Prehistoric “bookkeeping” continued long after invention of writing

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Ar­chae­o­lo­gists in south­east Tur­key have found clay to­kens that served as rec­ords of trade un­til the ad­vent of writ­ing, or so it was be­lieved. But the new find dates from a time when writ­ing was com­mon­place – thou­sands of years af­ter the to­kens were thought to have been be­come ob­so­lete. Re­search­ers com­pare it to the con­tin­ued use of pens in the age of the word pro­ces­sor.

The Dead Heart of Australia

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my research for the common implications for the title of the midnight oil song, lead me to the original book of the almost same name, by noted geologist, J.W. Gregory, who made an expedition to Lake Eyre and surrounding districts in 1901.

google books did not have a review of the book, but google did provide me with a link to a wonderful online copy courtesy of openlibrary.org.

and, they _share_

furthermore, and most interestingly, if not ironically, his account begins with a chapter which describes the originary stories of the region as told by the local aborigines, who describe creatures called the Kadimakara who used to come down from the firmament of clouds which used to be supported by three very large gum trees. when these died or were killed, the other trees in the area also began to thin, and the sky opened up completely into what they called the ‘puri wilpenina’…

our recent trip there was in the air-conditioned comfort of a 4WD, in winter.

an image for you:

grid near Wilpena

The Language and Ecology Research Forum

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The Language and Ecology Research Forum has recently been relaunched with a redesigned website and a new research network of 183 members. Members are linguists interested in the impact of language on the ecosystems which support life, from analysis of how consumerist discourses encourage ecological destruction to how nature poetry can promote respect for the natural world. The Forum includes a dedicated mailing list for the latest news from the world of ecolinguistics, an extensive collection of articles on ecolinguistic topics, and other resources for researchers such as bibliographies and course information. Membership is free and the Forum can be found at www.ecoling.net

Everything Old Is New Again

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individual/community quotes

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4 thinkers, all men, who at different times have said almost the same things in different ways.

it’s not likely that V read any of the others, although L probably has. R&B, however, definitely did not read any of the other two. V’s was also in translation.
the meta-discursive meanings these guys were making then, were instances of different meaning “systems”, despite their being at another level instances of the same grammatical system, and dare i say, registers (this also despite the differences in orientation: the first uses a personal orientation (1st person), the second a third person orientation (it), and the third uses an inclusive ‘we’ orientation. at the same time, field may be considered similar due to repeated references to ‘individual’, and other lexical items in a sort of meronymic relation to ‘community’ [social, group]).

in view the differences in time of publication, and only one definite ‘cross-pollination’ of cultural (?) meanings, can we consider these quotation fragments as either ‘specimens’ (instruments) or ‘artefacts’ (objects) (in the halliday& matthiessen 2004 sense)? because they are not whole texts, and because they are not the subject of analysis at the grammatical level, perhaps – in this instance of their use – they should not be classed as specimens (of the language as system) – but artefacts…representative pieces of a larger puzzle? that larger puzzle, the way that meaning can be viewed, where it resides, how it comes about, how to think about meaning-making. and in this case, the mediating individual body is not viewed as the receptacle of meaning, rather the locus.

‘in this instance of their use’, the quotations are being used (by me) to highlight similarities in meta-meanings, through instances far removed in time and space. i’m always telling my students to only use quotations to illustrate or support their argument, not to make it for them. so, either i am not making an argument, or i am being hypocritical here and now.

Instead of talking about meaning-making as something that is done by minds, I prefer to talk about it as a social practice in a community. It is a kind of doing that is done in ways that are characteristic of a community, and its occurrence is part of what binds the community together and helps to constitute it as a community. In this sense we can speak of a community, not as a collection of interacting individuals, but as a system of interdependent social practices: a system of doings, rather than a system of doers. These social meaning-making practices are also material processes that bind the community together as a physical ecosystem.

[Lemke 1995: 9-10]

In point of fact, the speech act, or more accurately, its product-the utterance-cannot under any circumstances be considered an individual phenomenon in the precise meaning of the word and cannot be explained in terms of individual psychological or psychophysiological conditions of the speaker. The utterance is a social phenomenon.

[Volosinov 1973: 82]

At the group level, in addition to the verbal and non verbal processes,
present at the interpersonal level, we meet with new types of symbolization not ordinarily regarded as such. The patterns of the organization of the group leave traces in the participating individuals.
However, inasmuch as these individuals do not act as stations of origin or destination of messages, but often as channels only, codification at this level requires intactness in the organization as a whole. The group in action possesses the information, not the individual.

[Ruesch & Bateson 1951: 284]

language and context of situation

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Ruqaiya Hasan 1999: TEXT AND CONTEXT IN FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS
Edited by MOHSEN GHADESSY

From the point of view of instantiation, situation is to culture as text is to language; the first term of each proportion instantiates the second:

situation: culture :: text: language

From the point of view of realisation, language is to situation; the first term of each proportion realises the second:

language: culture :: text: situation

Current SFL models possess no satisfactory means of contextual and/ or registral changes which do not disturb the unity of the text, nor can they specify where i.e., in what kind(s) of social situation, such changes are most at risk.

p.225

roles and relationships circa 1951

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[Ruesch & Bateson, Communication: Social matrix of society]

Fifth International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind

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First Notification
Fifth International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind

The Fifth International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind (LCM V) will be held on 27-29 June 2012 at the Catholic University of Portugal in Lisbon. It will be preceded by a Young Researchers Workshop on 26 June 2012 (same venue), in which young researchers will present their ongoing dissertation projects and current work.

The goals of LCM conferences are to contribute to situating the study of language in a contemporary interdisciplinary dialogue (involving philosophy, linguistics, psychology, anthropology, semiotics and other related fields), and to promote a better integration of cognitive and cultural perspectives in empirical and theoretical studies of language.
http://www.salc-sssk.org/lcm/

The theme for LCM V is

Integrating Semiotic Resources in Communication and Creativity

Plenary speakers:

· Nick Enfield, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen
http://www.mpi.nl/people/enfield-nick
· Cynthia Lightfoot, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Pennsylvania State University
http://www.brandywine.psu.edu/Academics/faculty_cgl3.htm
· Dan Slobin, Departments of Psychology and Linguistics, University of California, Berkeley
http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/people/person_detail.php?person=35
· Beata Stawarska, Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon
http://pages.uoregon.edu/uophil/faculty/profiles/stawarsk/
· Sherman Wilcox, Department of Linguistics, University of New Mexico
http://web.mac.com/swilcox/UNM/Welcome.html

The deadline for abstract submission will be Dec 15, 2011.

Detailed instructions for abstract submission and online registration for both LCM V and the LCM V Young Researchers Workshop will be included in the First Call for Papers that will be issued shortly.

Important dates

· Deadline for abstract submission: 15 Dec 2011
· Notification of acceptance: 15 Feb 2012
· Last date for early registration: 1 Mar 2012
· Last date for registration: 1 May 2012
· Final program publication: 15 May 2012

The International LCM organizing committee

· Alan Cienki, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Language and Communication
· Barbara Fultner, Denison University, Philosophy
· John Lucy, University of Chicago, Comparative Human Development and Psychology
· Aliyah Morgenstern, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, Linguistics
· Anneli Pajunen, University of Tampere, Finnish Language
· Esther Pascual, University of Groningen, Communication Studies
· Victor Rosenthal, Inserm-EHESS, Paris
· Chris Sinha, University of Portsmouth, Psychology
· Jordan Zlatev, Lund University, Linguistics/Cognitive Semiotics

LCM V Local organizing committee

· Ana Margarida Abrantes, Catholic University of Portugal, Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture
· Peter Hanenberg, Catholic University of Portugal, Centre for the Study of Communication and Culture

What Do Social Semiotics And Pantheism Have In Common?

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SFL enables us to see a parallelism between pantheism and social semiotics.  

By pantheism, I mean the practice of regarding natural phenomena as if persons: ie as if gods, spirits etc; by social semiotics, I mean the practice of regarding material phenomena, especially human artefacts, as if signs: ie as if metaphenomena. 

In pantheism, natural material phenomena are treated as symbol sources. In personifying such phenomena, the type of symbol source is Senser: ie a conscious participant capable of projecting the content of consciousness. 

In social semiotics, artefactual material phenomena are also treated as symbol sources. Here, though, the type of symbol source is Sayer: ie a participant, not necessarily conscious, capable of projecting the content of consciousness (the sign says x).

australian attitudes: draft essay

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Australian Attitudes: comparing 3 pieces

[This was first presented at Bologna, March 2009. It’s a draft, so comments welcome, but do not quote without attribution to this blog – lexie]

Appraisal analysis to date has been used to investigate the evaluative resources and interpersonal aspects of a number of different text-types and genres. A brief survey includes such areas as newspaper rhetoric (e.g. White 1998, Thomson and White 2008), academic discourse (e.g. Tang 2005, Hood 2006, 2007) and email interaction (Don 2007). The Appraisal framework comprises a set of grammatico-semantic categories which provide the analyst with a means of highlighting linguistic patterns within the texts, and so enable statements to be made regarding the evaluative stance of the writer towards his or her audience, the sequencing of evaluative terms of whatever type within the development of a text’s argument, or the comparison of corpora based on evaluative or attitudinal features – to offer a number of examples.

For the present study, three ‘lyrical’ pieces were chosen on the same topic in order to demonstrate the use of two tools of linguistic analysis in providing a basis for stylistic comparison of these types of work and their effects. One of these tools, transitivity analysis – and in this case a simple investigation of the dispersal of Process types both across a text and their sequence within a text – was chosen because it has become a familiar tool in stylistic analysis, inspired perhaps by Hasan (1985). Hasan’s stylistic analyses makes reference to a “Cline of Dynamism” (1985: 45), and the relationship of agentive Participants to the Processes involved in the piece, and so this relationship was also examined in each of the texts. In addition, an Appraisal attitude analysis was also performed on the texts, with the sequencing and types of evaluative resources used as a focus for comparison. These features of the texts were noted to differ greatly for each of the pieces, and thus Appraisal analysis provides another means of discussing and accounting for their rhetorical effects.

The three pieces were chosen for their similarity of topic, but also for their difference in treatment of the topic. Each is a lyrical piece (one represents the words of a rock music song), and the first, I Love a Sunburnt Country, by Dorothea McKellar, written in 1906, is one of Australia’s most familiar poems. Its familiarity is such that it is able to be successfully parodied by local comedians even today, and is something most Australians of my generation have at least heard at various times during our schooling. It relies on a comparison of the Australian landscape and climate with that of Europe, a place from which  most of Australia’s white population can trace their ancestry. At the time this poem was written such ancestry was not so distant for many of its intended audience members, who were likely to still see the UK and Europe as their spiritual and cultural ‘home’. Despite Federation and independence from England in 1900, many Australians of that era would typically make the long ocean voyage back to Britain should they have the time and resources. For this reason it might be said that the poem adopts a somewhat brazen stance towards its readership – it acknowledges the harshness of Australia, but frames these acknowledgements with high values of positive Affect, exemplified by the first line of the second stanza, and title of the piece, I love a sunburnt country. It also repudiates the landscape familiar in the British Isles, and so risks alienating those readers to whom such a landscape represents comfort and identity.

The second piece, by A. D. Hope, was written somewhat later in the century and published in 1972, after a period in which two world wars intervened. Its topic would appear to be more straightforward, as it is titled simply Australia. However, the target of the attitude in this piece is not so much the Australian landscape, as it is in McKellar’s piece, but its inhabitants of European ancestry. In contrast to the McKellar piece in which she does not retire from claiming responsibility for the arguments regarding her positive regard for the Australian landscape, Hope does not appear as responsible subject at all, except in the closing phase of the piece where he identifies with unnamed others: some like me. And in contrast to McKellar’s piece, positive Affect is almost lacking in Hope’s piece: apart from one explicit instance, it only occurs via what Appraisal terms ‘evocation’, that is, the betokening of an attitude via reference to ‘tokens’ associated with such attitudes. Furthermore, with this piece there is no risk that readers may be alienated – it’s almost certain. The only concession offered the audience requires that they also admire the spare state of mind which Hope alludes to. His stance then, is not so much innocently ‘brazen’, as world-wearily disdainful, and the analysis helps to validate such an assertion regarding the writer’s orientation to his audience.

The third piece is not only chronologically later than the other two, but is also of a completely different genre – the lyrics of a pop song. It was released in 1987, with the title The Dead Heart – an intentional triple entendre. The expression is often used in Australia to refer to the geographical centre of the country, a vast desert. In the context of this song, it is also an ironic statement making reference to another metaphor associated with the word heart – the spirit or essence of a place, person, or thing. The target of this piece is once again the European inhabitants of Australia, but also the indigenous inhabitants whose voice is appropriated here in order to underline the contrast between white and black inhabitants. In this piece, there is no single subject to take responsibility, rather the statements are made by an exclusive and vast ‘we’. This voice is also disdainful, rejecting with a series of negations what white people do and think, at the same time rejecting their view of Australia’s heart as ‘dead’.

After a transcription of the first piece in full, a short attitude analysis of the first two stanzas appears in the table which follows (a full tabulated attitude analysis appears in the appendix [- not here, ed]). Those elements of the text which help provoke either a positive or negative reading of the targets have been underlined, while more explicitly evaluative items have not been highlighted. The table repeats the underlined items for convenience.

1. The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies –
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

2. I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me.

3. The tragic ring-barked forests
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the crimson soil.

4. Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

5. Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold;
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

6. An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown Country
My homing thoughts will fly.

text triggers target attitude
1. The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
love field and coppice

green and shaded lanes

ordered woods and gardens

+ Affect
Strong love of grey-blue distance,

Brown streams and soft, dim skies –

strong love grey-blue distance

brown streams

soft dim skies

+ Affect

[attributed]

I know but cannot share it, but cannot share it

[counter + disclaim]

the love of field and coppice, etc – Affect
My love is otherwise. love otherwise

(i.e. different than ~)

+ Affect
This stanza split between acknowledged positive Affect for the target by “you”, with contrasting Affect by speaker.
2. I love a sunburnt country, sunburnt country – Apprecn

evoked

love a sunburnt country,

a land of ~
sweeping plains
ragged mountain ranges
drought and flooding rains

+ Affect

[scopes ‘attributed’ neg appreciation of what follows]

A land of sweeping plains, sweeping plains + Apprecn

evoked

Of ragged mountain ranges, ragged mountain ranges – Apprecn
Of drought and flooding rains, flooding rains – Apprecn
drought and flooding rains

[contrast: extremes]

[land’s climate] – Apprecn
I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel sea,

far

jewel

her horizons

her sea

+ Apprecn

provoked

love her far horizons

her jewel sea

+ Affect
Her beauty and her terror – beauty her + Apprecn
terror her – Affect ˆ

– Apprecn

The wide brown land for me. for me the wide brown land + Affect

provoked

in this stanza, positive Affect frames all of the negatively and positively appreciated aspects and extremes of “the country”

while the verbal process ‘love’ is repeated as a mantra

3. The tragic ring-barked forests tragic ring-barked forests – Affect/ Apprecn
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
stark white
sapphire-misted
hot gold hush
green tangle
forests

mountains

noon [climate]

brushes

+ Apprecn

provoked

Where lithe lianas coil,

And orchids deck the tree-tops

And ferns the crimson soil.

lithe lianas + Apprecn
orchids deck treetops

ferns deck crimson soil

where [brushes] + Apprecn

evoked

here, the values are all positive Appreciation, with one transitional negative Appreciation linking those negatives from the previous stanza

The first three stanzas of this poem then, use the resources of both (positive and negative) Affect, and (positive and negative) Appreciation. Instances of Affect are ascribed to either the audience or to the speaker in response to landscape and climate, while instances of Appreciation describe the landscapes and climate of Australia as contrasted with the green of Europe. In general under Appraisal, resources of Appreciation are used to label those elements of any text which ascribe attitudinal values to objects, artefacts, and products of human behaviour – as distinct from Affect which refers to the emotional responses of a conscious participant, or something imbued with consciousness. The evaluation in this piece is ordered as alternating negative and positive emotions and appreciations of the landscape and climate, somewhat like an argument which concedes the audience’s attitude before making a rebuttal with counter-attitude.

In the following analysis, the verbal groups [were highlighted in colours representing the three Process types appearing in the poem: Material, Mental and Relational, but these are too much trouble to render in html for the moment] are italicised for Material, and boldened for Mental, and for convenience.
in addition,
Subjects/responsible Participants are underlined.

1. The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies –
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

2. I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me.

3. The tragic ring-barked forests
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns [deck] the crimson soil.

4. Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

5. Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold;
Over the thirsty paddocks,
^ Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

6. An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
Though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown Country
My homing thoughts will fly.

In the above analysis, mental and material processes dominate the piece. In terms of Hasan’s notion of a cline of dynamism, the fact that the landscape, or ‘environment’ sometimes takes the active Participant role, for example, ferns, the grey clouds, she (land of the Rainbow Gold), the filmy veil of greenness, underscores the way that McKellar implies that the landscape and environment of Australia is worthy as an object of her affection – it is an active, wilful land. Stylistically, the opening stanza announces the speaker’s stance in setting up a contrast which she will defend in the remainder of the piece, and it is here that the only relational process is found: My love is otherwise.

[to be continued…]

In A.D. Hope’s Australia, despite the topic being ostensibly the same as the McKellar piece, the actual targets of appraisal and the way in which the Processes are distributed demonstrate stylistically the contrast in stance and attitude.  Below, the piece is reproduced in full, and this is followed by a tabulated appraisal analysis, showing how the targets of the negative attitude are eventually associated with the white inhabitants of Australia, and explicitly linked in the final stanza to Europeans. The tabulated appraisal analysis is followed by a further reproduction highlighting the Processes used and the [Subjects] “Agents” (i.e. Actor, Senser, Sayer, Carrier) of the Processes.

In contrast to the McKellar piece, the landscape is portrayed as passive rather than active, despite the association of Material Process and ‘landscape’ Actors. A contrast also is drawn between what white commentators say about the country and what the country actually consists of: Hope rejects the implicit relationship drawn between the inhabitants and the place itself in the oft-heard comment at that time that “Australia is a young country”. The negative evaluative prosody of the piece is underscored when the landscape is cast as an active Participant in Material clause – as the McKellar piece also does, but here the semantic value of the verbs are less ‘neutral’: while McKellar uses such verbs as deck, gather, pays, and thickens, Hope’s landscape darkens, drown, floods, and drains. So that, although these are all Material Processes in active clauses, they do not imply directed activity in the context of the poem. The exception here, drains, is used at a transitional point in the piece, where the Actor of the clause is not the landscape itself, but an ‘element’ of it: Australia’s five teeming cities, used here as a metaphor for the inhabitants of the cities. It is from this point on that the actual inhabitants are more directly the target of the poem’s negative appraisal, because it is actually the land itself – her – which is the Goal of the draining. The passivity of the land, in contrast to the active landforms of the McKellar piece is associated with a number of elements in the text [which will be addressed in more detail later – ed].

‘AUSTRALIA’

[From A. D. Hope, COLLECTED POEMS 1930-1970,
Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1972]

1. Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.

2. They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.

3. Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity

4. Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.

5. And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.

6. Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,

7. Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which [escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.]

text triggers target attitude
1. Nation of trees, [- app of trees] nation [Australia] negative

appreciation

drab green and desolate grey drab

desolate

trees neg apprecn
In the field uniform of modern wars,

Darkens her hills,

the field uniform of modern wars

darkens

trees neg apprecn
those endless, outstretched paws

Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.

endless

demolished

worn away

her hills neg apprecn
2. They call her a young country, a young country

[attribution only]

her [Australia] pos apprecn:

evoked

but they lie: but

lie

they neg judgement: Veracity
She is the last of lands, the emptiest, the last of lands

the emptiest

[graduation]

she [Australia] neg apprecn

provoked

A woman beyond her change of life, beyond her change of life a woman [Australia] neg apprecn

provoked (co-text)

a breast

Still tender

tender breast [a woman: Australia] pos apprecn
but within the womb is dry. but

womb is dry

a woman [Australia] – apprecn

provoked

this stanza operates via counter: contrast: say – lie/ young –  old/ appearance –  real/
3. Without songs, architecture, history:

without [pos value items] a woman [Australia]

her

– apprecn/ judge?

provoked

The emotions and superstitions of younger lands, [without]

emotions

superstitions

younger

a woman [Australia]

her

+ judge?
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands, drown her [Aus] rivers – apprecn

provoked

The river of her immense stupidity

immense stupidity her – judge: Capacity
again, the stanza operates via counter: contrast:  outer: trees, called young, tender BUT inner: dry, empty, waters drown in sand
4. Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth. [stupidity] floods

monotonous

[lexical graduation]

her tribes [Aus white people] – judge: Capacity

– apprecn

In them at last the ultimate men arrive

Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,

at last

ultimate
boast not
live
but
survive

[lexical graduation +

disclaim +

counter: contrast + attribution]

[tribes] men/ the ultimate men [Aus [white] people] arrive [à Europeans] – judge: Capacity

provoked

A type who will inhabit the dying earth. dying

[+ attribution?]

a type [ultimate men] [- apprecn]

– judge?

provoked

– contrast: live –  survive, inhabit –  dying (earth)
5. And her five cities, like five teeming sores,

teeming sores her [Aus] five cities – apprecn
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state drains her [Aus] five cities – judge: Propriety

provoked

vast

parasite
robber-state

[lexical + reduplicating graduation]

[Australia] – apprecn
Where second hand Europeans pullulate second-hand Europeans – judge: Capacity
Timidly on the edge of alien shores. timidly

on the edge

2nd-hand Europeans – judge: Capacity/Tenacity
alien

[attribution]

shores [Aust: ventriloquised] – apprecn
6. Yet there are some like me turn gladly home

gladly (some like me) turning home + affect
home [Australia]

x[the desert of the mind]

+ apprecn
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find [turn from] the lush jungle modern thought – apprecn
The Arabian desert of the human mind, [the desert of the mind] + apprecn

evoked

Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,

hoping prophets still come from the deserts

[that some savage and scarlet spirit springs in that waste]

+ affect
the prophets come the deserts [of the human mind] + apprecn
à the prophets from the desert = ?
contrast: modern thought = lush jungle / the human mind= Arabian desert, home
7. Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare

dare

[denied]

green hills – judge: Tenacity
savage and scarlet [some spirit]

[Aus landscape]

+ apprecn

+ judge: Tenacity

Springs in that waste, waste [the deserts] – apprecn
some spirit which [escapes

The learned doubt,

escapes

learned doubt

some spirit + judge: Cap/Ten
escapes

[=chatter of cultured apes]

learned doubt – apprecn
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes

chatter

of cultured apes

[European people] – apprecn

– judge

The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes

Which is called civilization over there.]

learned doubt

chatter of cultured apes

called

civilization over there [Europe] – apprecn

– judge

hoping [affect] frames:

if prophets still come from the desert
then [Australia/ human mind] can be a place where
(unlike in places of green hills)
a savage and scarlet spirit can spring
by escaping
the learned doubt and chatter of cultured apes
which Europeans call civilization

Material, Mental, Verbal, Relational, Existential Processes all appear in the piece. […again, these were originally highlighted in colour, but you will have to wait for this formatting to re-appear in the following transcript… to be continued… for the moment only the Subjects/responsible Participants have been underlined in the following]

—————————–

1. Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.

2. They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.

3. Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity

4. Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.

5. And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.

6. Yet there are some like me[who] turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,

7. Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.

[to be continued…]

What follows is a reproduction of the lyrics of the Midnight Oil song “The Dead Heart”. Because the lyrics depend on the medium for conveying some of its message (pace Cleirigh 2010), they cannot be stylistically compared to the previous two pieces to the same degree. However, given that the topic (Australia) is the same and that in each piece tropes to do with landscape, heart, and spirit are introduced, the analysis of this piece is warranted as a comparison in terms of stance – i.e. the ways that the implied speaker sets up positions of alignment with the targets of the piece and thus with projected readers – and use of evaluative prosody and transitivity patterns to convey this stance.

meanwhile, you’re invited to listen to the song on youtube (sorry, embedding has been ‘disabled by request’)

The Dead Heart (1987)

1
We don’t serve your country
Don’t serve your king
Know your custom
Don’t speak your tongue
White man came took everyone

2
We don’t serve your country
Don’t serve your king
White man [^]listen to the songs we sing
White man came took everything

3
We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken

4
We don’t need protection
Don’t need your land
[you don’t] Keep your promise on where we stand
We will listen, we will understand

5
Mining companies, pastoral companies
Uranium companies
Collected companies
Got more right than people
Got more say than people

6
Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things
The dead heart lives here.

7
We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken

text triggers target attitude
1.We don’t serve your country

[we]Don’t serve your king

disclaim [+ counter via

‘your –‘]

don’t serve your country,

don’t serve your king

[negation]

we + Judge: Tenacity

invoked

[you]

[via ‘your ~’]

– Affect

invoked

[we don’t]Know your custom

Don’t speak your tongue

disclaim [+ counter]

[don’t] know your custom

don’t speak your tongue

[repetition]

we + Judge: Ten

invoked

[you]

[via ‘your ~’]

– Affect

invoked

White man came took everyone graduation

took everyone

[comparison]

white man – Judge: Propriety

invoked

2.We don’t serve your country

Don’t serve your king

disclaim + graduation

[ + counter]

don’t serve your country,

don’t serve your king

[negation + repetition]

we + Judge: Ten

invoked

White man [^]listen to the songs we sing [don’t] listen to the songs we sing

[negation? + comparison]

white man – Judge: Capacity/

Propriety

invoked

White man came took everything graduation

took everything

[repetition + comparison]

white man – Judge: Prop

invoked

3.We carry in our hearts the true country true country + Apprecn: Composition/

Valuation

carry in our hearts

[via pos Appreciation + pos saturation ‘hearts’: comparison]

we + Judge: Ten

invoked

And that cannot be stolen disclaim [neg state]

cannot be stolen

[comparison: ‘true country’ versus everything and everyone (has been stolen: implied)]

that

[the true country]

+ Apprecn: Val

invoked

disclaim [neg state]

that cannot be stolen

[comparison: ‘carried in hearts’ versus everything and everyone (has been stolen: implied)]

[thieves= white  man] + Judge: Ten/Prop

invoked

disclaim [+ counter]

that cannot be stolen

[comparison: taken]

[white man] – Judge: P
We follow in the steps of our ancestry experiential meanings

follow in the steps of our ancestry

we + Judge: T/P

invoked

And that cannot be broken disclaim [neg state]

cannot be broken

that

[following our ancestry]

+ Aprecn: V
disclaim [neg state]

cannot be broken

[comparison: has been broken]

[white man] – Judge: P

invoked

[via comparison: other things may be broken] [we (following our ancestry)] + Judge: C/T

invoked

4.We don’t need protection

Don’t need your land

disclaim: deny

+ repetition

we + Judge: T/C
Keep your promise on where we stand disclaim via repetition + attribution [pos App]

[you don’t] keep your promise on where [you] stand

[white man] – Judge: P/V

invoked

We will listen, we will understand [ irony] we + Judge: C
5

Mining companies, pastoral companies

Uranium companies

Collected companies

Got more right than people

Got more say than people

comparison + experiential meanings +

repetition

got more right than –

got more say than –

– people

[the fact that

(white man’s) companies] ~

– Judge: P

invoked

6

Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things

graduation[time]

can make a difference

the state of things [indigenous history/ true country/ culture] + Apprecn: V
The dead heart lives here. attribution + experiential meanings + counter

dead heart lives

the dead heart + Apprecn: V
7

We carry in our hearts the true country

And that cannot be stolen

We follow in the steps of our ancestry

And that cannot be broken

repetition: graduation

[Material, Relational, Verbal and Mental Processes all appear in the lyrics.
Colour highlighting will appear in a later edit. Below, each line is numbered to make future reference convenient -ed]

Subjects

—————–

1.We don’t serve your country
2.Don’t serve your king
3.Know your custom
4.Don’t speak your tongue
5.White man came took everyone
6.We don’t serve your country
7.Don’t serve your king
8.White man [^]listen to the songs we sing
9.White man came took everything
10.We carry in our hearts the true country
11.And that cannot be stolen
12.We follow in the steps of our ancestry
13.And that cannot be broken
14.We don’t need protection
15.Don’t need your land
16.Keep your promise on where we stand
17.We will listen, we will understand
18.Mining companies, pastoral companies
19.Uranium companies
20.Collected companies
21.Got more right than people
22.Got more say than people
23.Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things
24.The dead heart lives here.
25.We carry in our hearts the true country
26.And that cannot be stolen
27.We follow in the steps of our ancestry
28.And that cannot be broken

REFERENCES

I Love A Sunburnt Country

Dorothea MacKellar (1908: written 1906)

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