Language and Politics

I took this picture from a Colombian history book that mentions how newspapers changed their language for political purposes, as I had mentioned it last class. It's in Spanish but so I'll briefly translate it.

The day after the Conservative party lost the civil war of 1860-1863, whose typical nature keeps it from being written in upper case, the official newspaper of Cundinamarca changed its spelling from conservative to liberal. It started using Chilean writing as a way to oppose to the conservative godos, or those who used to be supporters of the Spanish crown.

Using specific dialects works rhetorically to promote political ideas. One might think that abandoning Spanish spelling would be a separatist act, but Colombia just looked up to another country. I feel like this paragraph from the book shows Colombia's essence.

Source:
Gutierrez Cely, Eugenio. "Guerra de 1860-1863." El Radicalismo. Bogota: Villegas Editores, 1990. 392. Print. 

The Destruction of Minorities

Episode fuir ay th' story ay sassenach shows hoo sassenach destroyed th' natife leid ay scootlund, a type ay gaelic. th' shaw explores hoo scottish influenced sassenach an' its expansion throoghit th' warld, an' Ah foond interestin' hoo leid worked as a way tae gie intae people's minds. th' dissolution ay scottish culture began when Jimmy vi ay scootlund becam Jimmy Ah ay englain, but fur most minorities, sassenach breaks apart their leid slowly an' progressively. at first, th' scottish aristocracy went abroad tae englain an' ben generations adapted tae th' leid an' acted as spreaders ay it, makin' current scottish aristocrats ken their ancestral leid as a hobby wi' "marks ay rusticity" (macneil, mccrum, cran 3:54). while changin' languages didne change their traditions reit awa', th' infiltration ay anither culture in their leid slowly changed their identities towards an english-controlled a body. when one's most maternal things ur altered tae a foreign perspectife, th' way a body feels abit oneself turns intae a subordinate ur rebellioos a body. mony scots, fur example, tried tae keep their religion in their leid sae 'at their beliefs wooldnae be altered by an sassenach perspectife (macneil, mccrum, cran 6:46). as their culture was affected by th' sassenach a body, some scots turned tae resistance against their authority while others hae begin tae see their culture as an inferiur a body. in th' case ay irelain, fowk hae responded aggressively tae th' attempts ay britain gettin' at their culture (macneil, mccrum, cran 0:25) whit thes episode shows happenin' in scootlund is a trend 'at happens when minorities encoonter a bigger power whose leid can gie intae their society an' control it. i dornt ken much abit th' amish, which th' episode mentions in a body point, but a similar scenario happens wi' these minority. th' shaw mentions 'at th' first amish fa arrived tae america started adoptin' th' scottish accent, althoogh mony ay them waur germans, makin' them hae a distinctife way ay 'spikin nowadays (macneil, mccrum, cran 1:27). amish fowk bide aroond th' idea ay conservin' th' way ay livin' ay th' pest, makin' onie interaction frae lae ay th' warld a threat tae their communities. their way ay 'spikin works as a conveyur ay their identity, precioos fur them. th' threat leid minorities coopon when encoonterin' th' powerful standard sassenach is loch th' hazards 'at holocomb, as shoon in in braw bluid by truman capote, faced wi' th' globalization ay th' warld. ance th' "ootside" warld invades a wee toon, th' population's identity an' society crumbles an' becomes a subordinate ay th' power behin' th' intrusion. sae far thaur huvnae bin real threats tae amish communities, they continue tae bide undisturbed, but as technology makes th' warld mair accessible, their way ay livin' is endangered. it's nae only abit th' leid which coods imposed oan them but th' soorce ay power behin' th' new variation 'at coods infiltrate their antiquated dialect. when a toon 'at seeks autonomy an' self-dependance loses control ower its identity, their society can collapse quickly.

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Now in an understandable version:

Episode 4 of The Story of English shows how English destroyed the native language of Scotland, a type of Gaelic. The show explores how Scottish influenced English and its expansion throughout the world, and I found interesting how language worked as a way to get into people's minds. The dissolution of Scottish culture began when James VI of Scotland became James I of England, but for most minorities, English breaks apart their language slowly and progressively. At first, the Scottish aristocracy went abroad to England and through generations adapted to the language and acted as spreaders of it, making current Scottish aristocrats know their ancestral language as a hobby with "marks of rusticity" (MacNeil, McCrum, Cran 3:54). While changing languages didn't change their traditions right away, the infiltration of another culture in their language slowly changed their identities towards an English-controlled one. When one's most maternal things are altered to a foreign perspective, the way one feels about oneself turns into a subordinate or rebellious one. Many Scots, for example, tried to keep their religion in their language so that their beliefs wouldn't be altered by an English perspective (MacNeil, McCrum, Cran 6:46). As their culture was affected by the English one, some Scots turned to resistance against their authority while others have begun to see their culture as an inferior one. In the case of Ireland, people have responded aggressively to the attempts of Britain getting at their culture (MacNeil, McCrum, Cran 0:25) What this episode shows happening in Scotland is a trend that happens when minorities encounter a bigger power whose language can get into their society and control it.

I don't know much about the Amish, which the episode mentions in one point, but a similar scenario happens with these minority. The show mentions that the first Amish who arrived to America started adopting the Scottish accent, although many of them were Germans, making them have a distinctive way of speaking nowadays (MacNeil, McCrum, Cran 1:27).  Amish people live around the idea of conserving the way of living of the past, making any interaction from the rest of the world a threat to their communities. Their way of speaking works as a conveyor of their identity, precious for them. The threat language minorities face when encountering the powerful Standard English is like the hazards that Holocomb, as shown in In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, faced with the globalization of the world. Once the "outside" world invades a small town, the population's identity and society crumbles and becomes a subordinate of the power behind the intrusion. So far there haven't been real threats to Amish communities, they continue to live undisturbed, but as technology makes the world more accessible, their way of living is endangered. It's not only about the language which could imposed on them but the source of power behind the new variation that could infiltrate their antiquated dialect. When a town that seeks autonomy and self-dependance loses control over its identity, their society can collapse quickly.

"Amish Guy," Family Guy 
Click here for a politically incorrect parody of the Amish culture.

Source:

"The Guid Scots Tongue." The Story of English. Wrti. Robert MacNeil, Robert McCrum and William Cran. MacNeil-Lehrer Productions and BBC, 1986. Youtube. 

Le Snob

Episode two of The Story of English pointed out that after the Norman conquest of England in 1066, speaking French and later English influenced by French became a sign of sophistication. The languages of the original inhabitants of Britain as well as those of the Anglo-Saxon invaders became unsophisticated and harsh-sounding, while French became the language of the royalty and upper class. Poor serfs were ignorant of the new imposed foreign vocabulary, starting a tradition of having French as a sign of sophistication in the English language (MacNeil, McCrum, Cran 1:40). Throughout history Latin and French words have remained as the sophisticated way of speaking English for a lot of people's points of view. Although knowing French is not actually sophistication (it's just another language), the Western culture has seen this language as a cultured and elegant one. Simply by listening to different British accents you can see that the classy ones, or posh, have both an influence from French in lexicon and resonance, while the perceived as unsophisticated, like the cockney accent, has a gruff sound that resembles Germanic roots. Ever since the Battle of Hastings, French has remained as an attractive sound for English speakers and it's clear to see today.

After a French immersion summer program, I can witness that for the American eye, learning French means culture. I don't mean that people who learn French are sophisticated, but that the Americans that I met mostly saw their summer abroad as a part of their sophistication. Despite dislike between countries, many prestigious British boarding schools force students to learn French as part of their "posh" formation. The snobbiest people I've met have let me see that French is a part of way of speaking. For any culinary term to sound elegant and chic, it usually has French words (chic, hors d'oeuvres, à la carte, carte du jour, foie gras, fleur de del, cordon bleu, mousse, crêpes, crème, bon appétit). Although most of these terms have literal translations to English, like crème to creme, it is accepted and widely done to use the French alternative to make it more elegant, making many of these words now actual English words. If you want to socialize in a snobby way, you can ask someone for a rendezvous or a soirée and then ask them to RSVP (respondez s'il vous plait). Ever since the Norman conquest of England, among with other historical factors, French-based words in English have held some type of social prestige. 

Source:

"The Mother Tongue." The Story of English. Wrti. Robert MacNeil, Robert McCrum and William Cran. MacNeil-Lehrer Productions and BBC, 1986. Youtube. 

Speaking Imperialistically

English is an efficient language and one that works and adapts pretty well. I'm sure, however, that's it's not innately superior to any other or simply the greatest language of all humankind, as the first episode of The Story of English Language explains.  The show seems interesting and historically enriching, as the second episode showed me later, but I found the introduction just pompous and imperialistic. The pilot ends with a clichéd speech on the importance of English and then mentions all that can be studied from it, including statements like that English is the language that has been taught the most throughout history, in a proud tone. The narrator says that English is a language that Indians and Africans long for, and that it is the perfect lingua franca. In one point an African man says, "So we want to make a living and that means we have to learn English." The show makes it seem as if there was an instinctive desire for the English language, the only one that can lead to prosperity to the point where the narrator even says that it is not "coming from above."There are definitely many benefits to using or learning English but these are merely because of the current situation of a world devastated by two centuries of anglophone imperialism. The Story of English Language is certainly right when saying that English can be useful in some situation and good for people looking for a job in the former parts of the British Empire, but I believe it is like that because our world is built around an English-speaking society. Modern means America or Europe. Development is following such traditions. English works well in the American world because a language comes tied with its social influences, the social influences colonialism makes us crave. 

As the narrator explained all the benefits that come from learning English in Africa, I remembered Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's essay we read in class about imperialism, "Decolonising the Mind". The personal essay narrates the author's experiences while growing up in British-ruled Kenya as he shows how imperialism invaded people's way of thinking making Britain and the British style what everybody wanted and simply knowing English a requirement for success. In one point the author writes that for a student to do well academically and be admitted to good schools, Kenyans had to do very well in their English exams or otherwise fail, even if they were amazing at other things. The Story of English Language shows this scenario at a bigger glance. Nowadays people are not forced to learn English necessarily but the remains of imperialism still infiltrate people's minds and make them look up to Europe and the US. The show makes a good point when saying the English is a good lingua franca, but I do not think that it is because the greatness of the language or because it means progress. English is a good lingua franca because the post-colonial societies were left to only work with dependance to Europe. India, Pakistan and many African countries were not made to accommodate people's origins and cultures so that they could progress in their own way. Former British colonies turned into countries made to be incompatible within their own cultures. India did not chose English because it had discovered an element of enlightenment and progress but because Britain left no other option. After centuries of having English-speaking empires, colonies were left with no option than to work the way "civilized" Anglo-Saxons did. People living under imperialism are made to think that their colonizer is better. 

The writer of The Story of English probably doesn't mean to harm or offend anybody, but rather, as part of an imperialistic system, was showing his or her vision of the world. I am, as is everyone who I interact with daily, a product of American imperialism. For my society it is seemed as a good thing to study under and American system and know English. It's not only a great skill for work but also a backup solution in case I get tired of Colombia and the third world. In my family's case, I know how importance language is for imperialism because of my ancestors' stories during the American colonization of Puerto Rico. As soon as America won the Spanish American War, Puerto Rico was flooded with missionaries and government workers set to "educate" the islanders. A lot of schools, both religious and public, were founded for the purpose of helping the island progress. That meant starting the first university, teaching sciences and humanities but for the most just making sure that everyone knew English. One of my great-grandmothers, who easily got a nurse job for a while without any kind of medical preparation, was fluent in English and therefore could do well in terms of jobs. My great-grandfather actually wrote and read better in English than in Spanish, even though he wouldn't visit the US until he was an adult. Even in the present people in Puerto Rico struggle because of the infiltration language does on their minds. Some years ago a mayor changed the name of a town to Guaynabo City, as he changed road sings to be in English, all leads of development. 

I found the first episode of this series actually amusing and mostly accurate but I do want to note that it is made in an imperialistic point of view. English does have benefits as improving communication in airplanes and even serving as a lingua franca for former colonies, but it is not because it has a supreme innate way of being. English is all around the world because imperialism made it get into everyone's mind and make it become a sign of progress. 

Source:

"An English Speaking World." The Story of English. Wrti. Robert MacNeil, Robert McCrum and William Cran. MacNeil-Lehrer Productions and BBC, 1986. Youtube. 

A Pampered Poodle

Capote's Lexicon

Since I started reading In Cold Blood I haven't been able to ignore that my vocabulary skills are way beneath an author's such a Truman Capote's. There are many books, especially the type I've read as a kid, in which few words that I don't know appear and when they do, they play an unimportant role in the sentence so you can just read over them or get their meaning from the context. It's worked so far for me to look up occasionally a word in my laptop's or kindle's dictionary for the sake of curiosity, but for this book I've had to actually learn the meaning of words I didn't know for me to get some sort of understanding of Capote's work. As I'm still reading the beginning of the book, a lot of what Capote writes is characterization or description of the characters and the setting, building up the scene for the awaited homicide to happen. Unlike a news report or journalistic writing, the book, composed by feature articles, shows the events in a juicer way. Nancy isn't just a straight-A student or a cat-loving loser, she's a girl who values her gold watch under her cat and her going-steady ring. She helps her acquaintances learn baking or organize school activities. Then there's Kenyon, who more than just a woodworker liked to go spend time alone in the basement. Capote's way of writing (his syntax, tone and register) makes the scenes he shows deeper in meaning and simply more vivid. So far in the book as much has happened to write a paragraph for a typical journalistic report on the crime, but the author goes beyond the simple facts that would make the subjects stereotypes and depicts them as real people the reader wants to understand. A diverse diction and specific words that portray the situation make In Cold Blood a more critical way of showing what happened in Holocomb, Kansas.

By reading random sentences throughout the book, I realized that the writing style and understanding it is essential for apprehension of the book. For example, this sentence would have no meaning for me had I not looked up the definition of many words: "An itinerant buffalo hunter, Mr. C. J. (Buffalo) Jones, had much to do with its subsequent expansion from a collection of huts and hitching posts into an opulent ranching center with razzle-dazzle saloons, an opera house, and the plushiest hotel anywhere between Kansas City and Denver" (pg. 32). If reading it quickly, I would have gotten that the town grew and became sort of a sophisticated place with an opera. While I wouldn't have been wrong, I would've missed out on a lot of the essence of the sentence. The town grew from a Midwest settlement that started out from travelers who lived in huts and traded what they hunted. It became an extravagant southern village, I assume that with a New Orleans style, and now, it's a place where two criminals pass by and barely notice it. Olathe is not the subject of the book but Capote's description of it shows how communicative writing gets to the reader. Other "simpler" sentences are as well expressive because of Capote's techniques. Capote writes, "Herb was hard-headed, a slow man to make a deal; Johnson had worked over a year to clinch this sale" (pg. 47). As he juxtaposes the characters, Capote describes the situation, rather than just saying, "Johnson had worked hard to make this deal with Mr. Clutter." As most books do, In Cold Blood begins with describing the setting and the characters that will matter in the rest of the book, and the way Capote does it gives a deeper understanding of what is happening. Aspects like word choice or syntax give what would seem like simple sentences an implied meaning.


These are the words I had to look up in the last fifteen pages I read (between pages 30 to 45 approximately):

Opulent: luxurious, lavish.


Hitching: traveling by hitchhiking or moving from one place to another.


Plushiest: like a plush, soft to the touch.


Razzle-dazzle: dazzling excitement, extravagant or showy display.



Haranguing: agressive and lengthy speech.


Spittoons: metal pot.


Conscientious: wishing to do what is right, diligent.


Tenant: someone who rented from a landlord.


Bashful: shy, reserved.


Jolt: push or shake abruptly.


Rankle: to annoy or cause resentment.


Hosiery: stockings, socks.


Quandary: a state of perplexity, of being confused in a difficult situation.


Chintz: multicolored fabric.


Decrepit: an elderly and weak or worn out.


Dourness: relentless, gloomy in appearance.


Hefty: large, heavy and powerful.


Lanky: thin and tall.


Reticent: revealing one's thoughts and feelings.


Keen: enthusiastic or eager to do something.


Disheveled: appearing dirty and disordered.


Foal: a young animal.


Astride: with a leg on each side of.


Prim: formal and respectable, proper.


Loiter: to wait around, linger.


Clinch: to settle or confirm something, like a contract.

Alternating Stories

As I read In Cold Blood I could relate Truman Capote's way of telling the story to Vargas Llosa's way of writing La Fiesta del Chivo (The Feast of the Goat). Capote begins his book with a description of the town and characterizing a couple of characters whose lives, I assume, will become related to each other. After introducing Mr Clutter, the author shifts to an in medias res, a I learned in Spanish class, scene in a restaurant, where Perry is waiting for Dick, two characters that as the chapter continues you learn that they are some type of adventurers, even though Dick is cautious. In Mr Clutter's chapter, he finds a group of pheasant hunters, so once I read that Dick and Perry had a hunting shotgun in their car, I predicted that the stories will interweave into the story of the murder in Holocomb. As Perry sits in the café waiting for Dick, the narrator begins describing the situation as he or she deepens into Perry's life in a subtle way to characterize him. Then the author switches back to the Clutter family but describes Nancy instead of her father. Then back to Perry, now with Dick, and then back to Nancy. It seems like Capote will alternate stories between several characters as he builds up the scene of the empty and isolated town that will be hit with the death of six people, perhaps Mr and Mrs Clutter and their four children).

The Feast of the Goat begins with Urania's return to Dominican Republic after having left for several decades. The narrator hints that some sort of traumatic experience shocked her and made her hate her family and her country, and just like Capote, introduces a mystery that the reader will discover throughout the book. Vargas Llosa has three alternating narrations, one from Urania's point of view, one that shifts between the killers of Trujillo and another one for the dictator himself. As he characterizes each of the supposedly real characters, the reader begins to discover what had happened to Urania and the specific events that led to the assassination and her rape. Although The Feast of the Goat and In Cold Blood have very different tones and environments, the structure the authors use is similar. The first has an intrigued tone while the second has a detached one. Both authors are trying to explain a series of events and what they meant in a larger scale. Vargas Llosa explains the nature of dictatorship, machismo and corruption as he shows why Latin America works that way politically. Capote, as we've talked about in class, will show how small places like Holocomb are being affected by  the growth of towns and the difficulty of being isolated nowadays. From what I've read so far, using alternating narrations helps give a better insight into what is happening and deal with different themes. Authors use it to get to what they're trying to say in an implicit way.

Vocabulary:

• Honed: made sharper, more efficient.
• Ludicrous: very foolish, ridiculous.
• Reticent: not revealing one's feelings, reserved. 
• Brooding: very unhappy.
• Gewgaw: a showing things that is useless.
• Uppity: arrogant.
• Ominous: threatening, giving the impression that something bad is happening. 
• Impish: inclined to do something bad, mischievous. 
• Pragmatic: dealing with things practically.
• Ineffable: too great or too extreme to be expressed in words.
• Cinch: easy task or part of a saddle. 
• Elocution: pronunciation, articulation. 
• Lattice: grid of fibers. 
• Despondency: low spirits, hopelessness. 
• Sprucing: neat in appearance.