DOCUMENT RESUME PD 035 624 t.TITHOr Dike, wenneth I.; And … · 2013-11-08 · In one essay of this collection of four, Kenneth T. Dike explores the value of exercises which are

if

DOCUMENT RESUME

PD 035 624 TE 001 606

t.TITHOr-T-L17

INSTTTITION

DTP nAmr"OTP

AVAILtPtIl. vnil

'DDS DI,TC7

D7SC,)TDTOrS

ABSTRACT

Dike, wenneth I.; And OthersTagmemics: The Study of Units Beyond the Sentence.mational Council of Teacher:: of Pnglish, chamraian,Til.

6424n.; Reprinted from "College Composition andCommunication," May and nctober, 1?611."rational Council of Teachers of Pnglish, c08 southSixth Street, Champaign, Ill. 61820 (Stock Mo.32c56, HC 4'0.40)

ED'S Price MF-T0.25 HC Not Available from EnDS.*Anplied Linguistics, *Composition (Literary) ,Creative Thinking, Discourse Analysis, *Fnglisl,Instruction, Language Patterns, Language Universals,Literary Analysis, *Literary Criticism, SentenceStructure, Structural Analysis, Structuraltinguistics, *Tagmemic Analysis, Teaching Technicues

In one essay of this collection of four, Kenneth T.Dike explores the value of exercises which are based on axioms aboutlanguage structure and which are designed specifically to developwriting competence; he lists eight tagmemic principles accompanied bysugaested exercises. In another essay, Pike differentiates the rolesof linguist and literary critic and applies linguistic analysis tojokes. Hubert N. English, Jr., demonstrates how using five of Pike's"universal concepts" of Perspective can improve the content ofstudent compositions and foster invention. Alan P. Howes emphasizes+/IP student's need to sharpen his perception and consider the sublectfrom several angles before writing about literature. Fe illustratesthe value of Dike's model o-7 Particle, wave, and field, developed for4-'e study of language, for encouraging the flexibility of perspectivein the study of literature. (Jn)

1

1

11

t

I

ii

k

t

4.(Ni

The Study of Units Beyond the SentenceLf11re%

Cp Kenneth L. Pike

LiJC1"A Linguistic Contribution to Composition" page 2

(May)

Yagrnemks

Kenneth L. Pike"Beyond the Sentence" page 9

(October)

Hubert M. English, Jr."Linguistic Theory as an Aid to Invention" page 16

(October)

Alan B. Howes"A Linguistic Analogy in Literary Criticism" page 21

(October)

Reprinted from

College Composition and CommunicationMay and October, 1964

-00 "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPYRIGHTED

MATERIAL BY MICROFICHE Y HASQI GRANTED

\P BYTO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING UNDERAGREEMENTS WITH PIE U. S. OFFICE OF EDUCATION....-FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE TIE ERIC SYSTEM

0 REQUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT WINE"

() Copyright 1964

tI

National Council of Teachers of EnglishY.S. 101/1111111 Of NUM MAIM t MAI

Off a OF EWANTM SKIM NM MI MOWS 11111011 as Inn HON AtMOO 011 SIIMIIIATIII 1111111111 IT. POINTS OF VOW OR MINIS

STAIN N NT MUM IPIESUO OFFICIAL MCI OF MCADOO

P01111011 N POLICY.

A Linguistic Contribution to CompositionA HYPOITIUM

KENNETH L PIKE

MY =PE/1MM includes little directconnection with the teaching of com-position either on the freshman level orwith artistic aims. I have, however, beendirectly or indirectly involved in thetraining of 5,000 or more students in theinitial phases of linguisticsespecially inconnection with the Summer Instituteof Linguistics ( with its principal train-ing center at the University of Okla-homa), which is carrying on analyticalwork in some 200 languages in a dozencountries. In order to train these stu-dents to analyze and write descriptionsof these es we found it necessaryto develop both a body of theory gen-eral enough to to any languagewhatever out of several thousand inthe world, and at the same time to in-vent exercises which would break downthe learning pro:)iem into small bits interms of simulated languageanalyticalsituations. By isolating one componentof a problem and building it into 3aartificial languagette for analysis, an ex-tremely complex total problem can betackled piecemeal. If all phases of anintricate problem are dealt with at once,on the other hand, training becomesdiffuse, and satisfactory testing of re-sults impossible.

It is from this background, when facedwith the problem of Freshman Composi-tion, that the query arose: Would it bepossible to explore a number of theaxioms of such a language theory,' in

Author of The Intonation of AmericanEnglish, 1945; Phonemics, .Tone Lan-guages, 1948, and Language in Relation toa Unified Theory of the Structure of Hum-an Behavior, 1954-00, Mr. Pike is professorof English at the University of Michigan.

1The specific theoretical approach utilizedhero may be called tagmemics, named after agrammatical unit proposed by the theory. Ex-

2

order to develop exercises based onthese axioms about language structurebut specifically designed to develop writ-ing competence?

Underlying this question is the as-sumption that composition is but a spe-cialized variety of the use of language,and that principles about language ingeneral should therefore be exploitablefor training in the more mechanicalphases of the composition arts.

A composition style foreign to a be-

ginning studentwhether foreign be-

cause of its elegance, or its technical

nature, or its contrast with oral stylemust be learned as a foreign languageis learned, by "hearing" it (in the analogof reading extensively and by 'speak-ing* it (through its analo3 of extensivewriting). Drills for this essay dialect"or technical-writing style need to bebroken down into drills on types ofstructure just as a language manual is.

The formal phases of writing com-prise a set of structural habits, the pro-ductive control of written dialect, not agroup of memorized propositions about

tensive discussion of the elements of the the-ory may be forma in my Language in Relationto a Unified Theory of the Structure of Hu-man Behavior, Part I, 1954; Part II, 1955; PartIII, 1960 (Glendale [now Box 1960, SantaAna, Odin Summer Institute of Linguistics);and Dimensions of Grammatical Constructions,language, 2322144 (1962). The clearest appli-cation comes in Velma Pickett, The Gram-matical Hierarchy of Isthmus Hooter, Lan-guage Dissertation No. 66, (Baltimore, 1960);and development of the theory in Robert R.Longacre, String Constituent Analysis, lan-guage, 36.63-33, (1960).

Sample exercises in analysis of sounds arefound in Kenneth L. Pike, Phonemics (AnnArbor, 1947); in the internal structure ofwords in Eugene A. Nida, Merphologi, SecondEdition (Ann Arbor, 1949); in structure ofsentences in Benjamin Bison and Velma B.Pickett, An Introduction to Morphology andSyntax (Santa Ana, 1962), and in my Lan-gone, Part I, 1954, f 7.

More relevant to the student of literatureare the artificial structures for exercise intranslation, and the sample verse in such Lec-ture III of the series entitled Language andLife, Bibliothera Sacra, 114.347-62 (1957).

erA LINGUISTIC CONTRIBUTION TO COMPOSITION

spoken and written language. Learningto speak a language must not be con-fused with passing an exam about lan-guage structure. Some knowledge aboutthe language is useful to the adult learn-erbut & Ils built to teach habits, alongstructural lines set forth by a linguist-plus-pt.:etre team, make up the bulkof a su l language-learning course.

Accompanying this assumption, how-ever, lies the belief that the individualartistic component of creativity is notdirectly accessible to the linguistnorto any other scientist. No training incomposition can guarantee that the stu-dents will develop into Miltons. Yet anyartist uses certain tools competently.Drill on the use of particular languagetools should be possible and, in theory atleast, accessible to the linguist. Whetheror not linguistic science has developedto where it can make a substantial con-tribution to composition, however, isprecisely the point at issue.

A further assumption suggests morehopefully a contribution beyond that ofmechanical form. If one assumes thatthought itself is not fully structured untilit is articulated through languageaview which I would personally holdthen an analysis of language formswould feed back on an analysis ofthought structure.

It is from this view that I have beenattempting to train people to write tech-nical essays on linguistic structures.Currently, for example, the Institute hasvolumes appearing on the languages ofEcuador, Peru and New Guinea, whereduring the last two years I have beenconsulting with people working on somefifty languages. To the authors of thesemonographs I have insistedsince lan-guage and thought are intimately struc-tured togetherthat sloppy rhetoric im-plies sloppy thought; that the carefulanalysis of the rhetoric of a paragraphimplies an analysis of the thought struc-ture underlying it. This view is empiri-

3

cally supported. Frequently when onequeries an inadequate sentence in atechnical essay one finds that a deeperconceptual difficulty prevents adequaterewriting until the analysis itself isclarified. Therefore training in detectinglack of clarity in mechanical expressionhas some useful transfer to creativethought.

With this explanation of our assump-tion that language theory is relevant tocomposition, I turn to a list of a fewaxioms about language accompanied bysuggested exercises which might con-ceivably prove to be useful. This ma-terial is designed to be a hypothesis, nota solutionto stimulate professionals inthe teaching of English composition todevelop kinds of techniques on a moreformal and systematic scale which theyundoubtedly may have used informallyor without reference to a specificof language. Nor does Ethis apclaim to be complete. It touches on onlya few of the basic problems.

Ideally this material should be ac-companied by an anthology of writingswhich illustrate each of the points in-volved. Because of requests for accessto it, however, it seemed wiser not towait for the ideal, but to make the gen-eral suggestion available now. In orderto be most useful, the material wouldeventually need to be cast in a formthat teaching fellows without linguistictraining can utilize. The testing of thefruitfulness of the suggestions must becarried out by literary scholars since thelinguist has not necessarily learned eith-er the pedagogy of essay writing northe nature of its artistry and values.

(1) A unit to be well defined mustbe treated in reference to its contrastwith other units, its range of variability,and its distribution in class, sequence,and system. This requirement applies tounits whether they are movements, pat-terns, concepts, or things.

( la ) Only if a unit has been con-

4 COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

trasted with other units is it well de-fined. A unit is known well only if oneknows what it is not. Only if the essayistmakes sure that the reader knows whatthe title does not cover, for example, isthe topic well defined. This requirementapplies to large units like a total essayor to small ones like the sound [13]andto a table or a drawer in the table.

As components of a unit are identifiedwhich permit one to keep its naturenegatively clear, these same components,once established, then serve positivelyto help one to recognize that unit atmoments or places where the contrastcannot be directly established.

EXERCISE: Write an essay describingsome item ( e. g., a table, king, unicorn)or event ( a wedding, jump, blink) inwhich the total attempt is to say whatthe unit is not. Set it off contrastively.Then rewrite the same essay varyingthe style by direct positive description.

Caution: First attempts at listing neg-ative components of a unit may includemany random and irrelevant items.Eventually, relevance and priority mustcome into the weighting of the compo-nents. As a corrective it may be advis-able to draw, in advance, on (5) whereelements of meaning, usefulness, andpurpose have priority over form in hu-man affairs.

( lb) Similarly, a unit is well definedonly if its range of variation is made ex-plicit. No actionfor exampleis ex-actly repeatable by the human being,due to physiological muscular limita-tions. If any movement is to be identifiedas the same as any other movement, oras having been repeated, it is essentialthat the observer learn what differenceshe is to ignore. Otherwise he may notseparate irrelevant differences from rel-evant contrast, and his identification ofa unit will falter. (Otherwise, for ex-ample, he cannot bathe in the 'same'river twice or even recognize the girlhe invited yesterday.)

Variation may be random (condi-tioned by no element in the observablecontext), or it may be caused by somecomponent of the environment.

EXERCISE: Rewrite the essay of ( la)while focusing on the range of varia-tion of the itemwhether from age, ac-cident, environment, etc.rather thanits contrast or identification. Add a com-ment to the essay discussing the differ-ences of style resulting from the change.

( lc) A unit is, in addition, well de-fined only if its distribution is specified,with the unit seen as occurring as amember of a class of alternatives, whichcome in a particular slot ( see 2) in aparticular high level structure. At thesame place in the pattern or sequence ofevents what units might conceivablyhave occurred rather than the one ob-served? What choices, for example,might have been possible for John at thetime he threw a touchdown pass?

EJIIRCISE: Choose from some pattern(or story) some thing( or event). Lista number of different items which theculture might have allowed to occur atthat place and suggest how the patternor outcome would have been affected byeach substitution.

(1d) A unit is well defined only ifits distribution is specified in referenceto the particular sequence of specificitems with which it can occur, or withwhich it characteristically occurs. Themore frequently a word occurs with aparticular set of other words, for ex-ample, the more that set becomes thenormal defining context for the meaningof the term. The more rare the par-ticular distribution the more of a sem-antic impact it has; poetic discourse andslang utilize special linguistic or socialdistributions for affecting the audience.

EXERCISE: Describe various kinds ofpatterns or contexts in which the itemof ( la) is expected to occurand writean essay or story in which its unexpectedoccurrence becomes crucial.

A LINGUISTIC CONTRIBUTION TO ( :O11POSIION 5

EXERCISE: Write a conversation inwhich controlled juxtaposition of wordsradically affects the style of the output,by having one speaker in the dialogueutilize extensive clicheL, and the otherspeaker utilize discordant juxtapositionsof words in an unexpected variety.

le) A unit is well defined only if itsdistribution is specified in reference toits occurring in a system. System canoften be best understood as an intersect-ing network of contrasts. For example,in a phonetic chart such as

p t k

h d g

the three columns (vertical dimension)show, respectively, action at the lips(p, b, in), at the tongue (t, d, n), andat the back of the tongue ( k, g, 9). Thethree rows (horizontal dimension) showair stopped in the mouth ( p, t, k) airstopped in the mouth with the vocalcords vibrating (b, d, g), air stopped atthe mouth exit but not at the nose (in,n, i ). The unit [b] is defined, in thissystem, as coming at the intersection ofthe lip action and the closed mouth withvocal cord vibration.

EXERCISE: Taking for one dimensionthe contrast between formal and casualstyle, and for the other dimension stand-ard and substandard dialects, rewrite aparagraph of one of the earlier essaysusing successively each of the four stylesimplied by the intersecting dimensions.Then, as a further dimension, add uni-verse of discourse differencessciencefiction on Mars versus young child in anurseryand discuss the further changesthat would be needed to meet the re-quirements of the implied patterns.

(10 When an essay as a whole isconsidered as a unit, it too may be welldefined. Tests of an essay in this frame-work can in part answer the question:How do you know when you havethought well?

EXERCISE: For some essay or storygiven you, test for its well-defined char-acter. Does the essay derive some of itsdistinctive features from negative liimtsplaced on the topic? How are these re-lated to elements positively identifyingthe topic? Does the essay clearly setup the limits of variability of its topics?Was the topic integrated with choicesin a higher level cultural situation? Orltgically or in sequence close to it? Isthe topic treated as a point of intersect-ing dimensions in a larger universe ofdiscourse?

(2) A repeatable, relevant pattern ofpurposive activity is made up of a sequ-ence of functional classes-in-slots. I havestated (lc) that membership in a classof alternatives in a slot of a structure isrelevant to the definition of a unit. Nowwe go further, stating that a structuralpattern is composed of sequences offunctional slots meaningful to the cul-ture, and with each slot having a classof alternative units eligible for filling it.(The combination of slot-plus-class iscalled a tagmeme; a sequence of tag-memes makes up a construction. Thesubject-as-actor, for example, is a tag-ineme in a transitive clause constructionillustrated by the sentence John sawBill). The presence of slots, with theiralternatives, allows behavior to be seg-mented into relevant parts.

EXERCISE: Choose a short story. Cutit up into episodes. Discuss, for each,some alternative events which mighthave occurred, instead, at that point inthe story. Show how different choiceswould have changed the story. Thenshow how the particular sequence ofepisode types in this story is a cul-turally-provided sequence of choice-points-and-alternative-decisions whichsets a framework for the development ofa particular set of quite differentevenantagonisticcharacter types.

6 COMPOSITION AND COMNIUNICATION

EXERCISE: Write two brief essays inwhich some situation is chosen such thatthe beginning, or ending, or progres.;ionof the two essays is identical but atcertain points different alternatives arechosen. Try writing a paragraph or afew lines of verse in which at some onepoint extensive verbal alternatives aresuggested.

(3) The slots occur in larger andlarger units of interlocking levels. Sim-ple words like boy occur in slots withinphrases like the big boy. Phrases like thebig boy occur in clauses such as I sawthe big boy. Clauses occur in sentences,which occu- in paragraphs, in mono-logues, in discourse, and in conversationor larger formal literary units.

Between the levels some languagesgive intricate concord.. Affixes of words(subject-object pronouns, tense indica-tors, and so on) may be in agreementwith independent parts of the clause orsentence. Thought structure and its lan-guage analogs sometimes involve writ-ing which ties the large to the smalllevel.

EXERCISE: Write an essay in whichmicrocosm and macrososm are somehowintegrated ( e. g., where home-situationdetail is intimately linked in concordwith a job in a larger social environ-ment).

(4) A three-way hierarchy of levelsis found in natural human language andin other purposive activity. The structureof language is not a simple hierarchy oflevels; rather, it is an interlocking setof three hierarchieslexical, phonologi-cal, and grammatical.

(4a) The lexical hierarchy includesword parts (such as the plurals of bc'ys),words, phrases, clauses, and so onthespecific lexical bits. A specific sonnetwould be a high level unit in the lexicalhierarchy.

On low levels, or high levels, wordscan be used in normal distribution with

central meaning, or in special distribu-tion with metaphorical meaning of spe-cial impact. As essay may include met-aphor at the low level (a boy is a fox)or at a high level (images, similes, or apoem as a whole involving a symbolicresponse).

In a poem the lexical structure mayhave reference to recurrent words of arelated set (spring, summer, fall). Itmay refer rather to instance and classsuch as dog, animal.

EXERCISE: Write an essay, using wordsin their central meanings. Rewrite theessay using metaphor extensively. Re-wr;,:e, presenting the same topic througha single extensive analogy, or parable.Rewrite, seeking higher impact for thesame topic by creating a poem whichindirectly implies the same attitude tothe topic.

(4b) The phonological hierarchy atthe lower level includes small compon-ents such as the sound [13] in whichthe lips close while the vocal cordsvibrate. Sounds combine to form largerunitssyllables, stress groups, pausegroups, and the like. The phonologicalhierarchy is utilized for structural pur-poses beyond the routine of syllablestructure when patterns of rhyme, pat-terns of meter, or other recurrent phono-logical elementssay intonationare in-volved.

EXERCISE: Build some verse in whichyou use choices in phonological slots,leading to rhyme. Then a few linesexploiting phonologically-controlled se-quence, leading to alliteration. Then'Juild some verse in which the small, rbits are integrated with a larger patternof recurrent stresses in such a way thatthe number of syllables and sounds is ig-nored, but the recurrent pattern of ac-cent becomes especially meaningful.

EXERCISE: Study contrastive intonationmarkings of an essay (or poem) throughvarious transcriptions of several differ-

A LINGUISTIC CONTRIBUTION TO COMPOSITION 7

ent readings2 of the essay as given youby your instructor. Rewrite the essaytrying to give in words the effect ob-tained by the intonation.

EXERCISE: Write an essay or poem.Mark it crudely for pitch and accent.(Do not worry if it is inaccuratelydone.) Re-mark the essay with an in-tonation which, by implying sarcasm, re-verses the meaning of it.

(4c) The grammatical hierarchy in-cludes levels of tagmemic slots and ofcons auctions (cf. 3).

Possibility for development of writingpower includes the ability to exploit allthe construction resources of the lan-guage complex sentences, and para-graph, discourse, or genre structureandtheir cross-linkages. The grammaticalhierarchy may be distorted for specialeffects.

EXERCISE: Write a brief essay in whichonly complex sentences are usedwitheach sentence representing several levelsof the grammatical hierarchy. Rewrite,utilizing exclusively short, simple sen-tences.

EXERCISE: Select a poem. Discuss themanner in which the author exploits allthree hierarchies at various levels of

each.(5) I anguage is a composite of form

and meaning. If a person tries to studymeaning without reference to the form-al structure of language, he may endup with no structuring at all. Meaningdoes not occur in isolation, but only inrelationship to forms. To a very greatextent, at least, thought patterns candevelop with clarity only as internal orexternal speech develops in an organ-ized fashionor as it gradually gets or-gainzed on paper. Purpose, in nonverbalaction, is the analog of meaning in lan-guage.

EXERCISE: Select a paragraph from anessay. Can you identify some concepts

2For a poem of Emily Dickinson marked byline drawings for three distinct intonation pat-terns, see my Language, Part III (1960),13.5.

which could not be conveyed by gestureor picture? How does language allow forthought development in this instance?

EXERCISE: Write an essay matchingform to action type, for reinforcementof impact. Choose, for example, somekind of action which is sharply, quicklyvaried. To describe it use a languagestructure varying sharply in lexical type,accentual patterns, word length, andgrammatical complexity. Then choose asmoothly-developing situation and asmoothly-flowing language situation todiscuss it.

EXERCISE: Write a story in which threeepisodes3 would appear identical to acamera, but the meaning, purpose, andrelevance differ sharply because of thelarger situations of which they are a part(murder, insanity, loyalty). How doesthis exercise differ from ( lc) or (2)?

(6) Language units can be viewed asparticles, or as waves, or as points in alinguistic field. Tagmemic theory em-phasizes that the human observer mustsuccessively vary his viewpoint to eachof these three if he wishes to experiencefully any unit. Each of the three is insome sense, at some times, common tohuman behavior and human experience.

(6a) For some analytical purposes theobserver must view behavior as a se-quence of particles (or segments). Per-haps this is the way in which a personmost usually sees units. The possibilityof segmentation is correlated with al-ternatives available (substitutable) at achoice point (see slot and class in lcand 2).

EXERCISE: Write an essay. Make sharpthe segment borders so that the partsof the essay following one another insequence are specific, separate chunks.Show their sharp-cut relationship toslots in a higher structure implied by theessay.

(6b) For some other purposes, how-

3See my Operational Phonemics in Relationto Linguistic Relativity, Journal of the Acous-tical Society of America, 24.618-25, (November,1952).

8 COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

ever, the observer must study the same_units as waves in which the borders mayfuse into one another in a physical con-tinuum. This fusion results in an indeter-minacy of segment borders.

EXERCISE: Rewrite the essay of (6a) .Fuse every part of the essay into itsneighbor with smooth overlapping tran-sitions. Let paragraphs slur together.Exposition of the second part must beanticipated before the first ends. Physi-cal components of the activity describedshould be highlighted to make easierthe description of anticipatory action.

(6c) For still further purposes the ob-server must treat language as some kindof field. In this view the units becomeintersecting points of contrasting fea-tures ( le) of form and of meaning (5)in the network of a background system.

EXERCISE: Rewrite the essay, above.The units as chunks or segments shouldDOW be out of focus and the physicalcharacteristics should be softened. Fo-cus, ratlicT, on the total situation as anintricate web of intersecting elements noone of which can be clearly separatedfrom the others. Differing personal in-tentions should show up through iden-tical actions (see fn. 3 in 5); some in-tentions may be manifested in a varietyof actions (see 2); and fusion occurs insequences of actions ( see 6b) .

EXERCISE: Rewrite the essay, movingfrom one of these points of view to thenext, successively, to give effects ofsharp structural perception, then of con-crete physical impact, and finally of totalunderstanding of a life system.

(7) Language must be analyzed associal behavior. Speech is an act. Al-though code or symbol is involved, lan-guage is communicative, symbolic be-havior, not a total abstraction fromaction. Speaker, hearer, and the con-necting social and physical setting arerelevant to the understanding of thelanguage act.

Communication, in this view, may becalled a "molecule" with two "atoms."

1

The first is the formal componentwords, sounds, grammar. The second isa social one. Only when language oc-curs against an adequate background ofshared social system and social be-havior does communication take placeor foreign languages get learned easily.4

EXERCISE: Write an essay illustratinglack of communication when socialbackgrounds differ. Rewrite it, illustrat-ing difficulties of other classes of listen-ers.

(8) Change passes over a bridge ofshared components. Tagmemic theorysuggests that change never occurs interms of action at a distance, but onlyover a bridges made up of some sharedcomponent. Syllables change by merg-ing at their borders. Words change byfusion. as the phrase as you may smearin f speech. Systems of languagesmear also, in that words from one maybe borrowed by the other through bi-linguals who share the two.

EXERCISE: Write an essay stating twodifferent but related points of view.Then rewrite the essay showing howsomeone found his view changing, pivot-ing on some shared component of cul-ture or language or experience.

Rules and patterns cannot of them-selves create a man. Something withinhim, beyond language forms or training,determines whether he will be highlycreative of beauty or of truth. The depthof beauty of his productionor even thefact that he produces at allmay never-theless depend on his understanding ofthe language mechanisms of beauty andpattern.

After the mechanism, or along with it,must come models. The artist in embryomust study the artist in fact. At thispointif not long beforeI cease to beone of his teachers.

4Nucleation, The Modern Language Journal,44.291-95 (1960).

5Toward a Theory of Change and Bilingual-ism, Studies in Linguistics, 15.1-7 (1960); andStimulating and Resisting Change, PracticalAnthropology, 8.267-74 (1961).

Beyond the SentenceKENNETH L. PIKE

UNDERLYING MY VIEWS concerning thestructure of language and experienceare several beliefs:

The observer adds part of himself tothe data that he looks at or listens to.He hears more than impinges on theear. His inner self adds to nonrandomear drum rattle a restructuring condi-tioned by his private experience and hissocial-cultural setting. Whatever struc-ture may reside in the data proper, itinevitably becomes moulded by the ob-server. An unbiased report is impossible.

Observers differ, and hence their re-ports differ. An author, observing theaction of people (or observing his ownwork), a critic observing the work ofauthor, the philosopher or critic of crit-ics observing the critic, and the manin the street observing author, critic,and philosopher each brings somestructural bias to the data he sees.

A bias of minenot shared by manylinguistsis the conviction that beyondthe sentence lie grammatical structuresavailable to linguistic analysis, describ-able by technical procedures, and usableby the author for the generation of theliterary works through which he reportsto us his observations. The studying ofthese structures has thus far been leftlargely (but not exclusively) to theliterary critic. But even a brief glancein this direction where the linguist stillhas so much to learn has enriched myown experience. Sheer delight awaits

Mr. Pike is Professor in the Departmentof Linguistics, University of Michigan.

9

the linguist who sees the poem as lin-guistically a unique lexical event ( anintricate "idiom" as it were) with aninterlocking (partially unique) phonolo-gical structure embedded in a high levelgrammatical pattern (in a genre, thatis to say, which is in part culturally de-termined and in part created newly).

Complexity can be fractionated, butexperienced wholeness must be affirmedas beyond the debris. Analysis of anobjectlike the dissecting of a rosemay give insight to structural detail, bytools allowing systematic description,while destroying almost everythingabout the rose which is of valueitsbeauty. As I see it, the literary criticshould welcome the linguist as a lowlevel servant. But when the linguist isthrough with his fun and his mechan-isms, the important problems of valuepermanence, esthetic impact, and socialrelevance must then be tackled by theliterary critic.

The tagmemic approach to linguistictheory ( of which this article is an exam-ple) claims that certain universal in-variants underlie all human experienceas characteristics of rationality itself.Since I have discussed them elsewhere(See "A Linguistic Contribution toComposition," CCC, May, 1964), Imeetly list four sets of these character-istics so that I can refer to them in amoment, as I attempt to show how theycan be brought to bear on languagestructures of types which may rangebeyond the sentence.

10 COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

(1? Units as structures:(a) with contrastive-identificational features,(b) with variants, which include some physical

component,(c) distributed as members of classes of items,

functioning within slots (positions) in a tem-poral sequence (or spatial array), and distributedin cells of a dimensional system;

(2) Perspectives as complementary:(a) as particle,(b) as wave,(c) as field;

(3) Language as social behavior:(a) with form-meaning composites,(b) in a universe of discourse,(c) with impact or change carried over a bridge of

shared components;(4) Hierarchies as interlocking:

(a) lexical,(b) phonological,(c) grammatical.

The observer brings to bear on ex-perience a unitizing ability. Withoutsegmentation of events into recallable,namable chunks, without abstraction ofthings as figure against ground, withoutreification of concepts manipulatable asdiscrete elements by our mental equip-ment, man would be inept. These unitiz-ings are an observer imposition on acontinuum. So, also, is the recognitionof units as contrasting with one another;the ability to ignore irrelevant differ-ences; and the possibility of experienc-ing one element as in relationship withother elements in a system.

The observer can change perspective.On the one hand he can study experi-ence as made up of particles, or unitchunks. On the other hand he can usephysical equipment to proveon thesupra-atomic levelthat data occur in acontinuous merging or flow. Or he cansee an item as point in a mesh ofrelationships. These perspectives, like-wise, arc Imposed by the observer.

The understanding of a language in-volves the observer-linking of a linguis-tic form to an experienced meaning.This form-meaning integration takes

place relative to a universe of discourse,a generalized field of observation, cutout by the observer from possible areasof interest to him. And when he wishesto communicate with others, to influencethem by his writing, or to let themshare an experience of his own, he mustdo so by getting to the reader on terri-tory which they share psychologically,physically, or linguistically. This, too, re-flects an observer characteristic.

The observer can fasten attention onlarger or smaller units of a uniformseries. He can also focus upon one ofvarious types of uniform hierarchicalseries simultaneously present within alarger unit. The capacity for focus onthese hierarchies or their various levelsis an observer component. It allows forthe studying of interrelations of wordswithin a larger work, as these wordsmake up lexical sets (spring, summer,fall) in a lexical hierarchy and universeof discourse, the study of phonologicalintegration (alliteration within a phrase,meter within a poem), and the studyof the function of formal segments ofsentences, or of stanzas, or of formalparts of an essay ( introduction, body,conclusion).

I

i

1

,

BEYOND THE SENTENCE 11

Evidence which to me brings an over-whelming reaction of wholeness to alanguage elementwhether composed ofone or many sentencescan be seen injokes. In order to analyze one of them,c often becomes necessary to call on a

Large percentage of the theoretical ap-paratus which we have mentioned. Forexample: "Even worse than raining catsand dogs is hailing taxis" (from a col-lection by Robert Margolin, The LittlePun Book, 1960). (1)1 This joke is aunit. (a) It contrasts with other kindsof language unitswith a drama, anovelby its briefness, its element ofsurprise, its highlighted pun. (b) It canLe told in a variety of ways, not allequally efficient, e.g., with reversedtirder, it is worse if it is hailing taxisrather than raining cats and dogs." (c)This kind of joke is appropriate to aparticalar set of situations in our socialstructure; in other placese.g., someformal onesit would be unwelcome.(2) The joke (a) is a whole segment,a language particle. Included within itare smaller particles words, sounds,grammatical parts. (b) Viewed as awave composite, however, one seeswithin it sequences of articulatory move-ments merging within syllables (withvocalic nuclei) within stress groups, aselements of higher level phonologicalwaves. (c) Viewed as field, the joke iscomposed of the intersecting universesof discourse of weather and traffic, andthe intersecting hierarchies (or confla-tion of hierarchies) of lexicon, phono-logy, and grammar.

(3) (a) As a composite of both formand meaning the joke is lost if the spe-cific words are replaced by apparentsynonyms, or if idiomatic expressionsare replaced by explicit statement. Ifwe wish to retain the joke, we must not

1. The parenthesized numbers and lettersin this discussion and in the later discussionof Emily Dickinson's poem are keyed to theoutline of tagmemic principles presentedearlier in this article.

replace "cats and dogs" with "hard," or"hailing" with "calling." To change theformwhether particular sounds, orwords, or grammarat a crucial pointis to destroy the joke. Neither form normeaning can survive by itself. (b) Thejoke switches from the universe of dis-course of the weather, to that of traffic(or transportation), and back to weath-er, (c) turning on shared componentsof lexicon, phonology, and grammar.

The shared lexical set includes "rain"and "hail" from the universe of discourseof the weather. Phonological sharing in-cludes the homophonous pronunciationof "hail" (as falling ice), and "hail" (asa calling act). The grammatical sharinginvolves the grammatical equating ofthe two contrastive forms with "-ing."

(4) Hierarchical elements are in-volved. (b) The pun on "hailing" oc-curs phonologically at the word level.But (a) the pun works only because ofits place in the higher level lexical idiom"raining cats and dogs." The influence ofthe phrase "raining cats and dogs" car-ries forwardwith the help of the pho-nological homonymy and (c) the gram-matical ambiguity of the "-ing" formsto force the interpretation of "hailing"into the universe of discourse of "rain-ing." At the same time, the high levellexical phrase "hailing taxis"once it isinterpreted as a participle plus its objectretrospectively forces the phrase "rain-ing cats and dogs" to be interpreted lit-erally within an imaginary universe inwhich the weather pattern can includetaxis as also falling from the sky. Thus(a) the interpretation of the higher levellexical idiom is broken down into aninterpretation as a non-idiomatic se-quence of lexical elements.

Other jokes build on these same theo-retical components but in different pro-portions: "Why are a mouse and a pileof hay alike?The cattle/cat'll eat it."The immediate attention here is fo-

cused on the homonymity of "cattle"

12 COMeOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

and "cat'll." Each (provided one usesthe contracted pronunciation of "catwill" needed here) is a single stressgroup with identical vowels and conso-nants. But it would be a serious error toassume that the pun could be describedby phonology alone. As for lexicon, thereis the contrast of the one word "cattle"with the lexical sequence "cat will." Asfor grammar, there is the difference ofthe grammatical relation of "cattle" and"cat will" to the remainder of the sen-tence (as part of subject only, versuspart of subject and predicate) . As aunit, on the other hand, this joke con-trasts with the first pun in that it hasa grammatical structure beyond thesingle sentenceit has a question seg-ment and an answer segment as itscharacteristic parts.

If jokes of various subgenres arc shortlinguistic particles, yet so complicatedthat all available linguistic apparatusmust at times be called on for explainingthem, how can we conceivably expectto use anything less for the descriptionof a sonnet, epic, or tragedy? And withall this complexity we must continue toexpectas for the jokesthat the obser-ver will supply the intuition of the inte-gration of the parts into a form-meaningwhole, often beyond the sentence in sizeand intricacy of structure, and beyondthe sum of separate words in meaning.So, with Murray Krieger (writing inCollege English, 25.6.408, 411, 1964) wemay be "astounded with all that seemsto happen at a stroke," during the "mul-tiple levels of simultaneity which theacrobatic poetic context displays," as itarrives at meanings which "cannot bereduced" to assertions about the poem.

If, furthermore, we conclude withRobert Frost that the chief thing aboutpoetry is that it is metaphor "just sayingone thing in terms of another" so thatcollege boys can be told "to set theirfeet on the first rung of a ladder thetop of which sticks through the sky"

( from his essay "Education by Poetry,"reprinted in Robert A. Greenberg andJames G. Hepburn, Robert Frost, AnIntroduction, 1961) then a continuityemerges between the kind of meaningfound in a good poem and the meaningof a pun. Both deal with multiple, simul-taneous meanings, with a crossing fromone universe of discourse to another overthe web of interwoven hierarchies oflexicon, phonology, and grammaroften,but not always, beyond the sentence.

My literary colleagues insist, however,that demonstration of the relevance ofa set of analytical tools to a joke cannotautomatically be assumed to transfer tothe analysis of a poem. To test this rele-vance on a poem which was neither toosimple to be interesting nor too long tobe feasible (nor selected to fit the ap-proach) I returned to a poem whichhad previously (1953) been selected forme by a colleague on the basis of liter-ary interest, rather than on the basis ofany prior judgment of linguistic form.The poem was by Emily Dickinson:

The brain within its grooveRuns evenly and true;But let a splinter swerve,`Twere easier for youTo put the water backWhen floods have slit the hills,And scooped a turnpike for themselves,And blotted out the mills!

At that time I had had the poem readaloud by various persons, and recorded.I marked these variant readings for thepitch of the voice (with three alternatereadings published later in Language inRelation to a Unified Theory of theStructure of Human Behavior, Vol. 3,pp. 48-49, 1960). Nov, however, I want-ed to find out whether any of the pointslisted above would force me to askquestions about this poem which hadnot occurred to me when I was lookingat ii from the point of view of its pitchalone. NVhat I now saw (as linguist, notas literary scholar) is this:

BEYOND THE SENTENCE 13

(1) Unit. (a) In form (rhyme,length) the piece contrasts as poem ver-sus essayand so onor even with amore specialized poetic form such asthe sonnet. Its over-all meaningcon-strasting with other possible messagesseems to be that the brain is delicateand can suffer drastic permanent dam-age.

(b) Variation occurs both in the formand in the meaning (interpretation ofthe form). Variants in the writing of thepoemi.e., alternative wordings of theauthorhave been published (4.n Thom-as H. Johnson, The Poems of EmilyDickinson, 1955, p. 425). Word alter-nates occur there ("a Current" and "theWaters" for "the water"; "trodden out"and "shoved away" for "blo--ted out").When one selects a reader (rather thanauthor) as observer, a further set ofvariants emerge s. Different readersbring sharply-different intonations anddynamic phonological structures to thepoem. They add meanings to the poemto whatever extent intonations them-selves (or stress, voice quality, and soon) carry meaning. In my earlier record-ings, referred to above, the reading bya graduate student occurred as a some-what dull sing-song. The second reading,by a poet, attempted to prevent over-emphasis on rhythms, by using a quietnear-monotone. The third reading, by aliterary critic, attempted to highlightindividual words (since he felt that inDickinson's writings the separate wordswere often highly meaningful) and didso, by the use of extra pauses, emphatic:,tresses, high pitches, change of pitchdirection, and sharp change of speed.

(c) Due to the contrastive charac-teristics already mentioned, the poemfinds its place in a class of short poemsas a member of the poetic genre fillingits appropriate role in the larger systemof literary types. Int2rnally, the evidencethat classes of alternatives are presenthas already been indicated in terms of

the alternate words suggested by theauthor of the poem. These words do notoccur at arbitrary places, but in refer-ence to substitution in grammaticalslots. The selection of a particular wordas an alternate, however, is probableonly if it fits the proper universe of dis-course, and is a member of the classappropriate to a slot in that particularconstruction.

(2) ( a) Among the particles whoseinter-relationships one would like tounderstand in this poem are the "brain,""groove," "splinter," "water," d a in,"mills," and others. What is the groove?or the splinter? It seemed to me thatthe analogy requires that the groove bethought of as guiding some kind of amoving door in its trackwhich wouldjump from the track if a splinter got inits way. This would allow for the ana-logy of the water going through themillrace turning the wheel, but causingchaos if it jumps over the bank andtears out the dam.

(b) Processes supply the wave com-ponent. The brain was represented asa processa flowing (through thegroove); the water also occurred asflowing (through the millrace). Theswerving of the brain led, it seemed tome, to wreckage, just as the swervingof the water tore out the mills andended in destruction. While I checkedwith my colleagues, however, I foundthat there was by no means agreementas to the meaning of the splinter or thegroove. An indeterminacy of observerinterpretation was certainly present.(One qiiick answerthat the groove waslike those in a bowling alleyseems un-acceptable within the contextfieldof the poem, since there we prefer tohave the ball stay out of the groove!)

(c) In searching for some type ofpresentation for field, in line with thepreceding interpretation. I seemed tounderstand the poem better when Ilooked at it as showing states of health

14 COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

and illness intersecting with productiveelements of brain and water. A healthybrain produces good thoughts; a sickone chaos. Controlled water produceswork in the mills; swerved water leadsto economic loss and damage of equip-ment. These can be shown in a two-di-mensional schema:

Well

BRAIN good thinking

WATER mill production

Sick

mental illness

valley disaster

(3) Yet a social component lay hid-den in my judgment. I realized this onlywhen someone raised a question as towhether the mills were to be consideredgood (as productive) or bad (as eco-nomic clutter of an ideal landscape).If the author had thought of them asbad, then the figure of speech of themill (working backwards through thepoem) might force a change in the in-terpretation of brain movement. Insteadof representing a process of becomingill, mental change could be seen asgrowth of outlook, irreversible but de-sirable. An analytical-observer compon-ent could therefore not be left out ofconsideration here.

Similarly, an observer component isinvolved in the total meaning of thepoem. The statement "Mental illness isbad" does not carry the same impactthat the poem does. Thus (a) the poemis a form-meaning composite such thatthe meaning (as impact) will not re-main unchanged if the poem is put intoprose. Part of this impact, further, comes(c) by the use of pivot elements shared(b) by the two universes of discourse ofbrain activity and water activity for themill. They share (in a metaphor) theconcept of channel and they both canswerve from course. Without the sharingof these elements from the larger be-havioral setting, the metaphor would bepowerless.

(4) The linguistic elements can beanalyzed hierarchically. ( b) Sounds en-ter into syllables, the syllables into feet,the feet into the larger groupings. (a)The words enter phrases, the phrasesinto the clause or the total sentence.Some lexical setsthe rhyming ones,"true" and "you." "hills" and "mills"have their membership determined byphonological criteria. Other sets haveother properties such as a kind of asemantic hierarchy; the movement frommicro-level ( with "splinter") to macro-level ( with the "hills") carries a specialimpact. (c) Grammatical entities (suchas subjects and predicates and locatives)enter into larger and larger construc-tions within the poem, and an internalfeature of the structure of the plot ofthe poem as a whole is seen in the shiftof the section dealing with the brain tothe second which discusses the water inits parallel swerving and resultant chaos.

One further question arises: How dothese considerations apply to the teach-ing of composition? I earlier suggesteda list of exercises which might havesome possible relevance at this point(CCC, May, 1964). How do they infact work out? And what implicationsdo these resultsin their first stageshave for the theory?

I asked some students to attemptbrief, rapid drills in which they were toemphasize contrast, stating about athing only what it is not (as part of thedefinition of the element as a unit). Asample: "Chalk is not a fountain penbecause it does not have a metal pointnor use ink. Chalk is not a pencil be-cause it contains no lead and is not en-cased in another substance. Chalk isnot a crayon because it contains nowax." The result proves unsatisfactoryas literatureprecisely because it fails totake advantage of other components ofa literary unit. It does not build a struc-ture integrating the individual sen-tences, but merely piles them up like

BEYOND THE SENTENCE 15

cordwood. The monotony experiencedthrough the dull repetition of the onesentence type suggests that acceptablecommunication requires variety. Butmore than sheer variety is involved.Rather, an interesting narrative or argu-ment requires a multi-dimensional struc-ture beyond the sentence. Exerciseson contrast must be supplemented withfurther exercises to teach the person toreach complexity of sentence type andcomplexity of paragraph and essaystructure as wholes. (A report of an at-tempt of this kind was given by AltonBecker at the CCCC meeting in NewYork in March, 1964.)

Although my assumption has beenthat for some purposes it might proveuseful to start with very simple drills,these must be followed by integratingexercises. Beyond all exercises, however;there will continue to lurk an observe!element not prescribable or program-mable. Among the students followingthe same set of instructions referred to

1

I

above on contrast, some of them addedmore interesting, nonpredictable ob-servations: "A horse . . . is not a catas it does not meow, nor eats birds, norhave claws. It is not a dog because itdoesn't bark nor wag its tail nor climbup on people's laps."

To meas one observerit appearsclear that there is a corollary to this in-tricate set of concepts: Just as no com-plete success has ever been achiev.adin devising a mechanical procedureto analyze a novel or sentence, so alsowe must not build our homes on anymechanical procedure to generate allpossible useful and beautiful sentencesand sonnets. (For discussion of the ca-pacity of the unconscious versus theconscious in composition, as an antidoteto over-formalization of the compositionzurriculum, see articles by Janet A.Emig, William Stafford, and MargaretBlanchard in CCC, February, 1964).

Beyond t'ie linguist lives the artist.

Linguistic Theory as an Aid to 3nventionHUBERT M. ENGLISH, JR.

ONE CANNOT WRITE "by" a linguistictheory as such, or at least one would notwant to. The analogy of painting bynumbers comes to mind: by suggeststhat the writer or painter is a meremediator, not originator, that his contri-bution is only the mechanical executionof a design formed by someone else.

Nevertheless we recognize that someof the qualities of original compositioncan be systematically sought out. Welearn to ask ourselves questions aboutthe role or voice we want to assume fora particular piece; we develop our ownlists of favorite topoi where we can usu-ally find things to say; we contemplateour subject in relation to some largerdesign or framework of ideasAristotle'sfour causes, Hegel's thesis, antithesis,and synthesis. If linguistic theory cancontribute to a systematic approach thatwill work for most students by reducingthe amount of unproductive effort thatgoes into their papers, then writing "by"a linguistic theory makes good sense.

The ways in which such a contribu-tion might be made, I believe, are two.The first is exemplified by the "slide rule"composition course developed recentlyat the University of Nebraska [See Mar-garet E. Ashida and Leslie T. Whipp,"A Slide-Rule Composition Course,"College English, 25 (October, 1963), 18-22] in which students first work outdetailed descriptions of the linguisticfeatures of certain specimens of expertwriting (e.g., counts of compound sen-tences and p o s t-v e r b subordinateclauses, kinds of sentence openers, kindsof appositives, transitional devices ), and

Mr. English is a member of the EnglishDepartment, University of Michigan.

16

then attempt to incorporate these fea-tures in their own writing. The approachhere is through form; the effort is di-rected at fostering imitation.

My subject, however, is the other wayin which it seems to me that linguistictheory might contribute to the teachingof composition. Here the approach isthrough content and the effect is tofoster invention.

Pretty clearly the difficulty of teachinginvention is at the heart of the problemof teaching a student how to write. Youcan't do much about his unity, coher-ence, and emphasis if he has nothingto say. Too few papers pre At theteacher with real cerebration, that fun-damental substance of thought thatmust be there before he can work effec-tively as critic and editor. Without itthere is nothing much for him to do butto correct spelling and punctuation andto tell the student in a final commentthat he failed to meet the assignment.

I want to make it clear chat the orderof thought I am remarking the absenceof is relatively low, low enough to bewithin anybody's grasp. I am not con-cerned with a kind of thought that isforeign to the student's present knowl-edge and experience. His inability towrite intelligently about collectivism orthe Swedish cinema does not troubleme; that will presumably come in time.What does trouble me is the studentwho is unable to produce anything on asubject that I know he does know some-thing aboutan object before his eyes,a common word to be defined, astraight-forward essay that he has justread. Not subtle insights, keen sensitivi-ty, stylistic refinement; just elementaryevidence of a mind at work. It is at

LINGUISTIC THEORY AS AN AID TO INVENTION 17

this level, I think, that linguistic theorynamely one branch of tagmemic theoryas developed by Professor Kenneth Pikeof the University of Michigancan helpa student order his thinking about a sub-ject and get that thinking into writing.( See CCC, May, 1964, pp. 82-88).

Professor Pike's work with a greatmany languages over the years has ledhim to the idea that all language sys-tems, despite an enormous variety ofmeans, are designed to provide certainfundamental kinds of information about"units" ( structural wholes at any level )within the system. Each unit, in otherwords, from the phoneme on up thegrammatical hierarchy, becomes intelli-gible because the system of which it isa part fixes it for us with respect tocertain concepts that are the same forall languages, even though two lang-uages may have very different ways ofproviding the necessary information.Pike's analysis leads him to three suchfundamental concepts: contrast, rangeof variation, and distribution, the lastof which is subdivided into distributionwith respect to class, distribution withrespect to context, and distributionwith respect to matrix. There is accord-ingly a total of five modes of knowledge,five aspects which, collectively, permittotal apprehension of the linguistic unit.A chart showing the application of thesefive modes for a simple examplethephoneme /p/is helpful (next page ).

The application to the teaching ofcomposition comes through a generaliz-ation that takes these ideas out of therealm of linguistics as such: these con-cepts turn up in all languages becausethey are fundamental categories ofthought, basic modes through whichthe human mind apprehends reality. Ifthe generalization holds, then one oughtto be able to use these concepts, turn-ed into appropriate questions, as toolsfor thinking systematically about anysubject. If a student can master them

he need no longer sit staring at a blankpage and waiting for the inspirationthat never comes. lie has an orderlymethod for canvassing his knowledge ofa subject andequally importantforfinding out where that knowledge isincomplete. He can put to himself a setof questions which will give his mindsomething definite to operate upon.They will not do his thinking for him,but they will help him bring such knowl-edge as he has to the point of articula-tion. An examination of the subjectfrom these five points of view is almostbound to turn up something worth say-ing in a paper. Here, let us say, is athing ( or event or idea) to be writtenabout: How does it differ from otherthings more or less like it? In what wayscould we alter it without changing itessentially? What could we substitutefor it? In what sort of contextspatial,temporal, conceptualdoes it charac-teristically occur? Can it be seen in somematrix that clarifies its relationship tothings that resemble it?

Suppose we take two conceivable sub-jects for writing, one a concrete object(divan) and the other an abstraction(democracy), and run them through thefive modes. The questions and answersunder each mode are intended to sug-gest only a few of the many possibilities.

(1) ContrastWhy is a divan not a chair? (Seats

more than one.) Why is a divan not abed? ( Structural differences. Primarypurpose not for sleeping.)

Why is a democracy not a monarchy?(Lim'tation on terms of office. No pro-vision for hereditary rule.) Why is ademocracy not a plutocracy? (Franchisenot dependent on financial status.)

2) Range of VariationCan we upholster our divan with

elephant skin? (Yes, kind of materialmay be varied indefinitely.) Can we up-holster it with nothing? (No, such a

ASP

EC

TIN

FOR

MA

TIO

N Y

IEL

DE

D A

BO

UT

UN

ITE

XA

MPL

E

Con

tras

tW

hat i

t is

not.

/p/,

not /

b/, e

tc.

Ran

ge o

fV

aria

tion

How

muc

h ch

ange

it c

an u

nder

go w

ithou

tbe

com

ing

som

ethi

ng o

ther

than

itse

lf.

Allo

phon

es o

f /p

/: pi

t, tip

, etc

.

Dis

trib

utio

n(C

lass

)A

ltern

ativ

es th

at m

ight

be

subs

titut

edfo

r it

in a

par

ticul

ar s

truc

ture

.Fo

r /p

/ in

apt:

/k/,

/f/,

etc.

(but

not

/b/,

/d/)

Dis

trib

utio

n(C

onte

xt)

Wha

t cha

ract

eris

tical

ly o

ccur

s w

ith o

rar

ound

it.

/sp/

but

not

/bp/

; /p1

/ but

not

/pm

/

Dis

trib

utio

n(M

atri

x)L

ocat

ion

in s

yste

m o

r ne

twor

k th

atsi

mul

tane

ousl

y lo

cate

s co

mpa

rabl

eun

its.

Act

ion

at li

psA

ctio

n at

tong

uetip

Act

ion

at b

ack

of to

ngue

Air

sto

pped

,vo

cal c

ords

still

/p/

/t//k

/

Air

sto

pped

,vo

cal c

ords

vibr

atin

g/b

//d

//g

/A

ir s

topp

edin

mou

th b

utno

t in

nose

,vo

cal c

ords

vibr

atin

g

/m/

/n/

16/

'oc

LINGUISTIC THEORY AS AN AID TO INVENTION 19

piece of furniture would be a bench orsettee.) Can we remove its back? ( No,it would then be a couch or day bed.)Its arms? (Problematical; usage of theterm is not so precisely fixed.)

Can a democracy tolerate communalownership of property? (Yes, so longas the people retain effective controlover such property.) Can it tolerate thesuppression of educational institutions?(Doubtful; a knowledgeable electorateis probably essential.)(3) Distribution with Respect to Class

In typical circumstances (say a livingroom) could we replace our divan witha bookcase? (Suited to setting but notto function.) With a bed? ( Suited tofunction but not to setting.) With cush-ions on the floor? (Carries certain so-cial implications: greater informality,etc.)

Could the freedom of the people bepreserved if a democratic form of gov-ernment were replaced by a limitedmonarchy? (Possibly, but the limitationswould probably turn out to be demo-cratic in character.) What if the demo-cratic form were replaced by a benevo-lent despotism? (Probably not; content-ment need not include freedom.)(4). Distribution with Respect to Con-

textIn places where divans are found,

what is typically found with them? (Inliving rooms, chairs, tables, lamps, etc.,but probably not other divansalthoughthese might turn up in club rooms, thea-tre lounges, or hotel lobbies. Such placesare other typical contexts for a divan,each with its own distinctive features.)

What other characteristics of a societytend to accompany a democratic form ofgovernment? (Literacy, prosperity, sta-bility, materialisma case might bemade for any of these, as well as forothers. Whether the democratic formof government is cause or consequence,of course, is another fruitful question,and one that this approach leads to.)

(5) Distribution with Respect to MatrixTo fix "divan" in relation to compara-

ble entities, one might devise a matrixwith the obvious "dimensions" of pur-pose and capacity; that is, down the leftside we might write "for sitting" and"for reclining"; across the top, "one per-son," "two people," three or more." Thenature of "divan" could then be seen toreside partly in the fact that it alone ofthe various kinds of furniture will fitin two of the compartments thus creat-ed: "for reclining, one person" and "forsitting, three or more."

A similar kind of matrix might beconstructed for forms of government,with "democracy," "communism," 'fas-cism," etc. occupying the various com-partments. A variation, perhaps equallyinstructive, would be a matrix with com-partments designed to contain not formsof government but the governments ofspecific countries. At the left we mightlist economic bases of societiese.g.,"capitalistic" and "socialistic." Acrossthe top, the distribution of powere.g.,"divided" and "centralized." The prob-lem of placing recognized democraciesand recognized non-democracies in sucha matrix ought certainly to yield insightinto the nature of democracy.

Hopefully the student who has grasp-ed the five modes of thought will be ableto apply them, almost like a map grid,to the terrain of any subject and thus in-troduce a degree of order that will placehim in the position, not of having to findideas, but of having to choose from anabundance of them. The crucial ques-tion, of course, is whether the return ininvention is commensurate with the in-vestment in time and attention thatgrasping the theory requires. Elaboratescaffolding is wasteful if the finishedbuilding is no more than a cottage. Ourexperience at the University of Michigansuggests that there is no simple answerto this question.

Seven graduate students teaching sec-

20 COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

tions of the regular Freshman Englishcourse last year agreed to participatewith me in an informal trial programover a period of five weeks. After twoweeks of preparations including fre-quent meetings with Professor Pike,each of us devoted three weeks to im-parting the concepts of the theory tohis students through explanation in classand through a series of jointly producedwriting assignments intended to lead theclass through the five modes of thoughtone by one. One more paper done at theend of this period ( which in some casesstretched beyond three weeks) presum-ably reflected whatever benefit the stu-dents had been able to derive from theirtheoretical studies. The period of instruc-tion, as well as the training period forteachers that preceded it, was kept de-liberately short: we were interested infinding out what could be gained froma minimum investment. As might beexpected, where the teacher was sold onwhat he was doing the student appar-ently benefited; it was impossible to saythat "the experiment" worked or didn'twork.

Some observations, though, held gen-erally. The period of time allotted wasnot enough. The theory, unlike, say, amathematical operation, cannot be ap-plied widely as soon as the general prin-ciple is grasped. It requires a good dealof "soaking in," a considerable amountof trying out before it can be used withany degree of sureness. An individualinstructor whose interest runs in thisdirection and who can take the time tomaster the theory and explore its appli-cations can, I believe, produce a notice-able improvement in the writing of someof his students. For a multi-sectionedcourse taught by a large staff, however,the use of this theory probably requiresa more elaborate training program thancan be contemplated, although the exis-tence of an appropriate textbook might

create a significantly different situation.Student writers under the influence of

the theory frequently became absorbedin the means to the detriment of theend: instead of writing good essays theywrote papers that exemplified the theoryelegantly. One teacher complained of"excessive hairsplitting"; another thatstudents managed to work in some as-pects of the theory "only after a peculiarstretch of the imagination, which, whileinteresting, did not always lead to rele-vant distinctions." The difficulty here, Ithink, is not so great as may appear atfirst sight. It is in fact a common prob-lem when the student's attention is firstdirected to technique: apparently thereis an inevitable stage during which con-scious control of means must manifestitself in awkward and mechanical ways.Rhetorical ideas tooorganization, forexamplewhen first presented for con-scious employment are more than likelyto turn up in a highly artificial form.

But this does not mean that we canbe content with the way in which partlydigested theory gives the whole writ-ing process the cramp, especially sincelinguistics, being farther removed thanrhetoric from the actual practice of writ-ing, can cause more pain. On the faceof it, and until research teaches us bet-ter, rhetoric in a broad sense appearsto be the logical subject matter of acourse that aims to improve writing.Linguistics, though it may afford valua-ble insights, stands at a remove. Linguis-tics is concerned with language as fact,rhetoric with language as instrument;the one is science, the other art. Beforethe insights of linguistics can be put toeffective use in a composition coursethey must undergo a kind of translationinto rhetoric, into ideas directly appli-cable to writing. Given such a transla-tion, solid benefits may be hoped for,but it by no means follows automaticallyfrom the presentation of linguistic ideas.

A Linguistic Analogy in Literary CriticismALAN B. HOWES

THE USE OF ANALOGY in literary criticismhas a respectable tradition going back atleast as far as Aristotle, who took ananalogy fiom biology when he said thatthe plot of an epic "should have for itssubject a single action, whole and com-plete, with a beginning, a middle, andan end" and thus "resemble living or-ganism in all its unity." He used thesame analogy in speaking of the neces-sary "magnitude" of the action imitatedin a tragedy, since "a beautiful object,whether it be a living organism or anywhole composed of parts, must not onlyhave an orderly arrangement of parts,but must also be of a certain magni-tude." [S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theoryof Poetry and Fine Art (Dover Publica-tions, Inc., 4th Ed., 1951), pp. 89, 31]

As teachers we all use this analogyand others. We point out the "organic"unity of works of literature and likewise:.ry to get our students to aim at thesame kind of unity in their own writing;but we often find that students do notgrasp a work in its totality, or at leastare not able to demonstrate such a graspin the critical papers they write. If weare to train our students to write moreintelligently about literature, to becomemore competent literary critics, I thinkwe must help them to find new ap-proaches. On the whole, we have tendedto emphasize problems of organizationmore than problems of perception. Wetalk a good deal about the ways toorganize the material for a critical paper,but we are apt to scant the ways inwhich the student may arrive at insightsto be organizedin other words, the

Mr. Howes is a member of the EnglishDepa-tment, University of Michigan.

21

whole part of the process which mustprecede the actual writing if one is tohave anything to say worth saying.

Whatever perspectives we have sup-plied to help the student in arriving atinsights have tended to fall into twocategories: first, the conventional break-down into partsplot, setting, character,and theme for fiction; or image, idea ortheme, metrics, and so on for poetry;and second, some rather specialized ap-proaches ranging from the Freudian in-terpretation to the biographical ap-proach, all reductive to one degree oranother because they insist upon a sing-le perspective which often tends to limitrather than to enlighten.

Even the more sophisticated and morefruitful specialized approaches such asthose described in Reuben Arthur Brow-er's "The Speaking Voice" or CleanthBrooks' "The Language of Paradox,"though they provide fresh and stimulat-ing insights, may lead a student to ap-ply a theory too rigidly to a literarywork where it may not be altogetherappropriate. We have not found an idealapproach that forced the student to payattention in a systematic way to all theparts of a literary work, the interrela-tionships of those parts, and the wholework as made up of different kinds ofparts in interaction. Hence the criticalpapers we get tend either to becomecatalogues of separate elements or toapply a specialized approach where itmay not work: that is, either to talkabout imagery, rhyme scheme, andtheme as if they bore no relationship toeach other, or to see irony, personas, orFreudian symbols benind every tree. Ifstudents are to write better criticismsof literature for us, we must help them

COMPOSITION AND COMNIUNICATION

to find ways of arriving at broader in-sights and integrating these insights intocoherent discussion.

Thus when Professor Kenneth Pikesuggested to me that perhaps his "mod-el" (as he called it) or "analogy" (asI would call it) of particle, wave, andfield, which he had been developing forthe study of language might also be auseful tool in the study of literature,I thought it would he worthwhile tosee whether it might help in solvingsome of the problems I have mentioned.In general terms, the theory behind themodel affirms that insights can be com-plete only when one views things fromthree separate points of view: first, assegments, collections of details, or small-er unitsthp. is, particles; second, asinterrelationships in which boundariesbetween segments are "smeared" (to usehis term) and the individual particlestake on new meaning as one perceives awave-like overlapping among them; andfinally, as total contexts or "fields" inwhich the individual parts become intoa whole which derives its character fromthe intersection and interrelationship ofall its parts.

The analogy may be applied to litera-hire at different levels. A word, a rhyme,a line, a stanza, or a major division ofa poem, for example, may be seen asparticle, viewed along with other parti-cles of like size. (Two separate sonnetsmight even be viewed as particles withina sonnet sequence.) A wave can involvethe overlapping relationship betweentwo words, two lines, or two major divi-sions of a work. Likewise, though theconcept of field would most often beapplied to total works, any sizable sub-divisiona stanza, an image, a section,even a linemight well be viewed as afield within the larger field of the wholepoem. The theory promotes flexibility ofperspective, and it may be applied towidely differing works of literature.

Let me illustrate its application to one

kind of poem by showing how it mightbe used as a tool of literary criticism indiscussing Ezr, Pound's two line poementitled "In a Station of the Metro":

"..he apparition of these faces in thecrowd;

Petals on a wet black bough.

I choose this poem because it representsin little a good many of the problems ofanalysis that one has in dealing withlonger poems. The reader's first impres-sion of this poemin other words, hisfirst vague perception of fieldincludesthe setting in the Paris subway, as ir 21-cated in the title, and the sharp imagein which the faces in the crowd arecompared to petals on a wet, blackbough. Various connotations are also apart of the initial impressionespeciallythose associated with the usual drab-ness of the subway crowd and those as-sociated with the freshness of the raindrenched branch of the tree, laden withpetals. The task of analysis is in part toshow the relationship of the two partsof the metaphor and further to seewhether this relationship suggests athematic statement. At this point, let ussee whether the analogy of particle,wave, and field is of help.

The poem may be seen as consistingof two major particles, represented bythe division into two lines, a divisionwhich also reflects the two parts of themetaphor. But there are also other waysof looking at its "parts." One may takethe key words"apparition," "faces,""crowd," "petals," "wet," 'black," and"bough." Within the two major particles.the two parts of the metaphor, there arecorrespondences: "faces" to 'petals" and"crowd" to "bough." Thus each of thesewords achieves full meaning only whenviewed with the other and hence thereis a wave-like relationship betweenthem. There is also a correspondence be-tween "apparition" and "petals "gram-matically. the f-o are equated. And here

A LINGUSTIC ANALOGY 1\ LITERARY ciaricisNi 23

a further interrelationship is suggested,with the two meanings of "apparition"(both "appearance" and "ghostly ap-pearance") serving to join the two partsof the metaphor with a wave-like mo-tion, since the dual connotations of "ap-parition" affect the connotations in therest of the poem.

Let us return to the 'afield" or totalcontext of the poem. This context canobviously be viewed in various ways.First of all, there is the situation inwhich the poet speaks, the setting, thecharacter of the speaker, the audience towhich he speaks. Second, there is thecontext of the words, their denotativeand connotative dimensions, and of theimage with all its details. Finally, thereis the context of the traditions of theformthe short, unrhymed poem of ir-regular rhythm, in this case derived, asPound tell us, from Japanese haiku. Theintersection of these various contextsmakes up the field. From the context ofthe traditions of form we are preparedto have the poem present an insightsharply, using a metaphor from nature.From the context of the situation, weare prepared by the juxtaposition of thescene in the subway and the scene fromnature for an insight which will bringseemingly discordant things together.Finally, from the context of the lang-uage itself and its connotations we takethe final step in seeing beauty in an un-likely place and arriving at an under-standing of the theme of the poem. Wearrive at this "field" view of the poem,however, only by putting all of thesecontexts together. We share the wonderof the poet at finding beauty in the un-likely setting of the subway crowd onlyif we sense the unpromising nature ofthe scene, follow him in the metaphorhe develops with connotations of indi-vidual words by which he suggests anew way to view the scene, and acceptthe validity of the overall aesthetic meth-od he takes of presenting a kind of epi-

phany, a concisely stated insight draw-ing upon an image from nature.

Let me give a further illustration ofthe application of this approach to arather different kind of poem, thoughagain one consisting of two lines, RobertFrost's "The Secret Sits":

We dance round in a ring and suppose,But the Secret sits in the middle andknows.

Here, to be briefer, one may again takeeach line as a major particle, and alsoconsider the key words. The parts ofthe metaphor are somewhat more elu-sive, because the fusion of the two partsis more complete and only a few detailsare given, mainly those which create thecontrast between "We," "dance," "ring,"and "suppose," on the one hand, and"Secret,- "sits.- "middle.- and "knows"on the other. The full meaning of thefirst line is apparent only when thewave-like overlapping of the contrast,introduced by "But," is complete. Inthe field, various contexts converge.There are the suggestion of the child'sgame and all its associations, the reli-gious overtones from the capitalizationof "Secret," the somewhat comic effectof the rhymeall these contribute tohe partially comic and amused tone of

the whole, which in turn contributes tothe thematic statement: an amused anddetached description of the human con-dition.

I sensed several potential advantagesfor students in approaching a poemthrough the analogy of particle, wave,and field. Above all, this approach en-courages flexibility of perspective. It alsodemands that the student consider anumber of details before choosing theimportant ones for discussion, it em-phasizes transitions and interrelation-ships more firmly than many approaches,and it stresses the dynamic or organicnature of the whole. Further, it pro-motes analysis and synthesis at the same

i;

24 COMPOSITION AND COMMUNICATION

time, since the student is often forced towork with whole and parts simultane-ously. Finally, it has the advantage ofhaving limits and hence avoiding thereductionism of most critical formulas:it helps the student to see all the signi-ficant elements, but it doesn't tell himwhich elements are more crucial thanothers. It is a tool for arriving at theraw material of critical insights, but itdoesn't force that raw material into apreconceived mould.

I have used this approach in briefexperiments in two classes, both com-posed of juniors and seniors who wereprospective teachers of English. In oneclass we were making an extended studyof Browning's poetry, in the other classof Frost's. The theory was presented tothe class with an indication of its lin-guistic origins and something of the pos-sible range of its literary application.Students were then given an assignmentin which they were asked to use theanalogy as a tool in the discussion ofa poem and to write an evaluation of theusefulness of the theory.

As one might predict, the results re-flected reactions ranging from enthusi-asm to bafflement, though on the wholestudents were enthusiastic and interest-ed even if they sometimes felt theydidn't fully understand the "model." Ob-viously any analogy, if it is to be use-ful in literary criticism, must become amatter of habit so that it is applied, inpart at least, unconsciously, and the lim-itation to one assignment didn't givethe students a chance to build up habits.Many students, however, said that theanalogy had forced them to analyze the

poems more closely and arrive at amore intricate and more complete un-derstanding. When I continue the ex-periment with another class, I will placeless emphasis on the linguistic originsof the analogy and more emphasis onits flexibility. I will suggest that the bestway to apply the analogy is first to readthe poem through and get a general ideaof it ( some students felt cramped bythe fact that they thought they werebeing asked to look at details beforethey looked at the whole) and then goback and make a more detailed andthorough analysis. Finally, I will demon-strate the possibilities of the approachby extended discussion of several poemsin class before I send them off to writepapers applying the theory on their own.

What I have been saying is perhapsmerely another way of stressing twothings: the value of making our stu-dents aware of the need for truly com-prehensive analysis before they writeabout literature, and of finding a toolto aid them in this process which willbe both flexible and incisive. In otherwords, we do not need a tool that willproduce totally new insights or help usto look for new things, but lather onethat will be more efficient in helpingstudents to see all the things that wehave traditionally tried to help them tosee. It is too early to tell whether theanalogy of particle, wave, and field isthe best tool of this sort; but it appearspromising because it promotes the flexi-bility necessary to true insight and atthe same time promotes within that flexi-bility a completeness of view.