The Language and Literature Reader

Ronald Carter, Peter Stockwell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000158236
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Language and Literature Reader is an invaluable resource for students of English literature, language, and linguistics. Bringing together the most significant work in the field with integrated editorial material, this Reader is a structured and accessible tool for the student and scholar.

Divided into three sections, Foundations, Developments and New Directions, the Reader provides an overview of the discipline from the early stages in the 1960s and 70s, through the new theories and practices of the 1980s and 90s, to the most recent and contemporary work in the field. Each article contains a brief introduction by the editors situating it in the context of developing work in the discipline and glossing it in terms of the section and of the book as a whole. The final section concludes with a 'history and manifesto', written by the editors, which places developments in the area of stylistics within a brief history of the field and offers a polemical perspective on the future of a growing and influential discipline.

PART ONE Foundations

Chapter 1 Taking a poem to pieces

JOHN SINCLAIR

This paper explores the foundations to a linguistic analysis of a literary text by focusing on the syntax of a poem, arguing that such features of language organisation often go unnoticed or uncommented on in traditional literary analyses. Sinclair acknowledges the consequent mismatches between the linguist’s and the literary critic’s terminologies but guards against naive correlations between descriptive terms and interpretations of meaning. In fact, the paper is resistant to interpretive and especially evaluative readings, arguing that no reading is possible until the language of the text is analysed explicitly and systematically and Sinclair deliberately and provocatively stops short of any such interpretation. Papers such as this led to numerous debates in the late 1960s between literary and language specialists, with literary critics bemoaning the reductiveness of such analysis and linguists bemoaning the absence or, at best, the impressionistic nature of much literary criticism and commentary of such texts.

For further developments in the study of syntax in poetry see Sinclair (1982), Austin (1985) and several papers in Carter (1982). The paper is one in a line of linguistic studies of Larkin’s poetry – see Wales, Chapter 15, this volume – where linguists are drawn to analyse the seeming ordinariness of his syntax and use of language in general.

THIS CHAPTER IS DESIGNED to carry the reader of literature to the brink of linguistics. In recent years a number of linguists have attempted to describe linguistic features as they occur in literary texts, hoping that their descriptions might help a reader to understand and appreciate the text (for example, Halliday 1964, Hill 1955, Levin 1962). I have chosen a short, recent, lyric poem. It contains no magnetic peculiarities of language; in fact most critics, I imagine, would ignore the language altogether. My hypothesis is that the grammatical and other patterns are giving meaning in a more complex and tightly packed way than we expect from our familiarity with traditional methods of describing language. Modern methods of linguistic: analysis, based on more comprehensive and detailed theories of language, can at least tackle the problem of describing literature. In this paper the accent will be on grammar; there is little to say about the vocabulary of such a short text when we have no proper description of English vocabulary patterns to use as a basis; the phonology and orthography (the study of the sound- and letter-sequences and combinations) are also largely ignored – with reluctance – for reasons of space and simplicity.

First sight

1 Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
5 Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.
As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
10 Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth’s immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

Philip Larkin

[. . .] Moving on to the structure of the sentences, we recognize two elements, in the primary analysis; what we call a free clause and what we call a bound clause (for more detailed information the reader is referred to Halliday 1961). They could not grasp it is a typical free clause, and when their bleating clouds the air or newly stumbling to and fro are bound clauses. No distinction is made at this depth of detail between clauses containing a finite or a non-finite verb, since their operation in the structure of sentences is almost identical. Using just this one distinction, we can plot the occurrence of these clauses relative to each other and relative to the lines in the poem. (See Table 1.1, opposite.)

It will be seen that no account has been taken of two clauses in the poem; in the first line, that learn to walk in snow and in the sixth, they find. These clauses are not operating in sentence structure at all; instead they are forming part of the structure of what we are going to call nominal groups. If they operated directly in sentence structure then all, outside the fold, is a wretched width of cold would be isolated as a complete clause. There is nothing in the shape of this word-sequence to prohibit it standing as a clause, but it is not the one in the poem. Clauses which do not form discrete elements of the structure of sentences are called rankshifted clauses.

In everyday English, in the mass of sentences which contain α and β the sequence αβ is most common. Discontinuity, i.e. α[β] is rarer, and so is the sequence βα. The last sentence in the poem is a good example of the αβ type. It is the only one. The other three have discontinuous α, βα sequence, and both, in that order. But we can refine the idea of discontinuity a little with reference to a particular text like this one. As we read along the lines, we can say at certain points that we confidently expect something else to finish off a structure. If at the bottom of a page one reads He put one expects on the next page to read about not only something to put but somewhere to put it. If one reads He

Table 1.1 Sentence structure

played one is a lot less certain what will follow; in fact, if it was not contrary to normal printers’ practice we would not be surprised if the next page started with a period. Now the effect which we can presume an intruding element to have will depend in any instance on the strength of the current expectations. It is clear that strong expectations have been set up in both the cases of discontinuous clauses here: lambs that learn to walk in snow . . . and there lies.... It is interesting, too, that both occurrences of the item wait are in bound clauses which either precede or interrupt free ones. Here there is a serious difficulty in terminology. A term is needed to indicate a sentence in which the onset of a predictable α is delayed or in which its progress is interrupted. Unfortunately, whatever term is coined is liable to be construed as a contextually meaningful label. I want to use the term arrest for this type of structure, without wishing to suggest that any occurrence of this structure produces an ‘effect’ of arrestment. Pseudo-linguistic literature is already too full of naive correlations between a noise or a structure and explicit meanings. I wish my terms to carry only as much contextual meaning as terms like finite, predicate. With this in mind, let us say that the first three sentences in the poem are arrested, whereas the last one is not.

In sentence 1, then (structure α[β]α), the progress of the first α is interrupted by the β. Sentence 2 (βα) by beginning with β, delays the onset of the α. Both these exponents of arrest appear in sentence 3 (βα[ββ]) where the solitary α has its onset delayed and its progress interrupted.

Next we must consider the structure of the clauses in this poem. We recognize four primary elements of clause structure, the subject (S), predicator (P), complement (C) and adjunct (A). Every part of every clause must be ascribed to one or other of these four elements (the exceptions are irrelevant to our present purpose). The subject and C6mplement(s) are usually nominal groups, the predicator a verbal group, and adjuncts are adverbial groups. Let us plot the structure of clauses in much the same way as we did the structure of sentences. In this diagram the slanting line (/) denotes the place where an intruding clause appears and the vertical line (I) denotes where a line boundary occurs. The rankshifted clauses in both cases are part of the subject of another clause (see Table 1.2).

As with the sentences, let us see how well the clauses fit the lines. Here there is a clear difference between free and bound clauses. Though simple in structure, all the free clauses except the last have a line boundary in the middle, and in the last bound one there is a line boundary.

What is the meaning of a line-boundary? Clearly its meaning depends upon its relation to the surrounding grammar. If it occurs between sentences (as at the end of lines 4 and 11) it is congruent with the grammar, and its meaning is of reinforcement, or the like. If it occurs between clauses or at any lower rank, then its meaning is dependent on the nature of the predictions that have been set up. Thus a line boundary occurring between α and β in most cases simply reinforces, emphasizes the structural boundary. It adds, perhaps, a slight element of surprise to the occurrence of the β. On the other hand, a line boundary occurring between β and α will reinforce the prediction of the β, will reinforce the arrest that was mentioned above.

A line boundary within a clause will follow the same pattern, according to the amount of prediction that precedes it. Table 1.3 shows the line boundaries in this poem classified by

• (a) Grammatical rank; sentence, clause and group.
• (b) Type, i.e. arresting (when predictions have been set up) releasing (where there are no remaining grammatical predictions).

It is clear from Tables 1.2 and 1.3 that in the first three sentences the free clauses are all arrested, whereas in the last sentence the free clause is neutral and a bound one is

Table 1.2 Clause structure

Exponent	Free	Bound	Rankshifted
Lambs that learn to walk in snow/| meet a vast unwelcome	S/lPC
that learn to walk in snow			SPA
When their bleating clouds the air		ASPC
know | Nothing but a sunless sjlare.	PIC
Newly stumbling to and fro		APA
All they find outside the fold | Is a wretched width of cold.	SAlPC
they find			SP
As they wait beside the ewe		ASPA
Her fleeces wetly caked		SAP
There lies / | Earth's immeasurable surprise.	SP/IC
Hidden round them,		PA
waiting too		PA
They could not sjrasp it	SPC
if they knew,		ASP
What so soon will wake and grow | bitterly unlike the snow.		SAPIA

Table 1.3 Line boundaries (including stanza boundary)

Line ref.	Rank	Between structures	Arrest / Release
4	Sentence	Sentence/sentence
7	Sentence	Sentence/sentence
11	Sentence	Sentence/sentence
2	Clause	β/α	Arrest
5	Clause	β/α	Arrest
8	Clause	β/α	Arrest
10	Clause	β/α	Arrest
12	Clause	β/α	Release
1	Group	S/P	Arrest
3	Group	P/C	Arrest
6	Group	A/P	Arrest
9	Group	P/C	Arrest
13	Group	P/A	Release

released. The only reason we have to expect the last line in the poem is a metrical one. Again the last sentence is quite different from the others.

One common feature of English grammar is not represented in the clause or sentence structure of this poem. This is linkage, words like and, but, however, in fact which occur so often in conversation and writing. In this poem, each sentence, and each free or bound clause, stands rather separate. The only examples of such words, the but of line 4 and and of line 13, link items inside clauses, and do not affect the isolation of clauses and sentences.

All the free clauses are affirmative. No interrogatives, exclamations, imperatives. Also, all free clauses are transitive, and only one bound clause is (line 2). So transitivity is here carried almost entirely by the free clauses. [. . .] The sequence of the elements of clause structure is pretty much what would be expected in everyday English. Unusual sequences of elements of clause structure form a familiar set of devices in the language of poetry, but in this poem it must be noted that the adjuncts scarcely ever occur in other than the commonest position for them. Newly (line 5) and outside the fold (6) are slightly unusual and are discussed further below; so soon (line 13) is perhaps slightly in advance of its commonest position.

Two points must be made, in greater detail, in regard to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• PART ONE FOUNDATIONS
• PART TWO DEVELOPMENTS
• PART THREE NEW DIRECTIONS
• PART FOUR CODA
• Index