, VOLUME 77 JH Number 1 Journal of the March, 1987 WASHINGTON ACADEMY ..SCIENCES ISSN 0043-0439 Issued Quarterly at Washington, D.C. CONTENTS Commentary: SIMON P. X. BATTESTINI: Teaching Language Competence Through Lists and Constructs Articles: awa e eliwelia te) elie hie) elce belsiie leis) s lee) esse. ey eels pele «2 (ee) ee) eas) a's) « ie wiles, «je she) «| ¥\¢ MONIQUE BILEZIKIAN: Teaching Students to Read XVIIth Century French Prose WO OG OGM 090 OO SOO SCR SONG OND 0 OOS ONO Gio Ci FONG COOOL a aCe) MICHELE MORRIS: The Play of Pronouns in Diderot’s La Religieuse ROGER D. BENSKY: Can These Dry Words Live?: A Blueprint for Teaching Text as Performance Now muesli lel svelte. «heirs» )ie\'s le) (elev, -s)e) se a )a |e: 9) 0 (e\.0:'e\e ee Je) ele «ms (6 © 2 JUDITH LYNNE HANNA: Gender “Language” Onstage: Moves, New Moves and Countermoves Sapte MieVele fui wiwl elle) » ta isle la elen¢. «els |e euceic «\s.-8)s 6.6) ¢ 6)s/e-e'.0 (ee woe WILLIAM PANICI: From Literature to Music and Film: The Myth of SUPLUETS TD LEI GS 1 ee nee ne Cir ee ere 32 DAVID BOWEN AND MARGARETA BOWEN: Diplomacy and Com- munication across Cultures: Degrees of Cultural Barriers ................ 36 PAULIN DJITE: Francophonie in Africa: Some Obstacles Washington Academy of Sciences Founded in 1898 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE President Simon W. Strauss President-Elect Ronald W. Manderscheid Vice President (Membership Affairs) Guy S. Hammer, II Vice President (Administrative Affairs) James E. Spates Vice President (Junior Academy Affairs) Marylin F. 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Published quarterly in March, June, September, and December of each year by the Washington Academy of Sciences, 1101 N. Highland St., Arlington, Va. 22201. Second class postage paid at Arlington, Va. and additional mailing offices. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages i-vii, March 1987 Commentary Teaching Language Competence Through Lists and Constructs Simon P. X. Battestini Georgetown University Compared to the majority of scientists, language teachers* tend to suffer from a lack of confidence. They commonly deal with unstable material, have to convince themselves of their varied skills and bear many of the psychological features of their adolescent audiences as they negotiate their moves between two uncertain worlds. Heterogeneity characterizes their sur- roundings. Classes of students differ at the same level, year after year, and many different individuals make up a class. De- partmental colleagues vary in terms of na- tional origins, social background and ex- perience but also in terms of teaching compartmentalization and research inter- ests. Language teachers are indeed con- cerned primarily with vocabulary (lists) and grammar rules (constructs), but also *For practical reasons, I am using “language teachers” to designate various types of profession- als, all concerned with teaching and researching communicative media. with literary criticism and cultural studies. Increasing numbers of them are involved in film studies and drama, journalism and television, ancillary or tool-language, computer-assisted methods and _ pro- grams, which all add to the fragmentation of their working landscape. As individuals they vary also in perspectives, methodol- ogies and choice, range and use of audio- visual aids. While the spoken medium is the ultimate aim for the majority of lan- guage teachers, many still rightly insist on the importance of writing skills, It may be that language teachers benefit little from the only true science in their field: linguistic discoveries are largely ig- nored. A kind of dismembered socratic dialogue characterizes most classroom student-teacher interfaces.* Their former *The unity of such an otherwise nonsensical ver- bal exchange exists. It is based on a unique linguistic or lexical feature and their variables; the emphasis is on forms of expression, not on content and fre- quently the question is rhetorical, proving the point. association with classical languages con- tinues to lead them to pay respect to an- cient views and behavior patterns such as the use of often inappropriate Latin gram- matical categories, of translation in the early stages of learning, of fascination for the literary text, and of Western civili- zation as the privileged term of reference. Yet in this apparently confusing world the great majority of language teachers do much more than survive. They make sense** in their otherwise chaotic world and the majority of them manage to be efficient. We attempt here to show how and to what extent. During the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguis- tics in March 1986, 14 special interest ses- sions were organized on different topics.’ About 60 papers were presented and dis- cussed. The 8 revised versions published in this journal come from 6 of these ses- sions. They may be considered as a fair sample of the current discourse among language teachers. A common core may be seen. Detailed collections of ideas, values, facts (lists), leading to organized propositions of inter- pretation (constructs). This core aims to improve teaching and comprehension of a text and to facilitate expression and un- derstanding of other modes of doing, feel- ing and thinking. All eight papers are te- leologic and indeed, didactic. What may appear as a vain enterprise, because of the great diversity of the contents and forms as well as the relative fragility of the con- structs, may be described as the teaching and learning of an essential “‘nothing- ness’’. It is a cumulative process which is the act of storing forms, of multiplying and improving them and their diverse **Literally the “making of sense”’ is to create or- der in chaos which, to Semiotics and Glossematics, is to give to forms of expression formal contents or vice versa. SIMON P. X. BATTESTINI possible structurings. Most of the prog- ress in the sciences started with the choice of a well-defined object, went on with rel- atively unified methodologies and re- sulted in a set of rules or laws universally accepted. In language research and teach- ing, results, more often than in the sci- ences, attain notoriety by virtue of their innovation and because they manage to diminish, if not contradict, previous re- nowned and established works. There- fore, we must be aware of the nature of the feasibility of these works. They are more or less important intrinsically, but their future is relatively limited. Their au- thority is provisional and relative. Much ado about nothing? perhaps. If so what is the purpose of such intellectual exercises? Language teachers, as shown in this collection of texts, respond optimally to certain scientific ideas and use materials and/or methods themselves reflecting contemporary ways of life. Indeed most teachers make use of formulations. Re- ducing tokens to type, use to mention, speculation to concision, theory to prac- tice, form part of their daily activities fol- lowing in such matters the general trends of the sciences. Ultimately what they pro- duce is subjects who now know that the world is not transformed by them but that it is themselves who will shape their set of relationships to their surroundings. They may use formalization, detailed descrip- tion, classification, with a view to obtain- ing an optimum understanding and an ef- ficient explanation. Because of their kaleidoscopic landscape, heterogeneous subjects, multiple techniques and per- spectives, but chiefly because they have to teach another worldview, language teachers, like sorcerer’s apprentices, de- velop their own methodology to control their reality. They tend to consider their methodology superior to others and as a reference from which to evaluate their colleagues. When Monique Bilézikian promotes a comparison between a relatively easy to COMMENTARY ili define student discourse and a literary text, she does it to evaluate the differences and through them she gives herself an ac- ceptable basis as scientists do with their universal scales of references from which variables may be accurately measured, evaluated and compared. Simultaneously she transforms students from passive con- sumers of a highly valued literary text into active and conscious subjects of their own improved written medium. Michéle Mor- ris uses statistics on textual samples to establish a solid base from which to en- gage in non-speculative analysis. This al- lows her to verify scientifically her hy- pothesis and reach objective conclusions. Roger Bensky, after many years of teach- ing and directing drama, draws up a set of valuable rules to be applied, beyond the stage, to many fields of public life. Experience, power of analysis, applicable concepts, a sense of service and efficiency combined with a rare feeling for an authentic communicative process, com- posed of context, bodily expression, in- tentions and reactions, as well as lan- guage, show how impalpable variables may improve the coding and the decoding of any message. Judith Hanna studies dance to understand how forms in motion, re- flect or signal, remind or announce, pat- terns of gender relationships. She de- scribes a measurable object to aid the conceptualization (even if in a metaphoric way) of social values, showing how ex- pressive forms are logically intermingled with content forms. David Armstrong ar- gues that the object of linguistics has been abusively reduced to codified human sound waves. He claims similarities between purely visual systems of communication and purely verbal, vocal systems and re- fuses to see only differences, as semiotic and philosophical analyses suggest. Wil- liam Panici observes the variables of a single narrative theme (the Myth of Or- pheus) and shows the importance of the determinant cultural factors on the forms of its representation. Therefore Panici demonstrates the plasticity of the forms, their relativity to the evolution of thinking patterns and values within the same so- ciety and from one society to another. Margareta and David Bowen argue that “language qualifications are only the most obvious aspect of interpreting perform- ance.’’ Equally important are the origins of the culture of the interpreter/transla- tor, as well as the specificity of the text, its style as well as its cultural origin. Var- liability of the source and of its cultural context condition the act of translating/ interpreting, itself resulting from the vari- ables of the agent and his/her own cul- tural context and the vision he/she may have of the culture in which the target text will be inscribed. Both authors see trans- lating/interpreting as the cross-cultural communicative process par excellence. Through multiple quotations, results of research and the use of different per- spectives on the future of the French lan- guage in Africa, Paulin Djité explains its present failure, giving evidence of its regression. He concludes: “. . . if Fran- cophonie was a bold idea and a compel- ling possibility the conditions under which it could have become reality are practi- cally non-existent.’ This would prove that a language A cannot attempt to invade and express a culture B without being adapted to such an extent that it would become within a short span of time an- other language or being rejected. Dyité’s observations show that there may be a limit to possible variabilities of the cul- tural context of one language. At this point I would like to examine two concepts, namely axiology (as the study of lists) and ideology (as the study of con- structs). We could see ‘‘axiology”’ as in- ventory, a set of items in which one prac- tises possible choices, a paradigm. “‘Ide- ology” differs from axiology as the set of relationships between the elements of axi- ology. One may compare both concepts to the elements of language teaching, namely language, literature and culture: iv SIMON P. X. BATTESTINI AXIOLOGY (lists) DICTIONARY vocabulary, locutions ANALECTS LANGUAGE LITERATURE narrative, descriptive, and reflective ENCYCLOPEDIA of a given culture CULTURE The optimal competence of language teachers in three different sets of disci- plines may not be reached in terms of contents; ordinarily one “‘specializes” in one or two sub-domains of literary criti- cism and/or cultural studies in addition to a solid competence in grammar. It seems that unity may only be attained through a methodology which would be applicable to any of the three to five subjects men- tioned above. “‘Axiology” and “‘ideol- ogy” as used here belong to Semiotics as defined by Julia Kristeva: . . . the science of significances, science also of science as type of significance, (which) opens a particular episte- mological domain: anti-totalitarian, anti-subjective, anti-theological, non- homogeneous but differentiating, transformative, renewing continuously its own trajectory.’ Semiotics may be rather considered as a versatile know-how, conveniently appli- cable to all possible contents and forms taught and researched by language teach- ers. Structuralism, grammatology, decon- struction are to many “‘scarecrow”’ words for practices and sets of ideas used by all those experienced in the teaching of lan- guage. It is regrettable that the metalan- guage of semiotics often obscures the use- fulness of the methodology from language teachers and others. Without subscribing to all facets of Kristeva’s obviously trium- IDEOLOGY COMPETENCE (constructs) (the aim) GRAMMAR LINGUISTICS composition all levels STRUCTURES LITERARY CRITICISM(S) plot aims composition methods EPISTEME SOCIAL SCIENCES ideologies cultural studies phant definition, all teachers may identify three aspects of their most common ac- tivities: they build on differences, they teach by transformation, and at least in- directly, or implicitly, they train their stu- dents in self-criticism along with a critical knowledge. That language learners have to deconstruct their world, first perceived as an inventory of values, objects, behav- ior, ideas, and then as a set of articula- tions between them, is well known. Many units of their language have to be reex- amined in the light of new perspectives coming from the target language and leading to a necessary and thoroughly critical exercise of all what constituted them. The structuralist claim that the meaning of a linguistic unit relies more on the set of relationships it maintains with units other than itself would lead to the logical consequence that learning a new language the total reappraisal of the natural and cultural environment of the learner. What may be expected from intimate experience of different “ideologies”? Early in the learning process there is an attempt to reject, to condemn the Other, before experiencing a feeling of scepticism if not of nihilism. Probably one must forget pro- visionally certain logical constructions be- fore being able to accept and introject new ones from grammatical rules to cul- tural patterns. The feeling of vacuity and loss of equilibrium between two stable COMMENTARY Vv worlds may be compared to adolescence. Next comes a gradual awareness of the internal coherence of the other: language and culture. What may be compared to xenophobia and schizophrenia is progres- sively replaced by a mild paranoia. This may explain partly why foreign language teacher often see themselves in the role of either persecutor or persecuted. Life in many language departments may be difficult. Lacan insists upon the role of existential events in the triggering of these troubles. There may be two refuges (ten- ure and relaxation being excluded): 1) the creative projection of false reality; 2) spe- cialization (discussed above). Both cases constitute withdrawal from the center of the arena. From the exercise of decentralizing themselves, students and teachers learn rapidly the somehow relative futility of their efforts and yet find in their progress a legitimate justification for their personal methodology. In order to understand, students alternate decentralization and recentralization on one of the two lan- guages, on one of the two cultures and in turn. Doing so they learn to build pro- visional orders and the provisionality of any order, and gradually acquire in this process certain skills. They accept strat- egies made of new forms and new config- urations of forms, increasingly complex and progressively disconnected from cir- cumstances and content. The rules of a chess game are the same whatever the pieces or the board are made of. . . and wherever and whenever it is played, al- though with the repetition of playing ex- perience, one improves the quality of his/ her playing. These forms are now at the disposal of the individual who may not only repeat them at will, or to respond to a given stimulus, but also play with them. The pleasure of mastering new roles creates a feeling of superiority over com- mon monolingual mortals. A new sense of freedom occurs which may ensure, with the quality of informed choices, a reliable decision-making process. Similar reac- tions may be observed in literary and cul- tural studies. In class, every linguistic element or rule is normally taught within an artificial sit- uation evoking the cultural situation to which it belongs. To support the teaching of the language many courses are tradi- tionally offered about its culture. For ex- ample, American students learning French are trained to understand the French cul- ture much more often than they are in- vited to look critically at themselves as from another culture. There may be some misunderstanding in this respect. Let us imagine a quite common situation in which an American student or business execu- tive encounters his/her French counter- part. They ask each other questions. It is difficult to imagine the French citizen in- quiring about France and vice versa. In fact French persons will be questioned about their country. They will have to ex- press themselves and/or their culture. Yet rarely do we promote courses providing American students with the necessary French vocabulary and locutions to de- scribe American culture. They have been trained to express the Other instead of expressing themselves as part of their own culture. That French and Francophone cultures have to be taught is not chal- lenged here but if the aim of the teaching of a foreign language is to provide fluency in this language we have to understand that the expression of the true self is a necessary step prior to the expression of worlds other than one’s own. Learning to express the American culture in the French language is helping the American student to acquire the French worldview but using a content so obvious to the student that the emphasis forcibly rests on the foreign ways of perception and cognition to be acquired. Complementing this newly opened perspective on themselves, the students may now turn towards the con- tent of the French culture as the next log- ical step. It seems that we should be teach- ing first the foreign perception of the learner’s own culture, then the foreign vi SIMON P. X. BATTESTINI perception of the foreign culture and eventually compare the indigenous and foreign perception for their peculiar worldviews and their attitudes towards other cultures. When Monique Bilézikian starts from the “‘degré zéro”’ of fluency of students to provide them with the tools to appreciate (and learn) the relatively more complex use of the language of a literary text, she does exactly this. After recognising the strangeness of the text and justifying it through intentions and effects the gap be- tween the “register” of students and au- thor is seen as a desired improvement to produce similar effects from similar in- tentions. It was Dewey, I believe, who taught that any successful educational task starts with a concrete evaluation of the base of application, continues with clearly defined aims and follows with the choice of efficient and appropriate method(s) to draw the student from step one (the pres- ent state or degré zéro) to step two (the projected state). Roger Bensky proceeds in a similar way as he tends to transform his objects (learners) into subjects (now acting themselves), developing in their own right hidden-but-becoming-obvious-skills for a much improved performance. When Michele Morris, in the course of reading a literary text, experiences its effect, pro- vides herself with the means to reduce the initially subjective understanding into an objective explanation, she too transforms the eventual passive impression felt by the students into a here and now active and reflective process vis-a-vis a text and to any elsewhere and tomorrow existential situation. These texts used by language teachers may in fact be seen as “pretexts”. They do not constitute the aims of the teaching even if some are definitely better than others in helping to attain objectives. If I may I would risk the idea that, like pho- nemes, they are discreet units but of the literary discourse. They serve a purpose which they do not constitute. Texts, sen- tences and cultural items used in class may rarely be used in real life. Nevertheless it is through them that certain forms and reactions to them will be eventually stored in the competence of learners. So out of “useless” (but wrapped and organized) contents, the language teacher creates the use of an implicit knowledge along with an increased number of forms and crea- tion of new ones. This game of previously stored forms and newly created ones con- sists of the reordering of worlds always first perceived as chaos or insignificant, but constantly reconstructed on a provi- sional basis. This is sustained by the awareness of being a skilled, master- builder. The sense of skill derives from the use of forms and their permitted or unpermitted intricacies; the sense of de- rision stems from the use of nonsensical sentences*, long-forgotten authors and ir- relevant texts**, and initially unaccepted types of doing, feeling or thinking***). The final product of language teaching may well be an “I” able to deconstruct and reconstruct him or herself. Confu- sion, heterogeneity, provisionality, may be seen as normal manifestations of the human environment outside (or on the fringe) of a vernacular-monolingual- monocultural-self-centered world. This does not constitute a denial of such a re- assuring world, since it is recognized that bi- or multi-lingual people also need roots. The difference here is that students, just as teachers, have learnt to relativize them- selves in whatever situation, assuming that they may escape from it at any time to choose any other . . . or resort to Sartrian imagination. No other disciplines may *Such as “my mother’s umbrella is bigger than my uncle’s hat...” **Tn Nigeria in the 1970s I had to teach The Prin- cesse de Cléves. Time and space conjugated their efforts to complicate my task as I was trying to make relevant my teaching to twentieth century Nigerian students more concerned with problems of devel- opment than of the heart. ***Such as belching or cleaning your teeth with a finger after your meal, kissing your mother’s guest on her mouth, pinching your wife’s friend, which are all excellent manners to Others to whom we are the ‘barbares’. COMMENTARY Vii claim as well as language, literary and cul- tural studies to equip students with effi- cient communicative skills and train them for cross-cultural problem-solving and structuring disparate elements with re- gard to intentions and effects, leading in turn to sound ethical judgement and hu- manistic qualities. It may well be that Semiotics, as the science of signs and the methodology of these studies, produces the type of indi- vidual needed today for reducing the gaps between the artificial compartments of knowledge, and between Pure Sciences and the Humanities. References Cited 1. Battestini, Simon P. X. ed. 1986. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Lin- guistics 1986. Georgetown University Press. Washington, D.C. (forthcoming). 2. Kristeva, J. 1971. Le lieu sémiotique. In: Essais de sémiotique-Essays in Semiotics. Mouton. The Hague, p. 7. (my translation). Se 4 AP “ anuirene 6 Pw ; \ ; wae i Hageneay se ae ‘eine ‘ Bee p snp a aie ext o 0 re ey bs ne ul 3 t an Parl : = = e C > 1 1 Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 1-5, March 1987 Teaching Students to Read XVIIth Century French Prose by Monique Bilezikian Georgetown University The transition from language to liter- ature classes is indeed a difficult one for students. A comprehensive summary of the scholarship on techniques for the dif- ferent levels in the curriculum is pre- sented in Edith Muyskens’ article ‘“Teach- ing Second Language Literature: Past, Present and Future”’.* In view of her ex- cellent compilation and analysis there is no need to repeat her findings in detail here; but I do want to discuss a few points which I found particularly helpful in ad- dressing the problem of bridging student transition from language to literature classes known as “‘the gap”’. The main obstacles facing the students include the lexical and structural differ- ences between the language in the text- books and those found in the literary texts. To avoid “‘dissatisfaction and discourage- ment at the lexical, syntactic and semantic levels” Georges Santoni discusses the ne- cessity of prefacing the reading of the lit- erary text with a variety of preparatory exercises at the three levels.* With proper preparation the discussion and interpre- tation of the text will become that much more accessible to the students who then will have the necessary tools to decipher This paper was presented as part of a special in- terest session on “Literature Revisited for the Teaching of Language and Culture’’ at the George- town University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, 1986. the text in a foreign language. In another approach, Claire Kramsch suggests “an interactional methodology for discussion’”’ where “‘the teaching of literary texts can be integrated into a general approach to the teaching of language as social dis- course’’.” I propose an approach where the anal- ysis of the style of the classical authors and the students’ own writing, will allow the latter to appreciate the specificity of a literary genre, the dynamic of the text and thanks to the author’s parole (ac- cording to Saussure) the cultural aspect of the work. This approach on the teaching of 17th century works of prose was derived in part from an article published in The French Review entitled ‘““Theoretical Acrobatics: The Student as Author and Teacher in Introductory Literature Courses’’.’? The author, Peter Schofer, proposes that the students write their own pieces in order to better understand ‘‘a precise problem or technique in the work to be studied.” For example, the role of the narrator, the role of the I, and the structure of a sonnet can be investigated by reading literary texts. Schofer’s goal is “‘to integrate lan- guage, literature and literary theory into a successful approach to introductory lit- erature courses.” In my opinion, this method, very con- vincingly brought forth by Schofer can be 2 MONIQUE BILEZIKIAN profitably developed even for more ad- vanced literature courses beyond the In- troductory classes, such as a survey course of a particular century. The pedagogical goal for the model presented below would be to help the students develop an ap- preciation of the different styles of the 17th century by adding the concept of a double écart* (déviation); first between their own text and a classical work and second, between the cultural codes of the two periods since our students/receptors would not receive the texts in the same manner the contemporary readers did. For example, an introduction to Ma- dame de Sévigné would start by asking the students to write a letter to a friend announcing important news. Adopting Roland Barthes’ term, this level of writing could be called the degré zéro. After writ- ing the letters and discussing the linguis- tical and structural aspects of them the class will then read Madame de Sévigné’s letter of December 15, 1670 to M. de Cou- langes announcing the aborted marriage of the Princess of Orléans, called la grande Mademoiselle, to a nobleman below her station.'° Let us imagine a student letter for ex- ample at the degré zéro of writing where the student expresses happiness at the thought of going on a junior year abroad program. It is great, wonderful, excit- ing. . . Several students will read their let- ters in class in order to better understand the function of the I, the relationship be- tween the I and the you of the receiver, verb tenses, fictitious receptors, etc. . . After discussion and recognition of the rules of the epistolary genre in their own letters, the students will then be able to read the letter by Mme de Sévigné and discuss it at three different levels. A— At the level of syntactical and lex- ical codes, the students will start by noting in the first part of the letter the use of superlatives and recognize the hyperbole *Michel Bénamou defines ‘“‘écart”’ as the differ- ence between what a decoder/receiver expects and the message. (p. 64). so frequent in the 17th century. The syn- onyms and antonyms of this first part are often perplexing to the student readers: they do not give the reader a useful clue to what the big news is; the playfulness and deceitfulness confuse the readers and do not allow them to define a paradigm to uncover the mystery of the letter. At this point, it would be useful to review the concept of paradigm and to show how this author has erased all possibilities of an indexing device which could lead to a paradigm elucidating the mystery. Hence, the letter accumulates a variety of super- latives some of which are contradictory; some of which are close in their semantic field like incroyable (“‘unbelievable’’), imprévu (‘“‘unforseeable’’) and yet they do not produce any clues to the “‘big news’’. The students should continue to iden- tify the devices which frustate the answer of the riddle: What is the news? —M. de Lauzun is getting married —To whom? —To Mademoiselle d’Orléans. In the next part of the letter the analysis of the series of verbs in the imperative mood, devinez (‘‘guess what’’), jetez votre langue aux chiens (“give up’’), will help the students understand how Mme de Sé- vigné perpetuates the riddle making it a kind of children’s game or a jeu de salon. B— The cultural enrichment level: Gerald Prince has rightly stated that one of the difficulties our students have is “‘in- terpreting and understanding the sym- bolic nature of a literary text and its cul- tural, social, and historical dimensions’’.° This understanding is made possible by decoding the cultural system not only by the given information (the princess wants to marry a man of lesser rank) but by the way the information is given. The repe- tition of the word chose (‘‘thing’’) in the place of naming the event underlines how startling this nameless phenomenon (mar- rying below her rank) was in the social practices of the court. It seems that the unthinkable “thing” which escapes all definition is at the heart of the riddle. This repetition and the accumulation of con- tradictory adjectives in the beginning of TEACHING STUDENTS TO READ FRENCH PROSE 3 the letter point out to modern readers the social values of the court. After this de- coding it is easier for students to under- stand how any threat to the societal struc- ture was treated by the court, in this case, ridicule and denial.* The students can also decode the so- ciological impact through the accumula- tion of the bride’s titles. While disclosing the identity of the bride the many signi- fiers all designating the same referent, the princess, seem to widen the differences between her and her suitor. C— From the reader-response point of view: the students are soon aware of the plurality of the receptors of the letter sender (S) —— message (M) ——> receiver (R) Ri _____M. de Coulanges R2 ______Mme de Coulanges R3,4,5,6. . .the potential contemporary readers, the friends in Lyons | Rn _____ the potential non contem- porary readers. The message was received by the cour- tiers in a very different way than it is by our students. It is important to ‘make them cognizant of the extent to which their interpretive responses are dependent on their own emotional/intellectual disposi- tion and their experiences as readers’’.’ The news has lost its emotional impact; but students can be made aware that even without the emotional involvement which they had in their own letters, they are manipulated by the author to respond in a way which Mme de Sévigné stages her news. The fictional comments which Mme de Sévigné expects her readers to make range from cela est faux (“it is wrong’’), voila une belle raillerie (“‘it is a joke’’), to une injure (“‘an insult’’). In other words, *Bénamou” considers literary texts privileged ve- hicles for understanding the social and moral values of an era. such an event is impossible to accept, an adjective which does not figure in the list at the beginning of the letter. They can map her strategies and see how she plays with her readers, frustrat- ing their expectation, building up the sus- pense. For example, the series of ques- tions will clarify the function of the fictitious dialogue between the author and the receivers of the letter, M. de Coulanges (the vous in the text), and his wife Mme de Coulanges. An astute student will observe that both become characters in the text with the roles of disbeliev- ers, questionners, and skeptical receptors of the news. A possible scenario is imag- ined by Mme de Sévigné herself in which a note of surprise, of scandal may cross her readers’ mind just as it did hers: ‘“‘Si vous criez, si vous étes hors de vous-méme, si vous dites que nous avons menti, que cela est faux, qu’on se moque de vous, que voila une belle raillerie, que cela est bien fade a im- aginer; si enfin vous nous dites des injures: nous trouverons que vous avez raison, nous en avons fait autant que vous. * To reinforce what they have learned the students can rewrite their first letters us- ing some rhetorical figures already seen in class to better incite in their readers curiosity or envy; or they can write a “‘pas- tiche’’. In both cases they can once again exchange their letters in class and com- ment on each other’s success in generating the expected reaction. Another assign- ment could be to summarize their under- standing and appreciation of some of Mme de Sévigné’s letters across time/cultural boundaries. Our second example from La Bruyeére’s Les caractéres, concerns the parallel por- *“Tf you shout, if you are besides yourself, if you say that we have lied, that it is false, that you are made fun of, that it is a joke; that it is nothing to imagine, if finally you insult us: we will find you right; we had done the same ourselves’. 4 MONIQUE BILEZIKIAN traits of Giton and Phédon.? In the first step the students will write a friend’s por- trait comprising a short physical descrip- tion of a few lines and a description of the behavior of this person in his/her milieu. The need for adjectives will become ob- vious in the physical portraits, and a quick reading of these assignments in class will produce a monotonous repetition of these adjectives: brown, blond, big, small, thin. . . . The second description, that of the behavior necessitates the use of many verbs. They can describe the tastes and the feelings of the person: “‘he likes. .”’, “she detests. . .”’ (but how is it known?), or they can reveal the behavior in certain situations: “he plays cards every night in- stead of studying’’, “she studies in the li- brary every Saturday”. . . Class discus- sion of these short exercises will highlight Text 1: GITON physical description on verbs numerous, often with negative qualifiers adverbs scarce adjectives with positive connotation with negative connotation THE RICH MAN This chart points out the following: 1-In the physical description attention will be drawn to the symmetry in the syn- tax: a series of nouns accompanied by ad- jectives in both passages but without a precise repetition which would be mo- notonous. 2-The different uses of on: in the first text (Giton), on designates the others whom the rich man controls at his will; in the second passage (Phédon), on refers to the others who control the poor man. 3-The charting of Phédon’s portrait gives the following information for verbs: -with negative connotation: “‘he for- PESTO! =” the essential rules of the genres as they did with the Mme de Sévigné’s letter. The portrait can be from “‘outside”’ as if a cam- era was following the character and re- cording its moves, or the portrait can be ‘from inside”’ revealed by a narrator well acquainted with the character and giving us the benefit of his or her observation and even some judgment of the behavior described. For contrast an additional text could be quickly read such as Cardinal de Retz’ Mémoires, where portraits “from inside”’ are combined with a descriptive behavior and a scale of value judgment.° In La Bruyére, the reading of the two texts allows students to establish parallels and contrasts. The following chart sum- marizes the similarities but especially highlights the differences on the syntac- tical and lexical levels: Text 2: PHEDON physical description on verbs with negative connotation’ in negative form adverbs with negative connotation adjectives with negative connotation THE POOR MAN -with expression of negative conno- tation of social behavior: “he talks softly in the conversation’’, “‘he runs to do small favors”’ -in the negative forms 4-The numerous adverbs which have a negative connotation in the second text: mal (‘‘bad’’), médiocrement” (“‘poorly’’), “furtivement’ (“‘furtively’’). 5-Finally the numerous adjectives in the second passage like ‘“‘lowered’’, (baissés, abaissés) lower the stature itself of the poor man. After this discussion the students will conclude that people acted according to their rank in society, according to their TEACHING STUDENTS TO READ FRENCH PROSE 5 fortune or lack of it; it is the sole expla- nation given by La Bruyére as the past, birth, education, moral and intellectual background do not even enter in consid- eration. In Les caractéres the king’s intendants, the financiers who used their position to get richer at the expense of the people were guilty of the kind of abuses produc- ing the social unrest which culminated in the revolution of 1789. The following questions can be addressed for discussion: what will be the result of the importance given to money? How can the social rap- ports be defined if the criteria change from nobility titles to money? Can this society survive? In fact the portraits of Giton and Phédon mark the point of departure of a discussion of La Bruyére announcing the 18th century. Much still remains to be done in refin- ing the techniques for bridging the gap from language to literary studies at all lev- els, even at a level where we take literary sophistication for granted in our students’ preparation. This one model offers the students an awareness of style and struc- ture of the text. It introduces literary con- cepts and terms in an interesting and ef- fective manner. It also encourages the development of literary criticism skills, all of which are essential in advanced liter- ature courses. References Cited 1. Bénamou, M. Pour une nouvelle pédagogie du texte littéraire Hachette et Larousse. Paris, p. a) 64 b) 63 c) 91-92. 2. Kramsch, C. 1985. Literary Texts in the Class- room: A Discourse. The Modern Language Journal, 69: 356. 3. La Bruyére. 1965. Les caractéres. Garnier- Flammarion. Paris, pp. 187-8. (My own trans- lation.) 4. Muyskens, E. 1983. Teaching Second-Language Literatures: Past, Present and Future, Modern Language Journal, 67: 413-23. 5. Prince, G. 1984. Literary Theory and the Un- dergraduate Curriculum. Profession 84, New York: MLA. New York, p. 37. 6. Le Cardinal de Retz. 1956. Mémoires. Pléiade. Paris, pp. 154-159. 7. Ruppert, P. 1981. Applying Reader-Response Analysis in Literature and Film Classes. Unter- richtspraxis, 14: 20. See also M. E. Ragland, 1978. A New Kind of Humanism in the Liter- ature Classroom. The Modern Language Jour- nal, 62: 175-182. 8. Santoni, G. 1972. Methods of Teaching Liter- ature. Foreign Language Annals, 5: 432-441. 9. Schofer, P. 1984. Theoretical Acrobatics: The Student as Author and Teacher in Introductory Literature courses. The French Review. 57: 463- 74. 10. Madame de Sévigné. 1976. Lettres. Garnier- Flammarion. Paris, pp. 65-6. (My own trans- lation.) Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 6-12, March 1987 The Play of Pronouns in Diderot’s La Religieuse Michele R. Morris Georgetown University 1. Introduction Readers at large and literary critics, from Spitzer and May to Chouillet, have long recognized the dramatic force of Dider- ot’s novel, La Religieuse.> Structural, the- matic and stylistic studies have pointed to various devices which increase the novel’s impact on readers. This reader has often been struck by the prominence of pro- nouns in Diderot’s style, and has hypoth- esized that their use functioned as a sty- listic device. In other words, we surmised that there was a linkage between the nov- el’s dramatic effect and Diderot’s use of pronouns, particularly the subject pro- nouns je and on, and the object pronouns me and moi. If the novel succeeds so well in giving the reader a sense of Suzanne’s heroic struggle against the increasingly hostile world in which she is thrown, we sensed that it is partly because of Dider- ot’s masterful handling of these pronouns. We tried to verify this hypothesis and to (This paper is a slightly revised version of my paper, given in French at the Georgetown Univer- sity Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, in a Special Interest Session on “‘Literature Revisited for the Teaching of Language and Culture,”’ March, 1986) show how a close study of language can contribute to a deeper understanding of style and literary meaning. 2. Importance of pronouns in French. Among the 50 most frequently used words in 20th century French, according to the Frequency Dictionary of French Words by Jullian, Brodin and David- ovitch**, are 15 pronouns. Some only function as subjects, others can be used as subjects or objects, others yet are only objects. The following chart ranks there pro- nouns by frequency, as reported in that dictionary: Table 1 Subject or Subject Object Object Pronouns Pronouns Pronouns il (7th) qui (15th) se (14th) je (12th) ce (17th) que (25th) on (27th) vous (22nd) le (36th) tu (46th) elle (26th) me (40th) nous (29th) en (45th) lui (44th) ES PRONOUNS IN DIDEROT’S LA RELIGIEUSE il These rankings illustrate the well-known tendency in French to avoid repetition of nouns as subjects or objects, a tendency abundantly manifested in 18th century texts. 2.1. Relative frequency of some pronouns in La Religieuse. Our hypothesis, based on several care- ful readings of Diderot’s novel, was that the pronouns je and on were inordinately frequent, therefore significant and worthy of careful attention. We surveyed a sam- ple of 7390 words (or a little over 11% of the total), scanning all pages ending in 5 (e.g., 45, 55, etc., to the end) in the Gar- Table 2 La Religieuse Number of Words in our Sample: Number of Subjects: Number of Subject Pronouns: Number of je (= Suzanne) Number of on: Number of Object Pronouns: Number of me/moi (= Suzanne): La Paysan parvenu Number of Words in our Sample: Number of Subjects: Number of Subject Pronouns: Number of je (= Jacob) Number of on: Number of Object Pronouns: Number of me/moi (= Jacob) La Nouvelle Héloise Number of Words in our Sample: Number of Subjects: Number of Subject Pronouns: Number of je (= letter writer) Number of on: Number of Object Pronouns: Number of me/moi (= letter writer) Le Grand Meaulnes Number of Words in our Sample: Number of Subjects: Number of Subject Pronouns: Number of je (= Francois): Number of on: Number of Object Pronouns: Number of me/moi (= Francois) nier-Flammarion edition of La Religieuse. We made similar counts in two other 18th century novels, also written in the first person, Marivaux’s Le Paysan parvenu® and Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloise.* Fi- nally, we took an equivalent sample of a 20th century work, Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes.' The validity of our sample is confirmed by a comparison with a survey of the complete text of La Re- ligieuse, done by Chouillet: out of a total of 65,577 words, he has counted 2,098 je or 3.2%." Our own count yields exactly the same proportion. Table 2 shows the results of our survey. The number of je is based on occurrences of that pronoun when it represents the “I” of the narrative voice (i.e., Suzanne, Ja- 7390 958 (13% of words) 825 (86% of subjects) 235 (24.5% of subjects, 3.2% of words) 92 (9.6% of subjects, 1.2% of words) 672 (9% of words) 171 (25% of object pronouns, 2.3% of words) 7685 1016 (13% of words) 839 (82.6% of subjects) 171 (17% of subjects, 2.2% of words) 47 (6.1% of subjects, 0.6% of words) 717 (9% of words) 113 (15.8% of object pronouns, 1.4% of words) 7305 811 (11% of words) 557 (68.7% of subjects) 162 (20% of subjects, 2.2% of words) 43 (5.3% of subjects, 0.6% of words) 547 (7.5% of words) 97 (17.7% of object pronouns, 1.3% of words) 6765 659 (9.7% of words) 475 (72% of subjects) 60 (9% of subjects, 0.9% of words) 23 (3.5% of subjects, 0.3% of words) 286 (4.2% of words) 33 (11.5% of object pronouns, 0.5% of words) cob, the various writers of Rousseau’s ep- istolary novel, and Francois in Le Grand Meaulnes.) The count of pronouns me and moi also refer to the same voice. This systematic count shows that in- deed in La Religieuse Diderot includes more subject pronouns (86% of all sub- jects) than Marivaux (82.4%), Rousseau (68.3%) or Alain-Fournier (72%) in their novels, and more object pronouns as well (9% of total words)—the same percent- age as in Marivaux’s novel, but higher again than the 7.5% in Rousseau’s and the 4.2% in Alain-Fournier’s. 3. Subject Pronouns Diderot’s novel, as do the others we surveyed, presents a wide gamut of sub- ject pronouns, distributed among various grammatical categories, i.e.: personal pronouns (je, tu, il, lui, elle, nous, vous, ils, eux, elles), relative pronouns (qui, le- quel and variations thereof), demonstra- tive pronouns (ce, ceci, cela, celui-ci and variants), interrogative pronouns (qui, qui est-ce que, lequel and variants), imper- sonal pronoun (il), indefinite pronouns (on, tout, aucun, chacun, quelqu’un, rien, per- sonne, certains, etc.) The first pedagog- ical application of this text will therefore be to furnish multiple examples of subject pronoun usage. However, only two object pronouns concern us especially here: je and on. The importance of je is highlighted in Table 2. Chouillet also underlines the signifi- cance of this pronoun’s frequency, which establishes a sort of index of subjectiv- ity.* Our comparative study further points to its relative weight, not only when com- pared to all subjects and to other subject pronouns, but in contrast with on. 4. The Pronoun ON Unquestionably, on is an excellent ex- ample for study since this indefinite pro- noun can stand for many different sub- MICHELE R. MORRIS jects. In contemporary spoken French, on often replaces nous, ils, or even je. But it also occurs significantly in written lan- guage. 4.1 Frequency of ON in written French. The written language found in our three 18th century and one 20th century novels, includes the following percentages of on: Table 3 ON/all ON/all Novel words subjects La Religieuse 12% 9.6% La Paysan parvenu 0.6% 6.1% La Nouvelle Héloise 0.6% 5.3% Le Grand Meaulnes 0.3% 3.5% On is thus twice as frequent in Diderot’s novel as in Marivaux’s or Rousseau’s and is used four times less often in Alain- Fournier’s. To try to understand why, let us first examine how Diderot uses on. 4.2 ON and its various meanings in La Religieuse. Our survey reveals at least 8 different categories of meanings for on. We present only a few representative examples of each, which can serve as paradigms: 4.2.1 ON = people (general indefinite). A. On is sometimes used in a form equivalent to the passive in English. This form is most common in contemporary French, though not very frequent in Di- derot’s novel. “ce qu’on appelle des fétes” (p. 165) B. More often, it is an indefinite pro- noun representing a general plural (= they, one): “Vous avez de la figure, de l’esprit et des talents; mais on dit que cela ne méne a rien avec de la vertu” (p. 88) “Quand on s’oppose au penchant gé- néral de la nature” (p. 195) PRONOUNS IN DIDEROT’S LA RELIGIEUSE 9 4.2.2 ON = someone (singular indefinite). On stands for one person only, uniden- tified or yet unknown: “on me fit demander au parloir” (p. 41) “lorsque tout a coup on frappa deux coups violents a la porte” (p. 169) 4.2.3 ON = Suzanne’s family or relatives. Elsewhere Suzanne stands apart from her sisters, and her family as a whole is seen as an undifferentiated enemy: “Mes soeurs établies, je crus qu’on penserait 4 moi[... | On avait fait des dots considérables a mes soeurs.”’ (p. 41) “Je suis une malheureuse qu’on déteste et qu’on veut enterrer ici toute vive.” (p. 420) 4.2.4 ON = religious authorites. As she tells more about her convent experiences, other enemies are signified by on: this pronoun often comes to des- ignate a group of authorities, mothers su- perior and others in the hierarchy, against whom Suzanne is pitted: “Je jour fut pris pour ma profession; on ne négligea rien pour obtenir mon con- sentement; mais quand on vit qu’il était inutile de le solliciter, on prit le parti de s’en passer[.. . | je fus renfermée dans ma cellule; on m’imposa le silence; je fus séparée de tout le monde, on m’abandonna a moi-méme; et je vis clairement qu’on était résolu a disposer de moi sans moi.” (p. 48) This passage illustrates not only the an- onymity of the enemy, but the passivity and helplessness of Suzanne. On is the subject of active verbs, while me or moi are objects, and je (Suzanne) is the sub- ject of only of two passive verbs. 4.2.5 ON = a specific nun or mother superior. On may stand for the mother in charge of novices in the first convent: “Tl ne se passe pas une histoire facheuse dans le monde qu’ on ne vous en parle; on arrange les vraies, on en fait de fausses” (pp. 44-45) As the novel progresses, there are nu- merous examples of this type of repre- sentation, when on designates the mother superior who persecutes Suzanne. Some of the most striking occur in the dialogues between the archdeacon and Suzanne: “Pourquoi, me dit-il, ne vous confes- Se€Z-vous point? —C’est qu’on m’en empéche. —Pourquoi n’approchez-vous point des sacrements? —C’est qu’on m’en empéche.” (pp. 113- 114) This answer, and others that are almost identical, are given ten times in two pages, and thus become a litany of complaints. Here again, on is a hostile subject while me represents a victimized object. 4.2.6 ON = the sisters as enemies. In another frequent use of on, Diderot refers to the sisters who persecute Suz- anne, they are her undifferentiated ene- mies: “On m/arracha mon voile; on me dé- pouilla sans pudeur. On trouva sur mon sein un petit portrait de mon ancienne supérieure; om s’en Saisit; je suppliai qu’on me permit de le baiser encore une fois; on me refusa. On me jeta une chemise, on m’6ta mes bas, l’on me couvrit d’un sac, et l’on me conduisit, la téte et les pieds nus, a travers le cou- loir.”’ (p. 82) It is significant to note that this very pas- sage was revised by Diderot. The first ver- sion read as follows: “On m/arracha mon voile. On me dé- pouilla sans pudeur; on me jeta une chemise grossiére; on m’6ta mes bas; et l’on jeta la-dessus un sac d’étoffe grossiére; et lon me conduisit nu-téte et nu-pieds 4 travers les corridors.’”’ In the final version, ““On trouva... on me refusa,’’ Diderot included four more 10 MICHELE R. MORRIS on, which emphasize the strength of the oppression. By contrast, when Suzanne speaks about a compassionate nun, or refers to the few who might treat her kindly, the pronouns elle or elles are used. 4.2.7 ON = WE (Suzanne is part of the community). In the rare instances when Suzanne feels part of the religious community, on sig- nifies her and the sisters. For example, she refers to the mystical Mother de Moni: “@abord on l’écoutait; peu a peu on était entrainé, on s’unissait a elle; l’Aame tressaillait, et ’on partageait ses trans- ports.” (p. 65) Or she questions Dom Morel about being released from her vows: ‘Ft quelles espérances pour une re- ligieuse? —Quelles? D’abord celle de faire ré- silier ses voeux. —Et quand on n’a plus celle-la? —Celles qu’on trouvera les portes ou- vertes un jour...” (p. 195) Here on means not only Suzanne, but all those who, like her, wish to leave the con- vent. 4.2.8 ON = JE (Suzanne). Finally, in a few cases on represents Suzanne herself. The most interesting oc- curs during a conversation between her and the lesbian superior at Arpajon: “Je ne sais pas si je suis si belle que vous le dites; et puis, quand je le serais, c’est pour les autres qu’on est belle, et non pour soi.” (p. 165) This striking shift from je to on can be seen as an effort by Suzanne to seek ref- uge in the anonymity of the group, in the Table 4 law that applies to all, as she becomes increasingly uneasy about the situation. 4.3 The significance of ON. Having surveyed the multiple uses of the indefinite subject pronoun in this novel, one wonders why Diderot chose to use it so often. Two answers come to mind: First, the pronoun lends unquestiona- ble economy and conciseness to Diderot’s style. Not only is this word shorter than the various nouns it represents, shorter even than some other pronouns, but the verb which follows is also shorter, because of its 3rd person singular ending. Second, and more importantly, a se- mantic reason: by merging all of Su- zanne’s enemies in the ubiquitous, amor- phous on, Diderot underscores the immensity of his heroin’s struggle: ulti- mately, Suzanne is pitted against an im- personal, dehumanized world. By blur- ring the distinctions between the various hostile forces she fights, he stresses the importance of the individual je. 4.4 ON versus JE. We established that, in La Religieuse, both je and on are used more extensively than in the other works we surveyed. We can view je against on in a dramatic con- flict. These two pronouns become a met- aphor of Suzanne’s fight against oppres- sion, depersonalisation. Nowhere is the conflict more evident than in a two-page excerpt, pp. 74 and 75. While p. 74 shows Suzanne acting as a leader in the fight ‘“‘against despotism,” her gradual loss of influence and increas- ing powerlessness are related on p. 75. An examination of subject pronouns shows graphic evidence of this shift: p. 74 p. 75 48 subjects 28 JE (= 60%, vs. 24% in the novel) 7 ON (= 15%, vs. 9.6% in the novel) 13 ME (= 46% of object pronouns) 46 subjects 9 JE (= 19% of subjects) 25 ON (= 54% of subjects) 20 ME (= 50% of object pronouns) PRONOUNS IN DIDEROT’S LA RELIGIEUSE 11 The proportion of je to on is almost re- versed on those two pages. The nuns and their oppressive superiors, Suzanne’s ene- mies, are represented by the impersonal, indefinite, anonymous on, and je loses out, while me is the victim. On the other hand, when she is free, a page taken from the end of the novel (p. 205) shows a complete absence of on, while there are 29 je out of 49 subjects. 5. Other pronouns: ME, MOI While most other pronouns could be studied from the double perspective of grammatical usage and semantics, the ob- ject pronouns me and moi deserve par- ticular attention. As Suzanne is the fre- quent object of persecution, the pattern on (elles) + verb + (me/moi) is most common. It may even be reinforced by doubling the use of moi: “‘et je vis claire- ment qu’on était résolu a disposer de moi sans moi.” (p. 48) The only active role the subject has in this instance is to see that her fate is controlled by on. Since she is so often cast in this role of object, she cannot escape taking herself as an object. Typically this would be translated by the use of a pronominal form. However, the separation between the subject as self and soul (je) and the object as victim and body (moi) is nowhere more evident than in this remarkable expres- sion: ‘‘Je jetai les yeux sur moi’’. (p. 95) Table 2 shows how often the first per- son singular object pronouns are used: in La Religieuse, they represent 25% of all object pronouns. If their frequency is added to that of the subject pronoun je, the resulting percentages obtain: Table 5 Number of Percentage JE + ME/MOI of total in our samples: words La Religieuse: 406 352) La Paysan parvenu: 284 Sal La Nouvelle Héloise: 259 35 La Grand Meaulnes: 93 1.4 This comparison establishes a subjectivity index, which supports the emphasis ac- corded the narrative voice. Chouillet states: “The energy of language is therefore linked to the physical presence of the speaker.’”” Suzanne, the speaker, is all the more physically conspicuous through the pro- nouns that represent her. Diderot is in- deed, to use Friedenthal’s term, the ‘‘dis- coverer of the self’”’ and, in La Religieuse, succeeds remarkably in making us believe in the reality of Suzanne’s self. 6. Conclusion Our systematic study supports our hy- pothesis that pronouns are particularly significant in Diderot’s novel, because of their frequency and because of their func- tion as signifiers. The very high use of pronouns, as sub- jects and as objects, contributes to the conciseness of Diderot’s style. While je is the 12th most frequently used word in modern French’, Chouillet has determined that it ranks 2nd in fre- quency (after ‘“‘de’’) in La Religieuse.** Di- derot’s style is therefore not only ex- tremely subjective, it is also impassioned and rhetorical because of the reiteration of je, me and moi. Like a leit-motiv, these pronouns, to- gether with on, underscore the conflict Diderot exposed in his book. “It is a struggle for freedom,” wrote Frienden- thal.** Significantly, je wins over on in number of occurrences: numerically, David has conquered Goliath. If one takes Suz- anne’s final escape into freedom as a vic- tory, David wins. However, if one views her sudden demise as a defeat, then Go- liath/on has prevailed. There is perfect cohesion between form and content. The play of pronouns is an excellent stylistic device to show the conflict between the person and the forces of oppression and depersonalization. 12 MICHELE R. MORRIS 7. Pedagogical applications 7.1. The text abounds in excellent ex- amples of pronoun use, and students could memorize some of the short dialogues in order to improve retention of forms and word order. 7.2. Diderot’s novel can be seen as a case study in the diverse meanings of the indefinite pronoun on. 7.3. Parts of this text can serve to de- sign exercises, substituting tu, vous, nous, etc., to je, for useful drills centered on pronouns and verb forms. 7.4. For more advanced students (in Composition courses, for instance) re- writing direct questions or short dialogues into indirect discourse would give addi- tional practice in handling pronouns, verb tenses, etc. For instance, the short exchange cited above (4.2.5) would become: “Tl lui demanda pourquoi elle ne se confessait point. Elle répondit qu’on len empéchait. Il lui demanda aussi pour- quoi elle n’approchait point des sacre- IMENES). 1 The comparison of this version with the original would show how much dramatic effect was lost and highlight the strength of Diderot’s text. 7.5 Various pages can be analyzed to measure the relative quantitative and qualitative importance of active, passive, and reflexive verbs. Such a study would show that when Suzanne is struggling (against her family, her convent, societal constraints), she is represented by je + a verb in the active voice. 7.6 Similar surveys could compare the importance and use of je in La Religieuse and in some 20th century novels also writ- ten in the first person and dealing with some conflict between the “TI” and society (e.g. Albertine Sarrazin’s or Violette Leduc’s novels. ). References Cited 1. Alain-Fournier. [1963]. Le Grand Meaulnes. L.G.F. (Livre de Poche). Paris. 2. Chouillet, J. 1984. Diderot, poéte de l’énergie. P.U.F. Paris, 1984, p. a) 212 b) 27. 3. Diderot. 1968. La Religieuse. Garnier-Flamma- rion. Paris. 4. Friendenthal, R. 1969. Entdecker des Ich. R. Piper. Miinchen & Co. Verlag, p. a) 375 “Es ist ein Kampf um die Freiheit.” 5. Juilland, A., Brodin, D., Davidovitch, C. Fre- quency Dictionary of French Words. 1970. Mou- ton. Paris & The Hague, 1970, p. a) 387—388. b) 197 and 387 6. Marivaux. 1965. Le Paysan parvenu. Garnier- Flammarion. Paris. 7. Diderot, Denis. La Religieuse, édition critique par J. Parrish. 1963. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. Institut et Musée Voltaire. Genéve, p. 98. 8. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1960. La Nouvelle Hé- loise. Garnier. Paris. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 13-17, March 1987 Can These Dry Words Live? A blueprint for teaching text as performance now. by Roger D. Bensky Georgetown University Introduction Homo Ludens in the classroom? It is now axiomatic to proclaim that per- formative processes—ranging from mere vocalization of literature, to interactive role-playing, through to full staging of dramatic works—have become part and parcel of the pedagogic arts. Whether one has in mind the heightening of rhetorical effect through an appeal to the senses, or loftier ideals such as “‘the student as whole person,” the uses of dramatization and theatricalization in the exercise of a teach- er’s craft no longer need theoretical le- gitimacy. However, beyond the choice of appro- priate textual materials or the structuring of a model situation for verbal and ges- tural exchange, the operational basis for transforming the student into a competent performer is rarely circumscribed, except within the confines of acting schools. Paper presented at the Working Seminar on the Function of Theatric Expression in the Teaching of Language, Literature and Culture at the George- town University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, 1986. 13 In fact, the information, both theoret- ical and practical, which a well-motivated teacher, unschooled in theater arts, could use in order to successfully incorporate performative processes is siphoned off into many seemingly unrelated disciplines, some of which are not recognized by ac- ademe. Their total range would span the following: literature, foreign languages, esthetics, history of ideas, philosophy, re- ligion (especially sacred ritual and mys- ticism), linguistics, semiotics, psychology, psychotherapy, acting, dance, mime, mu- sic, architecture, martial arts and the ga- mut of psycho-technologies, such as “‘cen- tering” and ‘“‘meditation”’. Clearly, only rare individuals become competent in all these areas. Is the task, then, an impossible one for a teacher untrained in the myriad ways of the stage? We think not and, while in no way claiming to have expertise in all the above-mentioned disciplines, we would like to attempt to spell out the rudiments of a praxis based on long experience in acting, directing and teaching. Tasks and concepts will be explained dialec- tically, with an eye to immediate applica- tion. 14 ROGER D. Thinking Now The very first step is conceptual, but fraught with tangible consequences. It is this: the text was written then, the per- formance of the text is now. Obvious? Not to most teachers of languages and literature, who must make students aware of the text as an unfolding through time, but who tend to overlook or ignore cog- nizance of the text as deployment (un- furling) in space. Yet for the performer of the text—whether he verbalizes it or not—time and space are one. If I perform the text as if I were an Olympian deity who knows the beginning, the middle and the end (ie: both the totality of the text and its teleological structure), there is perhaps recital from the heights, but not performance, since I can only perform in the now, by inventing the pulsation of the now. Consequently, it is right now, as you watch me and hear me from the tenth row, that I am meeting the text, that Iam producing the text, that the author is writ- ing the text: I, the performer; I, the per- sona; I, the energy of the word. There may well be reference in my text to a “then” (past tense) or to a “‘when”’ (fu- ture tense). Yet, it is in the now that I see these dead or not yet real events. In es- sence, the actor can only conjugate the grammar of life in the present tense. (present tense = tension of the presence). In theatre, the presence is all there is to become. If this fundamental intuition of the now is taken quite literally, it is a major key to effective performance. Memorization of a sequentially disposed text is replaced by ongoing experience of the text, by the impact of the words in this point of time and space. There is no longer some hap- less individual to whom theatric transfig- uration has been denied, trying to re- member the external form (empty shell) of an experience long dead; there is rather a presence sharing with me the very same time and space and whose experience I BENSKY am now witnessing. In other words, there is a true enactment. Breathing Now In order to act—or enact—now, I must have the means, or the power, to do so. Power to live with the words of my char- acter, to give the breath of life to the per- sona I must become. Power to em-body. Here again, a reminder of the obvious: power to animate the words comes first and foremost from the way we breathe the character. Therefore, the next step we must envision is the phenomenon of breathing. Now a truism: you and I both breathe as a matter of course. However, most of the time (except in moments of great exertion or in peak experiences), our breathing is shallow and we do not consciously modulate its depth or its rhythm. Furthermore, in relation to speech, we only gain breath in order to enunciate our own range of discourse (our personal idiolect). Our habitual breathing is therefore both shallow (weak in power) and narrow in expressive potentiation. It is solipsistic by definition: unfit for ex- pressing anything beyond our automated self-image and our habitual perceptions of reality. No competent performer can manage with solipsistic breathing, since he or she must em-body characters who breathe differently and whose discourse, unlike the performer’s idiolect, is deter- mined by a pre-existing author. The problem is therefore the following: how do I increase the depth of my breath- ing so that I may find the power to em- body the words of my character right now? The answer is simple: to gain breath, you must first lose it, ie: to inhale fully, you must first exhale fully. Plenitude of breath comes from the void. Standing comfortably with feet slightly apart to assure balance, you pull back your shoulders and look fixedly at an imaginary candle two yards away, about four feet in height. You decide to blow out this huge CAN THESE DRY WORDS LIVE? 15 candle with all the breath in your body, doing so very noisily and very forcefully. When your entire frame is empty of breath, you “‘freeze”’ and prolong the seeming as- phyxiation for a slow count of three. Then you reverse the process, breathing in from the lower belly and on up to the top of your lungs, until you feel like a balloon about to burst. There, too, you “‘freeze’’, holding in this mass of air to a slow count of three, after which you repeat the entire process a second, then a third time. You have thus completed three binary sets of in-depth breathing, with a pause at the nadir and zenith of your physical being. Be careful to always extinguish the imaginary candle with your very last reach of breath, since the flame will resist you to the end. Some dizziness will probably ensue. If you become excessively dizzy, perform the exercise flat on your back, on the floor, with your legs apart, hands loosely by your side. The candle is now a light bulb hanging overhead, which you want to explode with your breath. In final days of rehearsal, do six sets of this ex- ercise morning and night, to combat fa- tigue and to prepare your entire organism for optimal levels of performance. This will also greatly assist in fighting stage fright and general stress. A secondary, yet crucial, result of this mode of breathing is the awareness of oneself as the center of a field of energy: a force field deployed in three-dimen- sional space. Although we live our daily lives in 3-D, most of us do not behave as if this were so. Daily space, for most Western city-dwellers, is basically func- tional and compartmentalized, ie: an atomistic space, neatly carved up into container spaces for tasks, pedestrian rit- uals and solid objects. Seldom is space perceived as vibrant and organic. Most of us rather see it as passive and inert. Territory to be occupied, but not space. Conversely, the breathing we have just described (we may call it “cognizant bio-rhythm’’), helps us to enter a living space, a psychic eco-system animated primarily by our own demiurgic power, a space of embodiment, of in-spiration. This is the metamorphic space of thea- tric performance, where new meaning is forged with every breath. Speaking Now While you and I are witnessing a per- formance, the bearer of the character, the ‘“embodier’” of the persona, is always thinking now, breathing now, speaking (or about to speak) now. His every utterance legitimizes or threatens my presence as witness to the symbolic enactment we call a play. The determining factor is the abil- ity of the performer to see himself quite literally as the space of the voice. In es- sence, aside from mime dramas, the per- formative experience will be shaped and constituted by human voices intersecting in living space. Theatrically speaking, the word is always flesh or fire, silences being gestation or ashes. Voices are both presences and tools. To increase the power of embodiment, the performer has first deepened his breath- ing capacity. Furthermore, the concen- tration on the invisible candle he had to extinguish in order to gain optimal reach of breath has shown him the need to phys- icalize and transmute the ambient space, and to project his power over real and imagined distances. Experience of these elements will be fully exploited in voice production and speech. We will now ex- plain some principles of voice which we have found indispensable when working with novice actors. If followed with ut- most conviction, as keys to unlocking powers, they will effectuate a veritable transformation in vocal range, resonance and audibility. The first key is again conceptual: The performer must behave as though every utterance were of fundamental impor- tance to maintaining the equilibrium of the world. In other words, if I do not produce this utterance right now in the 16 ROGER D. appropriate manner, the earth will no longer turn on its axis, resulting in a cosmic cataclysm on stage. Nothing you have to say in the performance arena is indifferent to the life of the character, since this later is in truth a mere shadow which urgently demands that every word augment its sub- stance, that its every physical manifesta- tion, including its language, anchor it more firmly in reality. The second key is both conceptual and organic: you must give every utterance a real target in space, ie: you persuade yourself (through meditation if necessary) that the utterance is in fact a solid pro- jectile sent by you, the speaker, on a spe- cific and clearly visualized trajectory within the space encompassing the acting area and the audience. The further you extend the range of your “projectile”, the more you actually project your voice. If you are breathing deeply, if you are concentrating intensely, no voice strain will occur, and the strength you experience allows you to embody not only your character, but the trajectory of your character, with re- newed feeling and vitality. It may only be once you have understood and begun to execute this particular technique that you finally comprehend the “‘Quo Vadis’, the destiny of your character, ie: its move- ment toward crisis or completion. The third key needs a further leap of faith: you do not speak TO your partners in performance; you speak THROUGH them. In other words, you imagine your utterance actually traversing the body or the head of your stage partner, so that the words will strike the wall of the theatre behind him (we’ll pretend it’s impervious) and ricochet back to the audience. Thus your partner, as in some martial arts, is merely a moving point on the trajectory of your energy (of your text). This notion may seem absurd at first glance. How- ever, the reader is assured that it has great effect in the work leading to performance, and is cordially invited to test it for him/ herself. Auto-suggestion is a fundament of acting, which is, after all, the art of creating a meaningful and persuasive il- BENSKY lusion. Since an illusion tends towards evaporation by its very nature, one only maintains it and empowers it by tech- niques of condensation and intensifica- tion. What we have just shared with our readers is one of the most powerful in- ductive voice techniques available to ac- tors. Finally, a key to gaining vocal range. This latter is produced not by forcing the voice, but by increasing resonance. The rule is deceptively simple and often un- known beyond acting schools: consonants provide resonance; vowels provide none. The consequence should be apparent: the actor should visualize and stress conso- nants in every single utterance. (This also happens to be a trade secret of good pub- lic speakers). If this rule is observed, along with the prescriptions for breathing and for targeting of utterances, not only will no voice strain ensue but the performer will seem to have acquired a new vocal apparatus. With long and hard practice in the requisite state of mind, one can per- manently deepen and alter one’s voice. Colleagues, especially, will be most in- terested by the possibilities this affords on the professional level, not all teachers possessing well-trained speaking voices. Be that as it may, it remains certain that performers who observe the principles we are explaining will intensify beyond mea- sure their energy field and thus their ca- pacity to bring their character’s dry words to the fullness of theatric life. Silent Now As crucial as voice and speech may be in the life of the character, it must never be forgotten that life is also composed of silences. But what IS silence? Leaving erudite speculation aside, we can first say what silence is not: It is not mere cessation of speech, a “‘filler time” in which one simply waits for speech to resume. To think in this way is antithetical to expressive performance, in which the now is never empty and inert, but always a space of pulsation. CAN THESE DRY WORDS LIVE? 17 We stated previously that if words are flesh or fire, then silence is the domain of “gestation” or “ashes’’, ie: words emerge from or descend into silence. However, since time and space are one in the “now” of the performative consciousness, the emergence and the descent must acquire a spatio-temporal dimension in order to be perceived by others as generating meaning. In other words, silence is linked to physical movement in the world of per- formance, since the character is only con- vincing, his story only captivates and holds my attention as audience, if I see him as moving along a trajectory. Sometimes, a gesture, a turn of the head, a change in posture will suffice to show me whether the character’s words are now in gestation or are being reduced to ashes right now. However, unless he disappears com- pletely from the performance arena and from the story, the ashes are those of the phoenix. The silence is, then, a passage through the ashes, not a total eclipse of fire; a pregnant silence, or a silence al- ready impregnated with the utterance to come. The body of the performer thus becomes the dynamic intersection of the text and its subliminal silence, inviting the audi- ence to become, in turn, the silent moving space where the text is now embodied, the communal space of its incandescence. Objects Now Finally, a word or two on the way a good performer encounters physical ob- jects in the space of the performance. Again, a general rule which proves useful: if utterances are solid objects (projectiles) moving through space, then conversely, physical objects brought on stage must become—if I am to manipulate them in any way—moments or mediators of my utterances. In other words, an object with which I will interact during the perform- ance must always undergo a “conver- sion’, a symbolic transmutation, thanks to which it never behaves like a blind spot on the retina of the viewer, like a black hole absorbing the light of meaning. As in real life, our stage objects reveal and betray us; constitute a mute yet el- Oquent grammar in their own right; aug- ment us or diminish us, translate our sor- rows, our hopes and our joys. They, too, must join the performance. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 18-26, March 1987 Gender “‘Language” Onstage: Moves, New Moves and Countermoves Judith Lynne Hanna University of Maryland The gender language of dance images onstage focuses on a compelling issue of human life in our time: the continuing social and cultural reconstruction of gen- der roles and meanings. Dance is no longer the province solely of élite ticket-paying theatre-goers and critic-reading audi- ences. Now a melange of dance genre can reach nearly the entire nation through tel- evision and convey images and models of what it is to be male and female. In this paper, I will summarize some semantic aspects of the visual language of a Western theatre art, namely, the “‘high”’ culture of ballet and its succeeding genres (what is called modern and postmodern dance), based on perceptions of critics and dancers, cultural history, and long-term researcher participant observation as a dance student and audience member. Be- cause of space limitations, I will only offer a few illustrations. This is a revision of a paper presented at the Spe- cial Session on Nonverbal Communication of the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, March 11, 1986. I appreciate the comments of Jean Cunningham and William John Hanna on earlier drafts. The paper is part of a larger study reported in Dance, Sex, and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, Defiance, and Desire, Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1987. 18 Since I refer to dance as language, I should briefly summarize what this means.'*-!*5 Dance requires the same un- derlying brain faculty for conceptualiza- tion, creativity, and memory as verbal language. In a dance performance as in spoken and written languages, we may not see the underlying universals and cul- tural structures and processes but merely their evidence. Structures are a kind of generative grammar, i.e., a set of rules specifying the manner in which move- ments can be meaningfully combined. Se- mantics refers to the meaning of move- ment, whether it is the style itself or some reference beyond the movement. As in languge (with its words, sentences, and paragraphs), dance has movement vocab- ulary, steps and phrases which may com- prise realistic or abstract symbols. More- over, dance also has devices and spheres of encoding meaning, e.g., metaphor and metonym.'* Dance, however, assembles these elements together in a manner that more often resembles poetry, with its suggestive imagery, rhythm, ambiguity, multiple meanings, and latitude in form, rather than prose. As spoken and written language, the dance may both reflect and influence society. Having said that dance is a language-- GENDER “LANGUAGE” ONSTAGE 19 recognizing that Western culture has an exaggerated esteem for language and its prerogative for describing and defin- ing reality--I must add that there are alternative ways of knowing. The non- verbal, too, glosses experience, formulates ideas, attitudes, and a sense of relat- edness. Gardner points out that there are different types of competencies, in- cluding bodily kinesthetic competence.’ Gazzaniga argues that “the normal person does not possess a unitary con- scious mechanism where the conscious system is privy to the sources of all his or her actions the normal brain is organized into modules. ... All except one work in nonverbal ways such that their method of expresssion is solely through overt behavior or more covert emotional reactions’’.!° Feminist Perspectives Throughout time, most history, philos- ophy, religion, and art have been crafted/ managed by men. Only recently has there been a women’s studies movement and a significant body of feminist scholarship. This development enables us to consider the implications of male dominance in dance and contemporary danced images in the United States that convey what it is to be a man and a woman. Feminist perspectives generally hold that patterns of dominance/submission and in- clusion/exclusion based on gender tend to favor male dominance to the detriment of women. Patriarchal societies generally permit men to enjoy higher status and more benefits than women. Even matriar- chal societies often give special privilege to a woman’s male kin. Jaggar has class- ified the multifarious feminist views in four categories, each of which has different presuppositions and implications.'® Most germane to a discussion of images of gen- der in dance is the liberal feminist per- spective which, in simplistic terms, views non-feminist women as victims of their socialization or sex-role conditioning and asserts the need for educational reform to eliminate discrimination and to achieve liberty and equality. The issue of socialization raises ques- tions about the inevitability of sex roles in society--what is nature or nurture, i.e., culturally patterned. How do cultures cre- ate, maintain, and challenge divisions? What might be the intent and conse- quence of dance performance in this proc- ess? Dance as a Social Construction of Reality and a Medium of Socialization Expressions of sex and gender evolve physically and socioculturally during one’s lifetime as a way of knowing about oneself and others; these expressions serve in all societies as a basis of dominance/submis- sion and inclusion/exclusion. Culture is a system of ideas about the nature of the world, and how people should behave in it, that members of a community as social beings generally share. Ideas are encoded in public symbols, literary texts, art, drama, religious practice, and dance. These forms, through which people represent them- selves to themselves and to each other, are accessible to observation and inquiry. Both the reality and illusion of per- formance onstage are socially constructed through individuals producing, choreo- graphing, dancing the dance, watching it, and writing about the performance.’ Ac- tive physical beings create images that are read and felt by performers and audience members whose social beings play a role in shaping the consciousness and reflex- ivity of these images. Everyday prece- dents of meaning in nonverbal commu- nication movement are so well established in a culture that they are part of the cho- reographers’/dancers’/spectators’ inher- itance. Seeking signs and symbols people can relate to, choreographers take the everyday patterns and transform them for their aesthetic purposes. Signifiers of gen- der differences appear in contrasting pos- ture, precedence, elevation, movement 20 JUDITH LYNNE HANNA quality, and touch. The occurrence of sex- associated movement contributes to the information dancers and spectators draw upon in making and viewing perform- ances. According to Bandura’s social learning theory, an individual tends to reproduce attitudes, acts, and emotions exhibited by an observed live or symbolic (e.g., film, television) model.’ It may be cognitively registered and used or remain in subcon- scious memory until a relevant situation activates it. Because dance is part of the cultural communication system that may convey information purposefully or serve as an open channel that could be used, modeling of gender-related dominance patterns may occur through dance obser- vation of who does what, when, and how, alone and with or to whom. Similar to nonhuman ritualized displays and human ritual, theatrical dance frames messages and thereby bestows power on them. Dance may be understood as a me- dium through which choreographers/di- rectors/ producers manipulate, interpret, legitimate, and reproduce the patterns of gender cooperation and conflict that or- der their social world. Dance images may reinforce ongoing models, evoke new re- sponses, weaken or strengthen inhibitions over fully elaborated patterns in a per- son’s repertoire, and facilitate perform- ance of previously learned behavior that was encumbered by restraints. Distanced from the everyday, the dance perform- ance permits safe exploration of danger- ous challenges to the status quo without the penalties of the everyday life situa- tion. Moves The history of ballet begins with Louis XIV of France (1643-1715). At first, men not only managed dance productions, but they even performed women’s roles. Later, women danced their own roles; they gained ascendancy on stage by the 18th century. During ballet’s Romantic era, the as- cendancy of the female by 1840 created a revulsion against male dancers and the discovery of the charm of danseuse en tra- vesti. Women danced female and male roles. Their female roles were generally the untouchable, elusive sylph or the earthy, sexual peasant, but not chattels for male enjoyment. There were also erotic, macabre wilis, vengeful ghosts of betrayed unmarried women; they dance faithless men to death as in the 19th cen- tury ballet “Giselle,” still popular today. Men, however, continued backstage as managers, choreographers, and ballet masters. Before long they reasserted themselves as popular performers.” Classical ballet relies on conventional- ized understandings of roles of men and women that are deeply embedded in courtly roots of romantic attachments. The pas de deux partnering roles are often an- alogues of patronage by the stronger of the weaker sex portrayed constage as vir- ginal, disembodied sylphide or wanton, and referred to offstage as vulnerable child- woman, kitten, or siren. The woman “looks up” to the man, rises en pointe to meet him. Rising on the tip of the toes in some positions renders the dancer insubstan- tial. Unable to stand alone, the male sup- ports or assists her. When a man carries a woman draped around his shoulders like a scarf, the chauvinistic overtones are un- mistakable. The image of woman onstage often re- flects her social reality offstage. Thought to be part of the demimonde until the third decade of the 20th century, a female dance career of public display was an av- enue of social mobility for attractive, tal- ented lower class females who preferred the glamour of dance to the factory sweat shop, agricultural labor, or domestic work. With economic success limited for female dancers, they were usually fortunate if they became mistresses of wealthy men.” Contemporary ballet choreographers and directors, almost always male, “mold ballet’s young women to the ideal of fem- inine that equates beauty and grace with excessive thinness,” an aesthetic that is GENDER “LANGUAGE” ONSTAGE 21 “both punitive and misogynist’’.'! Re- lentless pursuit of the unnatural “ideal” female body arrests puberty, imbalances hormones, contributes to hypothermia and low blood pressure, and often leads to psychosomatic disorders of starvation, vomiting, and use of laxatives. Anorexia and injury are interconnected." New Moves Modern Dance. At the turn of the 19th century, a re- bellion, taking the form of what was called “modern dance,” began against ballet and all that it represented. Birthed and nur- tured by women, modern dance was in part a reaction to male domination in both dance and society at large. Women looked to themselves for inspiration as they chose to be agent rather than object and formed female-dominated dance companies. They developed innovative movement voca- bularies, themes, costumes, production patterns, and schools. Dancing without partners, they used weight and strength, created images of women as neither vir- ginal nor siren but whole and complex individuals in roles of stature, and they even caused women’s dancing in public theatres to become respectable. Asserting themselves against traditional female des- tiny, ground-breaking modern dancers such as Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan through onstage images helped to decorset the wasp-waisted women and open up changes in female education, health, and profes- sional opportunity. Braless, corsetless, and barefoot, the modern dancer’s free style of dress symbolized physical freedom and a renewed, diversified self-image. Women heralded new moves, but men, too, participated in portraying women in ways that diverged from the traditional. They choreographed in the modern dance idiom images of women in a manner sim- ilar to the feminist protrayals. Modern dance has influenced ballet and its male participants. The genres now often blend. Modern and post-modern cho- reographers, such as David Gordon and Laura Dean, are even invited to choreo- graph for classical ballet companies. Two Temperaments. Not until Anna Pavlova (c. 1881-1931) “does the idea of combining the two tem- peraments of virgin and bacchante in one ballerina achieve force.” Pavlova was both in ‘“‘La Bayadere’’.°4 Female Roles of Stature. Since the 1960s, in contrast with the earlier ethereal (human-like nonhuman), wanton, and virginal traditional images, and the combination of two tempera- ments in one woman, choreographer Kenneth Macmillan has provided roles of stature for women in a number of his dances. Examples include ‘“The Burrow” (based on the Anne Frank story), ‘“The Invitation” (from Lorca’s play ““The House of Bernarda Alba’’), and ‘“Romeo and Ju- hee A woman’s stature may appear through her symbolic dance style. Although George Balanchine, ballet’s foremost 20th cen- tury choreographer who created more than 150 dances during his 50 years in the United States, comes from the old world of Rus- sian ballet, his neoclassic ballet in the new world sometimes reflects a contrasting ambience. ‘“‘His women do not always live for love, and their destinies are seldom defined by the men they lean on. Sexual complicity in conflict with individual free- dom is a central theme of the Balanchine pas de deux, and more often than not it is dramatized from the woman’s point of view.”’ The “‘Diamonds”’ section of “‘Jew- els” performed by Suzanne Farrell is il- lustrative: “‘Off-center balances main- tained with light support or no support at all. . . divergently shaped steps unthink- ably combined in the same phrase ... invisible transitions between steps and delicate shifts of weight ... based on risk.’’** Merrill Ashley’s portrayal of the 22 JUDITH LYNNE HANNA modern liberated woman is not an illusion but a fact which she demonstrated “‘when Robert Weiss became disabled in the mid- dle of ‘Ballo della Regina’ and she fin- ished the performance without him.’”»? Equality. Kinetic visualizations of men and women in relationships without dominance and subservience appear in the era of equal rights for women and a move toward an- drogyny. For example, Eliot Feld “uses technique to say something about how the people in the ballet are feeling and how they are related to each other. .. . Boy and girl are more nearly equal here . . . men and women partner each other to share something . . . the partners adapt to each other rather than dominate each other.’’° In many of his pieces, modern dance choreographer, Paul Taylor sends “his dancers hurtling through space and into and out of each other’s arms with no regard for the conventions of partnering or sexually determined dynamic modu- lation.’’® Guiltless Protagonists. Martha Graham, making modern dances over nearly six decades, bequested future generations a history refocused in dance from a woman’s point of view. Almost every one of her dances contains a dagger or a bed, because “ ‘those objects are so close to life. We sleep in a bed from the time we are born,’ she explains, gliding serenely over the sexual issue that her dances grapple with so forcefully, ‘and while we don’t, perhaps, actually use one, there are many times when we do wield a dagger in speech, or surreptitiously in our hearts.’ ”’” Graham’s dances speak of the women’s struggle for dominance without guilt. Her women in such stories as Oedipus, Jo- casta, and Oresteia become human pro- tagonists, where previously they had been “the pawns of gods and men.’”?” For Gra- ham, a traditional feminine stance could be adopted only as a weapon or a sign of weakness. She seldom found a way for men and women to be equals.”” Identity as Victim. Female choreographers recount the an- guish women face as females, being vic- tims of love, bodily violation by men, and the battle of the sexes. Graham’s work presents such images. Her 1984 “Rite of Spring” shows the female as sacrificial victim of rape and death. Pina Bausch’s “Rite of Spring” has “no promise of re- birth. The only one who dared to love becomes the victim, and falls seemingly dead.” Lesbian Relations. Women have choreographed dances about female bonding and lesbianism. ‘“‘Les Biches” (meaning the little does and colloquially, young woman or little co- quettes), created in 1924 for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, was Bronislava Nijinska’s daring ballet that presents a clear though delicate lesbian relationship in a duet per- formed by two women. The work reflects the easy amorality of the ’20s and augurs the new morality heralded by the 60s. The Dance Exchange in Washington, D.C. on March 29, 1985, featured Jo- hanna Boyce’s choreography, “Ties that Bind,” based on life history interviews with lesbian performers. These two women performed an autobiographical contact improvisation (a form of modern/post- modern dance) duet about their relation- ship, its intimacy, and outsiders’ curiosity about them. ; Male choreographers have also made affectionately sororal pieces. In ““Antique Epigraphs,”’ Jerome Robbins, inspired by the Saphic “‘songs of Bilitis,” eight women GENDER “LANGUAGE” ONSTAGE 23 strike figural poses, lift each other, and grasp each other’s waists or buttocks. Gender Role Reversal and Androgyny. These are yet other forms of new moves in dance imaging that challenge the status quo. During the 1960s a reaction, called post-modern dance, occurred against modern dance psychological themes and narrative stories. Movement in and of itself became a predominant concern. Moreover, choreographers at times turned gender upside down or deemed it irrele- vant. “—Intentional Divisions/Implicit Con- nections,” conceived by Bill T. Jones and choreographed in conjunction with Julie West, is a jolting reminder of changing social patterns in the United States. Jones, a large, muscular black man who exudes strength, danced with West, a petite white woman. Jones throws West over his shoulder, not an unusual act onstage. However, moments later, in a reversal noteworthy for the dramatic contrast in the two dancers’s looks, the diminutive woman flips this man who is at least twice her size and weight! Gender role reversal in movement also appears in contemporary ballet. The Houston Ballet performance of Jiri Ky- lian’s “Symphony in D”’ is illustrative. In an about face from the classical ballet in which women “‘fly” through the air into the arms of men who catch them, Kylian has women break the flight of an airborne man. Three extended their arms to catch the prone body of a man as he terminated his leap. Two women lifted a man. Later a man joined a woman’s dance and dis- placed her in the women’s group of part- ners lined up in a row. Originated by black males, tap dance used to be for men only. Some white men became tappers. Nowadays, quite a few young white women are displaying tech- niques learned from the dancers of former generations. Both gender and racial pa- terns have been reversed. Asexual Female Images. Historically perceived as sex objects, women’s denial or downplaying of their sexuality conveys a strong statement of women’s choice and autonomy. For ex- ample, Yvonne Rainer’s ““Trio A”’ is the “doing” of a thing rather than the “‘per- forming” of it “toward a removal of se- ductive involvement with an audience. The performers... , for instance, never con- front the audience; the gaze is constantly averted as the head is in motion or de- flected from the body if the body happens to be frontally oriented.” Countermoves The women’s preeminence onstage in ballet and in the creation of new dance forms and thematic images spawned a backlash. Men made efforts to reassert their dominance as well as derogate women with images as calculating bitch, clinging vine, and male castrator. Another coun- termove was the male travesty company that spoofed the feminine in ballet. Athleticism. One of the early modern dance pi- oneers, Ruth St. Denis, married Ted Shawn who studied with her and became her husband, co-choreographer, and co- founder of the Denishawn School. Later Shawn founded his own all-male com- pany. Self-styled “Papa” of American modern dance, Shawn said male dancers were necessary: “Imagine a symphony played only by piccolos and violins.” Re- flecting a prevalent male chauvinism and “put down”’ of women as well as a tur- bulent personal relationship with St. Denis, he wanted to restore male dancing to the dignity he believed it possessed in Greece. He presented the male dancer as “‘jock”’ 24 JUDITH LYNNE HANNA and proselytized dance through champi- oning athletics (his dances include fenc- ing, dribbling a ball and shooting baskets) and ‘“‘virile” dancing.* Retaking the Spotlight. The phenomenon of Rudolf Nureyev’s defection from the Soviet Union and his six digit income galvanized a reaction against 19th century ballets which were fixated on the ballerina at the expense of the male dancer. He modified these bal- lets. Nureyev’s career may be understood in part as “‘an attempt to gain and hold center stage without a repertory that places him there. So he has become the usurper, encroaching on the ballerina’s territory with extensions of the Prince’s role or tak- ing over ‘roles that were more fantas- fics In his staging of “Romeo and Juliet” for the San Francisco Ballet, Michael Smuin has more significant roles for male dancers and more boy-boy scenes than is customary.*? Ben Stevenson’s ‘“‘L” for the Houston Ballet is an all-male percussion jazz piece in which men hold each other’s arms, and they flip each other as they might flip women. The situation of males taking over fe- male roles has gone as far as male dancer Satoru Shimakazi, in 1982, restaging and performing in pioneer Isadora Duncan’s two Scriabin works, her 1929 ‘“‘Mother’’ and 1922 ‘‘Revolutionary.’’° Men also re- take the spotlight through gay themes and travesty. Gay Themes. Ballets with homosexual themes and love duets began to emerge following the Ni- jinsky forerunners in the 1920s, but with great tact and usually disguised as some- thing else.”!!7?3 Gay themes tend to de- crease images of women in dance or pre- sent them negatively. As in theatre and cinema, the theme of the unhappy homosexual was an early one in dance. ‘Monument for a Dead Boy,” choreographed by Rudi Van Dantzig, was one of the first ballets to deal with the making, life, and death of a homosexual.” During the seventies there were ballets such as “The Goldberg Variations,” “Weewis,” “Mutations,” and “Triad” that showed the joy and tenderness of differ- ent ways of love. Parodies and Passing Drag. Travesty appears in the several all-male dance companies with the word Trock- adero in their titles. The men dance as females as well as males. Most critics rec- ognize Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo as entertaining burlesque that lov- ingly and excellently parodies the act of performance, specific ballets, and partic- ular styles through informed in-jokes. The Trocks distinguish stylistic differences among ballets and know the ballets they make fun of so perfectly that they are able to portray roles and roles within roles. Raymond argues, however, that “all transsexuals rape women’s bodies by re- ducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves.” Derogation of Women. Erik Bruhn, a great danseur noble, re- fused to dance “Swan Lake” until he had choreographed a “‘corrective’’ version in which the evil magician Von Rothbart is supplanted by evil females. In Bruhn’s version, the mother is portrayed as bul- lying, and the villain has become a woman called the Black Queen, “alter ego of Siegfried’s domineering mother.” Anti-woman messages astonish in Jer- ome Robbins’s ‘“The Cage,” premiered in 1951 by the New York City Ballet. The story of female spiders who kill their lov- ers after using them for impregnation is “angry ... decadent in its concern with misogyny and its contempt for procrea- tion.” The piece was theatrically alive in the 1980s. William Forsythe’s “Love Songs,”’ pre- miered in the United States in 1983 by the GENDER “LANGUAGE” ONSTAGE 25 Robert Joffrey Ballet, presents an ugly view of man-woman relationships suf- fused with women deserving of violence against them. Unisexuality and Role Reversal. Unisexuality and role reversal in dance may be viewed as eliminating the specific positive character of sex and gender. Al- win Nikolais, a pioneer in eschewing male and female polarized stereotypes, re- sponsed to criticism of being dehuman- izing: “I work with the human figure as affected by an environment I set up for it to move in. . . I’ve always abhorred the idea of male and female as opposed, as if we were all walking around in heat. Mod- ern society forces you to be a sexual ob- ject rather than a person.” Conclusion Danced images evolve from and reso- nate with the contextual past, present, and future. The images both reaffirm what is in society and suggest what might be. The stage of “pretend” and “play” is apart from the real world, and, therefore, per- formance is a safe arena to explore the dangerous without the penalties of the real world. Socially constructed kinetic dis- course conveyed male dominance in the ballet tradition beginning with Louis XIV. Modern dance, birthed by women in re- bellion against the status quo of ballet and the society at large, gave females new gender images of independence, stature, leadership, and even eliminated gender with androgyny and role reversals. Losing out to the ballerina in the spotlight during the 19th and early 20th century, and to the modern dance matriarchs in the first half of the 20th century, men reasserted themselves onstage. Their choreography featured men and even men alone; more- over, they appropriated movements for- merly categorized as female and per- formed both sexes’ roles, and derogated women. Onstage we see a host of sexual and gender motifs in dance. Theme and vari- ations range from the sublime to the n- diculous. Dance conveys the Christian im- age of the superiority of the virgin and the danger of the siren. Not only are there displays of male chauvinism, but at the same time images embody feminist thought. We see the battle of the sexes played out. Dance is sometimes like myth, an idealized disguise to hide unorthodox practice or an ideal which is achieved by none. Weaving prevailing attitudes to- ward gender before our eyes, dance also challenges us with alternative life styles: unisexuality, homosexuality, asexuality. The images focus on a compelling issue of human life in our time: the continuing reconstitution of gender roles and mean- ings. This subject bears on the perpetual human struggle with questions of self- identity and interpersonal relationships.*® In this era of challenges to dominance hierarchies and the onset of genetic en- gineering, an attempt to understand gen- der relationships is of special significance. My intention has been to enrich the dis- course on male/female, body images, and social change by moving toward spotlight- ing and clarifying how gender is socially and culturally constructed and _ trans- formed in a significant medium of human transaction--the nonverbal communica- tion medium of dance, now accessible na- tionwide through television. References Cited 1. Bandura, Albert. 1972. Modeling Theory: Some Traditions, Trends and Disputes. In: Recent Trends in Social Learning Theory. Ed. Ross D. Park, pp. 35-61. 2. Barnes, Clive. 1974. Homosexuality in Dance. New York Times, November 3, p. D8. 3. Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann, 1966. The Social Construction of Reality. Doubleday, New York. 4. Croce, Arlene. 1977. Afterimages. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, p. a)127-29 b)179, 134. 5. Croce, Arlene. 1982. Going to the Dance. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, p. a)283 b)278-79 c)165— 66. 6. Dunning, Jennifer. 1982. Ballet: Satoru Shi- mazaki. New York Times, January 9, p. 13. 26 DAVID F. ARMSTRONG 7. Dunning, Jennifer. 1984, Women Depicted in Dance Come in Many Guises Today. New York Times, September 9, p. H8. 8. Dunning, Jennifer. 1985. Alwin Nikolais, a Dance Patriarch. New York Times, June 13, p. C33. 9. Gardner, Howard. 1983, Frames of Mind: A Theory of Multiple Intelligences. Basic Books, New York. 10. Gazzaniga, Michael. 1985. The Social Brain. Psychology Today 19(1):29-30, 32-34, 36-37. 11. Gordon, Suzanne. 1983. Off Balance: The Real World of Ballet. Pantheon, New York. 12. Guest, Ivor. 1966. The Romantic Ballet in Paris. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn. 13. Hanna, Judith Lynne. 1979a. To Dance Is Hu- man: A Theory of Nonverbal Communication. University of Texas Press, Austin. 14. Hanna, Judith Lynne. 1979b. Toward Semantic Analysis of Movement Behavior: Concepts and Problems. Semiotica 25(1-2):77-110. 15. Hanna, Judith Lynne. 1983. The Performer- Audience Connection: Emotion to Metaphor in Dance and Society. University of Texas Press, Austin. 16. Hanna, Judith Lynne. 1987. Dance and Stress: Resistance, Reduction, and Euphoria. AMS Press, New York (in press). 17. Jackson, Graham. 1978. Dance As Dance: Se- lected Reviews and Essays. Catalyst, Ontario, Canada, p. 38. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 26-31, March 1987 18. Jaggar, Alison M. 1983. Feminist Politics and Human Nature. Rowman and Allanheld, Sus- sex. 19. Johnston, Jill. 1971. Marmelade Me. Dutton, New York, pp. 39-40. 20. Kisselgoff, Anna. 1984. Dance: Bausch Troupe Makes New York Debut. New York Times, June 14, p. C20. 21. Laine, Barry. 1985. Trendy Twosome. Ballet News 7(2):22-25. 22. Martin, John. 1951. Ballet by Robbins in Local Premiere. New York Times, June 15, p. 17. 23. Mazo, Joseph. 1974. Dance Is a Contact Sport. Dutton, New York. 24. Philp, Richard and Mary Whitney. 1977. The Male in Ballet. McGraw-Hill Book, New York. 25. Raymond, Janice. 1979. Transsexual Empire. Beacon Press, Boston, p. 104. 26. Siegel, Marcia. 1972. At the Vanishing Point: A Critic Looks at Dance. Saturday Review, New York, pp. 74-79. 27. Siegel, Marcia. 1977. Watching the Dance Go By. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, p. a)203—4 b)204— 5 c)104—106. 28. Terry, Walter. 1976. Ted Shawn, Father of American Dance. Dial, New York. 29. Tobias, Tobi. 1984. A Conversation with Mar- tha Graham. Dancemagazine, 58(3):62—64. Word, Sign And Object’ David F. Armstrong Gallaudet University In any consideration of “nonverbal”’ communication, it inevitably becomes necessary to specify where the verbal ends ‘Paper presented in the special interest session on “Nonverbal Communication” at the 1986 George- town University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics and the nonverbal begins. Since I spend much of my time in an environment where unspoken communication is accepted as language, I find this specification partic- ularly hard to make. I think that this dis- tinction becomes particularly difficult as we attempt to classify different kinds of events within the context of a sign lan- guage conversation, and I think that at WORD, SIGN AND OBJECT 27 some point it becomes necessary to con- clude that the distinction may not be that important after all. Deuchar® has recently written on the question: —the “verbal” or linguistic has been sought almost entirely in the speech channel. This association of language with one channel exclusively has had an effect on sign language research, where attention was at first focused almost entirely on the activity of the hands (i.e., the manual channel), which was assumed to be the locus of verbal communication in signing. —evidence that nonmanual as well as manual behavior can function at var- ious levels of the language suggests that we should be wary of equating one particular channel of language expression with one particular lin- guistic function. Such insight may lead us to dispense with the distinction between verbal and nonverbal com- munication in spoken as well as sign language research. We would then be free in doing research on spoken English, for example, to consider an utterance such as “Yes.” and a head nod as alternative ways of fulfilling the same function in the grammar; while pointing would be seen as an alternative [or needed accompani- ment] to a demonstrative “‘this” or “that.” Thus the common procedure of selecting a structure and trying to determine its function would be re- placed by selecting linguistic func- tions and establishing how they may be performed in various channels. I will be less concerned here with dis- tinguishing the verbal from the nonverbal and more concerned with examining the constraints, both neurolinguistic and semiotic, imposed by the selection of auditory as opposed to visual communi- cation media. I intend to proceed by considering first some implications of the perceptual systems that underlie our com- munication systems and then by relating these to similarities and differences be- tween visual-gestural and auditory-vocal communication. I will cast much of this in terms of problems in translation. Inspiration for this paper comes prin- cipally from two sources: a recent article by Roger Shattuck” entitled ‘“Words and Images: Thinking and Translation” and the work of W. V. O. Quine (1953) on translational indeterminacy. My paper draws its title from Quine’s Word and Ob- ject.'© I will be particularly concerned here with the relationship among objects in the world and the words and signs that rep- resent them, paying particular attention to the role of the neurolinguistic potential of the visual and auditory perceptual sys- tems and the governance of these systems by higher brain functions. Some defini- tion of terms is needed here. I intend for the terms “word’’, “‘sign” and “‘object” to be understood essentially in their or- dinary language senses. ““Word”’ should be understood to mean the ordinary ut- terances of spoken languages, “‘sign”’ in- cludes the gestured utterances of signed languages, especially ASL, and “object” includes primarily material or physical ob- jects but also mental contructs, activities, etc. Shattuck begins his article with the fo- lowing quotation from a letter by Coler- idge: Is thinking impossible without arbi- trary signs? And how far is the word “arbitrary” a misnomer? Are not words, etc., parts and germinations of the plant? And what is the law of their growth? In something of this sort I would en- deavor to destroy the old antithesis of words and things; elevating, as it were, words into things and living things too. Shattuck uses this rumination on the Pla- tonic conundrum as a jumping off point into a consideration of the visual basis of language. I think it is particularly useful for those of us who are interested in “‘non- verbal” or gestural forms of communi- cation to remember that, from an adap- tive and neurological point of view, vision is the primary sense among the primates. My colleague William Stokoe* makes a similar point with respect to the primacy 28 DAVID F. ARMSTRONG of vision in the development of the ca- pacity for logical processing that underlies the emergence of grammar. Our language is shot through with expressions that point to this visual primacy: when we need to discover the facts about a crime we seek an eyewitness, not an earwitness. If we were dogs we would probably sniff out a nosewitness, but since we are primates and not carnivores we look for someone who saw it done. A primary problem, then, for human language in an acoustic me- dium is to render the objects of ordinary visual experience into auditory symbols. _ Shatuck suggests that this transformation process is properly viewed as an act of translation—in this case, translation of the contents of the mind into the words of a spoken language. This implication of translation in the cognitive processes underlying language brings me nicely to my second source of inspiration: namely, Quine’s treatment of the question whether it 1s ever possible to be certain that one language can be trans- lated into another. Although this question has generated a great deal of argument and controversy,” we still appear to lack a satisfactory answer.’ Quine poses the question as one of ontology and episte- mology, not linguistics, and in this regard he is making a point similar to that made by Shattuck. Quine points out that the meanings of words are not the same as the objects they refer to, and we can ex- tend this point to an explicitly Whorfian position with regard to the pervasive in- fluence of culture and language on the way we interpret our perceptions. These observations have important im- plications for how we should think about the nonverbal-verbal continuum. Study of signed languages will be particularly use- ful in helping us to understand how the visual becomes verbal. Of course, the main thing about signed languages is that they are used by deaf people and so are en- tirely visual, avoiding, to some extent, Shattuck’s translation problem. I want to look at signed languages from two sepa- rate points of view: the nature of sign for- mation and development and the neuro- linguistic processes underlying sign lan- guage use by congenitally deaf signers. The thing about signs that most immed- lately strikes the hearing novice is that they frequently appear “‘natural’—that is re- lated in a fairly direct, pictorial sort of way to the objects they refer to. The semi- otic term for this, of course, is iconism. Fundamental iconism in signs has, histor- ically, been taken as indicative of primi- tiveness or ‘‘nonverbalness,”’ and it was the seminal discovery of Stokoe” that this iconism in American Sign Language masked a more basic structure that, in- deed, had a phonological type of organ- ization. However, despite the application of linguistic descriptive devices to sign languages, the “‘feel’’ of an iconic quality in signing remains, to a much greater ex- tent than it would for any spoken lan- guage. And it is clear that the iconic and indexic qualities of signs have more to do with the imaging capacity of the human visual system than with primitiveness. The relationship of sign and object ap- pears then, in many cases, to be closer than the relationship of word and object, though the iconic imagery in signs may be obscure or may inhere in “figures of sign’. If you believe, as many ASL linguists do, that despite this heavy employment of iconic or nonarbitrary devices, signed lan- guages nevertheless possess the requisite characteristics of natural languages,” then it is necessary to ask where “‘verbalness’”’ begins and where “‘pure” gesture ends, if in fact such a strict dividing line can be located. An interesting example of the blurring of this line can be found through examination of the concept of duality of patterning as it is applied to signed lan- guages. It has been argued that the proc- ess by which signed linguistic items be- come arbitrarily encoded out of an iconic stock can be traced in the historic devel- opment of signed languages, that through this process pictorial gestural items are compressed into a system that consists of a small number of conventionalized and largely arbitrary handshapes and body and WORD, SIGN AND OBJECT 29 facial movements.’ It is clear that through this process the conduit that allows for the creative flow of new signs from panto- mime and gesture is not broken. Although we can certainly argue that a parallel process exists for spoken languages, we would be hard pressed to show that it is as invasive or as integral to spoken lan- guages as it appears to be for signed lan- guages. In this respect signed languages have been compared to writing systems such as the Chinese logographic system which involve the decoding of complex visual patterns.’ It is interesting to note that similar visual processing strategies may be employed in the decoding of these two types of visual linguistic systems. This suggests that there may be continuity be- tween non-verbal gesture on the one hand and spoken language on the other through visual linguistic forms such as signed languages and logographic written lan- guages. The interesting point about neurolin- guistic studies of congenitally deaf signers and readers of logogographic writing sys- tems is that they force us to pay attention to the perceptual processes that underlie the communication events. The initial studies of these systems focussed on sign and character recognition and arrived at the not terribly surprising result that rec- Ognition of these visual communication devices involves relatively heavy partici- pation of the right cerebral hemi- sphere. *!° This is distinct from the way in which recognition of spoken words is usually accomplished by hearing people— namely through left hemisphere process- ing. Remember that, par excellence, the right hemisphere is specialized for rec- ognition of complex visual patterns. Fur- ther study of both signing and logographic writing has revealed, however, that basic grammatical processes in these systems are controlled by left hemisphere activities very similar to those involved in the processing of spoken languages.'®''-? It has been sug- gested in this regard, that is is necessary to be very careful about specifying the level of processing that is involved.” At the level of the basic percept, the gross action of the part of the brain most adapted to the cognitive treatment of input in that perceptual system comes into play, but once material is recognized as having a linguistic function it is treated by centers in the brain that control specific linguistic, that is, grammatical functions. These considerations have important implications for how we should think about language in general and translation in particular, and, in the present instance, translations of visual codes into auditory codes. The neurological processes under- lying these acts of translation remain highly problematic, but we have several concep- tual schemes to choose from. The recent death of the neurologist Norman Ge- schwind has refocussed interest on the question of whether higher brain func- tions, and language in particular, should be thought of as localized or holistic in the brain.’* Geschwind was a modern pioneer of the localization hypothesis and did much to advance and dissemin- ate knowledge relating to the nature of cerebral lateralization. Geschwind, how- ever, was not concerned only with local- ization of function per se, but also with the interconnectedness of the various functional centers. This view of intercon- nectedness suggests the beginnings of a resolution of the localization-holistic po- larization in neurolinguistic theory. Ex- treme localization theories are most con- ducive to linguistic theories that emphasize the separateness of language from other cognitive functions. As I suggested ear- lier, it is possible to take a more complex look at what is going on in language use. And here I think we will find greater use for neurolinguistic theories that stress the interconnectedness of functional areas throughout the whole brain. I will refer here particularly to work of Howard Gardner and his associates. My purpose is this. . . if we believe that two types of communication events are similar, our be- lief is reinforced by finding similar rep- resentation in brain function, even if it is only at a gross level. 30 DAVID F. ARMSTRONG I am arguing here that theories con- cerning the neural substrates of language and communication have been heavily in- fluenced by traditional theories of what is linguistic and what is not, and that this has reinforced a fairly narrow view of lin- guistic abilities as highly localized to a rel- atively small area of the left cerebral cor- tex. Beginning with the observations of Broca and others in the 19th century, lan- guage in fact, has provided the model for modern theories of cerebral localization. According to the general notion of cere- bral localization various aspects of be- havior, such as language, can be com- partmentalized and controlled by cir- cumscribed areas in the cerebral cortex. A considerable body of data also suggests however, that important aspects of lan- guage ability are not so localized but in- volve the whole, intact brain, that is, that involve the right cerebral hemisphere as well. I will now attempt to describe these abilities at greater length. I have already suggested that sign lan- guage use appears to involve large areas of the brain, the right side as well as the left. Recent literature concerning brain laterality for spoken language use increas- ingly supports the hypothesis that the nght hemisphere is involved in associative or “metaphoric” aspects of language use. Terms that have been applied recently to right hemisphere participation in lan- guage use include the following: “‘seman- tic-lexical comprehension’’,’ “‘apprehen- sion of complex linguistic materials’’,”® “connotative and associative rather than precise and denotative’’.’ Recent studies by Gardner and his associates have indi- cated other aspects of language in which the right hemisphere is crucially involved. These include metaphor’’ and compre- hension of verbal humor.* In all of these studies it should be noted that right hemi- sphere function is necesssary but probably not sufficient. A final area crucial to lan- guage use, in which the right hemisphere is implicated is that of cognitive treatment of affect.*° What links together all of these right hemisphere contributions to lan- guage use is the notion of context”—lin- guistic context in the case of ‘‘connota- tion’’, metaphor and verbal humor; social context also in the case of verbal humor and in the case of those verbal processes which involve affect. I maintain that inter- pretation of contextual cues is intimately related to visual perception, and recall that the one thing we do know about the right hemisphere with some certainty is that it is implicated in the processing of visual input. | I infer from these considerations that any theory of communication must take account of these aspects and not simply account for language in its purely refer- ential or grammatical aspects. Moreover, theories purporting to explain brain la- teralization for language must account not for language per se as lateralized to the left hemisphere, but for the lateralization of various linguistic processes to the two hemispheres separately and the joint ac- tion of the two hemispheres in the recep- tion and production of language. This lat- ter point has the salutary characteristic of reminding us that human language is not just the unitary, sequential, logically or- ganized communication system of the grammarian. Rather, it has a variety of uses and functions, and metaphor and re- lated devices appear to be central to its operation. I maintain here and elsewhere’ that one of the primary functions of met- aphor (but not the only) is to “‘visualize”’ auditory language by taking advantage of the visual imaging capabilities of the right cerebral hemisphere. I pointed out earlier that the neurolin- guistic studies of signed languages suggest complex involvement of many parts of the brain in the processing of communicated information, and I think that this similar treatment of spoken language brings me full circle. Human communication de- vices, and I will make no attempt to sep- arate the verbal from the nonverbal, are complex from perceptual and cognitive points of view and deserve to be viewed in all of their complexity. 12. ley WORD, SIGN AND OBJECT 31 References Cited . Armstrong, D. F. 1983. Iconicity, Arbitrari- ness and Duality of Patterning in Signed and Spoken Language: Perspectives on Language Evolution, Sign Language Studies, 38: 51-69. . Bellugi, U. and E. S. Klima. 1976. Two Faces of Sign: Iconic and Abstract, In: Harnad, Steklis and Lancaster, ed., Origins and Evolution of Language and Speech, Academy of Sciences, : Biederman, I. and Y. Tzao. 1979. 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Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 32-35, March 1987 From Literature to Music and Film: The Myth of Orpheus and Eurydice William Franklin Panici Howard University One of the most successful ways to in- tegrate the media while teaching culture is to develop an interdisciplinary course in literature, music and film. I had the opportunity to do so in another institution where the focus was to provide freshmen with an experience different from the tra- ditional subject-oriented courses usually chosen in one’s first year. The curriculum was taking on an international studies ap- proach which meant a reemphasis on for- eign languages in cross-cultural contexts. Writing was also an important component of the program. This meant careful co- ordination so that students had similar kinds of writing experiences, i.e. to sum- marize, to compare and contrast, to ana- lyze a theme, to do a documented re- search paper, and even to make an oral presentation. In my course, the media, in part, dictated the approach, a bit of the tail wagging the dog. Here the interest lay in how each author, composer, or director refashioned the myth of Orpheus and Eu- rydice according to the medium in which he worked. This paper was presented as part of a special in- terest session on “The Media and the Teaching of Cultures” at the Georgetown University Round Ta- ble on Languages and Linguistics 1986. 32 Trained in literature, experienced in and an avid enthusiast of opera and eager to learn something more about film, I de- signed the course from the point of view of continuities and contrasts. The theme of love, of course, was the inspiration for the choice of this particular myth. But I also tried to focus on how male/female relationships were viewed by those deal- ing with the myth. The cultural references understandably, are vast. Beginning with the classical mythographers of Virgil and Ovid and the philosophy of Orphism which rivaled Christianity in its day, we move to the mise a la pratique of the principles of the Florentine Camerata of the late sixteenth century in Monteverdi’s Orfeo (focusing here principally on the male lover). Then, we breach the baroque pe- riod to the point at which Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice reestablished similar princi- ples. Offenbach’s parody, Orphée aux en- fers of 1858, shows how his version of the myth reflects the spirit of Paris during the Second Empire. Film, the great artistic medium of the twentieth century, offers yet another perspective on the myth here- tofore impossible. Cocteau’s version of Orphée, coming in the wake of WWI takes on a special meaning in the context of a rising Fascism and Nazism. And discov- MYTH OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 33 eries by archeologists of the possibility of a black Orpheus give rise to Marcel Ca- mus’ magnificent film of the same name and set in the third world context of Rio de Janeiro during Mardi Gras time. As one can well imagine, the above dis- ciplines lead one into deep waters not so easily trodden in one semester by one in- structor. Virgil’s Georgics and Ovid’s Me- tamorphoses, of course, force one to come to grips with a pagan world which used myth to explain as an early science natural phenomena, or customs, or religion or used just for plain entertainment. Whether you agree with a Robert Graves, for example, who uses myth to explain a preliterate society with a matriarchal head (or earth mother), one must deal with this possi- bility.° As for Orphism, a reference to and/or brief discussion of how this reli- gious movement challenged early Chris- tianity is not inappropriate to help bridge the gap between pagan and Christian so- ciety.’ If Orpheus could descend into hell and return, then so too could Christ! For- tunately for me, I had a competent col- league, a classicist, who was able to en- lighten my students on this matter. The leap to 1607 A.D. is obviously an immense one, not only in time but in sen- sibility and in cultural context. The ques- tion, ‘““What is opera?”, must be ad- dressed without belaboring the point. Monteverdi’s Orfeo rewrites the myth in light of the principles of the Florentine Camerata of the late sixteenth century. His opera is a great example of the prin- ciples codified by the Camerata. In their war against counterpoint, and their effort to form a perfect union of words and mel- ody with the former surprisingly domi- nating the latter, the Camerata estab- lished three corollaries, i.e. 1) the text must be clearly understood, 2) the words must be sung with correct and natural dec- lamation, and 3) the melody must not de- pict mere graphic details in the text but must interpret the feeling of the whole passage. These esthetic principles formed the necessary foundation for true dra- matic music and thus made possible the creation of opera.” Behind all of this, of course, was the debate of what came first, the words or the music. At the same time, an aria such as Orfeo’s ‘‘Possente spirto”’ begins to sow the seeds of decadence for the excess of ornamental vocal composi- tion of the baroque period to follow. To give you a sense of how the voice range suits the character, in the first case, how Orpheus’ florid singing succeeds in per- suading Charon to let him enter his boat, in the second case, the basso profondo of Charon, the boatsman in Hades who eventually agrees to take Orpheus across the river, one must listen to the passage from Act III. To help once again in adding a dimen- sion to this work I was unable to give myself, I was able to call on a colleague in music who was a specialist of this period and had done an enormous amount of research on this particular opera. Needless to say, the notion that a work such as Monteverdi’s Orfeo could be the summa of the principles of the Florentine Camerata while at the same time the germ of decadent vocal composition with vocal pyrotechnics as its goal was a challenge to make students comprehend. An even greater challenge was to have them un- derstand how Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice of some 150 years later brings the cycle full round to subordinate the music once again to the text and remove all unnec- essary ornament. Between 1607 and 1762, baroque music complemented a period rich in literature, art, philosophy and science. Algarotti’s Treatise on Opera, a manifesto of operatic reform in 1755, and Winck- elmann’s History of Ancient Art in 1764, focussing on Greek art forms and what they believed to be noble simplicity and calm greatness, combined in the notion of the “‘part subordinate to the whole.”” Calzabigi, the librettist for Gluck’s Orfeo cast the opera into three statuesque ta- bleaux.’ Musically growing out of Neo- politan opera seria, the French tragédie lyrique, the original Italian version of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in Vienna of 1762 featured a castrato in the male role.” 34 WILLIAM FRANKLIN PANICI By now the recitative/aria structure was well-established. Cleverly incorporating the best of all the above, Gluck’s opera enjoyed great success in Italian in Vienna and in French in Paris two years later. Published in Paris in 1784, this work was the first Italian opera of the 18th century not by Handel to be accorded the dig- nity of print. The work succeeded too in its “yearning for free, simple, unaffected expression of human feelings.’” Coming this far in the course, how does one succeed in having students absorb the material. This is where the writing com- ponent of the course comes into play. A preliminary assignment asks students to use established reference works to seek above and beyond the syllabus another classical treatment of Orpheus and Eu- rydice, another opera based on the myth, and at least one modern treatment in lit- erature. This assignment teaches students how to begin to use the library and helps to make them aware of how the myth suc- ceeds in appealing time and time again. After the mythological treatments of the myth have been covered, a written as- signment asks students to summarize the story. They are to follow an order in the assignment. As a matter of fact, all as- signments in the course are given to the students in written form so there is no misunderstanding of what is expected of them. Once the Monteverdi and Gluck operas have been studied, another written assignment has students compare and contrast the two versions of the myth us- ing an A + B or A/B method. Let me add that a handbook is used with the course, Elizabeth McMahan’s A Crash Course in Composition, to help answer questions students may have about writ- ing.* As you can see, the assignments are designed to train the students in a number of different writing techniques. Before the end of the course, they are asked to do several things; 1) to plan a two week pe- riod of the course itself by choosing and justifying two works to study, 2) to re- search another original version of the myth and to prepare an oral presentation of it using text, recording, or tape, and 3) eventually to write their own myth while taking into consideration the nature of myth and the people about whom myth is written. I have postponed until now my discus- sion of the use of film in the course, simply because I wanted to proceed chronolog- ically. And while Cocteau’s Orphée pro- vides a fascinating interpretation of the myth with Orpheus as a poet and hell being through the other side of the mirror, the real cinematic achievement, in my opin- ion, is Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) of 1960. Students were taught to read film in a number of ways. First, a guest lecturer gave an excellent overview of the subject. Second, a fine chapter called “Writing About Film” in Sylvan Barnet’s A Short Guide to Writing About Literature was immensely useful for it reviewed some of the elements of the above lecture and offered sample es- says one of which was Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, a Japanese Macbeth.' Finally, my own reading in film, scant though it was, helped to articulate some of the tech- niques discussed all along. In Portuguese, Black Orpheus is set in contemporary Rio during Mardi Gras time. Orpheus, a trol- ley car driver, is looking forward to Car- nival with his sweetheart Eurydice. She, however, is stalked by a masked figure representing death. This Orpheus pos- sesses all the qualities of the mythical fig- ure. He is a guitar playing, sweet singing, pacifier of animals some of which share his own house. A folk hero of young boys who believes he can cause the sun to rise with his singing, this Orpheus also sings of “returning life.” The signs of destiny (fate) are ever present: the caged bed- room of the live birds, the scarf kept by Orpheus and then torn in two during the Carnival, the loss of the amulet Eurydice wears around her neck, and Death stalk- ing Eurydice throughout. When Eurydice dies, she is killed accidentally (and iron- ically) by Orpheus himself when he turns on the electricity in the trolley barn, send- ing a charge through the high wire to which MYTH OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 35 Eurydice is clinging. Orpheus has lost Eu- rydice. He goes off searching for her and his search takes him to a municipal build- ing, a kind of witch’s sabbath or voodoo house where Orpheus’s lack of faith (doubts) cause him to lose Eurydice once again. This segment of the film gives one the sense of how a modern cultural con- text is used to help communicate an age- less myth. Has the Orpheus myth now run its course? To quote Jean-Paul Sartre in ‘Or- phée noir,’ his preface to Senghor?: “‘I shall name this poetry “orphic’’ because the untiring descent of the Negro into himself causes me to think of Orpheus going to reclaim Eurydice from Pluto.” What about modern day black American Orpheuses such as James Baldwin, Langs- ton Hughes, Stevie Wonder, Simon Estes, and Vinson Cole? And in this day of changing male/female relationships and the greater responsibilities being assumed by women, perhaps we are on the verge of a Eurydice snatching the gift of music and poetry, or poetry and music, as you will, from Orpheus? Have we arrived at the age of the female Orpheus the likes of which we can see in figures like Gwen- dolyn Brooks, Alice Walker, Leontyne Price, and Jessye Norman? References Cited 1. Barnet, S. 1975. 3rd ed. A Short Guide to Writing About Literature. Little, Brown and Co. Boston, pp. 192-218. 2. Grout, D. J. 1965 [1947]. A Short History of Opera. Columbia University Press. New York, pp. 34-37. 3. Hutchings, A. n.d. Gluck and Reform Opera. London recording of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. 4. McMahan, E. 1981 [1973]. A Crash Course in Writing. McGraw-Hill. New York. 5. Senghor, L. 1948. ed. Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie négre et malgache d’expression francaise. Presses Universitaires de France. Paris, p. 21. 6. The Greek Myths. 1964 [1955]. Penguin Books. Baltimore, pp. 9-23. 7. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 1970. Ed. by N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard. Claren- don Press. Oxford, pp. 759-60. Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 36-39, March 1987 Diplomacy and Communication across Cultures: Degrees of Cultural Barriers David Bowen and Margareta Bowen Georgetown University The wall inscriptions in the necropolis of the Princes of Elephantine are one of the earliest recorded references to the use of interpreters in trade relations and for expeditions beyond Ancient Egypt’s bor- ders. The Princes of Elephantine were foreign affairs experts who were entrusted with highly important and often difficult political, economic and occasionally mil- itary missions.” The ability to interpret is mentioned as one of many other attri- butes, because it was considered second- ary to the main function, that of admin- istrator, trader, diplomat or warrior. The Princes of Elephantine were from a bor- der area, probably half Nubian them- selves. This is a situation we find repeated throughout history, whenever interpret- ing had to be done between what was con- sidered the “civilized world’ and the ‘Barbarians’, e.g. people outside the “superpowers” of their time. Often the interpreters were of mixed parentage or members of a minority. This paper was presented as part of a special in- terest session on “Diplomacy and Communication Across Cultures” at the Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1986. 36 A different approach to communica- tion was taken by expansionist empires. Their languages became a lingua franca, sometimes for centuries, e.g. Latin in the Roman Empire and long after it had bro- ken up, Spanish after the Conquista, French in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe, English as the British Empire grew. However, with the spread of these languages, an interaction with other languages set in and led to new lan- guages or dialects (vulgar Latin and the Romance languages from Latin, Pidgin from English, Creole from French). Apart from the disadvantages of lan- guage change, whenever there was a very marked disparity between two strong cul- tures the solution of the lingua franca would be out of the question. European-Turkish relations in the seventeenth and eight- eenth centuries are a case in point. The Sublime Porte saw Western Europe as an area to be converted and conquered and refused to adopt a common, Western lan- guage. Therefore interpreters had to be found and the first efforts to train them were made. Several European monarchs instituted schools to teach Turkish and other languages of the Middle East; France had one in Constantinople, one in Smyrna DEGREES OF CULTURAL BARRIERS 37 and then one in Paris (at the Jesuit Col- lege which later became Lycee Louis-le- Grand); the famous Ecole des Langues Orientales in Paris is the final result of these efforts.* In the case of the Habsburg Empire, training of interpreters for the extensive dealings with Turkey led to the establishment of the Diplomatische Aka- demie which is still in existence today. It was only with the advent of nation- alism and the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century that the use of several lan- guages at international gatherings became more frequent. Gradually, the diplomats who had been raised by English nannies and French governesses would be out of their depth in spite of the early language training which was part of an elite edu- cation: international negotiation would become more technical and the number of working languages grew. Today, six languages are used at the high-level meet- ings of the United Nations, nine at the European Communities, and no diplomat could be expected to work without any interpretation whatsoever. Various inter-allied negotiations during World War I, the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and the preparatory conferences for the League of Nations were the first major occasions at which both French and English were used. Wilson’s interpreter was Colonel Bonsall, who had been a newspaper correspondent.’ After the out- break of hostilities he joined the US Army and was assigned to headquarters in Paris. There Colonel House, who was a man of one language himself, asked for Bonsall to act as interpreter for President Wilson and House himself during all the meet- ings. At this point we should make some dis- tinctions depending on the position in which the users of interpretation services find themselves. The case of the Paris Peace Talks appears as the normal one: the user has recourse to translation because he does not understand the other delegations’ lan- guage at all and depends entirely on the interpreter. More frequently, however, users have some, albeit imperfect under- standing of the other working languages. At a certain level of negotiations between the representatives of sovereign states, mainly for reasons of prestige or for me- dia coverage, interpretation may be re- quested even if most of the participants are quite conversant with the languages spoken by their counterparts. In the case of consecutive interpreta- tion between two languages, a consider- able degree of control is exercised over the performance of the interpreter be- cause some participants always under- stand both. In large, multinational bod- ies, a limited number of working languages invariably means that many participants have to express themselves in a language other than their own, a situation which in itself leads to problems of communication across cultures. The situation of total de- pendence on the interpreters occurs only when languages like Turkish, Thai, Jap- anese, or Arabic must be used, which are hardly ever taught in secondary schools in Europe or in the United States. In large intergovernmental bodies, the user will be protected by a hierarchy within language services. In the case of written translations, revisers and terminologists are responsible for consistency and the implementation of style rules. The chief translator will see to a stringent selection of candidates to translators’ posts. It is taken for granted that almost every trans- lation that is commissioned, or assigned, will be used, not only for information, but also as the basis of discussion. And the people who will either write the text to begin with, or who will be discussing it, may not necessarily be expressing them- selves in their own language. They may find themselves having to use one of the official languages of the organization. In most cases, it is English. English texts may be produced by people who are not Eng- lish speakers themselves and the whole text may be thrown off. When the source text is written in a language other than English, it must be put into a neutral, easily-understandable English, even for people whose English is not necessarily 38 DAVID BOWEN AND MARGARETA BOWEN that strong. Jean Datta calls this compro- mise “‘a tightrope walking act’’.? A chief interpreter and, in larger organizations, an assistant chief interpreter per language used, is responsible for recruitment and testing. The role of the interpreter is also in- fluenced by the following: international meetings have their specific purposes, and each delegation or participant may pursue specific ends, have a hidden agenda, so to speak. As professional interpreting de- veloped, the users of these services be- came increasingly aware of the need to have well informed interpreters, well ed- ucated ones, so steeped in the speaker’s culture that they are able to understand every nuance of the principals’ reasoning. The case of Paul Schmidt’ when working for the delegation of the Weimar Republic at Locarno and Geneva is a good exam- ple. He describes his particular tightrope- walking act, which would go well when he had been well briefed, and which led to complaints whenever the interpreter was treated as a “language machine’. The im- portance of an interpreter’s understand- ing of subject matter is discussed in great detail by Danica Selekovitch,® as well as the difference between general under- standing and a specialist’s understanding. Schmidt also mentions the dilemma of nationality or origin for diplomatic inter- preters: While the German Foreign office wished to have interpreters working into their mother tongue only, a practice com- mon in the League of Nations as a matter of course, it was decided that “‘delicate negotiations could not be handled by a foreigner” and Schmidt translated into French for the German delegation at the meetings of the League of Nations, where the French version was the only official one for the record. The interpreter’s na- tionality and clearance continue to be a major concern for most government lan- guage services today. The professional organizations, which began to be formed as interpreting grew, use language classification systems to clar- ify their members’ qualifications. The American Association of Language Spe- cialists (TAALS) uses the following def- initions for interpreters: A: Principal active language(s) into which they interpret and which they speak as a native. B: Other active language(s) into which they interpret. B*: Other active language(s) into which they interpret consecutively only. C: Languages from which they inter- pret regardless of difficulties of termi- nology or idiom. The user has to make a choice between employing nationals only, possibly only native-born citizens of the country, who work into their B or B* language, or call- ing on foreigners or expatriates who had their high school and college education abroad. The “nationals only” rule is most strictly applied by the Soviet Union, which maintains a large Institute for the training of language specialists. Even for com- mercial translation, many countries’ im- migration rules are so strict that most of the work into foreign languages is per- formed by non-native speakers into their B language.° The layperson must bear in mind that “fluency” or “near-native fluency’’, the terms most frequently used to describe a person’s language capability, are extremely vague terms—hence the need for a clearer definition by language ratings. Academically, the distinction be- tween CALP (Cognitive Academic Lan- guage Proficiency) and BICS (Basic In- terpersonal Communication Skills) as defined by the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education’ is very useful in describing to students the levels to be attained by language study, but does not sufficiently describe the resources necessary to work into a language simultaneously. Language qualifications are only the most obvious aspect of interpreting per- formance. Many attempts have been made to quantify the accuracy achieved by the interpreter, for “objective” tests in par- ticular and for court interpreting. Ever since machine translation became a re- DEGREES OF CULTURAL BARRIERS 39 search topic, the percentage of accuracy began to be talked about very much. Should it be 70 percent, or more, or less? Would an accuracy of 98 to 99 percent look fine to you? It depends on what the 1 or 2 percent error was. Take the following case, which was re- ported by a colleague, a retired confer- ence interpreter in Vienna who was in- volved with the matter as an investigator after the fact. In World War II, during the North Africa campaign, the Afrika Korps called in a native informant to ask about places in the desert where water could be found. This was in Libya, which had been colonized by the Italians and the native informant used Italian as his vehicular language. An interpreter, also local, had to go from Italian to German and from German to Italian to get the questions and answers across. On the basis of the in- formation obtained, a patrol was sent out into the desert. Off the fifteen men went, full of confidence that there was water here, water there. They never came back. This is when our colleague was called in from Italy to investigate the matter. He had the whole exchange of questions and answers re-enacted, and the informant’s answers ran something like this: (pointing to the map) “C’é aqua qui’’, “C’é salsa- mare qui.”, ““C’é acqua in questo posto qui” and so on. The interpreter rendered all these statements as ““There is water here’’. Probably he did not know the word salsamare (brackish water), but for the patrol of fifteen Germans out in the de- sert, that difference between drinking water and brackish water was a matter of life and death. Now, if one tried to cal- culate a percentage of error, it would be something like 1.4 to 0.7 percent: in a discussion in which actual discourse took five or ten minutes at an average rate of about 140 words a minute, the total word count would be from 1400 to 700 words and salsamare may have come up ten times. Actually only one word, one unit of trans- lation was wrong. But this very low per- centage of error cost fifteen men their lives. The striking feature of this example, of course, is insufficient knowledge of the source language on the part of the inter- preter. But why did the native informant bring up the matter of brackish water at all? If the original question was framed correctly, as it was in the minds of the questioners, there appears to have been no reason for mentioning brackish water. Two possible explanations come to mind: Either fear, the native informant being very much aware that an invading army could shoot him out of hand and wanting to tell all he knew as proof of his coop- eration, or an insufficient grasp of the sit- uation (not a caravan, but fifteen. men about to go out into the desert needing drinking water, but not vegetation for an- imals). We hope to have shown that language is the first, but by no means the only factor coming to play in communication across cultures. The power relationships be- tween the cultures involved and interna- tional etiquette, the explicitness of what is said by the principals, ongoing inter- preter briefing and training are equally important. All participants in the com- munication process must contribute to making it work. References Cited 1. Bonsall, S. 1944. Unfinished Business. Double- day and Company, Inc. Garden City, New York. 2. Cummins, J. 1980. The Construct of Language Proficiency in Bilingual Education. In: Alatis, J. E. (ed.) Current Issues in Bilingual Education, Georgetown University Round Table on Lan- guages and Linguistics. Georgetown University Press. Washington, D.C. 3. Datta, J. 1985. Translation, a Tightrope Walking Act. Outreach Paper, National Resource Center for Translation and Interpretation. 4. Degros, M. 1984. Les Jeunes sous la Revolution et ’Empire. Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique, 1- 2. A. Pedone. Paris. 5. Kurz, I. 1985. The Rock Tombs of the Princes of Elephantine, Outreach Paper, National Resource Center for Translation and Interpretation. 6. McMillan, E. N. 1982. Two-way Translation: is it Possible? NCRTI Outreach Paper. 7. Schmidt, P. 1954. Statist auf diplomatischer Buhne. Athenaum Verlag. Bonn. 8. Seleskovitch, D. 1978. Interpreting for Interna- tional Conferences. Pen and Booth. Washington, De: Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences, Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 40-46, March 1987 Francophonie in Africa: Some Obstacles by Paulin G. Djité Howard University Introduction The colonial policy which had imposed French as the sole medium of administra- tion and instruction in Africa has been a failure.’ This state of affairs has prompted the revival of French and a movement called Francophonie has been created to organize all efforts for its maintenance and diffusion. This paper examines some so- cio-political and linguistic facts, together with language attitudes data, which are or will prove to be major stumbling blocks in the success of Francophonie. The paper essentially argues that French is not the language of the masses and, to that ex- tent, Francophonie is a vain enterprise. I. The Concept, Reality and Objective of Francophonie The Concept of Francophonie The idea of a Francophone community was first mentioned in March 1962 by This paper was presented as part of a special in- terest session on “Language Policies in Africa” at the Georgetown University Round Table on Lan- guages and Linguistics 1986. 40 Léopold Sédar Senghor, former president of Sénégal and now a member of the French Academy. Together with Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia and Hamani Diori of Niger, he campaigned for a movement which would express “un mode de pensée et d’action, une certaine maniére de poser les problémes et d’en trouver les solu- tions”’ (a mode of thought and action, a certain way of approaching problems and of solving them).'° To this date, L.S. Sen- ghor is still the one who provides us with the most original definition of Franco- phonie: “1. L’ensemble des états, des pays et des régions qui emploient le Frangais comme langue nationale, langue offi- cielle, langue de communication inter- nationale ou, simplement, comme langue de travail; 2. L’ensemble des personnes qui emploient le Frangais dans les différ- entes fonctions que voila; 3. La commu- nauté d’esprit qui résulte de ces différents emplois.’’* *All the states, countries and regions that use French as a national language, an official language, a language of international communication or, sim- ply, a working language; 2. All persons who use French in all the above functions; 3. The community of thought which results from all these different uses."° FRANCOPHONIE IN AFRICA: SOME OBSTACLES 41 The Reality of Francophonie The membership of Francophonie now includes 37 full or associate member states and 2 participating governments.'’ At the first summit in the history of the move- ment (Paris, February 17-19, 1986), 42 delegations were present of which 16 heads of states and 12 heads of governments. The member states of Francophonie can be subdivided into four major groups: The first group is one in which French is the dominant and practically the sole language in the country or over most of the territory. Other languages are de- mographically less important. This group may be represented by France itself. In the second group, French is one of the national languages. This group may be represented by Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg. In these countries, bilingualism or multilingualism is Officially recognized, supported and promoted. In the third group, French is the only official language, and in many cases, the sole language of administration and in- struction. This group is mainly repre- sented by French-speaking Africa and by those countries where the first language is a French creole (e.g, Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, etc.). In the fourth and last group, French is one of the languages of limited use. This group includes Lebanon, Iran, and many north African countries. Another important element of the real- ity of Francophonie is the number of agencies and associations that support the movement and the nature of that support. Financially, Francophonie is supported by the Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique (ACCT), an agency founded by African heads of states in 1970 in Nia- mey, Niger. The ACCT has a budget of about $20 million, 46 percent of which come from France, 35 percent from Can- ada and 12 percent from Belgium. All other member states contribute only 7 percent to the budget (Weinstein™). Franco- phonie is also supported by many other organizations such as the Association of Universities Partially or Entirely of French Language (AUPELF), the International Council of the French Language (CILF), the International Association of French Language Legislators (AIPLF), and many professional societies. Recently, three new committees have been created by Mitterand’s socialist gov- ernment: 1. Le Haut Conseil de la Fran- cophonie, 2. Le Commissariat Général de la langue Frangaise, and 3. Le Comité Consultatif pour la Francophonie. These committees come in addition to the Min- istére de la Coopération et du Dével- oppement, and the Direction Générale des Relations Culturelles, Scientifiques et Techniques of the Ministére des Affaires Etrangéres (DGRCST). The Objective of Francophonie The main objective of Francophonie is to preserve and expand the status of the French language. As Jacques Chirac, Mayor of Paris and now Prime Minister of France puts it: “. . . afin que le Fran- gais ne devienne pas le Latin des mod- ernes”’ (so that French does not become the Latin of the 20th century) (Chirac in Fraternité Matin, Feb. 1986). However, the ACCT claims that its objective is to help in education, in scientific and tech- nological cooperation, in social and eco- nomic development, and in the promo- tion of the national cultures and languages. In the words of L.S. Senghor: “Pour nous, cest une greffe sur notre culture. La Francophonie ne s’oppose pas, comme certains le craignent, aux cultures nation- ales, a la négritude ou a l’arabisme.”’* Francophonie also aims at providing a political basis for the linguistic solidarity of peoples who share the same language. The first summit in Paris suggests that this is indeed an important objective. In the *“For us, it is a plus to our culture. Francophonie is not in opposition to the national cultures, to “né- gritude” or ‘“‘arabism’”’ as it is feared by some”’ (Senghor”). . 42 PAULIN G. DJITE words of the Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, the summit was “a golden opportunity for the developing countries to tell President Mitterand and myself about their disastrous economic situations and their debts, knowing that we will be meeting very soon with President Reagan in Tokyo” (cf. Fraternité Matin, Feb. 1986). In support of this, at the end of the summit, in lieu of Mitterand’s press con- ference, it was Houphouét-Boigny, Pres- ident of the Ivory Coast, who took the floor and called upon the rich nations to help the African “wretched of the earth.”’ And, in the reading of the general report, Robert Baroussa, Prime Minister of Qué- bec, listed 28 resolutions which were mostly political and economic. II. The Importance of French in Africa The Role of French in Africa French in Africa is the dominant writ- ten medium. But, as J.P. Dannaud, for- mer Director of the Coopération Cultu- relle et Technique, recognized in the early sixties, only 10 percent of Africans, Mal- agasy included, understand French; only 1 or 2 percent are fluent in it, and only 2 out of every thousand can actually think in French. (cf. Juin 1966). The statistics today are not encouraging either. For instance, Partman found in 1979 that only 5.3 percent of Ivorians use what she calls “Standard Ivorian French”’ (as opposed to Standard French). And Lafage’ reported that only 5 percent of the Ivorians speak Standard French. Numbers about other French-speaking African countries are similar, if not worse. Many scholars and numerous studies blame the increasing numbers of school drop-outs on the exclusive use of French as the language of instruction and on the way it is taught (cf. Champion;? Dogbe 1979; Makouta-Mboukou;"° and also World Bank Report”). In the words of a former minister of education of the Ivory Coast, “the school, instead of being a factor of development, has reached a point where it is a source of desintegration of society and a source of alienation of the individ- ual. It has become an obstacle to har- monious evolution and political equilib- rium for it does not integrate the child into his traditional environment, but gives him a means to escape it without provid- ing him with what he needs to live up to the demands of the mainstream of mod- ern society”’ (cf. Proceedings of the IVth Congress of the P.D.C.I.). As a result, French in Africa today is the language of ordinary intercourse among the upper class. This is a natural result of circumstances. The major concern of the elite and the political rulers is to hold on to the privileges the knowledge of French provides. French is therefore the lan- guage of prestige and the only medium for official business. The Attitudes Towards French Almost all language attitude research indicate that the people do not despise French. The reasons for this are mainly instrumental: mastery of French not only confers a better socio-economic status, it insures access to scientific and technolog- ical knowledge. A study of young native speakers of Baoulé by Marcomer’’ showed that 73 percent of them picked French when asked about the language they would choose if it was necessary for all to speak the same language. A similar study of young Dida by Ferrari?’ showed that 73.1 percent of the informants chose French over any other Ivorian language. Recently, a language attitude study of four major languages of the Ivory Coast (Baoulé, Dyula, Guéré and Wobé) conducted by this author showed that 61.66 percent of the 120 re- spondents rejected the idea of a local lan- guage, even their own, being chosen as a national language. The results were sig- nificant at P < .001. In fact, 75 percent of the respondents rejected the idea of a local language, even their own, being used as a language of instruction. These results FRANCOPHONIE IN AFRICA: SOME OBSTACLES 43 were also significant at P < .001. The main reason for these rejections was that the informants did not believe their languages could successfully meet the challenges of the modern world, Djité.’?, Duponchel® study elicited the reasons underlying such attitudes; and they are: (in order of im- portance): 1. that French is the language of the white man, 2. that French is the language of progress and modern life, 3. that French is the language of power, happiness and upward socioeconomic mobility, and 4. that French is a neutral language that does not create any ethnic rivalries. Essentially then, the attachment to French has been shown to be instrumen- tally motivated. However, it is very im- portant to realize that the predisposition to learn French does not necessarily trans- late into its actual mastery. The number of individuals still illiterate in French in Africa is enough evidence to support this assertion. It is no exaggeration therefore to suggest that these positive attitudes are merely the expressions of an ideal. As a consequence, French is not gaining any real new grounds. In the same language attitude study cited above (Djité’), Pop- ular French (or Ivorian French not Stan- dard French) comes in second positon for “languages most resorted to” (behind Dyula), in second position (behind Dyula again) for “languages spoken to/with friends.”’ Iii. The Importance of African Languages The Linguistic Potential of French-Speaking Africa The neglect of the local languages, al- though it has severely handicapped them, has not eradicated them. Today, the lin- guistic potential of French-speaking Af- rica is almost intact. Many monolingual states such as Bu- rundi, Rwanda, Somalia and Madagas- car, all things considered, could easily re- duce the functional domains of French. This is a linguistic fact whether or not it is supported by the existing language pol- icy. Over 50 percent of the population in Burundi speak some form of Swahili and 35 percent of the programs on the exter- nal service of Radio Burundi are in Kis- wahili and 65 percent of the children ed- ucated in Kirundi have access to higher education (Decraene*). In Rwanda, Swa- hili is spoken by over 10 percent of the population and its is broadcast on national radio. Likewise, the North African states of Mauritania, Tunisia and Morroco, Ar- abic is dominant in almost all aspects of everyday life. Many multilingual states also have dominant languages which in everyday in- teractions play a much more significant role than French. Such is the case of Diola, Malinké, Pular, Sérére, Soninké and Wolof in Sénégal, all of which are officially rec- ognized as national languages. Research is under way to introduce some of them in the educational system.* Texts were already produced in Wolof in 1732, and recently, the late Cheik Anta Diop has translated Einstein’s ‘““Theory of Relativ- ity” into Wolof to make the point that an African language can be used for scientific purposes. In Niger, Hawsaa (51%) and Songay-Zarma (21%) are the two domi- nant languages (Laya’*). Hawsaa has a long tradition of writing in ’Ajami dating all the way back to the 10th century (Bat- testini, personal communication). In Togo, Ewé and Mina, two mutually intelligible languages are dominant in the south of the country; the north which has no known dominant language could be represented by Kabyé (or Kabré) which has already been declared one of the national lan- guages of Togo. Ewé which has a long tradition of literacy (first texts date from 1658) is, together with Kabyé, written in *In 1973, L.S. Senghor signed a decree for the introduction of Wolof in elementary schools. 44 PAULIN G. DJITE the government-owned newspaper (La Nouvelle Marche or Azoli Yeye). In Mali, Bambara and Fulfuldé are regionally dominant. “‘Kibaru” a rural newspaper, created in 1972, is written in Bam- bara, Peulh, Sonrhai and Tamasheq (Decraene’*). In Zaire, Swahili is spoken by over 10 million people and together with Lingala, Tshiluba (also Kiluba or Kiluba-Matadi) and Kikongo (also Ki- kongo Ya Leta), is a national language. In Congo, Lingala and Kikongo (also Mu- nukutuba) are officially recognized as the national languages. In Burkina Faso where it was estimated in 1980 that 90 percent of the population was illiterate in French (Decraena’*) Jula is dominant in the west and Mooré in the east. Even in those countries where no dom- inant language is officially recognized, so- ciolinguistic studies of language use and language attitudes suggest some interest- ing patterns. In the Ivory Coast, scores of studies show that Dyula is more popular and more frequently used than French in domains other than the administration and the school (cf. Partman;”° Lafage;'*8 Hat- tiger;’ Djité;’ and many others . . .). In fact, it is not rare to see people speak Dyula or another local language in the office. The facts show therefore that lan- guage is not so divisive in Africa as some have tried to suggest it is. These divisions are not perceived as genuine by the peo- ple (Djité’). It is interesting to note that in most of the countries just discussed, the people will almost always address you in one of the local languages, usually the lingua franca or the regionally dominant language, unless they have reason to be- lieve that you may not understand them. It is also interesting to note that, in some cases, these languages spread across po- litical boundaries. Such is the case of Swa- hili in Burundi, Congo, Rwanda and Zaire, of Lingala and Tshiluba or Kokongo in Zaire and Congo, of Dyula in Burkina Faso, Mali and the Ivory Coast. All of this suggests the existence of monolingual nuclei with bilingual sattelites. The lin- guistic potential of French-speaking Af- rica definitely shows that most African languages have overcome the potential of “glottophagie” of French and are sur- passing it functionally (Calvet 1974). Whether this is recognized or not, they will continue to pose a threat to the ex- pansion of French and to the movement of Francophonie. The Attitudes Towards the African Languages As in the case of English during the French invasion from the 11th to the 15th century, African languages today are be- lieved to be inadequate to access scientific and technological knowledge (Baugh & Cable;' Williams;* Decraene*). French is allegedly more precise, harmonious, clear and logical (Diderot®). Both in England and Africa, when French was imposed, it was to “‘elevate”’ the local populations to the brilliant culture and civilization that were inherent to French only. This belief of the universal superiority of French was best expressed by Diderot when he wrote: “Nous disons les choses en Francais comme lesprit est forcé de les considérer en quelque langue qu’on écrive ... Le Frangais est fait pour in- struire, éclairer et convaincre.. .’’”* This belief was certainly shared by the late Georges Pompidou, former president of France, when he said: “I have seen in Africa, for example, that people belong- ing to the same ethnic group think dif- ferently and have a different approach to problems depending on whether they spoke English or French.’ Some elements of the African elite also share this belief and have gone so far as to say: ‘““Let’s speak either French, Eng- lish, Arabic, Chinese or Russian; but please, let’s speak without wasting time.”” This kind of support to the unscientific belief that the language shapes the speak- er’s ‘‘Weltanschauung” has been cata- *““We say things in French as the mind is forced to conceive them in whatever language we Write’ <.;7cte™ FRANCOPHONIE IN AFRICA: SOME OBSTACLES 45 strophic with regard to the general belief of the masses, in so far as it has convinced them that their mother tongue is inferior to French. Another belief is the one according to which the multilingual situation of Africa is a barrier to national cohesion and un- derstanding, and that French is the only neutral language which can guarantee na- tional unity. This argument is being rid- den to death by those who still see Africa as a chaotic grouping of “‘tribes.”” And it is no exaggeration to suggest that the im- petus behind Francophonie is partly based on that kind of assumption. A closer look at the multilingual picture of Africa, as shown above, yields interesting patterns of monolingual nuclei and bilingual sat- telites. Even if such was not the case, ar- guments that suggest that the fewer the number of languages, the greater the sense of unity seem to ignore the case of Bel- gium which has only two major languages. IV. The Socio-Political Obstacles to Francophonie The Economic Limitations The economies of most French-speak- ing African states simply do not look good. They can not take care of their own prob- lems and it would really be too much to ask them to support Francophonie. This explains their meager and symbolic con- tributin to ACCT (less than 7 percent for all 25 African member states). This economic weakness reflects that of the former colonizer. France is no longer the exclusive trader with French-speaking Africa which has turned to the United States, Japan, West Germany and the So- viet Union for help. Culturally, econom- ically and politically, it has a difficult time competing with the United States and Ja- pan. In the face of its own difficulties, France will not be able to maintain its considerable support to ACCT and Fran- cophonie for ever. Soon or later, the funds will have to be cut and put to more urgent priorities such as unemployment. The re- cent decisions to discourage the immigra- tion of workers and the rise of xenophobia in France (spearheaded by Le Pen) are warning signs of this. Incidentally and ironically, the $20 million budget of the ACCT, at the first summit of Franco- phonie in Paris, is now said to be $13 million (100 millions of French Francs)" The Political Problems Tied in with the economic limitations are the political problems within most French-speaking Africa. To put it mildly, the policies of these countries are not helping the cause of Francophonie. The language which confers on the elite the power and priviledges they abuse may sometime soon suggest to the people that it is the cause of all the evil. Today, most of the people, simply because they are illiterate in French, are discarded from any participation in a democratic process. To help these people is not to impose on them literacy programs in French. The results of such programs can ony be lim- ited quantitatively and qualitatively. To help them, from a practical and realistic point of view, is to run literacy programs in the languages they normally use in their everyday life (Calvet;? Champion;° Duponchel®). Conclusion In this paper, I have explored some of the major obstacles facing French and Francophonie in Africa. I have based my observations on sociolinguistic and socio- political facts. All these show that, if Francophonie was a bold idea and a com- pelling possibility, the conditions under which it could have become reality are practically non-existant. A language, no mater how universal, cannot and will not substitute another one in the expression of the true feelings and the cultures of the people. This is why French was not suc- cessful in its attempt to displace English 46 PAULIN G. DJITE during the Norman-French invasion, and this is why the prospect of the success of Francophonie in the light of all the facts discussed above is rather bleak. 10. 12? References Cited . Baugh, A.C. and Cable, T. 1978. A History of the English Language. 3rd. edition, Prentice- Hall. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. . Calvet, L-J. 1974. 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