10 Years After: 10.19.2003

Okay I'll Admit That I Really Don't Understand

Just one class today; Milton & His Time is cancelled since we will be meeting Sunday to present our papers. Which, btw, I still haven't completed. I wanted to do something simple, like expand an already existing piee I'd written for the class. I had been thinking of my journal entry comparing Lucan's Lycidas with Milton's poem of the same name. The problem I was having was how to more than double the length of what I originally wrote. This morning I think I came up with a solution. I an keep my original thesis, that Milton draws a contrast betwen Lucan's Lycidas chartacter and his own use of the figure as a persona for Edward King. However, the body of the paper can be divide into two portions. I can start by arguing what Lycidas isn't - this will go into the arguments that it is a very unemmotional poem. The second half can then be a sttement of what the poem actually is. Not terribly orginal, I know, but I just want a decent grade.

I did have my morning class, Literary Criticism. First, we received our tests backs. I scraped by with an A (91). He said the average grade was an 80. I know the grades of two of the three people I studied with. One scored a 78 and the other a 70. Both seemed pleased with their grades, but I looked over my wishing I had done better. I did well on the essay. He gave me 37 out of 40 points. His endnotes stated that I had a strong paper, but that my deconstruction reading was flaky. His only comment within the paper was that some of my reader-response stuff was biographical/historical criticism. On the definition portion of the test I did okay. I scored a 54 out of 60. I don't have my essay on hand, so I'll add in my mistakes later on.

The second half of class was interesting. We watched a 1960's interview with Jung. The interviewer was horrible, but Jung's comments made it interesting. The film was an abridgement of 4 hours of footage and we didn't watch all of the abrgidged version. After the film we talked about his comments - how Jung differed from Freud, etc. We worked our way to talking about Jung's view of literary criticism (mostly archtypes) and then discussed his student, Joseph Campbell.

We applied Jungian (sp?) criticism to GoldieLocks (breaking taboos & returning to society with the wisdom of BabyBear) and then discussed Little Red Riding Hood (fear of sex- the actions in the bedroom & the domination of the women by the wolf. The woodsman, whom I understand to be a later addition to the story, could be a father figure). Someone mentioned the wolf cross-dressing and being indicative of psychologial problems. I find it amusing when people employ pop psychology. Somehow we ended the class talking about Wile E Coyote. The instructor new that coyotes were an archtype for native American Indians, but couldn't think of what... I reminded him that it was the Trickster archtype.

While interesting, I think Jung and Campbell have fatally flawed ideas in their concept of the archtype. It seems impossible to hold with Jung's idea that archtypes are some sort of genetic (or even evolved) beliefs.

posted by Hiro # 10/23/2003 12:24:00 PM | 0 comments

10.22.2003

Killing an Arab

After Intro to Linguistics I went to the library to reread the sections I was to lead the discussion of in my Dialectology class. The presentation took a lot less time than I thought it would. I deviated from the linear delineation of the book; linking together the concept of deficient-difference controversy with the section on standardized testing and linking the concept of "correct" with the idea of development norms (Both have to do with standard English norms).

An interesting anecdote was told by the professor. We were talking about assumptions about language. The book had 8 tips for test taking from the US Department of Labor and we were discussing the social factors that might influence how these tips were perceived and the assumptions of language that the tip writers had. The professor then told us about how he was approached a few years back by the dean of undergraduate studies to teach a world literature class (ostensibly because the professor is from Sudan) after he had taught an American literature class. While preparing for the World Lit course he flipped through the Norton Anthology of World Lit and came across a translation of an Old Arabic poem that he studied as a kid. It is comprised of 106 stanzas in Old Arabic, and as a kid he had to memorize the complete poem. The type of poem dictated a particular thematic structure. In the native version there was 40 lines describing a camel. In the English "translation" 35 of these lines had been cut out. The Professor commented that this section was the most important part of the poem in the Old Arabic version, but that obviously a camel isn't considered to be valued at 40 lines of poetry in English. He then went on to talk some about how well treated camels are in Saudi Arabia - and joked about them being hauled around in the back of pick-up trucks while wives were forced to walk.

This difference in importance reminded me of Edward FitzGerald's "translation" of the rubaiyats of Omar Khayyam; which some critics would say bear little resemblance to the original quatraines.

Some loss seem inevitable when translating from one language to another. Though probably less deliberate than in FitzGerald's case, the translation of Japanese haikus into English often lack their full cultural significance. Also, I have often been told that the same holds true of reading philosophy- knowing the native language rather than relying on translations, results in less loss between the author and the reader. Of course, even in these situations, a non-native speaker wouldn't pick up on all the cultural ramifications of the text.

Still, 40 lines about a camel. Interesting.

posted by Hiro # 10/22/2003 12:50:00 PM | 0 comments

10.21.2003

New Slang

In Lit Crit we went over Freudian literary criticism. Interesting stuff, but nothing startlling new from the discussion. I am still struck by how it seems that all of Freud's followers disagreed on exactly what elements of psychoanalysis were pertinent. Then again, in the scheme of the other forms of literary analysis it isn't different at all. Still, Freud's obession with the penis is a bit unsettling.

After class I stopped by the office of my Dialectology professor. I had made arrangements with him yesterday to talk about the project I am to do in that class. He asked me what I conceived of with my project and I outlined an interview process wherein the subject would be played an audio tape that consisted of sentences using double negatives. The tape would be paused after each sentence and the subject would then rate the sentence's grammacticality on a scale of 1 to 5. This evaluation would also be recorded. The reason for all this use of recording was that our text implies that written surveys tend to cause subjects to use formal/standard English. My professor said he thought, while it would be best, that it would cause the survey to be combersome. Instead he proposed that I perfomr the survey in a written form. He liked my idea of using different forms of double negatives. He also suggested that in addition to the model given in the figure we discussed yesterday in class that I employ some double negatives that are acceptable in formal/standard English (such as He was not unhappy). He thought that 20 or so questions, 5 for each type of double negative, and a sample size of 20 or so subjects would be sufficient. He seemed quite pleased with my idea and that, itself, was pleasing. I had really been sweating this project. Now, however, I am able to merge my personal interest with double negatives (I still feel that it is wholly arbitrary that standard English employs Bishop Louth's mathematical assertion) with a project for Dialectology.

Now to get down to some serious work on my Milton paper that I must present Sunday. . . .

Update: While on my way through the library to check out a few books on Lycidus I ran into the visiting dialectologist. We spoke briefly. She offered to help me with the project for the class and I commented on my visit with the class' instructor. She made some nice suggestions. First, she said I should emphasize that the subjects are to not consider what is formally acceptable, but what they would use in their own casual conversations. Second, that I should tell them I am interested in sentence construction (or some such) and that I should also have some fillier questions that are not related to multiple negatives so that they don't pick up on it and try to over analyze the sentences. Last, she recommended that I use simple sentence structures. I commented on how in my previous survey (for Grammar & Usage) one of the subjects reacted to the semantics of the sentence rather than the grammar. (This was the sentence that stated something along the lines of 'Every finger has a unique fingerprint.' The complaint was that this sentence would never be used in a conversation and it really annoyed the subject.) She commented that that happens. She gave an example of using the name Ernie in a sentence with the color blue. Since children associate Ernie with red it could cause them to reject the sentence based on this association rather than the grammar employed in the sentence. All in all, I felt even more comfortable about doing the project.

posted by Hiro # 10/21/2003 12:07:00 PM | 0 comments

10.20.2003

Alright Hear This

My Writing in Professions instructor had a minor stroke last week. He told us how right after the stroke he had problems talkings. He could think in sentences in his brain, but when he went to talk it all came out garbled- and he was aware of this, but couldn't correct it.

He joked that if he started speaking in another language to let him know. Then he told us how when he went to University of Alabama that Derrida was there as a guest speaker. In his words, "If you think he's incomprehensible as a writer then you should try to listen to him give lectures." He said that Derrida would make some statement that would visibly confuse the audience. To ensure that he was understand Derrida would then reinterate the statement in French. Met again with a puzzled audience he would then restate it again, only this time in German. With the audience still puzzled he would then give up and proceed again in English with his lecture.

posted by Hiro # 10/20/2003 07:52:00 PM | 0 comments

Dark Center Of The Universe

I missed Intro to Linguistics this morning. Not good. I crammed prior to my Dialectology class to finish reading the chapter sections I was suppose to present today. i saw was because I ended up not doing it today. The professor had wanted to finish up two sections from the previous chapter at the start of class. Instead we ended up discussing one chart for nearly the entire class session.

Table 9.4 Implication array for different types of multiple negation in some selected varieties of English.

Multiple negation type
English variety c b a

Standard English
0 0 0

Some North American Anglo American
Vernacular varieties 0 0 X
Other Northern Anglo American
Vernacular varieties 0 X X
Some Vernacular Southern Anglo
and African American English Varieties X X X
Other varieties of
African American Vernacular English X X 1

Implication ------->

. . . [T]hree types of multiple negation: (a) the use of
negative indefinites following a negativized verb phrase (e.g. They didn't do nothing because they were too tired); (b) the use of negative indefinites before a negativized verb phrase (e.g. Nobody can't do it 'cause it's too hard); (c) the 'inversion' of negativized verb phrase and a negativitzed subject (e.g. Can't nobody do it 'cause it's too hard).
In table 9.4, three values are given with respect to the use of multiple negation: 1 indicates the categorical presence of multiple negation (that is, the multiple negative is used whenever it can be used), 0 indicates the categorical absence of multiple negation, and X indicates fluctuation between presence and absence. X's may also have an implicational relationship with other X's in that an X in a given column may be used to imply that a higher frequency level of the variant will be indicated in those X's to the right of the column. Various dialects of American English are delimited in terms of the types of multiple negation they contain, as indicated in the rows in table 9.4.
This implicational array indicates that if a variety has type c multiple negations (e.g. Can't nobody do it), then it will have type b (e.g. Nobody can't do it), and if a variety has type b, it will also have a type a (e.g. She didn't do nothing). However, the converse does not hold, so that a does not imply the existence of b, nor does b imply c.

What was funny was the professor stated that the implication ran the other way, from right to left. The visiting dialectologist commented that she felt that it ran the opposite, or I should say correct way. At the same time I was puzzled by the types being in reverse alphabetical order. It was then that I notived the last paragraph of page (the last paragraph above) which coroborated the visiting professor's view. From there it was 45 minutes of commenting on how much could be read into the diagram, how poorly constructed it was, and what effect the 1 had on the Xs in the same row. Personally, I think the diagram made sense only when the text was read and the diagram was compared to easier to understand diagrams in the same section. As a stand alone item it was horrible.

posted by Hiro # 10/20/2003 01:20:00 PM | 0 comments

10 Years After

10.23.2003