Teaching & Learning Guide for: Linguistics in the Study and Teaching of Literature

Author’s Introduction Linguistics can provide a technical vocabulary for talking about language, and an understanding of how everyday language is structured and functions. Literary texts are made from language, and although the relation between language in literature and language in general is not fully understood, linguistics can help theorize literary language, and suggest ways of thinking about literary form, and the relation between form and meaning in literature. Author Recommends 1. Fabb, Nigel. 1997. Linguistics and literature: language in the verbal arts of the world. Oxford: Blackwell. Possibly the only textbook to survey the whole range of ways in which contemporary theoretical linguistics is applied to literary studies, including poetry, narrative, questions of meaning, and performance; with examples drawn from over 100 literatures, and exercises. 2. Jakobson, Roman. 1960. Linguistics and poetics. Style in language , ed. by T. Sebeok, 350–377. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Reprinted in K. Pomorska and S. Rudy (eds). 1987. Roman Jakobson. Language in literature , 62–94. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The foundational article for modern literary linguistics, the possibilities of which have still not fully been explored. 3. Kiparsky, Paul. 1973. The role of linguistics in a theory of poetry. Language as a human problem. Special issue of Daedalus . Reprinted in Donald C. Freeman (ed.). 1981. Essays in modern stylistics , 9–23 . London: Methuen. A key formulation of the notion that literary language is a development of ordinary language. 4. Austin, Timothy R. 1984. Language crafted. A linguistic theory of poetic syntax. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. The most substantial book‐length attempt from a linguistic standpoint to understand why literary language differs from ordinary language. 5. Hanson, Kristin and Paul Kiparsky. 1996. A parametric theory of poetic meter. Language 72(2).287‐335. A fully worked out theory of metrical universals, applied to English and Finnish. 6. Fabb, Nigel and Morris Halle. 2008. Meter in poetry: a new theory . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 1–3 introduce a new universal theory of metrical verse as it applies to English, and could be read alone. Other chapters apply the same theory to other literary traditions (French, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, Sanskrit, etc.). 7. Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson. 1995. Relevance: communication and cognition (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. Chapter 4, on metaphor and irony, remains the clearest unified account of these problems from a linguistic perspective. 8. Gibbs, Raymond (ed.). 2008. The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 3 and 5 present two of the most significant opposed positions in current linguistic theory of metaphor; the book provides excellent overall coverage. 9. Zunshine, Lisa. 2006. Why we read fiction. Theory of mind and the novel. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. A summary of theory of mind, and its application to empathy and representation of thought and speech in literature, with an explicit demonstration that linguistic and cognitive approaches can cope with modernist texts. 10. Preminger, A. and T.V.F. Brogan (eds). 1993. The new Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. The most comprehensive account of the relevant data: kinds of formal practice found in the literary traditions of the world. Focus Questions and Topics for Elaboration and Discussion 1. Why does verse (text which is divided into lines) characteristically have more ‘poetic’ qualities (formal richness, complex meaning) than prose? 2. Would we expect a successful writer’s ability to write poetry, or other literature, to correlate with that writer’s other linguistic abilities (general fluency in using language, good at crosswords, etc.)? 3. Do the formal features of verse (meter, rhyme, etc.) aid in the memorizing of verse? Which features function in this way, and why? (Try this out by learning and then recalling at the next class different types of verse.) 4. From a linguistic perspective, is there a distinction between nineteenth‐century modes of writing and the radical experimentations of twentieth‐century writers? 5. Why do writers create difficulties for themselves, by developing and choosing kinds of writing which are highly regulated (e.g., the sonnet)? 6. Does the native language of a poet constrain or enable what she can do in her literary language? For example, does English make some kinds of poetry more possible than others? 7. In free verse, what are the principles by which line divisions are decided? (Choose a text and try it out for this text; then another text by the same writer; then another by a different writer.) 8. How do very short texts communicate rich meanings? (Try imagist poems, or haikus, or fragmentary texts.) 9. Choose a novel, or play, or poem which has a particularly memorable beginning or ending. How does the language of the beginning or ending contribute to its memorability? 10. Choose an English sonnet, which should be in iambic pentameter. Although metrically the same, the lines are likely to vary slightly in their number of syllables, and extensively in their rhythm; how much rhythmic variation is there, and why is this permitted by the meter? Are there different ways of giving a rhythm to the same text, and why? Are some ways better than others, and if so, why? A bulleted outline that demonstrates how the article or topic might connect to related material in lectures or discussions. (Full references to cited texts at end of teaching and learning guide.) • The syllable. Ways in which the syllable is relevant in literary studies include: (a) internal structure, relevant for alliteration, rhyme, and other kinds of sound patterning, (b) which syllables can be omitted in counting syllables in metrical verse (e.g., a vowel‐final syllable before a vowel‐initial syllable), (c) stress on syllables, or other prosodic features such as tone and weight, and the control of these in metrical verse. Most literary accounts of meter remain at the level of tal