, VOLUME 77

JH Number 1

Journal of the March, 1987

WASHINGTON

ACADEMY ..SCIENCES

ISSN 0043-0439

Issued Quarterly

at Washington, D.C.

CONTENTS

Commentary:

SIMON P. X. BATTESTINI: Teaching Language Competence Through Lists

and Constructs

Articles:

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MONIQUE BILEZIKIAN: Teaching Students to Read XVIIth Century

French Prose

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MICHELE MORRIS: The Play of Pronouns in Diderot’s La Religieuse

ROGER D. BENSKY: Can These Dry Words Live?: A Blueprint for Teaching

Text as Performance Now

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JUDITH LYNNE HANNA: Gender “Language” Onstage: Moves, New

Moves and Countermoves

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WILLIAM PANICI: From Literature to Music and Film: The Myth of

SUPLUETS TD LEI GS 1 ee nee ne Cir ee ere 32

DAVID BOWEN AND MARGARETA BOWEN: Diplomacy and Com-

munication across Cultures: Degrees of Cultural Barriers ................ 36

PAULIN DJITE: Francophonie in Africa: Some Obstacles

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Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,

Volume 77, Number 1, Pages i-vii, March 1987

Commentary

Teaching Language Competence

Through Lists and Constructs

Simon P. X. Battestini

Georgetown University

Compared to the majority of scientists,

language teachers* tend to suffer from a

lack of confidence. They commonly deal

with unstable material, have to convince

themselves of their varied skills and bear

many of the psychological features of their

adolescent audiences as they negotiate their

moves between two uncertain worlds.

Heterogeneity characterizes their sur-

roundings. Classes of students differ at

the same level, year after year, and many

different individuals make up a class. De-

partmental colleagues vary in terms of na-

tional origins, social background and ex-

perience but also in terms of teaching

compartmentalization and research inter-

ests.

Language teachers are indeed con-

cerned primarily with vocabulary (lists)

and grammar rules (constructs), but also

*For practical reasons, I am using “language

teachers” to designate various types of profession-

als, all concerned with teaching and researching

communicative media.

with literary criticism and cultural studies.

Increasing numbers of them are involved

in film studies and drama, journalism and

television, ancillary or tool-language,

computer-assisted methods and _ pro-

grams, which all add to the fragmentation

of their working landscape. As individuals

they vary also in perspectives, methodol-

ogies and choice, range and use of audio-

visual aids. While the spoken medium is

the ultimate aim for the majority of lan-

guage teachers, many still rightly insist on

the importance of writing skills,

It may be that language teachers benefit

little from the only true science in their

field: linguistic discoveries are largely ig-

nored. A kind of dismembered socratic

dialogue characterizes most classroom

student-teacher interfaces.* Their former

*The unity of such an otherwise nonsensical ver-

bal exchange exists. It is based on a unique linguistic

or lexical feature and their variables; the emphasis

is on forms of expression, not on content and fre-

quently the question is rhetorical, proving the point.

association with classical languages con-

tinues to lead them to pay respect to an-

cient views and behavior patterns such as

the use of often inappropriate Latin gram-

matical categories, of translation in the

early stages of learning, of fascination for

the literary text, and of Western civili-

zation as the privileged term of reference.

Yet in this apparently confusing world

the great majority of language teachers

do much more than survive. They make

sense** in their otherwise chaotic world

and the majority of them manage to be

efficient. We attempt here to show how

and to what extent.

During the Georgetown University

Round Table on Languages and Linguis-

tics in March 1986, 14 special interest ses-

sions were organized on different topics.’

About 60 papers were presented and dis-

cussed. The 8 revised versions published

in this journal come from 6 of these ses-

sions. They may be considered as a fair

sample of the current discourse among

language teachers.

A common core may be seen. Detailed

collections of ideas, values, facts (lists),

leading to organized propositions of inter-

pretation (constructs). This core aims to

improve teaching and comprehension of

a text and to facilitate expression and un-

derstanding of other modes of doing, feel-

ing and thinking. All eight papers are te-

leologic and indeed, didactic. What may

appear as a vain enterprise, because of

the great diversity of the contents and forms

as well as the relative fragility of the con-

structs, may be described as the teaching

and learning of an essential “‘nothing-

ness’’. It is a cumulative process which is

the act of storing forms, of multiplying

and improving them and their diverse

**Literally the “making of sense”’ is to create or-

der in chaos which, to Semiotics and Glossematics,

is to give to forms of expression formal contents or

vice versa.

SIMON P. X. BATTESTINI

possible structurings. Most of the prog-

ress in the sciences started with the choice

of a well-defined object, went on with rel-

atively unified methodologies and re-

sulted in a set of rules or laws universally

accepted. In language research and teach-

ing, results, more often than in the sci-

ences, attain notoriety by virtue of their

innovation and because they manage to

diminish, if not contradict, previous re-

nowned and established works. There-

fore, we must be aware of the nature of

the feasibility of these works. They are

more or less important intrinsically, but

their future is relatively limited. Their au-

thority is provisional and relative. Much

ado about nothing? perhaps. If so what is

the purpose of such intellectual exercises?

Language teachers, as shown in this

collection of texts, respond optimally to

certain scientific ideas and use materials

and/or methods themselves reflecting

contemporary ways of life. Indeed most

teachers make use of formulations. Re-

ducing tokens to type, use to mention,

speculation to concision, theory to prac-

tice, form part of their daily activities fol-

lowing in such matters the general trends

of the sciences. Ultimately what they pro-

duce is subjects who now know that the

world is not transformed by them but that

it is themselves who will shape their set

of relationships to their surroundings. They

may use formalization, detailed descrip-

tion, classification, with a view to obtain-

ing an optimum understanding and an ef-

ficient explanation. Because of their

kaleidoscopic landscape, heterogeneous

subjects, multiple techniques and per-

spectives, but chiefly because they have

to teach another worldview, language

teachers, like sorcerer’s apprentices, de-

velop their own methodology to control

their reality. They tend to consider their

methodology superior to others and as a

reference from which to evaluate their

colleagues.

When Monique Bilézikian promotes a

comparison between a relatively easy to

COMMENTARY ili

define student discourse and a literary text,

she does it to evaluate the differences and

through them she gives herself an ac-

ceptable basis as scientists do with their

universal scales of references from which

variables may be accurately measured,

evaluated and compared. Simultaneously

she transforms students from passive con-

sumers of a highly valued literary text into

active and conscious subjects of their own

improved written medium. Michéle Mor-

ris uses statistics on textual samples to

establish a solid base from which to en-

gage in non-speculative analysis. This al-

lows her to verify scientifically her hy-

pothesis and reach objective conclusions.

Roger Bensky, after many years of teach-

ing and directing drama, draws up a set

of valuable rules to be applied, beyond

the stage, to many fields of public life.

Experience, power of analysis, applicable

concepts, a sense of service and efficiency

combined with a rare feeling for an

authentic communicative process, com-

posed of context, bodily expression, in-

tentions and reactions, as well as lan-

guage, show how impalpable variables may

improve the coding and the decoding of

any message. Judith Hanna studies dance

to understand how forms in motion, re-

flect or signal, remind or announce, pat-

terns of gender relationships. She de-

scribes a measurable object to aid the

conceptualization (even if in a metaphoric

way) of social values, showing how ex-

pressive forms are logically intermingled

with content forms. David Armstrong ar-

gues that the object of linguistics has been

abusively reduced to codified human sound

waves. He claims similarities between

purely visual systems of communication

and purely verbal, vocal systems and re-

fuses to see only differences, as semiotic

and philosophical analyses suggest. Wil-

liam Panici observes the variables of a

single narrative theme (the Myth of Or-

pheus) and shows the importance of the

determinant cultural factors on the forms

of its representation. Therefore Panici

demonstrates the plasticity of the forms,

their relativity to the evolution of thinking

patterns and values within the same so-

ciety and from one society to another.

Margareta and David Bowen argue that

“language qualifications are only the most

obvious aspect of interpreting perform-

ance.’’ Equally important are the origins

of the culture of the interpreter/transla-

tor, as well as the specificity of the text,

its style as well as its cultural origin. Var-

liability of the source and of its cultural

context condition the act of translating/

interpreting, itself resulting from the vari-

ables of the agent and his/her own cul-

tural context and the vision he/she may

have of the culture in which the target text

will be inscribed. Both authors see trans-

lating/interpreting as the cross-cultural

communicative process par excellence.

Through multiple quotations, results of

research and the use of different per-

spectives on the future of the French lan-

guage in Africa, Paulin Djité explains its

present failure, giving evidence of its

regression. He concludes: “. . . if Fran-

cophonie was a bold idea and a compel-

ling possibility the conditions under which

it could have become reality are practi-

cally non-existent.’ This would prove that

a language A cannot attempt to invade

and express a culture B without being

adapted to such an extent that it would

become within a short span of time an-

other language or being rejected. Dyité’s

observations show that there may be a

limit to possible variabilities of the cul-

tural context of one language.

At this point I would like to examine

two concepts, namely axiology (as the study

of lists) and ideology (as the study of con-

structs). We could see ‘‘axiology”’ as in-

ventory, a set of items in which one prac-

tises possible choices, a paradigm. “‘Ide-

ology” differs from axiology as the set of

relationships between the elements of axi-

ology. One may compare both concepts

to the elements of language teaching,

namely language, literature and culture:

iv SIMON P. X. BATTESTINI

AXIOLOGY

(lists)

DICTIONARY

vocabulary,

locutions

ANALECTS

LANGUAGE

LITERATURE

narrative,

descriptive,

and reflective

ENCYCLOPEDIA

of a given

culture

CULTURE

The optimal competence of language

teachers in three different sets of disci-

plines may not be reached in terms of

contents; ordinarily one “‘specializes” in

one or two sub-domains of literary criti-

cism and/or cultural studies in addition to

a solid competence in grammar. It seems

that unity may only be attained through

a methodology which would be applicable

to any of the three to five subjects men-

tioned above. “‘Axiology” and “‘ideol-

ogy” as used here belong to Semiotics as

defined by Julia Kristeva:

. . . the science of significances, science

also of science as type of significance,

(which) opens a particular episte-

mological domain: anti-totalitarian,

anti-subjective, anti-theological, non-

homogeneous but differentiating,

transformative, renewing continuously

its own trajectory.’

Semiotics may be rather considered as a

versatile know-how, conveniently appli-

cable to all possible contents and forms

taught and researched by language teach-

ers. Structuralism, grammatology, decon-

struction are to many “‘scarecrow”’ words

for practices and sets of ideas used by all

those experienced in the teaching of lan-

guage. It is regrettable that the metalan-

guage of semiotics often obscures the use-

fulness of the methodology from language

teachers and others. Without subscribing

to all facets of Kristeva’s obviously trium-

IDEOLOGY COMPETENCE

(constructs) (the aim)

GRAMMAR LINGUISTICS

composition all levels

STRUCTURES LITERARY

CRITICISM(S)

plot aims

composition methods

EPISTEME SOCIAL SCIENCES

ideologies cultural studies

phant definition, all teachers may identify

three aspects of their most common ac-

tivities: they build on differences, they

teach by transformation, and at least in-

directly, or implicitly, they train their stu-

dents in self-criticism along with a critical

knowledge. That language learners have

to deconstruct their world, first perceived

as an inventory of values, objects, behav-

ior, ideas, and then as a set of articula-

tions between them, is well known. Many

units of their language have to be reex-

amined in the light of new perspectives

coming from the target language and

leading to a necessary and thoroughly

critical exercise of all what constituted

them. The structuralist claim that the

meaning of a linguistic unit relies more

on the set of relationships it maintains

with units other than itself would lead to

the logical consequence that learning a

new language the total reappraisal of the

natural and cultural environment of the

learner.

What may be expected from intimate

experience of different “ideologies”? Early

in the learning process there is an attempt

to reject, to condemn the Other, before

experiencing a feeling of scepticism if not

of nihilism. Probably one must forget pro-

visionally certain logical constructions be-

fore being able to accept and introject

new ones from grammatical rules to cul-

tural patterns. The feeling of vacuity and

loss of equilibrium between two stable

COMMENTARY Vv

worlds may be compared to adolescence.

Next comes a gradual awareness of the

internal coherence of the other: language

and culture. What may be compared to

xenophobia and schizophrenia is progres-

sively replaced by a mild paranoia. This

may explain partly why foreign language

teacher often see themselves in the role

of either persecutor or persecuted. Life

in many language departments may be

difficult. Lacan insists upon the role of

existential events in the triggering of these

troubles. There may be two refuges (ten-

ure and relaxation being excluded): 1) the

creative projection of false reality; 2) spe-

cialization (discussed above). Both cases

constitute withdrawal from the center of

the arena.

From the exercise of decentralizing

themselves, students and teachers learn

rapidly the somehow relative futility of

their efforts and yet find in their progress

a legitimate justification for their personal

methodology. In order to understand,

students alternate decentralization and

recentralization on one of the two lan-

guages, on one of the two cultures and in

turn. Doing so they learn to build pro-

visional orders and the provisionality of

any order, and gradually acquire in this

process certain skills. They accept strat-

egies made of new forms and new config-

urations of forms, increasingly complex

and progressively disconnected from cir-

cumstances and content. The rules of a

chess game are the same whatever the

pieces or the board are made of. . . and

wherever and whenever it is played, al-

though with the repetition of playing ex-

perience, one improves the quality of his/

her playing. These forms are now at the

disposal of the individual who may not

only repeat them at will, or to respond to

a given stimulus, but also play with them.

The pleasure of mastering new roles

creates a feeling of superiority over com-

mon monolingual mortals. A new sense

of freedom occurs which may ensure, with

the quality of informed choices, a reliable

decision-making process. Similar reac-

tions may be observed in literary and cul-

tural studies.

In class, every linguistic element or rule

is normally taught within an artificial sit-

uation evoking the cultural situation to

which it belongs. To support the teaching

of the language many courses are tradi-

tionally offered about its culture. For ex-

ample, American students learning French

are trained to understand the French cul-

ture much more often than they are in-

vited to look critically at themselves as

from another culture. There may be some

misunderstanding in this respect. Let us

imagine a quite common situation in which

an American student or business execu-

tive encounters his/her French counter-

part. They ask each other questions. It is

difficult to imagine the French citizen in-

quiring about France and vice versa. In

fact French persons will be questioned

about their country. They will have to ex-

press themselves and/or their culture. Yet

rarely do we promote courses providing

American students with the necessary

French vocabulary and locutions to de-

scribe American culture. They have been

trained to express the Other instead of

expressing themselves as part of their own

culture. That French and Francophone

cultures have to be taught is not chal-

lenged here but if the aim of the teaching

of a foreign language is to provide fluency

in this language we have to understand

that the expression of the true self is a

necessary step prior to the expression of

worlds other than one’s own. Learning to

express the American culture in the French

language is helping the American student

to acquire the French worldview but using

a content so obvious to the student that

the emphasis forcibly rests on the foreign

ways of perception and cognition to be

acquired. Complementing this newly

opened perspective on themselves, the

students may now turn towards the con-

tent of the French culture as the next log-

ical step. It seems that we should be teach-

ing first the foreign perception of the

learner’s own culture, then the foreign

vi SIMON P. X. BATTESTINI

perception of the foreign culture and

eventually compare the indigenous and

foreign perception for their peculiar

worldviews and their attitudes towards

other cultures.

When Monique Bilézikian starts from

the “‘degré zéro”’ of fluency of students to

provide them with the tools to appreciate

(and learn) the relatively more complex

use of the language of a literary text, she

does exactly this. After recognising the

strangeness of the text and justifying it

through intentions and effects the gap be-

tween the “register” of students and au-

thor is seen as a desired improvement to

produce similar effects from similar in-

tentions. It was Dewey, I believe, who

taught that any successful educational task

starts with a concrete evaluation of the

base of application, continues with clearly

defined aims and follows with the choice

of efficient and appropriate method(s) to

draw the student from step one (the pres-

ent state or degré zéro) to step two (the

projected state). Roger Bensky proceeds

in a similar way as he tends to transform

his objects (learners) into subjects (now

acting themselves), developing in their own

right hidden-but-becoming-obvious-skills

for a much improved performance. When

Michele Morris, in the course of reading

a literary text, experiences its effect, pro-

vides herself with the means to reduce the

initially subjective understanding into an

objective explanation, she too transforms

the eventual passive impression felt by the

students into a here and now active and

reflective process vis-a-vis a text and to

any elsewhere and tomorrow existential

situation.

These texts used by language teachers

may in fact be seen as “pretexts”. They

do not constitute the aims of the teaching

even if some are definitely better than

others in helping to attain objectives. If I

may I would risk the idea that, like pho-

nemes, they are discreet units but of the

literary discourse. They serve a purpose

which they do not constitute. Texts, sen-

tences and cultural items used in class may

rarely be used in real life. Nevertheless it

is through them that certain forms and

reactions to them will be eventually stored

in the competence of learners. So out of

“useless” (but wrapped and organized)

contents, the language teacher creates the

use of an implicit knowledge along with

an increased number of forms and crea-

tion of new ones. This game of previously

stored forms and newly created ones con-

sists of the reordering of worlds always

first perceived as chaos or insignificant,

but constantly reconstructed on a provi-

sional basis. This is sustained by the

awareness of being a skilled, master-

builder. The sense of skill derives from

the use of forms and their permitted or

unpermitted intricacies; the sense of de-

rision stems from the use of nonsensical

sentences*, long-forgotten authors and ir-

relevant texts**, and initially unaccepted

types of doing, feeling or thinking***).

The final product of language teaching

may well be an “I” able to deconstruct

and reconstruct him or herself. Confu-

sion, heterogeneity, provisionality, may

be seen as normal manifestations of the

human environment outside (or on the

fringe) of a vernacular-monolingual-

monocultural-self-centered world. This

does not constitute a denial of such a re-

assuring world, since it is recognized that

bi- or multi-lingual people also need roots.

The difference here is that students, just

as teachers, have learnt to relativize them-

selves in whatever situation, assuming that

they may escape from it at any time to

choose any other . . . or resort to Sartrian

imagination. No other disciplines may

*Such as “my mother’s umbrella is bigger than

my uncle’s hat...”

**Tn Nigeria in the 1970s I had to teach The Prin-

cesse de Cléves. Time and space conjugated their

efforts to complicate my task as I was trying to make

relevant my teaching to twentieth century Nigerian

students more concerned with problems of devel-

opment than of the heart.

***Such as belching or cleaning your teeth with

a finger after your meal, kissing your mother’s guest

on her mouth, pinching your wife’s friend, which

are all excellent manners to Others to whom we are

the ‘barbares’.

COMMENTARY Vii

claim as well as language, literary and cul-

tural studies to equip students with effi-

cient communicative skills and train them

for cross-cultural problem-solving and

structuring disparate elements with re-

gard to intentions and effects, leading in

turn to sound ethical judgement and hu-

manistic qualities.

It may well be that Semiotics, as the

science of signs and the methodology of

these studies, produces the type of indi-

vidual needed today for reducing the gaps

between the artificial compartments of

knowledge, and between Pure Sciences

and the Humanities.

References Cited

1. Battestini, Simon P. X. ed. 1986. Georgetown

University Round Table on Languages and Lin-

guistics 1986. Georgetown University Press.

Washington, D.C. (forthcoming).

2. Kristeva, J. 1971. Le lieu sémiotique. In: Essais

de sémiotique-Essays in Semiotics. Mouton. The

Hague, p. 7. (my translation).

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1

Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,

Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 1-5, March 1987

Teaching Students to Read XVIIth

Century French Prose

by Monique Bilezikian

Georgetown University

The transition from language to liter-

ature classes is indeed a difficult one for

students. A comprehensive summary of

the scholarship on techniques for the dif-

ferent levels in the curriculum is pre-

sented in Edith Muyskens’ article ‘“Teach-

ing Second Language Literature: Past,

Present and Future”’.* In view of her ex-

cellent compilation and analysis there is

no need to repeat her findings in detail

here; but I do want to discuss a few points

which I found particularly helpful in ad-

dressing the problem of bridging student

transition from language to literature

classes known as “‘the gap”’.

The main obstacles facing the students

include the lexical and structural differ-

ences between the language in the text-

books and those found in the literary texts.

To avoid “‘dissatisfaction and discourage-

ment at the lexical, syntactic and semantic

levels” Georges Santoni discusses the ne-

cessity of prefacing the reading of the lit-

erary text with a variety of preparatory

exercises at the three levels.* With proper

preparation the discussion and interpre-

tation of the text will become that much

more accessible to the students who then

will have the necessary tools to decipher

This paper was presented as part of a special in-

terest session on “Literature Revisited for the

Teaching of Language and Culture’’ at the George-

town University Round Table on Languages and

Linguistics, 1986.

the text in a foreign language. In another

approach, Claire Kramsch suggests “an

interactional methodology for discussion’”’

where “‘the teaching of literary texts can

be integrated into a general approach to

the teaching of language as social dis-

course’’.”

I propose an approach where the anal-

ysis of the style of the classical authors

and the students’ own writing, will allow

the latter to appreciate the specificity of

a literary genre, the dynamic of the text

and thanks to the author’s parole (ac-

cording to Saussure) the cultural aspect

of the work.

This approach on the teaching of 17th

century works of prose was derived in part

from an article published in The French

Review entitled ‘““Theoretical Acrobatics:

The Student as Author and Teacher in

Introductory Literature Courses’’.’? The

author, Peter Schofer, proposes that the

students write their own pieces in order

to better understand ‘‘a precise problem

or technique in the work to be studied.”

For example, the role of the narrator, the

role of the I, and the structure of a sonnet

can be investigated by reading literary

texts. Schofer’s goal is “‘to integrate lan-

guage, literature and literary theory into

a successful approach to introductory lit-

erature courses.”

In my opinion, this method, very con-

vincingly brought forth by Schofer can be

2 MONIQUE BILEZIKIAN

profitably developed even for more ad-

vanced literature courses beyond the In-

troductory classes, such as a survey course

of a particular century. The pedagogical

goal for the model presented below would

be to help the students develop an ap-

preciation of the different styles of the

17th century by adding the concept of a

double écart* (déviation); first between

their own text and a classical work and

second, between the cultural codes of the

two periods since our students/receptors

would not receive the texts in the same

manner the contemporary readers did.

For example, an introduction to Ma-

dame de Sévigné would start by asking

the students to write a letter to a friend

announcing important news. Adopting

Roland Barthes’ term, this level of writing

could be called the degré zéro. After writ-

ing the letters and discussing the linguis-

tical and structural aspects of them the

class will then read Madame de Sévigné’s

letter of December 15, 1670 to M. de Cou-

langes announcing the aborted marriage

of the Princess of Orléans, called la grande

Mademoiselle, to a nobleman below her

station.'°

Let us imagine a student letter for ex-

ample at the degré zéro of writing where

the student expresses happiness at the

thought of going on a junior year abroad

program. It is great, wonderful, excit-

ing. . . Several students will read their let-

ters in class in order to better understand

the function of the I, the relationship be-

tween the I and the you of the receiver,

verb tenses, fictitious receptors, etc. . .

After discussion and recognition of the

rules of the epistolary genre in their own

letters, the students will then be able to

read the letter by Mme de Sévigné and

discuss it at three different levels.

A— At the level of syntactical and lex-

ical codes, the students will start by noting

in the first part of the letter the use of

superlatives and recognize the hyperbole

*Michel Bénamou defines ‘“‘écart”’ as the differ-

ence between what a decoder/receiver expects and

the message. (p. 64).

so frequent in the 17th century. The syn-

onyms and antonyms of this first part are

often perplexing to the student readers:

they do not give the reader a useful clue

to what the big news is; the playfulness

and deceitfulness confuse the readers and

do not allow them to define a paradigm

to uncover the mystery of the letter. At

this point, it would be useful to review

the concept of paradigm and to show how

this author has erased all possibilities of

an indexing device which could lead to a

paradigm elucidating the mystery. Hence,

the letter accumulates a variety of super-

latives some of which are contradictory;

some of which are close in their semantic

field like incroyable (“‘unbelievable’’),

imprévu (‘“‘unforseeable’’) and yet they do

not produce any clues to the “‘big news’’.

The students should continue to iden-

tify the devices which frustate the answer

of the riddle: What is the news? —M. de

Lauzun is getting married —To whom?

—To Mademoiselle d’Orléans.

In the next part of the letter the analysis

of the series of verbs in the imperative

mood, devinez (‘‘guess what’’), jetez votre

langue aux chiens (“give up’’), will help

the students understand how Mme de Sé-

vigné perpetuates the riddle making it a

kind of children’s game or a jeu de salon.

B— The cultural enrichment level:

Gerald Prince has rightly stated that one

of the difficulties our students have is “‘in-

terpreting and understanding the sym-

bolic nature of a literary text and its cul-

tural, social, and historical dimensions’’.°

This understanding is made possible by

decoding the cultural system not only by

the given information (the princess wants

to marry a man of lesser rank) but by the

way the information is given. The repe-

tition of the word chose (‘‘thing’’) in the

place of naming the event underlines how

startling this nameless phenomenon (mar-

rying below her rank) was in the social

practices of the court. It seems that the

unthinkable “thing” which escapes all

definition is at the heart of the riddle. This

repetition and the accumulation of con-

tradictory adjectives in the beginning of

TEACHING STUDENTS TO READ FRENCH PROSE 3

the letter point out to modern readers the

social values of the court. After this de-

coding it is easier for students to under-

stand how any threat to the societal struc-

ture was treated by the court, in this case,

ridicule and denial.*

The students can also decode the so-

ciological impact through the accumula-

tion of the bride’s titles. While disclosing

the identity of the bride the many signi-

fiers all designating the same referent, the

princess, seem to widen the differences

between her and her suitor.

C— From the reader-response point of

view: the students are soon aware of the

plurality of the receptors of the letter

sender (S) —— message (M) ——>

receiver (R)

Ri _____M. de Coulanges

R2 ______Mme de Coulanges

R3,4,5,6. . .the potential contemporary

readers, the friends in

Lyons |

Rn _____ the potential non contem-

porary readers.

The message was received by the cour-

tiers in a very different way than it is by

our students. It is important to ‘make

them cognizant of the extent to which their

interpretive responses are dependent on

their own emotional/intellectual disposi-

tion and their experiences as readers’’.’

The news has lost its emotional impact;

but students can be made aware that even

without the emotional involvement which

they had in their own letters, they are

manipulated by the author to respond in

a way which Mme de Sévigné stages her

news. The fictional comments which Mme

de Sévigné expects her readers to make

range from cela est faux (“it is wrong’’),

voila une belle raillerie (“‘it is a joke’’), to

une injure (“‘an insult’’). In other words,

*Bénamou” considers literary texts privileged ve-

hicles for understanding the social and moral values

of an era.

such an event is impossible to accept, an

adjective which does not figure in the list

at the beginning of the letter.

They can map her strategies and see

how she plays with her readers, frustrat-

ing their expectation, building up the sus-

pense. For example, the series of ques-

tions will clarify the function of the

fictitious dialogue between the author

and the receivers of the letter, M. de

Coulanges (the vous in the text), and his

wife Mme de Coulanges. An astute student

will observe that both become characters

in the text with the roles of disbeliev-

ers, questionners, and skeptical receptors

of the news. A possible scenario is imag-

ined by Mme de Sévigné herself in which

a note of surprise, of scandal may cross

her readers’ mind just as it did hers:

‘“‘Si vous criez, si vous étes hors de

vous-méme, si vous dites que nous

avons menti, que cela est faux, qu’on

se moque de vous, que voila une belle

raillerie, que cela est bien fade a im-

aginer; si enfin vous nous dites des

injures: nous trouverons que vous avez

raison, nous en avons fait autant que

vous. *

To reinforce what they have learned the

students can rewrite their first letters us-

ing some rhetorical figures already seen

in class to better incite in their readers

curiosity or envy; or they can write a “‘pas-

tiche’’. In both cases they can once again

exchange their letters in class and com-

ment on each other’s success in generating

the expected reaction. Another assign-

ment could be to summarize their under-

standing and appreciation of some of Mme

de Sévigné’s letters across time/cultural

boundaries.

Our second example from La Bruyeére’s

Les caractéres, concerns the parallel por-

*“Tf you shout, if you are besides yourself, if you

say that we have lied, that it is false, that you are

made fun of, that it is a joke; that it is nothing to

imagine, if finally you insult us: we will find you

right; we had done the same ourselves’.

4 MONIQUE BILEZIKIAN

traits of Giton and Phédon.? In the first

step the students will write a friend’s por-

trait comprising a short physical descrip-

tion of a few lines and a description of the

behavior of this person in his/her milieu.

The need for adjectives will become ob-

vious in the physical portraits, and a quick

reading of these assignments in class will

produce a monotonous repetition of these

adjectives: brown, blond, big, small,

thin. . . . The second description, that of

the behavior necessitates the use of many

verbs. They can describe the tastes and

the feelings of the person: “‘he likes. .”’,

“she detests. . .”’ (but how is it known?),

or they can reveal the behavior in certain

situations: “he plays cards every night in-

stead of studying’’, “she studies in the li-

brary every Saturday”. . . Class discus-

sion of these short exercises will highlight

Text 1: GITON

physical description

on

verbs

numerous, often with

negative qualifiers

adverbs

scarce

adjectives

with positive connotation

with negative connotation

THE RICH MAN

This chart points out the following:

1-In the physical description attention

will be drawn to the symmetry in the syn-

tax: a series of nouns accompanied by ad-

jectives in both passages but without a

precise repetition which would be mo-

notonous.

2-The different uses of on: in the first

text (Giton), on designates the others

whom the rich man controls at his will; in

the second passage (Phédon), on refers

to the others who control the poor man.

3-The charting of Phédon’s portrait gives

the following information for verbs:

-with negative connotation: “‘he for-

PESTO! =”

the essential rules of the genres as they

did with the Mme de Sévigné’s letter. The

portrait can be from “‘outside”’ as if a cam-

era was following the character and re-

cording its moves, or the portrait can be

‘from inside”’ revealed by a narrator well

acquainted with the character and giving

us the benefit of his or her observation

and even some judgment of the behavior

described. For contrast an additional text

could be quickly read such as Cardinal de

Retz’ Mémoires, where portraits “from

inside”’ are combined with a descriptive

behavior and a scale of value judgment.°

In La Bruyére, the reading of the two

texts allows students to establish parallels

and contrasts. The following chart sum-

marizes the similarities but especially

highlights the differences on the syntac-

tical and lexical levels:

Text 2: PHEDON

physical description

on

verbs

with negative connotation’

in negative form

adverbs

with negative connotation

adjectives

with negative connotation

THE POOR MAN

-with expression of negative conno-

tation of social behavior: “he talks

softly in the conversation’’, “‘he runs

to do small favors”’

-in the negative forms

4-The numerous adverbs which have a

negative connotation in the second text:

mal (‘‘bad’’), médiocrement” (“‘poorly’’),

“furtivement’ (“‘furtively’’).

5-Finally the numerous adjectives in the

second passage like ‘“‘lowered’’, (baissés,

abaissés) lower the stature itself of the

poor man.

After this discussion the students will

conclude that people acted according to

their rank in society, according to their

TEACHING STUDENTS TO READ FRENCH PROSE 5

fortune or lack of it; it is the sole expla-

nation given by La Bruyére as the past,

birth, education, moral and intellectual

background do not even enter in consid-

eration.

In Les caractéres the king’s intendants,

the financiers who used their position to

get richer at the expense of the people

were guilty of the kind of abuses produc-

ing the social unrest which culminated in

the revolution of 1789. The following

questions can be addressed for discussion:

what will be the result of the importance

given to money? How can the social rap-

ports be defined if the criteria change from

nobility titles to money? Can this society

survive? In fact the portraits of Giton and

Phédon mark the point of departure of a

discussion of La Bruyére announcing the

18th century.

Much still remains to be done in refin-

ing the techniques for bridging the gap

from language to literary studies at all lev-

els, even at a level where we take literary

sophistication for granted in our students’

preparation. This one model offers the

students an awareness of style and struc-

ture of the text. It introduces literary con-

cepts and terms in an interesting and ef-

fective manner. It also encourages the

development of literary criticism skills, all

of which are essential in advanced liter-

ature courses.

References Cited

1. Bénamou, M. Pour une nouvelle pédagogie du

texte littéraire Hachette et Larousse. Paris, p. a)

64 b) 63 c) 91-92.

2. Kramsch, C. 1985. Literary Texts in the Class-

room: A Discourse. The Modern Language

Journal, 69: 356.

3. La Bruyére. 1965. Les caractéres. Garnier-

Flammarion. Paris, pp. 187-8. (My own trans-

lation.)

4. Muyskens, E. 1983. Teaching Second-Language

Literatures: Past, Present and Future, Modern

Language Journal, 67: 413-23.

5. Prince, G. 1984. Literary Theory and the Un-

dergraduate Curriculum. Profession 84, New

York: MLA. New York, p. 37.

6. Le Cardinal de Retz. 1956. Mémoires. Pléiade.

Paris, pp. 154-159.

7. Ruppert, P. 1981. Applying Reader-Response

Analysis in Literature and Film Classes. Unter-

richtspraxis, 14: 20. See also M. E. Ragland,

1978. A New Kind of Humanism in the Liter-

ature Classroom. The Modern Language Jour-

nal, 62: 175-182.

8. Santoni, G. 1972. Methods of Teaching Liter-

ature. Foreign Language Annals, 5: 432-441.

9. Schofer, P. 1984. Theoretical Acrobatics: The

Student as Author and Teacher in Introductory

Literature courses. The French Review. 57: 463-

74.

10. Madame de Sévigné. 1976. Lettres. Garnier-

Flammarion. Paris, pp. 65-6. (My own trans-

lation.)

Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,

Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 6-12, March 1987

The Play of Pronouns in Diderot’s

La Religieuse

Michele R. Morris

Georgetown University

1. Introduction

Readers at large and literary critics, from

Spitzer and May to Chouillet, have long

recognized the dramatic force of Dider-

ot’s novel, La Religieuse.> Structural, the-

matic and stylistic studies have pointed to

various devices which increase the novel’s

impact on readers. This reader has often

been struck by the prominence of pro-

nouns in Diderot’s style, and has hypoth-

esized that their use functioned as a sty-

listic device. In other words, we surmised

that there was a linkage between the nov-

el’s dramatic effect and Diderot’s use of

pronouns, particularly the subject pro-

nouns je and on, and the object pronouns

me and moi. If the novel succeeds so well

in giving the reader a sense of Suzanne’s

heroic struggle against the increasingly

hostile world in which she is thrown, we

sensed that it is partly because of Dider-

ot’s masterful handling of these pronouns.

We tried to verify this hypothesis and to

(This paper is a slightly revised version of my

paper, given in French at the Georgetown Univer-

sity Round Table on Languages and Linguistics, in

a Special Interest Session on “‘Literature Revisited

for the Teaching of Language and Culture,”’ March,

1986)

show how a close study of language can

contribute to a deeper understanding of

style and literary meaning.

2. Importance of pronouns in French.

Among the 50 most frequently used

words in 20th century French, according

to the Frequency Dictionary of French

Words by Jullian, Brodin and David-

ovitch**, are 15 pronouns. Some only

function as subjects, others can be used

as subjects or objects, others yet are only

objects.

The following chart ranks there pro-

nouns by frequency, as reported in that

dictionary:

Table 1

Subject or

Subject Object Object

Pronouns Pronouns Pronouns

il (7th) qui (15th) se (14th)

je (12th) ce (17th) que (25th)

on (27th) vous (22nd) le (36th)

tu (46th) elle (26th) me (40th)

nous (29th) en (45th)

lui (44th)

ES

PRONOUNS IN DIDEROT’S LA RELIGIEUSE il

These rankings illustrate the well-known

tendency in French to avoid repetition of

nouns as subjects or objects, a tendency

abundantly manifested in 18th century

texts.

2.1. Relative frequency of some

pronouns in La Religieuse.

Our hypothesis, based on several care-

ful readings of Diderot’s novel, was that

the pronouns je and on were inordinately

frequent, therefore significant and worthy

of careful attention. We surveyed a sam-

ple of 7390 words (or a little over 11% of

the total), scanning all pages ending in 5

(e.g., 45, 55, etc., to the end) in the Gar-

Table 2

La Religieuse

Number of Words in our Sample:

Number of Subjects:

Number of Subject Pronouns:

Number of je (= Suzanne)

Number of on:

Number of Object Pronouns:

Number of me/moi (= Suzanne):

La Paysan parvenu

Number of Words in our Sample:

Number of Subjects:

Number of Subject Pronouns:

Number of je (= Jacob)

Number of on:

Number of Object Pronouns:

Number of me/moi (= Jacob)

La Nouvelle Héloise

Number of Words in our Sample:

Number of Subjects:

Number of Subject Pronouns:

Number of je (= letter writer)

Number of on:

Number of Object Pronouns:

Number of me/moi (= letter writer)

Le Grand Meaulnes

Number of Words in our Sample:

Number of Subjects:

Number of Subject Pronouns:

Number of je (= Francois):

Number of on:

Number of Object Pronouns:

Number of me/moi (= Francois)

nier-Flammarion edition of La Religieuse.

We made similar counts in two other 18th

century novels, also written in the first

person, Marivaux’s Le Paysan parvenu®

and Rousseau’s La Nouvelle Héloise.* Fi-

nally, we took an equivalent sample of a

20th century work, Alain-Fournier’s Le

Grand Meaulnes.' The validity of our

sample is confirmed by a comparison with

a survey of the complete text of La Re-

ligieuse, done by Chouillet: out of a total

of 65,577 words, he has counted 2,098 je

or 3.2%." Our own count yields exactly

the same proportion.

Table 2 shows the results of our survey.

The number of je is based on occurrences

of that pronoun when it represents the “I”

of the narrative voice (i.e., Suzanne, Ja-

7390

958 (13% of words)

825 (86% of subjects)

235 (24.5% of subjects, 3.2% of words)

92 (9.6% of subjects, 1.2% of words)

672 (9% of words)

171 (25% of object pronouns, 2.3% of words)

7685

1016 (13% of words)

839 (82.6% of subjects)

171 (17% of subjects, 2.2% of words)

47 (6.1% of subjects, 0.6% of words)

717 (9% of words)

113 (15.8% of object pronouns, 1.4% of words)

7305

811 (11% of words)

557 (68.7% of subjects)

162 (20% of subjects, 2.2% of words)

43 (5.3% of subjects, 0.6% of words)

547 (7.5% of words)

97 (17.7% of object pronouns, 1.3% of words)

6765

659 (9.7% of words)

475 (72% of subjects)

60 (9% of subjects, 0.9% of words)

23 (3.5% of subjects, 0.3% of words)

286 (4.2% of words)

33 (11.5% of object pronouns, 0.5% of words)

cob, the various writers of Rousseau’s ep-

istolary novel, and Francois in Le Grand

Meaulnes.) The count of pronouns me and

moi also refer to the same voice.

This systematic count shows that in-

deed in La Religieuse Diderot includes

more subject pronouns (86% of all sub-

jects) than Marivaux (82.4%), Rousseau

(68.3%) or Alain-Fournier (72%) in their

novels, and more object pronouns as well

(9% of total words)—the same percent-

age as in Marivaux’s novel, but higher

again than the 7.5% in Rousseau’s and

the 4.2% in Alain-Fournier’s.

3. Subject Pronouns

Diderot’s novel, as do the others we

surveyed, presents a wide gamut of sub-

ject pronouns, distributed among various

grammatical categories, i.e.: personal

pronouns (je, tu, il, lui, elle, nous, vous,

ils, eux, elles), relative pronouns (qui, le-

quel and variations thereof), demonstra-

tive pronouns (ce, ceci, cela, celui-ci and

variants), interrogative pronouns (qui, qui

est-ce que, lequel and variants), imper-

sonal pronoun (il), indefinite pronouns (on,

tout, aucun, chacun, quelqu’un, rien, per-

sonne, certains, etc.) The first pedagog-

ical application of this text will therefore

be to furnish multiple examples of subject

pronoun usage.

However, only two object pronouns

concern us especially here: je and on. The

importance of je is highlighted in Table

2. Chouillet also underlines the signifi-

cance of this pronoun’s frequency, which

establishes a sort of index of subjectiv-

ity.* Our comparative study further points

to its relative weight, not only when com-

pared to all subjects and to other subject

pronouns, but in contrast with on.

4. The Pronoun ON

Unquestionably, on is an excellent ex-

ample for study since this indefinite pro-

noun can stand for many different sub-

MICHELE R. MORRIS

jects. In contemporary spoken French, on

often replaces nous, ils, or even je. But

it also occurs significantly in written lan-

guage.

4.1 Frequency of ON in written

French.

The written language found in our three

18th century and one 20th century novels,

includes the following percentages of on:

Table 3

ON/all ON/all

Novel words subjects

La Religieuse 12% 9.6%

La Paysan parvenu 0.6% 6.1%

La Nouvelle Héloise 0.6% 5.3%

Le Grand Meaulnes 0.3% 3.5%

On is thus twice as frequent in Diderot’s

novel as in Marivaux’s or Rousseau’s and

is used four times less often in Alain-

Fournier’s. To try to understand why, let

us first examine how Diderot uses on.

4.2 ON and its various meanings in

La Religieuse.

Our survey reveals at least 8 different

categories of meanings for on. We present

only a few representative examples of each,

which can serve as paradigms:

4.2.1 ON = people (general indefinite).

A. On is sometimes used in a form

equivalent to the passive in English. This

form is most common in contemporary

French, though not very frequent in Di-

derot’s novel.

“ce qu’on appelle des fétes” (p. 165)

B. More often, it is an indefinite pro-

noun representing a general plural (= they,

one):

“Vous avez de la figure, de l’esprit et

des talents; mais on dit que cela ne méne

a rien avec de la vertu” (p. 88)

“Quand on s’oppose au penchant gé-

néral de la nature” (p. 195)

PRONOUNS IN DIDEROT’S LA RELIGIEUSE 9

4.2.2 ON = someone (singular indefinite).

On stands for one person only, uniden-

tified or yet unknown:

“on me fit demander au parloir” (p. 41)

“lorsque tout a coup on frappa deux

coups violents a la porte” (p. 169)

4.2.3 ON = Suzanne’s family or relatives.

Elsewhere Suzanne stands apart from

her sisters, and her family as a whole is

seen as an undifferentiated enemy:

“Mes soeurs établies, je crus qu’on

penserait 4 moi[... |

On avait fait des dots considérables a

mes soeurs.”’ (p. 41)

“Je suis une malheureuse qu’on déteste

et qu’on veut enterrer ici toute vive.”

(p. 420)

4.2.4 ON = religious authorites.

As she tells more about her convent

experiences, other enemies are signified

by on: this pronoun often comes to des-

ignate a group of authorities, mothers su-

perior and others in the hierarchy, against

whom Suzanne is pitted:

“Je jour fut pris pour ma profession; on

ne négligea rien pour obtenir mon con-

sentement; mais quand on vit qu’il était

inutile de le solliciter, on prit le parti

de s’en passer[.. . | je fus renfermée

dans ma cellule; on m’imposa le silence;

je fus séparée de tout le monde, on

m’abandonna a moi-méme; et je vis

clairement qu’on était résolu a disposer

de moi sans moi.” (p. 48)

This passage illustrates not only the an-

onymity of the enemy, but the passivity

and helplessness of Suzanne. On is the

subject of active verbs, while me or moi

are objects, and je (Suzanne) is the sub-

ject of only of two passive verbs.

4.2.5 ON = a specific nun or mother superior.

On may stand for the mother in charge

of novices in the first convent:

“Tl ne se passe pas une histoire facheuse

dans le monde qu’ on ne vous en parle;

on arrange les vraies, on en fait de

fausses” (pp. 44-45)

As the novel progresses, there are nu-

merous examples of this type of repre-

sentation, when on designates the mother

superior who persecutes Suzanne. Some

of the most striking occur in the dialogues

between the archdeacon and Suzanne:

“Pourquoi, me dit-il, ne vous confes-

Se€Z-vous point?

—C’est qu’on m’en empéche.

—Pourquoi n’approchez-vous point des

sacrements?

—C’est qu’on m’en empéche.” (pp. 113-

114)

This answer, and others that are almost

identical, are given ten times in two pages,

and thus become a litany of complaints.

Here again, on is a hostile subject while

me represents a victimized object.

4.2.6 ON = the sisters as enemies.

In another frequent use of on, Diderot

refers to the sisters who persecute Suz-

anne, they are her undifferentiated ene-

mies:

“On m/arracha mon voile; on me dé-

pouilla sans pudeur. On trouva sur mon

sein un petit portrait de mon ancienne

supérieure; om s’en Saisit; je suppliai

qu’on me permit de le baiser encore

une fois; on me refusa. On me jeta une

chemise, on m’6ta mes bas, l’on me

couvrit d’un sac, et l’on me conduisit,

la téte et les pieds nus, a travers le cou-

loir.”’ (p. 82)

It is significant to note that this very pas-

sage was revised by Diderot. The first ver-

sion read as follows:

“On m/arracha mon voile. On me dé-

pouilla sans pudeur; on me jeta une

chemise grossiére; on m’6ta mes bas;

et l’on jeta la-dessus un sac d’étoffe

grossiére; et lon me conduisit nu-téte

et nu-pieds 4 travers les corridors.’”’

In the final version, ““On trouva... on

me refusa,’’ Diderot included four more

10 MICHELE R. MORRIS

on, which emphasize the strength of the

oppression.

By contrast, when Suzanne speaks about

a compassionate nun, or refers to the few

who might treat her kindly, the pronouns

elle or elles are used.

4.2.7 ON = WE (Suzanne is part of the

community).

In the rare instances when Suzanne feels

part of the religious community, on sig-

nifies her and the sisters. For example,

she refers to the mystical Mother de Moni:

“@abord on l’écoutait; peu a peu on

était entrainé, on s’unissait a elle; l’Aame

tressaillait, et ’on partageait ses trans-

ports.” (p. 65)

Or she questions Dom Morel about being

released from her vows:

‘Ft quelles espérances pour une re-

ligieuse?

—Quelles? D’abord celle de faire ré-

silier ses voeux.

—Et quand on n’a plus celle-la?

—Celles qu’on trouvera les portes ou-

vertes un jour...” (p. 195)

Here on means not only Suzanne, but all

those who, like her, wish to leave the con-

vent.

4.2.8 ON = JE (Suzanne).

Finally, in a few cases on represents

Suzanne herself. The most interesting oc-

curs during a conversation between her

and the lesbian superior at Arpajon:

“Je ne sais pas si je suis si belle que

vous le dites; et puis, quand je le serais,

c’est pour les autres qu’on est belle, et

non pour soi.” (p. 165)

This striking shift from je to on can be

seen as an effort by Suzanne to seek ref-

uge in the anonymity of the group, in the

Table 4

law that applies to all, as she becomes

increasingly uneasy about the situation.

4.3 The significance of ON.

Having surveyed the multiple uses of

the indefinite subject pronoun in this novel,

one wonders why Diderot chose to use it

so often. Two answers come to mind:

First, the pronoun lends unquestiona-

ble economy and conciseness to Diderot’s

style. Not only is this word shorter than

the various nouns it represents, shorter

even than some other pronouns, but the

verb which follows is also shorter, because

of its 3rd person singular ending.

Second, and more importantly, a se-

mantic reason: by merging all of Su-

zanne’s enemies in the ubiquitous, amor-

phous on, Diderot underscores the

immensity of his heroin’s struggle: ulti-

mately, Suzanne is pitted against an im-

personal, dehumanized world. By blur-

ring the distinctions between the various

hostile forces she fights, he stresses the

importance of the individual je.

4.4 ON versus JE.

We established that, in La Religieuse,

both je and on are used more extensively

than in the other works we surveyed. We

can view je against on in a dramatic con-

flict. These two pronouns become a met-

aphor of Suzanne’s fight against oppres-

sion, depersonalisation. Nowhere is the

conflict more evident than in a two-page

excerpt, pp. 74 and 75.

While p. 74 shows Suzanne acting as a

leader in the fight ‘“‘against despotism,”

her gradual loss of influence and increas-

ing powerlessness are related on p. 75.

An examination of subject pronouns shows

graphic evidence of this shift:

p. 74

p. 75

48 subjects

28 JE (= 60%, vs. 24% in the novel)

7 ON (= 15%, vs. 9.6% in the novel)

13 ME (= 46% of object pronouns)

46 subjects

9 JE (= 19% of subjects)

25 ON (= 54% of subjects)

20 ME (= 50% of object pronouns)

PRONOUNS IN DIDEROT’S LA RELIGIEUSE 11

The proportion of je to on is almost re-

versed on those two pages. The nuns and

their oppressive superiors, Suzanne’s ene-

mies, are represented by the impersonal,

indefinite, anonymous on, and je loses

out, while me is the victim.

On the other hand, when she is free, a

page taken from the end of the novel (p.

205) shows a complete absence of on, while

there are 29 je out of 49 subjects.

5. Other pronouns: ME, MOI

While most other pronouns could be

studied from the double perspective of

grammatical usage and semantics, the ob-

ject pronouns me and moi deserve par-

ticular attention. As Suzanne is the fre-

quent object of persecution, the pattern

on (elles) + verb + (me/moi) is most

common. It may even be reinforced by

doubling the use of moi: “‘et je vis claire-

ment qu’on était résolu a disposer de moi

sans moi.” (p. 48) The only active role

the subject has in this instance is to see

that her fate is controlled by on.

Since she is so often cast in this role of

object, she cannot escape taking herself

as an object. Typically this would be

translated by the use of a pronominal form.

However, the separation between the

subject as self and soul (je) and the object

as victim and body (moi) is nowhere more

evident than in this remarkable expres-

sion: ‘‘Je jetai les yeux sur moi’’. (p. 95)

Table 2 shows how often the first per-

son singular object pronouns are used: in

La Religieuse, they represent 25% of all

object pronouns. If their frequency is

added to that of the subject pronoun je,

the resulting percentages obtain:

Table 5

Number of Percentage

JE + ME/MOI of total

in our samples: words

La Religieuse: 406 352)

La Paysan parvenu: 284 Sal

La Nouvelle Héloise: 259 35

La Grand Meaulnes: 93 1.4

This comparison establishes a subjectivity

index, which supports the emphasis ac-

corded the narrative voice. Chouillet states:

“The energy of language is therefore linked

to the physical presence of the speaker.’””

Suzanne, the speaker, is all the more

physically conspicuous through the pro-

nouns that represent her. Diderot is in-

deed, to use Friedenthal’s term, the ‘‘dis-

coverer of the self’”’ and, in La Religieuse,

succeeds remarkably in making us believe

in the reality of Suzanne’s self.

6. Conclusion

Our systematic study supports our hy-

pothesis that pronouns are particularly

significant in Diderot’s novel, because of

their frequency and because of their func-

tion as signifiers.

The very high use of pronouns, as sub-

jects and as objects, contributes to the

conciseness of Diderot’s style.

While je is the 12th most frequently

used word in modern French’, Chouillet

has determined that it ranks 2nd in fre-

quency (after ‘“‘de’’) in La Religieuse.** Di-

derot’s style is therefore not only ex-

tremely subjective, it is also impassioned

and rhetorical because of the reiteration

of je, me and moi.

Like a leit-motiv, these pronouns, to-

gether with on, underscore the conflict

Diderot exposed in his book. “It is a

struggle for freedom,” wrote Frienden-

thal.** Significantly, je wins over on in

number of occurrences: numerically, David

has conquered Goliath. If one takes Suz-

anne’s final escape into freedom as a vic-

tory, David wins. However, if one views

her sudden demise as a defeat, then Go-

liath/on has prevailed. There is perfect

cohesion between form and content. The

play of pronouns is an excellent stylistic

device to show the conflict between the

person and the forces of oppression and

depersonalization.

12 MICHELE R. MORRIS

7. Pedagogical applications

7.1. The text abounds in excellent ex-

amples of pronoun use, and students could

memorize some of the short dialogues in

order to improve retention of forms and

word order.

7.2. Diderot’s novel can be seen as a

case study in the diverse meanings of the

indefinite pronoun on.

7.3. Parts of this text can serve to de-

sign exercises, substituting tu, vous, nous,

etc., to je, for useful drills centered on

pronouns and verb forms.

7.4. For more advanced students (in

Composition courses, for instance) re-

writing direct questions or short dialogues

into indirect discourse would give addi-

tional practice in handling pronouns, verb

tenses, etc.

For instance, the short exchange cited

above (4.2.5) would become:

“Tl lui demanda pourquoi elle ne se

confessait point. Elle répondit qu’on len

empéchait. Il lui demanda aussi pour-

quoi elle n’approchait point des sacre-

IMENES). 1

The comparison of this version with the

original would show how much dramatic

effect was lost and highlight the strength

of Diderot’s text.

7.5 Various pages can be analyzed to

measure the relative quantitative and

qualitative importance of active, passive,

and reflexive verbs. Such a study would

show that when Suzanne is struggling

(against her family, her convent, societal

constraints), she is represented by je +

a verb in the active voice.

7.6 Similar surveys could compare the

importance and use of je in La Religieuse

and in some 20th century novels also writ-

ten in the first person and dealing with

some conflict between the “TI” and society

(e.g. Albertine Sarrazin’s or Violette

Leduc’s novels. ).

References Cited

1. Alain-Fournier. [1963]. Le Grand Meaulnes.

L.G.F. (Livre de Poche). Paris.

2. Chouillet, J. 1984. Diderot, poéte de l’énergie.

P.U.F. Paris, 1984, p. a) 212 b) 27.

3. Diderot. 1968. La Religieuse. Garnier-Flamma-

rion. Paris.

4. Friendenthal, R. 1969. Entdecker des Ich. R. Piper.

Miinchen & Co. Verlag, p. a) 375 “Es ist ein

Kampf um die Freiheit.”

5. Juilland, A., Brodin, D., Davidovitch, C. Fre-

quency Dictionary of French Words. 1970. Mou-

ton. Paris & The Hague, 1970, p. a) 387—388. b)

197 and 387

6. Marivaux. 1965. Le Paysan parvenu. Garnier-

Flammarion. Paris.

7. Diderot, Denis. La Religieuse, édition critique

par J. Parrish. 1963. Studies on Voltaire and the

Eighteenth Century. Institut et Musée Voltaire.

Genéve, p. 98.

8. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1960. La Nouvelle Hé-

loise. Garnier. Paris.

Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,

Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 13-17, March 1987

Can These Dry Words Live?

A blueprint for teaching text as performance now.

by Roger D. Bensky

Georgetown University

Introduction

Homo Ludens in the classroom? It is

now axiomatic to proclaim that per-

formative processes—ranging from mere

vocalization of literature, to interactive

role-playing, through to full staging of

dramatic works—have become part and

parcel of the pedagogic arts. Whether one

has in mind the heightening of rhetorical

effect through an appeal to the senses, or

loftier ideals such as “‘the student as whole

person,” the uses of dramatization and

theatricalization in the exercise of a teach-

er’s craft no longer need theoretical le-

gitimacy.

However, beyond the choice of appro-

priate textual materials or the structuring

of a model situation for verbal and ges-

tural exchange, the operational basis for

transforming the student into a competent

performer is rarely circumscribed, except

within the confines of acting schools.

Paper presented at the Working Seminar on the

Function of Theatric Expression in the Teaching of

Language, Literature and Culture at the George-

town University Round Table on Languages and

Linguistics, 1986.

13

In fact, the information, both theoret-

ical and practical, which a well-motivated

teacher, unschooled in theater arts, could

use in order to successfully incorporate

performative processes is siphoned off into

many seemingly unrelated disciplines,

some of which are not recognized by ac-

ademe. Their total range would span the

following: literature, foreign languages,

esthetics, history of ideas, philosophy, re-

ligion (especially sacred ritual and mys-

ticism), linguistics, semiotics, psychology,

psychotherapy, acting, dance, mime, mu-

sic, architecture, martial arts and the ga-

mut of psycho-technologies, such as “‘cen-

tering” and ‘“‘meditation”’. Clearly, only

rare individuals become competent in all

these areas.

Is the task, then, an impossible one for

a teacher untrained in the myriad ways of

the stage? We think not and, while in no

way claiming to have expertise in all the

above-mentioned disciplines, we would

like to attempt to spell out the rudiments

of a praxis based on long experience

in acting, directing and teaching. Tasks

and concepts will be explained dialec-

tically, with an eye to immediate applica-

tion.

14 ROGER D.

Thinking Now

The very first step is conceptual, but

fraught with tangible consequences. It is

this: the text was written then, the per-

formance of the text is now. Obvious?

Not to most teachers of languages and

literature, who must make students aware

of the text as an unfolding through time,

but who tend to overlook or ignore cog-

nizance of the text as deployment (un-

furling) in space. Yet for the performer

of the text—whether he verbalizes it or

not—time and space are one. If I perform

the text as if I were an Olympian deity

who knows the beginning, the middle and

the end (ie: both the totality of the text

and its teleological structure), there is

perhaps recital from the heights, but not

performance, since I can only perform in

the now, by inventing the pulsation of the

now.

Consequently, it is right now, as you

watch me and hear me from the tenth

row, that I am meeting the text, that Iam

producing the text, that the author is writ-

ing the text: I, the performer; I, the per-

sona; I, the energy of the word. There

may well be reference in my text to a

“then” (past tense) or to a “‘when”’ (fu-

ture tense). Yet, it is in the now that I see

these dead or not yet real events. In es-

sence, the actor can only conjugate the

grammar of life in the present tense.

(present tense = tension of the presence).

In theatre, the presence is all there is to

become.

If this fundamental intuition of the now

is taken quite literally, it is a major key

to effective performance. Memorization

of a sequentially disposed text is replaced

by ongoing experience of the text, by the

impact of the words in this point of time

and space. There is no longer some hap-

less individual to whom theatric transfig-

uration has been denied, trying to re-

member the external form (empty shell)

of an experience long dead; there is rather

a presence sharing with me the very same

time and space and whose experience I

BENSKY

am now witnessing. In other words, there

is a true enactment.

Breathing Now

In order to act—or enact—now, I must

have the means, or the power, to do so.

Power to live with the words of my char-

acter, to give the breath of life to the per-

sona I must become. Power to em-body.

Here again, a reminder of the obvious:

power to animate the words comes first

and foremost from the way we breathe

the character. Therefore, the next step we

must envision is the phenomenon of

breathing. Now a truism: you and I both

breathe as a matter of course. However,

most of the time (except in moments of

great exertion or in peak experiences),

our breathing is shallow and we do not

consciously modulate its depth or its

rhythm. Furthermore, in relation to

speech, we only gain breath in order to

enunciate our own range of discourse (our

personal idiolect). Our habitual breathing

is therefore both shallow (weak in power)

and narrow in expressive potentiation. It

is solipsistic by definition: unfit for ex-

pressing anything beyond our automated

self-image and our habitual perceptions

of reality. No competent performer can

manage with solipsistic breathing, since

he or she must em-body characters who

breathe differently and whose discourse,

unlike the performer’s idiolect, is deter-

mined by a pre-existing author.

The problem is therefore the following:

how do I increase the depth of my breath-

ing so that I may find the power to em-

body the words of my character right now?

The answer is simple: to gain breath, you

must first lose it, ie: to inhale fully, you

must first exhale fully. Plenitude of breath

comes from the void.

Standing comfortably with feet slightly

apart to assure balance, you pull back your

shoulders and look fixedly at an imaginary

candle two yards away, about four feet in

height. You decide to blow out this huge

CAN THESE DRY WORDS LIVE? 15

candle with all the breath in your body,

doing so very noisily and very forcefully.

When your entire frame is empty of breath,

you “‘freeze”’ and prolong the seeming as-

phyxiation for a slow count of three. Then

you reverse the process, breathing in from

the lower belly and on up to the top of

your lungs, until you feel like a balloon

about to burst. There, too, you “‘freeze’’,

holding in this mass of air to a slow count

of three, after which you repeat the entire

process a second, then a third time.

You have thus completed three binary

sets of in-depth breathing, with a pause

at the nadir and zenith of your physical

being. Be careful to always extinguish the

imaginary candle with your very last reach

of breath, since the flame will resist you

to the end. Some dizziness will probably

ensue. If you become excessively dizzy,

perform the exercise flat on your back,

on the floor, with your legs apart, hands

loosely by your side. The candle is now a

light bulb hanging overhead, which you

want to explode with your breath. In final

days of rehearsal, do six sets of this ex-

ercise morning and night, to combat fa-

tigue and to prepare your entire organism

for optimal levels of performance. This

will also greatly assist in fighting stage fright

and general stress.

A secondary, yet crucial, result of this

mode of breathing is the awareness of

oneself as the center of a field of energy:

a force field deployed in three-dimen-

sional space. Although we live our daily

lives in 3-D, most of us do not behave as

if this were so. Daily space, for most

Western city-dwellers, is basically func-

tional and compartmentalized, ie: an

atomistic space, neatly carved up into

container spaces for tasks, pedestrian rit-

uals and solid objects. Seldom is space

perceived as vibrant and organic. Most

of us rather see it as passive and inert.

Territory to be occupied, but not space.

Conversely, the breathing we have just

described (we may call it “cognizant

bio-rhythm’’), helps us to enter a living

space, a psychic eco-system animated

primarily by our own demiurgic power, a

space of embodiment, of in-spiration.

This is the metamorphic space of thea-

tric performance, where new meaning is

forged with every breath.

Speaking Now

While you and I are witnessing a per-

formance, the bearer of the character, the

‘“embodier’” of the persona, is always

thinking now, breathing now, speaking (or

about to speak) now. His every utterance

legitimizes or threatens my presence as

witness to the symbolic enactment we call

a play. The determining factor is the abil-

ity of the performer to see himself quite

literally as the space of the voice. In es-

sence, aside from mime dramas, the per-

formative experience will be shaped and

constituted by human voices intersecting

in living space. Theatrically speaking, the

word is always flesh or fire, silences being

gestation or ashes.

Voices are both presences and tools. To

increase the power of embodiment, the

performer has first deepened his breath-

ing capacity. Furthermore, the concen-

tration on the invisible candle he had to

extinguish in order to gain optimal reach

of breath has shown him the need to phys-

icalize and transmute the ambient space,

and to project his power over real and

imagined distances. Experience of these

elements will be fully exploited in voice

production and speech. We will now ex-

plain some principles of voice which we

have found indispensable when working

with novice actors. If followed with ut-

most conviction, as keys to unlocking

powers, they will effectuate a veritable

transformation in vocal range, resonance

and audibility.

The first key is again conceptual: The

performer must behave as though every

utterance were of fundamental impor-

tance to maintaining the equilibrium of

the world. In other words, if I do not

produce this utterance right now in the

16 ROGER D.

appropriate manner, the earth will no

longer turn on its axis, resulting in a cosmic

cataclysm on stage. Nothing you have to

say in the performance arena is indifferent

to the life of the character, since this later

is in truth a mere shadow which urgently

demands that every word augment its sub-

stance, that its every physical manifesta-

tion, including its language, anchor it more

firmly in reality.

The second key is both conceptual and

organic: you must give every utterance a

real target in space, ie: you persuade

yourself (through meditation if necessary)

that the utterance is in fact a solid pro-

jectile sent by you, the speaker, on a spe-

cific and clearly visualized trajectory within

the space encompassing the acting area

and the audience. The further you extend

the range of your “projectile”, the more

you actually project your voice. If you are

breathing deeply, if you are concentrating

intensely, no voice strain will occur, and

the strength you experience allows you to

embody not only your character, but the

trajectory of your character, with re-

newed feeling and vitality. It may only be

once you have understood and begun to

execute this particular technique that you

finally comprehend the “‘Quo Vadis’, the

destiny of your character, ie: its move-

ment toward crisis or completion.

The third key needs a further leap of

faith: you do not speak TO your partners

in performance; you speak THROUGH

them. In other words, you imagine your

utterance actually traversing the body or

the head of your stage partner, so that the

words will strike the wall of the theatre

behind him (we’ll pretend it’s impervious)

and ricochet back to the audience. Thus

your partner, as in some martial arts, is

merely a moving point on the trajectory

of your energy (of your text). This notion

may seem absurd at first glance. How-

ever, the reader is assured that it has great

effect in the work leading to performance,

and is cordially invited to test it for him/

herself. Auto-suggestion is a fundament

of acting, which is, after all, the art of

creating a meaningful and persuasive il-

BENSKY

lusion. Since an illusion tends towards

evaporation by its very nature, one only

maintains it and empowers it by tech-

niques of condensation and intensifica-

tion. What we have just shared with our

readers is one of the most powerful in-

ductive voice techniques available to ac-

tors.

Finally, a key to gaining vocal range.

This latter is produced not by forcing the

voice, but by increasing resonance. The

rule is deceptively simple and often un-

known beyond acting schools: consonants

provide resonance; vowels provide none.

The consequence should be apparent: the

actor should visualize and stress conso-

nants in every single utterance. (This also

happens to be a trade secret of good pub-

lic speakers). If this rule is observed, along

with the prescriptions for breathing and

for targeting of utterances, not only will

no voice strain ensue but the performer

will seem to have acquired a new vocal

apparatus. With long and hard practice in

the requisite state of mind, one can per-

manently deepen and alter one’s voice.

Colleagues, especially, will be most in-

terested by the possibilities this affords on

the professional level, not all teachers

possessing well-trained speaking voices.

Be that as it may, it remains certain that

performers who observe the principles we

are explaining will intensify beyond mea-

sure their energy field and thus their ca-

pacity to bring their character’s dry words

to the fullness of theatric life.

Silent Now

As crucial as voice and speech may be

in the life of the character, it must never

be forgotten that life is also composed of

silences. But what IS silence? Leaving

erudite speculation aside, we can first say

what silence is not: It is not mere cessation

of speech, a “‘filler time” in which one

simply waits for speech to resume. To think

in this way is antithetical to expressive

performance, in which the now is never

empty and inert, but always a space of

pulsation.

CAN THESE DRY WORDS LIVE? 17

We stated previously that if words are

flesh or fire, then silence is the domain of

“gestation” or “ashes’’, ie: words emerge

from or descend into silence. However,

since time and space are one in the “now”

of the performative consciousness, the

emergence and the descent must acquire

a spatio-temporal dimension in order to

be perceived by others as generating

meaning. In other words, silence is linked

to physical movement in the world of per-

formance, since the character is only con-

vincing, his story only captivates and holds

my attention as audience, if I see him as

moving along a trajectory. Sometimes, a

gesture, a turn of the head, a change in

posture will suffice to show me whether

the character’s words are now in gestation

or are being reduced to ashes right now.

However, unless he disappears com-

pletely from the performance arena and

from the story, the ashes are those of the

phoenix. The silence is, then, a passage

through the ashes, not a total eclipse of

fire; a pregnant silence, or a silence al-

ready impregnated with the utterance to

come.

The body of the performer thus becomes

the dynamic intersection of the text and

its subliminal silence, inviting the audi-

ence to become, in turn, the silent moving

space where the text is now embodied,

the communal space of its incandescence.

Objects Now

Finally, a word or two on the way a

good performer encounters physical ob-

jects in the space of the performance.

Again, a general rule which proves useful:

if utterances are solid objects (projectiles)

moving through space, then conversely,

physical objects brought on stage must

become—if I am to manipulate them in

any way—moments or mediators of my

utterances. In other words, an object with

which I will interact during the perform-

ance must always undergo a “conver-

sion’, a symbolic transmutation, thanks

to which it never behaves like a blind spot

on the retina of the viewer, like a black

hole absorbing the light of meaning.

As in real life, our stage objects reveal

and betray us; constitute a mute yet el-

Oquent grammar in their own right; aug-

ment us or diminish us, translate our sor-

rows, our hopes and our joys. They, too,

must join the performance.

Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,

Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 18-26, March 1987

Gender “‘Language” Onstage:

Moves, New Moves

and Countermoves

Judith Lynne Hanna

University of Maryland

The gender language of dance images

onstage focuses on a compelling issue of

human life in our time: the continuing

social and cultural reconstruction of gen-

der roles and meanings. Dance is no longer

the province solely of élite ticket-paying

theatre-goers and critic-reading audi-

ences. Now a melange of dance genre can

reach nearly the entire nation through tel-

evision and convey images and models of

what it is to be male and female.

In this paper, I will summarize some

semantic aspects of the visual language of

a Western theatre art, namely, the “‘high”’

culture of ballet and its succeeding genres

(what is called modern and postmodern

dance), based on perceptions of critics and

dancers, cultural history, and long-term

researcher participant observation as a

dance student and audience member. Be-

cause of space limitations, I will only offer

a few illustrations.

This is a revision of a paper presented at the Spe-

cial Session on Nonverbal Communication of the

Georgetown University Round Table on Languages

and Linguistics, March 11, 1986. I appreciate the

comments of Jean Cunningham and William John

Hanna on earlier drafts. The paper is part of a larger

study reported in Dance, Sex, and Gender: Signs of

Identity, Dominance, Defiance, and Desire, Uni-

versity of Chicago Press, 1987.

18

Since I refer to dance as language, I

should briefly summarize what this

means.'*-!*5 Dance requires the same un-

derlying brain faculty for conceptualiza-

tion, creativity, and memory as verbal

language. In a dance performance as in

spoken and written languages, we may

not see the underlying universals and cul-

tural structures and processes but merely

their evidence. Structures are a kind of

generative grammar, i.e., a set of rules

specifying the manner in which move-

ments can be meaningfully combined. Se-

mantics refers to the meaning of move-

ment, whether it is the style itself or some

reference beyond the movement. As in

languge (with its words, sentences, and

paragraphs), dance has movement vocab-

ulary, steps and phrases which may com-

prise realistic or abstract symbols. More-

over, dance also has devices and spheres

of encoding meaning, e.g., metaphor and

metonym.'* Dance, however, assembles

these elements together in a manner that

more often resembles poetry, with its

suggestive imagery, rhythm, ambiguity,

multiple meanings, and latitude in form,

rather than prose. As spoken and written

language, the dance may both reflect and

influence society.

Having said that dance is a language--

GENDER “LANGUAGE” ONSTAGE 19

recognizing that Western culture has

an exaggerated esteem for language and

its prerogative for describing and defin-

ing reality--I must add that there are

alternative ways of knowing. The non-

verbal, too, glosses experience, formulates

ideas, attitudes, and a sense of relat-

edness. Gardner points out that there

are different types of competencies, in-

cluding bodily kinesthetic competence.’

Gazzaniga argues that “the normal

person does not possess a unitary con-

scious mechanism where the conscious

system is privy to the sources of all his or

her actions the normal brain is

organized into modules. ... All except

one work in nonverbal ways such that

their method of expresssion is solely

through overt behavior or more covert

emotional reactions’’.!°

Feminist Perspectives

Throughout time, most history, philos-

ophy, religion, and art have been crafted/

managed by men. Only recently has there

been a women’s studies movement and a

significant body of feminist scholarship.

This development enables us to consider

the implications of male dominance in

dance and contemporary danced images

in the United States that convey what it

is to be a man and a woman.

Feminist perspectives generally hold that

patterns of dominance/submission and in-

clusion/exclusion based on gender tend to

favor male dominance to the detriment of

women. Patriarchal societies generally

permit men to enjoy higher status and

more benefits than women. Even matriar-

chal societies often give special privilege

to a woman’s male kin. Jaggar has class-

ified the multifarious feminist views in four

categories, each of which has different

presuppositions and implications.'® Most

germane to a discussion of images of gen-

der in dance is the liberal feminist per-

spective which, in simplistic terms, views

non-feminist women as victims of their

socialization or sex-role conditioning and

asserts the need for educational reform to

eliminate discrimination and to achieve

liberty and equality.

The issue of socialization raises ques-

tions about the inevitability of sex roles

in society--what is nature or nurture, i.e.,

culturally patterned. How do cultures cre-

ate, maintain, and challenge divisions?

What might be the intent and conse-

quence of dance performance in this proc-

ess?

Dance as a Social Construction of

Reality and a Medium of Socialization

Expressions of sex and gender evolve

physically and socioculturally during one’s

lifetime as a way of knowing about oneself

and others; these expressions serve in all

societies as a basis of dominance/submis-

sion and inclusion/exclusion. Culture is a

system of ideas about the nature of the

world, and how people should behave in

it, that members of a community as social

beings generally share. Ideas are encoded

in public symbols, literary texts, art, drama,

religious practice, and dance. These forms,

through which people represent them-

selves to themselves and to each other,

are accessible to observation and inquiry.

Both the reality and illusion of per-

formance onstage are socially constructed

through individuals producing, choreo-

graphing, dancing the dance, watching it,

and writing about the performance.’ Ac-

tive physical beings create images that are

read and felt by performers and audience

members whose social beings play a role

in shaping the consciousness and reflex-

ivity of these images. Everyday prece-

dents of meaning in nonverbal commu-

nication movement are so well established

in a culture that they are part of the cho-

reographers’/dancers’/spectators’ inher-

itance. Seeking signs and symbols people

can relate to, choreographers take the

everyday patterns and transform them for

their aesthetic purposes. Signifiers of gen-

der differences appear in contrasting pos-

ture, precedence, elevation, movement

20 JUDITH LYNNE HANNA

quality, and touch. The occurrence of sex-

associated movement contributes to the

information dancers and spectators draw

upon in making and viewing perform-

ances.

According to Bandura’s social learning

theory, an individual tends to reproduce

attitudes, acts, and emotions exhibited by

an observed live or symbolic (e.g., film,

television) model.’ It may be cognitively

registered and used or remain in subcon-

scious memory until a relevant situation

activates it. Because dance is part of the

cultural communication system that may

convey information purposefully or serve

as an open channel that could be used,

modeling of gender-related dominance

patterns may occur through dance obser-

vation of who does what, when, and how,

alone and with or to whom.

Similar to nonhuman ritualized displays

and human ritual, theatrical dance frames

messages and thereby bestows power on

them. Dance may be understood as a me-

dium through which choreographers/di-

rectors/ producers manipulate, interpret,

legitimate, and reproduce the patterns of

gender cooperation and conflict that or-

der their social world. Dance images may

reinforce ongoing models, evoke new re-

sponses, weaken or strengthen inhibitions

over fully elaborated patterns in a per-

son’s repertoire, and facilitate perform-

ance of previously learned behavior that

was encumbered by restraints. Distanced

from the everyday, the dance perform-

ance permits safe exploration of danger-

ous challenges to the status quo without

the penalties of the everyday life situa-

tion.

Moves

The history of ballet begins with Louis

XIV of France (1643-1715). At first, men

not only managed dance productions, but

they even performed women’s roles. Later,

women danced their own roles; they gained

ascendancy on stage by the 18th century.

During ballet’s Romantic era, the as-

cendancy of the female by 1840 created a

revulsion against male dancers and the

discovery of the charm of danseuse en tra-

vesti. Women danced female and male

roles. Their female roles were generally

the untouchable, elusive sylph or the

earthy, sexual peasant, but not chattels

for male enjoyment. There were also

erotic, macabre wilis, vengeful ghosts of

betrayed unmarried women; they dance

faithless men to death as in the 19th cen-

tury ballet “Giselle,” still popular today.

Men, however, continued backstage as

managers, choreographers, and ballet

masters. Before long they reasserted

themselves as popular performers.”

Classical ballet relies on conventional-

ized understandings of roles of men and

women that are deeply embedded in

courtly roots of romantic attachments. The

pas de deux partnering roles are often an-

alogues of patronage by the stronger of

the weaker sex portrayed constage as vir-

ginal, disembodied sylphide or wanton,

and referred to offstage as vulnerable child-

woman, kitten, or siren. The woman “looks

up” to the man, rises en pointe to meet

him. Rising on the tip of the toes in some

positions renders the dancer insubstan-

tial. Unable to stand alone, the male sup-

ports or assists her. When a man carries

a woman draped around his shoulders like

a scarf, the chauvinistic overtones are un-

mistakable.

The image of woman onstage often re-

flects her social reality offstage. Thought

to be part of the demimonde until the

third decade of the 20th century, a female

dance career of public display was an av-

enue of social mobility for attractive, tal-

ented lower class females who preferred

the glamour of dance to the factory sweat

shop, agricultural labor, or domestic work.

With economic success limited for female

dancers, they were usually fortunate if they

became mistresses of wealthy men.”

Contemporary ballet choreographers

and directors, almost always male, “mold

ballet’s young women to the ideal of fem-

inine that equates beauty and grace with

excessive thinness,” an aesthetic that is

GENDER “LANGUAGE” ONSTAGE 21

“both punitive and misogynist’’.'! Re-

lentless pursuit of the unnatural “ideal”

female body arrests puberty, imbalances

hormones, contributes to hypothermia and

low blood pressure, and often leads to

psychosomatic disorders of starvation,

vomiting, and use of laxatives. Anorexia

and injury are interconnected."

New Moves

Modern Dance.

At the turn of the 19th century, a re-

bellion, taking the form of what was called

“modern dance,” began against ballet and

all that it represented. Birthed and nur-

tured by women, modern dance was in

part a reaction to male domination in both

dance and society at large. Women looked

to themselves for inspiration as they chose

to be agent rather than object and formed

female-dominated dance companies. They

developed innovative movement voca-

bularies, themes, costumes, production

patterns, and schools. Dancing without

partners, they used weight and strength,

created images of women as neither vir-

ginal nor siren but whole and complex

individuals in roles of stature, and they

even caused women’s dancing in public

theatres to become respectable. Asserting

themselves against traditional female des-

tiny, ground-breaking modern dancers such

as Loie Fuller and Isadora Duncan through

onstage images helped to decorset the

wasp-waisted women and open up changes

in female education, health, and profes-

sional opportunity. Braless, corsetless, and

barefoot, the modern dancer’s free style

of dress symbolized physical freedom and

a renewed, diversified self-image.

Women heralded new moves, but men,

too, participated in portraying women in

ways that diverged from the traditional.

They choreographed in the modern dance

idiom images of women in a manner sim-

ilar to the feminist protrayals.

Modern dance has influenced ballet and

its male participants. The genres now often

blend. Modern and post-modern cho-

reographers, such as David Gordon and

Laura Dean, are even invited to choreo-

graph for classical ballet companies.

Two Temperaments.

Not until Anna Pavlova (c. 1881-1931)

“does the idea of combining the two tem-

peraments of virgin and bacchante in one

ballerina achieve force.” Pavlova was both

in ‘“‘La Bayadere’’.°4

Female Roles of Stature.

Since the 1960s, in contrast with the

earlier ethereal (human-like nonhuman),

wanton, and virginal traditional images,

and the combination of two tempera-

ments in one woman, choreographer

Kenneth Macmillan has provided roles of

stature for women in a number of his

dances. Examples include ‘“The Burrow”

(based on the Anne Frank story), ‘“The

Invitation” (from Lorca’s play ““The House

of Bernarda Alba’’), and ‘“Romeo and Ju-

hee

A woman’s stature may appear through

her symbolic dance style. Although George

Balanchine, ballet’s foremost 20th cen-

tury choreographer who created more than

150 dances during his 50 years in the United

States, comes from the old world of Rus-

sian ballet, his neoclassic ballet in the new

world sometimes reflects a contrasting

ambience. ‘“‘His women do not always live

for love, and their destinies are seldom

defined by the men they lean on. Sexual

complicity in conflict with individual free-

dom is a central theme of the Balanchine

pas de deux, and more often than not it

is dramatized from the woman’s point of

view.”’ The “‘Diamonds”’ section of “‘Jew-

els” performed by Suzanne Farrell is il-

lustrative: “‘Off-center balances main-

tained with light support or no support at

all. . . divergently shaped steps unthink-

ably combined in the same phrase ...

invisible transitions between steps and

delicate shifts of weight ... based on

risk.’’** Merrill Ashley’s portrayal of the

22 JUDITH LYNNE HANNA

modern liberated woman is not an illusion

but a fact which she demonstrated “‘when

Robert Weiss became disabled in the mid-

dle of ‘Ballo della Regina’ and she fin-

ished the performance without him.’”»?

Equality.

Kinetic visualizations of men and women

in relationships without dominance and

subservience appear in the era of equal

rights for women and a move toward an-

drogyny. For example, Eliot Feld “uses

technique to say something about how the

people in the ballet are feeling and how

they are related to each other. .. . Boy

and girl are more nearly equal here . . .

men and women partner each other to

share something . . . the partners adapt

to each other rather than dominate each

other.’’° In many of his pieces, modern

dance choreographer, Paul Taylor sends

“his dancers hurtling through space and

into and out of each other’s arms with no

regard for the conventions of partnering

or sexually determined dynamic modu-

lation.’’®

Guiltless Protagonists.

Martha Graham, making modern dances

over nearly six decades, bequested future

generations a history refocused in dance

from a woman’s point of view. Almost

every one of her dances contains a dagger

or a bed, because “ ‘those objects are so

close to life. We sleep in a bed from the

time we are born,’ she explains, gliding

serenely over the sexual issue that her

dances grapple with so forcefully, ‘and

while we don’t, perhaps, actually use one,

there are many times when we do wield

a dagger in speech, or surreptitiously in

our hearts.’ ”’”

Graham’s dances speak of the women’s

struggle for dominance without guilt. Her

women in such stories as Oedipus, Jo-

casta, and Oresteia become human pro-

tagonists, where previously they had been

“the pawns of gods and men.’”?” For Gra-

ham, a traditional feminine stance could

be adopted only as a weapon or a sign of

weakness. She seldom found a way for

men and women to be equals.””

Identity as Victim.

Female choreographers recount the an-

guish women face as females, being vic-

tims of love, bodily violation by men, and

the battle of the sexes. Graham’s work

presents such images. Her 1984 “Rite of

Spring” shows the female as sacrificial

victim of rape and death. Pina Bausch’s

“Rite of Spring” has “no promise of re-

birth. The only one who dared to love

becomes the victim, and falls seemingly

dead.”

Lesbian Relations.

Women have choreographed dances

about female bonding and lesbianism.

‘“‘Les Biches” (meaning the little does and

colloquially, young woman or little co-

quettes), created in 1924 for Diaghilev’s

Ballets Russes, was Bronislava Nijinska’s

daring ballet that presents a clear though

delicate lesbian relationship in a duet per-

formed by two women. The work reflects

the easy amorality of the ’20s and augurs

the new morality heralded by the 60s.

The Dance Exchange in Washington,

D.C. on March 29, 1985, featured Jo-

hanna Boyce’s choreography, “Ties that

Bind,” based on life history interviews with

lesbian performers. These two women

performed an autobiographical contact

improvisation (a form of modern/post-

modern dance) duet about their relation-

ship, its intimacy, and outsiders’ curiosity

about them. ;

Male choreographers have also made

affectionately sororal pieces. In ““Antique

Epigraphs,”’ Jerome Robbins, inspired by

the Saphic “‘songs of Bilitis,” eight women

GENDER “LANGUAGE” ONSTAGE 23

strike figural poses, lift each other, and

grasp each other’s waists or buttocks.

Gender Role Reversal

and Androgyny.

These are yet other forms of new moves

in dance imaging that challenge the status

quo. During the 1960s a reaction, called

post-modern dance, occurred against

modern dance psychological themes and

narrative stories. Movement in and of

itself became a predominant concern.

Moreover, choreographers at times turned

gender upside down or deemed it irrele-

vant.

“—Intentional Divisions/Implicit Con-

nections,” conceived by Bill T. Jones and

choreographed in conjunction with Julie

West, is a jolting reminder of changing

social patterns in the United States. Jones,

a large, muscular black man who exudes

strength, danced with West, a petite white

woman. Jones throws West over his

shoulder, not an unusual act onstage.

However, moments later, in a reversal

noteworthy for the dramatic contrast in

the two dancers’s looks, the diminutive

woman flips this man who is at least twice

her size and weight!

Gender role reversal in movement also

appears in contemporary ballet. The

Houston Ballet performance of Jiri Ky-

lian’s “Symphony in D”’ is illustrative. In

an about face from the classical ballet in

which women “‘fly” through the air into

the arms of men who catch them, Kylian

has women break the flight of an airborne

man. Three extended their arms to catch

the prone body of a man as he terminated

his leap. Two women lifted a man. Later

a man joined a woman’s dance and dis-

placed her in the women’s group of part-

ners lined up in a row.

Originated by black males, tap dance

used to be for men only. Some white men

became tappers. Nowadays, quite a few

young white women are displaying tech-

niques learned from the dancers of former

generations. Both gender and racial pa-

terns have been reversed.

Asexual Female Images.

Historically perceived as sex objects,

women’s denial or downplaying of their

sexuality conveys a strong statement of

women’s choice and autonomy. For ex-

ample, Yvonne Rainer’s ““Trio A”’ is the

“doing” of a thing rather than the “‘per-

forming” of it “toward a removal of se-

ductive involvement with an audience. The

performers... , for instance, never con-

front the audience; the gaze is constantly

averted as the head is in motion or de-

flected from the body if the body happens

to be frontally oriented.”

Countermoves

The women’s preeminence onstage in

ballet and in the creation of new dance

forms and thematic images spawned a

backlash. Men made efforts to reassert

their dominance as well as derogate women

with images as calculating bitch, clinging

vine, and male castrator. Another coun-

termove was the male travesty company

that spoofed the feminine in ballet.

Athleticism.

One of the early modern dance pi-

oneers, Ruth St. Denis, married Ted

Shawn who studied with her and became

her husband, co-choreographer, and co-

founder of the Denishawn School. Later

Shawn founded his own all-male com-

pany. Self-styled “Papa” of American

modern dance, Shawn said male dancers

were necessary: “Imagine a symphony

played only by piccolos and violins.” Re-

flecting a prevalent male chauvinism and

“put down”’ of women as well as a tur-

bulent personal relationship with St. Denis,

he wanted to restore male dancing to the

dignity he believed it possessed in Greece.

He presented the male dancer as “‘jock”’

24 JUDITH LYNNE HANNA

and proselytized dance through champi-

oning athletics (his dances include fenc-

ing, dribbling a ball and shooting baskets)

and ‘“‘virile” dancing.*

Retaking the Spotlight.

The phenomenon of Rudolf Nureyev’s

defection from the Soviet Union and his

six digit income galvanized a reaction

against 19th century ballets which were

fixated on the ballerina at the expense of

the male dancer. He modified these bal-

lets. Nureyev’s career may be understood

in part as “‘an attempt to gain and hold

center stage without a repertory that places

him there. So he has become the usurper,

encroaching on the ballerina’s territory

with extensions of the Prince’s role or tak-

ing over ‘roles that were more fantas-

fics

In his staging of “Romeo and Juliet”

for the San Francisco Ballet, Michael

Smuin has more significant roles for male

dancers and more boy-boy scenes than is

customary.*? Ben Stevenson’s ‘“‘L” for the

Houston Ballet is an all-male percussion

jazz piece in which men hold each other’s

arms, and they flip each other as they

might flip women.

The situation of males taking over fe-

male roles has gone as far as male dancer

Satoru Shimakazi, in 1982, restaging and

performing in pioneer Isadora Duncan’s

two Scriabin works, her 1929 ‘“‘Mother’’

and 1922 ‘‘Revolutionary.’’° Men also re-

take the spotlight through gay themes and

travesty.

Gay Themes.

Ballets with homosexual themes and love

duets began to emerge following the Ni-

jinsky forerunners in the 1920s, but with

great tact and usually disguised as some-

thing else.”!!7?3 Gay themes tend to de-

crease images of women in dance or pre-

sent them negatively.

As in theatre and cinema, the theme of

the unhappy homosexual was an early one

in dance. ‘Monument for a Dead Boy,”

choreographed by Rudi Van Dantzig, was

one of the first ballets to deal with the

making, life, and death of a homosexual.”

During the seventies there were ballets

such as “The Goldberg Variations,”

“Weewis,” “Mutations,” and “Triad” that

showed the joy and tenderness of differ-

ent ways of love.

Parodies and Passing Drag.

Travesty appears in the several all-male

dance companies with the word Trock-

adero in their titles. The men dance as

females as well as males. Most critics rec-

ognize Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte

Carlo as entertaining burlesque that lov-

ingly and excellently parodies the act of

performance, specific ballets, and partic-

ular styles through informed in-jokes. The

Trocks distinguish stylistic differences

among ballets and know the ballets they

make fun of so perfectly that they are able

to portray roles and roles within roles.

Raymond argues, however, that “all

transsexuals rape women’s bodies by re-

ducing the real female form to an artifact,

appropriating this body for themselves.”

Derogation of Women.

Erik Bruhn, a great danseur noble, re-

fused to dance “Swan Lake” until he had

choreographed a “‘corrective’’ version in

which the evil magician Von Rothbart is

supplanted by evil females. In Bruhn’s

version, the mother is portrayed as bul-

lying, and the villain has become a woman

called the Black Queen, “alter ego of

Siegfried’s domineering mother.”

Anti-woman messages astonish in Jer-

ome Robbins’s ‘“The Cage,” premiered in

1951 by the New York City Ballet. The

story of female spiders who kill their lov-

ers after using them for impregnation is

“angry ... decadent in its concern with

misogyny and its contempt for procrea-

tion.” The piece was theatrically alive in

the 1980s.

William Forsythe’s “Love Songs,”’ pre-

miered in the United States in 1983 by the

GENDER “LANGUAGE” ONSTAGE 25

Robert Joffrey Ballet, presents an ugly

view of man-woman relationships suf-

fused with women deserving of violence

against them.

Unisexuality and Role Reversal.

Unisexuality and role reversal in dance

may be viewed as eliminating the specific

positive character of sex and gender. Al-

win Nikolais, a pioneer in eschewing male

and female polarized stereotypes, re-

sponsed to criticism of being dehuman-

izing: “I work with the human figure as

affected by an environment I set up for it

to move in. . . I’ve always abhorred the

idea of male and female as opposed, as if

we were all walking around in heat. Mod-

ern society forces you to be a sexual ob-

ject rather than a person.”

Conclusion

Danced images evolve from and reso-

nate with the contextual past, present, and

future. The images both reaffirm what is

in society and suggest what might be. The

stage of “pretend” and “play” is apart

from the real world, and, therefore, per-

formance is a safe arena to explore the

dangerous without the penalties of the real

world. Socially constructed kinetic dis-

course conveyed male dominance in the

ballet tradition beginning with Louis XIV.

Modern dance, birthed by women in re-

bellion against the status quo of ballet and

the society at large, gave females new

gender images of independence, stature,

leadership, and even eliminated gender

with androgyny and role reversals. Losing

out to the ballerina in the spotlight during

the 19th and early 20th century, and to

the modern dance matriarchs in the first

half of the 20th century, men reasserted

themselves onstage. Their choreography

featured men and even men alone; more-

over, they appropriated movements for-

merly categorized as female and per-

formed both sexes’ roles, and derogated

women.

Onstage we see a host of sexual and

gender motifs in dance. Theme and vari-

ations range from the sublime to the n-

diculous. Dance conveys the Christian im-

age of the superiority of the virgin and

the danger of the siren. Not only are there

displays of male chauvinism, but at the

same time images embody feminist

thought. We see the battle of the sexes

played out. Dance is sometimes like myth,

an idealized disguise to hide unorthodox

practice or an ideal which is achieved by

none. Weaving prevailing attitudes to-

ward gender before our eyes, dance also

challenges us with alternative life styles:

unisexuality, homosexuality, asexuality.

The images focus on a compelling issue

of human life in our time: the continuing

reconstitution of gender roles and mean-

ings. This subject bears on the perpetual

human struggle with questions of self-

identity and interpersonal relationships.*®

In this era of challenges to dominance

hierarchies and the onset of genetic en-

gineering, an attempt to understand gen-

der relationships is of special significance.

My intention has been to enrich the dis-

course on male/female, body images, and

social change by moving toward spotlight-

ing and clarifying how gender is socially

and culturally constructed and _ trans-

formed in a significant medium of human

transaction--the nonverbal communica-

tion medium of dance, now accessible na-

tionwide through television.

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26 DAVID F. ARMSTRONG

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Word, Sign And Object’

David F. Armstrong

Gallaudet University

In any consideration of “nonverbal”’

communication, it inevitably becomes

necessary to specify where the verbal ends

‘Paper presented in the special interest session on

“Nonverbal Communication” at the 1986 George-

town University Round Table on Languages and

Linguistics

and the nonverbal begins. Since I spend

much of my time in an environment where

unspoken communication is accepted as

language, I find this specification partic-

ularly hard to make. I think that this dis-

tinction becomes particularly difficult as

we attempt to classify different kinds of

events within the context of a sign lan-

guage conversation, and I think that at

WORD, SIGN AND OBJECT 27

some point it becomes necessary to con-

clude that the distinction may not be that

important after all. Deuchar® has recently

written on the question:

—the “verbal” or linguistic has been

sought almost entirely in the speech

channel. This association of language

with one channel exclusively has had

an effect on sign language research,

where attention was at first focused

almost entirely on the activity of the

hands (i.e., the manual channel),

which was assumed to be the locus

of verbal communication in signing.

—evidence that nonmanual as well as

manual behavior can function at var-

ious levels of the language suggests

that we should be wary of equating

one particular channel of language

expression with one particular lin-

guistic function. Such insight may lead

us to dispense with the distinction

between verbal and nonverbal com-

munication in spoken as well as sign

language research. We would then be

free in doing research on spoken

English, for example, to consider an

utterance such as “Yes.” and a head

nod as alternative ways of fulfilling

the same function in the grammar;

while pointing would be seen as an

alternative [or needed accompani-

ment] to a demonstrative “‘this” or

“that.” Thus the common procedure

of selecting a structure and trying to

determine its function would be re-

placed by selecting linguistic func-

tions and establishing how they may

be performed in various channels.

I will be less concerned here with dis-

tinguishing the verbal from the nonverbal

and more concerned with examining the

constraints, both neurolinguistic and

semiotic, imposed by the selection of

auditory as opposed to visual communi-

cation media. I intend to proceed by

considering first some implications of the

perceptual systems that underlie our com-

munication systems and then by relating

these to similarities and differences be-

tween visual-gestural and auditory-vocal

communication. I will cast much of this

in terms of problems in translation.

Inspiration for this paper comes prin-

cipally from two sources: a recent article

by Roger Shattuck” entitled ‘“Words and

Images: Thinking and Translation” and

the work of W. V. O. Quine (1953) on

translational indeterminacy. My paper

draws its title from Quine’s Word and Ob-

ject.'© I will be particularly concerned here

with the relationship among objects in the

world and the words and signs that rep-

resent them, paying particular attention

to the role of the neurolinguistic potential

of the visual and auditory perceptual sys-

tems and the governance of these systems

by higher brain functions. Some defini-

tion of terms is needed here. I intend for

the terms “word’’, “‘sign” and “‘object”

to be understood essentially in their or-

dinary language senses. ““Word”’ should

be understood to mean the ordinary ut-

terances of spoken languages, “‘sign”’ in-

cludes the gestured utterances of signed

languages, especially ASL, and “object”

includes primarily material or physical ob-

jects but also mental contructs, activities,

etc.

Shattuck begins his article with the fo-

lowing quotation from a letter by Coler-

idge:

Is thinking impossible without arbi-

trary signs? And how far is the word

“arbitrary” a misnomer? Are not words,

etc., parts and germinations of the plant?

And what is the law of their growth?

In something of this sort I would en-

deavor to destroy the old antithesis of

words and things; elevating, as it were,

words into things and living things too.

Shattuck uses this rumination on the Pla-

tonic conundrum as a jumping off point

into a consideration of the visual basis of

language. I think it is particularly useful

for those of us who are interested in “‘non-

verbal” or gestural forms of communi-

cation to remember that, from an adap-

tive and neurological point of view, vision

is the primary sense among the primates.

My colleague William Stokoe* makes a

similar point with respect to the primacy

28 DAVID F. ARMSTRONG

of vision in the development of the ca-

pacity for logical processing that underlies

the emergence of grammar. Our language

is shot through with expressions that point

to this visual primacy: when we need to

discover the facts about a crime we seek

an eyewitness, not an earwitness. If we

were dogs we would probably sniff out a

nosewitness, but since we are primates

and not carnivores we look for someone

who saw it done. A primary problem, then,

for human language in an acoustic me-

dium is to render the objects of ordinary

visual experience into auditory symbols.

_ Shatuck suggests that this transformation

process is properly viewed as an act of

translation—in this case, translation of the

contents of the mind into the words of a

spoken language.

This implication of translation in the

cognitive processes underlying language

brings me nicely to my second source of

inspiration: namely, Quine’s treatment of

the question whether it 1s ever possible to

be certain that one language can be trans-

lated into another. Although this question

has generated a great deal of argument

and controversy,” we still appear to lack

a satisfactory answer.’ Quine poses the

question as one of ontology and episte-

mology, not linguistics, and in this regard

he is making a point similar to that made

by Shattuck. Quine points out that the

meanings of words are not the same as

the objects they refer to, and we can ex-

tend this point to an explicitly Whorfian

position with regard to the pervasive in-

fluence of culture and language on the

way we interpret our perceptions.

These observations have important im-

plications for how we should think about

the nonverbal-verbal continuum. Study of

signed languages will be particularly use-

ful in helping us to understand how the

visual becomes verbal. Of course, the main

thing about signed languages is that they

are used by deaf people and so are en-

tirely visual, avoiding, to some extent,

Shattuck’s translation problem. I want to

look at signed languages from two sepa-

rate points of view: the nature of sign for-

mation and development and the neuro-

linguistic processes underlying sign lan-

guage use by congenitally deaf signers.

The thing about signs that most immed-

lately strikes the hearing novice is that they

frequently appear “‘natural’—that is re-

lated in a fairly direct, pictorial sort of way

to the objects they refer to. The semi-

otic term for this, of course, is iconism.

Fundamental iconism in signs has, histor-

ically, been taken as indicative of primi-

tiveness or ‘‘nonverbalness,”’ and it was

the seminal discovery of Stokoe” that

this iconism in American Sign Language

masked a more basic structure that, in-

deed, had a phonological type of organ-

ization. However, despite the application

of linguistic descriptive devices to sign

languages, the “‘feel’’ of an iconic quality

in signing remains, to a much greater ex-

tent than it would for any spoken lan-

guage. And it is clear that the iconic and

indexic qualities of signs have more to do

with the imaging capacity of the human

visual system than with primitiveness.

The relationship of sign and object ap-

pears then, in many cases, to be closer

than the relationship of word and object,

though the iconic imagery in signs may be

obscure or may inhere in “figures of sign’.

If you believe, as many ASL linguists do,

that despite this heavy employment of

iconic or nonarbitrary devices, signed lan-

guages nevertheless possess the requisite

characteristics of natural languages,” then

it is necessary to ask where “‘verbalness’”’

begins and where “‘pure” gesture ends, if

in fact such a strict dividing line can be

located. An interesting example of the

blurring of this line can be found through

examination of the concept of duality of

patterning as it is applied to signed lan-

guages. It has been argued that the proc-

ess by which signed linguistic items be-

come arbitrarily encoded out of an iconic

stock can be traced in the historic devel-

opment of signed languages, that through

this process pictorial gestural items are

compressed into a system that consists of

a small number of conventionalized and

largely arbitrary handshapes and body and

WORD, SIGN AND OBJECT 29

facial movements.’ It is clear that through

this process the conduit that allows for the

creative flow of new signs from panto-

mime and gesture is not broken. Although

we can certainly argue that a parallel

process exists for spoken languages, we

would be hard pressed to show that it is

as invasive or as integral to spoken lan-

guages as it appears to be for signed lan-

guages. In this respect signed languages

have been compared to writing systems

such as the Chinese logographic system

which involve the decoding of complex

visual patterns.’ It is interesting to note

that similar visual processing strategies may

be employed in the decoding of these two

types of visual linguistic systems. This

suggests that there may be continuity be-

tween non-verbal gesture on the one hand

and spoken language on the other through

visual linguistic forms such as signed

languages and logographic written lan-

guages.

The interesting point about neurolin-

guistic studies of congenitally deaf signers

and readers of logogographic writing sys-

tems is that they force us to pay attention

to the perceptual processes that underlie

the communication events. The initial

studies of these systems focussed on sign

and character recognition and arrived at

the not terribly surprising result that rec-

Ognition of these visual communication

devices involves relatively heavy partici-

pation of the right cerebral hemi-

sphere. *!° This is distinct from the way

in which recognition of spoken words is

usually accomplished by hearing people—

namely through left hemisphere process-

ing. Remember that, par excellence, the

right hemisphere is specialized for rec-

ognition of complex visual patterns. Fur-

ther study of both signing and logographic

writing has revealed, however, that basic

grammatical processes in these systems are

controlled by left hemisphere activities very

similar to those involved in the processing

of spoken languages.'®''-? It has been sug-

gested in this regard, that is is necessary

to be very careful about specifying the

level of processing that is involved.” At

the level of the basic percept, the gross

action of the part of the brain most adapted

to the cognitive treatment of input in that

perceptual system comes into play, but

once material is recognized as having a

linguistic function it is treated by centers

in the brain that control specific linguistic,

that is, grammatical functions.

These considerations have important

implications for how we should think about

language in general and translation in

particular, and, in the present instance,

translations of visual codes into auditory

codes. The neurological processes under-

lying these acts of translation remain highly

problematic, but we have several concep-

tual schemes to choose from. The recent

death of the neurologist Norman Ge-

schwind has refocussed interest on the

question of whether higher brain func-

tions, and language in particular, should

be thought of as localized or holistic in

the brain.’* Geschwind was a modern

pioneer of the localization hypothesis

and did much to advance and dissemin-

ate knowledge relating to the nature of

cerebral lateralization. Geschwind, how-

ever, was not concerned only with local-

ization of function per se, but also with

the interconnectedness of the various

functional centers. This view of intercon-

nectedness suggests the beginnings of a

resolution of the localization-holistic po-

larization in neurolinguistic theory. Ex-

treme localization theories are most con-

ducive to linguistic theories that emphasize

the separateness of language from other

cognitive functions. As I suggested ear-

lier, it is possible to take a more complex

look at what is going on in language use.

And here I think we will find greater use

for neurolinguistic theories that stress the

interconnectedness of functional areas

throughout the whole brain. I will refer

here particularly to work of Howard

Gardner and his associates. My purpose

is this. . . if we believe that two types of

communication events are similar, our be-

lief is reinforced by finding similar rep-

resentation in brain function, even if it is

only at a gross level.

30 DAVID F. ARMSTRONG

I am arguing here that theories con-

cerning the neural substrates of language

and communication have been heavily in-

fluenced by traditional theories of what is

linguistic and what is not, and that this

has reinforced a fairly narrow view of lin-

guistic abilities as highly localized to a rel-

atively small area of the left cerebral cor-

tex. Beginning with the observations of

Broca and others in the 19th century, lan-

guage in fact, has provided the model for

modern theories of cerebral localization.

According to the general notion of cere-

bral localization various aspects of be-

havior, such as language, can be com-

partmentalized and controlled by cir-

cumscribed areas in the cerebral cortex.

A considerable body of data also suggests

however, that important aspects of lan-

guage ability are not so localized but in-

volve the whole, intact brain, that is, that

involve the right cerebral hemisphere as

well. I will now attempt to describe these

abilities at greater length.

I have already suggested that sign lan-

guage use appears to involve large areas

of the brain, the right side as well as the

left. Recent literature concerning brain

laterality for spoken language use increas-

ingly supports the hypothesis that the nght

hemisphere is involved in associative or

“metaphoric” aspects of language use.

Terms that have been applied recently to

right hemisphere participation in lan-

guage use include the following: “‘seman-

tic-lexical comprehension’’,’ “‘apprehen-

sion of complex linguistic materials’’,”®

“connotative and associative rather than

precise and denotative’’.’ Recent studies

by Gardner and his associates have indi-

cated other aspects of language in which

the right hemisphere is crucially involved.

These include metaphor’’ and compre-

hension of verbal humor.* In all of these

studies it should be noted that right hemi-

sphere function is necesssary but probably

not sufficient. A final area crucial to lan-

guage use, in which the right hemisphere

is implicated is that of cognitive treatment

of affect.*° What links together all of these

right hemisphere contributions to lan-

guage use is the notion of context”—lin-

guistic context in the case of ‘‘connota-

tion’’, metaphor and verbal humor; social

context also in the case of verbal humor

and in the case of those verbal processes

which involve affect. I maintain that inter-

pretation of contextual cues is intimately

related to visual perception, and recall that

the one thing we do know about the right

hemisphere with some certainty is that it

is implicated in the processing of visual

input. |

I infer from these considerations that

any theory of communication must take

account of these aspects and not simply

account for language in its purely refer-

ential or grammatical aspects. Moreover,

theories purporting to explain brain la-

teralization for language must account not

for language per se as lateralized to the

left hemisphere, but for the lateralization

of various linguistic processes to the two

hemispheres separately and the joint ac-

tion of the two hemispheres in the recep-

tion and production of language. This lat-

ter point has the salutary characteristic of

reminding us that human language is not

just the unitary, sequential, logically or-

ganized communication system of the

grammarian. Rather, it has a variety of

uses and functions, and metaphor and re-

lated devices appear to be central to its

operation. I maintain here and elsewhere’

that one of the primary functions of met-

aphor (but not the only) is to “‘visualize”’

auditory language by taking advantage of

the visual imaging capabilities of the right

cerebral hemisphere.

I pointed out earlier that the neurolin-

guistic studies of signed languages suggest

complex involvement of many parts of the

brain in the processing of communicated

information, and I think that this similar

treatment of spoken language brings me

full circle. Human communication de-

vices, and I will make no attempt to sep-

arate the verbal from the nonverbal, are

complex from perceptual and cognitive

points of view and deserve to be viewed

in all of their complexity.

12.

ley

WORD, SIGN AND OBJECT 31

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Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,

Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 32-35, March 1987

From Literature to Music

and Film: The Myth of

Orpheus and Eurydice

William Franklin Panici

Howard University

One of the most successful ways to in-

tegrate the media while teaching culture

is to develop an interdisciplinary course

in literature, music and film. I had the

opportunity to do so in another institution

where the focus was to provide freshmen

with an experience different from the tra-

ditional subject-oriented courses usually

chosen in one’s first year. The curriculum

was taking on an international studies ap-

proach which meant a reemphasis on for-

eign languages in cross-cultural contexts.

Writing was also an important component

of the program. This meant careful co-

ordination so that students had similar

kinds of writing experiences, i.e. to sum-

marize, to compare and contrast, to ana-

lyze a theme, to do a documented re-

search paper, and even to make an oral

presentation. In my course, the media, in

part, dictated the approach, a bit of the

tail wagging the dog. Here the interest lay

in how each author, composer, or director

refashioned the myth of Orpheus and Eu-

rydice according to the medium in which

he worked.

This paper was presented as part of a special in-

terest session on “The Media and the Teaching of

Cultures” at the Georgetown University Round Ta-

ble on Languages and Linguistics 1986.

32

Trained in literature, experienced in and

an avid enthusiast of opera and eager to

learn something more about film, I de-

signed the course from the point of view

of continuities and contrasts. The theme

of love, of course, was the inspiration for

the choice of this particular myth. But I

also tried to focus on how male/female

relationships were viewed by those deal-

ing with the myth. The cultural references

understandably, are vast. Beginning with

the classical mythographers of Virgil and

Ovid and the philosophy of Orphism which

rivaled Christianity in its day, we move

to the mise a la pratique of the principles

of the Florentine Camerata of the late

sixteenth century in Monteverdi’s Orfeo

(focusing here principally on the male

lover). Then, we breach the baroque pe-

riod to the point at which Gluck’s Orfeo

ed Euridice reestablished similar princi-

ples. Offenbach’s parody, Orphée aux en-

fers of 1858, shows how his version of the

myth reflects the spirit of Paris during the

Second Empire. Film, the great artistic

medium of the twentieth century, offers

yet another perspective on the myth here-

tofore impossible. Cocteau’s version of

Orphée, coming in the wake of WWI takes

on a special meaning in the context of a

rising Fascism and Nazism. And discov-

MYTH OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 33

eries by archeologists of the possibility of

a black Orpheus give rise to Marcel Ca-

mus’ magnificent film of the same name

and set in the third world context of Rio

de Janeiro during Mardi Gras time.

As one can well imagine, the above dis-

ciplines lead one into deep waters not so

easily trodden in one semester by one in-

structor. Virgil’s Georgics and Ovid’s Me-

tamorphoses, of course, force one to come

to grips with a pagan world which used

myth to explain as an early science natural

phenomena, or customs, or religion or used

just for plain entertainment. Whether you

agree with a Robert Graves, for example,

who uses myth to explain a preliterate

society with a matriarchal head (or earth

mother), one must deal with this possi-

bility.° As for Orphism, a reference to

and/or brief discussion of how this reli-

gious movement challenged early Chris-

tianity is not inappropriate to help bridge

the gap between pagan and Christian so-

ciety.’ If Orpheus could descend into hell

and return, then so too could Christ! For-

tunately for me, I had a competent col-

league, a classicist, who was able to en-

lighten my students on this matter.

The leap to 1607 A.D. is obviously an

immense one, not only in time but in sen-

sibility and in cultural context. The ques-

tion, ‘““What is opera?”, must be ad-

dressed without belaboring the point.

Monteverdi’s Orfeo rewrites the myth in

light of the principles of the Florentine

Camerata of the late sixteenth century.

His opera is a great example of the prin-

ciples codified by the Camerata. In their

war against counterpoint, and their effort

to form a perfect union of words and mel-

ody with the former surprisingly domi-

nating the latter, the Camerata estab-

lished three corollaries, i.e. 1) the text

must be clearly understood, 2) the words

must be sung with correct and natural dec-

lamation, and 3) the melody must not de-

pict mere graphic details in the text but

must interpret the feeling of the whole

passage. These esthetic principles formed

the necessary foundation for true dra-

matic music and thus made possible the

creation of opera.” Behind all of this, of

course, was the debate of what came first,

the words or the music. At the same time,

an aria such as Orfeo’s ‘‘Possente spirto”’

begins to sow the seeds of decadence for

the excess of ornamental vocal composi-

tion of the baroque period to follow. To

give you a sense of how the voice range

suits the character, in the first case, how

Orpheus’ florid singing succeeds in per-

suading Charon to let him enter his boat,

in the second case, the basso profondo of

Charon, the boatsman in Hades who

eventually agrees to take Orpheus across

the river, one must listen to the passage

from Act III.

To help once again in adding a dimen-

sion to this work I was unable to give

myself, I was able to call on a colleague

in music who was a specialist of this period

and had done an enormous amount of

research on this particular opera.

Needless to say, the notion that a work

such as Monteverdi’s Orfeo could be the

summa of the principles of the Florentine

Camerata while at the same time the germ

of decadent vocal composition with vocal

pyrotechnics as its goal was a challenge

to make students comprehend. An even

greater challenge was to have them un-

derstand how Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice

of some 150 years later brings the cycle

full round to subordinate the music once

again to the text and remove all unnec-

essary ornament. Between 1607 and 1762,

baroque music complemented a period rich

in literature, art, philosophy and science.

Algarotti’s Treatise on Opera, a manifesto

of operatic reform in 1755, and Winck-

elmann’s History of Ancient Art in 1764,

focussing on Greek art forms and what

they believed to be noble simplicity and

calm greatness, combined in the notion

of the “‘part subordinate to the whole.””

Calzabigi, the librettist for Gluck’s Orfeo

cast the opera into three statuesque ta-

bleaux.’ Musically growing out of Neo-

politan opera seria, the French tragédie

lyrique, the original Italian version of

Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice in Vienna of

1762 featured a castrato in the male role.”

34 WILLIAM FRANKLIN PANICI

By now the recitative/aria structure was

well-established. Cleverly incorporating

the best of all the above, Gluck’s opera

enjoyed great success in Italian in Vienna

and in French in Paris two years later.

Published in Paris in 1784, this work was

the first Italian opera of the 18th century

not by Handel to be accorded the dig-

nity of print. The work succeeded too in

its “yearning for free, simple, unaffected

expression of human feelings.’”

Coming this far in the course, how does

one succeed in having students absorb the

material. This is where the writing com-

ponent of the course comes into play. A

preliminary assignment asks students to

use established reference works to seek

above and beyond the syllabus another

classical treatment of Orpheus and Eu-

rydice, another opera based on the myth,

and at least one modern treatment in lit-

erature. This assignment teaches students

how to begin to use the library and helps

to make them aware of how the myth suc-

ceeds in appealing time and time again.

After the mythological treatments of the

myth have been covered, a written as-

signment asks students to summarize the

story. They are to follow an order in the

assignment. As a matter of fact, all as-

signments in the course are given to the

students in written form so there is no

misunderstanding of what is expected of

them. Once the Monteverdi and Gluck

operas have been studied, another written

assignment has students compare and

contrast the two versions of the myth us-

ing an A + B or A/B method. Let me

add that a handbook is used with the

course, Elizabeth McMahan’s A Crash

Course in Composition, to help answer

questions students may have about writ-

ing.* As you can see, the assignments are

designed to train the students in a number

of different writing techniques. Before the

end of the course, they are asked to do

several things; 1) to plan a two week pe-

riod of the course itself by choosing and

justifying two works to study, 2) to re-

search another original version of the myth

and to prepare an oral presentation of it

using text, recording, or tape, and 3)

eventually to write their own myth while

taking into consideration the nature of

myth and the people about whom myth

is written.

I have postponed until now my discus-

sion of the use of film in the course, simply

because I wanted to proceed chronolog-

ically. And while Cocteau’s Orphée pro-

vides a fascinating interpretation of the

myth with Orpheus as a poet and hell being

through the other side of the mirror, the

real cinematic achievement, in my opin-

ion, is Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus

(Orfeu Negro) of 1960. Students were

taught to read film in a number of ways.

First, a guest lecturer gave an excellent

overview of the subject. Second, a fine

chapter called “Writing About Film” in

Sylvan Barnet’s A Short Guide to Writing

About Literature was immensely useful

for it reviewed some of the elements of

the above lecture and offered sample es-

says one of which was Kurosawa’s Throne

of Blood, a Japanese Macbeth.' Finally,

my own reading in film, scant though it

was, helped to articulate some of the tech-

niques discussed all along. In Portuguese,

Black Orpheus is set in contemporary Rio

during Mardi Gras time. Orpheus, a trol-

ley car driver, is looking forward to Car-

nival with his sweetheart Eurydice. She,

however, is stalked by a masked figure

representing death. This Orpheus pos-

sesses all the qualities of the mythical fig-

ure. He is a guitar playing, sweet singing,

pacifier of animals some of which share

his own house. A folk hero of young boys

who believes he can cause the sun to rise

with his singing, this Orpheus also sings

of “returning life.” The signs of destiny

(fate) are ever present: the caged bed-

room of the live birds, the scarf kept by

Orpheus and then torn in two during the

Carnival, the loss of the amulet Eurydice

wears around her neck, and Death stalk-

ing Eurydice throughout. When Eurydice

dies, she is killed accidentally (and iron-

ically) by Orpheus himself when he turns

on the electricity in the trolley barn, send-

ing a charge through the high wire to which

MYTH OF ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE 35

Eurydice is clinging. Orpheus has lost Eu-

rydice. He goes off searching for her and

his search takes him to a municipal build-

ing, a kind of witch’s sabbath or voodoo

house where Orpheus’s lack of faith

(doubts) cause him to lose Eurydice once

again. This segment of the film gives one

the sense of how a modern cultural con-

text is used to help communicate an age-

less myth.

Has the Orpheus myth now run its

course? To quote Jean-Paul Sartre in ‘Or-

phée noir,’ his preface to Senghor?: “‘I

shall name this poetry “orphic’’ because

the untiring descent of the Negro into

himself causes me to think of Orpheus

going to reclaim Eurydice from Pluto.”

What about modern day black American

Orpheuses such as James Baldwin, Langs-

ton Hughes, Stevie Wonder, Simon Estes,

and Vinson Cole? And in this day of

changing male/female relationships and

the greater responsibilities being assumed

by women, perhaps we are on the verge

of a Eurydice snatching the gift of music

and poetry, or poetry and music, as you

will, from Orpheus? Have we arrived at

the age of the female Orpheus the likes

of which we can see in figures like Gwen-

dolyn Brooks, Alice Walker, Leontyne

Price, and Jessye Norman?

References Cited

1. Barnet, S. 1975. 3rd ed. A Short Guide to Writing

About Literature. Little, Brown and Co. Boston,

pp. 192-218.

2. Grout, D. J. 1965 [1947]. A Short History of

Opera. Columbia University Press. New York,

pp. 34-37.

3. Hutchings, A. n.d. Gluck and Reform Opera.

London recording of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice.

4. McMahan, E. 1981 [1973]. A Crash Course in

Writing. McGraw-Hill. New York.

5. Senghor, L. 1948. ed. Anthologie de la nouvelle

poésie négre et malgache d’expression francaise.

Presses Universitaires de France. Paris, p. 21.

6. The Greek Myths. 1964 [1955]. Penguin Books.

Baltimore, pp. 9-23.

7. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. 1970. Ed. by

N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard. Claren-

don Press. Oxford, pp. 759-60.

Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,

Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 36-39, March 1987

Diplomacy and Communication

across Cultures: Degrees

of Cultural Barriers

David Bowen and Margareta Bowen

Georgetown University

The wall inscriptions in the necropolis

of the Princes of Elephantine are one of

the earliest recorded references to the use

of interpreters in trade relations and for

expeditions beyond Ancient Egypt’s bor-

ders. The Princes of Elephantine were

foreign affairs experts who were entrusted

with highly important and often difficult

political, economic and occasionally mil-

itary missions.” The ability to interpret is

mentioned as one of many other attri-

butes, because it was considered second-

ary to the main function, that of admin-

istrator, trader, diplomat or warrior. The

Princes of Elephantine were from a bor-

der area, probably half Nubian them-

selves.

This is a situation we find repeated

throughout history, whenever interpret-

ing had to be done between what was con-

sidered the “civilized world’ and the

‘Barbarians’, e.g. people outside the

“superpowers” of their time. Often the

interpreters were of mixed parentage or

members of a minority.

This paper was presented as part of a special in-

terest session on “Diplomacy and Communication

Across Cultures” at the Georgetown University

Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1986.

36

A different approach to communica-

tion was taken by expansionist empires.

Their languages became a lingua franca,

sometimes for centuries, e.g. Latin in the

Roman Empire and long after it had bro-

ken up, Spanish after the Conquista,

French in seventeenth and eighteenth

century Europe, English as the British

Empire grew. However, with the spread

of these languages, an interaction with

other languages set in and led to new lan-

guages or dialects (vulgar Latin and the

Romance languages from Latin, Pidgin

from English, Creole from French).

Apart from the disadvantages of lan-

guage change, whenever there was a very

marked disparity between two strong cul-

tures the solution of the lingua franca would

be out of the question. European-Turkish

relations in the seventeenth and eight-

eenth centuries are a case in point. The

Sublime Porte saw Western Europe as an

area to be converted and conquered and

refused to adopt a common, Western lan-

guage. Therefore interpreters had to be

found and the first efforts to train them

were made. Several European monarchs

instituted schools to teach Turkish and

other languages of the Middle East; France

had one in Constantinople, one in Smyrna

DEGREES OF CULTURAL BARRIERS 37

and then one in Paris (at the Jesuit Col-

lege which later became Lycee Louis-le-

Grand); the famous Ecole des Langues

Orientales in Paris is the final result of

these efforts.* In the case of the Habsburg

Empire, training of interpreters for the

extensive dealings with Turkey led to the

establishment of the Diplomatische Aka-

demie which is still in existence today.

It was only with the advent of nation-

alism and the Industrial Revolution in the

19th century that the use of several lan-

guages at international gatherings became

more frequent. Gradually, the diplomats

who had been raised by English nannies

and French governesses would be out of

their depth in spite of the early language

training which was part of an elite edu-

cation: international negotiation would

become more technical and the number

of working languages grew. Today, six

languages are used at the high-level meet-

ings of the United Nations, nine at the

European Communities, and no diplomat

could be expected to work without any

interpretation whatsoever.

Various inter-allied negotiations during

World War I, the Paris Peace Conference

of 1919, and the preparatory conferences

for the League of Nations were the first

major occasions at which both French and

English were used. Wilson’s interpreter

was Colonel Bonsall, who had been a

newspaper correspondent.’ After the out-

break of hostilities he joined the US Army

and was assigned to headquarters in Paris.

There Colonel House, who was a man of

one language himself, asked for Bonsall

to act as interpreter for President Wilson

and House himself during all the meet-

ings.

At this point we should make some dis-

tinctions depending on the position in

which the users of interpretation services

find themselves. The case of the Paris Peace

Talks appears as the normal one: the user

has recourse to translation because he does

not understand the other delegations’ lan-

guage at all and depends entirely on the

interpreter. More frequently, however,

users have some, albeit imperfect under-

standing of the other working languages.

At a certain level of negotiations between

the representatives of sovereign states,

mainly for reasons of prestige or for me-

dia coverage, interpretation may be re-

quested even if most of the participants

are quite conversant with the languages

spoken by their counterparts.

In the case of consecutive interpreta-

tion between two languages, a consider-

able degree of control is exercised over

the performance of the interpreter be-

cause some participants always under-

stand both. In large, multinational bod-

ies, a limited number of working languages

invariably means that many participants

have to express themselves in a language

other than their own, a situation which in

itself leads to problems of communication

across cultures. The situation of total de-

pendence on the interpreters occurs only

when languages like Turkish, Thai, Jap-

anese, or Arabic must be used, which are

hardly ever taught in secondary schools

in Europe or in the United States.

In large intergovernmental bodies, the

user will be protected by a hierarchy within

language services. In the case of written

translations, revisers and terminologists

are responsible for consistency and the

implementation of style rules. The chief

translator will see to a stringent selection

of candidates to translators’ posts. It is

taken for granted that almost every trans-

lation that is commissioned, or assigned,

will be used, not only for information, but

also as the basis of discussion. And the

people who will either write the text to

begin with, or who will be discussing it,

may not necessarily be expressing them-

selves in their own language. They may

find themselves having to use one of the

official languages of the organization. In

most cases, it is English. English texts may

be produced by people who are not Eng-

lish speakers themselves and the whole

text may be thrown off. When the source

text is written in a language other than

English, it must be put into a neutral,

easily-understandable English, even for

people whose English is not necessarily

38 DAVID BOWEN AND MARGARETA BOWEN

that strong. Jean Datta calls this compro-

mise “‘a tightrope walking act’’.? A chief

interpreter and, in larger organizations,

an assistant chief interpreter per language

used, is responsible for recruitment and

testing.

The role of the interpreter is also in-

fluenced by the following: international

meetings have their specific purposes, and

each delegation or participant may pursue

specific ends, have a hidden agenda, so

to speak. As professional interpreting de-

veloped, the users of these services be-

came increasingly aware of the need to

have well informed interpreters, well ed-

ucated ones, so steeped in the speaker’s

culture that they are able to understand

every nuance of the principals’ reasoning.

The case of Paul Schmidt’ when working

for the delegation of the Weimar Republic

at Locarno and Geneva is a good exam-

ple. He describes his particular tightrope-

walking act, which would go well when

he had been well briefed, and which led

to complaints whenever the interpreter was

treated as a “language machine’. The im-

portance of an interpreter’s understand-

ing of subject matter is discussed in great

detail by Danica Selekovitch,® as well as

the difference between general under-

standing and a specialist’s understanding.

Schmidt also mentions the dilemma of

nationality or origin for diplomatic inter-

preters: While the German Foreign office

wished to have interpreters working into

their mother tongue only, a practice com-

mon in the League of Nations as a matter

of course, it was decided that “‘delicate

negotiations could not be handled by a

foreigner” and Schmidt translated into

French for the German delegation at the

meetings of the League of Nations, where

the French version was the only official

one for the record. The interpreter’s na-

tionality and clearance continue to be a

major concern for most government lan-

guage services today.

The professional organizations, which

began to be formed as interpreting grew,

use language classification systems to clar-

ify their members’ qualifications. The

American Association of Language Spe-

cialists (TAALS) uses the following def-

initions for interpreters:

A: Principal active language(s) into

which they interpret and which they

speak as a native.

B: Other active language(s) into which

they interpret.

B*: Other active language(s) into which

they interpret consecutively only.

C: Languages from which they inter-

pret regardless of difficulties of termi-

nology or idiom.

The user has to make a choice between

employing nationals only, possibly only

native-born citizens of the country, who

work into their B or B* language, or call-

ing on foreigners or expatriates who had

their high school and college education

abroad. The “nationals only” rule is most

strictly applied by the Soviet Union, which

maintains a large Institute for the training

of language specialists. Even for com-

mercial translation, many countries’ im-

migration rules are so strict that most of

the work into foreign languages is per-

formed by non-native speakers into their

B language.° The layperson must bear

in mind that “fluency” or “near-native

fluency’’, the terms most frequently used

to describe a person’s language capability,

are extremely vague terms—hence the

need for a clearer definition by language

ratings. Academically, the distinction be-

tween CALP (Cognitive Academic Lan-

guage Proficiency) and BICS (Basic In-

terpersonal Communication Skills) as

defined by the Ontario Institute of Studies

in Education’ is very useful in describing

to students the levels to be attained by

language study, but does not sufficiently

describe the resources necessary to work

into a language simultaneously.

Language qualifications are only the

most obvious aspect of interpreting per-

formance. Many attempts have been made

to quantify the accuracy achieved by the

interpreter, for “objective” tests in par-

ticular and for court interpreting. Ever

since machine translation became a re-

DEGREES OF CULTURAL BARRIERS 39

search topic, the percentage of accuracy

began to be talked about very much.

Should it be 70 percent, or more, or less?

Would an accuracy of 98 to 99 percent

look fine to you? It depends on what the

1 or 2 percent error was.

Take the following case, which was re-

ported by a colleague, a retired confer-

ence interpreter in Vienna who was in-

volved with the matter as an investigator

after the fact. In World War II, during the

North Africa campaign, the Afrika Korps

called in a native informant to ask about

places in the desert where water could be

found. This was in Libya, which had been

colonized by the Italians and the native

informant used Italian as his vehicular

language. An interpreter, also local, had

to go from Italian to German and from

German to Italian to get the questions and

answers across. On the basis of the in-

formation obtained, a patrol was sent out

into the desert. Off the fifteen men went,

full of confidence that there was water

here, water there. They never came back.

This is when our colleague was called in

from Italy to investigate the matter. He

had the whole exchange of questions and

answers re-enacted, and the informant’s

answers ran something like this: (pointing

to the map) “C’é aqua qui’’, “C’é salsa-

mare qui.”, ““C’é acqua in questo posto

qui” and so on. The interpreter rendered

all these statements as ““There is water

here’’. Probably he did not know the word

salsamare (brackish water), but for the

patrol of fifteen Germans out in the de-

sert, that difference between drinking

water and brackish water was a matter of

life and death. Now, if one tried to cal-

culate a percentage of error, it would be

something like 1.4 to 0.7 percent: in a

discussion in which actual discourse took

five or ten minutes at an average rate of

about 140 words a minute, the total word

count would be from 1400 to 700 words

and salsamare may have come up ten times.

Actually only one word, one unit of trans-

lation was wrong. But this very low per-

centage of error cost fifteen men their lives.

The striking feature of this example, of

course, is insufficient knowledge of the

source language on the part of the inter-

preter. But why did the native informant

bring up the matter of brackish water at

all? If the original question was framed

correctly, as it was in the minds of the

questioners, there appears to have been

no reason for mentioning brackish water.

Two possible explanations come to mind:

Either fear, the native informant being

very much aware that an invading army

could shoot him out of hand and wanting

to tell all he knew as proof of his coop-

eration, or an insufficient grasp of the sit-

uation (not a caravan, but fifteen. men

about to go out into the desert needing

drinking water, but not vegetation for an-

imals).

We hope to have shown that language

is the first, but by no means the only factor

coming to play in communication across

cultures. The power relationships be-

tween the cultures involved and interna-

tional etiquette, the explicitness of what

is said by the principals, ongoing inter-

preter briefing and training are equally

important. All participants in the com-

munication process must contribute to

making it work.

References Cited

1. Bonsall, S. 1944. Unfinished Business. Double-

day and Company, Inc. Garden City, New York.

2. Cummins, J. 1980. The Construct of Language

Proficiency in Bilingual Education. In: Alatis,

J. E. (ed.) Current Issues in Bilingual Education,

Georgetown University Round Table on Lan-

guages and Linguistics. Georgetown University

Press. Washington, D.C.

3. Datta, J. 1985. Translation, a Tightrope Walking

Act. Outreach Paper, National Resource Center

for Translation and Interpretation.

4. Degros, M. 1984. Les Jeunes sous la Revolution

et ’Empire. Revue d’Histoire Diplomatique, 1-

2. A. Pedone. Paris.

5. Kurz, I. 1985. The Rock Tombs of the Princes of

Elephantine, Outreach Paper, National Resource

Center for Translation and Interpretation.

6. McMillan, E. N. 1982. Two-way Translation: is

it Possible? NCRTI Outreach Paper.

7. Schmidt, P. 1954. Statist auf diplomatischer Buhne.

Athenaum Verlag. Bonn.

8. Seleskovitch, D. 1978. Interpreting for Interna-

tional Conferences. Pen and Booth. Washington,

De:

Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences,

Volume 77, Number 1, Pages 40-46, March 1987

Francophonie in Africa:

Some Obstacles

by Paulin G. Djité

Howard University

Introduction

The colonial policy which had imposed

French as the sole medium of administra-

tion and instruction in Africa has been a

failure.’ This state of affairs has prompted

the revival of French and a movement

called Francophonie has been created to

organize all efforts for its maintenance and

diffusion. This paper examines some so-

cio-political and linguistic facts, together

with language attitudes data, which are or

will prove to be major stumbling blocks

in the success of Francophonie. The paper

essentially argues that French is not the

language of the masses and, to that ex-

tent, Francophonie is a vain enterprise.

I. The Concept, Reality and Objective

of Francophonie

The Concept of Francophonie

The idea of a Francophone community

was first mentioned in March 1962 by

This paper was presented as part of a special in-

terest session on “Language Policies in Africa” at

the Georgetown University Round Table on Lan-

guages and Linguistics 1986.

40

Léopold Sédar Senghor, former president

of Sénégal and now a member of the

French Academy. Together with Habib

Bourguiba of Tunisia and Hamani Diori

of Niger, he campaigned for a movement

which would express “un mode de pensée

et d’action, une certaine maniére de poser

les problémes et d’en trouver les solu-

tions”’ (a mode of thought and action, a

certain way of approaching problems and

of solving them).'° To this date, L.S. Sen-

ghor is still the one who provides us with

the most original definition of Franco-

phonie: “1. L’ensemble des états, des pays

et des régions qui emploient le Frangais

comme langue nationale, langue offi-

cielle, langue de communication inter-

nationale ou, simplement, comme langue

de travail; 2. L’ensemble des personnes

qui emploient le Frangais dans les différ-

entes fonctions que voila; 3. La commu-

nauté d’esprit qui résulte de ces différents

emplois.’’*

*All the states, countries and regions that use

French as a national language, an official language,

a language of international communication or, sim-

ply, a working language; 2. All persons who use

French in all the above functions; 3. The community

of thought which results from all these different uses."°

FRANCOPHONIE IN AFRICA: SOME OBSTACLES 41

The Reality of Francophonie

The membership of Francophonie now

includes 37 full or associate member states

and 2 participating governments.'’ At the

first summit in the history of the move-

ment (Paris, February 17-19, 1986), 42

delegations were present of which 16 heads

of states and 12 heads of governments.

The member states of Francophonie can

be subdivided into four major groups:

The first group is one in which French

is the dominant and practically the sole

language in the country or over most of

the territory. Other languages are de-

mographically less important. This group

may be represented by France itself.

In the second group, French is one of

the national languages. This group may

be represented by Canada, Belgium,

Switzerland and Luxembourg. In these

countries, bilingualism or multilingualism

is Officially recognized, supported and

promoted.

In the third group, French is the only

official language, and in many cases, the

sole language of administration and in-

struction. This group is mainly repre-

sented by French-speaking Africa and by

those countries where the first language

is a French creole (e.g, Haiti, Martinique,

Guadeloupe, etc.).

In the fourth and last group, French is

one of the languages of limited use. This

group includes Lebanon, Iran, and many

north African countries.

Another important element of the real-

ity of Francophonie is the number of

agencies and associations that support the

movement and the nature of that support.

Financially, Francophonie is supported by

the Agence de Coopération Culturelle et

Technique (ACCT), an agency founded

by African heads of states in 1970 in Nia-

mey, Niger. The ACCT has a budget of

about $20 million, 46 percent of which

come from France, 35 percent from Can-

ada and 12 percent from Belgium. All other

member states contribute only 7 percent

to the budget (Weinstein™). Franco-

phonie is also supported by many other

organizations such as the Association of

Universities Partially or Entirely of French

Language (AUPELF), the International

Council of the French Language (CILF),

the International Association of French

Language Legislators (AIPLF), and many

professional societies.

Recently, three new committees have

been created by Mitterand’s socialist gov-

ernment: 1. Le Haut Conseil de la Fran-

cophonie, 2. Le Commissariat Général de

la langue Frangaise, and 3. Le Comité

Consultatif pour la Francophonie. These

committees come in addition to the Min-

istére de la Coopération et du Dével-

oppement, and the Direction Générale des

Relations Culturelles, Scientifiques et

Techniques of the Ministére des Affaires

Etrangéres (DGRCST).

The Objective of Francophonie

The main objective of Francophonie is

to preserve and expand the status of the

French language. As Jacques Chirac,

Mayor of Paris and now Prime Minister

of France puts it: “. . . afin que le Fran-

gais ne devienne pas le Latin des mod-

ernes”’ (so that French does not become

the Latin of the 20th century) (Chirac in

Fraternité Matin, Feb. 1986). However,

the ACCT claims that its objective is to

help in education, in scientific and tech-

nological cooperation, in social and eco-

nomic development, and in the promo-

tion of the national cultures and languages.

In the words of L.S. Senghor: “Pour nous,

cest une greffe sur notre culture. La

Francophonie ne s’oppose pas, comme

certains le craignent, aux cultures nation-

ales, a la négritude ou a l’arabisme.”’*

Francophonie also aims at providing a

political basis for the linguistic solidarity

of peoples who share the same language.

The first summit in Paris suggests that this

is indeed an important objective. In the

*“For us, it is a plus to our culture. Francophonie

is not in opposition to the national cultures, to “né-

gritude” or ‘“‘arabism’”’ as it is feared by some”’

(Senghor”). .

42 PAULIN G. DJITE

words of the Prime Minister of Canada,

Brian Mulroney, the summit was “a golden

opportunity for the developing countries

to tell President Mitterand and myself

about their disastrous economic situations

and their debts, knowing that we will be

meeting very soon with President Reagan

in Tokyo” (cf. Fraternité Matin, Feb.

1986). In support of this, at the end of the

summit, in lieu of Mitterand’s press con-

ference, it was Houphouét-Boigny, Pres-

ident of the Ivory Coast, who took the

floor and called upon the rich nations to

help the African “wretched of the earth.”’

And, in the reading of the general report,

Robert Baroussa, Prime Minister of Qué-

bec, listed 28 resolutions which were mostly

political and economic.

II. The Importance of French in Africa

The Role of French in Africa

French in Africa is the dominant writ-

ten medium. But, as J.P. Dannaud, for-

mer Director of the Coopération Cultu-

relle et Technique, recognized in the early

sixties, only 10 percent of Africans, Mal-

agasy included, understand French; only

1 or 2 percent are fluent in it, and only 2

out of every thousand can actually think

in French. (cf. Juin 1966).

The statistics today are not encouraging

either. For instance, Partman found in 1979

that only 5.3 percent of Ivorians use what

she calls “Standard Ivorian French”’ (as

opposed to Standard French). And

Lafage’ reported that only 5 percent of

the Ivorians speak Standard French.

Numbers about other French-speaking

African countries are similar, if not worse.

Many scholars and numerous studies

blame the increasing numbers of school

drop-outs on the exclusive use of French

as the language of instruction and on the

way it is taught (cf. Champion;? Dogbe

1979; Makouta-Mboukou;"° and also World

Bank Report”). In the words of a former

minister of education of the Ivory Coast,

“the school, instead of being a factor of

development, has reached a point where

it is a source of desintegration of society

and a source of alienation of the individ-

ual. It has become an obstacle to har-

monious evolution and political equilib-

rium for it does not integrate the child

into his traditional environment, but gives

him a means to escape it without provid-

ing him with what he needs to live up to

the demands of the mainstream of mod-

ern society”’ (cf. Proceedings of the IVth

Congress of the P.D.C.I.).

As a result, French in Africa today is

the language of ordinary intercourse among

the upper class. This is a natural result of

circumstances. The major concern of the

elite and the political rulers is to hold on

to the privileges the knowledge of French

provides. French is therefore the lan-

guage of prestige and the only medium

for official business.

The Attitudes Towards French

Almost all language attitude research

indicate that the people do not despise

French. The reasons for this are mainly

instrumental: mastery of French not only

confers a better socio-economic status, it

insures access to scientific and technolog-

ical knowledge.

A study of young native speakers of

Baoulé by Marcomer’’ showed that 73

percent of them picked French when asked

about the language they would choose if

it was necessary for all to speak the same

language. A similar study of young Dida

by Ferrari?’ showed that 73.1 percent of

the informants chose French over any other

Ivorian language. Recently, a language

attitude study of four major languages of

the Ivory Coast (Baoulé, Dyula, Guéré

and Wobé) conducted by this author

showed that 61.66 percent of the 120 re-

spondents rejected the idea of a local lan-

guage, even their own, being chosen as a

national language. The results were sig-

nificant at P < .001. In fact, 75 percent

of the respondents rejected the idea of a

local language, even their own, being used

as a language of instruction. These results

FRANCOPHONIE IN AFRICA: SOME OBSTACLES 43

were also significant at P < .001. The main

reason for these rejections was that the

informants did not believe their languages

could successfully meet the challenges of

the modern world, Djité.’?, Duponchel®

study elicited the reasons underlying such

attitudes; and they are: (in order of im-

portance):

1. that French is the language of the white

man,

2. that French is the language of progress

and modern life,

3. that French is the language of power,

happiness and upward socioeconomic

mobility, and

4. that French is a neutral language that

does not create any ethnic rivalries.

Essentially then, the attachment to

French has been shown to be instrumen-

tally motivated. However, it is very im-

portant to realize that the predisposition

to learn French does not necessarily trans-

late into its actual mastery. The number

of individuals still illiterate in French in

Africa is enough evidence to support this

assertion. It is no exaggeration therefore

to suggest that these positive attitudes are

merely the expressions of an ideal. As a

consequence, French is not gaining any

real new grounds. In the same language

attitude study cited above (Djité’), Pop-

ular French (or Ivorian French not Stan-

dard French) comes in second positon for

“languages most resorted to” (behind

Dyula), in second position (behind Dyula

again) for “languages spoken to/with

friends.”’

Iii. The Importance of African

Languages

The Linguistic Potential of

French-Speaking Africa

The neglect of the local languages, al-

though it has severely handicapped them,

has not eradicated them. Today, the lin-

guistic potential of French-speaking Af-

rica is almost intact.

Many monolingual states such as Bu-

rundi, Rwanda, Somalia and Madagas-

car, all things considered, could easily re-

duce the functional domains of French.

This is a linguistic fact whether or not it

is supported by the existing language pol-

icy. Over 50 percent of the population in

Burundi speak some form of Swahili and

35 percent of the programs on the exter-

nal service of Radio Burundi are in Kis-

wahili and 65 percent of the children ed-

ucated in Kirundi have access to higher

education (Decraene*). In Rwanda, Swa-

hili is spoken by over 10 percent of the

population and its is broadcast on national

radio. Likewise, the North African states

of Mauritania, Tunisia and Morroco, Ar-

abic is dominant in almost all aspects of

everyday life.

Many multilingual states also have

dominant languages which in everyday in-

teractions play a much more significant

role than French. Such is the case of Diola,

Malinké, Pular, Sérére, Soninké and Wolof

in Sénégal, all of which are officially rec-

ognized as national languages. Research

is under way to introduce some of them

in the educational system.* Texts were

already produced in Wolof in 1732, and

recently, the late Cheik Anta Diop has

translated Einstein’s ‘““Theory of Relativ-

ity” into Wolof to make the point that an

African language can be used for scientific

purposes. In Niger, Hawsaa (51%) and

Songay-Zarma (21%) are the two domi-

nant languages (Laya’*). Hawsaa has a long

tradition of writing in ’Ajami dating all

the way back to the 10th century (Bat-

testini, personal communication). In Togo,

Ewé and Mina, two mutually intelligible

languages are dominant in the south of

the country; the north which has no known

dominant language could be represented

by Kabyé (or Kabré) which has already

been declared one of the national lan-

guages of Togo. Ewé which has a long

tradition of literacy (first texts date from

1658) is, together with Kabyé, written in

*In 1973, L.S. Senghor signed a decree for the

introduction of Wolof in elementary schools.

44 PAULIN G. DJITE

the government-owned newspaper (La

Nouvelle Marche or Azoli Yeye). In Mali,

Bambara and Fulfuldé are regionally

dominant. “‘Kibaru” a rural newspaper,

created in 1972, is written in Bam-

bara, Peulh, Sonrhai and Tamasheq

(Decraene’*). In Zaire, Swahili is spoken

by over 10 million people and together

with Lingala, Tshiluba (also Kiluba or

Kiluba-Matadi) and Kikongo (also Ki-

kongo Ya Leta), is a national language.

In Congo, Lingala and Kikongo (also Mu-

nukutuba) are officially recognized as the

national languages. In Burkina Faso where

it was estimated in 1980 that 90 percent

of the population was illiterate in French

(Decraena’*) Jula is dominant in the west

and Mooré in the east.

Even in those countries where no dom-

inant language is officially recognized, so-

ciolinguistic studies of language use and

language attitudes suggest some interest-

ing patterns. In the Ivory Coast, scores of

studies show that Dyula is more popular

and more frequently used than French in

domains other than the administration and

the school (cf. Partman;”° Lafage;'*8 Hat-

tiger;’ Djité;’ and many others . . .). In

fact, it is not rare to see people speak

Dyula or another local language in the

office. The facts show therefore that lan-

guage is not so divisive in Africa as some

have tried to suggest it is. These divisions

are not perceived as genuine by the peo-

ple (Djité’). It is interesting to note that

in most of the countries just discussed,

the people will almost always address you

in one of the local languages, usually the

lingua franca or the regionally dominant

language, unless they have reason to be-

lieve that you may not understand them.

It is also interesting to note that, in some

cases, these languages spread across po-

litical boundaries. Such is the case of Swa-

hili in Burundi, Congo, Rwanda and Zaire,

of Lingala and Tshiluba or Kokongo in

Zaire and Congo, of Dyula in Burkina

Faso, Mali and the Ivory Coast. All of

this suggests the existence of monolingual

nuclei with bilingual sattelites. The lin-

guistic potential of French-speaking Af-

rica definitely shows that most African

languages have overcome the potential of

“glottophagie” of French and are sur-

passing it functionally (Calvet 1974).

Whether this is recognized or not, they

will continue to pose a threat to the ex-

pansion of French and to the movement

of Francophonie.

The Attitudes Towards the

African Languages

As in the case of English during the

French invasion from the 11th to the 15th

century, African languages today are be-

lieved to be inadequate to access scientific

and technological knowledge (Baugh &

Cable;' Williams;* Decraene*). French is

allegedly more precise, harmonious, clear

and logical (Diderot®). Both in England

and Africa, when French was imposed, it

was to “‘elevate”’ the local populations to

the brilliant culture and civilization that

were inherent to French only.

This belief of the universal superiority

of French was best expressed by Diderot

when he wrote: “Nous disons les choses

en Francais comme lesprit est forcé de

les considérer en quelque langue qu’on

écrive ... Le Frangais est fait pour in-

struire, éclairer et convaincre.. .’’”*

This belief was certainly shared by the

late Georges Pompidou, former president

of France, when he said: “I have seen in

Africa, for example, that people belong-

ing to the same ethnic group think dif-

ferently and have a different approach to

problems depending on whether they spoke

English or French.’

Some elements of the African elite also

share this belief and have gone so far as

to say: ‘““Let’s speak either French, Eng-

lish, Arabic, Chinese or Russian; but

please, let’s speak without wasting time.””

This kind of support to the unscientific

belief that the language shapes the speak-

er’s ‘‘Weltanschauung” has been cata-

*““We say things in French as the mind is forced

to conceive them in whatever language we

Write’ <.;7cte™

FRANCOPHONIE IN AFRICA: SOME OBSTACLES 45

strophic with regard to the general belief

of the masses, in so far as it has convinced

them that their mother tongue is inferior

to French.

Another belief is the one according to

which the multilingual situation of Africa

is a barrier to national cohesion and un-

derstanding, and that French is the only

neutral language which can guarantee na-

tional unity. This argument is being rid-

den to death by those who still see Africa

as a chaotic grouping of “‘tribes.”” And it

is no exaggeration to suggest that the im-

petus behind Francophonie is partly based

on that kind of assumption. A closer look

at the multilingual picture of Africa, as

shown above, yields interesting patterns

of monolingual nuclei and bilingual sat-

telites. Even if such was not the case, ar-

guments that suggest that the fewer the

number of languages, the greater the sense

of unity seem to ignore the case of Bel-

gium which has only two major languages.

IV. The Socio-Political Obstacles to

Francophonie

The Economic Limitations

The economies of most French-speak-

ing African states simply do not look good.

They can not take care of their own prob-

lems and it would really be too much to

ask them to support Francophonie. This

explains their meager and symbolic con-

tributin to ACCT (less than 7 percent for

all 25 African member states).

This economic weakness reflects that of

the former colonizer. France is no longer

the exclusive trader with French-speaking

Africa which has turned to the United

States, Japan, West Germany and the So-

viet Union for help. Culturally, econom-

ically and politically, it has a difficult time

competing with the United States and Ja-

pan. In the face of its own difficulties,

France will not be able to maintain its

considerable support to ACCT and Fran-

cophonie for ever. Soon or later, the funds

will have to be cut and put to more urgent

priorities such as unemployment. The re-

cent decisions to discourage the immigra-

tion of workers and the rise of xenophobia

in France (spearheaded by Le Pen) are

warning signs of this. Incidentally and

ironically, the $20 million budget of the

ACCT, at the first summit of Franco-

phonie in Paris, is now said to be $13

million (100 millions of French Francs)"

The Political Problems

Tied in with the economic limitations

are the political problems within most

French-speaking Africa. To put it mildly,

the policies of these countries are not

helping the cause of Francophonie. The

language which confers on the elite the

power and priviledges they abuse may

sometime soon suggest to the people that

it is the cause of all the evil. Today, most

of the people, simply because they are

illiterate in French, are discarded from

any participation in a democratic process.

To help these people is not to impose on

them literacy programs in French. The

results of such programs can ony be lim-

ited quantitatively and qualitatively. To

help them, from a practical and realistic

point of view, is to run literacy programs

in the languages they normally use in their

everyday life (Calvet;? Champion;°

Duponchel®).

Conclusion

In this paper, I have explored some of

the major obstacles facing French and

Francophonie in Africa. I have based my

observations on sociolinguistic and socio-

political facts. All these show that, if

Francophonie was a bold idea and a com-

pelling possibility, the conditions under

which it could have become reality are

practically non-existant. A language, no

mater how universal, cannot and will not

substitute another one in the expression

of the true feelings and the cultures of the

people. This is why French was not suc-

cessful in its attempt to displace English

46

PAULIN G. DJITE

during the Norman-French invasion, and

this is why the prospect of the success of

Francophonie in the light of all the facts

discussed above is rather bleak.

10.

12?

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