Introdungcing English language part 46 doc

256 EXTENSION: LINGUISTIC READINGS analysis and who argue that, far from being forced upon people unwillingly, English has been actively sought out by people throughout the world (Conrad 1996; Davies 1996; Li 2002b; Brutt-Griffler 2002). In their view, people are making sensible and pragmatic choices; they are not being coerced into learning English. And, far from English being a purveyor of Anglo-cultural norms, the development of new varieties of English shows how English can be adapted by its speakers to reflect their cultural norms. Kandiah (2001) sees both motivations in action and feels that there is an inherent contradiction for people in postcolonial countries. On the one hand, people realise they need to learn English as it is the international language. On the other, they fear that the need to use English in so many situations and for so many functions will threaten their own languages, cultures and ways of thinking. Yet, as Kachru and others have argued, local Englishes reflect local cultures and ways of thinking. Second, many non-Anglo or non-Western ways of thinking have received international attention through English. To take just three examples from Chinese culture, traditional Chinese medicine, the writings on the Art of War by Sun Zi and the tenets of Confucianism are now much better known in the West than in the past, precisely because this Chinese cultural knowledge and these Chinese ways of thinking have been disseminated through English. As Jacques (2005) has argued, with the rise in power of India and China, American and Western values will be contested as never before. It is highly likely that they will be contested through the medium of English. In closing this chapter, I want to introduce a conundrum that we face in an attempt to standardise and classify World Englishes. We like models and norms. The conun- drum that we have to solve is that we are faced with many models all of which are characterised by internal variation. This has been pointed out by Kachru in his call for a ‘polymodel’ approach to replace a ‘monomodel’ approach (1992a: 66). A monomodel approach supposes that English is homogenous, a single variety, it is ‘English as an international language’. In Kachru’s view, this approach ignores the incontro- vertible fact that English is actually characterised by variety and variation. A polymodel approach, on the other hand, supposes variability. Kachru lists three types: ‘variabil- ity related to acquisition; variability related to function; and variability related to the context of situation’ (1992a: 66). By examining the linguistic features of a range of Englishes and the sociocultural contexts in which they operate, I hope to show how the real situation is characterised by variation and variety and that we need to study ‘global’ English in specific places (Sonntag 2003). While varieties of English go through similar linguistic and develop- mental processes, the current status and functions of those Englishes can differ markedly. For example, the roles and functions of English differ markedly today even in Malaysia and Singapore, two countries whose historical backgrounds are so closely related that one was actually part of the other at one stage in the past. Issues to consider q Assess the three different models of development cycles of world Englishes from Kachru, Schneider and Widdowson presented by Kirkpatrick. Which arguments/ model do you find the most convincing? Why? Andy Kirkpatrick TRANSITIVITY AS POINT OF VIEW 257 q How useful do you think these models can be if applied to expanding circle countries? q Do you agree with Widdowson that ‘the very fact that English is an international language means that no nation can have custody over it’ (2003: 43)? Consider arguments for and against. q In the light of the arguments presented above, what variety of English do you think should be taught in China? Should an ‘exonormative’ inner circle model still be promoted, when the majority of Chinese English speakers may never communi- cate with ‘native’, inner circle speakers? q Consider your positioning in relation to the linguistic imperialism versus the consensus-based, pragmatic choice argument of speakers actively seeking to learn English as it has become such a useful tool. TRANSITIVITY AS POINT OF VIEW The examples of stylistic analysis presented earlier in strand 11 have focused on one feature or level of language. However, there are also areas of concern in stylistic study that involve a collection of linguistic elements forming the literary critical feature. For example, the represented world that is constructed with the aid of the text can be explored by examining the naming conventions as noun phrases, the verb choices, and other narratological factors. Similarly, the literary critical notion of point of view in narrative fiction involves the orientational and perspectivising facilities of language. In this extract from his book on point of view, Paul Simpson draws together a systemic- functional approach to transitivity (see the last part of B4) with attention paid to the modality used in literary texts. Modality refers to those parts of language which encode the speaker’s attitude to the content of their utterance (for example, being certain in ‘It is obvious that you are right’, being doubtful in ‘It is possible you are right’, being subjective in ‘It appears that you are right’, being wishful in ‘I hope that you are right’, and so on). Simpson aims to demonstrate how detailed stylistic analysis can augment literary criticism. Paul Simpson (reprinted from Language, Ideology and Point of View (1993), London: Routledge, pp. 92–104) I wish to add one final component to the analytic model [of transitivity ]. This component concerns the ways in which agency and causation relate to the processes expressed by the clause, especially those clauses which express material processes. [Compare] (1) I broke the vase. (2) The vase broke. In relation to both examples, the question might be asked: which participant is affected by the process expressed by the clause? Clearly, it is the vase – in either case, D11 Paul Simpson Andy Kirkpatrick 258 EXTENSION: LINGUISTIC READINGS it breaks. Now, in our transitivity framework a standard breakdown of these exam- ples would look like the following: actor process goal (1) I broke the vase. actor process (2) The vase broke. The problem here is that the vase appears as the goal in (1) but as the actor in (2), despite the fact that it is the affected participant in both cases. This is because there is a special set of verbs in English (like to break) which can express both patterns, and each pattern is said to bear an ergative relationship to the other. To account for this kind of situation it is sometimes useful to isolate one participant that is the key figure in the process and without which the process could not have come into existence. In examples (1) and (2), the vase represents this key participant role and may thus be labelled the medium, on the basis that it is the medium through which the process comes into existence. In material processes of this sort, the medium will always be equivalent to the actor in an intransitive (non-goal-directed) clause and the goal in a transitive clause. Consider the following examples, which all realize processes which behave in a similar way to that expressed by (1) and (2): The police exploded the bomb. The bomb exploded. The wind shattered the windows. The windows shattered. John cooked the rice. The rice cooked. According to the criteria noted above, the medium will be represented by the bomb, the windows and the rice in each pair of examples. However, in each of the examples on the left, there is another participant functioning as an external cause of the pro- cess. This participant, which is responsible for engendering the process from outside, may be referred to as the agent. The agent will thus be equivalent to the actor in goal-directed material processes – as can be seen by the participant function of the police, the wind and John in the left-hand examples. Consequently, these examples display an agent + process + medium sequence, whilst those on the right simply display a medium + process sequence. The ergative interpretation suggested here need only be invoked for the special types of process identified in this section. It forms a useful supplement, an extra layer, to the standard analysis of transitivity which suffices for most purposes. To show how both types of analysis interrelate with one another, here is a ‘double’ analysis of examples (1) and (2): Ergative analysis: agent process medium Standard analysis: actor process goal (1) I broke the vase. Ergative analysis: medium process Standard analysis: actor process (2) The vase broke. The ergative interpretation bears an important relation to the system of voice. A clause that displays no feature of agency is neither active nor passive but middle (The bomb Paul Simpson TRANSITIVITY AS POINT OF VIEW 259 exploded). On the other hand, clauses which display agency can be either active or passive and are therefore non-middle in voice (The police exploded the bomb). In non- middle clauses the feature of agency may be explicit, as in The police exploded the bomb and its passive equivalent The bomb was exploded by the police. On the other hand, it may be left implicit, through the removal of the optional ‘by-’ phrase (The bomb was exploded). In reaction to clauses which bear implicit agency, one can still ask Who by?, whereas in the case of a middle clause (The bomb exploded) one cannot. The system of options available for ergativity and voice has important pragmatic and contextual implications. [. . .] At first, it is best to keep the analysis as straightforward as possible. To this effect, I propose to [examine a passage] from Hemingway’s [1952] The Old Man and the Sea [. . .]. As you read the passage, ask yourself a question which has become the first prin- ciple of a transitivity analysis: who or what does what to whom or what? He knelt down and found the tuna under the stern with the gaff and drew it toward him keeping it clear of the coiled lines. Holding the line with his left shoulder again, and bracing on his left hand and arm, he took the tuna off the gaff hook and put the gaff back in place. He put one knee on the fish and cut strips of dark red meat longi- tudinally from the back of the head to the tail. They were wedge-shaped strips and he cut them from next to the backbone down to the edge of the belly. When he had cut six strips he spread them out on the wood of the bow, wiped his knife on his trousers, and lifted the carcass of the bonito by the tail and dropped it overboard. Following up the ‘who does what’ axiom reveals a number of dominant stylistic traits in the passage. Almost invariably, the old man is the ‘doer’, doing some action to some entity. The clauses in which he features are all in the simple past and are normally arranged in a sequence which reflects the temporal sequence of the events described. They contain virtually no interpretative intrusions by the narrator. In short, they reflect pure [modally] neutral narrative and with a single exception, all express material processes of doing. In all of these material processes, the old man is the actor so the processes are of the action type. As nothing ‘just happens’ to him in any of these clauses, and he is firmly in control of everything he does, then a full description will specify that these clauses express material action processes of intention. Here are breakdowns of some typical patterns: actor process He knelt down actor process goal circumstances he took the tuna off the gaff actor process goal circumstances he cut them from next to the backbone Often, the actor role is ellipted when clauses are strung together, although it is still easily inferred through reference to preceding clauses. The symbol Ø can be used to denote this sort of implicit agency: actor process [connector] He knelt down and Paul Simpson 260 EXTENSION: LINGUISTIC READINGS actor process goal circumstances [connector] Ø found the tuna under the stern and actor process goal circumstances Ø drew it toward him [. . .] Of a total of seventeen processes expressed in this paragraph, only one is non- material. This is a relational process which occurs in the first clause of sentence 4. By way of contrast with the dominant material – action – intention pattern, here is a break- down of this clause: carrier process attribute They were wedge-shaped strips Although there is not the space to develop a detailed interpretation of the analysis of this paragraph, a few comments are necessary before we move on to our next example. One of the stylistic consequences of the dominant material paradigm, where mental and other processes signifying reflection and deliberation are suppressed, is that it creates a highly ‘actional’ descriptive framework. Now, in the context of the [novel as a whole, it can be demonstrated . . .] that this type of description alternates systematically with [non-actional] paragraphs of speech and thought presentation. [ ] A further consequence of the brief analysis undertaken here is that it provides a rationale for more coherent judgements about Hemingway’s style. All of the material processes identified display an inflexible pattern of transitivity, where the use of the active voice ensures that the actor element always precedes the process. This invari- ability may simply be another aspect of the stylistic ‘flatness’ which typifies the [modally] neutral category of point of view. It certainly appears to have eluded many critics writing about Hemingway’s style. For instance, in a much-publicized article, Levin remarks of Hemingway that ‘in the technical sense, his syntax is weak’ and ‘his verbs not particularly energetic’ (1972: 331). There is no technical sense in which syntax can be weak or verbs energetic, yet despite the ‘pre-linguistic’ nature of these remarks it is still possible to see what the critic is getting at. I hope the twin features of modality and transitivity, operating in tandem, will have provided some clearer understanding of the mechanics of Hemingway’s prose style. The second illustration of the stylistic potential of the transitivity model is some- what more complex. The example chosen for analysis is one which displays positively shaded modality with events being mediated, often ironically, through an opinionated speaking voice. Part of the object of the analysis which follows will be to demonstrate how patterns of transitivity enrich this ironic technique. [T]he opening of John le Carré’s spy-novel The Little Drummer Girl is [. . .] con- cerned broadly with ‘the Bad Godesberg incident’ – an explosion resulting from a bomb planted in the centre of a diplomatic community by an international terrorist group. This incident forms the nucleus of the first four pages of the novel, although, bizarrely, the actual explosion and its immediate consequences are never engaged with directly for any sustained period. Instead, much of the narrative is concerned with events that took place prior to or subsequent to the explosion. This is supplemented with discursive summaries of the Rhineland weather and tourist-brochure style Paul Simpson TRANSITIVITY AS POINT OF VIEW 261 descriptions of the residences of the diplomatic community. All of this is narrated in the third person with highly modalized language. There is, however, one point in the sixth paragraph of the novel where the nar- rative does move closer to its ostensible topic as the effects of the explosion on a school bus are described. As will be seen, description of the direct consequences of the explo- sion is almost submerged in the generic sentences [. . .]: Somewhere in every bomb explosion there is a miracle, and in this case it was sup- plied by the American School bus, which had just come and gone again with most of the community’s younger children who congregated every schoolday in the turning- circle not fifty metres from the epicentre. By a mercy none of the children had forgotten his homework, none had overslept or shown resistance to education on this Monday morning. So the bus got away on time. The rear windows shattered, the driver went side-winding into the verge, a French girl lost an eye, but essentially the children escaped scot-free, which was afterwards held to be a deliverance. For that also is a feature of such explosions, or at least of their immediate aftermath: a com- munal, wild urge to celebrate the living, rather than to waste time mourning the dead. The real grief comes later when the shock wears off, usually after several hours, though occasionally less. Most of the first paragraph either proclaims universal truths in the form of generics (‘Somewhere in every bomb explosion there is a miracle’) or offers post hoc interpret- ations of the consequences of the explosion (‘. . . but essentially the children escaped scot-free’). There is, however, a sequence of three clauses which intrudes into this frame- work and offers a direct, if highly condensed, account of the actual effects of the explo- sion. This sequence begins: The rear windows shattered, the driver went side-winding into the verge, a French girl lost an eye . . . Like the narrative clauses identified in the paragraph from Hemingway, these clauses are temporally ordered and express material processes. But there the similarity stops. The second and third clauses constitute our first encounter with material action processes of supervention. In these clauses, human actors perform the actions involuntarily; the processes seem to ‘just happen’. The first clause requires some elaboration. It expresses an event process on the basis that it is performed by an inanimate actor. However, the verb ‘shatter’ expresses one of those special types of process which permits an ergative interpretation (see above). Both layers of analysis are captured below: Ergative analysis: medium process Standard analysis: actor process The rear windows shattered This is a particularly salient choice of process here. It was pointed out earlier that non- goal-directed clauses of this sort, which are neither active nor passive, are middle in voice. Consequently, the processes associated with middle clauses normally appear endogenous; that is to say, they are brought about by the single participant associated with them (the medium) and not by any external agent. Alternative representations Paul Simpson . not being coerced into learning English. And, far from English being a purveyor of Anglo-cultural norms, the development of new varieties of English shows how English can be adapted by its speakers. need to learn English as it is the international language. On the other, they fear that the need to use English in so many situations and for so many functions will threaten their own languages,. approach supposes that English is homogenous, a single variety, it is English as an international language . In Kachru’s view, this approach ignores the incontro- vertible fact that English is actually