The following is a paper I wrote for my linguistics class. Give it a read if it suits your interests.
"When a speaker of a language hears a phonetic sequence, he is able to give it meaning because he brings to the act of communication an amazing repertoire of conscious and unconscious knowledge"
-Jonathan Culler
It is perplexing at times to think about the many obstacles that exist in today's hyper communicative society. To some it would seem that the more we are given access to communication the more we fail at conveying the essence of a message. As a teacher of language arts I have become increasingly aware of the challenges to creating what Jonathan Culler refers to as literary competence. The obstacles faced by myself and many of my colleagues in (unwittingly) teaching this concept stems from deficiencies in the experience and lack of conventions in this area which Culler states are necessary to achieve it. I would venture further to assert that the experiential and conventional requirements needed to achieve literary competence are often missed due to an overwhelming reluctance amongst students to expand their worldview.
The starting point of a worldview [emphasis mine] for the speaker of a language according to Culler begins with respect to a particular grammar (131). When a new grammar is introduced as in a poem or another language, the reader references his experiences and conventions of his language to give it meaning. This is the basis for the dilemma that rears its head daily in the classroom. Students bring forth their own conventions and language that are steeped in violations to the “standard”. In many cases these violations of Standard English are not viewed as violations at all by the student and any corrections to the conventions set by them are met with reluctance and even hostility. For example, I once referred to a student’s missing homework excuse as one of many ‘smokescreens’, which he often uses to alleviate himself of the responsibility to turn them in on time. He responded with a frown and asked me what I meant by this statement and why I had to always ‘talk that old people talk that no one uses anymore’. After several attempts to explain the term with no success, I was forced to rely on a colloquialism that everyone in the class found entertaining because it was much more familiar to their standard of speech. In another example, while attempting to quiet down a particularly disruptive student, I was met with a dismissive request to ‘chill son’ which was her way of telling me to relax coupled with the use of the colloquial ‘son’ which could be translated as buddy, man or any other phrase appropriate to her peer group that would function as the object of her request to tell me to loosen up. This request of course had the opposite effect which led me to remind her that I was not her son. This dialogue is particularly notable because there were several dynamics in our interaction that occurred simultaneously. First, because we were both aware of what she meant by the use of the word ‘son’ I became offended because of the lack of respect exhibited against me as the adult. She on the other hand was offended because my response implied that I was pretending that I did not know what this word meant in the context in which she used it. What she was reluctant to acknowledge was that although I knew what she meant, it was still perceived as disrespectful because she addressed me by her use of the word as a peer and not as an adult. This was further illustrated when she replied to my response by saying ‘Mr. You are in our hood so you talk how we talk’.
Both of the examples described here illustrate the reluctance to accept the conventions and experience which creates Culler's particular grammar required to achieve understanding and relies on what he refers to as mastery of a literary system (132). The two individuals in these examples possess reluctance and hostility to the previously established conventions represented by me the teacher and in an effort not to betray the conventions, which they are establishing themselves outside of the classroom, are compelled to resist them. What I have observed as an educator is that this resistance is a defense mechanism created in response to a history of learning delays, which result in low self-esteem and as result standard English even in an established colloquial sense is not considered ‘real talk’. But that is a topic for another essay.
One way that I like to begin any unit on literature is by first introducing my students to the essential questions and themes of which will be present in what they are reading. For example, in a world literature class where we are currently studying The Odyssey, students were asked to write a short journal on what it means to be prepared for a journey as Odysseus needed to be on his long journey home. In this exercise students were asked to examine one of three quotes concerning the theme of preparation from John F. Kennedy, Confucius and the rapper known as Nas. Because of their familiarity with Nas many of the students picked him. The Nas quote was as follows:
‘I never sleep because sleep is the cousin of death’
One student’s response to this quote contained the following response:
“I agree with what Nas is saying in this quote because people die in their sleep all the time. My grandmother was one of them”.
The response here illustrates a point in which Culler uses Blake’s ‘Ah! Sun-flower’ as an example. He states that anyone who knows the language of English can interpret the words of the poem, but there is some distance between an understanding of the language and the thematic statement of the work’(132). The same thing occurs in the interpretation of the Nas Quote. Even in the presence of background information provided to show that all three quotes provided were centered on the theme of the importance of preparation, there was still difficulty in inferring that Nas was using the word ‘sleep’ as a metaphor for being prepared or aware. This example does not illustrate a lack of intelligence of the student in question, but it does show how his lack of literary competence even from a familiar milieu could be exploited by lack of experience in using the word sleep in any other context other than laying one’s head down and resting for the night. In hindsight, the realization is achieved that even using something as familiar as hip hop with certain students for purposes of teaching literary competence requires the references to be both current and familiar. In cases such as this utterances of literature come closer to achieving what is referred to by Culler as a ‘rules of significance’ which are defined as significant attitudes toward some problem concerning man and his relation to the universe (134). The student’s lack of competence in the situation described shows a failure to recognize sleep in the example as a problem faced by many who in this context sleepwalk through life and lack the preparation needed to be successful. In this case, sleep is more the cousin of a metaphorical death than the absolute death inferred by the student.
In addition to the timeliness and familiarity of literary references needed to promote literary competence there are also other solutions to the current dilemma that should be addressed. New practice in language arts must be developed in which media is integrated not just for the sake of having it in the classroom but to actually address our emerging society which in many cases places little or no value in the concept of process. This is of course very difficult in an age where many place a high value on efficiency. The ever-shortening attention spans of many of my students demand a more abbreviated 3.0 version of literary competence. The question then becomes how this new system will integrate knowledge of conventions and the reverence associated with them, which creates experience. In other words, can respect for literature be generated if the very process of learning it is accelerated? In an ideal sense, this new approach would have to be a system in which there is a constant stopping and starting of literary knowledge in which the words of literary masters are thrust into a digital format to address short attention spans of the multi-tasking masses and slowed to real time to influence their appreciation of it. As I skim through Cullers essay, I realize that I am doing this exact thing. But there is also a looming reality that my ability to process information in this way is bolstered by a real time education obtained from a pre-internet where there was more cohesive relationship between the learner and the learned. But again, this is a topic for another paper.
