 0 magazines and journals 13 10 0 1 1 books (English bookshops or libraries) 13 8 0 0 1 Internet (large amount of online sources) 7 5 0 1 0 TV news channels (BBC, CNN) 12 8 0 2 1 radio news 8 4 1 2 0 Make English a Part of Your Life 137 Input channel activities (reading/ listening) Chosen by number of students Considered by students to be Useful for improving English Not useful for improving English Difficult Easy music channels on TV and radio 8 3 0 1 0 movies in English (DVDs, TV) 27 15 0 4 1 English cinemas 8 2 0 1 1 English plays (Vienna’s English Theatre) 0 0 0 0 0 public evening lectures 0 0 0 0 0 book a tour in English through your home city 0 0 0 0 0 listen to the English audioguide in museums and at exhibitions 0 0 0 0 0 order from the English menu in restaurants 0 0 0 0 0 pub quizzes 20 7 6 2 0 English board and card games 1 0 0 1 0 Suggested by students listening to air traffic radio communication 4 1 0 0 0 virtual aircraft design programme (3D Kit Builder) 1 1 0 0 0 reading specifications for the aircraft industry 1 0 0 0 0 Microsoft Flight Simulator (software) 2 1 0 0 0 TV shows 1 1 0 0 0 online open lectures on aeronautics from MIT 1 1 0 0 0 Table 2: Results of data on receptive skills Dietmar Tatzl 138 Considering the dominance of television and the cinema in modern-day societies, it is little surprising that about three quarters of the students decided to watch movies for this project (27). More than one third considered this activity useful for improving English (15), while nobody rated it as not useful (0). Of the five project participants who commented on its degree of difficulty, four said this task was difficult, whereas one found it easy. The second-favourite activity was switching the menus on mobile phones to English (25), which eight learners regarded as useful, whereas six learners were of the opposite opinion. Only two students mentioned the degree of difficulty, showing contrasting views. More than half of the learners participated in pub quizzes (20), seven of whom were convinced that this activity made an impact on their improvement, whereas six produced the contrary estimation. Two students noted that this task was difficult, and nobody mentioned that it was easy. An equal number of project participants chose reading magazines and books (13 each), yet students deemed reading magazines more effective for further developing their English (10) than reading books (8). One learner labelled reading magazines as difficult, one as easy, and nobody stated that reading books was difficult. One learner found this activity easy. Finally, watching the news on TV turned out to be rather popular as well. Eight out of 12 students considered this beneficial for making progress in the English language. None of the learners mentioned that this activity was not helpful, two said it was difficult, and one felt it was easy. There are several activities of average popularity that were each selected by seven or eight students: switching the menus on computers, laptops and software programmes to English (8); reading daily newspapers (7); browsing the Internet (7); listening to the news on the radio (8); watching music channels on TV or listening to music on the radio (8); and going to the English cinema (8). Activities of low appeal (picked by one to three students each) were working with the English menu on MP3-players and DVD-players, reading technical menus and playing board and card games. Furthermore, nobody chose any of the following activities: changing the menu language on cameras, watching English plays, attending public evening lectures, booking a city-tour, listening to the English audio-guide in museums and at exhibitions and ordering from the English menu in restaurants. The majority of learners chose activities from the table, but some students built on the spirit of the project and found their own individual tasks. Considering the fact that the project was carried out in the Degree Programme in Aviation, these activities combined language learning with the field-specific interests of the students in a very harmonious way. One student, for example, used the open-source software called 3D Kit Builder for Make English a Part of Your Life 139 8 3D Kit Builder. 22 January 2008 <http: / / www.3dkitbuilder.com/ main.htm>. 9 ”Lecture Notes”. In: MIT OpenCourseWare. 29 March 2008 <http: / / ocw.mit.edu/ OcwWeb/ Aeronautics-and-Astronautics/ 16-885JFall-2005/ LectureNotes/ index.htm>. designing a virtual aircraft, 8 another two students practised basic flights with the Microsoft Flight Simulator software, which is installed on the computers in the departmental EDP-laboratories. Again another learner listened to online open lectures on aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 9 A further strong aviation-related aspect is to be found in listening to air traffic radio communication, which four students decided to integrate into the project. On the side of receptive skills, the only activity without aviation-specific content added by one learner was watching TV shows. Output channel activities (writing/ speaking) Chosen by number of students Considered by students to be Useful for improving English Not useful for improving English Difficult Easy e-mails to friends or colleagues 12 9 0 0 0 sms to friends or colleagues 6 3 1 0 0 phone calls to friends or colleagues 9 2 0 0 0 face-to-face communication with friends or colleagues 16 7 2 1 0 traditional penfriends 0 0 0 0 0 online chat rooms 1 0 0 0 0 diary 0 0 0 0 0 blogs 0 0 0 0 0 personal website 1 1 0 0 0 shopping lists 6 1 0 0 1 to-do lists 5 2 0 0 0 notes to roommate(s)/ flatmate(s) 1 0 0 0 0 Irish/ South African dinner with friends 2 0 0 0 0 Dietmar Tatzl 140 Output channel activities (writing/ speaking) Chosen by number of students Considered by students to be Useful for improving English Not useful for improving English Difficult Easy business correspondence (British or US companies) 6 2 1 1 0 theme parties (Halloween, British music) 2 1 0 0 0 regular English table with friends 7 1 0 0 0 contact British Council, American Embassy or other institutions 0 0 0 0 0 pub quizzes 20 7 6 2 0 English board and card games 1 0 0 1 0 Suggested by students correcting homework for friend or colleague 1 0 0 0 0 air traffic radio communication 1 1 0 0 0 writing lyrics for songs 1 1 0 0 0 act as tour guide through home city for visitor 2 2 0 0 0 Table 3: Results of data on productive skills With respect to productive skills, the favourite activity chosen by more than half of the students was the participation in pub quizzes (20). Since learners did not always clearly distinguish between “input” and “output channels” in their written project descriptions when they evaluated the impact of a certain task, the same figures relating to pub quizzes that have already been discussed in the previous section show up in this table again. The second most popular occupation in this category was talking face-to-face with friends and colleagues, practised by 16 learners, seven of whom deemed this task effective for their improvement. Two students stated that it was useless, only one found it difficult, but none rated it as easy. Writing e-mails to friends or colleagues comes next in the ranking of popularity, with 12 project participants, of whom 9 considered the activity to be beneficial to the development Make English a Part of Your Life 141 10 In some cases, a free online telephone service provider was used, but not all learners specified this point in their descriptions, which is why no exact figures are available: Skype. 22 January 2008 <http: / / www.skype.com/ intl/ en/ >. of their language skills. None regarded it as ineffective, and nobody commented on the degree of difficulty. Activities chosen by less than ten but more than three learners were writing short messages with mobile phones to friends or colleagues (6); making phone calls 10 to friends or colleagues (9); writing shopping lists (6) and to-do lists (5); establishing business correspondence with companies (6); and joining a regular English table with friends (7). Activities of low appeal (picked by one to three students each) were writing letters to traditional penfriends, writing diaries and blogs (web logs) and contacting the British Council, American Embassy or other institutions, which nobody opted for. Only one student each decided for using an online chat room, configuring a website, writing notes to roommates or flatmates and participating in board and card games. Two learners joined an Irish and a South African dinner with friends or family, and another two learners organized a theme party. The activities invented by participants in the project and shown in Table 3 constitute appropriate additions to the original table in the introductory handout. Two learners acted as tour guides through their home city for a visitor from Sweden, which they perceived as an enjoyable as well as a valuable experience. One learner corrected homework for a friend, another one participated in air traffic radio communication, and again another one wrote lyrics for songs performed by his amateur music band. In their project descriptions, only three from a total of 38 students wrote that they were going to continue some of the activities in the future, but in the oral feedback sessions all of the students answered the question if they would do the project again with yes. As can be seen from Table 2, reading newspapers, magazines and books were perceived as very helpful for improving their language skills by the majority of the students who had picked those activities (5, 10, 8, in this order). In their project descriptions, three of them remarked that they were encouraged to work with a dictionary for extending their vocabulary, and four students who had worked with some sort of lists made a similar statement. Five learners who had watched movies and TV news mentioned that the variety of accents, topics and situations they were faced with proved effective for the learning process. Dietmar Tatzl 142 2 Evaluation and Conclusions It becomes clear from Tables 2 and 3 that practising listening and speaking skills were the favourite choices for students, despite a potential lack of authentic linguistic situations and an absence of a real need to use the language in mostly non-native speaker conversations, which shows that such conversations can work outside the classroom. Another striking feature is the preference for working with technical devices when practising reading skills, which may be explained by a certain enthusiasm for electronic equipment by young learners in general and engineering students in particular. Yet also traditional reading materials, such as books, magazines and newspapers were selected by a large number of project participants. For developing writing skills, electronic mail enjoyed the highest popularity, which confirms the dominance of this medium in today’s business and private correspondence. With respect to students’ comments on their individual progress during the project as stated in Tables 2 and 3, several activities were contradictorily rated as helpful or useless by different learners, which probably says more about the expression of learning preferences than the feasibility of a certain task. Similarly, in the oral feedback sessions, three students esteemed the pub quiz a fun activity with great social but little linguistic effect. On the other hand, five students also confirmed that it was an interesting cultural experience, as they felt as if they were in a pub in Ireland, due to many native speakers on both sides of the counter. This demonstrates that even activities that appeared to be less profitable linguistically still carry the potential for promoting social and cultural dimensions relevant to the target language. The results of “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” suggest that learners can demonstrate autonomy within a rather short period of time (two months), according to the definition of autonomous learning for this project. As Tables 2 and 3 indicate, learners initiated independent language interaction, which was probably facilitated by the fact that they had the choice of activities, locations and periods. They used the language as a medium for various tasks, such as watching a movie for enjoyment or listening to the news for information. And they explored new forms of contact with the target language. Furthermore, they became aware of the possibilities of applying the target language in their close environment, and, as may be inferred from their project descriptions and comments during the oral feedback sessions, they displayed confidence when writing and speaking in English. The major drawback of the learning approach described in this article is probably the difficulty of evaluating direct linguistic gains, yet we have to trust our learners when they reflect on their own progress through the different tasks and activities. We should never forget that even among its support- Make English a Part of Your Life 143 ers, evaluations of autonomy “are by no means universally positive” (Benson 1996: 27). We also need to concede the following: The nature of autonomy and the characteristics of the autonomous learner remain matters for research and debate. We still know relatively little about the ways in which practices associated with autonomy work to foster autonomy, alone or in combination, or about the contextual factors that influence their effectiveness. We are also unable to argue convincingly, on the basis of empirical data, that autonomous language learners learn languages more effectively than others, nor do we know exactly how the development of autonomy and language acquisition interact. (Benson 2001: 224) No matter how nebulous the concept of autonomy is, this should not stop teachers from promoting and students from trying to achieve it. Or, put similarly by one of the leading researchers in autonomy, who hopes that his work has at least “demonstrated the validity of the construct, its validity as a goal and the possibility of moving towards it in practice. Researchers and practitioners need to show, however, that autonomy is not only desirable but also achievable in everyday contexts of language teaching and learning” (Benson 2001: 224). As learners’ written descriptions underscore, the project discussed here leads to gains in interest, motivation and autonomy, and as a by-product it may eventually lead to linguistic gains as well. The findings presented in this article support the conclusion that a project-based learning-autonomy approach boosts motivation, generates enthusiasm and facilitates linguistic interaction in learning a foreign language. English lends itself well to this purpose because of the wealth of authentic materials available to students all over the world. It should further be noted that such a project remains somewhat limited by the constraints of grading achievements, satisfying sponsors and administering course time, which makes it probably difficult to base a full course on autonomous learning. On the other hand, the project is easy to integrate into a traditional course system relying on regular lessons, for the autonomy part may be assigned as a task instead of conventional homework. Moreover, a mix of different approaches and methods offered by a course promises to be more successful than pursuing a single teaching philosophy, ignoring the various needs and learning styles of participants. Since some of the major goals of autonomous language learning are also to encourage maturity, independence and freedom of choice among learners, the project “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” may be considered to be a springboard into this direction. Dietmar Tatzl 144 Appendix Make English a Part of Your Life! A Learning Autonomy Project English has become the global language for travellers, businessmen and -women, researchers, scientists, diplomats and numerous other professionals. Even if you decide to work in your native land after your studies, you will discover that many companies and organisations use English for correspondence and communication. English is all around you, even in Graz. One day this summer, I grabbed my camera and strolled through Graz for you. Here are some of the impressions I encountered. Fig. 1: A Jaguar in front of the Casino; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 “The British Press is always looking for stuff to fill the space between their cartoons”. Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (born 1947): comment, 1970; qtd. in Ned Sherrin, Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, 2nd ed. (2004), “Newspapers” 17. Make English a Part of Your Life 145 Fig. 4: A window at Chillout’s, one of many coffee bars in the city; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 Fig. 2: A newspaper stand; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 Fig. 3: The Office Pub; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Dietmar Tatzl 146 Fig. 5: Austria’s largest English Bookshop in the centre of Graz; Tatzl, 19 June 2007 Fig. 6: Interior of the English Bookshop; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Fig. 7: The Queen in the English Bookshop; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Make English a Part of Your Life 147 Fig. 9: A shop selling American magazines, books and merchandise; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Fig. 8: Advertising books in the English Bookshop; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Dietmar Tatzl 148 Fig. 10: The department store Brühl & Söhne; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 Fig. 11: The Royal English Cinema; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Fig. 12: Sign in The Office Pub; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Fig. 13: International press at the train station; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 Make English a Part of Your Life 149 Fig. 14: A selection of magazines in English at the bookshop Moser’s; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 The Aims of the Project The project should motivate and encourage you to use the English language in different forms on a daily basis. It should promote learner autonomy, Dietmar Tatzl 150 which means the ability to make your own decisions about how to learn, what to practise and in which areas you would like to improve your English. There are different types of learners, and each individual has his or her favourite way of learning. You should find out what works best for yourself and how you can make use of that knowledge for improving your English. The project should prepare you to feel comfortable and at ease with the language for the time after your studies when no teacher is there to assist you. The Task You pick 6 ideas from the table below or find other activities that are not listed and try them out over a period of 2 months. For instance, you select English as the language for the menu on your mobile phone (input) and agree to speak English with one or two close friends or colleagues on the phone (output). In this way, you employ an everyday activity to practise language skills. It makes sense to focus on input and output channels because in this way you will cover all four skills of language learning (reading, listening, writing, speaking). “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before”. Mae West, American actress (1892-1980): in Klondike Annie (1936 film); qtd. in Ned Sherrin, Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, 2nd ed. (2004), “Virtue and Vice” 26. Input Channels (Reading/ Listening) Output Channels (Writing/ Speaking) menus on electronic devices (mobile phone, camera, DVD-player, computer, and the like) e-mails/ sms/ phone calls to friends or colleagues (selected group) technical manuals (any machine and device) traditional penfriends, online chat rooms daily newspapers diary magazines and journals blogs (web logs) books (English bookshops or libraries) personal website Internet (large amount of online sources) shopping lists TV news channels (BBC, CNN) to-do lists radio news notes to roommate(s)/ flatmate(s) Make English a Part of Your Life 151 Input Channels (Reading/ Listening) Output Channels (Writing/ Speaking) music channels on TV and radio English/ American dinner with friends (students may cook typical meals based on original recipes and speak English) movies in English (DVDs with or without subtitles, some TV stations broadcast selected movies or series in German and English) business correspondence (students may write to British or US companies for information or advertising material; to be used sparingly) English cinemas theme parties (Halloween, British music) English plays (Vienna’s English Theatre) regular English table with friends public evening lectures on various topics hosted by the British Council or the American Embassy contact British Council or American Embassy for possible workshops or short internships they organize (to be used sparingly) book a tour in English through your home city pub quizzes listen to the English audio-guide in museums and at exhibitions English board and card games order from the English menu in restaurants any other methods you can think of pub quizzes English board and card games any other methods you can think of The Project Folder At the end of the project, you hand in a project folder in order to document what you did. Make sure that there are no loose pages in the folder. The folder contains: 1 Cover Page Including title of project/ duration of project/ course/ name of student/ group/ date of submission 1 Essay on the Topic “Why I Want to Improve My English” Use your monolingual dictionary 1.5 spacing; Times New Roman or Arial (font size 12) Approximately 250 words Dietmar Tatzl 152 1 Project Description You write an individual project description in which you present the activities you did, give reasons for your choice, explain which skills you practised most and why, analyse which methods worked best for you, share your experiences with the selection of activities and measure your progress. Divide your description in meaningful parts with a heading for each of them. 1.5 spacing; Times New Roman or Arial (font size 12) Approximately 3 pages 1 A3-Poster Advertising the activities you have chosen, presenting the project results and including title of project/ duration of project/ course/ name of student/ group/ date of submission. You should keep the text on this poster to a minimum but may use any visual aids, such as photographs, diagrams, drawings, and the like to get your point across. The posters will be hung up in the seminar room and on the notice board opposite my office. The Deadline The first week of December, regular English session The Feedback There will be a short individual discussion of the project in my office (5 minutes per student) before Christmas. The exact date and times have to be defined. 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Dietmar Tatzl FH JOANNEUM Graz University of Applied Sciences AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Konferenzbericht Current Research in North American English: The 2008 Meeting of the American Dialect Society Ludwig Deringer The annual meeting of the American Dialect Society was held January 3-5, 2008 in Chicago, at the convention of the Linguistic Society of America as usual, along with the meetings of the American Name Society, the North American Association for the History of the Language Sciences, and the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas. Eclectic, without a cover title, the ADS meeting offered analyses and interpretations of variation in American and Canadian English, in fine-drawn differentiation, reflecting the Society’s openness to approaches and methodologies and providing a cross section of current research interests. In his featured address, Richard W. Bailey (U of Michigan) presented a sociohistorical survey of the vernacular of the conference venue itself: Chicago English. The development that has given a new tack to North American English linguistics since the 1970s was clearly evident in the 2008 program: linguistic geography, as manifested in the Linguistic Atlas and regional dictionary projects, which had constituted the dominant research trend since the 1930s, today is paralleled by variationist sociolinguistics. Two landmarks exemplify the two paradigms: the multi-volume Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE), eds. Frederic G. Cassidy, Joan Houston Hall and Luanne von Schneidemesser, began publication in 1985 and is awaiting completion (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press); the Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change: A Multimedia Reference Tool (ANAE) by William Labov, Sharon Ash and Charles Boberg appeared in 2006 (Mouton de Gruyter). Ludwig Deringer 158 At the annual meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft held March 1-3, 2000 at the University of Marburg - home of Deutscher Sprachatlas - , Labov, introducing the Atlas of North American English in his plenary lecture entitled “The Triumph of Regional Dialects,” had pointed out the “sharp degree of differentiation” in phonology as a basis for systematically (re-)drawing dialect boundaries on the North American continent. Essentially, the newness of the approach lies in its focus on phonemics rather than vocabulary or grammar. More precisely, ANAE maps specific, ongoing changes in the vowel systems of American and Canadian English, such as chain shifts and mergers. Providing Hertz measurements of vowel formants, acoustic analysis allows for establishing accurate isoglosses. As Labov had explained in Marburg, the sound changes, which began around 1945/ 1950, define three major phonological developments and the resultant dialect areas: the “Northern Cities Shift” of the Great Lakes urban area, the “Southern Shift” identifying Appalachia and Central Texas, rather than the plantation coast area, as “the typical Southern areas,” and the “Canadian Shift.” With many papers extending the findings of ANAE, the 2008 ADS meeting highlighted sociophonology and ethnophonology in a continued effort to modify existing dialect boundaries or to chart new ones. Papers focusing on the Great Lakes urban area studied a variety of changes now in progress at different stages of completion, as well as resistance to change. Two brief exhibits will have to do: Aaron J. Dinkin (U of Pennsylvania) was able to finetune the boundary between Western New England and the Inland North in New York state, namely, between the Gloversville - Watertown - Glens Falls and the Amsterdam - Oneonta lines, reasoning that Yankee, in marked contrast to Dutch, settlement areas are open to the Northern Cities Shift. Focusing on Canada, ANAE co-author Charles Boberg (McGill), in his investigation of whether or not Montreal is part of “Inland Canada” or “a separate dialect region,” with reference to ANAE Maps 15.3 and 15.7 concluded that “Montreal should be part of Inland Canada, though with some ethnic exceptions; however, in other terms, Montreal English is notably distinct” (conference handout, p. 11). According to Boberg, the main difference is Montreal’s “resistance to the merger of / ær/ and / er/ ” (p. 11). Paradigmatic vowel changes in the Northern Cities Shift area were also traced for Vermont, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Even studies not immediately drawing on ANAE prioritized sociolects and ethnolects, often through phonology and phonetics. They concentrated on dialect maintenance and change, issues that per se imply dialect perception, endangerment, attrition, and death. Again, an exhibit: Katie Carmichael (Tulane) studied the endangered Louisiana French spoken by the Pointe- Au-Chien Indian Tribe (PACIT) near Pointe-Aux-Chênes. The younger generation were found to be semi-speakers of the vernacular, no longer Konferenzbericht 159 evidencing features that were habitual for the older generation of bilingual speakers now over 50 years of age, for whom PACIT French had been their first language. Among linguistic differences distinctive of the French of the younger generation Carmichael noted “excessive vowel variation,” “Englishinfluenced grammatical structures,” and “lack of first person singular clitic pronoun ‘je’” (conference handout, p. 2), compensated by the stressed pronoun mon (p. 3). Related conference topics included aspects of dialect accommodation, as of African American English in the Lower Susquehenna Valley, the more recent perception of Wisconsin and Michigan speech as an “enregistered” regional dialect (in the terminology of Asif Agha), and immigrant language contact situations, e.g. Chicano English of Southern California, or the pronunciation of English by ethnic Polish speakers of Hamtramck, Michigan in the metropolitan Detroit area. Still other papers pursued separate agendas, such as a typology of negation in vernacular and regional English, or a conceptualization based on newspaper corpora, which, significantly, represented the only study of written dialects on the program. Prosody came up as vowel duration and speech rate were suggested as variables to complement vowel structure analysis in future research, while pedagogy figured in a report on how student researchers can be involved in sociolinguistic projects even in large introductory level classes. The gathering concluded in a panel that brought together a number of key issues of the conference: “Re-Examining Language Data in the Study of American English Dialects.” Panelist Walt Wolfram (North Carolina State U) considered, in Labovian methodology, “real-time” change in today’s speech of the Atlantic island community of Okracoke, North Carolina, against its status of about a decade and a half ago, comparability given. In the 1990s, Wolfram and Natalie Schilling-Estes had already analyzed “apparent-time” (i.e. generational) change in the dialect (published 1995-1999). On the panel, Wolfram raised the questions: “Can moribund dialects be revitalized or reconfigured to preserve sociolinguistic uniqueness? ” and “Does a sustained dialect awareness program have an effect on the progression of dialect erosion? ” In the light of his new empirical data, he was confident that if language ideologies can be changed, people develop “a distinctive regional association” and “become proud of their dialect over time.” Neology, another ADS domain, is regularly featured in “Among the New Words,” a column in the ADS journal American Speech: A Quarterly of Linguistic Usage running since 1941, and currently edited by Wayne Glowka (Reinhardt College), Chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society. With the usual media coverage, ADS held its Words of the Year vote in several categories and determined subprime Word of the Year 2007: an adjective meaning “a risky or poorly documented loan or mortgage” - a reflex of the lingering real estate crisis in the United States. Ludwig Deringer 160 Beyond findings ever so full and discriminate, ADS at LSA 2008 reflected two trends: first, it further demonstrated the potential of the groundbreaking Atlas of North American English. William Labov, in his Principles of Linguistic Change, compares the systemic sound changes presently at work in North American English to processes of historical significance, as in the Great Vowel Shift. This kind of scholarship then surely is among the most exciting today. Digitized and formalized, dialectology now seems to be firmly located at the interface of the humanities and the sciences. Second, the meeting signaled a growing dialect awareness that rightly values the multiplicity of linguistic varieties as an expression of cultural pluralism. Through the everrefined precision of both dialect geography and sociolinguistic dialectology, contours in the deep structure(s) of North American culture(s) readily emerge. This vibrancy in current research can give new momentum to the idea of American Studies and Canadian Studies as the integrative study of language, literature, and culture. Thus, the state of the art marks a fresh opportunity to perceive cultural diversity through dialectal variation, multiculturalism through multilingualism, or the ‘Figure in the Carpet’ through the ‘Sound(s) of America.’ Ludwig Deringer Lehr- und Forschungsgebiet Amerikanistik und Kanadistik RWTH Aachen AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Rezensionen Christoph Bode und Sebastian Domsch (eds.), British and European Romanticisms. Selected Papers from the Munich Conference of the German Society for English Romanticism. Trier: WVT, 2007. Wolfgang G. Müller Der zu besprechende Band, der ausgewählte Beiträge zum Münchner Symposium der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Englische Romantik (6. bis 9. Oktober 2005) abdruckt, kann aufgrund der Qualität der Artikel und seiner interdisziplinären und komparatistischen Anlage als außerordentlich gelungen bezeichnet werden. In seiner Einleitung bezieht sich Christoph Bode auf die bekannte Debatte darüber, ob sich die Romantik als Epoche durch eine Pluralität divergierender Positionen kennzeichnet und man also von Romanticisms sprechen sollte (Arthur O. Lovejoy) oder ob ein essentialistisches Romantikverständnis adäquat ist, das eine lokale und nationale Unterschiede übergreifende Identität annimmt (René Wellek). Wie der Titel des Bandes anzeigt, neigt Bode zum pluralistischen Romantikverständnis, ja, er sieht gerade in der “irreduziblen Heterogenität” (S. 8) der europäischen Romantiken, die ein Netz gemeinsamer Züge und Beziehungen nicht ausschließt, ein Authentizitätszeichen. Ob es allerdings notwendig ist, Esther Schors witzig gemeintes Akronym PFKAR (Period Formerly Known As Romantic) aus dem Jahre 1999 noch einmal unkommentiert zu zitieren (S. 7), ist die Frage. Das Zusammenspiel von Heterogenität und transnationaler Vernetzung, das die Epoche laut Bode kennzeichnet, spiegelt sich auch in den meisten der Beiträge zu dem Band, die nachfolgend (leider) in gebotener Kürze kommentiert werden sollen. Der erste Beitrag - aus der Feder von Frederick Burwick, der sich seit Jahrzehnten um die Erforschung der deutsch-englischen Literaturbeziehungen verdient gemacht hat - stellt eine literaturwissenschaftliche Sensation dar. Burwick ist es in Kooperation mit James McKusick gelungen, eine 1821 von unbekannter Hand angefertigte englische Blankversübersetzung von Goethes Faust I aus der Anonymität zu holen und Coleridge als Verfasser zu identifizieren. Eine Edition der Übersetzung durch Burwick und McKusick bei Oxford University Press ist in Vorbereitung. Rezensionen 162 Der vorliegende Artikel, “a guided tour” durch das Problemfeld (S. 19), zeichnet die detektivische Spurensuche nach, die Burwick im Bereich der zeitgenössischen englischen Übersetzungen und Nachdichtungen des Faust unternommen hat, und würdigt Coleridge in präzisen Fassungsvergleichen und Textanalysen als kongenialen Übersetzer. Mit diesem Beitrag ist die Messlatte hoch gelegt für die folgenden Artikel, die allerdings durchgängig das Niveau zu halten wissen. So kann Duncan Wu in seinem Beitrag “Stendhal and the British Romantics” nachweisen, wie sehr Stendhals Vorstellung von der Natur und der Wirkung der Imagination von William Hazlitts Petrarca- und Cervantes-Deutung und sein Romantikbegriff von Hazlitts Äußerungen über zeitgenössische englische Lyriker bestimmt wurde. Es kommt dabei nicht darauf an, dass Stendhal ein genaues Verständnis der britischen Literaturszene abging und er nicht immer zu unterscheiden wusste zwischen dem, was Hazlitt und dem, was Jeffrey, dem Herausgeber der Edinburgh Review, zuzuschreiben war, entscheidend ist, dass er in der Lektüre der Edinburgh Review einer ihm gemäßen théorie romantique zu begegnen glaubte, einer Alternative zu der Romantik seiner Landsleute Hugo und Lamartine und des Deutschen Schlegel. Bode spricht in seiner Einleitung in diesem Zusammenhang von einem der “fruchtbarsten Missverständnisse” der Epoche (S. 10). - Ein interpretatorisches Kabinettstück ist der folgende Beitrag von Marc Poirée, “De Quincey ‘à la française’”, der in den französischen Übersetzungen von de Quinceys Confessions of an English Opium Eater in einer scharfinnigen und spannenden Argumentation Hinzufügungen, Transformationen und Auslassungen beobachtet, die den englischen Text französisieren, gleichzeitig aber erhellend auf den Originaltext zurückverweisen. In seiner spielerischen und assoziativen Vorgehensweise erinnert der Text an die dekonstruktivistischen Interpretationen von Terence Hawkes - das ‘à la manière française wird gelegentlich zum ‘à la manière derridadienne’ - aber die Interpretationen zeichnen sich trotz des spielerischen Duktus durch Klarheit aus und die Performanzqualität des Texts dominiert nicht zu sehr. Ein weit gespannter und hervorragend dokumentierter und präzise analysierender Artikel ist Heike Grundmanns Studie über den Orientalismus bei Byron, Delacroix und Victor Hugo. Der Beitrag weist deutlicher nach, als bisher bekannt war, in welch hohem Maße Delacroix’ Orientalismus von Byron beeinflusst ist, und zeigt erhellend, dass sich die für einen Teil der französischen Romantik charakteristische Interdependenz des Erhabenen und Grotesken Byron und speziell der Wirkung Byrons auf Delacroix verdankt. Bedauerlich ist in diesem Artikel nur die schlechte Qualität der Reproduktionen der ausgezeichnet kommentierten Gemälde. - In seinem äußerst kenntnisreichen, wenn auch gelegentlich etwas sprunghaft argumentierenden Artikel über “Byron, Büchner, and Romantic Disillusionism” kann Rolf Lessenich zwar keinen direkten Einfluss von Byron auf Büchner nachweisen, aber eine Affinität in der beiden Autoren gemeinsamen Desillusionierungstechnik wird überzeugend aufgezeigt. Ob man Büchner als Romantiker bezeichnen sollte, bleibt dennoch fraglich. - Zwei sehr aufschlussreiche Artikel beschäftigen sich mit der Romantik im osteuropäischen Raum, die im allgemeinen von der komparatistischen Romantikforschung vernachlässigt wird. So gibt Mihaela Irimia einen faszinierenden Einblick in die Genese der Romantik in Rumänien, die unlöslich mit der Entwicklung der Nation zusammenhängt und die ihre Identität in der Abwendung von der griechisch-byzantinischen Tradition und der differenzierten und teilweise synkretistischen Hinwendung zu westlichen Rezensionen 163 Modellen sucht. Sie vermag äußerst komplexe kulturgeschichtliche und historischpolitische Zusammenhänge nicht nur souverän darzustellen, sondern auch geistreich und witzig zu formulieren, etwa wenn sie sich auf Byron bezieht, “that revolutionary Lord - that Romantic oxymoron alive” (S. 100). Ähnlich verflochten mit der politischen Frage nach der nationalen Einheit ist die Literatur in der polnischen Romantik, wie Miros awa Modrzewska am Beispiel des romantischen Dramas (speziell Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz S owacki und Zygmunt Krasi ski) ihres Landes zeigt, das sich, ebenfalls unter äußerst schwierigen Umständen, zum großen Teil im Exil und unter dem Einfluss englischer, deutscher und französischer Traditionen entwickelte und kaum zeitgenössische Aufführungen erlebte. Auf der Grundlage von Goethes Faust, Byrons Manfred und Shakespeares Hamlet und anderer Vorgängerfiguren entstanden neue Personae, die ihre eigenen Mysterien und Mythen ausbildeten. Es ist bemerkenswert, dass, wie Vf.in zeigt, das romantisch-patriotische Moment auch ironisiert wird, etwa in S owackis Balladyna, wo sich das romantische Prinzip der Desillusionierung also auch gegen die Nation als größtes Heiligtum wenden kann (S. 113-114). Auf diese Beiträge folgt eine Reihe von Studien, die im engeren Sinne komparatistisch sind und spezifische englisch-europäische Literaturbeziehungen behandeln. Jeffrey Cox eröffnet seinen scheinbar einfach betitelten Beitrag - “British Drama in a European Context - mit einer aufschlussreichen Betrachtung der Begriffe “Text” und “Kontext” unter Rückgriff auf die in den Wörtern beschlossene Textilmetapher und macht so die ganze Komplexität der Betrachtung von Gattungen in ihren nationalen und internationalen Kontexten deutlich. Einbezogen in die Diskussion wird auch das Verhältnis von historischem und literarischem Kontextbegriff. Höchst instruktiv erläutert werden an Einzeltexten unter Bezug auf die historischen Momente der 1790er Jahre, des Jahrs 1802 (Friedensvertrag von Amiens) und der Zeit nach Waterloo die Problematik des nationalen Dramas, speziell die des sogenannten ‘deutschen’ Dramas (German Drama), die Übersetzung als grenzüberschreitendes Phänomen und die Frage eines kosmopolitischen romantischen Dramenstils. - Eine scharfsinnige Kritik von Coleridges viel zitierter Unterscheidung von Symbol und Allegorie führt Nicholas Halmi in dem Beitrag “Coleridge’s Most Unfortunate Borrowing from A.W. Schlegel”. In Coleridges Versuch, das Symbol als ästhetisches Produkt zu bestimmen, sei ihm ein Kategorienfehler unterlaufen, für den der Rückgriff auf Schlegels Definition verantwortlich sei. - Sehr aufschlussreich ist auch der Vergleich des Gebrauchs der Kleidermetapher bei Wordworth und Schiller in dem Beitrag von Monika Class, “The Role of Clothes in Wordworth’s and Schiller’s Poetry and Poetics”, der Vorstellungen wie ‘Nackheit’ des Stils, Stil als Einkleidung und Stil als Inkarnation von Gedanken bei Wordsworth (The Prelude, Essays upon Epitaphs) und Schiller (Kallias-Briefe) erläutert und wichtige stil- und dichtungsgeschichtliche Perspektiven eröffnet. - Eine weitere Verbindung zwischen einem englischen und einem deutschen Dichter stellt Joseph Swann her, dem es gelingt, Analogien im Erinnerungs- und Kreativitätskonzept bei so unterschiedlich anmutenden Dichtern wie Wordsworth und Hölderlin nachzuweisen. - Joel Faflak’s Beitrag “Coleridge and Philosophical Internationality” ist schwierig zu lesen, nicht weil die Argumentation etwa problematisch ist, sondern weil der Gegenstand, Coleridges Beziehung zur philosophischen Internationale und das Spannungsfeld zwischen den zur Sprache gebrachten Positionen - des Dichters neuerdings behauptete Stilisierung als viktoria- Rezensionen 164 nischer Weiser (“British Victorian Sage”) und britischer Imperialist (“British Imperialist”) und seine Anhängerschaft zu allem deutschen Denken sowie die jede Zuordnung unterminierende Orientierung am Mesmerismus - so facettenreich und vieldeutig ist, dass er keine entschiedene Aussage erlaubt. - Derartige Probleme gibt es in Alexandra Böhms Artikel “‘Romantic ideology’ and the Margins of Romanticism: Byron, Heine and Musset” nicht, der zu den besten des Bandes gehört. Böhm zeigt scharfsinnig Widersprüchlichkeiten auf, die in John McGanns Zurückweisung des traditionellen Romantikverständnisses beschlossen sind. Sie macht in einer intensiven und ausgezeichnet dokumentierten Argumentation, die von Mussets Kritik des Romantikbegriffs ausgeht, überzeugend deutlich, dass die Situierung von Byrons späten Texten und Heines Byron-Rezeption in einer europäischen Perspektive einen Übergang zu einer neuen, postromantischen Literatur dargestellt, der sich auch bei Autoren wie Puschkin findet und auf Baudelaire voraus weist. - Hat Böhm sich schon mit den Rändern (margins) der Romantik beschäftigt, so widmet sich Ute Berns mit Thomas Lovell Beddoes einem lange Zeit marginalisierten Dichter, dessen zu unrecht unterschätztes Gedicht “Isbrand’s Song” aus dem Stück Death’s Jest-Book sie sehr plausibel in Beziehung setzt zu dem Denken des Göttinger Medizinprofessors Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, dessen Vorlesungen über Physiologie und Naturgeschichte der englische Dichter begeistert besucht hatte. Beddoes’ Gedicht, dessen Sprecher, ein abgetriebener Foetus, als “a bodiless childful of life” bezeichnet, sich vorstellt, dass er eine Mischung aus verschieden Tieren, “the new Dodo”, werden könnte, wird erhellend mit Blumenbachs wissenschaftlichem Konstrukt des “Bildungstriebs” zusammengebracht. Beddoes’ Vision befindet sich im Gegensatz zu den von Hegel beeinflussten zeitgenössischen Entwicklungskonzeptionen. Berns bezieht sich auch auf den metapoetischen Charakter des Gedichts und interpretiert es im Kontext von Death’s Jest-Book. Sie macht deutlich, dass Beddoes Vorstellungen einer Höherentwicklung des Menschen - wie sie später Nietzsche formulierte - skeptisch gegenüberstand. Die vier folgenden Artikel sind nicht explizit auf die Romantik bezogen, wenn sie auch in je eigener Weise wichtige Themen behandeln: Tilottama Rajan (“Trial and Confession in Godwin’s Novels”) widmet sich unter Bezug auf Kant in scharfsinnigen und tief gründenden Analysen dem Problem von Gerechtigkeit in Godwins Romanen. Der Artikel ist ein wichtiger Beitrag zu dem in der letzten Zeit intensiv diskutierten Thema von Literatur und Recht. Angela Esterhammer (“The Improvatrice’s Fame: Landon, Staël, and Female Performers in Italy”) liest Gedichte der spätromantischem Dichterin Letitia Elizabeth Landon im Kontext der italienischen improvvisatori und improvvisatrici und findet die Lyrik der Engländerin weit entfernt von dem vielfach in ihr gefundenen spontanen romantischen Gefühlsausdruck. Jens Gurr (“Two ‘Romantic’ Fragments: Bürger and Shelley on Revolution”) erläutert argumentative Inkonsistenzen in politischen Texten von Bürger (“Die Republik England”) und Shelley (“A Philosophical View of Reform”), die erklären, warum diese Texte Fragmente bleiben mussten. Politische Implikationen hat auch, wie Frank Erik Pointner in einem vergnüglichen Beitrag ausführt, das satirische Gedicht “The Fudge Family in Paris” von Thomas Moore, das in den Pariser Episteln der Mitglieder der Familie Fudge, die sich auf den umstrittenen Außenminister Castlereagh beziehen, Nationalstereotypen einander gegenüberstellt. Den Abschluss des Bandes bildet ein knapper Beitrag zum englischen Garten als einer frühen Manifestation der romantischen Bewegung von Rezensionen 165 Raimund Borgmeier, der darauf hinweist, dass der englische Garten zu unrecht in vielen Darstellungen der Romantik unberücksichtigt bleibt. Insgesamt nehmen die Beiträge dieses Bandes aus einer Fülle unterschiedlicher Perspektiven Stellung zu Texten und Problemen der britischen und europäischen Romantik. Wenn auch in der Einleitung keine genauere Definition der einzelnen “Romantiken” gegeben wird, auf die der Titel des Buches anspielt, machen die Artikel die nationale und internationale Heterogenität der Literatur - und zum Teil auch der Kunst - der Epoche der Romantik aus verschiedenen Hinsichten deutlich. Dabei werden immer wieder die Vernetzung der einzelnen Literaturen im gesamteuropäischen Kontext und das wechselseitige Geben und Nehmen und die Anverwandlungen und Transformationen des Fremden erörtert. Nach der Lektüre des Bandes wird der in einer wissenschaftlichen Publikation eher seltene euphorische Ton, in dem die Einleitung geschrieben ist, verständlich. Eine kleine Bemerkung sei am Schluss noch gestattet. Die Artikel sind alle in englischer Sprache verfasst. Nur werden mehrfach Zitate aus deutschen Werken im Haupttext in englischer Übersetzung angeführt und in Fußnoten in der Originalsprache wiedergegeben. Lessenich verzichtet in seinen Büchner-Zitaten sogar gänzlich auf den Wortlaut des Originals, so dass es so aussieht, als habe Büchner englisch geschrieben. Ein solches Vorgehen sollten Philologen vermeiden, vor allem in einem Band, in dem so viel an gediegener und innovativer Forschungsarbeit geleistet wird. Wolfgang G. Müller Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena Margarete Rubik, Elke Mettinger-Schartmann (eds.), A Breath of Fresh Eyre. Intertextual and Intermedial Reworkings of Jane Eyre. (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 111). Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2007. Thomas Kullmann Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) stands out among nineteenth-century British novels for its amazing capacity of raising controversies on issues which at the beginning of the 21 st century are still considered as central: gender, class, colonialism. The status of this classic in literary scholarship and academic instruction as well as its popularity with “a wider reading public” (10) are unchallenged. It is not surprising that Jane Eyre has engendered a considerable number of “intertextual and intermedial reworkings” (as indicated by the book’s subtitle), adaptations, films, theatrical and operatic versions as well as novels, plays and pictorial artefacts which in some way engage in a dialogue with Brontë’s novel and her heroine. AAA Band 34 (2009), Heft 1 Rezensionen 166 These ‘spin-offs’ are the subject-matter of the present volume. A survey of the various and seemingly contradictory kinds of Jane Eyre reception is provided by Barbara Schaff (“The Strange After-Lives of Jane Eyre”, 25-36). Three articles are concerned with the best-known of Jane Eyre reworkings, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), which has itself achieved classical status. Wolfgang G. Müller (“The Intertextual Status of Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea: Dependence on a Victorian Classic and Independence as a Post-Colonial Novel”, 63-79) provides a comprehensive and commonsensical analysis of the relationship of Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre, concluding that being both derivative and independent Rhys’s novel is a “stunning literary achievement” (77). Bárbara Arizti (“The Future That Has Happened: Narrative Freedom and Déjà Lu in Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea”, 39-48) examines this book from the point of view of “ethical criticism” (39), focusing on the hypothetical “side events” (44) referred to in the novel, which unmask “the fallacy of a onedimensional reality” (47). Thomas Loe compares “Landscape and Character in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea” (49-61). Loe convincingly notes that in both novels the characters’ “perceptions of landscape [...] give us insight into their innermost cognitive processes that are crucial to their identity and their own understanding of their senses of self” (50) and that details of Jane’s landscape “form an anthropomorphic objective correlative to her own disoriented state” (58) while landscapes in Wide Sargasso Sea are filtered through “Antoinette’s meandering mind” (58). On the whole, however, Loe’s remarks on landscape and character are rather vague; the narrative processes which give meaning to landscapes in the two novels could certainly be analysed in greater detail. Next to Wide Sargasso Sea, Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair (2001) is obviously the most original and successful of Jane Eyre spin-offs. Margarete Rubik provides an introduction to this postmodern novel which connects the motifs of detective fiction, time travel and “transfictional migration”: 20 th -century characters enter the fictional space of Brontë’s novel in order to rewrite it, bringing about the union of Jane and Rochester rather than the supposedly ‘original’ marriage of Jane and St. John Rivers (“Invasions into Literary Texts, Re-plotting and Transfictional Migration in Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair, 167-179). As Rubik notes, Fforde’s novel is “both a satirical deflation of the model and a supreme tribute to its continuing appeal and fascination” (178). Mark Berninger and Katrin Thomas also engage with this book, focusing on its stategies of “reification”, i.e. rendering concrete abstract and metaphorical concepts such as the interaction between text and reader (“A Parallelquel of a Classic Text and Reification of the Fictional - the Playful Parody of Jane Eyre in Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair”, 181-196). Juliette Wells draws attention to the fact that Fforde’s 20 th century heroine, Thursday Next, shares many character features with Brontë’s Jane, whose role in The Eyre Affair is surprisingly marginal (“An Eyre-Less Affair? Jasper Fforde’s Seeming Elision of Jane”, 197-208). Jürgen Wehrmann compares Fforde’s book to two other Science Fiction versions of Jane Eyre material (“Jane Eyre in Outer Space: Victorian Motifs in Post-Feminist Science Fiction”, 149-165): Lois McMaster Bujold’s Shards of Honor (1986) and David Weber’s Honor Harington cycle (1993-), their common denominator being their “post-feminist point of view” (163), according to which “similar difficulties may occur in patriarchal societies and in those significantly changed by a feminist revolution” (178). Rezensionen 167 D.M. Thomas’s Charlotte (2000) is a novel about sex and colonialism as well as feminism and literary criticism, thus taking up central issues of the reception of both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea as well as Shakespeare’s Tempest. Sue Thomas (“Pathologies of Sexuality, Empire and Slavery: D.M. Thomas’s Charlotte”, 101-114) records her resistance to this book with its “detritus of plantation pornography, the racism inherent in its conventions, and domestic sexual exploitation, all paraded before readers with a tasteless and breathless exhibitionism” (112). Proceeding from “possible worlds theory” (82-85) Ines Detmers compares Charlotte to two other Jane Eyre sequels (“‘The Second Mrs. Rochesters’: Telling Untold Stories of Jane Eyre’s (Im-)Possible Married Lives”, 81-99): Hilary Bailey’s Mrs. Rochester: A Sequel to Jane Eyre (1997) and Kimberley A. Bennett’s Jane Rochester: A Novel Inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (2002). As Detmers points out, all three novels envisage the female protagonist undergoing “various emancipatory ‘metamorphoses’” (97) which may allow her to live happily ever after but go way beyond anything Brontë herself could have had in mind. Maggie Tonkin discusses Mardi McConnochie’s Coldwater (2001), which transfers parts of the Jane Eyre plot, and of the Brontë family history, to a penal colony off the Australian coast (“Brontë Badland: Jane Eyre reconfigured as Colonial Gothic in Mardi McConnochie’s Coldwater”, 115-127). As Tonkin shows, this novel in figuring Bertha Mason as a “polyvalent metaphor [...] brings forth into melodramatic fulfilment all that is repressed in colonial history, and occluded in the text of Jane Eyre” (126). Ursula Kluwick provides a comparative analysis of four novels which, like Jane Eyre, are preoccupied with “female confinement and anger” (130): “Jane’s Angry Daughters: Anger in Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac, Margaret Drabble’s The Waterfall, Bharati Mukherjee’s Jasmine and Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy” (129-148). Kluwick concludes that while the heroines of Brookner’s, Drabble’s and Mukherjee’s novels “fail to engage with their anger productively”, Kincaid’s Lucy “is the only one to seize her anger and turn it into a productive force which she can direct against the confining claim of others in order to gain independence” (147). Verena-Susanna Nungesser investigates the parallels between Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938): In both novels young women find themselves in a “haunted (prison-like) mansion” (212) and are confronted with a beloved man’s dark secret, the disclosure of which leads to the heroine’s maturation (“From Thornfield Hall to Manderley and Beyond: Jane Eyre and Rebecca as Transformations of the Fairy Tale, the Novel of Development, and the Gothic Novel”, 209-226). Both novels, Nungesser contends, make use of fairy-tale and Gothic motifs “to portray the anxieties of female development and female authorship” (224). Two contributions are devoted to film versions of Jane Eyre. Sarah Wotton’s focus is on the character of Rochester (“‘Picturing in me a hero of romance’: The Legacy of Jane Eyre’s Byronic Hero”, 229-241) while Carol M. Dole investigates “Children in the Jane Eyre Films” (243-257). After discussing the Byronic traits of Brontë’s Rochester, Wotton proceeds to discuss the treatment of Byronic motifs in the 1983 BBC and 1997 ITV versions. While Timothy Dalton’s 1983 Rochester can certainly be considered flamboyantly Byronic (233f.) Ciarán Hinds’ 1997 Rochester stresses the brutal side of Brontë’s hero, in a version which “neither endorses nor glamorises male supremacy” (239). Dole’s contribution on the roles of children (little Jane, Helen, Adèle) in five film versions (of 1934, 1944, 1970, 1996 and 1997) is a Rezensionen 168 fascinating study of the changing cultural concepts of childhood and female development. All of the films, however, emphasize “Jane’s suffering rather than her learning” (247), privileging certain aspects of the novel at the expense of others. Marla Harris investigates the phenomenon of Jane Eyre adaptations for young readers (“Reader, She Married Him: Abridging and Adapting Jane Eyre for Children and Young Adults”, 259-271), looking at “illustrated prose adaptations” (262f.), “comic book adaptations” (263f.) and “graphic novel adaptations” (265). These adaptations affirm Jane Eyre’s status as a classic but, as they involve substantial abridgements, they “threaten, ironically, to strip it of the very qualities that made it a classic in the first place” (270). Norbert Bachleitner takes a close look at three of these Jane Eyre comics (“Jane Eyre for Young Readers: Three Illustrated Adaptations”, 273-286), of 1947, 1962 and 2003. While the 1947 Jane may “remind us of a cover girl”, the 1962 Jane “has become a respectable person who never loses her self-control” (281). The 2003 version, published for pedagogical purposes, is similar to the 1962 one in that “action and body language are [...] reduced to the bare minimum” (283). Originally, Jane Eyre was published without illustrations, but illustrated editions appeared from 1872 onwards. These are the subject of Michaela Braesel’s contribution (“Jane Eyre Illustrated”, 287-296). As Braesel demonstrates, “the illustrations always serve as an addition, as a complement to the text, which does not really need such visualisation, owing to Brontë’s detailed descriptions” (295). Visualisation takes on a most fascinating form in a series of lithographs produced in 2001/ 02, discussed by Aline Ferreira (“Paula Rego’s Visual Adaptations of Jane Eyre”, 297-313). One of the pictures, called “Loving Bewick”, “consists of a powerfully sensual scene depicting Jane receiving the kiss of a pelican” (300); like the other lithographs, it can certainly be considered a significant interpretive comment on Brontë’s novel. Two papers are devoted to Michael Berkeley’s opera Jane Eyre (2000), to which David Malouf contributed the libretto. Walter Bernhart explores the “mythic” aspects of Jane Eyre, which he argues allowed Malouf and Berkeley to create a successful opera which “uses the immediacy of music to evoke an awareness of basic conditions of existence in archetypal terms” (“Myth-making Opera: David Malouf and Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre”, 317-329; 327). Bruno Lessard focuses on “questions of female subjectivity and madness” (“The Madwoman in the Classic: Intermediality, Female Subjectivity, and Dance in Michael Berkeley’s Jane Eyre”, 331-346; 331). As he points out, Berkeley’s opera can be placed in a tradition of operatic treatment of female insanity, which includes Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Strauss’s Salome. Jane-Eyre-inspired stage-plays by contemporary playwright Polly Teale are the subject of two further contributions. Kathleen Starck discusses Jane Eyre (1998), in which Jane and Bertha appear as two sides of the same person, “hot passion” and “cool rationality” (“‘From a Land of Hot Rain and Hurricanes’- Polly Teale’s Stage Adaptation of Jane Eyre”, 363-374; 372). Jarmila Mildorf’s paper is about After Mrs. Rochester (2003), a play about the life and personality of Jean Rhys (“Mad Intertextuality: Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea, After Mrs Rochester”, 347-.362), in which the motif of madness forms the starting-point for a number of intertextual references. Elke Mettinger-Schartmann conducts the reader into the (to most of us) unfamiliar area of Victorian melodrama (“John Brougham’s Stage Adaptation of Jane Rezensionen 169 Eyre - a Marxist Reading of Brontë’s Novel? ”, 375-390). While Jane Eyre: a Drama, in Five Acts (written in 1849 and performed in 1856), a play which emphasizes the issue of the class barrier, can hardly be considered a faithful rendering of Brontë’s novel, it provides a fascinating insight into 19 th -century working-class and lowermiddle-class culture. Rainer Emig examines echoes of Jane Eyre found in a piece of contemporary shock theatre (“Blasting Jane: Jane Eyre as an Intertext of Sarah Kane’s Blasted”, 391-404). In spite of these echoes opinions may be divided on whether Kane’s shop of horrors can really be considered “a breath of fresh Eyre” (as promised by the volume’s title). In the final chapter, playwright Michelene Wandor writes about her experiences of adapting Jane Eyre for a radio broadcast in 1994 (“Reader: Who Wrote You? An Autocritical Exercise upon Jane Eyre”, 407-411). The volume presents its readers with a very rich survey of the stupendous and multifaceted afterlife of a literary classic. In view of the ideological warfare Jane Eyre has given rise to, it is particularly gratifying to note that all of the articles collected are factual and informative and avoid partisanship. It is only rarely that the discourse of political correctness interferes with scholarly objectivity: We read that “in her pamphlet ‘Some Reflections on Marriage’ (1700) Mary Astell unashamedly stated: ‘They who marry for love, [...] find time enough to repent of their rash folly [...]’” (81). Why should Mary Astell have been ‘ashamed’ to state this view? When in another arcticle Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy turns out to be more politically-correct than novels by Anita Brookner, Margaret Drabble and Bharati Mukherjee (see 147) one wonders if Lucy isn’t also the most predictable and least interesting of the four novels discussed. On the whole, however, readers will notice that the reception of Jane Eyre is certainly concerned with the areas of ‘gender and power’ and ‘colonialism’ but is by no means confined to these issues. In this respect, literary scholars will find the sections on Jane Eyre reworkings in genres and media other than the novel particularly rewarding. It is amazing in which ways these intermedial ‘spin-offs’ can add to our understanding of the original work; and it is certainly remarkable that all of the articles on Jane Eyre reworkings have something to say on the interpretation of Jane Eyre itself. Thomas Kullmann Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Universität Osnabrück Rezensionen 170 1 Zit. als “DBVJ” Von der Vollendung zum vollendeten Scheitern. Zu: Gesa Schubert, Die Kunst des Scheiterns. Die Entwicklung der kunsttheoretischen Ideen Samuel Becketts. Berlin: LIT, 2007. Hans H. Hiebel Gesa Schuberts Vorhaben ist die Darstellung der zentralen theoretischen Konzepte Becketts im Hinblick auf Kontinuität und Akzentverschiebung; dieses Vorhaben ist als gelungen zu bezeichnen - bis auf den Umstand, dass manche kaum verständlichen Thesen Becketts letztlich apokryph bleiben mussten. Im Zentrum aller Ausführungen stehen die Sprachkritik, die Subjekt-Objekt-Krise in Malerei und Literatur und das - als Lösung aller Widersprüche gesehene - Prinzip eingestandener Ohnmacht bzw. unverhohlenen Scheiterns. Das Vorgehen der Vf. ist chronologisch: am Anfang steht ein - m.E. alles zum Thema Relevante erfassender - Forschungsbericht; dessen wichtigste Informanten, auf die später auch wieder zurückgegriffen wird, sind Acheson (1997), Brockmeier (2001), Fletcher (1964), Hartel (2000), Henning (1988), Oppenheim (2000), Pilling (1997) und Pothast (1989), um nur die allerwichtigsten Autoren und nur ausgewählte Arbeiten derselben zu nennen. Im Hinblick auf biographische Details und entstehungsgeschichtliche Daten greift G. Schubert auf Knowlsons autorisierte Biographie (1996), aber auch auf das umstrittene Buch von Deirdre Bair (1978) zurück. Die erste Analyse gilt der 1929 erschienen Würdigung von Joyces Finnegans Wake bzw. Work in Progress: Dante…Bruno. Vico…Joyce. 1 Als wichtigstes Anliegen des Essays hebt die Vf. den “unmittelbaren Ausdruck” (“direct expression”; S. 26), hervor, den Joyce aus Vicos Scienza nuova übernommen habe; auch Vicos Vorstellung von der “zyklischen Entwicklung der Gesellschaft” habe Beckett zufolge auf Joyce gewirkt (S. 27). Vico ging davon aus, dass am Ursprung der Sprache deren sinnliche und konkrete Ausdrucksweise stehe, wie sie sich in den “Hieroglyphen” präsentiert habe (S. 27). Beckett habe diese Direktheit im Sinn, wenn er schreibt: “His [Joyce’s] writing is not about something: it is that something itself.” (Zit. S. 27; DBVJ: 26f.) Bei Joyce sei, Beckett zufolge, so fährt die Vf. fort, die neue Sprache das “ästhetische Äquivalent seiner purgatorischen Weltauffassung” (S. 29). Dieses irdische Purgatorium aber sei nach Beckett gekennzeichnet durch “the absolute absence of the Absolute” (zit. S. 30, DBVJ: 33). Mit “sittlicher Belehrung” habe solche Darstellung nichts zu tun (S. 31). Joyce zeige nur innerhalb der Sprache den Prozess von “Keimen, Reifen und Verwesung” (S. 30). (Wie wir dies zu verstehen haben, zeigen indes weder Beckett noch die Vf. Diesem Mangel an Anschaulichkeit werden wir indes in der Studie der Vf. immer wieder begegnen.) Entscheidend sei, dass Beckett hier die Sprache - der Joyce nicht das mindeste “Misstrauen” entgegenbringe - noch als “verbesserungsfähiges Instrument” betrachte (S. 31). Beckett habe dann 1956 über Joyce geäußert: “He was making words do the absolute maximum of work. […] He’s tending toward omniscience and omnipotence as an artist.” (Zit. S. 33) Beckett selbst habe sich aber zu diesem Zeitpunkt von einem derartigen Ziel AAA Band 34 (2009), Heft 1 Rezensionen 171 schon gänzlich abgesetzt (was im Übrigen in der Beckett-Literatur schon häufig betont worden ist): “I’m working with impotence, ignorance.” (Zit. ebd.) Unwissenheit wird also später, so die Vf., als solche zu einer schöpferischen Quelle, während sie 1929 noch als Ursprung von Neugier, Wissensdurst und Sprachmächtigkeit gilt (S. 33f.). Le Concentrisme ist der Titel eines Vortrags, mit dem sich Beckett 1930 einen Jux am Trinity College in Dublin erlaubte; ein angeblich existierender “Jean du Chas” wird dort als Urheber eben dieser Theorie des “Konzentrismus” angegeben, der es darauf angekommen sei, das “zentripetale” Erleben von der Banalität des “sozialen Lebens” bzw. dem “horizontalen Leben” abzugrenzen (S. 35). Die Vf. nimmt den Jux, der voll erotischer Anspielungen steckt, ernst, in gewissem Sinne zu Recht, denn die Trennung von ästhetischem Bewusstsein einerseits und Alltagsbewältigung andererseits wird auch spätere Äußerungen Becketts immer wieder prägen. In seinem Vortrag verwirft Beckett die biographische Kunstbetrachtung und jegliche akademische Pedanterie. Am Ende des Vortrags fällt der entscheidende Satz, dass die - über der Unterhaltung stehende - Kunst verstehbar, aber unerklärlich sei: “parfaitement intelligible et parfaitement inexplicable” (zit. S. 38). Im Essay Proust, der 1931 erschien, unternahm es Beckett ein weiteres Mal, ein Werk von Weltrang zu beleuchten: Prousts Recherche. Nicht das Autobiographische und Gesellschaftsbezogene des Werks, sondern sein ästhetischer Aspekt, der sich im künstlerischen Selbstfindungsprozess Marcels zeige, ist Gegenstand der Untersuchung. Als wichtigstes Thema, so die Vf., erschien Beckett die “Zeit” bzw. die unwillentliche Erinnerung: “involuntary memory”, “mémoire involontaire”, nach Beckett das “Leitmotiv” des Romans (S. 43). Ihr spreche er einen besonderen “Wahrnehmungs- und Erkenntnismodus” zu, welcher eine “authentische Erfassung der Wirklichkeit” ermögliche (S. 43). Die Vf. blickt in diesem Zusammenhang - eingehender als alle bisherige Forschung - auf den Einfluss Schopenhauers (s. S. 47ff.). Mit mathematischen und musikologischen Erläuterungen versucht die Vf. den genial-sprunghaften und hermetischen Sätzen Becketts beizukommen; trotz all ihrer Mühen bleiben aber Thesen - wie z.B. die ersten Sätze des Essays: “The Proustian equation is never simple. The unknown, choosing its weapons from a hoard of values, is also the unknowable” - letztlich dunkel oder zumindest ohne Anschauungshilfen. Auf diesen ersten Absatz kommt die Vf. immer wieder zurück, wenn sie die Janusköpfigkeit der Zeit (“that double-headed monster of damnation and salvation”, zit. S. 48) und die Anspielung auf den Speer des “Telephus” erläutert (S. 48). Der Rost des Speers war im Mythos das Heilmittel für den vom Speer Verwundeten. Die Zeit (als Erinnerung) heilt, was die Zeit (als Erleben) an Wunden hinterlassen hat (S. 48ff.). Nach Beckett geht es um die “dual significance of every condition and circumstance of life” (zit. S. 49). Lebensvollzug mit Hilfe von Gewohnheit bzw. Langeweile steht der substanziellen Lebensbewältigung - durch ästhetische Kontemplation - gegenüber; Beckett unterscheide also zwei Bewältigungsarten: “boredom of living” und das substanzielle “suffering of being” (zit. S. 50). Er gehe davon aus, dass Proust durch Schopenhauers Ideen beeinflusst worden sei, nach welchen die Welt Vorstellung eines Subjekts ist und zugleich Objektivation des Willens (als des unerkennbaren Dinges an sich) (s. S. 51). Zeit gilt als Grund von Gewohnheit einerseits und von Erinnerung andererseits. Prousts “creatures […] are victims of […] Time” (zit. S. 52). Das ist die Seite der Verdammnis. Sie erstreckt sich auf die Beziehung Rezensionen 172 Beobachter-Beobachtetes und Begehrender-Begehrtes, was Beckett am Beispiel der eifersüchtigen Liebe Marcels Albertine gegenüber illustriere (s. S. 52). Das Objekt des Begehrens kann nach Beckett, so die Vf., “höchstens partiell besessen werden” (S. 53). Dazu kommt die Tatsache, dass das Individuum sich keine Identität bewahren könne, sondern eigentlich als eine “Sukzession von Individuen” zu verstehen sei (S. 53). Da das Subjekt Beckett zufolge immer wieder stirbt, um einem neuen Subjekt Platz zu machen, ergibt sich eine unentwegte Kette von Leiden (s. S. 54). Bei Schopenhauer wechselt - wie bei einem Pendel - das Subjekt zwischen “Schmerz” und “Langeweile” (ebd.): “The pendulum oscillates between these two terms: Suffering […] and Boredom” (zit. S. 55). Versagung ist für Schopenhauer die Regel, die allerdings Ausnahmen zulasse, für Proust bzw. Beckett ist Versagung jedoch das “einzig mögliche Schicksal des subjektiven Verlangens” (S. 55). Langeweile ergibt sich aus dem Versuch, sich für Leiden unempfindlich zu machen. Gewohnheit ist sein Mittel, sie gehört zur Strategie der Lebensbewältigung im Alltag; Proust spricht von “l’influence anesthésiante de l’habitude” (zit. S. 56). Becketts Satz, “Proust does not deal in concepts, he pursues the Idea, the concrete” (zit. S. 58), versucht die Vf. erneut durch einen Hinweis auf Schopenhauer zu erläutern; Schopenhauer ordnet den “Begriff” dem Alltag, der Lebensbewältigung zu und behauptet, für die “Kunst” sei er “unfruchtbar” (zit. S. 59). Die Vf. macht in der Folge deutlich, dass Beckett der “ästhetischen Betrachtungsart”, der Kunst, den Vorzug vor lebenspraktischen Strategien gibt. (S. 60) Beckett selbst verweist auf die Antithese von Begriff bzw. verstandesmäßigem Erfassen von “cause and effect” einerseits und Schopenhauers Auffassung, dass die “artistic procedure” eine unbegriffliche Kontemplation der Welt sei, “independently of the principle of reason”, andererseits (zit. S. 61). Carola Veits Diktum, “Der Dualismus ist das tragende Prinzip für Becketts gesamtes Werk” (Veit 2002: 11), trifft also auch auf die theoretischen Überlegungen Becketts zu. In den ersten Bereich, den Bereich der gewöhnlichen Lebensbewältigung, gehöre nach Beckett, so die Vf., die “Normalform der Erinnerung”, eine Unterform der “Gewohnheit”; sie liefere - wie der Intellekt überhaupt - nur ein verzerrtes Bild des “Realen”, das der Vermeidung von Leid und Unordnung diene (S. 63f.). Dass Befriedigung unmöglich ist, demonstriere Beckett am Mythos des Tantalus. Zeit ist trügerisch: Hoffnung entstehe durch die illusionäre Vorstellung, Erfüllung sei zu einem “späteren Zeitpunkt” möglich; so entfalte die Zeit ihr “verdammendes Potential” (S. 67). (Franz Kafka hat eine ähnliche Idee in seiner Parabel vom ewigen Aufschub, Vor dem Gesetz, entfaltet.) Die Vf. versucht an dieser Stelle eine Deutung des Satzes von der “Proustschen Gleichung” zu liefern, indem sie auf die “rationalen Zahlen” verweist - auf diese Weise aber die Aussage nur noch kryptischer macht, als sie ohnehin schon ist. Nach der Vf. illustriert Beckett an der Beziehung Marcel-Albertine die zuvor getroffenen Bestimmungen. Die Subjekt-Objekt-Beziehung wird als die Beziehung unerfüllten Begehrens ausgemalt: “One only loves that which is not possessed, one only loves that in which one pursues the inaccessible” (zit. S. 68, Anm. 67) - “our thirst for possession is, by definition, insatiable” (zit. S. 69). Entscheidend für diese Logik ist die Tatsache, dass “habit” unsere Vorstellungen formt bzw. dass “arbitrary images of memory and imagination” uns das Reale verstellen (zit. S. 69). Der eifersüchtige Marcel ist folglich “Opfer seiner Gewohnheit” (S. 69). Im Widerspruch dazu Rezensionen 173 steht die These Becketts, dass die Liebe der Kunst verwandt sei, dass die liebende Wahrnehmung Albertines - in visionären Momenten - für Marcel ein reiner Akt “of understanding - intuition” sei (zit. S. 70). Der Künstler könne indes von dieser visionären Wahrnehmung nur Zeugnis ablegen und dürfe sich selbst nicht in die Lebenspraxis verstricken. In diesen Zusammenhang gehört nun wesentlich die Erörterung der “unwillentlichen Erinnerung”; hier bekommt die “Zeit” den Charakter eines “erlösenden Potentials” (S. 71ff.). Nach Beckett ist “a subconscious and disinterested act of perception” die Vorbedingung der diesem Akt folgenden unwillentlichen Erinnerung. “The man with a good memory does not remember anything because he does not forget anything.” (Zit. S. 62) Beckett greift hier das Proustsche Bild geschlossener Gefäße auf, die später unter Umständen geöffnet werden können. Erfahrung ist “imprisoned in a vase filled with a certain perfume […]. These vases are suspended along the height of our years, and, not being accessible to our intelligent memory, are in a sense immune.” (Zit. S. 72f.) Die Eindrücke sind sozusagen, so erläutert die Vf., mit einer Schutzschicht umgeben. Weshalb sie indessen in der “Höhe unserer Jahre” aufgehängt sind, wird von der Vf. nicht erklärt. An diesem Beispiel zeigt sich m.E., dass die Vf. in der Regel die wichtigen Aspekte eines Zitates durchaus ausdeutet, dass sie aber doch schwierigere Komponenten umgeht und unkommentiert stehen lässt. Die unwillentliche Erinnerung könne, das versteht sich von selbst, nicht willentlich herbeigeführt werden; sie sei von “inneren und äußeren Zufällen abhängig” (S. 73). Eine “diminished tension of consciousness following upon a phase of extreme discouragement” sei eine Vorbedingung - ebenso wie das “miracle of analogy” (zit. S. 74), d.h. das zufällige Auftauchen einzelner kontingent-kontextueller oder analoger Elemente. Für Proust werde mit der unwillentlichen Erinnerung die “außerzeitliche” “Essenz” der Dinge sichtbar, d.h. die Realität, das wahre Leben erkannt (“notre vraie vie, la réalité”, S. 77). Beckett verschmelze diese Ausführungen mit dem Gedanken, dass die unwillentliche Erinnerung die Erkenntnis der Idee (nicht des Begriffs! ) ermögliche; “the ideal and the real, imagination and direct apprehension, symbol and substance” kämen hier zu einer Einheit, ergäben “the ideal real, the essential, the extratemporal” (zit. S. 77). Bei Schopenhauer ist, so zeigt die Vf., die “Anschauung” Ausdruck des kontemplativen Subjekts, dieses ist “reines, willenloses, schmerzloses, zeitloses Subjekt der Erkenntnis”; nur das “Was” interessiert, nicht das “Wo”, das “Wann”, das “Warum” und das “Wozu” (zit. S. 81f.). Im Aufbieten der Parallelen bei Schopenhauer ist der Spürsinn der Vf. bewundernswert. Sie weist an dieser Stelle allerdings auch auf eine Abweichung hin: Während Schopenhauer von Schmerzfreiheit spreche und Proust vom Glücksmoment der unwillentlichen Erinnerung, sei die Aufdeckung der wahren Realität nach Beckett sowohl “schön” als auch “bedrohlich”, ihre Erkenntnis sei stets auch mit Schmerz verbunden (S. 84). So ergibt sich für Beckett erneut die schon erwähnte Polarität von “boredom of living” und “suffering of being”; Letzteres wird als “our first nature” und “deeper instinct” vom gewöhnlichen Lebensinstinkt geschieden (zit. S. 85). “Suffering […] opens a window on the real and is the main condition of the artistic experience.” (Zit. S. 87) Zeit offenbare sich hier als “pensum”, als eine Art Purgatorium, dem im Aufdecken einer “invisible reality” aber auch erlösende Funktion zukomme (zit. S. 88). Dies entspreche wieder Schopenhauer, für den die Verneinung des Willens zum Leben zugleich Rezensionen 174 2 Ein Beispiel statt vieler anderer: Einmal erzeugt, einmal vernichtet die Eifersucht die Liebe. Cf. Marcel Proust (1972-1975). Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp (werkausgabe edition suhrkamp), Bd. 9: Die Gefangene I (1975), p. 121 (“Die Angst [der Eifersucht] ist von neuem da, und ebenso die Liebe.”); p. 255 (“wie die Eifersucht die Liebe verdoppelt”); p. 201 (“Durch tausend [eifersüchtige] Vermutungen, die ich anstellte, suchte ich mein Leiden auszuschmücken, ohne damit meine Liebe wirklicher zu machen.”) eine Steigerung des ästhetischen Zustands bedeutet habe (s. S. 89). Weisheit, “wisdom”, sagt Beckett, bestehe nicht in der Befriedigung, sondern in der “ablation of desire” (zit. S. 90). Der Künstler definiere sich aber Beckett zufolge, so fährt die Vf. fort, nicht nur durch die außergewöhnliche Wahrnehmung der wahren Realität, sondern auch durch die “Suche nach dem adäquaten Ausdruck” (S. 91). Diese wird als Übersetzungsarbeit definiert. Becketts Fazit erscheint der Vf. - zu Recht - als widersprüchlich: Zum einen werde noch “Kunst als Gelingen” (und nicht als “Scheitern”) verstanden, zum anderen heiße es: “There is no communication because there are no vehicles of communication.” (Zit. S. 95) (Nebenbei bemerkt, scheinen mir Prousts Reflexionen und Sentenzen in der Recherche - zu Liebe, Eifersucht, Realität, Phantasie, Kunst, Erkenntnis und selbst zu Erinnerung - schon an sich häufig widersprüchlich-nichtstringent, zumindest vielgestaltig-diffus bzw. poetisch-nichtdiskursiv zu sein. 2 ) Das ästhetische Gelingen realisiert sich bei Proust, so Beckett, im Ersetzen von “intelligence” durch “affectivity” (zit. S. 96), in einer Art “Impressionismus” und in exakter, doch kontemplativer Perzeption, im Gebrauch von “Hieroglyphen” für die “Idee” als dem Nicht-Begrifflichen (S. 94), in Relativismus und Perspektivismus, in verfremdender Metaphorik und vor allem in einer der Musik analogen Verfahrensweise (S. 96ff.). Musik ist für Beckett - nach der uns aus Le Concentrisme bekannten Formulierung - “perfectly intelligible and perfectly inexplicable”, sie ist die “immateriellste […] aller Künste” (zit. S. 100 u. 102). Sie ist Prousts Muse. Wieder gilt Schopenhauer als Quelle, seiner Auffassung nach offenbart die Musik, so die Vf., das “tiefste Innere unseres Wesens”; Musik sei autonom, von der “erscheinenden Welt ganz unabhängig” (zit. S. 101f.). Im nächsten Kapitel hebt die Vf. aus den Kritiken und Briefen von 1934-37 einige Grundideen Becketts hervor, so vor allem den Gedanken des “Subjekt-Objekt- Problems”, d.h. der sich in der Moderne zeigenden “Kluft” zwischen Wahrnehmung und Welt (S. 108). So spreche Beckett in dem Artikel “Recent Irish Poetry” vom “breakdown of the object” und der “rupture in the lines of communication” (zit. S. 113). Diesen Bruch gelte es, so Beckett, anzuerkennen (wie dies z.B. Rimbaud, Eliot oder Pound getan hätten) und nicht zu vertuschen. In der Malerei, der sich Beckett nun verstärkt zuwendet, sei dieser Bruch offensichtlich zum Thema geworden. Beckett meint, beispielsweise Cézanne sei sich dieser Kluft voll bewusst gewesen und habe dies offengelegt, indem er Landschaft als “unapproachably alien” gesehen und auf jede Romantisierung und Symbolisierung verzichtet habe (zit. S. 118). Ähnliches äußere Beckett, so die Vf., im Hinblick auf den irischen Maler Jack Yeats. Die Vf. hebt sodann den Aspekt der aufkeimenden Sprachkritik hervor, der Beckett von seinen optimistischen Vorstellungen in Dante…Bruno. Vico…Joyce abgebracht habe. Vor allem die Rezeption Mauthners wird als die Quelle der neuen Rezensionen 175 3 Texte aus Disjecta werden zitiert unter “Disjecta” und Seitenangabe. Sprachskepsis hingestellt. Für Mauthner sei “Welterkenntnis” durch Sprache unmöglich; daher das Plädoyer für radikale “Sprachkritik” und letztlich für den “Selbstmord der Sprache” (zit. S. 123f.). Die Vf. sieht diese Gedanken in Becketts deutsch verfasstem Brief an Axel Kaun gespiegelt. Dort heißt es: “Ein Loch nach dem andern in ihr [der Sprache] zu bohren, bis das Dahinterkauernde, sei es etwas oder nichts, durchzusickern anfängt - ich kann mir für den heutigen Schriftsteller kein höheres Ziel vorstellen.” 3 (Disjecta: 52) Beckett gehe hier allerdings, so die Vf., von einer verhüllten “Sphäre jenseits der Sprache” (und nicht von einem Nichts) aus (S. 124). (Hier spiegelt sich vielleicht Prousts Vorstellung von der fast unzugänglichen wahren Realität.) Zersetzende Sprachkritik im sprachlichen Medium selbst sei nun das Ziel; ihre Vollendung, wie Beckett selbst sage, realisiere sich im “Schweigen” (S. 124). Obwohl Destruktion das Ziel dieses Verfahrens sei, könne man hier jedoch noch nicht von einer Poetik des “Scheiterns” sprechen (S. 127). Der Weg hin zu ihr, so scheint mir indessen, ist allerdings schon deutlich zu erkennen. In der Folge analysiert die Vf. den 1938 verfassten Text Les deux besoins, den auch Peter Brockmeier für einen zentralen und maßgeblichen hält (2001). Im Grunde gehe es hier um ein drittes Verlangen, den “grand besoin”, der sich Beckett zufolge aus der Überlappung der zwei Bedürfnisse bzw. Nöte ergibt und der als Brennpunkt das “schöpferische Selbstdenken”, die “autologie créatrice”, beinhaltet (zit. S. 129). Was hier ausgiebig zitiert, aber leider nur bruchstückhaft übersetzt und kaum erläutert wird, bleibt m.E. bei allem Bemühen letztlich doch rätselhaft. Die Illustration des Konzepts durch Hinweise auf das Verhältnis von rationalen und irrationalen Zahlen verdunkelt eher, als dass er erhellte. Das große Verlangen, auch “être besoin” genannt, unterscheidet sich, so der Gedankengang, radikal von den beiden anderen Bedürfnisse vom Typ “avoir besoin” (zit. S. 130). Dem “besoin dont on a besoin” (“avoir besoin de qc.”) wird das Zweite, der “besoin d’avoir besoin” (“besoin d’avoir qc.”), gegenübergestellt. Der “besoin dont on a besoin” könne, wenn er sich seiner selbst bewusst werde, über sich hinausgelangen (zit. S. 131). Beckett gibt seine Idee in Form eines Diagramms, in dem sich zwei gleichseitige Dreiecke überlagern, wieder. Die Überlagerung ergibt den “grand besoin”, “l’autologie créatrice”, wo der Künstler “se met à la question, se met en question, se resout en question, en question rhétoriques sans fonction oratoire” (zit. S. 133). Zugleich gilt dieser Ort als “Hölle der Unvernunft”, “enfer d’irraison”, und erweist sich als Ort einer “série de questions pures” (zit. S. 134). Die Vf. meint hier folgern zu müssen, dass die Kommunizierbarkeit dieses Ortes durchaus möglich ist und dass dieses Konzept Becketts offensichtlich die “Lebenspraxis” nicht ausschließe, sondern klar als Bedingung erkenne (S. 132, 135). Die “reinen Fragen” bringt die Vf. in plausibler Weise in Verbindung mit Becketts Satz über die “Löcher”, die in die Sprache zu bohren seien (S. 135). Beckett mache deutlich, dass dem großen Verlangen, “das auf nichts anderes verweist als auf die Notwendigkeit seines Wesens, ein irrationaler Faktor eigen sein muss” (S. 137): “l’être qui est besoin et la nécessité où il est de l’être” (zit. S. 134). Das große und reine Verlangen verweile “immerfort im Status des Verlangens” (S. 137). Die Vf. meint, dass dieses unstillbare Verlangen jener besondere Bewusstseinsmodus ist, den Beckett in Proust als “erste Natur des Menschen” Rezensionen 176 bezeichnet habe. Er erlaube dem Künstler “Einsicht in sein ureigenes Erleben” (S. 139). Den hier implizierten “Schaffensdrang” bezeichne Beckett in einer Studie zum Lyriker Denis Devlin als “need” (zit. S. 141). Auch von “pure interrogation” sei in diesem Essay wieder die Rede (zit. S. 142). Im Grund wird in der Studie der Vf. aber nicht klar, wie man sich die “deux besoins” vorstellen soll, wie sich das “Bedürfnis, dessen man bedarf” und das “Bedürfnis, ein Bedürfnis zu haben” eigentlich voneinander unterscheiden und was die Überlappung beider bedeutet; weder liefert die Verf. klärende Übersetzungen noch erhellende Erläuterungen. Bezeichnenderweise wird dann im praktischen Teil (S. 192ff.) auch kein einziges Mal auf diesen Text über die “besoins” Bezug genommen. Wie verhält sich das Konzept zu den Überlegungen in Proust bzw. bei Schopenhauer, wo vom Willen einerseits und der Willen-losen Kontemplation andererseits die Rede ist? Existiert hier eine Kompatibilität? Lässt sich der “grand besoin” vielleicht auf das “interesselose Wohlgefallen” Kants beziehen, das sich bekanntlich durch die Distanz gegenüber materiellen und auch gegenüber moralisch-praktischen Interessen bzw. Bedürfnissen oder Nöten auszeichnet? In der Besprechung der theoretischen Texte von 1945 bis 1966 geht es vor allem um Becketts Reflexionen über die Malerei, speziell um seine Freunde Bram und Geer van Velde. Den ersten Essay, “La peinture des van Velde ou le Monde et le Pantalon”, erschienen 1945/ 46, hat Beckett später als “Geschwafel” mit “apodiktischen Sätzen” charakterisiert (zit. S. 147). (Vermutlich hat der späte Beckett, der sich nach 1966 kaum mehr theoretisch artikulierte, in dieser Weise von allen seinen theoretischen Versuchen gedacht.) Statt für die Malerei einen “gesellschaftlichen Nutzen” zu beanspruchen, habe Beckett, so die Vf., vom “Kunstfreund” behauptet, er wolle “nur genießen” (zit. S. 148). Dementsprechend sei es für Beckett beispielsweise unsinnig, Jack Yeats, der nur unter “ästhetischen Gesichtspunkten” zu begreifen sei, als irischen Nationalmaler zu klassifizieren (S. 149). Maler oder Kunstfreund: “Il ne pense qu’a son plaisir” (zit. S. 151). Beckett könne, so sagt er selbst, nur wiedergeben “ce que je les vois faire” (zit. S. 154). In “Le Monde et le Pantalon” wie auch in “Peintres de l’empêchement” zeige Beckett die unterschiedlichen Wege auf, die die beiden Maler-Brüder gegangen seien, wobei er aber letztlich seine Vorliebe für Bram van Velde verrate, dessen abstrakte Bilder von 1940/ 41 er wegen ihrer “mondartigen Leere” (“un vide lunaire”) bevorzuge (zit. S. 155). Seine Objekte finde Bram van Velde “im Inneren seines Schädels” (zit. S. 155). Beide Maler gingen von der Erkenntnis aus, dass “grundlegende Probleme der Darstellung nicht lösbar seien” (S. 156). Diese Malerei “ohne bildnerische Mittel” und ohne “Ausdruck”, so die Vf., denke die moderne Idee “von der Loslösung der gestalterischen Mittel von ihrer Repräsentationsfunktion” konsequent weiter (S. 157). In “Peintres” fasse dann Beckett wenig später zusammen: “Ici […] [e]st peint ce qui empêche de peindre” (zit. S. 157). (Zu bedauern ist, dass die Vf. hier keinerlei Reproduktionen der schwer zugänglichen Werke der Brüder van de Velde einfügt, aber auch nicht durch nähere Deskription den reichlich abstrakt bleibenden Thesen einige Anschaulichkeit vermittelt.) Eine Paradoxie tut sich auf, die auch die Vf. nicht auflöst: Durch die Verneinung von Ausdruck und bildnerischen Mitteln gelinge es dennoch, das “reine Objekt” zur Ansicht zu bringen: “C’est la chose seule, isolée par le besoin de la voir, par le besoin de voir.” (Zit. S. 159) (An dieser Stelle wäre auch ein Rückblick auf die Reflexionen über das Sehen im Essay Les deux besoins sinnvoll gewesen; vgl. dazu S. 133.) Rezensionen 177 In “Peintres de l’impêchement”, veröffentlicht 1948, geht es erneut um die “Maler der Verhinderung”, G. und B. van Velde; beide seien bereit, der Subjekt-Objekt-Krise nicht mehr auszuweichen (S. 163). “L’objet de la représentation resiste toujours à la représentation” (zit. S. 164). Die surrealistische Malerei hält Beckett für “intellektuelle Ideenkunst” und vergleicht deren Oberflächlichkeit mit jener der Realisten (S. 164f.). Die Unmöglichkeit der Objekt-Repräsentation sei indessen immerhin von Malern wie Matisse, Braque oder Kandinsky durchaus erkannt worden, doch erst die van Velde hätten diese Unmöglichkeit bzw. Ohnmacht fruchtbar gemacht. Während G. van Velde sich um ein “Enthüllen ohne Ende […] auf das Unenthüllbare hin” bemühe, gehe es B. van Velde um ein “Einhüllen” und eine “Einkerkerungskunst” (zit. S. 168). Ein letztes Mal beschäftigt sich Beckett mit den van Velde bzw. nur mehr mit Bram van Velde in Three Dialogues von 1949, in denen “B.” und “D.”, der Vf. zufolge, für Beckett und den Kunstkritiker Duthuit bzw. für den irrationalen Phantasten einerseits und den kühlen Logiker andererseits stehen. Tal Coat gilt, ähnlich wie der frühe Matisse, als Maler unvollständiger Objekte, Masson als Maler der “Leere” (“the void”, zit. S. 179), der sich noch am Begriff des Ausdrucks festhalte und doch zugleich an ihm aufreibe, aber sich jedenfalls nicht der Ohnmacht des Künstlers unterwerfe. Bram van Velde habe sich demgegenüber als erster dieser Situation gestellt und ihr voll zugestimmt: “to be an artist is to fail” (zit. S. 179; s. S. 170-180). Eine hoffnungslose Situation: “in the event [he] cannot paint, since he is obliged to paint” und: “in the event [he] paints, since he is obliged to paint.” (Zit. S. 180) Woher die Hilflosigkeit? “Because there is nothing to paint and nothing to paint with.” (Zit. S. 180) Die Mittel (als Mittel der Darstellung oder des Ausdrucks) sind obsolet. Die Vf. bringt an dieser Stelle die “obligation to paint” mit dem großen “besoin”, das sich rationalem Verstehen entziehe, in Verbindung (S. 181). Bram van Velde sei - Beckett zufolge - der erste gewesen, dessen Hände nicht durch die Gewissheit, “that expression is an impossible act”, gelähmt worden seien (zit. S. 182). Die Abscheu vor vorgetäuschtem “Können” kennzeichne diesen Maler, den “B.” auch als “inexpressive” charakterisiere (zit. S. 183). Inhalt, Mittel, Veranlassung, Vermögen, ja auch Bedürfnis spielen keine Rolle mehr. Die nicht-expressive Expression expliziert “B.” folgendermaßen: “The expression that there is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.” (Zit. S. 183) Die Verpflichtung zu konsequentem Scheitern ist das Ziel: Bram van Velde sei der erste gewesen, der erkannt hatte: “to admit to be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail, that failure is his world and the shrink from it desertion, art and craft, good housekeeping, living” (zit. S. 185). Damit ist nach der Vf. der teleologische Gang der Reflexion an sein Ziel gekommen. Zu Recht geht sie davon aus, dass alle Reflexionen Becketts über die Kunst sich letztlich auf ihn selbst und seine eigene Entwicklung beziehen. Mehrfach bringt sie eine Bemerkung Bekketts aus einem Gespräch mit Israel Shenker zur Geltung: “I’m working with impotence, ignorance. I don’t think impotence has been exploited in the past. There seems to be a kind of esthetic axiom that expression is achievement - must be an achievement.” (Zit. S. 190) Meines Erachtens könnte Endgame als Beispiel für die Realisierung der zentralen Anliegen Becketts genommen werden. Dort herrschen die “Fragen” ohne Antwort, dort werden in die erwartbare Sprache “Löcher” gebohrt, dort gibt es weder eine Objekt-Repräsentation noch eine Form von Ich-Ausdruck, dort verkehrt sich der Joyce’sche Wortreichtum in Armut, dort erscheint die Handlung als ein Rezensionen 178 4 Hier versteckt sich eine zentrale Gemeinsamkeiten ansprechende - Anspielung auf Joyce. Cf. James Joyce (1960). Ulysses. London: The Bodley Heade, p. 60 und 175 (“allwombing tomb”, “tomb womb”). auswegloses Scheitern und verläuft nach eigenen Gesetzen: “Irgend etwas geht seinen Gang”. (1976: 110) Aber nicht an diesem Stück, sondern an der Prosa Becketts versucht die Vf. die theoretischen Ideen des Autors zu illustrieren (S. 200-239). Dies geschieht auf leider nur wenigen Seiten und leider in der Form, dass fast ausschließlich explizite Äußerungen herangezogen werden und nicht die Gestalt der Werke mit ihrer Fülle von Implikationen betrachtet wird. Zunächst geht es um die Prosa von 1929 bis 1936: Assumption, Dream of Fair to Middling Women, More Pricks than Kicks und Murphy. In Dream gehe der Erzähler mit der Künstlichkeit und Lebensferne von Balzac und dem Credo der Naturalisten ins Gericht (s. S. 200f.). Es gehe Beckett und seinem Erzähler um die Enthüllung von Bereichen, die dem konventionellen Roman verschlossen blieben (s. S. 202). Die Figuren würden so komponiert, dass ihr Eigenleben und ihre Vielgesichtigkeit keine Festlegungen und keine Integration in ein kohärentes Textgefüge erlaubten; der Versuch, sich dem Formlosen und der Diskontinuität der Realität anzunähern, drohe den Text zu sprengen (s. S. 204). Die Absicht des Erzählers, die auch Flächen schrecklichen Schweigens (“terrible silences”, zit. S. 206) anstrebe, werde aber de facto nicht realisiert. Anders als in Dream käme allerdings in Assumption, More Pricks than Kicks und in Murphy mit dem Tod der Hauptfigur eine Annäherung an ein solches Schweigen zustande. In Assumption fürchte der Held, in einen Schrei ausbrechen zu müssen; als dieser “Dammbruch” schließlich erfolge, sterbe er (S. 208). In More Pricks than Kicks sterbe der Held an einer Überdosis von Narkosegas und Murphy komme - in ähnlicher Weise - durch eine Gasexplosion um. Alle Figuren der frühen Texte kennzeichne künstlerischer Ehrgeiz und die Zerrissenheit zwischen den Anforderungen der Lebenspraxis einerseits und dem Bedürfnis, sich in den Mikrokosmos des Geistes zurückzuziehen, andererseits. Belacqua in Dream möchte sich in den Bereich des “Limbo and the wombtomb” 4 zurückziehen, Murphy meditiere in seinem Schaukelstuhl (zit. S. 210). Murphy, den es in die Irrenanstalt ziehe, wo er der “großen Welt” zu entkommen suche, schwärme darüber hinaus auch von der Abgeschlossenheit der Gummizelle, der “little world” (zit. S. 211). Dennoch könne er nicht den letzten Schritt tun, er sei auf das Guckloch in der Zelle und damit auf das percipi, das Wahrgenommenwerden, d.h. die “große Welt”, noch immer angewiesen (S. 212). Hier zieht die Vf. eine Parallele zu Becketts Proust und den Begriffen der “ersten” und der “zweiten Natur”, d.h. Kontemplation und Lebensinstinkt (S. 211). Einen Bezug zu den “deux besoins” und den Reflexionen über die Malerei stellt die Vf. leider nicht her. Im Kampf zwischen den beiden Naturen zerreiben sich - ihr zufolge - die Helden der frühen Prosatexte; stets seien sie genötigt, Zugeständnisse an die zweite Natur zu machen. Konsequenterweise scheiterten dann auch die literarischen Projekte der jeweiligen Erzähler (s. S. 213). In Murphy zeige sich andererseits, dass das Eintauchen in die “kleine Welt”, wenn es denn kompromisslos geschehe, notwendig zur Zerstörung führen müsse: Murphy sei in dem Moment völlig isoliert, als er in Mr. Endons Augen dessen völlige Abgekehrtheit und Isoliertheit wahrnehme, d.h. sein, Murphys, Nicht-Wahrgenommen- Rezensionen 179 Werden klar erkennt. Die Konsequenz sei, dass er sich auflöse, d.h. der Gasexplosion zum Opfer falle (s. S. 215f.). (Es wird hier nicht deutlich, ob dieser Aspekt der “ersten Natur” aus Proust parallel gesetzt wird.) Die Tode der Helden der frühen Prosa erweisen sich der Vf. zufolge dementsprechend als “poetologische Morde” (S. 216). Ihnen fielen auch die ratlosen Erzähler, die das sich andeutende unnennbare Chaos nicht zu bewältigen in der Lage seien, zum Opfer. (Sie verstehen es sozusagen noch nicht, produktiv zu “scheitern”.) Im nächsten Kapitel behandelt die Vf. die Prosa nach 1946: Molloy, Malone meurt, L’Innommable, Le Dépeupleur und Worstward Ho. Die neue Welt, die sich nun zeige, sei mehr und mehr eine “monde mentale”, “das Leben” werde mehr und mehr ausgeblendet (S. 220). In L’Innommable seien die Ablösung von der Außenwelt und der Reduktionsprozess an ein Extrem gelangt. Angaben zu Ort und Ich seien nun unmöglich geworden. Das sprachlich nicht fassbare Sein des Namenlosen ist, so die Vf., eben nicht sagbar (s. S. 221). Indem der Erzähler zu keinen Gewissheiten gelange, realisiere sich sein “Scheitern” (S. 223). Und so findet die Vf. in L’Innommable denn auch ihr entscheidendes Stichwort vom “Scheitern”: “je suis en train d’échouer”. (Zit. S. 223) Über sein Alter Ego, Worm, urteilt der Erzähler treffend: “Ne sentant rien, ne sachant rien, ne pouvant rien, ne voulant rien.” (Zit. S. 224) Das erinnert in der Tat an die Three Dialogues (“nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express”) und an das Bekenntnis: “I’m working with impotence, ignorance”. Und auch jener Zwang, jene “Obligation”, wird in L’Innommable - und zwar unentwegt - zur Sprache gebracht: “il faut continuer, je ne peux pas continuer, il faut continuer, je vais donc continuer.” (Zit. S. 226) Inszeniert werde, so die Vf., ein permanentes Scheitern; im Gegensatz zu den Erzählern des Frühwerks gäben die Erzähler jetzt nicht mehr auf, sie gelängen nicht an den Punkt eines endgültigen und totalen Scheiterns; es gehe bei diesem permanenten Scheitern um ein bloßes Weitermachen, ein Sinn-freies Weitermachen. Natürlich hat die Vf. hier eine treffende Parallele von Theorie und Praxis hervorgehoben, allein, sie spitzt alles ausschließlich auf dieses “Scheitern” zu, zeigt jedoch nicht, worin die Kunst des Scheiterns - eine eklatante Paradoxie - denn eigentlich besteht, was uns dieses “Scheitern” denn interessant macht, und sie betrachtet praktisch nur die Explikationen, nicht aber, wie gesagt, die Gestalt der Werke und ihre vielfältigen Implikationen. Man ist versucht, sich unbedingt eine weitere Studie zu wünschen, die dieser Aufgabe detailliert nachkäme, nachdem sie Becketts Theoreme noch einmal aufgerollt hätte. Zum Depeupleur bemerkt die Vf., dass das Stück als Parabel des Menschenlebens gesehen werden könnte; sie weist aber wieder, ihrem Thema treu bleibend, auf das Scheitern des Erzählers hin: Die von ihm entworfene Welt sei nicht stimmig, sie erscheine bewusst als bloße Konstruktion. “Das Prinzip des sicheren Verfehlens - das Scheitern - ist dem Text eingeschrieben.” (S. 231) Natürlich ist auch der Inhalt des Textes ein Scheitern: Im höllengleichen Zylinder erschlaffen die Personen, die Leitern hochklettern, mehr und mehr, die Zahl der Erschöpften, “Besiegten”, nimmt zu - ohne dass dieser Prozess doch jemals an ein Ende gelangen würde (S. 229ff.). In Worstword Ho ist der Vf. zufolge das Scheitern besonders konsequent in Szene gesetzt worden. Auch hier gibt es nur ein “Weitermachen” ohne Fortschritt. Das Selbstgespräch des Erzählers, ohne Ort, ohne Personalität, ohne Bild, bringt Rezensionen 180 erneut das essentielle Stichwort: “Fail again. Fail better.” (Zit. S. 234) Das Sprechen selbst schon erscheint als Verfehlung. Das “Missgesagte” führt bis zum Nicht-Machbaren, zum “nohow on”, und bis zum “unworsenable worst.” (Zit. S. 234f.) Hier werde die Spitze des “unverhohlenen Scheiterns” erreicht: “I’m working with impotence, ignorance.” (Zit. S. 237) In Worstward Ho gibt es sozusagen fast nur Explikationen, das erleichtert es der Vf., Parallelen zwischen theoretischen und literarischen Äußerungen Becketts festzustellen. Auch L’Innommable enthält zahllose Explikationen, die an Becketts theoretische Äußerungen erinnern. Gleichwohl muss nochmals gesagt werden, dass Form und Substanz der literarischen Werke nicht wirklich erkundet werden, um dann mit Gewinn auf die theoretischen Ideen Becketts bezogen werden zu können. Außerdem ist zu bedauern, dass im Praxisteil - zur Verwunderung des Lesers - nur sehr vereinzelt auf die Theoreme Becketts zurückgegangen wird; das zur Theorie Zusammengetragene wird also leider nur in wenigen Verweisen für die Betrachtung der literarischen Praxis fruchtbar gemacht. Wie zu sehen war, wird insbesondere ein Bezug zum Essay über die “deux besoins” überhaupt niemals hergestellt. Auch ist verwunderlich, dass wichtige Prosawerke wie die Textes sur rien und L’Expulsé, Le Calmant, La Fin oder auch Comment c’est und Company überhaupt nicht betrachtet werden. Es ist bedauerlich, dass die Vf. die Dramen - Godot, Endgame, Krapp’s Last Tape, Happy Days - und die späten kurzen Stücke (wie etwa Play, That Time, Not I, Nacht und Träume usw.) überhaupt nicht betrachtet hat. Es wird nur ganz knapp darauf hingewiesen, dass in den Dramen die fruchtlose Suche nach Bedeutungen inszeniert werde, dass als ihr Grundprinzip der Satz aus Endspiel gelten könne: “Irgend etwas geht seinen Gang.” (Zit. S. 238) Eine Verknüpfung zwischen den dramatischen Werken und Becketts theoretischen Äußerungen, insbesondere den Texten über Malerei, dem Brief an Axel Kaun und der Arbeit über die “deux besoins”, hätte Fruchtbares zutage fördern können. Man darf allerdings die Studie nicht überfordern; auch die Welt wurde nicht an einem Tage gemacht, sondern in 13,7 Milliarden Jahren. So hinterlassen die knappen Ausführungen über Becketts Praxis letztlich mehr Fragen als Antworten. Das soll indessen nicht heißen, dass in der Studie der Vf., vor allem im theoretischen Hauptteil, nicht eine beeindruckende Bestandsaufnahme geleistet und eine Summe von höchst relevanten Reflexionen zusammengetragen worden ist. Es ist richtig, dass sich Beckett nach 1966 kaum mehr theoretisch äußerte; hat er sich endgültig von seinem “Geschwafel” und seinen “apodiktischen Sätzen” (zit. S. 147) distanziert? Zum Abschluss sei eine späte - von G. Schubert nicht berücksichtigte - Bemerkung (von m.E. großer Tragweite) zitiert, die implizit auch andeutet, weshalb sich Beckett schließlich weitgehend theoretischer Äußerungen enthielt: “Endspiel wird blosses Spiel sein. Nichts weniger. Von Rätseln und Lösungen also kein Gedanke. Es gibt für solches ernstes Zeug Universitäten, Kirchen, Cafés du Commerce usw.” (Beckett 1983: 114) Bibliographie 1. Theoretische Texte von Samuel Beckett (1965). Proust. In: Samuel Beckett. Proust. Three Dialogues: Samuel Beckett & Georges Duthuit. London: John Calder. 7-93. Rezensionen 181 (1983). Bram van Velde. In: Beckett (1983). 151. (1983). Dante … Bruno . Vico … Joyce. In: Beckett (1983). 19-33. (1983). Disjecta: Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. Hg. von Ruby Cohn. London: John Calder. (1983). German Letter of 1937 [S.B. an Axel Kaun; 9. Juli 1937]. In: Beckett (1983). 51-54. (1983). La peinture des van Velde ou le Monde et le Pantalon. In: Beckett (1983). 118-132. (1983). Les Deux Besoins. In: Beckett (1983). 55-57. (1983). Peintres de l’Empêchement. In: Beckett (1983). 133-137. (1983). Three Dialogues. In: Beckett (1983). 138-145. (2000). Bram van Velde. In: Samuel Beckett. Das Gleiche noch mal anders. Texte zur bildenden Kunst. Hg. von Michael Glasmeier / Gaby Hartel. Übers. von Dieter Mettler. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. 64. 2. Literarische Texte von Samuel Beckett (1953). L’Innommable. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. (1953). Molloy. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. (1973). Murphy. London: John Calder (1. Aufl. G. Routledge and Co. 1938). (1976). Werke. Bd. I: Dramatische Werke. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. (1979). The Unnamable. In: Samuel Beckett. The Beckett Trilogy: Molloy. Malone Dies. The Unnamable. London: John Calder. 265-382. (1983). Worstward Ho. London: John Calder. (1989). Le Dépeupleur. In: Samuel Beckett. Der Verwaiser. Le Dépeupleur. The Lost Ones [dreisprachige Ausgabe]. Übers. von Elmar Tophoven. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. (1992). Dream of Fair to Middling Women. Hg. von Eoin O’Brien / Edith Fournier. London, Paris: John Calder. 3. Forschungsliteratur zu Samuel Beckett und sonstige Literatur Acheson, James (1978). “Beckett, Proust and Schopenhauer.” Contemporary Literature 19: 2. 165-179. Acheson, James (1997). Samuel Beckett’s Artistic Theory and Practice. Criticism, Drama and Early Fiction. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Bair, Deirdre (1978). Samuel Beckett. A Biography. London: Jonathan Cape. Brockmeier, Peter (2001). Samuel Beckett. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler. Cohn, Ruby (1983). “Foreword”. In: Samuel Beckett (1983). Disjecta. Miscellaneous Writings and a Dramatic Fragment. Hg. von Ruby Cohn. London: John Calder. 7-16. Fletcher, John (1964). “Beckett et Proust”. Caliban: Annales publiées par la Faculté de lettres de Toulouse 1 (Januar 1964). 89-100. Fletcher, John (1965). “Samuel Beckett as Critic”. The Listener (25. November 1965). 862-863. Fraisse, Luc (1997). “Le Proust de Beckett: Fidélité médiatrice, infidélité créatrice”. In: Marius Buning / Matthijs Engelberts / Sjef Houppermans / Emmanuel Jacquart (Hgg.). Samuel Beckett Today / Aujourd’hui. 6: Samuel Beckett: Crossroads and Borderlines / L’ Œuvre carrefour. L’Œuvre limite. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 365-385. Rezensionen 182 Hartel, Gaby (2000). “’Gestern war ich im Museum …’. Becketts ‘éducation esthétique’, skizziert anhand ausgewählter Notizen zur bildenden Kunst”. In: Samuel Beckett (2000). Das Gleiche noch mal anders. Texte zur bildenden Kunst. Hg. von Michael Glasmeier / Gaby Hartel. Übers. von Dieter Mettler. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. 75-84. Henning, Sylvie Devebec (1988). Beckett’s Critical Complicity. Carnival, Contestation and Tradition. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Joyce, James (1960). Ulysses, London: The Bodley Head. Knowlson, James (1996). Damned to Fame. The Life of Samuel Beckett. London: Bloomsbury. Knowlson, James / John Pilling (1979). Frescoes of the Skull. The Later Prose and Drama of Samuel Beckett. London: John Calder. Oppenheim, Lois (2000). The Painted Word. Samuel Beckett’s Dialogue with Art. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Pilling, John (1976). “Beckett’s ‘Proust’”. Journal of Beckett Studies 1. 8-29. Pilling, John (1997). Beckett before Godot. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pothast, Ulrich (1989). Die eigentlich metaphysische Tätigkeit. Über Schopenhauers Ästhetik und ihre Anwendung durch Samuel Beckett. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Proust, Marcel (1972-1975). Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Zeit. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp (werkausgabe edition suhrkamp). Veit, Carola (2002). Ich-Konzept und Körper in Becketts dualen Konstruktionen. Berlin: Weidler. Zurbrugg, Nicholas (1988). Beckett and Proust. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe Ltd. Hans H. Hiebel Institut für Germanistik Universität Graz François Cusset, French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States. Translated by Jeff Fort. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008. Ulf Schulenberg François Cusset’s French Theory is a book about the dead. It tells a story, highly complex and full of unexpected twists and turns, whose protagonists are no longer with us. With the deaths of Derrida in 2004 and Baudrillard in 2007, French theory, it seems, no longer plays any role. Many critics have even advanced the argument that the golden age of theory was already over in the 1990s and that one should rather concentrate on a discussion of the question of ‘after theory’ or ‘post-theory’. What does theory have to offer, one might feel tempted to ask, in a time so radically different from the 1970s and 1980s when theory was still new, stimulating, and exciting? Is not theory singularly inadequate in times often designated as postcommunist and postcolonial, times that also force us to confront the conse- AAA Band 34 (2009), Heft 1 Rezensionen 183 1 François Dosse (1991). Histoire du structuralisme I: Le champ du signe, 1945-1966; (1992). Histoire du structuralisme II: Le chant du cygne, 1967 à nos jours. Paris: Éditions La Découverte. quences of 9/ 11? Furthermore, the question must be posed whether theory is of any use in developing new forms of activism in the confrontation with the multilayered and decentered systematicity, scary opacity, and heightened flexibility of a new kind of empire. Or has French theory never intended to present itself as useful in the first place? Foucault’s wish to provide a toolbox which his readers might use for activist purposes, Derrida’s turn to the question of deconstruction and ethics in the 1990s (culminating in Spectres de Marx in 1994), as well as Lyotard’s and Deleuze’s lifelong severe critique of (late) capitalism - all these authors seem to offer possible uses of theory. However, what about Maurice Blanchot’s hermetic ontology of the text (after his right-wing aberrations in the 1930s when he came dangerously close to sounding like Drieu la Rochelle)? And how does Barthes’s alleged frivolity in his late texts fit in here? Undoubtedly, these are important questions. Especially the possible use of theory at the beginning of the 21 st century plays a crucial role in Cusset’s study. However, at the center of this book, which was originally published in France in 2003 by Éditions La Découverte, are two questions: What exactly is French theory? And how has it come to dominate American universities and intellectual life in the US in general? While François Dosse’s two volumes of Histoire du structuralisme, which were published in 1991 and 1992, told the story of structuralism from the late 1940s to the 1990s, 1 Cusset analyzes the development of French poststructuralism and its American reception from the 1960s to the present. He repeatedly underscores that what he is primarily interested in is the American invention of French theory. In what way, Cusset asks, has French theory been decontextualized, displaced, and finally reconstructed “to confront specifically American questions” (XIV). As an intellectual historian strongly influenced by Pierre Bourdieu, Cusset focuses on the aspects of denationalization, decontextualization, deterritorialization, as well as on Bourdieu’s notion of a ‘structural misunderstanding’ and Said’s idea of ‘traveling theories,’ in order to elucidate the American identity of French theory. The recomposition of French theory in the US led to the production of a new radical political discourse on the basis of these French texts. As Cusset maintains, many of these French philosophers would not have recognized themselves in the new American arguments and positions. In order to illustrate and explain “this American adventure in French theory”, Cusset wants to describe “the social circulation of signs, the political use of quotations, the cultural production of concepts” (9). It is important to understand that Cusset disagrees with those who proclaim the end of theory and who moreover contend that it is much too late to speak about (French) theory at the beginning of the 21 st century. Or with those who deny the possibility of bringing theory and activism together and who therefore underline the allegedly oxymoronic nature of a Deleuzian ‘theoretical practice’. Stanley Fish, for instance, in his by now notorious New York Times blog, not only tells his readers about his utter confusion and disorientation caused by the number of types of coffee in a recently opened Starbucks, but he also, in a comment on Cusset’s book, repeats what he has been saying since the late 1970s, namely that theory has no conse- Rezensionen 184 quences. Moreover, Fish’s contention is that Cusset’s text shows that French theory in America does not have any political implications. That this is a misreading, or rather a purposive misinterpretation, becomes obvious throughout Cusset’s study. As Cusset makes unequivocally clear in the preface to the English edition of French Theory, “theory and activism do converge today” (XII). He elaborates on this point as follows: “New uses of theory’s major texts are possible today, they are even necessary, beyond the age-old aporia of theory and praxis as two distinct moments, that old Hegelian dialectics which French Theory was precisely supposed to have refuted, or at least avoided, in favor of what Deleuze and Guattari would call ‘theoretical practice’ - a real practical approach to theory” (XII). Cusset’s French Theory consists of three parts. The first part is called “The Invention of a Corpus”. It contains the following chapters: 1. “Prehistories”, 2. “The Academic Enclave”, 3. “The Seventies: A Turning Point”, 4. “Literature and Theory”, and 5. “Deconstruction Sites”. This part describes the beginnings of a Franco-American dialogue in the fields of art, literature, historiography, and philosophy. It discusses the significance of the conference “The Language of Criticism and the Sciences of Man”, which was organized at Johns Hopkins University in 1966. Furthermore, this part presents the main characteristics of the American university system to French readers. It also attempts to clarify the significance of the New Criticism and its formalism for the development of American deconstruction. This first part of Cusset’s book concentrates on the 1970s. He summarizes French theory’s development in the 1970s as follows: “This was the decade of French theory’s countercultural temptations, its anarchic expansion, by way of alternative journals and rock concerts, but it was also the decade of the first academic uses of French theory, if only as the instrument of a (purely discursive) subversion of the university institution” (54). The second part of Cusset’s study is called “The Uses of Theory”, and it contains the following chapters: 6. “The Politics of Identity”, 7. “The Ideological Backlash”, 8. “Academic Stars”, 9. “Students and Users”, 10. “Art Practices”, and 11. “Theoretical Machinations”. This part discusses the American invention of French theory, and its use for radical political purposes, in the 1980s. It elucidates the crucial role French theory played for identity politics, gender studies, cultural studies, and subaltern and postcolonial studies. In connection with the radical politicization of theory by multiculturalists, feminists, and other leftist scholars and intellectuals, Cusset also discusses the ideological backlash by right-wing journalists and politicians such as Roger Kimball, Hilton Kramer, Dinesh D’Souza, William Bennett, and Lynne Cheney. Apart from offering summaries of these well-known debates, Cusset also calls attention to the enormous significance of theory for the practice and discourse of art (from painting and architecture to art criticism). Moreover, he discusses theory’s impact on technology, attempts to politicize the idea of the network, cyberpunk science fiction, the idea of a posthumanist technology-oriented world and the figure of the cyborg, as well as on American pop culture (from cinema to DJs such as DJ Shadow and DJ Spooky and the German electronic music label Mille Plateaux). The final part of French Theory, entitled “There and Back”, consists of the following three chapters: 12. “Theory as Norm: A Lasting Influence”, 13. “Worldwide Theory: A Global Legacy”, and 14. “Meanwhile, Back in France…” This part seeks to answer the question of “how far and how deep did French theory go? ” (265). In the chapter “Theory as Norm”, Cusset avers “that French theory has had a lasting effect: Rezensionen 185 the persistent attacks against it, the loss of its aura, the fact that it has become almost commonplace and has been the object of retrospective accounts - all of this indicates that theory has in fact been normalized, adopted, and institutionalized, penetrating deep into American intellectual practices, and remaining a fixture on class reading lists” (267). The next chapter discusses what might be termed the globalization of French theory. The author describes the far-reaching consequences of theory on a worldwide scale, resulting in what he calls “a ‘theory world’” (293) or a “‘worldwide theory’” (294). Cusset directs attention to “the emergence of a new, transnational, academic class” (290), a “true international avant-garde” (291) to which belong theorists such as Antonio Negri, Giorgio Agamben, and Slavoj Žižek. Cusset closes his book on the American invention of French theory by discussing the contemporary situation of the French intellectual scene. What has happened, he asks, to French theory in France? In answering this important question, Cusset once more underlines the political nature of his metatheoretical endeavor and he illuminates his position in the intellectual and political debates which have been going on in France since the late 1970s. Cusset’s bête noire are the ‘nouveaux philosophes’ or “the new ‘centrist’ humanists” (313), that is, authors such as Bernard-Henry Lévy, André Glucksmann, Maurice Clavel, Luc Ferry, and Alain Renaut, who have vehemently attacked ‘la pensée ‘68’ or ‘la pensée intensive’ in the name of a new republican order and a humanitarian moralism. As Cusset correctly maintains, at the height of French theory in the US in the 1980s, this way of thinking was almost completely eclipsed back in France. The thought of Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Lacan, and Lyotard had become irrelevant in the public sphere. In the name of a republican neo- Kantianism and a moralistic universalism and anticommunitarianism, the ‘nouveaux philosophes’ denounced the poststructuralist theorists “as perpetrators of a deliberate intellectual muddle - 1968 thinking, libertarian barbarism, irrationalism, dictatorship, irresponsibility” (315). Concerning the position of power of the new humanists in France, Cusset writes: “Convinced that every one of France’s problems, and thus the problems of the rest of the world, were the result of May 1968, of the unruly philosophies of the 1970s, and of the new identity-based ‘relativism’ - made in the USA - these moral athletes continue to hold the reins of power in the French intellectual world” (316). Of utmost importance for Cusset’s discussion of French theory, and for an understanding of his own political position, is his emphasis on the fact that Marx (still) plays a crucial role in any attempt to grasp the French theorists’ significance. Following Cusset, “their texts [. . .] were neither pro-Marx nor anti-Marx. They were, rather, an endless confrontation with, discussion on, reinterpretation of Marxism” (XV). The last sentence of course reminds one of Derrida’s comments on the relation between deconstruction and Marxism in Spectres de Marx. At the end of his study, Cusset formulates even more decidedly: “Thus, everywhere except in France, Deleuze, Foucault, Lyotard, and even Derridean ‘hypercriticism’ incarnate the possibility of continuing a radical social critique beyond Marx, a critique that relative to Marx was finally detotalized, refined, diversified, opened up to the questions of desire and intensity, to flux and signs and the multiple subject - in a word, the tools of a social critique for today” (330). It becomes clear in his “Conclusion: Difference and Affirmation” that within his theoretical framework, which can legitimately be termed materialist, the concept of hope plays an important role. On Cusset’s account, French theory Rezensionen 186 2 For another important discussion of the American invention of French theory, see Sylvère Lotringer and Sande Cohen (eds.), French Theory in America (New York and London: Routledge, 2001). The essay by Lotringer (“Doing Theory”), who is the founder of Semiotext(e) and who has been very important concerning the dissemination of theory in the US, is particularly illuminating and suggestive. is not dead, but it on the contrary embodies a certain hope and directs us toward the future. Once more calling attention to the idea of a theoretical practice, Cusset claims that “in the university and beyond, French theory also embodies the hope that discourse might be able to restore life to life and provide access to an intact vital force that would be spared from the logic of the market and the prevailing cynicisms” (335). As Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt have shown in Empire and Multitude, the question of the effectiveness of theoretical practice in a field of immanence is of utmost importance for leftist theorists today. François Cusset’s French Theory is an impressive book. It is an elegantly argued, well-researched, and well-informed study about the invention of French theory in the US. 2 Cusset’s theoretical grasp is adequate to the demanding task of elucidating these complex transatlantic dialogues and polylogues. There are certainly some chapters in this book which are useful for French readers but which might be somewhat boring for Americanists and English Studies scholars since they summarize well-known debates (for instance, those on the culture wars and the neoconservative backlash in the 1980s). At the same time, however, one has to realize that Cusset adds many seemingly minor details to the story he is telling and thus makes it more lively and tangible. He tells us, for instance, about the importance of small journals and magazines (Bomb, Impulse, East Village Eye, and of course Semiotext(e)) for the dissemination of French theory in the US. We learn about artists, activists, musicians, architects, DJs, writers, and poets in connection with the adventure of the reinvention of French theory. Furthermore, Cusset’s story takes us to art galleries, artists’ squats, concert halls, bars, and even to such legendary places like the two punkrock clubs CBGB and Max’s Kansas City in Manhattan. Even those countercultural sites of dissidence played a role in the diffusion of French theory. They offered a space, if only to a certain degree, where the new theory could be practiced, creatively played with, or productively misunderstood. Undoubtedly, it is not the least important aspect of Cusset’s book that it sets itself the task of reminding its readers what it means to actually practice or do theory. Ulf Schulenberg Institut für Anglistik und Germanistik Hochschule Vechta Rezensionen 187 Elke Huwiler, Erzählströme im Hörspiel. Zur Narratologie der elektroakustischen Kunst. (EXPLICATIO. Analytische Studien zur Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft). Paderborn: mentis, 2005 Doris Mader Die Literaturwissenschaft der letzten Dekade(n) hat sich in beeindruckend vielfältiger Weise neuen Herausforderungen gestellt und dabei den Ort und das ‘Wesen’ des Literarischen neu perspektiviert. Das hat einerseits dazu geführt, dass literaturwissenschaftliche Konzepte in andere Bereiche migriert sind, andererseits wurde der Gegenstandsbereich der Literaturwissenschaft neu verhandelt. Ein besonders beachtetes Verdienst trifft dabei jene Arbeiten, die den ‘intermedial’ bzw. ‘narrative turn’ initiiert und weitergetrieben haben. Elke Huwiler kann mit der von ihr 2004 vorgelegten und 2005 publizierten Dissertation Erzählströme im Hörspiel. Zur Narratologie der elektroakustischen Kunst für sich beanspruchen, an beiden dieser Schrauben gedreht zu haben, sowohl im innovativen als auch im bewahrenden Sinn. Insofern, als sie sich der bislang wenig beachteten “Hörspiel-Adaptation nach literarischen Vorlagen” (26) annimmt, schließt sie nicht nur eine wohl erkannte Lücke in der Forschung, sondern begradigt gleichzeitig auch die gängige Praxis, diese radiophonen Adaptationen anders - und als noch randständiger - zu behandeln denn sogenannte ‘Originalhörspiele’. Ein Offert von Verf. an die wissenschaftlich ausgerichteten Rezipientinnen und Rezipienten von Audioliteratur ist der Versuch einer Anwendung narratologischer und zusätzlich intermedialer Kategorien auf dieses Genre. Dem Desiderat einer stärkeren Berücksichtigung der akustischen Literatur in den Feldern der Intermedialität und der Erzählforschung sucht Verf. in den Großkapiteln zu den “Theoretische[n] Grundlagen” (53ff.), zur “Analyse der narrativen Komponenten” (95ff.) und zu den “Beispielen der Adaptationsanalyse” (227ff.) nachzukommen. In diesem letzten und entscheidenden Abschnitt schlägt Verf. eine sehr diskussionswürdige abgestufte Differenzierung zwischen Übertragung bzw. Bearbeitung, medialer Bearbeitung sowie medialer Transposition vor. Verf. folgt mit ihrem Band somit dem seit längerem bestehenden Ruf nach einer Einbindung der Audioliteratur in die intermedial ausgerichtete Literaturwissenschaft, indem sie sich - wie ganz wenige sonst - der schwierigen Anstrengung der Beschaffung und der mühevollen Arbeit von Audiotexttranskriptionen deutschsprachiger Hörspiele unterzieht. Ihr mit größter Sorgfalt edierter Band besticht denn auch vor allem mit seinen textnahen, strikt funktionalen und äußerst gekonnt durchgeführten Einzelanalysen. Verf. legt eine “textanalytische, narratologisch ausgerichtete Untersuchung” (57) von Hörspieladaptationen vor, mit dem Ziel, aufzuzeigen, wie “narrative Strukturen in das Hörspiel eingeschrieben werden können” und “wie folglich narrative Zusammenhänge im akustischen Medium manifestiert werden” (45). Ihr Vermerk, die Studie sei als “ein erster Ansatz zu einer Hörspiel-Narratologie” zu verstehen (46), liest sich indes doppeldeutig: Als Bescheidenheitstopos erscheint er angesichts der unerschrockenen, umfassenden und in weiten Teilen äußerst gelungenen erzähltheoretischen Behandlung von Audiotexten unangebracht, in seiner möglichen chronologisch-historischen Bedeutung jedoch zweifelhaft, wo doch andere, gerade im Feld der Intermedialität, reichlich vorgearbeitet haben. AAA Band 34 (2009), Heft 1 Rezensionen 188 1 zu denen auch anderes als das Format des Hörspiels gezählt werden müsste. Was diese germanistische Arbeit von konventionellen ‘Hörspiel-Studien’ unterscheidet, ist die - wenn auch nicht gänzlich neue, so doch hier konsequent verfolgte - Anwendung von Kategorien der Erzählforschung auf diese Gattung, wiewohl von einem weitgehend unausgesprochen bleibenden impliziten semiotischen Begriff des Narrativen sowie des Zeichens ausgegangen wird. So hebt diese Studie auf eine innerhalb der Literaturwissenschaft und auch der intermedial studies allerdings schon länger eingeforderte und begonnene Narratologisierung in der intermedialen Betrachtung von Künsten und Gattungen - und auch des Hörspiels - ab. Hätte sie - und das ist die primäre Kautel, mit der die Studie versehen werden sollte - einen noch tragfähigeren semiotischen, medien- und intermedialitätsspezifischen Ansatz zu einem breit angelegten Zugriffsmodell synthetisiert, wäre diese Arbeit sogar bahnbrechend im Sinne eines ‘intermedial turn’ und eines ‘narrative turn’ in der Hörspielforschung geworden. Dafür wären freilich die Paradigmen der Semiotik, der Narratologie und der Intermedialität transparenter zu kombinieren und zu integrieren gewesen. Weil eine solch grundsätzliche Basislegung hier eher additiv denn in Kombination erfolgt - so sollen “semiotische Zeichensysteme sowie narrative Komponenten und Funktionen unabhängig voneinander betrachtet” (53) werden -, zeigt sich im Durchgang durch den Theorieteil der Studie das grundsätzliche Problem eines immer wieder kippbildartigen Wechsels der Referenzrahmen. Aufgrund dieser geteilten Anlage ergeben sich in Folge etliche Redundanzen, sodass die Hierarchie in der Präsentation und die vorgenommenen ‘Rahmungen’ die akribische und narratologisch sehr gelungene Analyse von audioliterarischen Einzelwerken in ihrem paradigmatischen Anspruch sozusagen herunterspielen. Ein inhärenter Widerspruch ist bereits den Paratexten der Studie ablesbar, deren Titel “Erzählströme im Hörspiel” innerhalb der Reihe “EXPLICATIO. Analytische Studien zur Literatur und Literaturwissenschaft” mit dem literaturwissenschaftlichen Vorhaben einer “Narratologie des Hörspiels” (Klappentext) zunächst konform geht. Der Studie Untertitel “Zur Narratologie der elektroakustischen Kunst” nun suggeriert aber einen Bezugsrahmen, der begrifflich keinesfalls auf das von Verf. fokussierte Format des ‘Hörspiels’ reduzierbar ist. Abgesehen davon, dass der Terminus ‘elektroakustische Kunst’ Werke rein musikalischer und/ oder akustischer und eben auch nonverbaler bzw. dominant nonverbaler Codierung sowie sämtliche weitere Misch- und Experimentierformen akustischer Kunst bezeichnen kann und eine Einengung auf ‘Hörspiel’ nicht zulässt, ist auch eine solche Erweiterung ohne weiterreichende intermediale Begriffsabklärung nicht statthaft. Der unbestreitbare Vorzug der Arbeit, die eine Brücke zwischen traditioneller Hörspielbetrachtung und intermedialer Narratologie zu schlagen trachtet, liegt in ihrem beachtlichen und vorbildlichen Ergebnisreichtum im Detail der Hörspiel-Einzelanalysen. Wie widerständig sich allerdings das in sich ja schon intermediale Genre ‘Hörspiel’ diesem Brückenschlag zwischen den so unterschiedlichen Zugängen der Semiotik, der Erzählforschung und Hörspielanalyse entgegensetzt, schreibt sich in den Diskurs der Arbeit immer wieder ein. So birgt schon die Einleitung in sich Widersprüchliches, da einerseits die Kritik an der “Marginalisierung” der “ausschließlich auditiven medialen Formen” 1 (9) den Ausgangspunkt der Arbeit bildet, Verf. anderer- Rezensionen 189 seits das Hörspiel, das von der konventionellen Literaturwissenschaft fraglos als literarische Form begriffen werde, “aus dieser selbstverständlichen Klassifizierung” herausheben und es als “eigenständige auditive Kunstform” (ibid.), wie etwa den Film, anerkannt wissen möchte und letztlich somit, weil das Hörspiel “keine literarische Gattung” (10) sei, erneut dem zentralen Fokus der Literaturwissenschaft entziehen will. Dafür, das wirklich leisten zu können, mangelt es jedoch an einem systematischen übergeordneten Zugriff. Schon die gewählte traditionelle Begriffsklärung des Untersuchungsgegenstandes greift hier nämlich zu kurz. Dies liegt nicht primär an der Zuständigkeitsfrage hinsichtlich der beteiligten (bzw. zu beteiligenden) Disziplinen (außer der Literaturwissenschaft wird keine durchgehend bemüht), sondern vielmehr an einer gewissen Brüchigkeit in der hier vorgenommenen semiotischen und intermedialen Fundierung, die dem genuin intermedialen Format des ‘Hörspiels’ im Sinne eines in sich intermedialen Genres nicht wirklich gerecht wird. Die der Studie zugrunde gelegten Untersuchungsobjekte (‘Hörspiele’) sind mit der knappen Einleitung in ihrem phänomenologischen Sosein nur unzureichend erfasst. Denn es bleibt z.T. offen, inwiefern diese Studie nun “auf genau diese Eigenständigkeit des Hörspiels” (9), seine “medienspezifische Ausdrucksweise” (10) fokussiert. Verf. nämlich umkämpft die Begriffsbestimmung des Hörspiels, indem sie die “schriftlich-literarischen Erzeugnisse” vom “Endprodukt Hörspiel” (12) absetzt, doch jenseits der Feststellung, dass “das Hörspiel nicht als Ganzes als literarisch bezeichnet werden kann” (ibid.), wird eine operationalisierbare begriffliche Bestimmung des Forschungsgegenstandes eher vielfach umspielt denn jemals - im intermedialen und semiotischen Sinne - bindend vorgenommen. Während eine “detaillierte semiotische Zeichenanalyse” (57) dezidiert ausgeklammert wird, steht eine “textanalytische, narratologisch ausgerichtete Untersuchung” im Zentrum der Betrachtung, deren “Bezugsrahmen [...] die narratologische Textanalyse” (56) abgibt. Wenn aber “Literatur und Hörspiel als zwei differente Kunstformen zu betrachten” (53) sind, müsste der Begriff des ‘Textes’ für diesen spezifischen intermedialen Kontext gesondert eingeführt werden. Die genannte Brüchigkeit setzt sich auch in den weiteren ‘Rahmungen’ fort, die in den einzelnen Kapiteln und Subkapiteln abgesteckt werden, v.a. dort, wo in durchaus problematischer Hierarchisierung die Ebene der “Semiotik” (Kap. 2.1) als eigene Kategorie parallel zur “Narratologie” (Kap. 2.2) geführt wird, der zudem die “Narratologie intermedial” (Kap. 2.2.1) subkategorisiert wird. Die Abtrennung der “Analyse der narrativen Komponenten” (Kap. 3) von dem (auf Schmedes aufbauenden) Subkapitel zur “Semiotik”, dem Kurzkapitel “Narratologie” und dem noch kleineren Abschnitt zur “Narratologie intermedial” spiegelt diese nicht überwundene Unentschlossenheit wider, zumal als “methodischer Schwerpunkt”, so betont Verf., gerade “die Narratologie die Analyse der vorliegenden Hörspieladaptationen” (70) bestimme. Auf textueller Ebene zeigt sich diese konzeptuelle Oszillation in leicht missverständlichen Formulierungen, wie z.B. der, dass die Einzelanalysen dazu dienten aufzuzeigen, “wie narrative Phänomene im akustischen Medium adäquat beschrieben und analysiert werden können” (46). Des Weiteren betrifft die Brüchigkeit auch die Begründung der Auswahl des Textkorpus. So bestreitet Verf. zu Recht die grundsätzliche Sinnhaftigkeit einer Differenzierung zwischen Originalhörwerk und Adaptation für die Untersuchung des Erzählens im Hörspiel, widmet dann ihr Augenmerk jedoch ausschließlich einem Rezensionen 190 Textkorpus von über sechzig deutschen Hörspieladaptationen, sodass die Infragestellung der Unterscheidung im Rahmen der Arbeit funktionslos bleibt. Ebenso bleibt der “sehr weite[] Narratologiebegriff” (42), der auch auf Dramen auszudehnen sei (vgl. ibid.) in diesem Sinn ungenutzt, wenn die Untersuchung sich auf “Schrifttexte der sogenannten epischen Literatur” (43) und deren Adaptationen beschränkt. Zudem besteht eine Gemeinsamkeit der behandelten Texte darin, dass die Adaptationen jeweils von den Autorinnen und Autoren des Ausgangsmaterials besorgt wurden. Die (zuvor) betonte grundsätzliche “Vielautorschaft” des Hörspiels als “Medienproduktion” (50) lässt auch diese Korpusabgrenzung nicht unbedingt als für den Vergleich nötig erscheinen, es sei denn, man zielt auch auf die produktionsseitige Autorintention ab, was jedoch nicht geschieht. Denn just der “Prozess der Umformung, der medial adäquaten Adaptation in Bezug auf das elektroakustische End-Medium” (27) an sich steht für Verf. im Mittelpunkt. Dieses Vorhaben jedoch schreit förmlich nach einem theoretischen intermedialen Zugang, der allerdings nur angedeutet wird, und zwar an jener Stelle, wo - ebenfalls problematischerweise - der narratologische Ansatz auf ein späteres Kapitel verschoben wird: “In der vorliegenden Studie geht es vor allem um Narratologie im Hinblick auf intermedial [! ] beobachtbare Ausdrucksformen des Erzählens” (13). Gerade die “medienspezifische Ausdrucksweise” (10) wird indessen nicht explizit ins Zentrum der Betrachtung gerückt, wenn erstens das Hörspiel nur gattungsmäßig als eigenes - nun doch ‘literaturwissenschaftliches’? - Betrachtungsobjekt beschrieben wird, zweitens die Studie sich den ‘sekundären’ Manifestationen, d.h. den ‘literarischen Textsubstraten’ ursprünglich zur Ausstrahlung bestimmter Audiotexte, zuwendet und drittens der dem ‘Hörspiel’ eigenen intermedialen Qualität (nämlich ein internes intermediales Kompositgenre zu sein) begrifflich und sodann im Durchgang der Analysen zu wenig Rechnung getragen wird. Obwohl Verf. zu Gunsten der Frage nach der ‘Medienadäquatheit’ sinnvollerweise mit dem puristischen Vorurteil aufräumt, nur ein ‘originäres’ Hörspiel könne ein wirkliches Hörspiel sein (vgl. 28), konterkariert sie z.T. selbst die Vorannahme einer Gleichheit zwischen Originalwerk und Adaptation. Denn sie untersucht, “wie sich die Geschichte [! ] des Schrifttextes als solche für [! ] ein Hörspiel transformieren lässt” (40). Zudem fokussiert sie für ihre Analyse der ‘Erzählströme’ gerade die Veränderungen zwischen dem ursprünglich textuellen Substrat und der fürs und im Radio realisierten Form, sodass ihr Blickwinkel im Grunde vom Paradigma der Intertextualität (wenn dies auch nirgendwo expliziert wird) bestimmt ist und darüber hinaus (und was davon unbedingt zu unterscheiden wäre) auf die Frage der intermedialen Transposition abzielt. Verf. wählt somit, allerdings ohne dies konkret auszuführen, einen doppelt intermedialen Ansatz, nämlich zum einen, indem sie die “Ausdrucksmittel aufzuzeigen” versucht, “die der akustischen Kunst [! ] bei der Etablierung und Manifestation einer ‘Narration’ zur Verfügung” (15) stehen. Zum anderen bemüht sie implizit die Kategorie der ‘intermedialen Transposition’, wenn “Hörspiel-Adaptationen schriftlich-literarischer Texte mit eben diesen Vorlagen” (16) verglichen werden. Last but not least wird die so grundsätzlich betonte Anwendung der Narratologie auf das Hörspiel mit einem kurzen Kapitel zur “Narratologie intermedial” (75-81) als theoretische Voraussetzung dem späteren Großkapitel “Narrative Komponenten” (95-226) anheimgestellt. Weder der rote Faden des für dieses Genre unabdingbaren intermedialen Zugriffs ist durchgängig, noch beruhen die - in sich durchaus akribisch Rezensionen 191 2 Wenn nicht genuin intermedial gearbeitet wird, so erübrigen sich auch die intermedialen Vergleichsparameter, und das Argument verläuft im Kreis. Oder anders formuliert: Wird hier ohne Notwendigkeit der narratologische Ansatz mit Rekurs auf die ‘episch narrativen’ Vorlagentexte und die Literaturwissenschaft als zuständige Kerndisziplin legitimiert? durchgeführten - einzelnen Kapitel auf einem einheitlichen theoretischen Fundament. Folglich wird - ausgehend von der Anwendung literaturwissenschaftlicher Erzählanalyse Genette’scher Prägung auf das Hörspiel - das weitgehend prognostizierbare (und die Arbeit im Sinne einer Voraussetzung bereits einleitende) Ergebnis erzielt, dass “vom erzähltheoretischen Standpunkt aus [...] an der grundsätzlichen Unterscheidung zwischen Adaptationen und sogenannten Original-Hörspielen” (Klappentext) nicht festzuhalten sei. 2 Dabei bleibt ein genuines Merkmal des ‘Hörspiels’ zu wenig betont und genutzt: Weil stets eine Vorlage (ein Skript, eine ‘Partitur’) dem Endprodukt vorgelagert ist, haftet dem ‘Hörspiel’ oder der ‘Radioliteratur’ schon dadurch (wie dem Drama die Plurimedialität) eine Doppelnatur im Sinne einer Performanz, wenn nicht auch im Sinne der Intermedialität an. Tritt die ‘intermediale Transposition’ von publizierter Buchform zu Audiowerk hinzu, so ergeben sich für eine ‘intermediale’ Untersuchung des Genres bereits zwei unterschiedliche Prozesse der Transposition, die die jeweiligen Konzepte oder Konzeptkonfigurationen der ‘Vorlage’ zu durchlaufen haben. Dieser Umstand wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit theoretisch ausgeklammert. Als ausschlaggebendes Kriterium für den Grad der Medialität und somit für die Zugehörigkeit zu einer der jeweiligen Adaptationsformen gelten die An- oder Abwesenheit von - “bezogen auf das Medium Tonträger” (227) - “spezifisch medialen Ausdrucksformen zur Manifestation narrativer Zusammenhänge” (241) bzw. “neue narrative Zusammenhänge” (228), was hinsichtlich der Medienadäquatheit bzw. des Ausschöpfens audioliterarischer Möglichkeiten durchaus überzeugt. Hier ist m.E. ein substanzieller Beitrag zur Frage der Bewertung der ‘Radiogenität’ geleistet. Vom narratologischen Standpunkt aus betrachtet findet sich gerade im Kernstück dieser Arbeit jedoch erneut eine hierarchisch problematische Vorgangsweise: Das Interesse daran, “wie sich Narrativität” im Hörspiel “manifestiert” (224), wird nämlich mit zu wenig präzisen narratologischen Grenzziehungen und Differenzierungen versehen und ruht auf einer zu unbestimmten semiotischen Unterfütterung auf. Leerstellen finden sich auch im Bereich dessen, was auf der Inhaltsebene typisch narrativ ist, und die vorrangig über die Vermittlungsebene bestimmten ‘narrativen Komponenten’ überschneiden sich partiell mit den zu vage bestimmten ‘narrativen Zusammenhängen’. Trotz dieser Einwände sollte das grundsätzliche Verdienst der Arbeit nicht geschmälert werden, das darin liegt, sich narratologisch einer üblicherweise eher als dem Dramatischen und dem Theater abgemietet eingestuften intermedialen literarischen Kunstform anzunähern und audioliterarischen Texten angemessene Aufmerksamkeit zu schenken. Gerade da, wo das Erzählen in einer intermedialen Gattung in den Vordergrund gestellt wird, hätte sich freilich eine Problematisierung des herkömmlichen Begriffs ‘Hörspiel’ empfohlen. Die Textzentriertheit, unter deren Zeichen diese narratologische Aufbereitung von Hörspiel-Adaptationen steht, ist indes zugleich ihre Stärke und ihre Schwäche. Ihre Stärke, weil sie so auf traditionellen literaturwissenschaftlichen Kategorien fußt und zur willkommenen ‘narratologischen Rezensionen 192 Wende’ in der Betrachtung der Radioliteratur beiträgt. Umgekehrt schafft diese Textzentriertheit jedoch auch den Nachteil, dass innerhalb des narratologischen Unterfangens das Medium ‘Hörspiel’ selbst, und zwar in seiner intermedialen Dimension als Kompositmedium und in seiner Bedingtheit durch sein Vermittlungsmedium, das “Unterhaltungsmedium Radio” und das “Speichermedium Tonträger” (9), gegen die ursprünglichen - intermedialen - Intentionen der Verf. Gefahr läuft, im buchstäblichen Sinne womöglich re-‘literarisiert’ bzw. re-‘philologisiert’ zu werden. Immerhin aber, und das kann nicht hoch genug geschätzt werden, hat Verf. mit ihrer hochaufwändigen und spürbar von Engagement und Enthusiasmus getragenen Untersuchung einen attraktiven Ausgangspunkt für eine angeregte Debatte im audiophilen Flügel der Literaturwissenschaft und der Intermedialität geschaffen. Nicht nur dafür gebührt ihr große Anerkennung. Doris Mader Institut für Anglistik Universität Graz Renate Brosch, Short Story. Textsorte und Leseerfahrung. Trier: WVT, 2007. Arno Löffler Der Umschlagtext verspricht eine neuartige Annäherung an die Short Story. Im Unterschied zu gattungstheoretischen Ansätzen oder zur Analyse textueller Strukturen fasst dieses Buch eine am Leseerlebnis orientierte Verfahrensweise ins Auge und versucht, auf diese Weise die Short Story als Textsorte gegen längere Erzählformen, vor allem den Roman, abzugrenzen. Wenn auch Renate Brosch (in der Folge: Vf.) im Vorspann mit sympathischer Direktheit eingesteht, dass die Fertigstellung des Bandes für sie eine Befreiung “von der quälend langsamen Arbeit an diesem Text” bedeutete, so lässt sie es doch leider offen, ob bzw. wieweit ihre schriftstellerischen Qualen (mit)bedingt waren durch Probleme, die das thematische Konzept oder auch der methodische Ansatz des Buchs mit sich brachten. Die Untersuchung, die ausschließlich englischsprachige Short Stories berücksichtigt, beruht auf der Erkenntnis, “dass Bedeutung nicht in Texten enthalten ist, sondern dass sie in einem Prozess der Interaktion zustande kommt, der sowohl vom Text strukturiert wie auch durch Reaktionen der Leser realisiert wird” (S. 12). Vf. setzt es sich zur Aufgabe, in ihrer “responsorientierte[n] Betrachtung pragmatischer vor[zu]gehen als die um historisch korrekte Exegese bemühte ältere Rezeptionsästhetik” (S. 12). Sie kann ihr Versprechen freilich nur in begrenztem Umfang einlösen, weil für sie der tatsächliche Leserrespons nicht greifbar ist und sie ausschließlich auf die Auseinandersetzung mit den Texten angewiesen ist. Auf erzähltheoretischer Grundlage analysiert Vf. textuelle Eigenschaften und textuelle Strategien, die die Interaktion von Text und Leser stimulieren und steuern, AAA Band 34 (2009), Heft 1 Rezensionen 193 insbesondere im Hinblick auf emotionale und kognitive Reaktionen, auf die “visuelle Imagination [...] und/ oder die gedankliche Extrapolation” (Umschlag). In eingestreuten Erläuterungen zum Wandel der Short Story seit dem 18. Jahrhundert sowie zu älteren und aktuellen Konzepten der Darstellung und Analyse von Zeit und Raum, Plot und Figuren gibt sie ihren Ausführungen einen klaren historischen Bezugsrahmen. Die Abgrenzungen, die Vf. gegenüber anderen Textsorten vornimmt, rufen gelegentlich kritische Reaktionen hervor und erscheinen zu stark pauschalierend oder etwas gewagt. Wenn etwa gesagt wird, dass die Kurzgeschichte “weder die völlige Immersion illusionistischer Lektüre noch die unproblematische Informationsextraktion der Gesprächskommunikation (erlaubt)” (S. 15), so mag dies ja auf viele Short Stories zutreffen, es gilt aber auch für viele Romane oder für erhebliche Teile der Lyrik. Andererseits: Es war doch gerade der Short-Story-Autor E.A. Poe, der die völlige “Immersion” des Lesers anstrebte, um die Totalität des Effekts sicherzustellen! - Wenn es heißt, “Die Kurzgeschichte ist eine Textsorte, für die leserpsychologische Gesichtspunkte zentral sind” (S. 15), so kann man dem nur zustimmen und zugleich mit der Frage kontern: Für welche literarische Textsorte sind “leserpsychologische Gesichtspunkte” nicht zentral? - Mag auch die “dialogische Wirkung zwischen Text und Leser” (S. 22) groß sein, so muss man doch erwägen, wieweit dies ein wirklich entscheidendes Kriterium der “Grenzsetzung” (S. 9) im Vergleich mit anderen literarischen Texten ist. - Auch die Beobachtung, dass sich “Kurzgeschichten im Spannungsfeld von textueller Beschränkung und rezeptiver Ergänzung entfalten” (S. 25), ist wohl eher ein Gemeinplatz, der für literarische Texte in einem erheblich weiteren Bezugsrahmen gilt, - hier hat ja u.a. Wolfgang Iser im Hinblick auf die “Appellstruktur der Texte” gründlich vorgearbeitet. Selbst wenn man der Argumentationslinie von Vf. i.G. folgt, so wünscht man sich doch immer wieder eine stärkere Problematisierung und Verdeutlichung der Differenz, zumindest zu den längeren Erzählformen hin. Bei einigen Aussagen wäre auch größere sachliche Fundierung angezeigt, so etwa bei der Feststellung, dass die Short Story vor dem 18. Jahrhundert “ungeheuer hybride und variationsreiche Anfänge” (S. 27) hat. Nicht unproblematisch erscheint es mir, dass mit Blick auf den Modernismus die Short Story als “diese strenge Form” (S. 27) markiert wird. Erweist sich die Short Story nicht gerade im Modernismus - etwa bei Joyce, Woolf, Lawrence, Mansfield, Maugham, Huxley - als eine sehr offene, variationsreiche Form? Eine Frage gibt auch die Behauptung auf, die Kurzgeschichte habe eine “unordentliche Entstehungsgeschichte” (S. 28). Wie sieht denn die “ordentliche” Entstehung einer Gattung aus? Im ersten Hauptkapitel liefert Vf. einen Überblick über den historischen Wandel der Kurzgeschichtenkonzepte seit dem 18. Jahrhundert, auch im Zusammenhang der sich wandelnden Leserschaft, nicht ohne zu betonen, dass “Leser, die schnell zum Phänomen Leseerfahrung vordringen wollen, diese Exposition getrost überspringen können”(S. 23). Wenn man sich auch in der Tat fragt, wieweit dieses Kapitel in Rahmen dieses Bandes thematisch relevant ist, so enthält es doch wichtige historische Informationen, insbesondere für Leser, die mit der Materie noch nicht aus anderen Darstellungen vertraut sind. Rezensionen 194 Im anschließenden Kapitel “Kurzes-Erzählen-Lesen” akzentuiert Vf. zunächst ihre Auffassung von der “Nähe von Kurzgeschichten zu natürlichem, alltäglichem Erzählen” (S. 58) und geht dabei auch auf die Bedeutung der “einfachen und suggestiven Sprache” (S. 58) für den Leseakt ein. In besonderem Maße richtet sich dann das Interesse auf die “Textgrenzen”, d.h. die Gestaltung von Anfängen (primacy effect) und Schlüssen (reading for closure) und in diesem Zusammenhang auch auf die Problematik von Rahmen und die Einbindung in Zyklen. Anhand einiger Textbeispiele, u.a. von Poe und Bradbury, thematisiert Vf. dabei die zentralen Aspekte der Leserinvolvierung, so etwa die Auswirkungen der Reduktion auf den Leseprozess, auf Erwartungshaltungen und kognitiv-analytische Bemühungen. In den darauffolgenden Hauptkapiteln untersucht die Vf. verschiedene Verfahren der Lesermobilisierung im Hinblick auf die Figuren- und Raumdarstellung, auf die Gestaltung der Perspektive und der Zeitstrukturen. Dabei geht sie auf einige Stories ausführlicher ein, etwa auf Woolfs “Kew Gardens”. Der letzte Hauptteil thematisiert den Übergang “vom Leseerlebnis zur Interpretation” und behandelt dabei u.a. Aspekte wie “Visualisieren und Konfigurieren”, “Metaphorisieren”, sowie projektives und transgressives Lesen, und geht auch kurz auf Auswirkungen der heutigen Medienkultur auf die Leseerfahrung ein. Das Buch enthält sorgfältig zusammengestellte Verzeichnisse der behandelten Short Stories und der Sekundärliteratur, leider jedoch kein Personen- und Sachregister, das die Suche nach den behandelten Autoren und Erzählungen erleichtern würde. Dies ist zweifellos ein anregendes Buch. Schade, dass die dargelegten Theorie- Positionen nicht durch mehr und detailliertere Textdemonstration und Textanalyse erhärtet werden. - Für eine zweite Auflage des Buchs wäre es wünschenswert, u.a. folgende Versehen zu beseitigen: Dürer (S. 111) sollte von dem falschen Vornamen “Alfred” befreit und der Name von Shakespeares berühmtem Narren Yorick korrekt geschrieben werden (also: “Yorick”, nicht “Yorrick” (S. 155, S. 213). Der Begriff “omniszent” (z.B. S. 156, 157, 162, 165) sollte durch “omniszient” ersetzt werden. Im Hinblick auf Graham Swifts Erzählung “Seraglio” sollte man eher von einer “orientalischen” als einer “orientalistischen” Folie (S. 185) sprechen. Und Dickens’ “Signalman” sollte korrekt beschrieben werden: Er ist nicht “Weichensteller an einem Bahnhof” (S. 188), sondern Signalwärter an einem Tunneleingang. Arno Löffler Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik Universität Erlangen Rezensionen 195 Gerhard Stilz (ed.), Territorial Terrors. Contested Spaces in Colonial and Postcolonial Writing. (ZAA Monograph Series 7). Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2007. Petra Eckhard Territorial Terrors grew out of a transatlantic graduate research project of the University of Tübingen (Germany) and the University of Maryland (U.S.A.) in which young scholars investigated how conflicting notions of territory are being translated into colonial and postcolonial literary discourses. The essays collected in the volume look at various notions of contested space that include, for example, home, native country, colony, metropolis and also, to mention a few more recent terrains of conflict, body space, alien country, or globalized space. These cultural contact zones are discussed in five major chapters entitled “Precarious Homes”, “National Territories, Colonial Terrors”, “Submerged in the Metropolis”, “Metropolitan Spaces Appropriated” and “The Global and the Local”. The last three sections of the book are primarily devoted to cultural tensions in urban space and highlight the importance of the metropolis as a microcosm of transnational conflict. In the introductory chapter Stilz refers to the complexity of social divisions that emerges from postcolonial urbanity: “In the postmodern metropolis shaped by global capitalism, [the] balance [of interests and powers] is widely threatened or lost […] by non-liberal majorities, by powerful global capital, by radical minorities, by segregation and ghettoization” (13). One of the key arguments in Stilz’s introduction is that literature, “not refraining from but rather pointing out the pluri-voiced, ambiguous double-dealings in human encounters, can illustrate the complexity of colonial and postcolonial contact zones, where people and their utterances can frequently not be located as being ‘either here or there’” (8). Furthermore, he argues that the examination of literary works on territorial anxieties can facilitate an understanding of the ‘real’ territorial threats and fears. Indeed, the fictional accounts discussed in the book provide an innovative response to lived power relationships between dichotomous social groups such as ‘dominant’ and ‘marginalized’ or ‘native’ and ‘other’. What makes Stilz’s volume stand out amongst other works on postcolonialism is that it does no longer understand and use the term postcolonialism solely in its strict temporal sense (i.e. coming after colonialism). Instead, it can be seen as a critical work of cultural mediation that looks at the field through the lens of spatiality. Sebastian Duda’s essay “Imagined Origins - Language, Space and Identity in three Novels by V.S. Naipaul”, for example, convincingly illustrates how V.S. Naipaul, a distinguished Trinidadian novelist of Indian descent, addresses the difficulties of retaining an authentic cultural identity in colonial space. The postcolonial culture clash and alienation Naipaul’s protagonists experience results, first and foremost, from their detachment from Caribbean and Indian cultures, but also, as Duda argues, from the “misrepresentation of colonial space [i.e. England] in the language of the colonizer” (43). For example, the characters’ attempts to find ‘wholeness’ and ‘authenticity’ in London, which they imagine as a “space of colonial desire” (ibid.), is doomed to failure, precisely because the sign system of the empirical city lacks culturally determined points of reference. The terror, therefore, lies in the feeling of continuous AAA Band 34 (2009), Heft 1 Rezensionen 196 emptiness and confusion, which the alien country imposes on the colonial subjects. Duda sums up this dilemma as follows: “The imagined mother country […] symbolizes a lost paradise, another lost origin, which, like the cultural heritage of the original East Indian settlers, cannot be restored” (53). The contributions to the second chapter, entitled “National Territories, Colonial Terrors” display a similar interest in the antagonism between real and chimerical colonial zones. Katrin Kuplent’s analysis of Mudrooroo’s novel Doctor Wooreddy’s Prescription for Enduring the Ending of the World, for example, shows how different and incompatible “geographical imaginations” (108) can result in territorial terrors and death. Rewriting the history of dispossession and extermination of Tasmanian Aborigines by invading Europeans during the nineteenth century, Mudrooroo juxtaposes the colonizers’ Eurocentric notion of “[c]ontainer-space” (110), encouraging a hierarchical world-view that does not legitimize alternative cultural narratives, with relativist space, i.e. space which is “not an explicit object of perception […] but a medium imparting particular social and cultural knowledges” (115-116). Despite the novel’s tragic closure, Kuplent regards Mudrooroo’s depiction of the “native apocalypse” (115) as an optimistic call for a human geography that allows multiple views of the world to coexist and new cross-cultural identities to emerge. Kelly J.S. McGovern’s fascinating study “Burying Con O’Leary: New York Cartographies of Identity in Colum McCann’s This Side of Brightness” exemplifies the thematic shift away from the force-fields of global colonialism to those in the (post)metropolis. By analyzing The Side of Brightness (1998), a New York novel written by an Irish expatriate, McGovern enters a discourse on immigrant life which, due to the character’s complex hybridity, transcends common notions about ‘Irish- Americaness’. McCann’s portrayal of the Walker family, a social unit which unites Irish, African American and Native American histories and identities, illustrates the fragmentation and “variety in hybridity” (174) that originates from the metropolis. According to McGovern, New York’s “multiethnic conglomeration of immigrants” (179) calls for an “identity tectonics” (173), a new model of cultural interaction that aims at contributing to an understanding of the conflicts the working-class immigrants come into. The retreat of one character into the dark subterranean structures of the city points not only to the difficulties of positioning oneself in globalized urban space but also to the fact that issues of homelessness and marginalization do, symbolically as well as literally, operate along the vertical axis. In a similar fashion, Michael Rosenberg also sheds light on the representation of marginalized spaces. His essay, entitled “Aestheticizing Slum Cities”, examines Patrick Chamoiseau’s Texaco (1997), a novel which records the migration of the Martiniquan underclass from a rural to an urban environment. Going beyond the politics of globalized space as articulated by Saskia Sassen, Mike Davis and Henry Lefebvre, Rosenberg analyzes Chamoiseau’s narrative along the lines of a slum aesthetics which “seeks to balance the beautiful with the ugly, the pleasing with the disturbing, and, perhaps most importantly, the dignified with the pitiable” (286). Rosenberg’s challenging of the common practice to read the slum solely as “the object of a larger Marxist discourse on late capitalism” (283) gives rise to a more authentic and complex account of the marginalized urban poor. In going beyond the conventional discourses of victimization and criminality, Rosenberg’s aestheticization of the slum works against abstract and theoretical representations of “disadvantaged Rezensionen 197 problem places with suffering people” (286) and thus attempts to narrow the gap between the privileged and underprivileged voices of the global city. The final article of the volume, Dennis Hannemann’s essay on Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis, discusses the dichotomy between a global and local Manhattan as represented in the construction of Eric Packer, the novel’s main character, who ideologically transforms from “the literal epitome of global finance” (295) into a scepticist subject questioning the values of capitalist and technocratic society. The territorial terror Packer has to endure emerges from the destructive forces of information technology and monetary flows, bringing about a denial and loss of history, spirituality, and genuine humanity. For Hannemann the clash of the artificiality and one-dimensionality of market culture and the archaic reality of local street life is illustrated in Packer’s own fall at the novel’s end. Shortly before his death, he becomes aware that he is nothing but a victim of cybernetic systems, strips off his professional identity and enters a more humane and ‘real’ Manhattan. Hannemann regards Packer’s reconsidering of priorities at the end as a process of maturation, of ‘coming of age’, and thus concludes with labeling Cosmopolis “a postmodern variation of the Bildungsroman” (308). As a whole, Territorial Terrors is an interesting and ambitious study on the postcolonial imagination, as diverse literatures come into productive dialogue with each other. Key concepts of cultural studies such as otherness, deterritorialization, marginalization, and displacement emerge as leitmotivs throughout the volume, furthering the understanding of how postcolonial space is constructed, perceived, and imagined. The essays assembled in this book reflect the wide variety of divergent territorial disputes that emanate from postcolonial contexts and, most notably, from the (post)metropolis. It is indeed the book’s focus on the representation of the city, probably the most complex zone of both contact and separation, which points postcolonial literary studies in a new and fruitful direction. Therefore, the volume is an important book not only for students and scholars interested in postcolonial studies but also for a more heterogeneous audience that seeks to understand conflicting tensions apparent in our globalized world. Petra Eckhard Department of American Studies Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz Rezensionen 198 Richard Gray and Waldemar Zacharasiewicz (eds.), Transatlantic Exchanges: The American South in Europe - Europe in the American South. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2007. Todd K. Bender In September 2006, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Cultural Office of the City of Vienna, the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, and the University of Vienna sponsored an International Colloquium from which the papers are here edited by Richard Gray and Waldemar Zacharasiewicz. Gray and Zacharasiewicz are to be complimented on guiding such a weighty and useful scholarly production to completion and for their long standing leadership in the study of the American South in a global context. Needless to say, the essays, all written in English, are of a uniformly high intellectual quality, and the editors’ work is a model of care and thoughtfulness. Following a short introduction by the editors, the essays are grouped under eleven headings: “Faulkner and Wolfe”, “European Reception and Perspectives”, “African American Perspectives”, “Reimagining the South from a European Perspective”, “Welty and Percy”, “The French Connection”, “Nineteenth Century Relations”, “Faulkner”, “Cultural and Capital Exchange”, “Mountain and Folk Culture”, and “Postwar Fictions”. The thirtyfour scholars whose essays are published represent twelve institutions of higher learning in the United States, eleven in the United Kingdom, ten in Continental Europe, and one in Japan. Each of the topical groups of papers tells the reader something new and interesting about the literature and culture of the former Confederate States of America and their borderlands. All serious students of the English language in a global context will want to examine this work closely. The general importance of the overarching project for this collection, the colloquium from which it develops, and the years of preparation leading up to the colloquium itself, should not be overlooked. For too long in the United States the focus of university studies of literature has been mainly on New England and its heritage. Even the great, statesponsored universities located in places like Wisconsin or Arizona seldom feature in their departments of English regional research into the French, German, or Hispanic roots and interconnections with their local cultures, and even less often into their more recent interactions with China, India, or South East Asia, although in recent decades there has been an acknowledgment of the obvious importance of the African dimension to American cultural history. The work of Gray and Zacharasiewicz lights the path toward a new and fruitful way to reorganize and expand the academic study of English literature and American culture along lines more inclusive of regional identity and global connections. Simply to list the major American authors discussed in this collection of essays provides a fair idea of its wide scope: Edgar Allen Poe, Mark Twain, George Washington Cable, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCullers, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, May Sarton, Walker Percy, Hannah Croft, William Styron, Shay Youngblood, James Baldwin, William Demby. As Zacharasiewicz explains in his general “Introduction” to the collection, from the early captivity narrative that is the memoir of Cabeza de Vaca AAA Band 34 (2009), Heft 1 Rezensionen 199 published in 1542 to the post World War II fiction of Styron, Baldwin, or Demby, the American South has been a borderland in which the old world and the new, the self and the other, black and white, male and female, encounter and redefine themselves in a transatlantic dialogue. Americanists have long recognized the French face of Edgar Allen Poe, but Peter Lurie’s essay on the French Faulkner reminds us of Faulkner’s debts to French ideas of film noir, to Jean-Paul Sartre, and to Andre Malraux, while Nahem Yousaf points more specifically to Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de Torchon. Owen Robinson’s essay discusses French Louisiana and the Creole culture centered in New Orleans as depicted by Cable. Helen Taylor points out that the sex trade of The Big Easy claims descent from libertine France. Karl F. Zender links Faulkner, and creolization in New Orleans. The French Resistance in World War II under Charles De Gaulle was the subject of a film script by Faulkner and Jacques Pothier points to ambivalent parallels between Reconstruction and the situation in France as a defeated, although unvanquished, nation. Barbara Ladd, too, highlights the French subject of Faulkner’s A Fable, which Noel Polk, in his weighty contribution, expands to apply to the entire language of Modernism in art generally, in works by Pound, Eliot, Picasso, Braque, Stravinsky, Cezanne, and Gaudier Brzeska. In post-World War II fiction, there is often a link in the author’s biography between France and the American South, as Suzanne W. Jones’s essay on Youngblood’s Black Girl in Paris and A. Robert Lee’s argument that Demby’s Beetlecreek is the huis clos of the American South, demonstrate. With reference to the Germanic north of Europe, Lothar Honnighausen underlines romantic nostalgia and wanderlust connecting Wolfe and Goethe. Dieter Meindle explores the Germanic roots of the modernist novella and the tradition of the grotesque in the American South. Peter Nicolaison traces Thomas Jefferson’s ambivalence toward Europe. Robert Brinkmeyer’s essay on Styron’s Sophie’s Choice suggests underlying parallels between territories under Nazi occupation and the sensibility generated by the experience of slavery and civil war in the American South. Southern literature had rather more influence on Scandinavia than the reverse, yet Ibsen left a mark, says Hans Skei. Zacharasiewicz gives the reader one of the weightier essays on Flannery O’Connor and Carson Mc Cullers and the Southern Grotesque. On the African connection, Paul Giles suggests that the work of Zora Neal Hurston should be placed in a more variegated context than our customary geographical Southland. Sharon Monteith makes the French connection between Richard Wright and Boris Vian, while Charles Reagan Wilson treats Wright’s experience of Spain. Richard J. Ellis examines the bondswoman’s narrative as created by Hannah Croft to the novels of Dickens. Theo D’Haen asks, could Mark Twain have developed his binocular vision of the south without Cervantes’s model of Sancho Panza and Don Quixote? Did Mark Twain’s experience of travelling in Europe generate his split view, simultaneously juxtaposing the ideal myth versus the gritty reality, suggests Jan Norden Gretlund. Where would Mark Twain be without Sir Walter Scott as an antagonist, and where would Conan Doyle’s idea of colonization, or Henry James’s contrast between the new and the old worlds be without the underlying myth of the antebellum South, ask Susan-Mary Grant and Rosella Mamoli Zorzi. Richard Gray points to the issue of the European fairy tale at the foundation of so many Southern ideas and stories, for example in Eudora Welty, whereas Dawn Trouard Rezensionen 200 points to the biographical connection of Welty and Elizabeth Bowen. Surprisingly, Arno Heller is able to link Walker Percy’s world view to Eric Vogelin’s opposition to Nazism from a Catholic and conservative position. Essays dealing with economic and political issues outside usual literary topics include James C. Cobb’s study of the opposed stereotypes of cavalier versus capitalist, as well as the development from mercantilism to contemporary international trade between the South and Europe. Foreign relations of the Confederate States and the impact of King Cotton on British public opinion during the Civil War are the topics of Martin Crawford, while the economic and cultural importance of South Carolina is outlined by Walter Edgar, as is Confederate nationalism by Don H. Doyle. Jill Terry traces recent transatlantic folk exchanges, while Barbara Ching discusses the traditional transatlantic ballad, and Sarah Robertson points out the affinity between Appalachia and the mining country of Wales. Excellent as these separate essays are, taken together their sum is greater, for they demonstrate how academic study can define the diversity and integrity of a regional culture within the United States which has its own internal logic and coherence. The main point of contact for ideas and attitudes from across the ocean into the United States is not limited to Boston, New York, or Washington, D.C., but may as well be through Charleston, Atlanta, or New Orleans, or a host of other places. Formal academic programs in American universities need to heed this demonstration that the boundaries of cultural units do not necessarily correspond with the political boundaries of our fifty states, but cluster in interlocking configurations of former Confederate States and their adjacent territory, the basin of the Great Lakes, Appalachia, the Mississippi Valley, the territory formerly settled and governed by Hispanics, and so on. Each of these domains has lines connecting it intellectually to global trading partners, homelands of its immigrant population, religious affiliations, and historical affinities world wide, which short-circuit national identity. Programs of study which suggest that American culture is homogenized from Atlantic to Pacific coasts and from the Canadian to the Mexican border, and that American literature once produced in New England is its adequate representation, do a disservice to our students. It is time to reorganize the pedagogy of American Studies at institutions of higher learning so as to account for the diversity and global interconnections transcending national identity, as demonstrated by this set of papers. Todd K. Bender University of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A.