Dec 10
penpanannouncements, context, general observations, instantiation categories, description, street, style
Having just returned from a longish sojourn in what is fondly called round here ‘the outback’ on a small research foray paid for by an institution which shall remain nameless lest I besmirch their up-till-now fairly fine reputation, I began to remark to myself that the environs in which I now languish on a short sabbatical courtesy of my old friend eldon – to wit, the villages of Enmore, Newtown, and Erskineville – far from being inhabited by outlandish independently-minded personae as I had been warned (or perhaps ‘regaled’ might be the better term), were actually populated by an array of varieties of human tribes of different age brackets, who identify their allegiances by being attired in a number of easily identifiable uniforms.
Of course, I admit at the outset that my use of the term ‘uniform’ speaks not of exact uniformity, certainly not of the ilk enforced at the hands of the teachers at the schools of my youth, places where rulers were applied to the knee to ascertain the exact distance of hem from that knee whilst kneeling on the floor, and at which troupes of girls about to leave on excursions out of school grounds were lined up for an inspection by headmistress and denied the small pleasure of group travel should their livery be in any way different from that laid down by the official documents she held dear. No, my use of the term uniform here speaks more to the loose requirements of latter-day secondary colleges who demand that their inmates pay homage at least to the school colours and officially-sanctioned items of vestment, but who are free to mix and match along fundamental lines which allow members of the student body to be recognised as affiliated with their specific secondary communities only by virtue of a compositional coherence with respect to a certain arrangement of garments, which in turn provides an associative value – an index if you will – pointing to the school with which these colours and arrangements can be traced.
I acknowledge that I am primed to notice tribal affiliations, especially those manifested in the visual indicators of clothing and accessories, and have already spent quantities of focussed observatory time in Japan taking notes on the means by which the Japanese – many of whom strive to be recognised easily as belonging to a particular social grouping – indicate their affiliation with such groupings so that they may not create confusion in anyone’s mind, and may thus be conveniently addressed in an appropriate manner whilst going about their everyday duties. I refer, for example, to the well-documented tribe of ‘housewife’, a noble profession in Japan, whose domestic duties encompass a scope and quality handed down by generations of devoted employees of their husbands and their husbands’ mothers. These noble women can be seen going about their shopping day, on busses and on bicycles wearing the typical bibbed pinafore over their normal clothing, an item which denotes the housewifely calling. Normal clothing for the Japanese housewife is also fairly strictly demarcated, and consists of a pale-coloured shirt teamed with either a dowdy skirt or pair of loose trousers. That they do not remove their protective garment before leaving the house underlines their need for recognition as employed in this capacity, since both other housewives and shopkeepers alike must be alerted to their status as dutiful holders of the household reins, and keeper of the household purse.
During my recent stay up-country in outback Australia, in a town a little further from civilisation than I normally care to sojourn, I was accommodated in a local pub. I will not go into the reasons here regarding why I did not avail myself of the more salubrious offering at the motel on the outskirts of town, but I might mention both the distance factor and the pecuniary factor as primary decision-makers in the matter. My official research there did not entail the observation of the local white community, but this being my natural inclination anyway, after a while and upon attending one or two shopping days in the town as well as one race meeting, it became apparent that the graziers or ‘cow cockies’ thereabouts were also prone to identify themselves with an arrangement of particular clothing types and even brand-names – I hesitate to declare, as I am ignorant of the taxonomy of names of those fashion houses who supply the apparel for the man on the land. The primary items of this apparel were, as usual for males, a pair of trousers and a shirt. In my notes I observed that the shirt needed to have two breast pockets, or failing that, needed to be patterned in very small cross-hatching on the vertical and horizontal. The trousers were by preference moleskins, and of an off-white colour. The outfit needed to be teamed with, on the feet, riding boots, at the lower waist a plaited leather belt in brown, and on the head a flat-brimmed hat. There was also the variation of the tie, with the woven khaki variety finding popularity amongst the middle-aged set. Younger members of the group effected American style broad-brimmed hats, and occasionally higher heels on the boots, with the here-and-there affectation of the American-style shoe-lace affair threaded about the collar and fastened at the neck with a device in the shape of a stock animal, but generally the uniform was adhered to – not so much that that members might recognise each other more easily, but that the un-landed gentry might recognise their betters.
And so it is that I have come to observe the latest affiliatory signifiers of the people on the streets near to where I am presently taking my ease. I have been reliably informed that one style, or should I say constellation of artefacts worn at the same time that represent an overall style, can be labelled as ‘indie’. But there the tribal or associative relationships indexed by these sets of worn-artefacts ends for me – I am not apprised of what ‘indie’ (presumably shortened from the word ‘independent’ but I do not observe any shred of independence in the wearers of this style) signifies in terms of dress code or approach to ‘life’, and hence the identity to which indie-aficionados hope to aspire. The reader will have noted that I have up till now mentioned one or two very brief descriptions pertaining to arrangements of clothing forms – or items that constitute an affiliatory practice – which have been either related to institution, e.g. school, or profession e.g. grazier or housewife. However, the local practices I speak of in respect of younger people as well as older non-employed persons cannot be traced to their identification with a place or mode of employ.
So, for example, although we note on the streets of Enmore and Newtown a repeated pattern exemplified by the very fine pin stripe shirt, well-fitting trousers, teamed with low-profile tie and belt, as well as a trim haircut – which style indexes the real estate agent – we also note a variety of other styles which are not traceable to specific work practices. Thus, I am not talking here about those people who are obviously dressed for the job, in particular the manual labouring jobs which necessitate shorts and slightly dirty T-shirts or shirts actually emblazoned with the company insignia. I refer more specifically to those who have chosen to wear what they do as a index of their personal style, as if style itself were the identity of the persons so attired.
Hence my aim is to accumulate notes on the observed apparel on the streets and cafes of the locale, and to build up a sense of repeated patterns, of generalised shapes (or ‘lines’ as I believe they used to be called), fabric patterns, footwear, hairstyles (as they also signify in this area of description) and accessories – especially carry-bags, scarves and hats. This should provide a means of making generalisations which may lead at the same time to the ability of calculating – or at least throwing into high relief – boundary lines between styles and their offshoots, such that further enquiries could be more profitably made regarding the reasoning behind persons’ effecting of these styles through arrangement of clothing form.
Work in the field has obviously already been done in the public arena and the private sphere, and here I am thinking of the published findings and recommendations made by two researchers known as Trinny and Susanah who have made available a very useful book (due to its many photographic illustrations) called “Who do you want to be today?” in which they imply the strong link between what is worn and one’s identity. Some of the identities they have provided are helpfully labelled in a type of intertextual shorthand, examples being the following: “rock chick”, “gamine”, “ice-queen”, “avant-garde eccentric”, and so on. In passing I note that there are confusions here of logical levels of analysis – since ‘gamine’ refers to appearance rather than persona, and the others in the cited list refer to persona and attitude – but I hope therefore to avoid such confusions in my own note-taking and analysis. In addition, while I find the use of such labels an act of efficiency by way of a convenient temporary box in which to group sets of phenomena, I am rarely tied to the labels I use for identification of related elements – rather, it is the grouping of elements together – against the differences, contrasts or boundary conditions between groups of elements – that are most important to these endeavours.
In this spirit, I first make observation of one personal identity type seen inhabiting the streets of Enmore and Newtown, which I am wont to call gothic-punk. It seems from many years of exposure to the punk orientation in its several guises and latter day interpretations, that the styles which adherents adopt in order to be identified as punk have now more than bifurcated, and have instead been adulterated by a number of other styles, so that there are cross-pollinations of style seen on the streets. One of the adulterations is the gothic orientation, and my reasoning for using the term ‘goth’ as a qualifier of the base term ‘punk’ is related to chronology in style appearance and the history of adoption and adaptation wherein ‘punk’ has a longer street history pertaining to clothing selections – not, I hasten to add, a longer history per se.
A description of the gothic-punk style necessitates in turn, a list of possible paradigmatic alternatives – that or else mere generalisations related to classification of the regularly donned items of apparel. I am thwarted in this endeavour by a learned ignorance on the names of the styles of shoes, types of clothing, and other accoutrements related to garments, so that description should not be tainted by what I think I ‘know’ about fashion or the clothing industry in general, but will remain a purer, more fundamental description losing out in specificity what it gains in authenticity. I am also keen to distinguish my first steps in description as a paltry endeavour in one sense, but also not a description of the language of fashion a la Roland Barthes. Instead, notes on clothing combinations of the day form an actual report on the observable patterns in appearance effected by the street-walking public – at least as I observe them in a small locale in Sydney, and occasioned in this instance by my sudden awareness upon returning to Sydney that the styles repeated as patterned social behaviour hereabouts constituted a set of patterns on their own – although of course, not isolated from the general melee of clothing trends that are the bread & butter of the world wide web these days. At the same time, the mix and obviousness of the styling in these parts prompting me to anthropological endeavours in the same vein as the previous local case studies I have been involved in over the years.
Thus, I adjure all who have bothered to read thus far to anticipate verbal descriptions starting from the head and working down of a number of locally apparent clothing combinations in future communications.
Oct 23
eldonlanguage and culture, stylistics
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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