Annals of SPIRU HARET University
PHILOLOGY – FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES – SERIES
Year XVII, Issue 17, 2012
EDITURA FUNDAŢIEI ROMÂNIA DE MÂINE BUCUREŞTI 1
EDITORIAL BOARD: Emeritus Director: Prof. Domnica ŞERBAN, PhD Editor-in-chief: Assoc. Prof. Liviu ANDREESCU, PhD Assistant Editor-in-chief: Assistant Prof. Sebastian CHIRIMBU, PhD Assistant Prof. Elena DRĂGUŞIN, PhD EDITORIAL SECRETARY: Assistant Prof. Ecaterina PĂTRAŞCU, PhD Assistant Prof. Adina CHIRIMBU, PhD Assistant Prof. Gabriela ILIUTĂ, PhD SCIENTIFIC BOARD: Prof. Monica BOTTEZ, PhD, Bucharest University, Romania Prof. Ilinca CRĂINICEANU, PhD, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania Prof. Valentina CURTICEANU, PhD, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania Prof. Gabriela DRAGNEA HORVATH, PhD, Gonzaga University, Florence, Italy Prof. George GUŢU, PhD, Bucharest University, Romania Prof. Ileana HOGEA, PhD, Bucharest University, Romania Prof. Cornelia ILIE, PhD, Malmö University, Sweden Prof. Luis García JAMBRINA, PhD, University of Salamanca, Spain Prof. Iliana KRAPOVA, PhD, Ca’Foscari University, Venice, Italy Prof. Wynfrid KRIEGLEDER, PhD The Institute of Germanistics, Vienna, Austria Prof. Jacques LEENHARDT, PhD, L'Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France Prof. Maria Luisa LOBATO, PhD, University of Burgos, Spain Prof. Rodica MIHĂILĂ, PhD, Bucharest University, Romania Prof. Salvador MONTESA PEYDRÓ, PhD, University of Málaga, Spain Prof. Pierre MOREL, PhD, The Institute of Philologic and Intercultural Research, Chişinău, (Moldavia) Prof. Ileana OANCEA, PhD, West University of Timişoara, Romania Prof. Hab. Aleksey ROMANOV, PhD, Tomsk National-Research Politechnical University (Russia) Distinguished Research Prof. Mihai SPĂRIOSU, PhD, University of Georgia, Athens, United States of America Distinguished Prof. Alain VUILLEMIN, PhD, Artois University, France Prof. Sorin GĂDEANU, PhD, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania Assoc. Prof. Viorica BANCIU, PhD, University of Oradea, Romania Assoc. Prof. Vessela BELCHEVA, PhD, St Cyril and St Methodius University, Bulgaria Assoc. Prof. Emilia BONDREA, PhD, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania Assoc. Prof. Tamara CEBAN, PhD, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania Assoc. Prof. Mariana CERNICOVA-BUCĂ, PhD, Politehnica University of Timişoara, Romania Assoc. Prof. Mihaela IONESCU, PhD, Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest, Romania Assoc. Prof. Ekaterina Valerievna MALYSHEVA, PhD, Tver State Agricultural Academy, Russia Assoc. Prof. Valeriu MARINESCU, PhD, Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania Assoc. Prof. Mirela KUMBARO-FURXHI, PhD, University of Tirana, Albania Assoc. Prof. Efstratia OKTAPODA, PhD, Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France Assoc. Prof. Ali RAHIMI, PhD, Bahcesehir University of Istanbul, Turkey Assoc. Prof. Svilen STANCHEV, PhD, St Cyril and St Methodius University, Bulgaria Lect. Mara RADULESCU VAN SCHAIK, PhDc, Leiden University, Holland
©Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine ISSN 1454-8291
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CUPRINS
I. LINGVISTICĂ, ANALIZA DISCURSULUI, DIDACTICĂ Karoline ABRAHAM, Lost in translation? Der „Transfer des Typischen" dargestellt anhand Elfriede Jelineks Die Liebhaberinnen und deren Übersetzung ins Französische ..................................................................... Viorica BANCIU, An Overview on Social and Political Discourse …….. Emilia BONDREA, Sur le discours radiophonique et son cadre spatial ... Karima BOUZIANE, Source Culture Oriented Vs Target Culture Oriented Translation in Outdoor Advertising: The Case of Tunisia ……… Janeta DRĂGHICESCU, Du terme au discours dans la traduction du texte spécialisé ……………………………………………………………. Denisa DRĂGUŞIN, The Syntactic Subcategorisation of Adjectives in English and Romanian ……………………………………………………. Ioana DUGAN, A modern philosophy for a creative teaching …………… Galina FLOREA, Dérivation nominale et passivation classique ………... Ioanna FOKOU, Stereotypes regarding sex and technology …………….. Alina IFTIME, Le dévelopment des compétences de communication professionnelle des étudiants en sciences sociales ………………………... Doina IVANOV, Teaching English as an International Language ……… Sanda MARCOCI, Les lieux communs de l’argumentation publicitaire ... Zahra MASOUMPANAH, Sadegh SHARIATIFAR, A Comparison between the Effect of Email and SMS on Intermidiate EFL Learners’Idiom Learning …………………………………………………………………… Anca Mariana PEGULESCU, Shifts in types of cohesive ties through translation in English and Romanian proverbs …………………………… Aleksey ROMANOV, Political threat as communicative performative construct ………………………………………………………………….. Elisa Matos de SA, Corpus Linguistics Applications and Digital Genres in the Teaching of English in Brazil – Influence of New Technologies in ELT ………………………………………………………………………… Irene STUTZ, Abbreviaturen in der deutschsprachigen rumänischen Presse. Eine Fallstudie an der Neuen Banater Zeitung und dem Neuen Weg ………………………………………………………………………… Dara TAFAZOLI, Sebastian CHIRIMBU, A Brief Foray into Language Classrooms and the Modern Use of Technology …………………………..
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II. LITERATURĂ, STUDII CULTURALE Maria ALEXE, A Tribute to Tennessee Williams’Prose: Memoirs of an Old Crocodile ……………………………………………………………… Samantha BORGES, As Muitas Caras de A MURALHA: Uma Leitura Paratextual ………………………………………………………………… Răzvan BRAN, Education in Ancient Athens. Xenophon on the Formative Role of Hunting ……………………………………………………………. Sebastian CHIRIMBU, Adina CHIRIMBU, The Birth of a European Modern Metropola – Bucharest during the Phanariot Epoch …………….. Elena CIGĂREANU, Malcolm Bradbury’s Perspective over Mrs Thatcher’s Britain …………………………………………………………. Andreea-Cristina CRIŞAN, London as an Augustan Topos ………… Monica GOT, Split Identities Revisited: How To Live Within The Boundaries of Cultural Confinement ……………………………………… Neslihan GÜNAYDIN, How new were New Women in the works of Wilde, Gissing and Schreiner? …………………………………………….. Mihaela HRISTEA, Die Einflusse von Heinrich Heine in Mihai Eminescus Lyrik …………………………………………………………… Andreea ILIESCU, La estética tragica en el Teatro de Calderón ............ Waldyr IMBROISI, Brazilian Female Witches: Witchraft in Brazilian Literature from 1880 to 1910 ……………………………………………… Isabel LAZĂR, Romanian Identity and Nationalism in Alexandru Vlahuţă’s “Ţara. Poporul” ………………………………………………... Amalia LEITES, Endurance and Violence in Horacio Quiroga and Sergio Faraco ……………………………………………………………... Alexandru MATEI, Ville et espace urbain ………………………………. Claudia MIRCESCU, “Baudolino”, portavoce del postmodernismo italiano …………………………………………………………………… Efstratia OKTAPODA, Jules Verne, Le Château des Carpates. Les figures du double et le lieu de l’imaginaire ……………………………….. Anita PONTI, Périphéries culturelles. Le cas des « 3000 » à Aulnay-sous-Bois …………………………………………………………..
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161 173 183 189 195 201 207 213 225 239 251 259 267 275 285 291 303
CONTENTS
I. LINGUISTICS, DISCOURSE ANALYSIS, DIDACTICS Karoline ABRAHAM, Lost in translation? Der „Transfer des Typischen" dargestellt anhand Elfriede Jelineks Die Liebhaberinnen und deren Übersetzung ins Französische……………………………………………… Viorica BANCIU, An Overview on Social and Political Discourse …….. Emilia BONDREA, Sur le discours radiophonique et son cadre spatial ... Karima BOUZIANE, Source Culture Oriented Vs Target Culture Oriented Translation in Outdoor Advertising: The Case of Tunisia ……… Janeta DRĂGHICESCU, Du terme au discours dans la traduction du texte spécialisé ……………………………………………………………. Denisa DRĂGUŞIN, The Syntactic Subcategorisation of Adjectives in English and Romanian ……………………………………………………. Ioana DUGAN, A modern philosophy for a creative teaching …………… Galina FLOREA, Dérivation nominale et passivation classique ………... Ioanna FOKOU, Stereotypes regarding sex and technology …………….. Alina IFTIME, Le dévelopment des compétences de communication professionnelle des étudiants en sciences sociales ………………………... Doina IVANOV, Teaching English as an International Language ………. Sanda MARCOCI, Les lieux communs de l’argumentation publicitaire ... Zahra MASOUMPANAH, Sadegh SHARIATIFAR, A Comparison between the Effect of Email and SMS on Intermidiate EFL Learners’Idiom Learning …………………………………………………………………… Anca Mariana PEGULESCU, Shifts in types of cohesive ties through translation in English and Romanian proverbs …………………………… Aleksey ROMANOV, Political threat as communicative performative construct …………………………………………………………………… Elisa Matos de SA, Corpus Linguistics Applications and Digital Genres in the Teaching of English in Brazil – Influence of New Technologies in ELT ………………………………………………………………………… Irene STUTZ, Abbreviaturen in der deutschsprachigen rumänischen Presse. Eine Fallstudie an der Neuen Banater Zeitung und dem Neuen Weg ………………………………………………………………………… Dara TAFAZOLI, Sebastian CHIRIMBU, A Brief Foray into Language Classrooms and the Modern Use of Technology …………………………..
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II. LITERATURE, CULTURAL STUDIES Maria ALEXE, A Tribute to Tennessee Williams’Prose: Memoirs of an Old Crocodile ……………………………………………………………… Samantha BORGES, As Muitas Caras de A MURALHA: Uma Leitura Paratextual ………………………………………………………………… Răzvan BRAN, Education in Ancient Athens. Xenophon on the Formative Role of Hunting ……………………………………………………………. Sebastian CHIRIMBU, Adina CHIRIMBU, The Birth of a European Modern Metropola – Bucharest during the Phanariot Epoch …………….. Elena CIGĂREANU, Malcolm Bradbury’s Perspective over Mrs Thatcher’s Britain …………………………………………………… Andreea-Cristina CRIŞAN, London as an Augustan Topos ………… Monica GOT, Split Identities Revisited: How To Live Within The Boundaries of Cultural Confinement ……………………………………… Neslihan GÜNAYDIN, How new were New Women in the works of Wilde, Gissing and Schreiner? ……………………………………………. Mihaela HRISTEA, Die Einflusse von Heinrich Heine in Mihai Eminescus Lyrik …………………………………………………………… Andreea ILIESCU, La estética tragica en el Teatro de Calderón ............ Waldyr IMBROISI, Brazilian Female Witches: Witchraft in Brazilian Literature from 1880 to 1910 ……………………………………………… Isabel LAZĂR, Romanian Identity and Nationalism in Alexandru Vlahuţă’s “Ţara. Poporul” ……………………………………………….. Amalia LEITES, Endurance and Violence in Horacio Quiroga and Sergio Faraco ……………………………………………………………… Alexandru MATEI, Ville et espace urbain ………………………………. Claudia MIRCESCU, “Baudolino”, portavoce del postmodernismo italiano …………………………………………………………………….. Efstratia OKTAPODA, Jules Verne, Le Château des Carpates. Les figures du double et le lieu de l’imaginaire ……………………………….. Anita PONTI, Périphéries culturelles. Le cas des « 3000 » à Aulnay-sous-Bois ………………………………………………………….
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161 173 183 189 195 201 207 213 225 239 251 259 267 275 285 291 303
I. LINGUISTICS, DISCOURSE ANALYSIS, DIDACTICS LOST IN TRANSLATION? DER „TRANSFER DES TYPISCHEN“ DARGESTELLT ANHAND ELFRIEDE JELINEKS DIE LIEBHABERINNEN UND DEREN ŰBERSETZUNG INS FRANZÖSISCHE Karoline ABRAHAM The Institute of Germanistics, Vienna RESUMÉ Elfriede Jelinek à la française – Est-ce que c’est possible ou doit-on céder devant l’intraduisible ? L’écrivaine a désigné son cible et trouvé son arme: Dans son œuvre elle s’attaque aux mythes et aux clichés sociaux. Cette déconstruction des mythes constitue le point de départ de mon analyse de la traduction en langue française de Die Liebhaberinnen. Jelinek confronte les mythes de l’idylle autrichienne et de la littérature populaire à la réalité en faisant entrer la sexualité, la soumission des femmes et la misère dans ce BEAU pays avec ses monts et ses vaux. Par conséquent l’accent de mon analyse contrastive sera mis au « transfert du typique », y compris les repères stylistiques et socio-culturels, pour illustrer les différentes stratégies ainsi que les problèmes de traduction. Il en résulte de dépasser la dichotomie littéralisme / traduction libre et de se concentrer sur la théorie du skopos. Mots /syntagmes clé: Dekonstruktion von Mythen, Skopostheorie – pragmatische Äquivalenz, Transfer stilistischer und soziokultureller Merkmale, Übersetzungsstrategien
1. EINLEITUNG – SCHREIBEN GEGEN DEN STRICH Im öffentlichen Diskurs wird und wurde Elfriede Jelinek „als ‚Nestbeschmutzerin’ diffamiert, als ‚Kommunistin’ geschmäht, als ‚Pornographin’ denunziert“ (Janke 7). Fest steht: Elfriede Jelinek polarisiert, so wie ihre Texte provokant sind. In ihrem literarischen Oeuvre bedient sich die Autorin der Sprache gleichsam als Waffe, lediglich das Angriffsziel variiert. Bei einer Fokussierung auf das mediale Phänomen der „Skandalautorin“ riskiert man ihre Werke aus dem Blick zu verlieren. Der Ausgangspunkt meiner Beschäftigung mit Elfriede Jelineks Die Liebhaberinnen bzw. der französischer Übersetzung Les amantes waren Fragen der Übersetzbarkeit des „jelinek’schen“ Umgangs mit Sprache. Ein Umgang, der ihr im Jahre 2004 „für den musikalischen Fluss von Stimmen und Gegenstimmen in Romanen und Dramen, die mit einzigartiger sprachlicher Leidenschaft die Absurdität und zwingende Macht der sozialen Klischees enthüllen“ ("Der Nobelpreis in Literatur des Jahres 2004 – Pressemitteilung") den Nobelpreis für Literatur einbrachte. Im folgenden Artikel gilt es zunächst nach Charakteristika ihres Schreibens zu fragen, wobei hier das 7
Hauptaugenmerk auf die Mythendekonstruktion in Die Liebhaberinnen gelegt werden soll. In diesem Kontext werde ich mich auf jene inhaltlichen und textanalytischen Elemente konzentrieren, die in enger Verbindung zur Übersetzbarkeit der Liebhaberinnen stehen und somit eine Basis für die folgende linguistische Analyse von Les amantes schaffen. Der für den Artikel titelgebende Verweis auf das „Typische“ im Werk Elfriede Jelineks bezieht sich naturgemäß auf die Stilistik des Textes, soll jedoch im Sinne des Übersetzens als kulturelles Handeln auch auf Fragen der Übersetzbarkeit des „typisch Österreichischen“ im Text der Nestbeschmutzerin ausgeweitet werden. Diesbezüglich sollen der Translationsskopos und die Translationsstrategien anhand signifikanter Textpassagen erörtern werden. 2. VOM GUTEN BEISPIEL BRIGITTE UND VOM SCHLECHTEN PAULA – MYTHENDEKONSTRUKTION BEI ELFRIEDE JELINEK In Texten werden Konstruktionen erblickt, die dazu „erbaut“ wurden, Träger einer Wahrheit zu sein, die Erkenntnis der Wirklichkeit zu ermöglichen. […] Die Textkontruktionen […] gilt es nachdrücklich zu dekonstruieren (Szczepaniak 36). Die dekonstruktive Lesart fordert demnach, den Text auf die ihm zugrunde liegende, aber verdrängte Struktur hin zu lesen. Der Begriff „Struktur“ ist in diesem Kontext weit gefasst und beinhaltet beispielsweise Ideologien, Weltansichten oder auch Mythen. Mit dieser Herangehensweise ist, konträr zum hermeneutischen Ansatz, eine Aufwertung des Formalen, des Textimmanenten verbunden. Dekonstruktion kommt in der literarischen Schreibpraxis vorwiegend in der Postmoderne zum Tragen und zeichnet sich „durch kontextuierendes, entstellendes, entlarvendes Zitieren […], durch verzerrende parodistische Nachahmung“ (Szczepaniak 38) aus. Elfriede Jelinek birgt ob der „ästhetischen Sprengkraft ihrer Texte“ (Hoff 242) Elemente einer dekonstruktivistischen Schreibweise, welche anhand der vielfältigen intertextuellen Verweise in Die Liebhaberinnen veranschaulicht werden. Es soll in Folge aufgezeigt werden, wie die Autorin Mythen aus Liebes– und Heimatromanen (Trivialmythen) zunächst zitiert, um sie anschließend zu parodieren bzw. mit der Realität zu konfrontieren und sie derart in Frage zu stellen. 2.1. Strukturmerkmale der Trivialliteratur Durch ihren spezifischen Stil verwehrt Elfriede Jelinek den LeserInnen den „ungebrochenen d.h. unreflektierten Konsum der Texte“ (Nusser 90), der die Rezeption von Trivialliteratur beschreibt. Diese „ästhetisch wertlose[n] Massenlesestoffe“ (Wilpert 851) sind dadurch zu charakterisieren, dass sie „durch leichte Lesbarkeit, eingehende Handlung und Happy-End dem unbedarften Leser eine heile, unproblemat.[ische] – eskapist. [ische] Wunschtraumwelt von Glück, Liebe und Reichtum […] vorgaukeln“ (ibid.). Auch Jelineks Protagonistinnen Brigitte und Paula werden „als Zusammenschnitte von Vorstellungs– und Handlungsmustern“ (Koch 25) skizziert. Sie sind weniger literarische Charaktere 8
als stereotype Exempla. Das Bauprinzip der Liebhaberinnen und die Aneinanderreihung kurzer Kapitel mit „verheißungsvollen“ Titeln erinnern ebenfalls stark an den Fortsetzungsroman bzw. an Strukturmuster der Trivialliteratur im Allgemeinen. Darüber hinaus werden vorwiegend einfache Satzkonstruktionen (Hauptsatzreihen) verwendet und auch der Wortschatz ist limitiert. 2.2. Der Mythos „Liebe“ wird entzaubert Getragen vom Wunsch ihrer gegenwärtigen Situation zu entkommen, suchen Brigitte und Paula die Liebe und „finden“ Heinz bzw. Erich. Es wird geheiratet, Kinder werden gezeugt, das für den Heftchenroman so typische HappyEnd bleibt dennoch aus, Brigitte und Paula scheitern kläglich. Der Plot der Liebhaberinnen kreist um die Liebe, jedoch um keine Liebe im herkömmlichen Sinne. Die Erwartungen der LeserInnen an eine Geschichte mit einem derart bezeichnenden Titel werden vom ersten Moment an unterminiert. Man hat es bei weitem mit keinem herkömmlichen Liebesroman zu tun. In diesem Kontext ist es notwendig zu erwähnen, dass auch Brigittes und Paulas Vorstellungen von der Liebe divergieren. brigitte kann aus ihrem eigenen leben nichts besseres machen. das bessere soll vom leben von heinz herkommen. heinz kann brigitte von ihrer nähmaschine befreien, das kann brigitte von selbst nicht (Jelinek,“Die Liebhaberinnen” 11). Brigittes „Liebe“ gleicht einem ökonomischen Kalkül, ihre Träume sind gleichwohl berechnend wie „realistisch“, zumindest der sozialen Realität in Die Liebhaberinnen gegenüber. „Liebe“ bedeutet für sie Arbeit und wird zum Synonym für vermeintlichen sozialen Aufstieg, ist demnach Mittel zum Zweck. Heinz soll sie aus ihrem tristen Alltag als Akkordarbeiterin in einer Büstenhalterfabrik befreien. Große Gefühle sucht man bei Brigitte vergeblich. Unter dem Schutzmantel ihrer „Liebe“ verbirgt sich vielmehr tiefer Hass gegenüber Heinz. Paula hingegen hegt naive Vorstellungen von der Liebe, genährt durch die Welt der Illustrierten, Schlager und des Films. Sie glaubt fest an die „Idylle vom vorzeigbaren Glück“ (Hoffmann, “Sprach– und Kulturkritik“ 118) und noch fester daran, dass Erich ihr dies ermöglichen kann und wird. […] und dann will ich mir einen braven mann suchen, oder einen weniger braven, wie man sie im kino jetzt immer öfter sieht, und dann will ich heiraten und kinder bekommen. und alle miteinander lieben, ja, lieben! und es sollen zwei sein, ein bub und ein mädel. […] und ein einfamilienhaus, selber bauen mit fließigem mann (Jelinek, “Die Liebhaberinnen” 19). Sowohl Brigitte als auch Paula erhoffen sich durch die Liebe ein besseres Leben, hoffen dem proletarischen Milieu zu entkommen und instrumentalisieren zu diesem Zwecke ihren Körper, ihre Gebärfähigkeit: Ist erstmal ein Kind unterwegs, muss schließlich geheiratet werden. In diesem Zusammenhang überwiegt die Schilderung der Liebe als ökonomisches Verhältnis, als Tauschhandel: Frauen werden als Ware mit einem bestimmten Marktwert, Männer gleichsam als Käufer geschildert. Dies schlägt sich in der Verwendung eines spezifischen Wirtschaftsjargons nieder. In diesem Kontext stehen auch die im Roman vorkommenden Sexszenen, die durchwegs als „Unikum an Hässlichkeit“ 9
(Szczepaniak 168) geschildert werden und nichts mit „wohlbekannten [aus der Trivialliteratur] Bildern der sexuellen Akte als einzigartiger Erlebnisse, höchster Wonnen, rauschhaften Genusses“ (ibid. 169) gemein haben. 2.3. Eine literarische Abrechnung mit dem Heimatroman Der Heimatroman ist in seiner Ausprägung als trivialliterarische Form dadurch charakterisiert, dass er eine „klischeehafte Landschaft (meist die Alpen, daher auch als Bergroman bezeichnet) zum nicht näher definierten Schauplatz seiner stereotypen Handlung hat, in der in primitiver Schwarz-Weiß-Malerei die guten Menschen kernig, urwüchsig und erdverbunden, die bösen verstädtert und verderbt sind“ (Wilpert 332). Elfriede Jelinek zielt in Die Liebhaberinnen darauf ab, den Schauplatz ihrer Handlung, das „SCHÖNE land“ (Jelinek, “Die Liebhaberinnen” 5) und seine „friedlichen häuser und die friedlichen menschen darinnen“ (ibid.) sukzessiv zu demaskieren, indem sie aufzeigt, wie sehr es im kitschigen Alpenrepubliksidyll des Heimatromans erstarrt ist. Demnach wird auch in diesem Zusammenhang mit der Erzählstruktur der Trivialliteratur gebrochen, indem Sexualität, Gewalt, soziales Elend und Unterdrückung nicht länger draußen bleiben müssen. Es wird ebenfalls deutlich, dass den Figuren keineswegs mit Kategorien wie gut und böse beizukommen ist. Ebenso wenig können Land und Stadt dichotomisch abgegrenzt werden, sie verschwimmen zu einem gemeinsamen soziokulturellen Kontext, der ländlichen Arbeitergesellschaft. Auch rührselige Landschaftsbeschreibungen sucht man vergeblich. Schlimmer noch, „das Dämonische, das Monströse wird genau dort aufgedeckt, wo im Heimat– und Liebesroman grenzenloses, ungetrübtes Glück herrscht: in der Liebe, in der Ehe, in der Familie, in der Natur“ (Hoffmann, “Sprach– und Kulturkritik“ 95). 3. SPEZIFIKA LITERARISCHER ÜBERSETZUNG 3.1. Skopostheorie Er [der Translator, Anm.] soll anhand eines AT [Ausgangstextes, Anm.] mit anderen (sprachlichen) Mitteln einen neuen Text verfassen, der für andere Rezipienten bestimmt ist und unter anderen kulturellen Gegebenheiten funktionieren soll als der AT [Ausgangstext, Anm.] (Dizdar 106). In der 1978 von Vermeer entwickelten Skopostheorie (cf. Dizdar 104f.) steht das Ziel des Translationsprozesses im Mittelpunkt. Dieses Ziel wird, vereinfacht ausgedrückt, definiert als das Funktionieren des Zieltextes in der Zielkultur. Aufgrund des Prozesscharakters der Übersetzung wird weitgehend darauf verzichtet, sich auf eine bestimmte Translationsstrategie festzulegen. Es obliegt dem Übersetzer / der Übersetzerin, eine skoposadäquate Strategie auszuwählen und somit operiert er/sie im Graubereich zwischen Freiheit und Treue gegenüber dem Ausgangstext. 3.2. Übersetzen als kulturelles Handeln Wenn fünf Russen um einen Samowar, fünf Iren in einem Pub und fünf Wiener beim Heurigen sitzen, so mögen sie wohl über dasselbe reden – Politik, 10
Liebe, Steuern, doch es wird nicht das gleiche Gespräch sein, und dies nicht nur der verschiedenen Sprachen wegen. Es sind der Samowar, der Pub, der Heurige, die die Farben hergeben, die Gesten, den Rhythmus der Unterhaltung, den Klang, alles rundum, was wir bei der Übersetzung zu beachten haben (Markstein 288). Dieses Bewusstsein für kulturspezifische Elemente und die Metapher vom kulturellen Transfer beherrschen seit den 1980er Jahren den translationswissenschaftlichen Diskurs. In unmittelbarem Zusammenhang dazu steht Vermeers Skopostheorie (siehe Kapitel 3.1). Um beide auf einen gemeinsamen Nenner zu bringen: Der Zieltext kann nur dann funktionieren, sein Ziel erreichen, wenn es dem Übersetzer / der Übersetzerin gelingt, den zielsprachlichen LeserInnen Bezüge auf für die Ausgangskultur spezifische Elemente näher zu bringen. 4. DIE LIEBHABERINNEN À LA FRANÇAISE ÜBERSETZUNGSPROBLEME UND IHRE LÖSUNGEN
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Im Jahre 1992, 17 Jahre nach der Veröffentlichung der Liebhaberinnen in Österreich, erscheint Les amantes, übersetzt von Yasmin Hoffmann und Maryvonne Litaize im Verlag Chambon. Das Übersetzerinnen-Duo hatte zu diesem Zeitpunkt bereits für Die Klavierspielerin (La Pianiste 1988), Die Ausgesperrten (Les Exclus 1989) und Lust (1991) erfolgreich zusammengearbeitet. Ihren Translationsskopos in Bezug auf die Liebhaberinnen formuliert Yasmin Hoffmann wie folgt: „Der französische Text soll nicht dort flüssig klingen, wo der deutsche Leser stolpert.“ (Hoffmann, “Abschaffung der cartesianischen Logik“ 123). Aufgrund der Dichte des jelinekschen Textes liegt die Frage nahe, wie und ob diese auch übersetzt werden kann. „Wenn in jeder Sprache alles, was gemeint werden kann, auch ausdrückbar ist, so muss es prinzipiell möglich sein, das, was in einer Sprache ausgedrückt ist, in jede andere Sprache zu übersetzen“ (Koller 183). Es scheint jedoch zielführender eben beschriebene prinzipielle Übersetzbarkeit sprachlicher Äußerungen auf die denotative Textebene zu beschränken. Die Übersetzungsstrategie von Yasmin Hoffmann und Maryvonne Litaize kreist jedoch vor allem darum, die Individualästhetik der Liebhaberinnen auch im Zieltext zu erhalten. Es gilt, Jelineks spezifischen Umgang mit Sprache, ihre in Kapitel 2 skizzierte „Lust am Entstellen, Verdrehen, Zerstückeln […] Zerschneiden, an der willkürlichen Trennung von Signifikat und Signifikant“ (Hoffmann, “Abschaffung der cartesianischen Logik“ 121) in den französischen Text hinüber zu transportieren. Yasmin Hoffmann verwendet das Bild einer „Sprachkrise“ (ibid. 123), um ihren Translationsskopos zu beschreiben. Eine derartige Sprachkrise wird bei (deutschsprachigen) LeserInnen des Orignals durch Jelineks dekonstruktivistische Schreibweise ausgelöst und soll auch dem französischen Publikum nicht erspart bleiben. 4.1. Übersetzungsstrategien in Bezug auf Sprachvarietäten Mit dem Terminus Sprachvarietäten werden u.a. Dialekte (definiert als regionale Varietät) wie auch Soziolekte (definiert als soziale, für eine bestimmte 11
Gruppe charakteristische Varietät der Standardsprache) zusammengefasst. Beide kommen in literarischen Werken als Stilmittel zum Einsatz. Für ÜbersetzerInnen stellt sich die Frage, wie diese in die jeweilige Zielsprache bzw. in die Zielkultur übertragen werden können. Demnach soll in der Wahl der Übersetzungsstrategie berücksichtigt werden, welche Assoziationen der Ausgangstext evoziert, um diese adäquat in den Zieltext (ZT) hinüberzuretten. In diesem Zusammenhang unterscheidet man spezifische Translationsstrategien: Der Übersetzer / die Übersetzerin versucht den Dialekt bzw. Soziolekt in eine den ZT-LeserInnen vertraute Sprachvarietät (der Zielsprache) aufzulösen oder er/sie versucht das Fremde im Zieltext orthographisch / grammatikalisch nachzuahmen, eine Art Kunstsprache zu schaffen. Damit einher geht ein gewisser Verfremdungseffekt und das wachsende Bewusstsein der LeserInnen, dass sie es mit keinem Original sondern einer Übersetzung zu tun haben. Die Wiedergabe in Standardsprache ist zwar ebenfalls eine mögliche Verfahrensweise, wird aber heute aufgrund der daraus resultierenden stilistischen Verarmung des Zieltextes kritisch betrachtet. In Die Liebhaberinnen dienen Sprachvarietäten einerseits der Charakterisierung der Figuren, werden aber vor allem um den soziokulturellen Kontext lebendig, nachvollziehbar zu machen verwendet. In Jelineks Roman befinden wir uns klar in einem proletarischen ländlichen Milieu. Die Umgangssprache (bis hin zu Vulgarismen) wird mit Vorliebe zur Bezeichnung von Geschlechtsteilen bzw. der Schilderung des Geschlechtsaktes verwendet: heinz rammelt los, dass seine eingeweide in der bauchhöhle ins schleudern geraten (Jelinek,“Die Liebhaberinnen” 48). heinz taraude à faire valser ses tripes dans son ventre (Jelinek,“Les amantes” 64). In der Übersetzung des umgangssprachlichen Verbs rammeln verwenden die Übersetzerinnen nicht eine der französischen Leserschaft geläufige Variante aus dem français familier wie etwa baiser. Stattdessen haben sie sich für tarauder entschieden. Dies ist meines Erachtens darauf zurückzuführen, dass diese Übersetzungsvariante aufgrund der Doppelbedeutung des Verbs 1 die Brutalität des Geschlechtsaktes bzw. die Entwürdigung der Frau als Mittel zum Zweck zu unterstreicht. An anderer Stelle werden umgangssprachliche (als österreichische Redensart ebenfalls regional konnotiert) Elemente in die Zielsprache hinübergerettet: vor den fragen steht erich wie ein ochse vor dem gatter (Jelinek,“Die Liebhaberinnen“ 89). face aux questions erich est comme une vache qui voit passer un train (Jelinek, “Les amantes“ 124). Hier ist es den Übersetzerinnen gelungen, das umgangssprachliche Register zu erhalten, indem sie eine semantisch deckungsgleiche französische Redensart verwenden. In beiden Fällen wird gekonnt die Konnotation „verdutzt 1
tarauder entspricht im Sinne einer langue technique dem dt. ein Gewinde in etwas hineinbohren bzw. kann torturer als Synonym verwendet werden.
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bis intellektuell überfordert sein“ evoziert. Die rhetorische Qualität des Vergleichs bleibt ebenfalls erhalten. 4.2. Übersetzungsstrategien in Bezug auf Metaphern In der Translationswissenschaft werden Metaphern als rhetorisches Stilmittel, genauer als Tropen, verstanden. Man weicht von der Standardbedeutung in den Bereich der Bildhaftigkeit aus. Es findet demnach eine Sinnübertragung statt. Die Stärke der kreativen Brechung leitet sich aus der Entfernung zwischen der eigentlichen Vorstellung und dem Bildbereich ab. In diesem Zusammenhang kann man von einer „Schockwirkung für die Leser“ (Schäffner 281) ausgehen. Es wird deutlich, dass die Metapher per definitionem ein Übersetzungsproblem darstellt, da eine derartige Schockwirkung auch für die LeserInnen des Zieltextes anzustreben ist. Erschwerend kommt hinzu, dass der Bildbereich, aus dem die Metapher schöpft, in hohem Maße kulturell bedingt ist. Dieser Sachverhalt erweist sich als grundlegend für den Umgang mit Metaphern in literarischen Übersetzungen. In diesem Kontext können folgende Translationsstrategien (Schäffner 282f.) ausgemacht werden: Es besteht die Möglichkeit, die Metapher wortwörtlich in den Zieltext zu übernehmen oder auch mittels eines in der Zielsprache (ergo Zielkultur) geläufigen Bildes zu substituieren. Weiters stellt die Paraphrase ein Mittel dar, Metaphern zu behandeln. Das sprachliche Bild wird in diesem Fall durch einen nichtmetaphorischen Ausdruck wiedergegeben, quasi entmetaphorisiert. Somit bleibt der Sinn zwar erhalten, man riskiert jedoch den Verlust oben zitierter Schockwirkung. in paulas schädel kann nur mehr ein betonmischer ordnung schaffen (Jelinek, “Die Liebhaberinnen“ 32). dans le crâne de paula seule une bétonnière pourrait encore mettre de l’ordre (Jelinek,“Les amantes” 41). Das Übersetzerinnen-Duo wurde von Elfriede Jelinek angehalten, die Metaphern wortwörtlich zu übernehmen (cf. Hoffmann, “Abschaffung der cartesianischen Logik“ 131), um den Eigencharakter des literarischen Werks zu bewahren. Mit Metaphern verbundene Übersetzungsprobleme werden in Die Liebhaberinnen demnach im Sinne eines „funktional-ästhetischen Äquivalenzbegriffes“ (Koller 252) aufgelöst. 4.3. Übersetzungsstrategien in Bezug auf Sprachspiele Werden „lexikalische oder syntaktische Möglichkeiten einer Sprache in ungewöhnlicher (d.h. von den Gebrauchsnormen einer Sprache abweichenden) Weise ausgenützt“ (Koller 259), spricht man in der Textanalyse von Sprachspielen. Phänomene wie Neologismen, das Spiel mit Polysemie, „sprechende Namen“, das Spiel mit phonetischer Ähnlichkeit von Wörtern und die Kontrastierung ihrer unterschiedlichen Bedeutung (Paranomasie) u.ä. sind diesem Bereich zuzuordnen und werden verwendet, um den Text literarästhetisch zu gestalten bzw. wie bei Elfriede Jelinek zu dekonstruieren. In der Translationswissenschaft gelten Sprachspiele als besondere Herausforderung, da ihnen mit standardisierten 13
Übersetzungsverfahren nicht beizukommen ist, sie die ÜbersetzerInnen demnach jedes Mal aufs Neue vor einen Entscheidungsprozess stellen. 4.3.1. Neologismen und das kind bleibt bei der haßaufmutterundkinderfüllten oma (Jelinek,“Die Liebhaberinnen“ 17). et l’enfant reste chez la mémé-pleine-de-haine-pour-l’enfant-et-la-mère (Jelinek, “Les amantes“ 19). Die Liebhaberinnen ist durchzogen von derartigen jelinek’schen Wortneuschöpfungen. Obgleich das Deutsche weit mehr Spielraum für die Bildung von Komposita aufweist als das Französische, sind derartige Neologismen ausschließlich mit der sprichwörtlichen künstlerischen Freiheit der Autorin zu vereinbaren. Der Text erweist sich als wahrer Sprachspielplatz für Elfriede Jelinek. In Bezug auf oben zitierte Textstelle haben sich Yasmin Hoffmann und Maryvonne Litaize entschieden, nicht nur die Bedeutung des Wortspiels zu übernehmen sondern auch dessen spezifische Form. Die Originalformulierung wird demnach beibehalten. Man behalf sich lediglich durch das Einfügen von Bindestrichen. Dies ist jedoch eines der wenigen Beispiele, in denen die Übersetzerinnen so weit gehen. Häufig werden derartige Verschmelzungen von Wörtern nicht in der Zielsprache übernommen. Eine standardsprachliche Übersetzung kann jedoch zur Folge haben, dass der Text seine durchaus intendierte Befremdlichkeit verliert, wie das folgende Beispiel zeigt: zur selben zeit steigt die paulamutter mit dem rechen die bergwiese hoch, um ihr kleines reich zu bewirtschaften. ständig überschaut die mutta ihr reich, von einer hausfrauengrenze zur nächsten (Jelinek,“Die Liebhaberinnen” 74f). pendant ce temps, la mère de paula monte au pâturage, le râteau sur l’épaule, s’occuper de son petit royaume. la mère survole sans cesse du regard son domaine, son royaume de ménagére, d’une borne à l’autre (Jelinek,“Les amantes” 103). 4.3.2. Polysemie Auf Polysemie beruhende Wortspiele lassen sich meist gut in die Zielsprache übertragen. In Die Liebhaberinnen kann man in diesem Zusammenhang hauptsächlich Klangfiguren ausfindig machen. Auch wenn diese ihre Wirkung primär auf der lautlichen Ebene entfalten, ist anzumerken, dass sie (Traductio und Paronomasie) im Allgemeinen und im Werk Elfriede Jelineks ihren Ausgangspunkt in einer semantischen Differenz haben. schlag dir das aus dem kopf! bevor es dir der vatter und der gerald rausschlagen (Jelinek,“Die Liebhaberinnen” 19). sors-toi ça de la tête! avant que le père et gerald te le fassent sortir à coups de trique (Jelinek,“Les amantes” 23). Hier werden wörtliche (schlagen als tätlicher Angriff) und metaphorisierte Bedeutung (sich etwas aus dem Kopf schlagen) gegenübergestellt. Dieses Verfahren ist in der Rhetorik als Traductio bekannt und zeichnet sich dadurch aus, dass dasselbe Wort in unterschiedlichen Bedeutungen (konkrete und übertragene) 14
wiederholt wird. Den Übersetzerinnen gelingt es in der zitierten Textstelle nur bedingt dies auch ins Französische zu übernehmen. Auf lautlicher wie auf semantischer Ebene wird das Sprachspiel mit sortir und faire sortir übersetzt. Es bedarf auf der Ebene der konkreten Bedeutung aber unbedingt noch des Zusatzes à coups de trique, um der Textstelle auch im Zieltext gerecht zu werden. wenn die fotografien gemacht worden sein werden, wird die familie das spitalszimmer wie ein mann wieder verlassen. anschließend wird erich rote rosen überreichen, was kein traum und kein schaum sein wird, sondern ein traum, der wahr wurde (Jelinek,“Die Liebhaberinnen” 51). quand les photographies auront été faites, la famille quittera l’hôpital comme un seul homme. après ça erich lui tendra des roses rouges, ce qui ne sera ni songe, ni mensonge, mais songe devenu réalité (Jelinek,“Les amantes” 69). Die Paronomasie operiert mit der lautlichen Ähnlichkeit zweier Wörter obgleich unähnlicher Bedeutung und wird aufgrund ihrer durch den Klang gestützten Eindringlichkeit häufig im Bereich der Werbung und auch in Sprichwörtern eingesetzt. Elfriede Jelinek greift im Ausgangstext auf das Sprichwort Träume sind Schäume zurück, montiert es quasi in ihren Text. Da im Französischen ebenfalls ein ähnlich konnotiertes Sprichwort (Songe, mensonge pour exprimer que les rêves sont trompeurs) existiert, liegt nahe, dass sich Yasmin Hoffmann und Maryvonne Litaize dieses Material in ihrer Übersetzung zu Nutze machen und derart sowohl die Inhalt– als auch die formale Ebene erhalten. Doch nicht immer erweist sich die französische Sprache als dermaßen entgegenkommend, sodass nicht ohne ausgeklügelte Übersetzungsstrategie mit Lautähnlichkeit operiert werden kann. Um dies zu veranschaulichen, möchte ich erneut auf eine Textstelle verweisen: alle hoffnungen hängen nun an heinz, der sie enttäuschen wird. was sie errafft und erschafft haben, gehört heinz, geschafft haben sie es ja nicht (Jelinek, “Die Liebhaberinnen” 99). tous les espoirs s’accrochent à heinz qui les décevra. ce qu’ils ont réussi à amasser appartient à heinz, mais ce n’est pas une réussite (Jelinek,“Les amantes” 139). Die Übersetzerinnen zielen darauf ab, den Gleichklang von errafft – erschafft – geschafft zu bewahren und kommen daher zur Behelfslösung réussi – amasser – réussite. Während der Ausgangstext den Schwerpunkt auf den stimmlosen Frikativ [f] legt, wird in der Übersetzung ebenfalls ein stimmloser Frikativ des Französischen [s] herangezogen. Semantisch geht jedoch die Bedeutung im Satzteil geschafft haben sie [Heinz’ Eltern] es ja nicht verloren, da das neutrale Demonstrativpronomen und die Zeitstufe Präsens der Übersetzung zu einer Bedeutungsverschiebung führen: Für die LeserInnen des Zieltextes wird nochmals wiederholt, dass Heinz die an ihn geknüpften Hoffnungen enttäuschen wird. 15
4.3.3. „Sprechende Namen“ Die Namensgebung des guten Beispiels Brigitte ruft Assoziationen mit der gleichnamigen deutschen Frauenzeitschrift auf den Plan. Dies geht in der französischen Übersetzung verloren. Ähnlich ist es um den Titel bestellt: Man merkt beim Lesen schnell, dass Brigitte und Paula keine Liebhaberinnen im herkömmlichen Sinne sind, dass es vielmehr um ein Possessivverhältnis geht: Sie wollen beiden, die Liebe haben und sind bereit, dafür einiges zu ertragen. Der Titel Les amantes bietet keinerlei Raum für derartige Konnotationen. 4.4. Übersetzungsstrategien in Bezug auf Realia Kulturspezifische Elemente werden in der Translationswissenschaft unter dem Begriff Realia zusammengefasst. Es ist anzumerken, dass Realia sich in unterschiedlicher Form textuell manifestieren: schlichtweg als Eigennamen, als Toponyme, Lokalspeisen, Abkürzungen, Interaktionsformeln, Gesten, Institutionen u.ä. Derartige „Identitätsträger eines nationalen/ ethnischen Gebildes“ (Markstein 288) sind per definitionem kulturgebunden und verfügen in den meisten Fälle über keine deckungsgleiche Entsprechung in anderen Kulturen, bei anderen Völkern oder in anderen Ländern. Für den Translationsprozess ist festzustellen, dass die wörtliche Übersetzung in Bezug auf Realia als wenig zielführend einzustufen ist. „Die Sprache wechseln, heißt in eine andere Welt wechseln“ (Kupsch-Losereit 1). Daraus resultiert, dass reines Sprachwissen für eine gelungene Übersetzung kaum mehr ausreicht. Dem Übersetzer/der Übersetzerin kommt demnach, nicht mehr nur eine sprachliche Vermittlerrolle zu, sondern dem soziokulturellen Ansatz in der Translationswissenschaft gemäß gilt es unbedingt, den ausgangs– wie zielsprachlichen Kulturkontext zu berücksichtigen. Ausgangs– und Zieltext treffen auf unterschiedliche Rezeptionsbedingungen, u.a. auf unterschiedliches kulturelles Wissen ihrer jeweiligen LeserInnen. Eine Anspielung, ein kultureller Bezug wird beispielsweise im Ausgangstext kommentarlos verstanden, während er im Zieltext spezifischer Verfahren bedarf bzw. auch gänzlich verloren gehen kann. In diesem Zusammenhang spricht Koller vom Herstellen pragmatischer Äquivalenz und fordert „die Übersetzung auf die Leser in der ZS ’einzustellen’“ (Koller 248). Dies bedeutet jedoch immer auch ein Eingreifen in den Text, über dessen erlaubtes Ausmaß in der Translationswissenschaft auch heute noch heftig diskutiert wird. Zusammenfassend lässt sich daraus für den Übersetzer / die Übersetzerin die Frage ableiten, wie mit der Fremdheit im Zieltext umgegangen werden kann und soll. Die Wahl der Übersetzungsstrategie ist angepasst an die vorkommende Realie, demnach von Mal zu Mal verschieden und wird natürlich auch durch die Textsorte (mit Realia in literarischen Texten wird man anders umgehen, als mit Realia in Sachtexten) und die Nähe bzw. Ferne der Ausgangs– und Zielkultur bestimmt. Im Folgenden soll versucht werden, Hauptstrategien (cf. Markstein 291) herauszufiltern und diese in der Übersetzung von Die Liebhaberinnen aufzuzeigen. Die Reihenfolge der Darstellungen ergibt sich aus dem Maß des Eingreifens in die Textstruktur. 16
Es besteht die Möglichkeit Realia wörtlich zu übernehmen, mit der Fremdheit quasi zu spielen. Dies führt zwangsläufig dazu, die LeserInnen nicht vergessen zu lassen, dass es sich um kein Original sondern um eine Übersetzung handelt. Die Ausgangskultur bleibt auf diese Weise auch sprachlich präsent. Ein Zuviel an derartigen Zitaten führt jedoch zu einer gewissen Frustration und Überforderung seitens des Zielpublikums. susi spürt brigittes hass überhaupt nicht, weil ihre gedanken um linzertorten und gespickte rehrücken kreisen. susi ist jeglicher hass fremd. susi ist freundlich und häuslich (Jelinek, “Die Liebhaberinnen” 65). susi est absolument insensible à la haine de brigitte, parce que ses pensées gravitent autour d’une linzertorte et d’une selle de chevreuil. la haine est un sentiment étranger à susi. susi est aimable, c’est une fée du logis (Jelinek,“Les amantes” 89). In Bezug auf die Realie Linzertorte übernehmen Yasmin Hoffmann und Maryvonne Litaize den deutschen Ausdruck auch in den zielsprachigen Text. Sie wählen meiner Meinung nach absichtsvoll nicht die wörtliche (Lehn-)Übersetzung (tarte de linz) sondern gehen von der Kenntnis dieser österreichischen Spezialität auch über die Grenzen hinweg, im französischen Zielpublikum aus. Aus eigener Erfahrung d.h. durch das Gespräch mit französischen Gewährspersonen, weiß ich, dass dies durchaus zutrifft. Auch an anderer Stelle, in Bezug auf die österreichische Spezialität Spätzle übernehmen die Übersetzerinnen kommentarlos den Ausdruck auch für den französischen Text (Jelinek, “Les amantes” 86). Bedenkt man, dass Spätzle auch im Alsace als Spezialität gelten, ist diese Übersetzungsentscheidung (oder eben die Entscheidung, dass es hier keiner Übersetzung bedarf) durchaus plausibel. Eine weitere Alternative, mit Realien umzugehen stellen Lehnübersetzungen dar. Diese werden definiert als „die lineare Übertragung morphologisch analysierbarer ausgangssprachlicher Syntagmen“ (Knauer 34) und erhalten ebenfalls in gewissem Maße die (kulturelle) Fremdheit im Text. Eine derartige Übersetzung wäre beispielsweise la tarte de linz. In diesem Zusammenhang möchte ich des Weiteren auf die Möglichkeit der Adaptation verweisen d.h. die außersprachliche (kulturelle) Wirklichkeit mit einem äquivalenten Ausdruck der Zielsprache wiederzugeben. Beide Ausdrücke, sowohl der ausgangs– als auch der zielsprachliche, erfüllen die gleiche Funktion in ihrem jeweiligen Sprachsystem. Derart wird Paula, im Ausgangstext als „dumme Kuh“ (71) bezeichnet, in Les amantes zur „oie stupide“ (98). Mit einer sinngemäßen Entsprechung aus der Zielsprache zu operieren, ist nur in den wenigsten Fällen wirklich zufriedenstellend. Im folgenden Textbeispiel wird mit dem Gattungsbegriff gearbeitet, was zur Folge hat, dass die konnotative Dimension der Peter Alexander Show (leichte, launige Samstagsabendunterhaltung 17
– Peter Alexander als österreichischer Entertainer) verloren geht. Der kulturspezifische Ausdruck wird durch die Übersetzung gänzlich neutralisiert. und am abend ist die launige peter alexander show (Jelinek, “Die Liebhaberinnen“ 136). et ce soir tous regarderont avec plaisir leur show télévisé favori (Jelinek, “Les amantes“ 190). Als letzte Übersetzungsstrategie sind kommentierende Verfahren anzumerken. Diese sind weit gefasst und reichen von der sinnaufschlüsselnden Paraphrase bis hin zur editorischen Maßnahmen in Gestalt von Glossaren und Fußnoten. In Die Liebhaberinnen wird der französischen Leserschaft die im Text vorkommende Schauspielerin Uschi Glas beispielsweise mittels folgender Fußnote vorgestellt: „N.d.T.: Uschi Glas, actrice et chanteuse populaire dans les années 70.“ (Jelinek, “Les amantes” 36). 5. CONCLUSIO Argumentiert man im Sinne der Skopustheorie, in der der Zieltext funktionieren d.h. empfängerorientiert sein soll, stellt sich die Frage, ob man sich, um die gewünschte Adäquatheit in der Zielkultur zu erreichen, nicht zwangsläufig vom Original entfernen muss. Dies bedeutet gleichermaßen die Loslösung von der Dichotomie wort– oder sinngetreue Übersetzung. Über semiotische Aspekte hinaus ist jedoch auch der Transfer textimmanenter kultureller Elemente für den Übersetzungsprozess bzw. dessen Gelingen von Bedeutung. Dahingehend ist auch die Doppelbedeutung des Titels – Transfer des Typischen – zu verstehen, einerseits bezieht dieser sich auf das Typische in Jelineks Schreiben, andererseits auf das Typische in Bezug auf die österreichische (Ausgangs-)Kultur, worauf in Kapitel 4 in den jeweiligen Unterkapiteln eingegangen worden ist. Es kann demnach festgestellt werden, dass Übersetzungsprobleme aus einer Sprach– und Kulturkontaktsituation resultieren bzw. daraus, dass die beteiligten Sprachen und Kulturen unterschiedliche Strukturen aufweisen (cf. Knauer 24). Im Rahmen der kontrastiven Analyse ist deutlich geworden, dass sich förmlich mit jedem Wort ein Spektrum an Konnotationen und Assoziationen, aber auch an Übersetzungsschwierigkeiten eröffnen kann, die vom Übersetzer/der Übersetzerin stets eine Entscheidung – in Bezug auf den Translationsskopos – fordern.
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LITERATURVERZEICHNIS Primärliteratur: Jelinek, Elfriede. Die Liebhaberinnen. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2004. Jelinek, Elfriede. Les amantes. Trans. Yasmin Hoffmann u. Maryvonne Litaize. Nîmes: J. Chambon, 1992. Sekundärliteratur: Dizdar, Dilek. „Skopostheorie.“ Handbuch Translation. Eds. Mary Snell-Hornby et al. Tübingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1998. 104-106. Hoff, Dagmar von. „Elfriede Jelinek.“ Metzler Autorinnen Lexikon. Eds. Ute Hechtfischer et al. Weimar: Metzler, 1998. 241-243. Hoffmann, Yasmin. „Die französischen Jelinek-Übersetzungen: Ein Beitrag zur Abschaffung der cartesianischen Logik.“ Elfriede Jelinek: die internationale Rezeption. Ed. Daniela Bartens. Graz, Wien: Droschl, 1997. 120-135. Hoffmann, Yasmin. Elfriede Jelinek. Sprach– und Kulturkritik im Erzählwerk. Opladen, Wiesbaden: Westdt. Verl., 1999. Janke, Pia (Ed.). Die Nestbeschmutzerin. Jelinek & Österreich. Salzburg, Wien: Jung und Jung, 2002. Knauer, Gabriele. Grundkurs Übersetzungswissenschaft Französisch. Stuttgart: Klett, 1998. Koch, Martina. „Die Sprache beim Wort genommen – Sprachkritik als Gesellschaftskritik bei Elfriede Jelinek.“ MA thesis. University of Vienna, 1986. Kupsch-Losereit, Sigrid. „Übersetzen als transkultureller Verstehens– und Kommunikationsvorgang: andere Kulturen, andere Äußerungen.“ Sprachtransfer – Kulturtransfer. Text, Kontext und Translation. Ed. Nikolai Salnikow. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 1995. 1-15. Markstein, Elisabeth. „Realia.“ Handbuch Translation. Eds. Mary Snell-Hornby et al. Tübingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1998. 288-291. Nusser, Peter. Romane für die Unterschicht. Groschenhefte und ihre Leser. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1973. Schäffner, Christina. „Metaphern.“ Handbuch Translation. Eds. Mary Snell-Hornby et al. Tübingen: Stauffenburg-Verl., 1998. 280-284. Szczepaniak, Monika. Dekonstruktion des Mythos in ausgewählten Prosawerken von Elfriede Jelinek. Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 1998. Wilpert, Gero von. Sachwörterbuch der Literatur. Stuttgart: Kröner, 2001. Internetquellen: "Der Nobelpreis in Literatur des Jahres 2004 – Pressemitteilung". Nobelprize.org. 1 Jul 2011. .
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AN OVERVIEW ON SOCIAL AND POLITICAL DISCOURSES Viorica BANCIU University of Oradea ABSTRACT This paper focuses on the characteristics of the political discourse especially the meanings of the sentence as the largest unit. The social practice of language behavior is tightly bound to society, power, values, ideologies, opinions, etc. The analysis of the political discourse will help us make the mechanisms of manipulation, discrimination, demagogy and propaganda explicit and transparent. Keywords: political discourse, demagogy, language, behavior
The question of specific interest for critical linguists is: What are the social and political practices involved in or triggered by the sentence? Today we speak of discourse or of text (written and oral); we do not accept the sentence as the largest unit in vogue. We are concerned in our paper with the social practice of language behavior, with the dialectics between society, power, values, ideologies, opinions expressed and constituted in and about language. Generally speaking, we want to uncover and de-mystify certain social processes, to make mechanisms of manipulation, discrimination, demagogy, and propaganda explicit and transparent. As a second step, as many indicators, data and knowledge as possible concerning the whole context of these processes have to be examined, to enable us to interpret and understand how and why reality is structured in a certain way. Language changes always manifest social changes but language changes (or changes in the language behavior) can also trigger social changes. As far as the texts themselves are concerned, it may be asserted that the linguistic means of which they consist of, converge to form a total-meaning, even if the latter may in fact remain contradictory. The way in which meaning is formed, and the way in which it is communicated, is based upon processes that transgress the confines of the individual text. The latter realizes, against a general background, a number of actual operations of meaning to be reconstructed by the reader. The linguistic forms, as bearers of meaning, are socio-historically determined; therefore, each text functions as a reconstruction or variation of the socio-historical determinants. The political speeches and manifestos, different cultural trends may be texts used in the service of conscious propaganda e.g. Futurism. The manifestos usually reach their target recipients through newspapers and magazines or television. The propagandist speeches as well as the programmatic manifestos 21
show substantially the same text-typological and text-constitutive features. In both cases the same discursive techniques are applied using emotionally charged language, with the aim of inducing the listener to arrive at affective value judgments or to approve of those presented to him. This aim of persuasion is realized by applying strategies typical of propaganda: argumentation. In their aggression against different cultures they are able to arouse prejudices on the psychological level, which can be exploited politically. They apply the strategy of adopting the main concepts and values of their opponents and changing them completely by means of skilful linguistic delivery, making them appear absurd and casting doubt on the credibility and the social importance of their contents. In order to undermine the political goals of the opponent, qualities attributed to him were negated and presented as contrast to positive qualities found in their own movement. Our textual analysis has shown which discursive strategies are applied in conceiving a convincing message in order to incite people to act. Hence, for example, the creation of images of an enemy against whom One could join and show solidarity; hence, the development of myths, by which leaders attempt to give a rational legitimization to irrational actions and the call for aggression; hence, also the stereotypical use of central concepts which are to substantiate the claim for the myth to be true and consistent; hence, the use of slogans and catchwords which appeal to emotions and an argumentation, whose persuasive character results mainly from the contrasting of opinions; hence, a type of rhetoric that employed the imagery of metaphor in order to express its message clearly and urgently, and finally a language, which, by using concepts of the natural sciences and their laws, presume to possess also their rationality. All these are strategies, characteristic of the use of language in the process of conveying ideology. The typical feature of this discourse, which distinguishes it from many other types of political discourse, and which, however, places it unmistakably within a specific socio-historical setting, is the orientation of its language. Persuasive behavior is of its very nature always communicative behavior. In order to employ the stylistic differences between various linguistic structures for rhetorical purposes is a most common and legitimate everyday implementation of linguistic means of expression. Rhetorical acts, i.e. those that aim at a perlocutionary effect upon the rhetorician's audience and in the last consequence try to trigger off certain behavioral patterns in the listener, belong to the intrinsic and essential functions for which language can be and actually has been used for times immemorial. Words can, in fact, be used as instruments of power and deception, but it is never the words themselves that should be dubbed evil and poisonous, as has become the fashion since the days of Mauthner. The responsibility for any damage that might have been done by using certain means of expression still lies with the users, those who, not being able to alter reality, try through interpretative strategies to change its reception and recognition by their interlocutors (Bork, 1970: 9). It is not reality that is altered by its description, rather is it the interlocutor's outlook on 22
reality and his interpretation that can be controlled by devices of persuasive communication. Linguistic devices of persuasive turn are arranged along two parameters: on the Structural level they range from explicit, predominantly marked, even systematic elements, down to implicit, unmarked workday routines (language of the peer-group, the language of the family, regional variants, etc.). As far as the relationship between the speaker (persuader) and his interlocutor is concerned, persuasive devices can either employ means that serve to arose surprise, even cause estrangement, or one may resort to quite another trick: chumming up to somebody by mimickry, i.e. the simulation of speech variants that signal intimacy. Thus, by impressing or surprising somebody, the persuader tries to make his victim give up his own viewpoint and embrace that of the rhetorician, whereas in the case of flattery and acting out of chumminess the recipient is convinced that the persuader has given up his own point of view in favor of that of the persuaded. What is even more effective is when the victim gets the impression that both partners have had the same outlook on reality from the very beginning, in which case the persuader is regarded and accepted as one of the victim's near and dear. Here the central aim of the persuader, i.e. to get the recipient to identify himself with the view proffered, is achieved by one of the time-honored tricks of rhetoric, i.e. the feigned identification of the persuader with the victim. Intelligibility is prerequisite of persuasion. This might, at first sight, seem to be a very trivial statement: of course one has to understand what somebody says in order to be influenced by what he has meant. We have in mind the fact that in order for a language to be effective, e.g. in acts of persuasive communication, the person to be convinced would have to understand every bit of information and every strand of associative meaning that is being transmitted to him. This would mean that not only referential-denominative features, conditioned by presuppositions, would have to be parallel in both parties, but also degrees of semantic intensity and expressiveness, and above all the connotative meaning potential, attitudinal aspects, fears and expectations. In fact, the communicative biographies of the partners ought to be practically the same in order to guarantee mutual understanding and trustworthiness, since parallel semiotic backgrounds are necessary to effect the persuader's main task, i.e. to lure the recipient into identifying with the persuader's perspective. This is why in Sornig's view (1989: 98) understanding in general and (persuasive) communication in particular has to do with identification, i.e. he who listens adjusts his view to that which is being insinuated; he always identifies himself to some degree with his partner. This is why persuasion works best among people who speak the same language. People who share similar communicative biographies can achieve understanding and agreement with a minimum of verbal activity. The seductive mechanism that employs similarity of communicative behavior may well be seen in contrast to coercive strategies which serve a similar purpose, viz. to make the recipient adjust his behavior to that suggested or demanded by the persuader. In this case, however, mutual understanding is not his aim; the victims know that they are being conditioned and controlled against their 23
will instead of acting upon their own decision. At the top of the list of the more or less outspoken rhetorical devices there are explicit announcements to introduce argumentative steps, such as: I'll explain this to you, shall I?; You really must admit...; Look here... The presumpliousness of assertive communication reaches its climax when somebody is obliged to repeat a statement (or a command) after the person who initiated it. This strategy of manipulation is based upon the assumption that a person will readily believe anything he has said himself in so many words (irrespective of the fact that he has/has not done so of his own free will). In this connection one cannot avoid mentioning the persuasive force that can be derived from repeating someone else's statement, especially in the original wording. Quotational language not only carries conviction, or at least feigns celebrity by exploiting the prestige of the person by whom a quotation was originated, it also contains the temptation to misuse and abuse what somebody of importance has said and probably meant. Another social aspect of political discourse is the question: what makes an utterance credible or a person trustworthy (not taking into account characteristics of non-verbal behavior)? The answer Werner Holly (1989: 116) proposes is based on Griece's explication of 'meaning' and some further reflections on the question of how n-meaning of a verbal action can be conveyed, understood, or interpreted. He is arguing that the lack of trustworthiness that even politicians themselves deplore is not due to the fact that their utterances seem to be false or indirect. Mendacity is apparent only in a few of the cases considered as examples of untrustworthiness. The main reason seems to be that, in political language, the way of conveying meaning is obscured, and above all, the speaker's intentions are not overt. Griece's model of communication excludes symbolic action, which lacks in overtness. There are good reasons for such a restrictive definition of communication, despite the fact that covertness is no rarity. Let us see what a person may resort to with the aim of conveying the complex meaning of an utterance. First of all, he may use what has been called the usual or lexical meaning of expressions. This is the very simple case: one means something ('it is hot') and conveys it explicitly by saying “It is hot”. There are still the problems of vagueness and ambiguity, ('of high temperature'/'spicy'/brand-new'/'passionate', etc.), found in nearly every meaning, or in many syntactical constructions. Secondly, our speaker may proceed in a more sophisticated way and convey meaning by resorting to what has been described as semantic presuppositions and implications. In our example he may say: // Is anything but cold. Linguistic knowledge is still used, but a much wider range of possibilities has been opened, and things become more complicated; we already have to read between the lines. Finally, there is the possibility of expressing meaning by using pragmatic presuppositions and implications, only to be understood by consulting the special situation of the utterance. The idea that a room is very hot may be expressed ironically by saying: It is awfully cold. Taking these together with the concept of complex action, we envisage an utterance as an action/meaning-complex which may consist of several patterns conveyed by different devices of meaning; 1) literal meaning components, 2) 24
semantic and 3) pragmatic presuppositions or implications. The addressee has to choose the relevant meaning components from a range of possibilities, according to the particular circumstances of interaction. To deal with this task the addressee may question what the speaker might have intended, but this is only part of the interpretative process. His general aim is to arrive at an interpretation, which makes sense, i.e. which fits the whole context. A look at the conditions of political language used in public shows that these aren't comparable to everyday situations. Firstly, face-to-face situations are rare; almost every utterance, which is heard by the public, is a mediated one. What seem to be face-to-face situations in media, interviews or TV-discussions, for instance, often turn out to be mere staging of spontaneous interactions. Critical intuition or detailed analysis, reveal their ritual character as being an excellent opportunity for refined propaganda. And even if a citizen happens to encourage a politician, at an election rally, during a campaign or his office hours, he still has to deal with the considerable asymmetry present between the professional communicator and the layman – a factor that influences radically the face-to-face situation, and particularly the question of responsibility. Even in the European institutions, political groups need their own language and portray themselves via this language (Chirimbu 2010). In real life, they define their territory by means of their language; they signal their ideology through certain slogans and stereotypes; their ideological structure is joined together in a certain way and so is their argumentation. Dependent on rules and programs respectively, this use of language may serve to produce provocation, or to incite reflection, or to effect the emergence of a ghetto. Thus, there are subcultures whose intention it is to be understood and to recruit new members; others form closed groups and so remain misunderstood. The connection between language and experience may be assumed to be a proven fact; since the investigation of Whorf we are aware of the reflection of reality by means of language and vice versa. Jargon is a special language which is based grammatically on the common language, but which contains special features in the lexical, semantic and syntactic areas. The speaker employs jargon in order to acquire prestige, but without this prestige being justified by the imparted content to the form. We do not want to restrict the definition in this way. Recent studies on jargon, political language and special languages have shown that we need a socio linguistic approach here as well. Jargon can be defined as group languages with specific functions, i.e. the function of establishing group identity, of consolidating the group vis-a-vis the external word, of designating the group to outsiders, and, naturally, of communicating specific contents as well. Thus, the identical words may execute a prestige function, while also representing a precise way of talking about specific ideological contents. In our case, we could say that language may represent contrasting linguistic functions. Jargon may focus primarily on the group -the prestige function– or it may merely be a very clever and effective tool for expressing political opinions. Most elite types of discourse, such as political and legal discourse or scholarly reports, are directly accessible only to a small segment of in group. Mass 25
circulation and sharing among in group of ethnic prejudices and ideologies presuppose mass communication, that is expression or (re)production in the mass media. Therefore, we assume that the media play a very specific role in the distribution and acceptance of ethnic ideologies. The media do not passively describe or record news events in the world, but actively (re)construct, mostly on the basis of many types of source discourses. Corporate interests, news values, institutional routines, professional ideologies and news schemata formats play an important role in this transformation. These factors favor preferential access of powerful persons, institutions and nations to the media, more stories about these power elites, special focus on negative, conflictual or dramatic events, and generally a White, Western, male, and middle class perspective on news events. Most readers tend to adopt this definition of news events and news discourse (Grabber, 1984). The properties of news processing tend to lead to a reproduction and legitimation of the ideology of the political, socio-economic and cultural elites. On the other hand, the specific institutional and professional functions and goals of the media and the journalists also allow and require a semiautonomous role in the (re)production of news events and the manufacture of social consensus. It is also this 'symbolic power' of the media that helps explain its role in the reproduction of racism. BIBLIOGRAPHY Chirimbu, S. (2011) Uniunea Europeană –politică, istorie, terminologie, Ed. Docucenter, Bacău. Grice, H. P. (1975) “Logic and Conversation” in Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds), Syntax and Semantics 3: • Acts. New York, San Francisco and London: Academic Press, 41-58. Holly, W. (1985) Politische Kultur und Sprachkultur: Wiesich der Burger Politische Au Berungen Verstadiischen Pragmatik. Zeitschrift fur Germanistiche Linguistik 12:275-312. Schjerve, R.R. (1989), The Political Speech of Futurism ans Its Relationship to Italian Fascism, Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
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SUR LE DISCOURS RADIOPHONIQUE ET SON CADRE SPATIAL Emilia BONDREA Spiru Haret University, Bucharest ABSTRACT The fusion between an immanent linguistics and a social linguistics operating on a wide field of investigation – from the perspective of sociology, psychology, technology, etc – has resulted into a development and distinction of the discourse concept. Thanks to the discourse linguistics, the media discourse has become one of its topics, since media is perceived as ‘an amazing mechanism’ to create a discourse. « Media, mirrors of the social phenomena, establish themselves to build a discourse via what we call a media mechanism (Charaudeau, 2005:8). » Hence, the interest of the professionals in humanistic and social sciences to analyse so as to stress the ‘contract communication’ they have suggested. The objective of this article is to outline the central issues in the radio discourse, a type of media discourse, triggered by its occurrence conditions. These issues can gather around the following questions (Charaudeau, 1995:102): Who is there to say or do what? Who is there for how to say or do? Who is talking to whom? Talking about what? In which space and time frames? Keywords: media, radio discourse, cadre spatial, radio spatial frame
INTRODUCTION La rencontre d’une linguistique immanente avec une linguistique sociale opérant sur un champ d’investigation élargi – sociologique, psychologique, technologique même, etc. – a conduit à l’élaboration et au raffinement du concept de discours. Grâce à la linguistique du discours, le discours médiatique est devenu un de ses objets d’étude, les médias étant considérés comme « une fantastique machine » à produire des discours. « Les medias, miroirs des phénomènes sociaux, s’instituent en entreprise à fabriquer des discours à travers ce que l’on peut appeler une machine médiatique (Charaudeau, 2005:8). » D’où l’intérêt des professionnels des sciences humaines et sociales de les analyser pour mettre en relief le «contrat de communication» qu’ils proposent. 27
L’objet de cet article est d’esquisser les aspects fondamentaux du discours radiophonique, type de discours médiatique, déterminé par ses conditions de production. Celles-ci pourraient s’organiser autour des questions suivantes (Charaudeau, 1995:102): On est là pour quoi dire ou faire ? On est là pour comment dire et faire ? Qui parle à qui ? A propos de quoi ? Dans quel cadre physique d’espace et de temps ? 1.TRAITS CARACTÉRISTIQUES GÉNÉRAUX Instrument de diffusion de l’idéologie d’une société à des moments précis de son évolution, « presse sans papier et sans distance », la radiodiffusion s’appuie sur un «message de diffusion, unidirectionnel, de nature sonore, émanant d’une autorité, située dans un univers lointain, utilisant le canal des télécommunications, effectué entre être humains et enregistré » (Dictionnaire Marabout Université, 1973: 77). Le discours radiophonique diffère selon les époques, selon les genres, selon les stations émettrices ou les chaînes de radio. À lire U. Eco (1972:40), la radio est sous-tendue par la chaîne suivante: «La source de l’information étant l’émetteur du message qui, ayant identifié un ensemble donné de faits à communiquer, les fait parvenir au transmetteur (le microphone) qui les change en signaux physiques; ceux-ci voyagent sur un canal (ondes hertziennes), sont reçus par un récepteur qui les transformes en message (sons articulés) qui sera reçu par le destinataire». Le propre de la radio est d’utiliser le sonore, mais en évoquant le visible. L’étude du discours radiophonique ne saurait se contenter d’analyser le produit fini (celui qui passe à travers les ondes hertziennes) mais il est nécessaire d’expliquer et analyser «l’amont » du texte radiophonique et également son « aval », discours et texte radiophonique se fondant en un ensemble complexe. Selon A.-J. Tudesq (1984:6), les deux voies qui expliqueraient l’ «amont » et l’« aval » du texte ou message radiophonique portent sur: (a) le circuit de fabrication, mécanisme qui détermine le statut des partenaires impliqués dans ce type de communication et les contrats ou types de relations qui les rattachent entre eux; (b) le système de représentation, mécanisme qui conduira à l’élaboration du sens et de la signification dans le discours radiophonique à travers le fonctionnement de la pratique professionnelle. « Nous ne pensons pas que l’on puisse analyser le discours radiophonique en faisant abstraction du cadre dans lequel il est inséré ou du public auquel il s’adresse. C’est un flux continu qui se situe entre « un amont et un aval » 28
« L’aval » du produit fini porte sur les effets effectivement produits sur les récepteurs, pour les confronter ensuite aux effets possibles dégagés lors de l’analyse interne » (A.-J.Tudesq, 1984: 19). La parole radiodiffusée échappe à celui qui la prononce, à son/ses locuteur(s); elle reflète une idéologie, un cadre socio-politique; elle émane d’une autorité mais elle est aussi tributaire d’une technique. L’acte de parole du/des locuteur(s) est un « acte justifié, homologué, légalisé, donc professionnel: Homo Vox . L’ Homo Vox est un discours complexe. Une idéologie institutionnalisée l’engendre, une pratique socioculturelle le structure, une technique (tranches horaires, modulage du presque direct, ensemble de procédés de simulation) le sous-tend, un groupe de professionnels réalisent par des textes précis le processus extrêmement complexe de communication radiophonique, un ensemble de sujets écoutants ou auditeurs le consomme pour accéder a ce qu’on a nomme le gagne-onde. L ‘Homo Vox parce que les textes produits existent, éphémères, par la voix de quelqu’un qui a réussi à établir, en quelque sorte, un équilibre harmonieux entre l’Institution, l’Individu et les Indices d’écoute » (J.Clopeau et M. Renouard, 1984:22-23). Les traits caractéristiques du discours radiophonique pourraient se ramener aux éléments suivants: 1) l’emploi d’un code sémiotique, un supersigne fait des mots, de sons et de musique; 2) le discours radiophonique assure la triple fonction d’informer, d’instruire et de divertir; 3) la transmission de l’information a un caractère instantané, c’est l’information « du direct » et du « temps présent »; 4) un cadre spatial particulier est exigé par les plans de la réception du discours radio: il y a l’espace/les espaces de l’émission et l’espace/les espaces de l’écoute; 5) les programmes qui constituent le message radiophonique ont un caractère fini; 6) le discours radiophonique est le fait d’une idéologie, d’une culture, reflétant ainsi le moment historique de l’évolution de la superstructure de la société. 2. CONDITIONS DE PRODUCTION RADIOPHONIQUE Les conditions de production du discours radiophonique relèvent aussi bien de la production-émission que de la réception des messages radiophoniques. 2.1. Selon A.-J. Tudesq (1984: 11-14), l’émission et la réception des messages radiophoniques sont gouvernées par:
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2.1.1. Les contraintes permanentes 2.1.1.1. La précision du minutage qui impose des durées d’interventions très précises; le déroulement dans le temps impose à l’auditeur l’ordre de présentation des messages; 2.1.1.2. L’écoute et la lassitude de l’attention. L’écoute de la radio n’est pas contraignante pour l’auditeur qui peut se livrer à une autre activité; en contrapartie, l’attention faiblit, en moyenne au bout de dix minutes, et l’auditeur ne se rappelle plus qu’une part plus ou moins faible de ce qu’il a entendu; c’est une sorte de balayage du message ou « contraction du texte » qu’il mémorisera; 2.1.1.3. Elocution et audibilité. La parole est d’abord un son; le discours radiophonique est produit pour être entendu; d’où l’importance de la diction du présentateur ou du journaliste. L’audibilité doit tenir compte aussi des bruits, c’est une des causes de la redondance et de silences qui permettent la mise en valeur de certains sons. Ces silences sont facteurs de cohérence discursive. 2.1.2. Les contraintes liées à l’écoute 2.1.2.1. A la réception. La grille des programmes amène à tenir compte du moment de la journée auquel on s’adresse à l’auditeur; 2.1.2.2. A l’émission. Un programme a une signification différente pour le réalisateur, le journaliste, l’artiste, le responsable du service. Pour le producteur l’émission répond à une intention dotée d’une forme et d’un contenu; pour l’auditeur elle est perçue, ressentie. 2.1.3. Les contraintes dues aux formes du discours-texte radiophonique. Ces formes sont dues au développement des technologies de la communication: émission en direct, émissions en différé, duplex, couplage radiotéléphone, chaque forme du discours radiophonique produit des messages verbaux spécifiques. 2.2. L’évolution des genres. Pour ce qui est de l’évolution des genres radiophoniques notons à la suite de A.-J. Tudesq (1984: 14-16) quelques idées, parmi lesquelles: 2.2.1. Evolution du rapport musique-parole. Outre les émissions musicales, la musique sert de toile de fond, assure les transitions, les intermèdes, meuble les silences. Elle fournit un code (voir à ce sujet A.Moles, 1967: 129-135). 2.2.2. Textes ou parole libre ? De nos jours le style parlé et la parole spontanée sont pratiqués à la radio; auparavant les informations étaient lues par des speakers. Le style du texte écrit destiné à être lu au micro est différent de celui du texte écrit; il a des phrases courtes, des mots concrets facilement compréhensibles. Du texte lu à la parole spontanée, imprévue, il y a une gamme passant par le texte parlé, le débat préparé, la fausse spontanéité, l’interview. 2.3. Les catégories des locuteurs. On peut considérer trois catégories de locuteurs (chaque catégorie ayant des comportements différents selon les rôles, selon les lieux aussi-studio ou extérieur): a) les professionnels de la radio; b) les collaborateurs extérieurs; 30
c) les invités et interviewés auxquels on peut ajouter les correspondants par téléphone. Ceux-ci peuvent être classes eux-mêmes en deux catégories: – ceux qui, par leur profession on leur activité, sont habitués a manier la parole, leaders politiques ou d’autres responsables des activités, journalistes, enseignants, et – ceux auxquels la radio fait appel pour leur compétence, savoir ou ascendant dans tel ou tel domaine. Les uns et les autres prennent la parole. « L’accès de tous à la radio, rêve, utopie ou réalité de demain »– se demande A.-J. Tudesq (1984: 17). Cette multiplication des types de prise de parole entraîne une spécialisation des publics. 2.4. Les auditeurs. La radio s’est abord adressée à un public indifférencié et inconnu mais le développement des techniques de sondage a entraîné un effet de marketing régissant la production même du discours radiophonique. L’analyse de la parole radiodiffusée doit tenir compte de l’auditoire auquel elle s’adresse: public très large, hétérogène ou public spécialisé et pourtant plus homogène. La production radiophonique s’est de plus en plus intéressée à l’auditeur: il en résulte que l’auditoire apparaît de moins comme masse, c’est-à-dire une manière malléable dans son ensemble. La radio recrée le référent. En même temps, elle cherche à créer l’illusion du contact personnel, jouant sur l’émotion l’alerte, l’imaginaire. Il existe, sans nul doute, une fonction imaginaire de la radio, chaque auditeur fabriquant une image conforme à l’idée qu’il se fait du référent. En guise de conclusion, déceler la spécificité de ce type de discours, c’est analyser ses conditions de production qui entraînent une coopération de plusieurs codes et de plusieurs fonctions qui s’entremêlent pour engendrer ce qu’on appelle le discours radiophonique. Une étude du discours radiophonique devra chercher les marques sémiologiques ou discursives qui permettent de dégager ses possibles interprétations. Cette démarche exigera une approche plurielle du discours radiophonique, une étude du code linguistique et des codes non-linguistiques. Sur le cadre spatial 1. Le lieu de la communication peut être le studio mais aussi tout autre espace (entreprise, domicile d’un particulier, bureau d’une autorité, rue, parc, magasin etc.) d’où l’on fait l’enregistrement radiophonique. Le «dispositif » sémiotique qui forme le lieu de l’émission radio-phonique a été suggestivement caractérisé par Maurice Mouillard (1984:67-68) comme se plaçant entre deux pôles: une « diastole » ou « transparence » et une « systole » ou « opacité ». « Le studio n’est pas la scène; il est ouvert sur deux de ses côtés, du côté public et du côté privé; il dilate symboliquement son espace et le contracte dans une diastole et une systole communicationnelles; sa dynamique peut être perçue soit comme une intrusion du studio dans le monde extérieur (il entre chez l’auditeur, il donne à entendre des événements et des actants sur leurs terrains), soit comme une capture qui prélève des fragments du monde extérieur et les inclut dans son espace en les cannibalisant: tout est du studio, entendons tout peut être 31
communicationnel» ou bien, suivant une dévise connue (« Je suis partout ») entendons: «le studio peut être partout ». M.Mouillaud conclut que: (a) ou bien le studio disparaît en se faisant pure et simple représentation, et, dans ce sens, il est réduit à la fonction d’un canal (plus exactement: il se donne à entendre – ou à ne pas entendre – comme «canal», tout en étant, du point de vue de la communication, un émetteur) par lequel transitent des événements qui se passent hors de lui: dans ce cas le studio est «transparent»; (b) ou bien, le studio donne à entendre ce qui se passe dans sa propre enceinte, il a une consistance qui lui est propre et qui est passée comme une image: il est alors «opaque». «Tout le jeu consiste dans la modulation de la transparence et de l’opacité; l’intervalle entre les deux pôles constitue un espace de liberté à l’intérieur duquel les actants du discours radiophonique règlent leur performance» – écrit M. Mouillaud (1984: 63). Les quelques situations possibles entre la transparence (« la diastole») et l’opacité (la «systole») du studio sont (M. Mouillard, 1984:64): 1.1. Le studio peut se réduire au « speaker ». C’est là une double réduction, de l’espace du studio à un individu unique et de celui-ci au statut de simple «locuteur» («parleur») d’un texte. Cette réduction caractérise un stade primaire, voire même primitif, de l’évolution de la radio, puisque le stade moderne et actuel a amené un «affichage» de plus en plus étendu du studio. On doit distinguer ici la présence implicite de l’énonciation du studio (la voix du speaker a constitué le trait pertinent) de l’exposition volontaire du studio comme une image sonore. 1.2. Il y a une stratégie qui efface, plus encore que la précédente, la présence du studio, puisque celui-ci suspend sa propre énonciation; des événements du monde extérieur sont donnés à entendre dans leur lieu et dans leur temps sous la forme des citations. Si l’on admet que le studio ne doit jamais perdre le «contrôle», la citation de l’événement implique une réaffirmation du studio, à la sortie, c’est-àdire une réaffirmation de sa présence au moment où celle-ci disparaît. Ainsi le studio impose le statut explicite de citation à l’événement. 1.3. La citation d’événement se présente comme un fragment découpe dans un texte ou dans un continuum d’images-qui se prolonge de part et d’autre de ses bords; "elle produit un effet de « fenêtre » (le studio s’évide et laisse voir ou entendre à travers ou ouverture, des événements du monde extérieur. (M.Mouillaud, 1984:64). 1.4. L’interview représente, par contre, une forme différente. C’est un «événement-antefact» (selon M. Mouillard, 1984: 64) puisqu’il est provoqué à l’initiative du studio et par un de ses actants. L’interview est un événement à deux énonciations, celle du studio et celle d’un actant extérieur (avec cependant un effacement du studio au profit de l’actant extérieur), qui, sémiotiquement suppose un terrain neutre. 32
Souvent, dans la tranche matinale de la journée médiatique des actants extérieurs sont invités dans le studio, l’invité tend «à faire émission». Mais plus une voix extérieure est «happée» à l’intérieur, moins elle réfère; alors le présentateur-animateur intervient; il invite l’invité à parler, à l’intérieur, de l’extérieur. On a l’impression d’un «événement à domicile». C’est un processus centrifuge qui a son point de départ dans le studio. «À l’incorporation de l’événement – écrit M. Mouillaud (1984:65) – s’oppose la tendance à corporéiser le studio» .Telle est, au fond, l’essence de la sémiotisation du studio. 1.5. La communication radiophonique pose aussi l’existence du lieu particulier de la réception du message. La radio a réussi à réduire l’expression de l’espace dans le temps, à comprimer l’espace-temps, seulement en évoquant, en suggérant, au moyen des sons et des mots, laissant tout de même une marge à la figuration imaginaire du public. La radio «n’immobilise pas nécessairement l’auditeur, l’audition peut donc être attentive ou distraite, on peut écouter sans entendre, ou entendre sans écouter» ( M.Mouillaud, 1984:65). La radio s’adresse à un destinataire qui est avant tout, celui d’un foyer, d’un salon, d’une chambre, d’un bureau. Il est essentiellement l’individu ou le petit groupe; mais une série indéfinie d’individus et de petits groupes isolés, séparés les uns des autres par des distances de tout ordre: spatiales, ethniques, sociales, intellectuelles. La radio s’adresse à l’être humain dans son intimité. Quels sont les auditeurs ? Ils sont absents, ils sont nombreux, ils ont un caractère anonyme. La radio parle, en fait, à une multiplicité infinie d’auditeurs possibles, au-delà même des auditeurs réels qui sont à l’écoute. Elle parle à tous ceux qui pourront un jour prendre l’écoute. Les auditeurs de la radio ne forment pas un public rassemblé. Chaque auditeur est seul en présence de son appareil. En réalité, la radio ne s’adresse qu’à un individu, et à un seul. C’est pourquoi il y a dans les communications qui s’établissent à la radio un certain caractère confidentiel: le propre de l’auditeur est d’avoir le sentiment qu’on ne parle qu’à lui parce qu’il est seul à l’écoute. La radio réalise ce caractère extraordinaire de s’adresser à tous et pourtant uniquement à chacun. La radio est pour tous et pour personne. Elle peut avoir ce caractère impersonnel et indéterminé, mais elle a en même temps le caractère le plus intime, le plus secret. L’absence d’un visage qui parle n’est pas une infériorité; c’est l’axe de l’intimité, la perspective de l’intimité qui va s’ouvrir. L’auditeur se trouve devant un poste. Il est dans une solitude qui n’est pas encore constituée. BIBLIOGRAPHIE Austin, J.L., (1970), Quand dire, c’est faire, Seuil, Paris. Barthes, R., (1964), Eléments de sémiologie, Gauthier, Paris. Charaudeau, P., (1984), « Problèmes d’analyse des medias », dans Aspects du discours radiophonique, Didier, Paris, 5-10. 33
Charaudeau, P., (1995), « Une analyse semiolinguistique du discours », dans Langages, no. 117, Paris, 96-111. Clopeau, J.&Renouard, M., (1984), « Quelques remarques sur la "communication" radiophonique », dans Aspects du discours radiophonique, Didier. Erudition, Paris, 20-31. Ducrot, O. et al., (1980), « Analyse de texte et linguistique de l’énonciation », dans Les mots du discours, Editions de Minuit, Paris. Eco, U., (1972), La structure absente, Mercure de France. Eco, U., (1982), Tratat de semiotică generală, Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, Bucureşti. Kinneavy, Y., (1971), A theory of discourses, Prentice-Hall, Inc.Englewood Cliffs, New York. Miclău, P., (1970), Le signe linguistique, Klincksieck, Paris, Ed. Academiei, R.S.R., Bucureşti. Miclău, P., (1978), Semiotică lingvistică, Editura Facla, Timişoara. Moivand, G., (1976), «Approche globale des textes écrits», dans Étude de linguistique appliquée, no. 23,88-105. Moles, A. (1967), Sociodynamique de la culture, Mouton &Cie. Mouillaud, M., (1984), « Espace et temps radiophonique: les tranches horaires matinales », dans Aspects du discours radiophonique, Didier, Paris, 61-74. Renouard, M., (1982), « Du cote de la radio » = Personne n’est maître du temps…= », dans The Media and the Teaching of French, édité par The Association for French Languages Studies, sous la direction de R.Crawshaw et M. Renouard, University of Lancaster. Renouard, M., (1982), « Vous êtes à l’écoute ? Radio et ties culturels, humeurs d’auditeurs » dans Le Français dans le Monde, no. 173, 73-79. Searle, J.R., (1972), Les actes de langage, Hermann, Savoir, Paris. Tudesq, A.-J., (1984), « Les conditions de production du discours radiophonique », dans Aspects du discours radiophonique, Didier, Paris, 11-20. Tuţescu, M. (1978), Précis de sémantique française, Editura Didactică şi Pedagogica, Bucuresti. Tuţescu, M. (1980), Le texte de la linguistique à la littérature, Tipografia Universităţii Bucureşti. * Aspects du discours radiophonique, collection « Langage, discours et société », no.1, sous la direction de P. Charaudeau, Didier, Paris, 1984. Colloque «Media et enseignement », AUPELF-ICE Barcelone, 18-23 avril 1983, SITGESEspagne. Dictionnaire Marabout Université, La communication et le mass-média, Paris, 1973. Le Français dans le Monde, Hachette/Larousse, 1978, no. 137; 1981, no. 158; 1982, no. 173; 1984, no. 183. Langage, Larousse, 1980, no. 58; 1981, no. 62; 1982, no. 67. Langue française, 1975, no.28; 1979; no. 42; 1980, no. 42. The Media and the Teaching of French, édité par The Association for French Languages Studies AELS, sous la direction de Crawshaw, R. et Renouard, M., University of Lancaster, 1982.
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SOURCE CULTURE ORIENTED VS TARGET CULTURE ORIENTED TRANSLATION IN OUTDOOR ADVERTISING: THE CASE OF TUNISIA Karima BOUZIANE Chouaib Doukkali University El Jadida, Morocco
ABSTRACT The aim of this research was to investigate source culture oriented strategies and target culture oriented strategies of translation in outdoor advertising. The main objective was to find out what strategies of translation (source oriented or target oriented) are mostly adopted in both textual meanings and visual meanings in outdoor advertising. To conduct this study, 100 images of outdoor adverts from Tunisia were collected and analyzed by the author of this article. The data collected was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results revealed that source oriented strategies such as un-translated brands and slogans were highly used in textual elements of outdoor adverts in Tunisia. However, target oriented strategies were significantly used in visual elements. The study concluded that source culture oriented strategies in adverts are still seen as attractive in Tunisia; advertisers strive to ensure that the product’s name and image play a part in the selling process in the outdoor adverts. Still, many concepts and connotations in these adverts are lost when the products are relying on their source brand names and slogans. Keywords: Translation, outdoor advertising, source culture, target culture.
1. BACKGROUND Many past studies (e.g. Smith 2006; Al-Shehari, 2001) tackled both source-oriented and target-oriented strategies of translation such as transliteration, adaptation, borrowing and transmutation in printed advertising. To the best of my knowledge no study has ever investigated these controverted strategies in outdoor advertising. Smith (2006, p. 19) studied 45 English adverts and their translation into Russian language. She investigated the same strategies of Guidère (2000): Transplantation, transliteration and transmutation. She, thus, found that that transplantation strategy (preserving the original form of the brand name in the target version) was significantly dominant in the translation of logos. “The largest category in those adverts where the product and/or advertiser’s name transferred in both the logotype and the body of the text. This method means that within the body copy of the advert there is a mixture of Cyrillic and Latin scripts. With this method there is more pressure on readers to be able to read non-Russian text” (Smith, 2006, p. 9). She, therefore, supported Guidère’s (2000) claim that the brand’s 35
name is an integral part of the image of the original product and that the semantics of the translated brand’s name does not play a significant role in making the product accepted by the target market. It is the original logo/ image that gives the product individuality and makes it quickly recognized by consumers. This is clearly emphasised in her saying that “the meaning of the logotype is equated with the characteristics of the product or company concerned and not with the semantics of the linguistic elements that compose that name. Advertisers want their products to be accessible to as much of the world’s population as possible, so that a customer travelling or working abroad can recognize the brand to which they have become accustomed at home. Moreover, “producing a uniform advertising campaign across boundaries leads to significant financial savings” (Smith, 2006, p. 14). Al-Shehari (2001) also investigated the strategies adopted in the process of translating printed advertising from English into Arabic. He found that some specific strategies were frequently used by translators or localizers in the Arab World (p. 260). An instance of these strategies is “transliterating brand names, changing headings and slogans” (Al-Shehari, 2001, p. 260). “Transliteration was the dominant strategy adopted to transfer brand names; this often resulted in awkward names which had lost their original meaning.” (p. 260). He further emphasised that although the majority of products adverts are transliterated; this does not mean that transliteration strategy helps a product to be successful in the target market. In fact, the product is accepted in the target market because of its famous original form. Both studies of Smith, (2006) and Al-Shehari (2001) emphasized that the foreign form of the original brand name leads the product to be successful in the target market. Still, none of the above studies mentioned the usefulness of target oriented strategies of translation through which the advert is localized to fit the cultural norms of the target consumer. Another study conducted by Leonardi and Khoutyz (2007, p. 5) tackled “borrowing” or neologism strategy in transferring brand names in English, Italian and Russian. They focused on the assumption that every advertisement is a clear example of hidden “ideology which could be either reproduced or completely lost in the translation into the target text” (p. 5). For them, textual elements in advertising are characterized by a particular ideology which needs to be explained and studied in terms of its impact over the target consumers. They found that the Russian advertisings tolerated borrowings from the original language of the advertisement (usually English). Still, additional information was introduced into the target text to make the advantages of the advertised product clear to the consumer. During the process of translation, the discursive elements that suit the general mood of the consumers and “reflect the ideologies of the society are favoured. “Therefore, ideologies are basically discursive constructions and the question of ideology is part of the question of how discourse relates to other moments of social practices” (Leonardi and Khoutyz , 2007, p. 4). The Russian consumer prefers the information to be clearly stated and all the advantages of the product specified. The Italian advertisings were found to be characterized by several different ideologies, not all of them “coherent” with one another. English 36
language is used to provide the readers with a “certain sense of exoticism of the product” (Leonardi and Khoutyz , 2007, p. 4). English is used in order to make the product more international. At the same time, the use of Italian is essential for the comprehension and, further, acceptance of the product. “When it comes down to jewels and luxury products […] there is a particularly elitist aimed at reaching only a limited group of consumers as if in that way the product is given a much higher sense of quality and luxury” (Leonardi and Khoutyz , 2007, p. 5). Unlike Smith (2006) and Al-Shehari (2001), Leonardi and Khoutyz (2007) found that “borrowing”, as a source text oriented strategy, is not sufficient to make a product persuasive. They, thus, stressed the use of the translator’s creativity that makes a product’s translation meet the expectations of a target consumer. This gives evidence that target-culture oriented strategies including additions, explanations and omissions are fundamental to make a product clear to the consumer. 2. AIM OF THE STUDY The majority of studies (above) opted for the use of source-oriented strategies in the translation of printed advertising. This has created the need for another study to be conducted to find out what types of strategies (source-culture or target culture) are frequently used in outdoor advertisements. The rationale behind this research is to find out what translation strategies are appropriate for the adverts targeting Tunisian consumers and to achieve a better communication with these consumers. In fact, efficient translation strategies would help marketers attract consumers in the target culture in the shortest possible time, achieve better sales promotions, and save time of the readers/consumers by providing them with adverts that make sense to them. 3. OUTDOOR ADVERTISING Outdoor advertising “can be broadly identified as any sign that publicly displays advertising or identifies something, such as a sign for a restaurant or other place of business. More specifically, though, the term has come to represent the advertising medium we casually call billboards advertising, which is a large standardized segment of the out-of-home advertising media industry”(Business Dictionary, 2013). Outdoor advertising is carried out by means of a message which transmits a meaning using both verbal and non-verbal elements. If, these elements are not transferred adequately, the message of the whole advert might be distorted. Outdoor advertisements were specifically chosen as material for this study since they are widely accessed by a huge number of people (different market segments). To conduct this study, 100 photos of outdoor adverts were collected from Tunisia in July 2011; they were observed and analyzed by the author of this article to find out what type of strategies (target oriented or source oriented) were frequently used in both textual and visual elements. The corpus includes a variety of adverts of local products such as “Boga” (lemonade), “Randa” (pasta) and 37
services such as Tunisiana telecom as well as international products such as “Prada”, “Dolce and Gabbana” and “Gucci”. 4. DATA ANALYSIS This study adopted a mixed method of data analysis, a quantitative and a qualitative method since they both complement each other. The frequency of source text and target text strategies were analyzed quantitatively, while the responses that could not be reduced to codes, such as the analysis of the images and the meanings extracted from them, were analyzed qualitatively. 5. RESULTS The results revealed that the majority of billboards (76%) included source text oriented strategies in textual elements such as borrowing or transplanting (untranslated) brand names, headlines, slogans. As for the target oriented strategies such as addition, omission, simplification, they were rarely used (24%) in textual elements. Results about the transfer of visual elements revealed that source oriented strategies were rarely used (33%) in visual elements. However, target oriented strategies were found to be highly used (67%).
6. DISCUSSION 6.1. Source oriented strategies in textual elements Maintaining English or French languages in the main elements (e.g. brands) in Tunisian outdoor advertising plays an essential role in the promotional campaign by being the “master voice” of the company, its authority, expertise and international recognition; this can be noticed in the adverts Dolce and Gabbana, Gucci, Bulgari and Schwarzkopf where the Arabic language is absent. In another advert of Baguette & Baguette restaurants in Tunisia, where they sell and deliver hamburger and other fast food, the company promotes its product to Tunisians using only the French language. Apart from French, English is frequently blended 38
with another language (Italian, Spanish or Arabic) in brand names or body text creating a linguistic diversity to attract the attention of potential consumers to the unnaturalness of the message of the product, and to guarantee more understanding of a product from different consumers globally. For example, the billboard of the fragrance advert Play by Givenchy, introduced by the American singer Justin Timberlake, the company name Givenchy is mentioned at the top of the billboard then the link justintimberlake.com and the name of the fragrance are preserved in English; however the description of the fragrance is transferred into French “Le nouveau parfum pour elle”. The use of English in Arabic adverts, in many cases, functions as a symbol of modernization, prestige and technological supremacy. Translators opt for maintaining untranslated brands to preserve their word play or their figurative speech as well as their linguistic creativity; an instance of this is in the billboard that promotes a dating and marriage website www.zouz.com; the logo of this advert includes a mixtures of Arabic and English “ ﺷﻄﺮك ﻳﺠﻴﻚclick ” بwhich roughly means “by one click, you will find your soul mate”. The term click is more used by Tunisians than its equivalent “ ”ﻧﻘﺮةin Arabic; the term is more meaningful to them than the Arabic one; that is why it has been preserved in English. The significance of maintaining this mixture of languages is to stress that this dating website is not only for Tunisians but it is international. Besides serving as a lingua franca in the global context, English often becomes a strategic choice of Tunisian manufacturers, appearing in the billboards of the adverts of the local products such as Florida, a locally made lemonade and Goldina Plus, a locally made butter. English brand names indicate superior quality standards and are commonly used as a device to signal credibility of the product and company. Sometimes the use of English reveals a purposeful strategy to globalize the brand, leading the public to believe that is has genuinely international origin. The fact that the source text strategies are highly used in translation of adverts from English into Arabic suggests the dominance the “Otherness” which is used so positively. This indicates that that the Americanization is still seen as attractive in Tunisian advertising. Advertisers strive to ensure that the product/company name plays a part in the selling process in the original English advert. For example, they describe the benefits of the product and its function in English or even use alliteration to make it more memorable. This study has, thus, shown that many of these devices are lost when the product is advertised in the Tunisian market where the names are relying on their original, foreign form to make sales. 6.2. Target oriented strategies in textual elements Target oriented strategies are rarely used in the transfer of textual elements into Arabic; this is due to marketing constraints; for instance logos and well known brands cannot be transferred because they “are special designs of the advertiser’s name or company name” (Smith, 2006). Therefore, transmutation strategies are used 39
to translate the meaning or the literal meaning of the foreign words in the adverts targeting Tunisians. Hence, marketers ensure that their brands remain recognizable in Tunisia; an example of this is the company Tunisie Telecom which translates all its billboards from French into Arabic such as the slogan “Tunisie télécom, le future vous appelle” which is transferred into “ ” اﺗﺼﺎﻻت ﺗﻮﻧﺲ اﻟﻤﺴﺘﻘﺒﻞ ﻳﻨﺎدﻳﻨﺎand also the expression in the same billboard “Resserrons les liens qui nous unissent” , it is transferred into “ ” اﻟﻨﻮر اﻟﻲ ﻳﺠﻤﻌﻨﺎ ﻳﻀﻮي ﻣﺴﺘﻘﺒﻠﻨﺎ. Advertisers also ensure that their services and products names are meaningful to the local consumers such as the slogan “SEAT ”ﻋﺎمin an advert promoting SEAT car; the original slogan is “I am SEAT”; it is adopted into Arabic as “ “ ”ﻋﺎمthe year of SEAT”. The advantage of adopting target text-oriented strategies in textual elements in the Tunisian adverts is that it helps consumers to focus on the effect and features of products and services; this is clearly noticed in the advert of MoneyGram; the billboard advertisement includes the meaning translation of MoneyGram which is “ ”ﺗﺤﻮﻳﻞ اﻻﻣﻮال. A transliteration of MoneyGram has also been added in the advert “ ”ﻣﻮﻧﻴﻐﺮامto provide an approximate pronunciation of the foreign word. This transcription, although potentially more comprehensible, yet, it does not manage to maintain many of the aesthetic elements present in the original word (such as rhyme and cultural concepts). It is, thus, necessary to ensure that product names and services are understandable, meaningful for the local consumers. The incorporation of colloquial Arabic is another type of localizing a product or service; this makes them more familiar and understood by all Tunisian consumers; however, they might not be understood by other Arabs. This is clearly noticed in a billboard about Florida lemonade where the description of the effect of the lemonade says “ ” ﻃﻠﻌﺘﻠﻮ ﻓﻲ ﻣﺨﻮit approximately means “ it makes people genius”; another example can be seen in the above mentioned advertisement of a dating website; in this advert, the word “zouz” is a transliteration of the quolloqual “ ” زوزwhich means “two”. In another advert of Sprite lemonade, the slogan says “ ﺣﻞ اﻟﻠﻌﺐSprite ” ﺣﻞwhich roughly means “ figure it out”. This strategy makes the products closer to all segments of Tunisian consumers; still, it prevents the product to be recognizable to other Arabic consumers. 6.3. Source oriented strategies in visual elements Source oriented strategies in outdoor advertising are rarely used in visual elements, mainly images, which are transplanted in the Arabic adverts. An instance of this is the adverts Gucci, Bulgari and Schwarzkopf which they feature foreign young blond models with a western complexion. The images are transplanted and preserved in the target (local) version; this makes the effect of the product less convincing to Tunisians since the skin type and hair type that are depicted in the image are not similar to those of the Tunisian women. Instead of attracting consumers, the product might be rejected on the assumption that it is made specifically for western type of skins. So, the models in the Arabic advert should have better been replaced by a Tunisian model. In another example of the fragrance 40
Play by the American singer Justin Timberlake, mentioned above, the image of the singer is transplanted for the Tunisian consumers. The image originally connotes the idea that this fragrance makes a woman feel so seductive that it can attract sexy and handsome men like Justin Timberlake. The communicated promise of this fragrance would be understood by the Tunisian consumers only if they knew Justin Timberlake; the image in this case might be meaningless. In brief, models are often pictured in advertisements in order to associate the advertised product with certain features. Readers can interpret these features only if they know something about the specific model featured in the advertisement. 6.4. Target oriented strategies in visual elements Most local products/services and less known brands include target oriented strategies (e.g transmutation) in visual elements; these adverts include images of local, Tunisian people; this can be noticed in the adverts of the telecommunication company Tunisiana, in shampoo brands as Palmolive, Souplesse, Sunsilk, in yogurt products such as Dalis, in lemonade adverts such as Boga as well as in pasta adverts such as Randa. The significant use of localizing strategies in visual elements is mostly motivated by cultural and religious constraints; translators tend to transmute (adjust or omit) images of the foreign adverts so that they fit the norms of the Tunisian culture. Omission is mostly adopted to remove nudity in the local advertisements. The bodies of female models pictured naked or semi-naked are generally manipulated through Photoshop so as to appear fully clothed. Although covering female bodies fits the norms of the Arab culture, it inevitably obscures some important messages of the original adverts. Replacing foreign models by Tunisian ones is particularly common in outdoor advertisements of products such as skin creams Bioderma which are highly dependent on the type of skin they are meant to be applied to. In this case, picturing a woman with a typical Tunisian complexion is clearly more effective. Still, it is surprising that none of the foreign advertisements featuring well-known female models (singers/actresses) in the current corpus chose to replace these foreign models with someone more familiar to the Tunisian readers. Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my supervisors: Dr. Ahmadou Bouylmani and Dr. Samir Diouny who provided me with much help and guidance. BIBLIOGRAPHY Al-Shehari, K. (2001). The semiotics and translation of advertising texts: conventions, constraints and translation strategies with particular reference to English and Arabic. Manchester: Centre for Translation Studies, 11– 262. Bouziane.K. (2013). Cultural transfer in the translation of advertising from English into Arabic: The case of cosmetics. Germany: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 16-316. 41
Leonardi, V., & Khoutyz, I.(2007). Translating advertisements: Linguistic, cultural and semiotic approaches. Retrieved November 12, 2008, from http://www.ruc.dk/upload/application/pdf/d647/Leonardi_Khoutyz.pdf, 5-44. Smith, K. (2006). A study of brand name transfer from English language to Russian language printed advertisements. Retrieved November 12, 2008, from http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jbp/lic/200, 7-96.
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DU TERME AU DISCOURS DANS LA TRADUCTION DU TEXTE SPÉCIALISÉ Janeta DRĂGHICESCU University of Craiova RÉSUMÉ La traduction du texte spécialisé, envisagée comme la mise en équivalence des termes et la reformulation de l’information , en conformité avec les particularités de la langue cible, permet de constater que, dans le cas du texte technique élaboré par des spécialistes et destiné à des spécialistes en service ou en formation: (a) la mise en équivalence est marquée par des contraintes se manifestant au niveau des relations hétéronymiques systématiques et discursives spécifiques de la langue cible; (b) la reformulation est maquée, à son tour, par la nécessité de rendre de manière explicite les relations syntaxiques et sémantiques (phrastiques ou transphrastiques) elliptiques dans le texte de la langue source et de respecter les particularités discursives de la langue cible , de même que les attentes du destinataire (ce dernier facteur fonctionant plutôt comme une liberté à la disposition du traducteur). Mots /syntagmes clé: traduction, reformulation, terme, discours, contraine, texte spécialisé; texte technique, mise en équivalence.
1. La traduction technique s’est imposée depuis longtemps comme un champ de recherche et de réflexions orientées, en égale mesure, vers les aspects théoriques ou de procédure et vers les aspects méthodologiques visant la formation des traducteurs 1. Comparée à la traduction littéraire, la traduction technique apparaît comme beaucoup plus complexe, complexité donnée, d’une part, par la diversité et le haut degré de spécificité des domaines d’expérience dont relèvent les textes à traduire (juridique, économique, scientifique, technique, commercial) et, d’autre part, par le rôle qui revient au texte traduit dans la communication (informer, expliquer, faire exécuter / faire fonctionner, faire vendre / faire acheter). Dans la pratique courante, on accorde le statut de texte technique, dans le sens de texte spécialisé par rapport à la langue commune, aux textes du type règlementation, rapport juridique ou diplomatique, aux études ou aux rapports d’études, aux articles de vulgarisation, aux textes utilitaires (textes d’entreprises industrielles – notices d’utilisation, fiches techniques – ou textes d’entreprises commerciales – encart publicitaire). S’y ajoutent les textes du patrimoine technique qui renferment le savoir du domaine et qui se présentent, entre autres, sous forme 1 Cf. C. Laplace 1999, Théorie du langage et théorie de la traduction, Paris, Didier ; M. Lederer, 1994, La traduction aujourd’hui, Paris, Hachette ; M. Ballard; les Actes du Colloque International tenu à l’E.S.I.T. les 7, 8 et 9 juin 1990.
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de traités ou cours universitaires. Les premiers sont destinés à un public plus ou moins large mais bien ciblé, envisagé comme destinataire à informer ou à gagner. Les seconds s’adressent aux spécialistes et aux futurs spécialistes, public à forte motivation professionnelle et visent à faire exécuter/faire fonctionner. Dans cette perspective, un des problèmes qui se posent lors de la traduction de ces types de textes est celui du rapport entre les contraintes, qui découlent du texte source et qui tiennent, tout spécialement, à la mise en équivalence de l’information et à l’impact du message auprès du destinataire et les libertés dont dispose le traducteur, qui tiennent à la langue vers laquelle on traduit et au destinataire, surtout à ses attentes (habitudes d’approche de tels textes). 2. Dans les remarques ci-dessous, je m’arrêterai sur les problèmes que pose la traduction du texte technique dans l’intention de déterminer, d’une part, la nature des contraintes et le niveau auquel elles interviennent et, d’autre part, les libertés dont le traducteur jouit dans l’opération traduisante. Le rapport entre les contraintes et les libertés dans la traduction du texte technique sera envisagé de la perspective du résultat de l’opération traduisante, à savoir de la perspective de la mise en équivalence et de la reformulation (explicite et/ou libre) de l’information. Il s’agit, plus précisément, des problèmes que pose, d’une part, la mise en équivalence des structures de dénotation (termes simples et collocations) d’un domaine de la technique (la construction mécanique) dans la traduction du français vers le roumain et, d’autre part, des problèmes que pose la mise en discours des termes et structures de dénotation. 2.1. Le domaine choisi pour la discussion est un texte2, illustrant le domaine des constructions mécaniques, le sous domaine des procédés de moulage, texte élaboré par les spécialistes et destiné aux spécialistes en service ou en formation. En tant que texte authentique de premier degré, il est marqué par un triple conditionnement: – entre le plan référentiel et l’expression linguistique; – entre la nature et la quantité de l’information explicite et de celle implicite; – entre le texte et l’image 2. Au niveau de la structure, c’est un discours linéaire, cumulatif, schématisé, structuré en unités discrètes, hiérarchisées de manière à illustrer les relations de dépendance qui caractérisent et définissent le domaine décrit. Il permet une lecture unique, non ambiguë. 2.2. L’approche du texte en vue de la traduction sera marquée par les étapes reconnues unanimement comme obligatoires: la compréhension du texte à traduire, étape qui suppose la lecture et l’exégèse du texte (dans une approche sémasiologique en vue de la compréhension et de la prise en charge du sens), et la 2
Le texte pris comme exemple pour la traduction figure en annexe. Les images qui l’accompagnaient dans le texte d’origine ont été supprimées étant gardés uniquement les renvois aux figures respectives.
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réexpression ou la reformulation du sens et de la signification saisis. Toutes ces opérations sont fortement marquées par la prise en compte du contexte et de la situation de communication. La discussion portera sur les procédures à adopter dans la mise en équivalence des termes spécifiques (termes simples et collocations) et dans leur inscription dans le discours en langue cible. (1) Pour ce qui est des stratégies et des procédures à adopter lors de la mise en équivalence des termes, il s’impose: (a) de tenir compte de la nature du terme (terme simple ou collocation) et d’en dissocier le sens. En effet, l’analyse de l’échantillon pris comme support confirme le principe général qui gouverne le rapport de sens entre ces deux types d’unités lexicologiques: le terme simple a un sens spécialisé plus ou moins général qui se particularise dans des collocations spécifiques; (b) de tenir compte des relations qui s’établissent, au niveau de la terminologie, entre la langue source et la langue cible. Dans le cas du français et du roumain ces rapports sont tantôt directs, tantôt croisés. En consultant les dictionnaires roumains de langue ou spécialisés de même que les dictionnaires bilingues, on constatera que beaucoup des termes spécialisés du roumain sont empruntés au français, à différentes époques (d’ailleurs, non attestées de manière rigoureuse), par différentes voies de contact et pour des besoins de dénotation existant à ces époques-là pour des domaines donnés. Cependant, il ne faut pas se fier aux équivalences établies au niveau du système et proposées par le dictionnaire car l’évolution ultérieure de chacune des deux langues a généré des emplois différents et même des séries paradigmatiques différentes. Il arrive, par conséquent, assez souvent que le terme néologique ne couvre que rarement tous les emplois du terme de la langue source. Un exemple du domaine qui sert d’illustration (le domaine de la construction des machines): Quant à la denotation: • le mot français moulage, à statut de terme spécialisé, a deux acceptions (individualisées par la valeur aspectuelle), respectivement: − le nom du procès, l’action de mouler, de fabriquer avec un moule; − le résultat du procès, la forme, l’objet obtenu au moyen d’un moule; • le mot correspondant du roumain, mulaj (néologisme emprunté au français), n’actualise qu’une partie de la deuxième acception: il désigne la forme, l’objet obtenu au moyen d’un moule “reproducerea (în ipsos, în ceară, etc.) a unui obiect, obţinută prin mulare; model executat din pânză sau din hârtie, după care se croieşte un obiect de îmbrăcăminte. ” 3 Il résulte de la définition du mot mulaj que, pour désigner le nom du procès, l’action de fabriquer un objet au moyen d’un moule, le roumain se sert du terme mulare, formé par dérivation du verbe a mula (correspondant néologique 3
Cf. Dictionarul Explicativ al Limbii Române, Editura Academiei, 1975.
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du verbe français mouler), terme qui couvre aussi le résultat du procès en tant que procédé de fabrication. Quant aux emplois: • le terme français moulage connaît des emplois individualisés contextuellement dans des collocations pour plusieurs domaines: constructions, architecture, métallurgie et polygraphie; • le correspondant direct roumain, mulaj, n’est employé que dans les domaines de la construction et de l’architecture. Pour les autres domaines, le roumain a créé d’autres termes: formare, turnare et mulare . Par conséquent, les correspondances au niveau du système sont: Français moulage
Roumain mulaj (constr.; arch.; polygr.) formare (mét.) 4 turnare (mét.) 5 mulare (polygr.) 6
Il est à préciser que le terme turnare du roumain entre en équivalence directe, au niveau du système, avec le terme français coulée. Sa présence dans la série ci-dessus s’explique par la spécificité des emplois discursifs en roumain. Les quatre termes du roumain se répartissent entre les domaines de la construction et de l’architecture (mulaj), de la métallurgie (formare et turnare ) et de la polygraphie (mulare). Nous arrêtant sur l’emplois de termes spécialisés pour le domaine de la métallurgie, on constate que le nom formare est employé lorsqu’il s’agit de désigner l’opération de formation du moule, les collocations qu’il génère renvoyant à l’action de former, aux procédés spécifiques: - formare manuală - fomare mecanizată - atelier de formare - instalaţii de formare - formare în cutii = moulage en châssis;
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Operaţie de confecţionare şi de asamblare a părţilor constitutive şi a miezurilor care alcătuiesc o formă de turnătorie (DEX); (mét) moulage en châssis– formare în cutii moulage sur établi /moulage sur un banc de travail: formare pe banc de lucru moulage des noyaux: formarea miezurilor (Dicţionar Tehnic Poliglot, Editura Tehnica, Bucureşti, 1963). 5 Turnare est le nom dérivé du verbe a turna ( Acţiunea de a turna / a vărsa un material lichid într-un tipar (pentru ca, prin răcire sau în urma unei reacţii chimice, să se obţină un obiect solid de forma tiparului). DEX, Editura Academiei, 1975. 6 Acţiunea de a (se) mula şi rezultatul ei. (DEX) (polygr.) moulage: mulare moulage à chaud , à froid: mulare la cald, la rece
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- formare pe banc de lucru: moulage sur établi / moulage sur un banc de travail. Cependant, dans la pratique de la communication, telle qu’elle est confirmée par le discours, le terme français moulage peut être mis en relation d’équivalence, à quelques exceptions près, avec le terme turnare, équivalent direct du terme français coulée 7, qui désigne “l’action de jeter en moule” 8: – – –
procédés de moulage procedee de formare / de turnare moulage à la main turnare manuală moulage mécanique turnare mecanică
L’analyse attentive des relations de sens s’instaurant dans la communication entre spécialistes du domaine met en évidence le fait qu’il ne s’agit pas de la confusion ou de la non dissociation des deux opérations, mais tout simplement de découpage différent de la réalité dénotée, avec focalisation sur l’opération de coulage, en roumain, et sur l’opération de formation de moule, en français: Roumain piese turnate turnare în forme crude turnare în forme de nisip umed / uscat turnare manuală turnare mecanică
Français moulage en sable à vert moulage en sable étuvé moulage à la main moulage mécanique
Lorsqu’on fait effectivement référence à une opération ou à une autre, les deux termes sont employés avec leur désignation propre, respectivement: le terme formare pour désigner l’opération de formation des moules et le terme turnare pour désigner l’opération de coulage (faire couler) de l’alliage dans le moule. – (roum.) formarea şi turnarea pieselor de maşini (fr.) le moulage des pièces mécaniques – […] condiţii optime din punct de vedere al formării, turnării si curăţirii piesei (fr.) des conditions optimums/optima pour le moulage et le dégrossissage de la pièce - turnarea aliajului - formarea şi finisarea pieselor 7
turnare centrifugă: coulée centrifuge turnare în cochilie: coulée en coquille turnare în cutii de formare: coulée en châssis (Dictionar Tehnic Poliglot, Editura Tehnică Bucureşti, 1963). 8 Coulée 1. action de jeter en moule. La coulée d’un métal. Surveiller la coulée. – Masse de matière en fusion que l’on verse dans un moule. Trou de coulée. […] Le Petit Robert, Société du Nouveau Littré, Le Robert, 1968.
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turnarea prin procedee speciale turnarea în forme cu amestecuri de formare clasice
Pour éviter toute confusion, lors de la traduction d’un texte technique spécialisé, le traducteur doit vérifier et déterminer les relations concrètes de dénotation dans chaque langue et les conditions d’emploi des termes en question, ce qui suppose qu’il doit se documenter et /ou s’informer auprès des spécialistes pour déterminer les correspondances et les intersections entre les différents sous domaines qui comportent les mêmes opérations ou des opérations semblables et, conséquemment, il doit identifier le microsystème de termes et leur distribution par sous domaine ou par type d’opération. Il doit aussi prendre en compte les particularités de la communication entre spécialistes. 2. En admettant l’hypothèse selon laquelle la compréhension se manifeste par degrés et s’exerce sur des éléments textuels de plus en plus complexes, il s’ensuit que l’analyse/interprétation de phrases et de groupes de phrases correspond au plus haut degré de nécessité 9, aussi bien pour le choix des termes que pour leur mise en discours. L’exégèse du texte ci-dessous pris comme illustration permet d’identifier les unités de sens réalisées par le terme moulage au niveau phrastique, de même que les conditions d’accès à ces unités. Le choix des termes susceptibles d’actualiser le sens et la signification saisis tiendra compte de la spécialisation des termes en langue cible. Moulage en moule non permanent Procédés de moulage 3. Procédés de mise en œuvre 3.1. Moulage en sable argileux 3.1.1. Moulage en sable à vert L’empreinte du moule est en sable silico-argileux naturel ou synthétique (voir matériaux de moulage). L’humidité du sable (origine du terme à vert) donne un gradient thermique important à la périphérie des pièces (influence sur la structure) (fig.15) – Avec le serrage basse pression , la plasticité du sable présente une faible gène au retrait de l’alliage solidifié (fig. 17) . – le serrage haute pression réalise un moule rigide (fig. 18) . – moulage à la main pièces petites et moyennes tous alliages . – moulage mécanique: procédé économique par la facilité de mise en œuvre et le recyclage du sable. ………………………………………
9 Cf. J. Dancette, Parcours en traduction. Étude Expérimentale du processus de compréhension, Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1995, pag. 28.
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3.2. Moulage en sables agglomérés Initialement réservés au noyautage, réalise de plus en plus des empreintes. Ils sont bien adaptés au moulage mécanique notamment au soufflage des empreintes et des noyaux. ...................................... (R.Dietrich, G. Facy, E. Hygonnaud, M. Pompidou, J.-P. Trotignon, Précis de construction mécanique. 2. Méthodes, fabrication et normalisation, AFNORNATHAN, 1979, pag. 5). Les séquences Moulage en moule non permanent, Moulage en sables agglomérés, Procédés de moulage à statut d’intitulés de sous-chapitre font référence au procédé de formation et au type de forme. Il s’agit du nom du procédé considéré globalement du point de vue du processus et du résultat. On choisira, comme correspondent en roumain du terme moulage, indifféremment, formare ou turnare: Fr.Moulage en moule non permanent Roum. Turnare/ Formare în formă destructibilă Fr. Moulage en sables agglomérés Roum. Turnare/ Formare în forme din nisipuri aglomerate / Formare în tipare din nisipuri aglomerate Fr. Procédés de moulage Roum. Procedee de turnare /formare Dans les deux premières collocations, pour des raisons de stylistique, on pourrait éviter l’apparition du terme formă dérivé de la même base que formare en employant le terme tipar, utilisé par les spécialistes dans les mêmes contextes et avec la même valeur que le terme formă. Pour le premier sous-titre, on aura par conséquent, à choisir entre Turnare în formă destructibilă et Formare în tipar destructibil, et pour le deuxième entre Turnare în forme din nisipuri aglomerate / Formare în tipare din nisipuri aglomerate Dans les collocations suivantes 3.1. Moulage en sable argileux, 3.1.1. Moulage en sable à vert, 3.2. Moulage en sables agglomérés qui font référence à la mise en oeuvre, le terme moulage sera mis en équivalence, de manière obligatoire avec le terme roumain turnare: Fr. Moulage en sable argileux Roum. Turnare în forme din nisip argilos Fr. Moulage en sable à vert Roum. Turnare în forme din nisip umed / în forme crude Fr. 3.2. Moulage en sables agglomérés Roum. Turnare în forme din nisipuri aglomerate En revanche, pour les collocations moulage à la main et moulage mécanique le contexte oriente l’interprétation tantôt vers la mise en oeuvre, tantôt vers le type / le sous-type de procédé. Les structures correspondantes comporteront 49
tantôt le terme turnare, tantôt le terme formare. Il revient au traducteur de trancher dans un sens ou dans l’autre. Fr. moulage à la main; moulage mécanique Roum. turnarea manuală; turnarea mecanică La délimitation des unités de sens suppose la mise en relation du contexte linguistique avec le contexte cognitif, ce dernier étant déterminant et entraînant deux types de connaissances: – des connaissances linguistiques de grammaire fondamentale de type sémantique qui permettent la reconstitution des structures complexes et la redistribution des constituants dans les positions syntaxiques dictées par les relations sémantiques données; – des connaissances du domaine de spécialité qui orientent, d’une part, le choix des unités linguistiques (nécessaires à la reconstitution des constituants fondamentaux) dans des classes compatibles avec le domaine donné et, d’autre part, l’interprétation correcte des relations sémantiques qui s’établissent au niveau transphrastique. Chaque énoncé transmet une information dépendante directement de l’énoncé immédiatement antérieur ou d’un énoncé se trouvant à distance. La dépendance a un caractère nécessaire et apparaît comme une des constantes du texte technique descriptif. 3. La reformulation en langue cible de l’information technique décodée dans le texte source impose de prendre en compte le décalage culturel (de comportement intellectuel) entre les deux destinataires, celui du texte en langue source et celui de la traduction, les habitudes et les attentes de ce dernier. En ce sens, l’examen des documents du même type en roumain a permis de constater que le discours du même genre est tout différent 10 . En effet, tout en respectant les principes de précision et de concision – caractéristiques du discours technique –, il n’est pas elliptique et la schématisation qui s’y retrouve respecte la cohésion de la structuration syntaxique. Le texte s’inscrit toujours dans les paramètres du texte expositif – explicatif ou explicatif-prescriptif et offre des informations à un degré satisfaisant d’explicitation. Les informations fournies ont un caractère relativement complet, les dessins, schémas ou diagrammes ayant une fonction essentiellement illustrative. De cette spécificité 11 du discours spécifique des documents techniques de type «traité», il découle des conséquences pour les stratégies à adopter dans la traduction du français vers le roumain. Il s’agit principalement de la nécessité qu’il y a à reformuler de manière explicite les relations syntaxiques et sémantiques sous-tendues par les constructions elliptiques ou les relations se manifestant au niveau transphrastique, tout en maintenant la caractéristique d’information précise et condensée. On devra cependant respecter le caractère linéaire du texte et sa structure relativement atomisée et respecter ou reconstruire la cohésion des structures au niveau 10 11
Voir le texte donné en annexe. Qui tient à l’auteur ou à d’autres facteurs situationnels.
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phrastique et transphrastique. Cette option s’impose pour satisfaire aux attentes du destinataire roumain habitué à un certain type de structuration des textes documentaires. Les textes face à face présentés en échantillon dans l’annexe confirment les remarques ci-dessous. 4. Il s’ensuit que, dans le passage du français au roumain, la traduction du texte technique peut être marquée par des contraintes se manifestant au niveau de la mise en équivalence des termes véhiculés dans le même domaine de spécialité (afin d’assurer la validité de l’information) – des contraintes de nature linguistique en égale mesure systématique et discursives. La liberté dont dispose le traducteur est relativement limitée, elle se manifeste sous la forme des choix à faire dans le système de la langue cible afin de réaliser un texte qui attribue les mêmes significations aux désignations mais dans une structuration discursive différente, adaptée aux exigences de nature pragmatiques des utilisateurs du domaine. La traduction technique du type de texte analysé apparaît comme une opération plutôt rationnelle, essentiellement linguistique, la mise en équivalence imposant le recours tantôt à la reformulation explicite, tantôt à la reformulation libre. BIBLIOGRAPHIE BALLARD, M., 1993, La traduction à l’université, Presses Universitaires de Lille, (ed.) COMRIE, M., 1990, «La notion de “liberté” dans l’apprentissage de la traduction», in La liberté en traduction, Actes du Colloque international tenu à l’ESIT les 7, 8 et 9 juin, 1990, pp. 83 – 98. CRISTEA, T., 1978, „Pentru o gramatică orientată semantic a limbilor instrumentale”, Limbile moderne în şcoală vol. II. CRISTEA, T., 1998, Stratégies de la traduction, Bucureşti, Editura Fundaţiei “România de Mâine”. DANCETTE, J., 1995, Parcours de traduction Étude expérimentale du processus de compréhension, Presses Universitaires de Lille. DURIEUX, C., 1990, «Liberté et créativité en traduction technique», in La liberté en traduction Actes du Colloque international tenu à l’ESIT les 7, 8 et 9 juin, 1990, pp. 169 – 189. HERBULOT, FL., 1990, «Choix des moyens – obligation et résultats» in La liberté en traduction Actes du Colloque International tenu à l’ESIT les 7,8 et 9 juin, 1990, pp. 99 – 117. LAPLACE, C., 1999, Théorie du langage et théorie de la traduction: les concepts de trois auteurs: Kade (Leipzig), Coşeriu (Tübingen), Seleskovich (Paris), Paris, Didier Érudition. LEDERER, M., 1973, «La traduction: transcoder ou réexprimer?» in Études de Linguistique Appliquée nr. 12. LEDERER, M., 1994, La traduction aujourd’hui, Paris, Hachette. SELESKOVICH, D., & LEDERER, M. 1993, Interpréter pour traduire, Publication de la Sorbonne, Paris, Didier. 51
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Dicţionarul Explicativ al Limbii Române, Editura Academiei, 1975. (Dicţionar Tehnic Poliglot, Editura Tehnică, Bucureşti, 1963). Les Actes du Colloque International tenu à l’E.S.I.T. les 7, 8 et 9 juin 1990. TEXTES DE RÉFÉRENCE
R.Dietrich, G. Facy, E. Hygonnaud, M. Pompidou, J.-P. Trotignon, Précis de construction mécanique. 2. Méthodes, fabrication et normalisation, AFNOR-NATHAN, 1979, C. Tuzu, Tehnologie şi calitate în fabricarea maşinilor şi utilajelor, Editura Tehnică, Bucureşti, 1973. ANNEXE 1 – TEXTES EN REGARD Moulage en moule non permanent Procédés de moulage 3. Procédés de mise en oeuvre 3.1. Moulage en sable argileux 3.1.1. Moulage en sable à vert L’empreinte du moule est en sable silicoargileux naturel ou synthétique (voir matériaux de moulage). L’humidité du sable (origine du terme à vert) donne un gradient thermique important à la périphérie des pièces (influence sur la structure) (Fig.15) – Avec le serrage basse pression, la plasticité du sable présente une faible gène au retrait de l’alliage solidifié (Fig. 17) . – le serrage haute pression réalise un moule rigide (Fig. 18). – moulage à la main pièces petites et moyennes tous alliage . – moulage mécanique: procédé économique par la facilité de mise en oeuvre et le recyclage du sable. -----------------------------------------------------3.2. Moulage en sables agglomérés Initialement réservés au noyautage, réalise de plus en plus des empreintes. Ils sont bien adaptés au moulage mécanique, … (p. 5) (R.Dietrich, G. Facy, E. Hygonnaud, M. Pompidou, J.-P. Trotignon, Précis de construction mécanique. 2. Méthodes, fabrication et normalisation AFNOR-NATHAN, 1979)
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Turnare în formă destructibilă / Formare în tipar destructibil Procedee de formare/ turnare 3. Procedee de executare 3.1. Turnare în forme din nisip argilos 3.1.1. Turnare în forme din nisip umed / în forme crude Cavitatea din forma de turnare (de configuraţia si de dimensiunile piesei) este din nisip silicoargilos natural sau sintetic (vezi materialele de formare ) . Umiditatea nisipului (originea termenului crud) face ca gradientul termic la suprafaţa exterioară a pieselor să fie ridicat (ceea ce influenţeaza structura piesei) Fig. 15. Inchiderea formei se poate face: – la presiune joasă – plasticitatea nisipului opune o oarecare rezistenţă la dezbaterea aliajului solidificat (Fig.17); – la presiune înaltă – forma realizată este rigidă (Fig. 18) . Turnarea manuală este recomandată pentru piese mici şi mijlocii, indiferent de aliaj . Turnarea mecanică este un procedeu economic pentru că facilitează executarea formei şi permite reciclarea nisipului . 3.2. Turnare în forme din nisipuri aglomerate / Formare în tipare din nisipuri aglomerate Initial rezervat formării miezurilor, acest procedeu este folosit din ce în ce mai mult pentru turnarea formei în care este practicată cavitatea de configuraţia si dimensiunile piesei de format. Nisipurile aglomerate sunt bine adaptate turnării mecanice, … (pag.5) (traduction de l’auteur)
ANNEXE 2. – TEXTE ILLUSTRANT LE DISCOURS TECHNIQUE EN ROUMAIN 3.6. Confecţionarea formelor de formare Forma de turnare şi miezurile au un rol tot atât de mare ca şi aliajul lichid. Ele trebuie să îndeplinească câteva condiţii esenţiale: să aibă o refractaritate suficientă pentru a rezista la temperatura metalului topit; să aibă o porozitate suficientă pentru evacuarea vaporilor de apă şi a gazelor ce se produc în formă la contactul cu metalul topit; să reziste la presiunea hidrostatică exercitată de metal; să nu adere la pereţii piesei şi să poată fi sfărâmate uşor după solidificarea piesei. Aceste condiţii sunt îndeplinite de nisipul cuarţ (SiO2), ale cărui granule sunt legate între ele prin amestecare în proporţii convenabile cu lianţi . În ceea ce priveşte procedeele de formare se extinde formarea cu modele în rame metalice şi la serii mai mici, pentru că asigură o productivitate ridicată şi mai ales stabilitatea formei în timpul turnării, cu consecinţe favorabile asupra preciziei dimensionale a pieselor (Fig. 3.24 şi Fig. 3.25) (C. Tuzu, Tehnologie şi calitate în fabricarea maşinilor şi utilajelor, Editura Tehnică, Bucureşti, 1973).
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THE SYNTACTIC SUBCATEGORISATION OF ADJECTIVES IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN Denisa DRĂGUŞIN Spiru Haret University, Bucharest ABSTRACT The present article aims at analysing contrastively the adjective, as a multifaceted lexical category, in English and Romanian. As predicted, there are both similarities and differences related to their inflection (modification in form), structure (syntactic) and types (semantic). The article focuses only on the syntactic subcategorization, underlining the syntactic distribution of the adjective in the two languages submitted to analysis. Keywords: subcategorization, predicative adjectives, modifying adjectives, unidirectional adjectives, bidirectional adjectives
1. ENGLISH SYNTACTIC SUBCATEGORIZATION It has been pointed out that adjectives have two important parts of distribution. They can occur as predicative or as modifying items. There are adjectives which do not evince semantic differences between the two uses (predicative and modifying), but in both cases they assign properties to nouns (NPs): (1) The table is square. (predicative) (2) A square table is in the middle of the room. (modifier) There are adjectives that can be subdivided into three classes: • Exclusively predicative adjectives • Exclusively modifying adjectives • Both predicative and modifying adjectives (some of them may occur in either position, but with different meaning). 1.1. Exclusively predicative adjectives 1.1.1. This subcategory is made up of a series of “adverb-like” adjectives prefixed by ‘–a’: 1.1.1.1. There is a class of adjectives prefixed by a– which indicates state or condition: asleep, afraid, aghast, afloat, ajar, alike, akin, alive, alone, ashamed, askew, asleep, averse, awake and so on. 55
(3) The children were soon asleep. NOT (4) The dry wood was ablaze. (5) The boats were afloat.
The asleep children
1.1.1.2. Some of them take Prepositional Objects (the preposition being fixed) (6) The town was ablaze with lights. (7) I was ashamed of my immoral conduct. (8) They are averse to hard work. 1.1.1.3. The same adjectives can take complement clauses (CPs) (9) My friends were aware of being cheated. (10)They were afraid to continue their way. If they are quantified, some of them can occur as pre-Noun Modifiers (attributive) (11) There was a half asleep man on the bench. (man is the modified head noun) (12) I met a somewhat afraid child in the street. Some of them can occupy a post-head position -Post Noun Modifier (attributive) (13) I saw the firemen climbing to the roof ablaze. This type of predicative adjective can be replaced by the attributive participial adjective. a sleeping child → NOT → an asleep child → BUT → The child is asleep ( as a predicative) a living person → NOT → an alive person → BUT → The person is alive. the frightened bird → NOT → the afraid animal → BUT → The animal is afraid. They can have an attributive use when modified by an adverb: (14) At 1 a.m. the children were wide awake. (15) Someone left the door wide open. 1.1.2. Another subcategory includes prepositional adjectives which select Prepositional Objects and function only in predicative position: prone to, subject to, exempt from, conducive to, tantamount to, sorry for, afraid of, glad about, (16) Children are fond of chocolates. (17) Pensioners are exempt from bus fares. (18) They were sorry for the misunderstanding. 56
Among these predicative prepositional adjectives there are some which may select a CP (complement clause), be it finite or non-finite: (19) I am sorry for the inconvenience. (nominal) to produce an inconvenience. (non-finite) that I produced an inconvenience. (finite) Note the preposition deletion from the Surface Structure in the case of the Infinitival and That Complement Clauses. 1.1.3. There are adjectives expressing feelings which go only in ‘predicative position’: pleased, glad, content, upset or others expressing health: well, fine, ill, unwell. (20) The manager seemed pleased with the sales figures. (21) One person was ill and couldn’t come. Many of these adjectives can have an attributive use if they are modified by an adverb. (22) An extremely pleased customer. Other words expressing feelings used attributively: a satisfied client → NOT → a pleased client → BUT → The client is satisfied. a contented customer → NOT → a pleased customer → BUT → The customer is pleased. The adjectives: pleased, glad and upset can be attributive when not referring directly to people. For example: a pleased expression → the glad news → an upset stomach 1.2. Exclusively modifying Some adjectives are used only before or after nouns. They are exclusively modifying adjectives which never occur after copula verbs: (to be, to seem, to become, etc.). 1.2.1. Adjectives in pre-nominal position (before a noun) 1.2.1.1. These adjectives are attributive but not predicative. It is the case of the items: utter (complete), main, favourite, former, more, sole (= only), principal, chief, elder, eldest (oldest), eventual, sheer (complete), actual, prime, mere (only), only, outdoor, outer a.s.o. (23) That was the main reason. NOT That reason was main 1. (24) The story is utter nonsense. (25) The former teacher. NEVER The teacher is former. (26) Don’t underestimate the actual importance of the lecture. 1
Greenbaum, Sidney (1996), Oxford English Grammar, Oxford University Press, p. 254.
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(27) Their prime motives must be very mean. (28) It has proved to be an utter failure. (29) Have you already heard of her eventual failure? 1.2.1.2. There are adjectives ending in ‘–en’ used before nouns as well: wooden shoes / leaden balls/ a woolen jacket/ a golden ring/ a silken dress When they have a figurative meaning or occur in a figurative context they are accepted in a predicative position. (30) In the sun his hair had turned golden. (31) The sky was leaden. (32) His movements were wooden. (33) Her tresses shone silken 2. 1.2.1.3. Some adjectives derived from the names of cardinal points: the southern hemisphere but never The hemisphere was southern. the western countries but never The countries are western. 1.2.2. Adjectives in post-nominal position (after a noun) Adjectives come immediately after nouns in a few special cases: 1.2.2.1. Fixed phrases Secretary General Court martial (= military court) the people present knight errand president elect God Almighty! attorney general Sergent Major Princess Royal the sum total the Director General The Secretary General of the United Nations has called for new peace talks.
2
Badescu, Alice (1993), Gramatica limbii engleze, Bucureşti, p. 152.
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1.2.2.2. We can use some adjectives after nouns in a similar way to relative clauses: Check all the tickets available / available tickets. (= tickets which are available) I am sure this is the only solution possible / possible solution. 1.2.2.3. Expressions of measurement two metres high ten years older three miles long nine feet deep Exception makes worth (e.g. worth 200 pounds), which takes a premodifier position. 1.2.2.4. When an adjective has its own complement (e.g. skilled in design), the whole expression normally comes after a noun. In this case a relative clause is more natural. (34) We are looking for people skilled in design. (35) We are looking for people who are skilled in design. (RC) 1.2.2.5. Adjectives come after: something, everything, anything, nothing, somebody, anywhere. (36) I have found out something interesting this week. (37) Let’s go somewhere quiet. (38) You can’t do anything silly. 1.2.3. Adjectives with different meanings in different positions. (post and pre– nominal positions) There are adjectives whose position depends on their meaning: involved, concerned, present, responsible, proper a.s.o. (39) The amount of people involved is quite small. (= relevant) (40) It is a rather involved story. (= complicated) (41) The person concerned is at dinner. (= relevant) (42) There are a great deal of concerned people who have joined the protest. (= worried) (43) My boss seems a responsible person. (= sensible) (44) The person responsible for the damage will be punished. (= who did it)
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Before a noun, present refers to time; after a noun it means ‘here/there’, ‘not absent’. Let’s compare: the present members (= those people who are members now) the members present (= those who are/were at the meeting) All the staff present voted. (= there) Their present problems are the worst. (= now) Before a noun proper means ‘real’, ‘genuine’. After a noun it refers to the central or main part of something. Compare: (45) After a two day walk we reached the mountain proper. (46) Snowdon’s a proper mountain, not a hill. 1.3. Both predicative and modifying adjectives that may occur in either position, but with different meaning Quite a few adjectives can occur in both positions, but with distinct meanings. There are items such as heavy, hard, slow, frequent, traditional, possible, occasional, apparent, a.s.o., which may appear in phrases like: a beautiful dancer, a heavy smoker, a frequent visitor, an interesting writer, an old friend, a slow child. The adjective usually modifies the action not the person. (47) The bag was heavy. (the weight of the bag) → the heavy bag (48) She is a heavy smoker. (the adjective modifies the action not the person) → She smokes heavily. (it is the manner adverbial which yields the derived use of the adjective corresponding to the adverb heavily). (49) She is a beautiful dancer. (= her dancing is beautiful) → The dancer is beautiful. (= The dancer is a beautiful person) (50) He was a frequent visitor. (= his visits were frequent) There is a subcategory of adjectives which includes those so-called ‘pseudo-adjectives’ which evince a complex status. They can be both predicative and modifying when used with their primary meaning or only modifying when used with a derived meaning. Some examples of such adjectives: real, perfect, poor, civil, criminal, dramatic, atomic, chemical, simple, outright, plain, definite, late, wrong, old, new, clear, firm, sheer, total, a.s.o. real wood or The wood is real. (meaning not false ) but non-inherently → a real hero (the modifier indicates the degree to which the respective person is characterized by the property designated by the noun.
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We notice the same inherent / non-inherent meaning of the following adjectives: a perfect day → The day was perfect. (= excellent) → but → a perfect idiot a poor result → The result was poor. (= not good) → You poor thing! (= sympathy) poor people → The people are poor. (= having little money) 3 the old school → The school is old. → but → my old friend (= I have known him for ages.) (51) They gave me civil answers. Their answers were civil. →but→ She specialized in civil engineering. However there are quite a few adjectives which allow only predicative use when they have primary meaning. I am certain. (= sure) → NOT → a certain people → (derived meaning) a certain address (= specific) I was present. (= here/there) → NOT → a present person → (derived meaning) the present situation (= now) The bus was late. (= not in time) → NOT → a late bus → (derived meaning) a late bus (= near the end of the day) 2. ROMANIAN SYNTACTIC SUBCATEGORIZATION The syntactic characteristic of the adjectives is that they can develop certain syntactic functions within the sentence and enter into combination, in a defined context, in turn with each term and simultaneously with two terms. We can distinguish four main categories: • Distributionally ─ unidirectional ─ bidirectional • Modifying ─ never post-mofifying ─ never pre-modifying ─ both post-modifying and pre-modifying • Predicative position • Both predicative and modifying
3
Greenbaum, Sidney (1996), Oxford English Grammar, Oxford University Press, p.255.
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2.1. Distributionally there are: 2.1.1. Unidirectional All the qualifying adjectives, and determinative adjectives (strengthening, possessive, interrogative, demonstrative, negative and indefinite adjectives) însăşi mama→ strengthening adjs. ţara noastră→ possessive adjs. care zi → interrogative adjs. aceşti oameni → demonstrative adjs. nicio şansă → negative adjs. alţi cercetători →indefinite adjs. 2.1.2. Bidirectional Relative pronominal adjectives (care, ce, cât, câtă) define the nouns they refer to, trying to establish a relationship between these ones and other nouns in the context. ce…., care,…, cât,…, a cui,…This is the reason why they are considered as being bidirectional adjectives. care casă, ce carte, câţi bani, care haină , al cui creion a.s.o. (52) Nu ştiu câţi bani câştigă. (53) Ia ce creion vrei. (54) Nu ştiu care haină este a lui. (55) N-am idee a cui umbrelă este aceasta. Indefinite adjs. (oricare, orice, oricât, oricâtă) oricare om; orice alegere; oricât zahăr; oricâtă mâncare 2.2. Modifying adjectives 2.2.1. Never pre-modifying There are adjs. which cannot take the pre-modifying position (qualifying adj or pronominal adj) lapte bătut, varză călită, ordine crescândă, copil deştept 4 (except for exclamatory approach), copil găsit, forţa motrice, triunghi isoscel, numitor comun, acid acetic, proprietate privată, centru şcolar, părere comuna, divizor comun, creion negru (except for a metaphoric meaning). They can occur as predicatives as well. proprietate privată ─ Proprietatea este privată. triunghi isoscel ─ Triunghiul este isoscel. (exceptions) creion negru ─ neagra realitate 5 copil deştept ─ Deştept copil!
4
Cosntantinescu-Dobridor, Gh. (1974), Morfologia limbii române, Editura Ştiinţifică, p. 86. Academia Româna (2008), Gramatica limbii române, vol. I Cuvântul, Editura Academiei Române, Bucureşti, p. 144. 5
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2.2.2. Never post-modifying There are adjectives that can not appear after a noun (qualifying adjs. or pronominal adjs.) bietul tata, care om, ce fapte, unii specialişti, alte păreri, ceva bani. aşa prieteni, ditamai băiat, niciun exemplu a.s.o. 2.2.3. Both pre-modifying and post-modifying Most of the qualifying adjectives can be both predicative and modifying. ţară frumoasă / frumoasa ţară Their general position is a post-modifying one, but they can be used in a poetic style in pre-modifying positions. surâsul dulce al primăverii / dulcele surâs al primăverii The three morphological categories (gender, number, case) appear simultaneously in the structure of the adjectives and are solidary. caracter frumos → caractere frumoase frumosul caracter → frumoasele caractere 2.3. Predicative position In the predicative position: (56) Cabana este frumoasă şi înaltă. (57) Băiatul este cu vino-ncoace. (atrăgător) (58) Revista este interesantă şi citită cu plăcere. (past participle) (59) Voi sunteţi harnicii care mi-au ridicat casa ? (nominal adjective) 2.4. Both predicative and modifying In general, Romanian adjectives occupy a post-nominal position (postmodifying position), particularly the qualifying ones. ţara frumoasă / ţara este frumoasă / frumoasa ţară ( literary style) opera vestită /opera este vestită / vestita operă prietenii noştri /prietenii sunt ai noştri / ai noştri prieteni CONCLUSIONS There can be noted that there are both similarities and differences in the subcategoization of adjectives in the two languages in regard with their syntactic position.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Academia Română (2008), Gramatica limbii române, vol. I Cuvântul, Editura Academiei Române, Bucureşti. Badescu, Alice (1993), Gramatica limbii engleze, Bucureşti. Cosntantinescu-Dobridor, Gh. (1974), Morfologia limbii române, Editura Ştiinţifică. Greenbaum, Sidney (1996), Oxford English Grammar, Oxford University Press. Şerban, Domnica (2006), The Syntax of English Predications, Editura Fundaţiei România de Mâine, Bucureşti.
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A MODERN PHILOSOPHY FOR A CREATIVE TEACHING Ioana DUGAN Centre for Research and European Studies – AEPEEC, Bucharest ABSTRACT My approach to student education has shifted from an emphasis on my teaching, to a more central focus on student learning, and finally to a more holistic realization that the two are inseparable aspects of the same whole. I would define "teaching and learning" much as I would define "communication" as a holistic process in which there is a co-creation of meaning between student and teacher. In order to accomplish this "co-creation of meaning," I struggle constantly to balance five basic classroom dialectics: giving knowledge and facilitating understanding; theory and application, helping and challenging; maintaining rigor and encouraging creative experimentation; and respecting and supporting a wide diversity of students and student needs while maintaining balance and fairness. Keywords: communication, eLearning methodology, teacher-student relationship, writing skills
1. GENERAL ASPECTS Throughout the history of language teaching, theories and methods have gone through a recurring cycle: development, arbitrary enforcement, a brief period of enthusiasm and rejection. We cannot and we should not ignore the achievements of the past. To do so would severely limit our view of current trends. Many theories and methods at the turn of the century are still in the use today. We still utilize some facets of the audio-lingual method with its emphasis on structural linguistics and behaviourist psychology. Dialogues are shorter and more lifelike. Learners comprehend the meaning of all utterances through pictures, gestures, and dramatization. Utterances are usually contextualized. A student response that is rewarded by the teacher is reinforced and therefore learned, while negative teacher reaction on feedback is generally detrimental to learning. Some key words and phrases, like motivation, personality, interdisciplinary, and cultural are regaining respectability. Let us take a brief look at several of these words and phrases that appear frequently in learning or teaching materials, bearing in mind that the line of demarcation between affective and cognitive factors is no longer clear-cut. Factors in both domains interact, depending on the surrounding "world" and on inherent cultural structures within the individual. 65
Motivation is no longer thought of only as integrative or instrumental. It is again considered a key to learning, created, fostered, and maintained by the enthusiastic, sensitive, well-prepared classroom teacher at every stage of the learning process, as he or she meets the students' basic needs. The universal needs identified by the psychologist Maslow are: survival, (and security), belonging, identity, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Procedures that can become a part of every lesson and which will help students develop these positive affective feelings include: (a) relating the presentation and practice of any communicative or linguistic item or the reading and writing of any "text" to their native language and culture and to their probable experience in their native land or their new environment; (b) encouraging them to speak of their native culture in English or in their native tongue, where feasible; (c) making sure that they comprehend every dialogue utterance, the gist of the reading passage, instructions for tasks and activities, and cultural allusions in a listening or reading passage; (d) giving them extensive practice in using verbal or – if necessary – nonverbal alternatives for communicative expressions, structures, or language items; (e) rotating their participation in groups according to their academic needs or their evolving interests; (f) engaging them in paired practice activities for a good part of each lesson; (g) correcting important errors tactfully by rephrasing a question, expanding an answer, or by merely saying, "Listen," and giving the correct answer; (i) announcing all tests in advance and indicating clearly what the content of the test may include. ( j) showing concern for school or community problems of individuals; (k) making it possible for them to enjoy many small successes and a feeling that they are making definite – even if slow – progress toward their goals. Every lesson step, every class or out-of-class task or activity, can be designed to enhance motivation. The importance of personality has gained currency in the last decade. While the neo-behaviourist psychologists still agree that language is a form of behaviour, they see speech as a mediated response to stimuli – as an activity that directs and transforms the behavioural function and restructures the cognitive processes. Personality influences speech, which in turn influences personality. Nuttin (1968)¹ postulated that personality is a mode of functioning involving the ego and the world. It is an open-ended system that relates an individual's internal structure (affective, verbal, perceptive, cognitive) to the outside environment – physical, social, and cultural. Verbal communication is an expression of the individual's internal and external personality. Teaching approaches emphasize the central role of language as a social phenomenon. Students are engaged in realistic communicative activities that make 66
use of the tentative type of language that leads to more harmonious interpersonal relationships in social situations. The above remarks bring us to an emerging study termed global education. This concept transcends that of cultural pluralism, which includes a sensitive perception and appreciation of cultures beyond that of the target language. Global education, already a discipline in its own right in several universities, is interdisciplinary, embracing several universal goals: (a) to help students understand the ways of thinking, the values, and the problems of oilier peoples; i.e., to develop cross-cultural awareness; (b) enable students to analyze and suggest measures for using and sharing the earth's resources; (c) to develop a spirit of hip with other peoples; (d) to make students aware of the choices they can make in order to consider themselves citizens of the world. It is our responsibility to prepare our learners to cope not only with the world's universal problems and "behaviours" but with its many ethnic and cultural systems. Communicative competence is the principal objective in the majority of second-language teaching programs. The linguistic competence demanded in the past asked for the mastery of features of pronunciation, grammar, lexicon and culture. Communicative competence asks that teachers be satisfied with a reasonable knowledge of those features. It considers it imperative, however, that students learn to use language appropriately in the social situation in which the speech act takes place. Presuppositions are the "real world" experiences that people engaging in a conversation should have shared – or at least learned about – if full comprehension of their meaning is to occur. Unless the context and the situation are crystal clear (really unambiguous), it may be wiser to avoid time-wasting guessing games in which students hear only "What do you think it is?" followed by a one-word answer and the teacher's "No, it's not." If a presupposition is important for comprehension and for continuing the conversation, the teacher should explain it immediately, returning to it in greater depth when necessary. By the same token, para-linguistic features of language behaviour, such as unarticulated sounds and hesitation or transitional words, are part of normal conversation and should be used and practiced in role plays, paired practice, and other relevant activities. Literature is being recommended for early levels of language learning. Some will object, but I approve wholeheartedly. Learning simple poems, plays, and simplified versions of classics in English gives students a much-needed feeling of achievement. The term interdisciplinary has several meanings, each of which is important: (a) our theoretical background for language teaching and learning should include a knowledge of linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, semantics, communication theory, and didactics; 67
(b) in order to enhance motivation, the teacher of English as a foreign or second language should use concepts, terms, and techniques from every area in the curriculum the learners are studying. This will give students an opportunity to talk, ask, and write about topics with which they have some familiarity. An interdisciplinary approach is particularly important in the English as a second language situation, enabling language learners to get into the mainstream of the school and to function on a par with their classmates as quickly as possible. Until a few years ago, language acquisition and language learning were used interchangeably. In studies by Krashen (1981), learning is used to describe what the students learn in a formal school situation and acquisition refers to what a person learns unconsciously from the varied stimuli he receives from the world around him. Assuming that we do succeed in identifying all possible learning strategies, any teacher should find his own style and way to individualize instruction, use many media, integrate the language laboratory effectively with classroom work, grade the material, and encourage autonomous learning. One of the most powerful ideas shaping educational views and practices in recent years is mastery learning. It provides successful and rewarding learning experiences to almost all the students, it ensures that all or almost all students can master what they are taught. This idea is very old, it was the concern of teachers from the oldest times, being stressed by Comenius in the 17th century, by Pestalozzi in the 18th century, by Herbert in the 19th century. What’s new in our century? The quality of instruction is defined in terms of the degree to which the presentation, explanation and ordering of the learning task’s elements reached the optimum level for each learner. School learning is a function of five elements: the time allowed, perseverance, aptitude quality of instruction and ability to understand instruction. The teacher teaches each unit using group-based methods and supplements this instruction with feedback procedures. “The world, our countries, our communities will survive with faulty pronunciation and less than perfect grammar, but can we be sure they will continue to survive without real communication, without a spirit of community, indeed without real communion among people? Part of the answer lies in the hands of everyone in our profession. Seeking the truth to that answer is a challenge we cannot, dare not refuse to accept.” In choosing the most suitable sets of practical activities, I paid attention to the major factors which can influence student success in school learning. John B. Carroll first began to shape the concept of school learning. Essentially, this was a conceptual paradigm which pointed out the major factors influencing student success in school learning and indicated how these factors interacted. He found out that a student's aptitude for a foreign language predicted not only the level he would reach in a given time, but also the amount of time he would require to reach a certain level. This model assumed that, under typical school learning conditions, the time spent and the time needed were functions of certain characteristics of the individual and his instruction. The quality of instruction was defined in terms of the degree to which the presentation, explanation and ordering of the learning 68
task’s elements reached the optimum level for each learner. The ability to understand the instruction represented the student's ability to generally benefit from the instruction and was loosely identified with general intelligence. A linguistically aware teacher will be able to accomplish various tasks: preparing lessons, evaluating, adapting and writing materials, understanding, interpreting and designing a syllabus or curriculum, testing, assessing the learners' performance, contributing to English language work across the curriculum. Communicative teaching depends on a higher level of language awareness in teacher due to the richness and complexity of a communicative view. A lack of awareness of language manifests itself at classroom level when a teacher is unable to identify and compensate for shortcomings in a course book or he is caught out by the learners' questions on the language. In these situations the teacher needs to draw upon the learners' linguistic knowledge and provide the necessary expertise to help the learners overcome difficulties. Lessons that are well planned are more likely to help students and teachers. Avoid frustrations and unpleasant surprises Stay on track Achieve their objectives Lesson planning also allows the teacher to visualize (and, therefore, better prepare for) every step of the teaching process in advance. This visualization typically increases teacher success. A well done lesson plan can also "save" your class if for some reason you can't be there to teach. The lesson plan will provide invaluable guidance for the substitute teacher. Lesson plans also provide a record that allows good, reflective teachers to go back, analyze their own teaching (what went well, what didn't), and then improve on it in the future. In addition, this record will save you time in the future. When you teach similar lessons you can refer back to your old lesson plan (kept on file) and "recycle" the successful elements (instead of starting "from scratch"). A well-written piece can be described as incorporating elements of writing in such a way that a reader can experience the writer's intended meaning, understand the writer's premise, and accept or reject the writer's point of view. Effective Writing: • is focused on the topic and does not contain extraneous or loosely related information; • has an organizational pattern that enables the reader to follow the flow of ideas because it contains a beginning, middle, and end and uses transitional devices; • contains supporting ideas that are developed through the use of details, examples, vivid language, and mature word choice; and • follows the conventions of standard written English (i.e., 69
punctuation, capitalization, and spelling) and has variation in sentence structure. For the vast majority of teachers who do use textbooks are just collection of material. However well they are planned, they can be inappropriate for teachers and students' who should approach them with a degree of skepticism which allows them not only to asses their contents carefully but also to use the textbooks judiciously for their own ends, rather than have the textbook use and control them. Despite these worries about the dangers of textbook use, it should be pointed out that students often feel more positive about textbooks than some teachers. For them the textbook is reassuring. It allows them to look forward and back, giving them a chance to prepare for what is coming and a review of what they have done. Now that textbooks tend to be more colorful than in the old days, students enjoy looking at the visual material in front of them. For teachers too, textbooks have many advantages. In the first place, they have a consistent syllabus and vocabulary will have been chosen with care. Good textbooks have a range of reading and listening material and workbooks, for example, to back them up. They have dependable teaching sequences and they offer teachers something to fall back on when they run out of ideas of their own. It is precisely because not everything in the textbook is wonderful – and because teachers want to bring their personality to the teaching task – that addition, adaptation and replacement are so important. That is when the teacher's own creativity really conies into play. That is when the dialogue between the teacher and the textbook really works for the benefit of the students. At many stages during their careers, teachers have to decide what book to use. How should they do this? And on what basis will they be able to say that one book is better or more appropriate than another is? The teacher can look through the various books on offer, analyzing each of them. By far the best way to find a book's strength and weaknesses is to try it out with a class, seeing which lessons work and which don't. If teacher teach more than a group of the same level, they may want to teach two different books to compare them. Before choosing a book, teachers should try and find out if any of their colleagues have used the book before and how well they got on it. Through discussion, they can get an idea about whether or not the book is likely to be right for them. Anyone who might have an opinion on the book is worth speaking to, from bookshop owners, to colleagues and friends. It is also a good idea to letstudents look through the book and see how they react to a first sight of it. If they express a preference you agree with, they are likely to be more committed to the textbook. Although choosing a textbook is an important step, it is what a teacher does with such a book once it has been selected that really matters. 2. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS A good writing makes use of a good vocabulary. It should not have too many long and complicated sentences. Instead, short and precise sentences should be used. Apart from correct grammar the writer should be articulate. The more 70
articulate and fluent the flow of sentences would be, the more appealing would be the writing. Apart from the above basic rules, a good writing should have an interesting opening part and a closing part which makes the entire essay looks complete. Furthermore, the writer should not lose focus of the topic at hand and should explan his/her points through easy to grasp examples. Strengths • Enjoys writing and responds favorably to written activities • Written work is always legible • Is able to copy instructions from the board, orally or chart paper • Completes written assignments • Written work is well organized • Punctuation and grammar is grade appropriate • Written ideas follow a logical sequence • Ideas are clearly written and expressed • Spelling is usually accurate Weaknesses • Rarely enjoys writing and responds negatively to written activities • Written work is rarely legible • Experiences difficulty when copying instructions from the board, orally or chart paper • Rarely completes written assignments • Written work is poorly organized and difficult to follow • Punctuation and grammar is weak and often missing • Written ideas lack cohesion and sequence • Ideas are poorly written and expressed • Written work is often difficult to understand • Spelling is weak • Letters and/or words are often reversed What makes a writing bad is 1. Bad spellings; 2. incorrect Grammar; 3. an approriate opening; 4. Abrupt end; 5. deviating too much from the main point in the middle of the writing; 6. Being too wordy; 7. Too complicated sentence structure. Good vocabulary enhances writing but is not compulsory for it. Presenting grammatical items Presentation is the stage at which students are introduced to the form, meaning and use of the new piece of language. Presentation is the stage at which students learn how to put the new syntax, words and sounds together. At this stage, students learn the grammar they will need for their most important experience of the new language – applying it to themselves. A good presentation should be clear, 71
efficient, lively and interesting, appropriate and productive at the same time, using charts, dialogues, "mini situations", texts for contrasts, texts for grammatical explanation, visuals for situations, etc. An important clue is the fact that teachers should use exercises and techniques which encourage students to "discover" facts about grammar and grammatical usage. It is the teacher's job to give the students examples of the language which the students then repeat and use. Discovery techniques are those where students are given examples and told to find out how they work to discover the grammatical rules rather than be told them. The advantages of this approach are clear. By involving the students' reasoning processes in the task of grammar acquisition, we make sure that they are concentrating fully, using their cognitive powers. They are actually discovering information for themselves. Of course these techniques are not suitable for all students on all occasions. The teacher should decide when to use these activities, with what piece of grammar and with which students. There are also ways of using matching techniques, text study and problem solving activities that can be used at lower levels. Practice techniques are used to get students to practice grammatical items. The different types of oral practice (drills, interaction activities, involving the personality and games) are often done through writing. Students are often given exercises which ask them to practice specific language item. They start with the most controlled kind of writing practice and end with something that is a bit freer even though it is still designed for the practice of a specific grammatical item: fillins, word order exercises, sentence writing or parallel writing. Students need to practice their grammar a lot; where possible this will be done in pairs using interaction activities. It is also important to know how to test the students' knowledge of grammar. Through tests, the teacher has the possibility to test the students' ability to speak and/or write. CONLUSIONS The strengths in my writing were organization and conventions. Organization is extremely important in an essay as it enhances the main idea of the paper. It presents the information to the reader in a smooth pace. I excelled in this area, as I placed many transition words to help the reader progress through my paper, as well as varying the ways my sentences started to make it more interesting. Additionally, I wrote an inviting introduction and a strong conclusion that leave the readers pondering. Conventions, on the other hand, surprised me, because I don’t usually do extremely well in this area. Double checking and editing helps reduce the spelling and punctuation errors tremendously. Reading your paper out loud is also a great method I use to catch grammar, usage, and even punctuation errors! 72
My weakness in this paper was ideas, though I don’t usually struggle with this area. I was able to support many details and provide fresh and original ideas. However, I had a piece of inaccurate information that needed verification. Because of this, it might have left some readers confused and with various questions. I will remember next time to verify the information I get with at least one other source before using it. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bachman, L. F. (1990). Fundamental considerations in language testing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Breen. Candlin, C. (1993). Problematising authenticity: whose texts for whom? Paper presented at the TESOL Convention, Atlanta. Kramsch, C. (1993). Context and culture in language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Littlewood. Nunan, D. (1989). Designing tasks for the communicative classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Rivers, W. M. & Temperley. Thomson H.Godfrey (2012) ,A Modern Philosophy of Education, Vol. 32, Routlege Library Edition, New York. Widdowson, H. G. (1972). The teaching of English as communication. English Language Teaching. 27, 15-19. Widdowson, H. G. (1979). Explorations in applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. (1990). Aspects of language teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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DÉRIVATION NOMINALE ET PASSIVATION CLASSIQUE Galina FLOREA Université Spiru Haret, Bucarest ABSTRACT Specialists in linguistics/ Generative grammars (such as Chomsky 1957 in his debut works) argue that pasivization would be the transformation of par excellence. Starting from the classical definition of liabilities as a verbal category of simple verbs we come to the conclusion that this syntax is not applicable in the canonical form and the "compound verbs" (nominal constructions with predicative verbs derived). These constructions show the liabilities other forms. So canonical passive found in nominal constructions, a broadened possiblity to be complemented by other means of passivation. Keywords: generative grammars, passivization, compound verbs, nominal derivation
Comme dérivation morpho-syntaxique (Harris 1974), la nominalisation est une opération s’effectuant à l’aide de deux nominalisateurs: le suffixe nominalisateur du verbe ordinaire et le support qui aide le verbe nominalisé à se conjuguer. La règle générale de dérivation transformationnelle (pour les déverbaux) est N0 V (N1) → N0 Vsup V-n (N1): Il s’inquiète → Il a des inquiétudes Il admire son père → Il a de l’admiration pour son père Sont-elles passivables, ces constructions ? Dans la grammaire générative (au moins dans ses travaux du début: Chomsky 1957) la passivation est considérée comme la transformation par excellence. Essayons de l’appliquer aux formations supportées. On voit que quelle que soit la position à l’égard du passif, toutes les grammaires lient ce phénomène syntaxique à la catégorie du verbe. Marouzeau 1961: «Voix – un aspect du verbe défini par le rôle qu’on attribue au sujet, suivant qu’il accomplit l’action (actif), ou qu’il la subit (passif), qu’il y est intéressé d’une certaine manière (moyen). À ces différentes valeurs du verbe peuvent correspondre des systèmes de formes caractérisées par des désinences spéciales, actives, médio-passives, passives». Cependant ces formes peuvent correspondre aux valeurs du verbe et peuvent ne pas correspondre, selon l’avis d’autres linguistes. 75
Ainsi un verbe latin comme vapulo (recevoir des coups) a une morphologie de verbe actif (comme lavoro par exemple), mais son interprétation est passive: le sujet subit l’action. (On pourrait dire la même chose du verbe français encaisser: le boxeur encaisse). Il s’ensuit que le passif a une double réalité: formes morphologiques et interprétation sémantique, qui ne coïncident pas nécessairement. En français le passif est périphrastique; il a la forme N1 être Vpp par / de N0 et en roumain N1 a fi de către N0: Tout le monde aime X X est aimé de tout le monde Toată lumea îl iubeşte pe X X este iubit de toată lumea On remarque dans ces constructions un renversement de l’ordre des arguments (sujet et objet) avec conservation de leurs rôles sémantiques qui implique une dérivation de la phrase active correspondante. Ce choix du second argument comme sujet (d’où le terme souvent employé du «passif à promotion d’objet ») est tenue pour condition essentielle du passif canonique (Dubois 1967: 81). En fait, il n’existe pas de véritable renversement, même syntaxique, puisque le sujet actif ne devient pas objet au passif, mais complément prépositionnel et, de plus, il est facultatif: X est aimé (beaucoup) X este iubit (mult). Les supports des déverbaux sont des verbes à sémantique large du type faire, avoir, être etc. Les deux derniers sont présentés dans les grammaires (même dans leur emploi autonome) comme des exemples de non passivation par excellence (Cristea, 1979: 74), quoique le verbe être soit une partie intégrante de toute structure passive. Certains linguistes établissent, toutefois, entre ces deux verbes (avoir et être) des relations régulières à sens passif (dans des structures d’un certain type): X a soif / faim X est assoiffé / affamé Les premières phrases sont considérées comme des structures actives achevées et les autres comme des structures passives inachevées (Dubois 1967: 127). Dans ce cas le terme de passif prend une extension plus grande que dans les grammaires classiques. La relation d’équivalence entre la construction active et sa contrepartie passive est basée sur la dérivation morphologique: N → V → Vpp: soif → assoiffer → assoiffé (e) et non sur la promotion d’objet qui, en ce cas, est formel et fait corps avec le support. Un passif promotionnel aurait la forme: *Soif est eue par X = X est assoiffé *Setea este avutǎ de cǎtre X = X este însetat 76
Le signifié est le même, mais la forme est inacceptable. Le schéma classique exige auprès de l’auxiliaire de passivation (être) le participe passé d’un verbe prédicatif (à sens plein). Le manque d’un complément d’agent classique dans ce type de structures passives donne l’impression d’une ambiguïté en ce qui concerne la valeur du participe. Mais la possibilité d’emploi d’adverbes (si, très, tellement; foarte tare, atât de etc.) dans les deux constructions confirme, d’une part, le caractère verbal du participe passé, et de l’autre, la nature verbale de la nominalisation devenue « verbe composé » (employé seul, le substantif n’admettrait pas d’adverbes): Il a si / très / tellement faim Il est si / très / tellement affamé L’existence de multiples formes adjectivales associées au participe confirme également le caractère verbal de celui-ci: X a des inquiétudes / une tristesse X est inquiété / attristé (participe) X est inquiet / triste (adjectif) Cette conception sur la formation du passif (qui ne tient pas nécessairement compte de l’objet et de sa promotion) est partagée par d’autres linguistes aussi (Bidois G., Bidois R. 1971: 414), qui le traite en termes d’opérateur verbal – être Vpp opère sur les verbes ordinaires (aimé → être aimé). Ces derniers peuvent être mis à la fois en relation correspondante (non orientée) avec l’opération de nominalisation avoir V-n: V apeurer V-n → Vpp peur → apeuré X a apeuré Y Y est apeuré par X En vertu de leur thème lexical commun, ces suites peuvent être considérées comme équivalentes. Si l’on s’en tient à cette position, une grande quantité de phrases à verbes nominalisés peuvent avoir des contreparties de ce type, ayant en vue leur base verbale: Cf.: Avoir: Il a Etre: Il est une dépression déprimé des émotions ému l’autorisation de autorisé de la charge de chargé de la satisfaction de satisfait de le respect de respecté de etc. Pour conclure, on devrait mentionner que le passif canonique des verbes simples trouve dans les verbes composés (constructions nominales à verbe support) une large possibilité d’être complété par d’autres moyens de passivation.
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BIBLIOGRAPHIE Bidois, G.; Bidois, R. (1977) Syntaxe du français moderne, tome 1, Paris, Picard. Chomsky, N. (1957) Syntactic Structures, La Haie, Mouton (traduction française de M. Brauden, Le Seuil, 1969). Cristea, T. (1979) Grammaire structurale du français contemporain , TUB. Dubois, J. (1967) Grammaire structurale du français: le verbe. II-ième partie, Paris, Larousse. Harris, Z.-S. (1974) Les deux systèmes de grammaire: prédicat et paraphrase. Langages, 29, Paris, Larousse. Marouzeau, J. (1961) Lexique de la terminologie linguistique. Paris, P. Geuthrer.
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STEREOTYPES REGARDING SEX AND TECHNOLOGY Ioanna FOKOU National and Capodistrian University of Athens ABSTRACT Does gender finally have to do with the ability or not to occupy positions related to technology and technological achievements? This paper deals with the lack of female representation regarding fields like maths, science, technology, computer studies, and polytechnic schools. Social stereotypes, which we all become accustomed with since our childhood, constitute constrictions to the women’s occupation with science and technology. Moreover, it is well established the different vocabulary used to describe men and women since they are little children. It is not only that. Even in the matter of linguistics it appears that both genders use different vocabulary when they communicate. The different rendering of how women speak reflects and produces a subordinate position in society. The lack of female representation has led to the result that science and technology are a male issue and pursuit in the sense that is designed by men, developed by men and controlled in a large scale by them. Results of studies clearly demonstrate that women are driven away from sciences because of the two most widespread stereotypes of society a) that science is a male affair and b) that the scientists working in these fields are loners, “geeks”, odd looking and antisocial. Keywords: stereotypes, science, technology, female under representation, male dominant science, language barriers, “geeks”, professional orientation, subordinate position
Does gender finally have to do with the ability or not to occupy positions related to technology and technological achievements? In 1960 in the scientifically pioneer U.S.A., 13 women pilots were thought as the best astronauts of NASA. These women, who in the end, never stepped foot in space, were assessed as more suitable than their male colleagues for a space trip for several reasons. Some of them were that women needed less oxygen in a minute and demonstrated more stamina in sensory deprivation. They also passed successfully all medical and scientific tests. Despite the lengthy preparation, it was finally announced to them by their superiors that they would not participate in the space missions of NASA, because, although they were the right material, at the same time they were the wrong sex (gender) 1. The above story is one of the many that demonstrate that the identification of technology with the male sex is not natural or self-evident or masculinity with technological capability. Simultaneously is one of the many stories of capable 1
Wajcman 2000: 447-464.
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women that failed to emerge despite the blatant knowledge and skills. As a result there is, over the years, lack of female role model in science and technology 2. The lack of representation of women has led to consolidate the view that science and technology are a male affair and pursuit in the sense that men plan it, men develop it and ultimately men control it broadly. 3 The situation seemed to change when computers first entered our lives. They were a new form of technology, neutral, sexless, which would give equal opportunities to both sexes both in use as well as in relevant with these studies. The messages were optimistic during 1940. Women contributed then in the development of computer technology, but in the following decades that branch become male dominated. 4 Recent research of the Federal Service of Labor Statistics showed that the sought-after professions from 2014 onwards will be 5: (for example) computer network engineer, engineer of artificial intelligence, engineer of nuclear fusion, radio oncologist surgeon (i.e. surgery is performed using computational illustration and robotic devices)… etc. Similar estimation is mentioned by the correspondent service in Finland that took place in 2004. In these professions, the researches show, under-representation of women compared to men. 6 From what is mentioned above is clearly stated that a small number of women chooses to study one of these fields of science and even less work in related jobs 7. Studies that lasted decades have demonstrated that there is not a genetic defect of women compared to men. Both men and women “are the same animals”. Simply there are gender specific mental imaging systems that define and reveal differences in their behavior. 8 They receive and process differently stimuli and information. So, genetic superiority of men over women does not exist. 9 Still the men hold the lead in technology and achievements. What men though? Even among men themselves who are involved in sciences there are stereotypes. In the political or financial world the image of their representatives is the image of "yuppy" executive, who always wears a suit, holding a briefcase, and always has short and well combed hair. If it is a woman, she should wear jacket, shirt and skirt to the knee or trousers in masculine form, holding briefcase and also have well combed hair without extravagant hairstyle or extravagant hair color. In the natural sciences or applied sciences sectors, the scientist resembles the image of Einstein with glasses uncombed, sloppy hair not particularly neat clothes and a sweet, meybe a child’s smile. This image is directly connected to the
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Landers 1997: 114-120 Leonard 2003: 19-20 4 Ντρενογιάννη 2007: 293-300 5 Καλεράντε 2008: 23-26 6 ibid 7 Aydin 2008:10-11 8 ibid 9 Danilova 2010: 25-27 3
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stereotype that presents a scientist to be interested only in his science and be indifferent for the daily routine. 10 In mathematics or computer science (systems programmers / application developers, systems software analysts / applications, database administrators, software and hardware engineers, etc.) there is the stereotype of the "geek" or "loner" who in their minds the first have only how to solve the equation or the second how to upgrade some software, without being interested in the people around them. Researches conducted, mostly in the U.S.A., demonstrate that adolescent girls do not choose to turn to the aforementioned sciences, precisely because this view is established. 11 According to these studies girls who study in universities prefer to engage in fields that allow more communication and interaction with other people. 12 This widespread perception that students of mathematics or computer studies that "is somewhat antisocial and geeks 13" accompanied by the perception that scientists are "brilliant, but socially isolated, who should receive some feedback for improvements in hairdressing and stylistic choices in clothes". 14 Other studies define the image of the "geek", the nerd as a scientist guy, always with a deep knowledge of science, without showing that he has any interests other than science. 15 The results of these studies clearly show that women move away from science due to the two most substantiated perceptions of a society a) that science is a man's case and b) that scientists in these sectors are sloppy, loners and antisocial. This picture is reinforced by the image presented for scientists through television and cinema. Also, through television advertising, electronic or printed. The men's magazines are flooded with ads for so-called "gadgets" or mention the latest models of cars, computers, hardware, software... etc. On the other hand female magazines are filled with fashion, gossip concerning famous people, astrology... etc. In movies or TV series, scientists are almost always men, intelligent, but obsessed with science and not particularly involved with the world around them, usually framed by women beautiful but ignorant who do not understand the men at all due to their technological illiteracy. If there is a woman scientist in some movie or tv series, she is rarely presented as beautiful. Usually she appears disheveled, wearing glasses, isolated, without a partner facing problems with the opposite sex. Especially in the U.S.A, based on the number of female students which is discouraging, several efforts have started to overcome this stereotype. A suggestion that seems to pay off is the effort to alter the stereotype with a campaign in schools entitled: “we change the public image of science” Many University institutions 10
Σκορδούλης 2008:136-137. Grant D 2007:91-94. 12 Hazzan 2006: 7-12. 13 Beyer 2004: 21-28. 14 Carlson 2006 www.chronicle.com/free/v52/i19/19a03501.htm:9-12. 15 Thomas 2010:267-269. 11
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organize presentations, workshops, speeches trying to deconstruct the stereotype rooted. Typical example is the Florida State University. The message towards the candidate students is: “You don’t have to be a nerdy white guy to be a computer geek. In fact, you can be a woman, a minority, a person with a disability or someone who is downright cool”. 16 These efforts by large and well-known universities, especially from a country with tremendous technological advances in all fields of science, to tear down that stereotype testify the size of the problem which is real. Social stereotypes also repel women from their involvement in specific sectors leading to specific occupations. 17 Since birth until death, sex formulates human feelings, thoughts and actions. Children learn from an early age that society considers men and women as different kinds of people. From the age of three, children begin to perceive themselves in these terms. Besides, it is well established the fact that women are described like "cooperative", "cute", "passive", "submissive", "emotional" and similar conceptually words. In contrast, men are described with words like "leader", "competitive", "energetic", "reasonable" and other similar conceptually words. 18 But it is not only the vocabulary used to characterize each sex, but also the vocabulary both sexes use when they communicate. Even regarding the linguistic issue seems that both sexes tend from childhood to express themselves differently. 19 Lakoff argued that the different intonation of women reflects and produces an inferior position in society. The language, according to Lakoff, removes women from positions of power and authority. Additionally, the language itself becomes a tool of oppression, because part of the social stereotype is learned as a part of “teaching” a woman how to be a woman. This is imposed on women by the norms of society, making sure to keep women in their place. Gender studies in linguistic sector have located differences in the way man and women speak, both in the vocabulary and also the intonation and the articulation. 20 For instance: • Women are more detailed in the description of colors describe accurately different shades of each color. They use words such as beige, light beige, egg shell beige, ocher, words basically absent from the vocabulary of men. • Women tend to avoid words that involve strong emotions of anger and prefer less loaded words and expressions than men. A woman will say: Oh my God, while one man: shit or crap! or something more vulgar. • Women use more adjectives to express their opinion on various matters, ie, charming, sweet, divine, and others, whilst men do not use so many adjectives when they talk. 21 16
Elish 2006 www.fsu.edu/news/2006/05/11/geek.chic:92-95. Aydin 2008: 38-39. 18 Macionis 2012: 332. 19 Lakoff 1975:50-60. 20 Tannen 1990:123. 17
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• In propositional level women often seek confirmation from their interlocutors when they complete a sentence with a question, like a question tag, for example: This movie was very interesting, wasn’t it? While men simply state what they have to say without question. • Women also use words or expressions that show uncertainty, like: let’s review this again, I suppose, I consider, I might, possibly, maybe. This makes women to sound less categorical than men who usually do not use such words. •The way women speak is, generally, characterized by correct use of grammatical and semantic rules and polite forms, for example: I was irritated, I am under pressure, a woman will say, shut up, go to hell, fuc…, a man will say. • Women often use high vocal intonation, even in statements, especially when they answer questions, a fact that makes their statement uncertain and weak. • Women have been “taught” since childhood that in order to achieve something, it helps to “break” their voice 22, to use what is called “meowing”, so they are all considered kittens, whilst simultaneously, boys are brought up with the conviction that in order to achieve something, is good to persist on their point of view and demand it dynamically and persistently. Social stereotypes, in which we are all accustomed with since childhood, become obstacles in women’s occupation with science and technology. From what is mentioned above, it is evident that there is a lack of female role model concerning science, maths, computer, engineering studies. Plus, how women are presented through many sorts of media images in movies, advertising, newspapers, television, and promotional materials holds a vital role for the choices young girls make for their future careers. So, people outside science, including young women and men considering career choices, get their impressions of what people in the profession are like. Both male and female may or may not be consciously aware of their own biases, yet they impact the way in which people make decisions. That promotes separation of genders in the learning process. If the popular image of science is a significant factor in the gender gap, then changing or modifying the popular images may be a crucial strategy. In order to reduce the gap, rather than trying to make female students adapt to male types of behaviour and learning styles, it is necessary to create an environment that is inclusive of women by utilising the methods and techniques of teaching that will help them to blend into the education process. Also, historical incidents may help change the existing image of science. Hidden stories and profiles of women in science throughout the years can be presented to the students, researchers, and interested members of the public through a rich variety of existing and new – media forms, through photographs, biographies, videos… etc. Such stories may have the power to inverse the lack of
21 22
Spender 1980:178. Mills 2005: 189.
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female role models and to counteract the misbegotten idea that science has always been about men. Summarising, it becomes clear that women still face obstacles which obstruct women from being involved and prove their worth in what we call "male dominating professions". In order to achieve a dynamic change of the existing role of women, the stereotypical beliefs of the family institution, of the educational system and society need to alter. It requires a sexless positive orientation of studies, recognition of women's works, and equal treatment of both genders in the working environment. BIBLIOGRAPHY AAUW Educational Foundation. Tech-savvy: Educating girls in the new computer age. Washington D.C.: AAUW Educational Foundation, 2000. Aydin N., Women and information technology, VDM 2008. Beyer, S., Rynes, K., & Haller, S. (2004). “Deterrents to women taking computer science courses” IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 23(1). Carlson, S. (2006). Wanted: Female computer-science students. Retrieved February 16, 2006, from www.chronicle.com/free/v52/i19/19a03501.htm. Danilova E. & Pudlowski Z., “Segregation by gender in technology and engineering education – in search of a one-size-fits-all solution”, 1st World Conference on Technology and Engineering Education ( 2010 WIETE) Kraków, Poland, 14-17 September 2010. Elish, J. (2006). From geek to chic: The changing face of computing. Retrieved May 12, 2006, from www.fsu.edu/news/2006/05/11/geek.chic/ . Σκορδούλης Κ. (επιμέλεια) Ζητήματα θεωρίας των επιστημών της φύσης, Φύλο και φυσικές επιστήμες: έμφυλα στερεότυπα και εκπαιδευτικές στρατηγικές υπονόμευσής τους, Ρεντεντζή Μ.,εκδόσεις Τόπος, 2008, σ.136-137. Grant D., Knight L.,”Young women’s misinformation concerning IT careers: exchanging one negative image for another.” Informing science journal,Volume 10, 2007. Hazzan O., Levy D. ACMS attention to IT. In Trauth, Encyclopedia of gender and information technology, Volume 1,Hershey 2006. Καλεράντε Ε., Καραφώτη Π. Οδηγός εισαγωγής αρχών ισότητας των φύλων στην εκπαίδευση, ΚΕΘΙ, Αθήνα 2008. Lakoff, R.T., Language and Woman’s Place. NY: Harper and Row, 1975. Landers R., Adam A., Women in computing, Intellect books (1st ed. ), 1997. Leonard E., Women, Technology and the myth of progress, Prentice Hall 2003. Macionis J., Sociology, Pearson 13th ed., 2012 Mills, S., Κοινωνικό φύλο και ευγένεια. Αθήνα: Πατάκης 2005. Ντρενογιάννη Ε. κ.ά., Φύλο και Εκπαίδευση, Καλειδοσκόπιο, Αθήνα 2007. Spender, D., Man Made Language. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (1980). Tannen, D., You Just Don’t Understand! Women and Men in Conversation. London: Virago, 1990 Wajcman J., “Reflections on Gender and Technology Studies: In What State is the Art?” Social Studies of Science, Vol. 30, No. 3. (Jun., 2000). Thomas, M., Gender Codes: Why women are leaving computer, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, 2010.
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LE DÉVELOPPEMENT DES COMPÉTENCES DE COMMUNICATION PROFESSIONNELLE DES ÉTUDIANTS EN SCIENCES SOCIALES Alina IFTIME Université Ovidius de Constanţa ABSTRACT Although, for students at non philological faculties, the study of a foreign language, in this case French doesn’t represent an end in itself, we believe that this discipline of study should not have a marginal status, as it is actually an important component of the professional training process. Within this paper, we propose to identify and present the steps followed by the teacher, to create a French language course for training and development of professional communication skills in French to students of social sciences, appropriate to communication needs specific to the professional environment where they will integrate, but also for the development of the autonomy in studying French. Keywords: professional communication, French, non philological faculties.
1. INTRODUCTION Les programmes internationaux de mobilités et les échanges d’étudiants, les partenariats et les accords de collaboration entre les établissements d’enseignement supérieur, tant au niveau de programmes d’études qu’au niveau de la recherche scientifique, ont mis en évidence dans le milieu universitaire roumain, le besoin des étudiants des facultés non philologiques, d’apprendre une ou plusieurs langues étrangères afin de s’informer de manière correcte et immédiate, et, en plus, de s’intégrer ultérieurement, plus facilement sur le marché international et libre du travail. En outre, la connaissance d’une langue étrangère signifie avoir accès à la diversité et aux marques identitaires qui définissent d’autres cultures et civilisations, mais représente aussi un investissement dans le développement personnel. 2. ASPECTS GÉNÉRAUX CONCERNANT LE STATUT DES LANGUES ÉTRANGÈRES DANS LES FACULTÉS NON PHILOLOGIQUES Bien que les exigences des documents de Bologne et les normes de l’Union Européenne dans le domaine de l’enseignement des langues étrangères exigent une compétence linguistique de haut niveau des diplômés des facultés non philologiques, dans les programmes de la route universitaire roumaine, on alloue à l’étude des langues étrangères, un nombre assez réduit d’heures. Actuellement, au 85
niveau de la majorité des profils académiques en Roumanie, les langues étrangères ont le statut de disciplines complémentaires à la formation universitaire spécialisée et on les étudie seulement dans la première année ou les deux premières années d’études de licence. Le programme d’une spécialisation prévoit l’organisation d’un cours de langue étrangère avec deux heures de séminaire par semaine pendant les deux/quatre premiers semestres des études de licence, l’évaluation se faisant par un examen écrit, oral ou par une autre forme d’évaluation. On constate aussi des différences quant au nombre des crédits transférables établi pour la discipline langue étrangère, au niveau des diverses spécialisations. En outre, dans le cadre de certaines spécialisations on étudie deux langues étrangères, dans d’autres, une seule langue étrangère, bien que, pour la mise en œuvre de la stratégie de Lisbonne, en termes d’apprentissage des langues étrangères, l’Union Européenne soit guidée par le principe selon lequel toute personne devrait être capable de parler deux langues étrangères, à part la langue maternelle. Donc, nous remarquons une absence d’unité au niveau national, probablement pour des raisons qui tiennent à l’autonomie universitaire. Nous considérons que les disciplines d’étude langues étrangères devraient être intégrées dans les curricula des facultés non philologiques en tant que disciplines d’étude à régime obligatoire au cours de toute la période des études de licence, et que l’étude des langues devrait se poursuivre pendant les études de master aussi. Une première raison en faveur de ce désidératum est le décalage temporel qui se crée entre le moment de la formation initiale des compétences de communication professionnelle en langues étrangères et le moment réel de l’insertion sur le marché du travail des diplômés. Le but du cours de langues étrangères n’est pas la formation technique des futurs spécialistes, mais, d’une part, la création des disponibilités d’accumulation autonome en langue étrangère des connaissances dans un domaine bien défini et, d’autre part, la formation des compétences d’utilisation de la langue étrangère spécialisée dans les futures relations de communication professionnelle. Les objectifs de tout cours de langue étrangère intégré dans les curricula des facultés non philologiques, tout comme le montre notre expérience didactique et tels qu’ils sont présentés par Livia-Otilia Bradea (2007, pp. 275-276), sont les suivants: a. l’acquisition des structures lexicales spécifiques aux domaines spécialisés, b. la compréhension et la production orale et écrite des messages à contenu professionnel, c. l’utilisation de la langue dans des contextes de la vie quotidienne, mais aussi dans des buts professionnels – pour plus d’informations et de documentation dans le domaine de la spécialité – et dans les relations de travail avec des intervenants du même domaine, d. la prise de conscience du rôle de la langue étrangère dans le développement et même dans la compétitivité professionnelle, e. l’acquisition de stratégies d’apprentissage pour le développement du degré d’autonomie dans l’étude indépendante des étudiants / des futurs diplômés. 86
Le professeur élabore le cours de langue étrangère en se basant sur l’évaluation continue des besoins du marché du travail spécialisé. Les contenus et les objectifs de ce cours doivent être appropriés au profil des facultés et aux besoins professionnels d’apprentissage de la langue étrangère appliquée. Par conséquent, pour la réalisation du cours de langue étrangère, l’enseignant a le rôle d’insérer des éléments de contenu non linguistique, de divers domaines professionnels, visant à réaliser le transfert à un niveau autonome d’utilisation de la langue étrangère par les étudiants. La spécificité du langage de spécialité, comme il est indiqué par Jean-Jacques Richer, est donnée non seulement par le vocabulaire ou la syntaxe, de même que le montraient les recherches dans les années 60/70, mais aussi par «les genres de discours spécifiques suscités par chaque domaine professionnel et dans le lien étroit entre langage et action qu’impose le monde contemporain du travail. » (Jean-Jacques Richer, 2008, p. 20). Il est également important que l’enseignant sélectionne et intègre dans son cours certains aspects de culture et civilisation, qui influenceront la communication entre des spécialistes qui proviennent de cultures différentes, telles que des données socio-économiques qui caractérisent le contexte culturel large dans lequel évolueront hypothétiquement les futurs diplômés, et des informations qui caractérisent les institutions dans lesquelles s’intégreront les futurs diplômés, vu qu’il existe des différences par rapport aux institutions des pays étrangers, en ce qui concerne les relations d’égalité, de hiérarchie, d’autorité, la conversation, explicite et implicite, etc. 3. LA CONCEPTION DU COURS Aspects qui devraient être pris en compte dans la conception du cours pour la consolidation des performances obtenues par les étudiants dans l’étude de la langue française et des recommandations pour l’activité didactique Afin d’optimiser l’activité d’enseignement-apprentissage des langues étrangères dans l’enseignement supérieur non philologique, l’enseignant traverse certaines étapes avant l’approche proprement dite du cours de langue, à savoir: 1. L’analyse des besoins de formation des futurs diplômés – qui représente l’étape la plus importante dans la réalisation du cours. Lehmann (1993) stipule que l’enseignement du français en tant que langue étrangère pour un public ayant des besoins spécifiques, devrait être fondé principalement sur l’apprenant. Dans notre approche à l’identification des besoins de nos étudiants, nous sommes guidés justement par ce principe. L’analyse des besoins de formation des étudiants dans l’apprentissage d’une langue étrangère constitue une étape capitale dans l’organisation ultérieure du processus d’enseignement-apprentissage. L’enseignant doit même anticiper les situations de communication authentiques, auxquelles le futur diplômé se confrontera sur le marché du travail, en essayant de déterminer à qui il va interagir, dans quels contextes, à quels sujets, ce qu’il lira, ce qu’il écrira, etc. 87
2. Une documentation rigoureuse sur le spécifique des activités du domaine d’étude respectif. Le concepteur du cours doit parcourir une phase de familiarisation avec le domaine professionnel concerné, collectant dans ce but des informations sur sa structure, son fonctionnement, les parties prenantes, les situations de communication, le lexique récurrent, etc. Afin d’atténuer la distance qui existe certainement entre la connaissance de la langue étrangère qu’il maîtrise et la méconnaissance du domaine d’activité sociale pour lequel il formera les étudiants, l’enseignant porte des discussions dans ce sens avec des experts du domaine respectif ou avec les étudiants mêmes, en essayant d’établir les situations de communication adéquates au contexte professionnel visé, et en plus, il peut consulter des revues spécialisées ou des sites Internet. 3. L’étude du langage spécialisé, représentatif pour chaque champ professionnel et l’analyse des caractéristiques des textes étant intégrés dans l’aire thématique de spécialisation des étudiants. 4. L’élaboration de l’activité didactique. Les suggestions et les réflexions qui suivent sont le résultat de notre expérience en tant que chargé des cours de langue française pour les étudiants des spécialisations des futurs éducateurs spécialisés et assistants sociaux, mais aussi elles sont parues suite à des lectures des articles spécialisés. Comme la formation de la compétence communicative dans une langue étrangère est au point de rencontre de plusieurs domaines entre lesquels s’instaurent des relations de complémentarité et d’interdisciplinarité, tels la linguistique, la sémantique, la pragmatique, l’analyse du discours, la pédagogie, la didactique, il s’impose fermement la nécessité que le professeur qui enseigne une langue étrangère dans le cadre d’une faculté non philologique, reçoive une formation à caractère spécialisé, axée sur la prise de conscience des exigences professionnelles et méthodologiques que l’accomplissement d’un tel rôle suppose. Le rôle du professeur de langues étrangères dans le cadre des facultés non philologiques est de stimuler la formation des compétences des étudiants à acquérir et à utiliser le langage spécialisé dans les rapports de communication professionnelle et, par surcroît, de faciliter le transfert des connaissances spécifiques à la spécialisation par l’intermédiaire des langues étrangères. Compte tenu principalement des raisons liées à l’efficacité de l’enseignement-apprentissage des langues étrangères à des paramètres de haute qualité, les enseignants qui préparent les futurs professionnels du marché européen, et qui ont bénéficié d’une formation traditionnelle généraliste, ressentent le besoin d’une formation spécialisée permanente, en accord avec les tendances et les exigences du système éducatif européen. Le professeur de langues étrangères devrait avoir une collaboration constante avec les autres membres du département pour être le mieux informé dans le domaine de spécialité, pour être au courant avec les progrès rapides et d’actualité de la science et de la technique dans le domaine respectif, et pour connaître en permanence les besoins du marché du travail spécialisé. Suite à l’information 88
recueillie, l’enseignant pratique systématiquement des interventions d’amélioration sur le curriculum. Dans la conception du cours de langue française, l’enseignant doit prendre en compte les exigences de la professionnalisation des étudiants, et la formation devrait être fondée sur les besoins de communication des étudiants en milieu de travail. Donc, il faut choisir les compétences dont le courant étudiant / futur diplômé a besoin à moyen et long terme. D’après notre expérience, nous avons noté que la motivation des étudiants à apprendre le français, et leur présence aux cours de langue, s’amélioreront en même temps que l’adaptation du cours à leurs besoins et intérêts, ce qui conduit implicitement à ce que les étudiants assument une plus grande partie de responsabilité dans leur propre succès dans l’apprentissage. Les autres facteurs de motivation dans l’apprentissage des langues étrangères par l’étudiant d’une faculté non philologique: – l’accès facile au marché du travail international, – la nécessité de communication plurilingue et pluriculturelle, – l’importance de l’évolution du parcours professionnel. Étant donné que les étudiants de la première année d’étude proviennent de divers milieux sociaux et éducatifs, dans lesquels on a accordé à l’apprentissage des langues au cours des études au lycéen un intérêt hétérogène et que le niveau des connaissances de langue française par les étudiants des facultés du domaine des sciences sociales est hétérogène, nous sommes en situation de commencer dans le premier semestre de la première année d’étude, par un module d’homogénéisation qui est possible parce que les intérêts communs de professionnalisation des étudiants sont un facteur de solidarité et de cohésion du groupe d’étude, en continuant par des modules pour les langages spécialisés, axés sur des composantes de langue étrangère pour la communication professionnelle. Une première étape vers la réalisation proprement dite du cours de langue française est constituée par la proposition d’un programme d’étude, de type complexe, construit à partir des domaines d’intérêt pour les étudiants, y compris des structures linguistiques utilisables dans des contextes spécifiques, mais aussi des éléments essentiels d’interculturel et de communication professionnelle (réaliser un CV, des entretiens, etc.) Le professeur projette le cours de langue française à partir du Cadre Européen Commun de Référence pour les Langues, un document délivré par le Conseil de l’Europe et qui suggère un cadre homogène, unitaire et cohérent dans l’enseignement et l’évaluation des compétences linguistiques selon des descripteurs qui illustrent clairement les connaissances et les compétences acquises par l’utilisateur d’une langue. Pour obtenir des changements positifs dans la structure cognitive attitudinale et motivationnelle de l’étudiant envers le domaine d’étude et pour obtenir un degré élevé de satisfaction de l’étudiant, l’enseignant doit formuler des objectifs de formation clairs pour chaque composante de la compétence communicative. Dans la conception du cours de langues étrangères, l’enseignant devrait considérer l’intégration dans le processus d’enseignement-apprentissage des 89
langues étrangères, des éléments de contenu basés sur la problématique de l’aire de spécialisation des étudiants. Donc, on construira un corpus linguistique de termes spécialisés, représentatifs pour chaque domaine thématique, basé sur le regroupement des termes dans des champs lexicaux de mots. Le corpus linguistique comprend des inventaires de concepts, des définitions, des termes clés, des mots composés, des syntagmes/des expressions spécifiques à la thématique abordée. Combiner les aspects linguistiques à des éléments spécifiques aux aires de spécialisation mène à accroître le degré d’insertion des futurs diplômés sur le marché international du travail. Il est très important que ce cours contienne des documents authentiques, qui mettront les étudiants en contact avec leur domaine professionnel, et qui, en même temps, les motivent pour suivre le cours de langue. Les étapes de l’élaboration des contenus, mises en avant par Violeta Negrea aussi (2006, p. 105) sont les suivantes: – L’identification des contenus adaptés aux besoins des futurs diplômés sous forme de support écrit et audio. Les contenus sont traités et adaptés aux besoins et aux capacités progressives de compréhension des étudiants. Par conséquent, les textes écrits respectent les caractéristiques formelles de la langue française soignée, en termes de vocabulaire et de grammaire, tandis que les documents support audio considèrent le français comme un outil professionnel parlé par les natifs. – La proposition des types d’exercices et des tâches d’apprentissage qui stimulent l’acquisition des compétences linguistiques et facilitent le transfert de connaissances spécifiques à travers les langues étrangères. Pour l’amélioration réelle de la compétence communicative-linguistique et pour que les étudiants obtiennent des performances remarquables, le professeur utilise des techniques modernes interactives, centrées sur des interactions entre étudiants, il propose des activités de communication basées sur des scénarios didactiques spécifiques à un domaine professionnel bien défini. Muşata Boco souligne la nécessité et l’importance de l’activation de la formation et l’efficacité de l’interactivité: „la formation interactive représente un type supérieur de formation, qui est basé sur l’activation des sujets de la formation, sur leur implication et participation active et pleine, mais aussi sur l’instauration d’interactions, des échanges intellectuelles d’idées, sur la confrontation d’opinions, d’arguments entre eux.“ (M. Bocoş, 2002, p. 4). La sélection et la diversification des stratégies spécifiques à l’enseignement-apprentissage des compétences qui constituent les objectifs principaux du module de langue française de spécialité, réalisées par l’enseignant, influenceront positivement le progrès universitaire des étudiants, la démarche de l’enseignant d’optimisation de l’apprentissage ayant, de cette manière, des chances maximales de succès. Les méthodes représentent l’élément essentiel de la stratégie didactique et sont sélectionnées en fonction des objectifs de l’activité instructive, du niveau et des intérêts des étudiants. Un matériel didactique attractif et motivant pour le cours de langue française appliquée au domaine de sciences sociales peut être représenté 90
sous la forme d’études de cas, des problématisations, des simulations ou des jeux de rôles conçus spécialement pour les programmes qui forment à l’insertion et à l’intégration des personnes ayant des besoins spéciaux. Ces méthodes stimulent la réflexion et la créativité, pour trouver des solutions à divers problèmes, la réflexion critique, la comparaison et l’analyse des situations données. D’autres méthodes qui conduisent à la fixation et au développement des connaissances de langue étrangère et au développement des compétences de communication dans des contextes professionnels sont la conversation, la discussion, le débat qui favorise le développement des compétences de communication et des capacités relationnelles, la compréhension des concepts et des idées professionnelles, des normes et des règles de communication verbale. Pour augmenter la motivation des étudiants pour étudier la langue française, l’enseignant doit identifier des méthodes et des techniques pour l’enseignement de la langue française impliquant l’utilisation des nouvelles technologies éducatives, des logiciels éducatifs et l’exploitation des ressources disponibles sur Internet (les traductions automates, avec leurs avantages et risques, les encyclopédies électroniques, les dictionnaires en ligne, etc.). Dans le contenu du cours de langue française on vise la complexité de la construction des activités de communication, au sein de chaque thème étudié on part d’un niveau général de compréhension de la situation de communication professionnelle, ce qui conduira à la formation des étudiants capables à soutenir un acte de communication proprement dit dans un contexte professionnel. Nous considérons qu’il est nécessaire d’établir un véritable partenariat de travail flexible et créatif entre l’enseignant de français et les étudiants, l’enseignant recourant à leur implication active dans l’apprentissage, lui-même étant essentiellement l’aide des étudiants à identifier et à maximiser des stratégies d’apprentissage, dans le développement de la compétence communicative et l’utilisation de la langue étrangère après avoir terminé le cours suivi pendant les études universitaires. L’organisation cohérente, systématique et rationnelle de la période instructive éducative contribue au développement des compétences d’autocontrôle et d’autonomie de leur propre apprentissage des étudiants, ce qui aurait des bénéfices pour le long terme, dans la formation des habitudes d’apprentissage continu. CONCLUSIONS En l’absence d’un manuel à utiliser dans le cadre du cours de français pour les étudiants du domaine des sciences sociales, nous soulignons l’importance de l’implication personnelle de l’enseignant dans l’élaboration du support de cours, par un travail acharné de recherche et sélection des informations et des connaissances de spécialité essentielles dans la réalisation du cours, vu qu’elles constituent le noyau des situations de communication proposées dans ce cours.
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BIBLIOGRAPHIE BOCOȘ, Mușata (2002). Instruire interactivă. Repere pentru reflecție și acțiune. Cluj-Napoca: Editura Presa Universitară Clujeană. BRADEA, Livia-Olivia (2007). Comunicarea – mijloc și scop în educație, ediție CD-ROM, Lucrările Conferinței Internaționale Integrarea Europeană între Tradiție și Modernitate, IETM ediția a II-a, Universitatea Petru Maior, Târgu Mureș, pp. 273-283. COMISIA EUROPEANĂ http://ec.europa.eu/languages/languages-of-europe/languages-2010-and-beyond_ro.htm LEHMANN, Denis (1993). Objectifs spécifiques en langue étrangère. Paris: Hachette. NEGREA, Violeta (2006). Modele curriculare academice ale predării limbilor străine și standardele profesiunii economice în Economie teoretică și aplicată nr. 9 / 2006, pp. 103-108. http://www.ectap.ro/articol.php?id=161&rid=9 RICHER, Jean-Jacques (2008). Le français sur objectifs spécifiques (F.O.S.): une didactique spécialisée? In Synergies Chine n° 3 – 2008, pp. 15-30.
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TEACHING ENGLISH AS AN INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE Doina IVANOV Dimitrie Cantemir Christian University, Bucharest ABSTRACT Knowing more about second language acquisition research will not tell a teacher what to do in his classroom next day. Although much research has been conducted on the effectiveness of different methods of teaching foreign languages, it is really very difficult to demonstrate scientifically what is or is not a ‘good’ method. The truth is that a lot seems to depend on factors such as the personal qualities of the teacher and his ability to get on well with his students, which are difficult things to measure. Viewed historically, language teaching has always been subject to change, but the process of change has not resulted from the steady accumulation of knowledge about the most effective ways of teaching language: it has been more the product of changing fashion. In other words, though teachers have tended to use the new method that turned up, they do not seem to know which one to adopt and which to reject. They simply think to adopt those methods which are successful. The present paper proposes to provide readers with some information that inspires, guides and encourages them to make their own contribution to teaching of English as a foreign language. Keywords: English as an international language (EIL), Inner Circle, Outer Circle, Expanding Circle, English language teaching (ELT), second language acquisition (SLA).
INTRODUCTION Today in classrooms around the world young people and adults are involved in the study of English. Indeed this interest in the learning of English has increased to such an extent that English is now considered by many to be an international language. English serves as a language of wider communication both among individuals from different countries and between individuals from one country and in this case English is the international language par excellence, in both a global and a local sense. L. Smith (1976) was one of the first to define the term ‘international language’, noting that an ‘international language is one which is used by people of different nations to communicate with one another’ (p. 38). As an international language, English is used both in a global sense for international communication between countries and in a local sense as a language 93
of wider communication within multilingual societies. As English is an international language in a global sense, one of its primary functions is to enable speakers to share with others their ideas and culture. One of the reasons for considering English an international language is the sheer number of people in the world who will have some familiarity with English. D. Graddol concluded that the number of people using English as their second language would grow from 235 million to around 462 million during the next 50 years. (Graddol, D. 1999:62). Such projections support the point made earlier that one of the reasons for considering English an international language is the sheer number of people in the world who will have some familiarity with English. This shift reflects the use of English as a language of wider communication in a global sense for a great variety of purposes. WHO IS LEARNING ENGLISH? In many countries English is a required subject in state and private schools and children learn this foreign language. Those school pupils who want to attain a high level of proficiency in English seek other means of learning in private programs to help them for exam and professional purposes. Access to higher education in many countries is dependent on knowledge of English. Although it may not be the medium of instruction, accessing key information in a great variety of fields is often dependent on having reading ability in English. One of the primary reasons for the spread of English is that it has been in the right place at the right time. D. Crystal shows that in the 17th and 18th centuries English was the language of the leading colonial nation – Britain. In the 18th and 19th centuries it was the language of the leader of the industrial revolution – also Britain. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was the language of the leading economic power – the USA. English emerged as a first-rank language in industries which affected all aspects of society – the press, advertising, broadcasting, motion pictures, sound recording, transport and communications. (D. Crystal 1997: 110-11). One of the primary reasons for the spread of English today is because it has such a variety of specific purposes. Knowledge of English is necessary for accessing many discourses at a global level from international relations to popular culture to academia. English as an international language is not English for specific purposes in any narrow sense. Rather it is primarily because EIL is central to such a wide variety of specific purposes that it has gained global currency. INNER CIRCLE, OUTER CIRCLE, EXPANDING CIRCLE Kachru (1989) maintains that the various roles English serves in different countries of the world are best conceived of in terms of three concentric circles: the Inner Circle, where English is the primary language of the country such as in Australia, Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom; the Outer Circle, where English serves as a second language in a multilingual country such as in 94
Singapore, India and the Philippines; and the Expanding Circle, where English is widely studied as a foreign language such as in China, Japan and Korea. It is clear that the number of individuals who have some familiarity with English today is vast and growing. It is in the Expanding Circle where there is the greatest potential for the continued spread of English. In these countries English is the most popular modern language studied as a foreign language at school. COMMUNICATIVE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CLT) CLT is often viewed as the ideal methodology for English language teaching, and as the most productive approach. The history of English language teaching is usually described as if one method followed another. In 19th century grammar-translation was the main method in language teaching, and was followed in the 20th century by the direct method. Today the emphasis is put on communicative language teaching (CLT). Such historical accounts of language teaching reflect the history of language teaching in Inner Circle countries. Grammar translation and audiolingualism are still used in countries outside de Inner Circle. The rise of CLT is often attributed to discontent with audiolingualism with its behaviourist view of language learning and emphasis on linguistic form rather than meaning. The goal of CLT is to promote meaningful, appropriate language use. There are many educators today who disagree with the fact that CLT is the dominant approach in ELT. Richards and Rodgers (1985) maintain that a method involves three interrelated levels: approach, design and procedure. Approach defines the assumptions, beliefs, and theories about the nature of language and language learning that inform a method. Design clarifies the relationship between theories of the nature of language and language learning and the form and function of instructional materials and activities. Procedure comprises the classroom techniques and practices that are the result of particular approaches and designs. The approach that informs CLT is one in which the primary purpose of using language is to convey meaning in appropriate ways. Language learning encourages learners to use the target language in appropriate ways to convey meaning. Holliday (1994) contends that there are essentially two versions of CLT. The first one, which he terms the ‘weak version’, was developed largely in private institutes, either in Inner Circle countries or sponsored by Inner Circle countries in other countries. He calls the methodologies which comprise this version BANA methods. (BANA stands for Britain, Australia and North America). In this version of CLT, Holliday argues that a high premium is placed on oral work and maximum student participation in group and pair work. What he terms the ‘strong version’ was developed in public education systems either in primary and secondary schools or in universities in Inner Circle countries. He terms the methodologies which comprise this version TESP, standing for tertiary, secondary and primary. In the 95
TESP version of CLT, the focus is on learning about how language works in discourse. Students carry out tasks which are designed to pose language problems that help them understand how a text is constructed. This version is considered to be communicative in the sense that students communicate with a text. They may work with one another to solve a language problem and use their mother tongue in talking about the text but must report their results in English. Holliday argues that the strong version of CLT may be more applicable to a wider range of teaching contexts, particularly in Outer and Expanding Circle countries, where there are fewer resources and where students may not have the same instrumental purposes for learning English as students enrolled in private language institutes. However it is the weak version that is generally referred to when educators talk of CLT. What has led to the widespread promotion of the weak version of CLT as the most productive approach for teaching English? Tollefson (1991) argues that the spread of English is linked to what he terms the ‘modernization theory’. According to this theory, ‘Western societies provide the most effective model for “underdeveloped” societies attempting to reproduce the achievements of “industrialization” ‘(1991:83). When applied to ELT, in modernization theory, ‘Western “experts”… are viewed as repositories of knowledge and skills who pass them on to elites who will run “modernized” institutions’ (1991:97). The spread of CLT is a clear example of modernization theory. So-called experts from Inner Circle developed countries have passed on their expertise regarding language teaching methodology to help modernize English language teaching in ‘underdeveloped’ countries. CLT has spread not only because of the promotion of the approach by western specialists but also because educators in these countries have advocated its adoption. In many countries the ministries of education released new guidelines for the study of foreign languages in junior and senior high schools. Teachers were required to promote speaking and listening skills as a way of developing the communicative language ability of the students. Furthermore teachers were to strive to adopt CLT methods in their classrooms. In Korea the Ministry of Education published a new curriculum which clearly stated that CLT should replace the audiolingual and translation method currently used in the schools. In the new curricula, the goal of English teaching is ‘to develop the learner’s communicative competence in English through meaningful drills and communicative activities, such as games, with the aid of the audio-visual equipment’. Students are to learn by means of authentic materials, such as newspapers, magazines, English news on the radio and English TV programs. The curricula reflect the belief that ‘CLT is characterized by learnercentredness’, and teachers are encouraged to organize materials based on students’ needs. (Li 1998: 682). Thus, in a variety of countries educational leaders have chosen to attempt to implement the use of CLT in the belief that this is the most modern and productive way to teach English. The communicative approach or Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) have become “umbrella” terms to describe learning sequences which aim to improve the students’ ability to communicate, in contrast 96
to teaching which is aimed more at learning bits of language just because they exist and without focusing on their use in communication. An important factor that has clearly contributed to the spread of CLT is textbooks. Many current ELT textbooks published in Inner Circle countries encourage activities which support the weak version of CLT in that a premium is placed on oral activities in which students interact with classmates. The purpose of the textbooks is to introduce communicative activities and to involve students in learning activities by means of such devices as role plays, discussion topics and games. The textbooks specify the way to undertake the activities which create an expectation among students and teachers that this is the correct way. This can also reflect a CLT methodology, particularly when the Ministry of Education has encouraged this approach. LANGUAGE ITEMS An item is a ‘bit’ of language we can teach our students ex. any/some. There are three kinds of items: structural, lexical and phonological items. Structural items like there is/are, have got, some/any are grammatical points about the language. Teachers introduce these in the form of examples or model sentences and call them patterns. In pattern practice teachers teach the structural items by using structural grading, a process of breaking down larger steps into smaller steps. Lexical item is a new bit of vocabulary. Each new word in a textbook which comes up for the first time, is a new lexical item. Phrasal verbs are regarded as lexical items: e.g. to look for. Phonological items are new features of the sound system of the language. For example the contrast between the vowel sounds in bit and beat is a phonological item. An intonation pattern, the way the voice rises and falls when we say a particular utterance, is another example. And so is the stress pattern of a word. NATURAL AND INSTRUCTIONAL SETTINGS Natural acquisition contexts are those in which the learner is exposed to the language at work or in social interaction or in a school with native speakers of the target language. The instruction is directed toward native speakers rather than toward learners of the language. The learning takes place in interaction with peers as well as through instruction from the teacher. In structure-based instructional environments, the language is taught to a group of second or foreign language learners. The focus is on the language itself, the students learn the vocabulary and grammatical rules of the target language. The classroom is the only contact with the target language. The learners’ goal may be to pass an examination rather than to use the language for daily communicative interaction beyond the classroom. 97
Communicative, content-based, and task-based instructional environments involve learners whose goal is learning the language itself, the emphasis is on interaction, conversation and language use, rather than on learning about the language. QUESTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM Teachers’ questioning behaviour has been the focus of research in second language classroom. Questions are fundamental in engaging learners in interaction an in exploring how much they understand. There are two types of questions: display and referential ones. Display questions lead to short, simple responses that require little cognitive effort on the part of the learner. The referential/genuine questions require more cognitive processing and generate more complex answers. Another distinction similar to the above mentioned one is that between open and closed questions. Closed questions lead to simple one-word responses, making them quick and easy to respond to. Open questions lead to longer and more complex answers, including explanation and reasoning. WAIT TIME ‘Wait time’ is the amount of time the teacher pauses after having asked a question to give the learner time to respond. There are teachers who give learners no more than two seconds before they direct the question to another learner. Others repeat or paraphrase the question several times rather than silently wait for the learner to formulate a response. These rapid question/answer patterns occur in audiolingual classes and in communicative instruction too. Good teachers should find the right balance between asking the question and the time for the answer, so that learners provide full answers, expand their ideas and learn more successfully. The learners should be encouraged to develop their fluency, accuracy and comprehension skills in the process of language learning. SIX PROPOSALS FOR CLASSROOM TEACHING Research has investigated the relationships between teaching and learning. Many theories have been proposed for the best way to learn a second language in the classroom. Some researchers proposed the following items for the foreign language classrooms: 1. Get it right from the beginning 2. Just listen and read 3. Let’s talk 4. Two for one 5. Teach what is teachable 6. Get it right in the end
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Get it right from the beginning is the proposal that characterizes second and foreign language instruction. Grammar translation approach is widespread and useful for the intensive study of grammar and vocabulary. Teachers focus on correctness in the earliest stages of second language learning and learners are encouraged to develop accuracy before fluency. Just listen and read is the proposal based on the hypothesis that language acquisition takes place when learners are exposed to comprehensible input through listening and reading. Learners can make considerable progress if they have sustained exposure to language they understand. Comprehension-based learning is an excellent way to begin learning, active listening and reading for meaning are valuable components of classroom teachers’ pedagogical practices. Let’s talk is the proposal that emphasizes the importance of access to both comprehensible input and conversational interactions with teachers and other students. In task-based instruction learners are working together to accomplish a particular goal, they engage in interaction and express and clarify their intentions, thoughts, opinions, etc. Conversational interaction promotes second language development and corrective feedback plays a crucial role in helping learners make connections between form and meaning. Two for one is the approach to language teaching referred to as contentbased instruction, in which learners acquire a second language as they study subject matter taught in that language. It is implemented in a great variety of instructional settings including bilingual education and the ‘content and languageintegrated learning’ programmes in Europe. The expectation of this approach is that students can get ‘two for one’, learning the subject matter content and the language at the same time. Content-based instruction has many advantages. It increases the amount of time for learners to be exposed to the new language. It creates the need to communicate, motivating students to acquire language in order to understand the content. Teach what is teachable is a view that suggests that while some features of the language can be taught successfully at various points in the learners’ development, other features develop according to the learners’ internal schedule. Instruction should have a natural developmental course. Teachers should assess the learners’ developmental level and teach what would naturally come next. Get it right in the end is a view that emphasizes the form-focused instruction. Its supporters consider that the language features (pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar) are acquired naturally if learners have adequate exposure to the language and a motivation to learn. The proponents consider that meaningfocused instruction is crucial for language learning and learners will do better if they also have access to some form-focused instruction. Proponents of ‘Get it right in the end’ argue that it is sometimes necessary to draw learners’ attention to their 99
errors and to focus on certain linguistic points. Teachers should look for the right moment to create increased awareness on the part of the learner – ideally, at a time when the learner is motivated to say something and wants to say it as clearly and correctly as possible. The classroom activities should be built primarily on creating opportunities for students to express and understand meaningful language. Formfocused instruction and corrective feedback are essential for learners’ continued growth and development. Teachers should find the balance between meaningbased and form-focused activities and take into account the characteristics of the learners: age, prior educational experiences, motivation and goals. CONCLUSIONS Research and studies offer support for the view that form-focused instruction and corrective feedback provided within the context of communicative and content-based programmes are more effective in promoting second language learning than programmes that are limited to an exclusive emphasis on comprehension, fluency or accuracy alone. Second language teachers should provide guided, form-focused instructions and corrective feedback in certain circumstances. For example, teachers should not hesitate to correct persistent errors that learners seem not to notice without focused attention. They should also point out how a particular structure in a learner’s first language differs from the target language. Through continuing research and experience, teachers will find the most effective way for second language teaching and learning.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Crystal, D. 1997. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gibran, K. The Prophet (1991), Pan Books. Graddol, D. 1999. ‘The decline of the native speaker’. AILA Review 13:57-68. Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching (2002), Longman. Holliday, A. 1994. Appropriate Methodology and Social Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kachru, B.B. 1989. ‘Teaching world English’. Indian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15/1: 85-95. Krashen, S. Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition (1981), Prentice-Hall Li, D. 1998. “It’s always more difficult than you plan and imagine”: teachers’ perceived difficulties in introducing the communicative approach in South Korea’. Lozanov, G. Suggestology and Outlines of Suggestopedy (1992), Philadelphia: Gordon & Breach. Patsy M. Lightbown & Nina Spada How Languages are Learned (2011), OUP. Sandra Lee McKay Teaching English as an International Language (2009), OUP. Scrivener, J. Learning Teaching (2005), Macmillan Publishers Limited. Smith, L. English as an International Auxiliary Language (1976), RELC Journal. Tollefson, J.W. 1991. Planning Language, Planning Inequality. London: Longman. 100
LES LIEUX COMMUNS DE L’ARGUMENTATION PUBLICITAIRE Sanda MARCOCI Université Spiru Haret, Bucarest RÉSUMÉ Le discours publicitaire, comme phénomène de la société de consommation, s’inscrit dans les champs d’application de la rhétorique classique par la forme. Il représente un type de discours, l’épidictique, une disposition, une éloquence, les figures, les lieux, son propre ethos, son propre pathos, et un type d’argumentation persuasive qui s’appuie moins sur la force des arguments que sur la séduction. Les lieux communs sont des concepts qui on la force d’arguments pour conduire le récepteur vers un comportement d’achat. Ils ont la capacité d’accroître la valeur argumentative et persuasive du discours publicitaire. Ils apparaissent tantôt explicitement (le naturel, le plaisir, le lieu commun du temps, etc.), tantôt implicitement par la réduction de tous les autres lieux communs au lieu commun de la qualite, soumis à la visée marchande du discours publicitaire. Mots/syntagmes clé: persuasion, séduction, valeur, qualité, achat
L’argumentation publicitaire suppose un nouveau type d’argumentation extrêmement bien adaptée à une société diversifiée de consommation. Comme type de discours épidictique, un discours de la louange, de l’exaltation de certaines valeurs, qui poursuit l’adhésion à ces valeurs, le discours publicitaire est un mode de persuasion dicté par un but précis. L’objectif assigné, de faire vendre, de persuader à tout prix d’acheter le produit, fait que l’argumentation passe moins par la raison et plus par l’affectivité. Cela veut dire que l’argumentation publicitaire ne relève pas du vraisemblable, du plausible, de l’évidence. Le discours publicitaire devient plus efficace en faisant appel à l’affectivité des consommateurs et non pas à la raison pour faire vendre. L’argumentation s’organise autour d’un auditoire. L’objectif publicitaire de faire vendre sera mieux atteint par la bonne connaissance de la psychologie de cet auditoire, des besoins primaires et des besoins secondaires qui tiennent de l’image sociale. Le slogan cité par O. Reboul « Mettez un tigre dans votre moteur » montre le calcul du publicitaire qui, dans son effort persuasif, fait appel au conscient « Une huile très efficace », au subconscient « Grâce à cette huile, je dépasse tout le monde », et à l’inconscient « c’est moi le tigre ». C’est plus par la séduction, par le jeu sur les faiblesses, sur les passions, sur les besoins, que le discours publicitaire persuade dans le choix. La persuasion par la séduction suppose moins des critères rationnels, des qualités objectives, et plus des préférences individuelles, des caprices, des goûts, 101
des couleurs. Dans une étude attentive, par exemple, de certains vêtements, de certains parfums, on remarque la force séductrice du jeu sur l’affectivité. Attirer de façon puissante, irrésistible, captiver, charmer, fasciner, plaire est à la base des efforts des créateurs publicitaires. L’attraction, la tentation, le charme sont fortement manipulés pour créer de nouveaux besoins pour des objets nouveaux ou des objets superflus. L’adhésion passe donc plus par la séduction que par la raison. La persuasion publicitaire s’appuie plus sur le fait de plaire que de convaincre. « Les lieux communs sont des affirmations très générales concernant ce qui est présumé valoir plus en quelque domaine que ce soit » [C. Perelman, cité par M. Meyer, 1993: 71]. Les lieux communs de la publicité constituent l’ossature de l’idéologie contemporaine, des concepts qui ont la force d’arguments qui doivent être compris immédiatement et conduire le récepteur vers un comportement d’achat. Les lieux communs de la publicité s’avèrent donc très importants et ont la capacité d’accroître la valeur argumentative et surtout persuasive de ce type de discours. Les lieux communs qui apparaissent dans les annonces publicitaires apparaissent tantôt explicitement: le naturel, le plaisir, le lieu commun du temps avec ses sous-variantes (longue durée, rapidité, jeunesse, nouveauté, ancienneté) , tantôt implicitement, par la réduction de tous les autres lieux communs au lieu commun de la qualité, soumis à la visée marchande du discours publicitaire. Les lieux communs du discours publicitaire sont: ♦ le lieu commun du naturel, véritable mythe du retour à la nature et aux valeurs représentées par elle. Ce lieu a deux aspects: – d’une part, la nature, pure de toute pollution, belle, bienveillante, idyllique, offre à l’homme des villes l’image d’une fraîcheur et d’une pureté originelles dont il se sent privé. « Naturel », « sauvage » « frai » abondent dans les annonces publicitaires: L’eau d’Evian est naturelle, la fraîcheur Narta également, les yogourts Danone vantent leurs parfums naturels, L’Eau de Dior est Sauvage, ou bien d’autres exemples: « Pour une beauté plus fraîche, plus naturelle … La ligne thé de René Rambaud » , « Le naturel revient au galop. Le style naturel en ouvrage c’est la chaleureuse laine de pays, le coton blanc comme autrefois … (Rosine Astorgue) ». « Le principe Aponti: respecter le goût naturel. Aponti respecte la nature. Exemple: les légumes. Les matières premières sont rigoureusement choisies selon des normes de culture qui excluent l’emploi de produits chimiques. Avec les baby-flocons Aponti, les Bébés commencent leur vie de gourmets. » – d’autre part, une nature construite, qui se manifeste plus au niveau du Paraître qu’au niveau de l’Être. Les publicités pour les produits cosmétiques soulignent l’effort de « paraître » naturel, une beauté construite, plus qu’une beauté naturelle qui est le plus souvent rare: Un déodorant au parfum de nature, « la Super Crème Solaire visage, tout ce que la nature et la recherche peuvent offrir 102
aujourd’hui de plus performant », « Fraîcheur Sèche pour être fraîche et nette toute la journée. », « L’évasion à la campagne … pour votre visage. À la ville, vous regrettez l’air pur de la campagne. Votre visage aussi. Alors, pour réconcilier votre beauté avec la vie des villes, voici: Florayer. Un nouveau traitement de beauté, Une protection toute naturelle contre la vie des villes. Florayer. La nature aidée par … HARRIET HUBBARD AYER » ♦ Le lieu commun de la jeunesse, véritable mythe de la juvénilité, très sécurisant. Ce lieu commun a aussi deux aspects: − être jeune et le rester, l’unique riposte à opposer à un monde dur, violent, lourd d’angoisse. La jeunesse fait cause commune avec le maquillage « Twenty », apanage des teints d’adolescente, avec le rasoir Philips – conquête des « moins de vingt ans », les meubles « Young line » de Roche Babois; − lutter contre le temps, contre « les marques du temps », « après 40 ans on peut faire aussi jeune qu’avant », « la puissance anti-âge ». Dans ce lieu, ou bien le produit est réservé aux jeunes, ou mieux encore, il rend jeunes ceux qui ne le sont plus. Le lieu commun du temps est très répandu dans les annonces publicitaires et il comprend d’autres lieux communs: ancienneté, nouveauté, longue durée, courte durée: – Le lieu commun de l’ancienneté argumente en faveur de la tradition, de la qualité du produit vérifié à la longue: « 1664, Purement et simplement » « On redécouvre le charme rustique des pulls irlandais (Tricots Caroll) » « La Maisterstück a 75 ans » « Les brasseurs de Krönenbourg n’ont pas changé d’avis depuis trois siècles. Ni sur les houblons, ni sur la mousse, ni sur la couleur. KRÖNENBOURG » « En Provence et dans le Pays d’Oc, pour les vins de terroir Nicolas, on vendange comme on a toujours vendangé. Avec des comportes en bois. » – Le lieu commun de la nouveauté, centré sur le concept de modernité et de haute technicité est l’un des plus fréquents du discours publicitaire. Ses formes de réalisation sont assez réduites: nouveau/nouvelle, innovation, nouveauté, dernier né: « Cheekychops, une grande nouveauté de Cubex »; « Un nouveau bain moussant qui défatigue et satine la peau (Tahiti) »; « Nouveau! Le microdiffuseur Roja net vous assure une pulvérisation ultrafine, une répartition parfaitement uniforme. » (ROJA NET coiffure libre); « Votre nouveau repas amaigrissant Pour maigrir sans faim (Coliane) »; « Max Factor invente le COMB-ON Mascara: une nouvelle idée exclusive de Max Factor »; « L’Eclat Innoxa, nouvelle ligue de soins du visage à base d’extraits naturels »; 103
« Nous avons fait un truc nouveau. La forme est drôle, non? Et le goût bizarre, hein? Chipster, c’est tout de même autre chose. Essayez, vous verrez »; « 139 f. c’est le prix du dernier né des aspirateurs balais PARISRHONE »; « Les classiques dernier chic », allie l’ancienneté à la nouveauté. Les lieux communs « longue durée » et « courte durée » connotent en premier lieu le concept de qualité: « Bul 6 Argent: parce que l’argenterie doit être protégée pour briller longtemps. Bul 6 Argent longue durée garanti par Buhler »; « C’est pas vrai ! Il y a encore des femmes sceptiques ! Elles ne croient pas que le lait „8 s” peut se garder plus de 8 semaines dans un placard … et qu’après ces 8 semaines le lait „8 s” a toujours son bon goût de lait normand … ». Le lieu courte durée ou rapidité d’utilisation est très apprécié par le récepteurs – consommateurs, qui sont toujours impatients d’avoir des résultats rapides. « Pour maigrir en beauté. Obtenir rapidement une ligne élégante et un corps bien modelé (Laboratoires L. R. Juneer) »; « Ultra Rich Garnier. En 3 minutes … vos cheveux sont éclatants de beauté ». Le lieu commun de la Qualité est implicitement exprimé par tous les autre lieux communs. De façon explicite, il est exprimé par des tournures comme: le premier, l’unique, no. 1, le meilleur, le plus … , le concurrent. « Badedas, le premier bain moussant vitaminé. Pour revivre. » « Pour la 1ère fois, vous pouvez nettoyer vos moquettes aussi bien qu’un professionnel. Avec Johnson Tapis Liquide. Non seulement il nettoie facilement mais en plus il détache ». « Cet ordinateur est unique au monde. Voulez-vous savoir pourquoi? (TANDY GRID) » « Le plus puissant des plus compacts, c’est Powerpack. Avec son moteur révolutionnaire (1 400 W). Il n’y a pas plus léger, plus compact et plus puissant que Powerpack de Moulinex. » « Winston: no. 1 aux Etats-Unis. » « France Tapis. La garantie du premier fabricant français. » « Le nouveau tonic Finley. Pourquoi l’appelle-t-on le concurrent? Des tonics, vous en avez-déjà goûtés. Et de très bons. Pourtant, Finley arrive et déjà on l’appelle le concurrent. Il doit y avoir une raison, non? » Tous ces lieux communs sont des arguments forts qui séduisent, persuadent, s’insinuent dans les esprits des récepteurs et incitent à l’action. Ils n’apparaissent presque jamais seuls, ils sont associés, et ils expriment presque toujours implicitement le lieu commun de la qualité. Ils sont tous présents pour se fondre dans l’argument suprême, le lieu commun de plaisir, de bonheur, à l’aide duquel les publicitaires peuvent mieux faire passer le conseil d’achat. Le plaisir est l’argument qui dévoile d’autres plaisirs: le confort de la maison, des vêtements, des meubles: « Comment avec Primagaz vous découvrez le confort à la campagne » 104
« Dans la laine, votre corps retrouve naturellement sa liberté. Vivez! » « Des Coussins pour faire ‘pouf’’! Champions du confort dedans ou dehors à ras du sol », « Petit Bateau. C’est exactement le confort dont ils ont besoin. La tranquillité de cinq grandes personnes dépend parfois d’un petit pyjama d’enfant », qui souligne le plaisir sensoriel dû au confort. Le plaisir gustatif est suggéré par des aliments d’exception: « Moutarde Fins Gourmets. L’écrin aux mille saveurs. Un foisonnement de saveurs dans un écrin de moutarde, un véritable trésor pour nos sens … (Maille) » des aliments à goût inexprimable: « Chipster à un goût de crackkk ! hmmm ! ahhh ! (Belin) » Le plaisir olfactif suggéré par les parfums, auquel s’associent des plaisirs plus complexes, qui dépassent les sens et déclenchent, par le rêve, par l’esprit, le bonheur: « Deux mots que l’on murmure derrière une femme heureuse: Arpège de Lanvin. » Pour conclure, les lieux communs du discours publicitaire ont une grande force persuasive. BIBLIOGRAPHIE Adam, J-M., Bonhomme, M., (1997), L’argumentation publicitaire. Rhétorique de l’éloge et de la persuasion, Paris, Nathan. Buffon, B., (2002), La parole persuasive, Paris, PUF. Bille, J., (1991), Mesurer l’efficacité de la publicité, Paris, IREP. Caumont, D., (2001), La publicité, Paris, Dunod. Garde-Tamine, J., (1996), La Rhétorique, Paris, Armand Colin. Haas, C., (1988), Pratique de la publicité, Paris, Bordas. Jeudy, H-H., (1997), La publicité et son enjeu social, Paris, PUF. Kerbrta-Orecchioni, C., (1986), L’Implicite, Paris, Armand Colin. Kapferer, J-N, (1986), Les chemins de la persuasion. Le mode d’influence des medias et de la publicité sur les comportements, Paris, Dunod. Meyer, M., (1993), Questions de rhétorique: langage, raison et séduction, Paris, Le Livre de Poche. Marcenac, L., Milou, A., (2002), Stratégies publicitaires, Paris, Breal. Murăreţ, I., Murăreţ, M., (1989). Petit traité de rhétorique, L’Invention, L’argumentation rhétorique, l’ethos, les passions, Bucureşti, Editura Universitară. Perelman, C., et Olbrechts-Tyteca, L., (1988) (5e ed.), Traité de l’argumentation, Bruxelles, Edition de l’Universite Libre de Bruxelles. Reboul, O., (1991), Introduction à la rhétorique, Paris, PUF. Tutescu, M., (1986), L’Argumentation, Bucureşti, Editura Universitară Bucureşti. Toulmin, S., (1983), Les usages de l’argumentation, Paris PUF. Victoroff, D., (1970), Psychologie de la publicité, Paris, PUF.
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A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE EFFECT OF EMAIL AND SMS ON INTERMEDIATE EFL LEARNERS’IDIOM LEARNING Zahra MASOUMPANAH Sadegh SHARIATIFAR Khoramabad Technical & Vocational Institute, Iran ABSTRACT Electronic mail or email has, also, revolutionized education and transformed the learning and teaching. It has, actually, been around since the 1960s, so it's not a new technology. However, it continues to evolve as users are able to send data, graphics, audio, video, and animation along with text messages. While other forms of instantaneous and real-time electronic communication options have become more popular in recent years, email is still an accepted and highly used form of primary communication. Keywords: education, electronic communication, EFL, technology
1. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1.1. Technology and education Technological innovations are changing the way in which we communicate, work, trade, entertain and learn. The rapid developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) have created new opportunities to enhance the reach and quality of education. This rapid growth of information and communication technologies, the innovative application of technology which enhances the delivery of education over the past two decades appear to cause a paradigmatic shift away from education and training to learning; from teachercentered to student-centered education; from rote learning to learning as reflection; and from face-to face to distance and e-learning (Jarvia, Holford, & Griffin, 2003). Without a doubt, we are in the center of a monumental technological paradigm shift, one which will eventually change the way that all instructors teach and the way students learn (Jensen, 1993, cited in Singhal, 1997). The new approaches combine human mind operation with a rich learning environment where the crucial features of technology such as text, music, etc. are juxtaposed (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). This brings up one of the central issues in teaching language (i.e. teaching via cell-phone and computer) which provides proper learning content to be displayed to the learners with different psychological learning processes. “There is an increasing use of wireless technologies in education all over the world. In fact, wireless technologies such as laptop computers, and mobile 107
phones are revolutionizing education and transforming the traditional classroombased learning and teaching into anytime and anywhere education” (Cavus & Ibrahim , 2009). Among different functions a mobile phone can afford, its Short Message Service (SMS) has been widely used to transmit and receive general and educational contents. Over the past several years, Short Message Service (SMS), known as text messaging or texting, has become the preferred method of communication for young people. A few uses of text messaging are emerging for learners. We all groan about the use of phones in class, since it may be used in cheating and illegal activities, so why not find some ways to use them productively? There is considerable interest from educators and technical developers in exploiting the unique capabilities and characteristics of mobile technologies to enable new and engaging form of learning (Kearney, Schuck, & Burden, 2011). Electronic mail or email has, also, revolutionized education and transformed the learning and teaching. It has, actually, been around since the 1960s, so it's not a new technology. However, it continues to evolve as users are able to send data, graphics, audio, video, and animation along with text messages. While other forms of instantaneous and real-time electronic communication options have become more popular in recent years, email is still an accepted and highly used form of primary communication. As researchers (for example, Nagel, 1999; Fahim, Motallebzadeh & Sazegar,2011) have noted, e-mail extends what one can do in the classroom, since it provides a venue for meeting and communicating in the foreign language outside of class. 1.2. Teaching and learning idioms Since English as an international language affects the overall competition of different fields in a country and since to enhance the English proficiency of people is a critical issue in non-English countries (Chen & Hsu, 2008), presently the flexible ways of teaching English (i.e. teaching through mobile and computer) seems to be an important issue in such countries. However, in most of these countries including Iran, there are limited hours per week for the English class in most universities and schools, so, the English class becomes the only time to use English, and learners face the challenge of lacking exposure to English. Therefore, teachers must make difficult choices about how to use the limited time to promote language learning. If language teachers and learners are to engage effectively with the phenomenon of language learning, and because of class time constraint, there is an urgent need for them to find an effective self-study approach for students. On the other hand, it seems that when students reach a degree of self-awareness in their language learning, they realize that to become more native-like, and more fluent, their utterances need to be not just more grammatically accurate, but more idiomatic, more formulaic. So, teachers, also, should make students aware of idioms and encourage them to store idioms in their memory by new methods and technologies, especially outside the classroom. A strong knowledge of idioms will 108
help students to be better speakers and negotiators and they will be in a much better position to take advantage of the opportunities that come their way. Furthermore, if the formulaic phrase of an idiom is incorrectly used, it can be disastrous and destructive to the confidence of the user. So, the sheer number of idioms, their high frequency in discourse, their cultural role, and their universality makes them an important aspect of vocabulary acquisition and, more generally, language learning. (García Moreno, 2010). Different techniques are used by teachers, such as teaching the idioms through lists, translation, synonyms, antonyms, definitions, drawing, categorizing and so on. While in recent years, foreign language researchers have focused on teaching idioms via computer and mobile devices. For example Hayati, Jalilifar, and Mashhadi (2011) gauged the efficacy of three modes of instruction of English idioms, i.e., Short Message Service (SMS)-based learning, contextual learning and self-study learning. The results revealed that students receiving short mini-lessons on their mobile phones via SMS were more enthusiastic and learned more idioms than their counterparts on paper or contextual groups. Cavus and Ibrahim (2009), also, investigated the use of wireless technologies in education with particular reference to the potential of learning new technical English language words using SMS. The results showed that students “enjoyed and learned new words with the help of their mobile phones” (p. 89). Thornton and Houser (2002; 2003; 2005) also developed several innovative projects using mobile phones to teach English at a Japanese university. One focused on providing vocabulary instruction by SMS. The results indicated that the SMS students learned over twice the number of vocabulary words as the Web students, and that SMS students improved their scores by nearly twice as much as students who had received their lessons on paper. Students’ attitudes were also measured. The vast majority preferred the SMS instruction, wished to continue such lessons, and believed it to be a valuable teaching method. Levy and Kennedy (2005) created a similar program for Italian learners in Australia, sending vocabulary words and idioms, definitions, and example sentences via SMS in a spaced and scheduled pattern of delivery. Fahim et al (2011) examined the effect of e-mailing on vocabulary retention of Iranian EFL learners. The obtained results showed that the use of e-mail technology can enhance the retention of vocabulary. Sasaki and Takeuchi (2010) investigated Japanese students’ EFL vocabulary development through e-mail interactions with a native English speaker (NS), with primary focus on students’ imitation of new words. The study concluded that vocabulary learning via e-mail takes place not only by a single process such as imitation, but also by a combination of various processes functioning in an integrated manner. However, no research has been done to compare whether teaching and practicing idioms via e-mail on students’ computers or through SMS on their mobile phones affect their idiom learning more significantly. In line with the above-mentioned orientation, and regarding the more limited knowledge of idioms compared to other areas of language in EFL students, and their quest for finding 109
suitable remedies, this study intended to compare the effect of two technologies on intermediate EFL learners’ idiom learning. In the view of the importance of learning idioms as part of the vocabulary learning by EFL learners, this study intended to answer the following question: Q: Is there a significant difference between the effect of e-mail and SMS in teaching idioms to intermediate EFL learners? In addressing the research question, the researcher stated the following null hypothesis: H0: There is no significant difference between the effect of e-mail and SMS in teaching idioms to intermediate EFL learners. 2. METHOD 2.1. Participants The participants of this study were 60 male and female students sorted out of a larger population of 94 students (53 male and 41 female) studying English at Zabansara Language School in Khorramabad at two stages. At the first stage, the homogeneity of the aforementioned participants was confirmed as intermediate based on their scores on a Preliminary English Test (PET) which was piloted in advance. That is, the 66 participants were selected as those who obtained a score falling one standard deviation above and below the mean of the sample. After selecting the 66 participants, they were given the piloted idiom test at the second stage. Those participants who answered less than 20 percent of the questions were assumed NOT to know the idioms and so became the target sample (N=60). Then, they were randomly divided into three equal groups of 20 students: two experimental groups and one control group. The participants' age ranged from 16 to 25 and none of them owned a constantly available Web-enabled phones because of its cost. Participants in one of the experimental groups received new idioms as well as definitions through E-mail on their computers in a spaced and scheduled pattern of delivery three times a week three idioms each time for 20 sessions and they were asked to send back short sentences containing the new idioms to the teacher, and in the other group, they received idioms and their definitions through SMS on their mobile phones for the same period and they were asked to text messages using those idioms and send them back to the teacher. In the control group, the new idioms were presented on papers and then they were asked to write sentences on a piece of paper and hand it back for the same period i.e. through conventional paper technique. 2.2. Instrumentation The instruments used in this study included: the assessment materials and the technological instruments utilized for each group. The assessment materials 110
used were a test of general English proficiency, an idiom test, and a posttest. The PET had three papers: Reading and Writing, Listening, and Speaking. For the idiom test, which was prepared by the researcher, 60 idioms were selected and a 60 multiple-choice item test was prepared. Piloting the test with an identical group of learners, two items were shown to be malfunctioning and were, consequently, omitted. In addition to assuring the researcher that the participants did not have knowledge of the target idioms, the results of this test also indicated that the participants of the three groups were also homogeneous in terms of their idiom knowledge, thus, assuring the certainty of the final results of the research study. The posttest was another researcher-made test. From among the idioms that were sent to learners through e-mail, SMS, and paper, a 60 multiple-choice item test was developed. The aim of the posttest was to investigate the efficacy of the treatments provided to the experimental groups during the treatment period. Two kinds of technological instruments used for the purpose of this study were students' mobile phones and their computers; through them they received idioms as well as their definitions and sent some sentences containing those idioms back to the teacher. The third group used papers on which they received idioms and their definitions and wrote sentences and hand them back to the researcher. 2.3. Procedure First, the PET was administered to 94 students and each participant was rendered a score based on his or her performance on the test. Out of the 94 students, those whose scores were between one standard deviation above and below the mean (N=66) were selected. Then, the piloted idiom test discarded those who answered more than 20 percent of the 58 items (N=6) from the study. Then, the remaining ones (N=60) were randomly divided into three groups: two experimental and one control. Normality of the distribution of scores and homogeneity of these groups were checked and an ANOVA was conducted to make sure there was no significant difference between the three groups’ performance on the idiom test at the onset of the study. The whole research project took place in 20 sessions for each group and the students were taught 60 American Idioms. For the first experimental group, the messages containing new idioms and their definitions were delivered in a spaced and scheduled pattern of delivery: three times a week on even days at 10.00 a.m. Each message contained three idioms as well as their synonyms and definitions. Totally, 20 messages were sent during seven weeks of treatment. The sent messages were as short as possible so that the recipients could read them on their small screens without having to scroll down many times. For the second experimental group, the e-mails containing new idioms and their definitions were delivered for the same period to their computers, and in control group, the participants were given a list of idioms on paper followed by definitions three times a week. Having finished the treatment, the participants in three groups (N=60) sat for the posttest. 111
At last, the idiom learning of the participants of all the three groups was tested using the post test. On the basis of this test, the efficacy of the three techniques for idiom teaching was compared. All participants expressed positive attitudes toward learning idioms through SMS as well as via e-mail. 3. RESULTS The researcher administered the piloted PET among 94 intermediate students. Descriptive statistics estimated for this test is shown in table 1. Scale Statistics Mean 21.7612
Variance 79.476
Std. Deviation 8.91495
N of Items 53
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of PET
Considering the results, the mean of the scores for 94 students came out to be 21.76 and the standard deviation 8.91. Therefore, 66 students whose scores fell between 12.85 and 30.67 were selected as the participants of the study. To make sure that the participants didn’t know the idioms, the piloted idiom test was given to the 66 students and six students answered more than 20 percent of the questions and were thus, omitted from the sample. Then, the participants were randomly divided into three groups. In order to find out whether there was any significant difference among the performance of the three groups, a one way ANOVA had to be run on the idiom test scores. The assumptions for running ANOVA were checked. Skewness ratio for the three groups fell between the range of -1.96 and +1.96 and, thus, the distribution of the scores of the three groups was normal as shown in table 2.
SMS Group IDIOM Group Control Group
no. of Cases 20 20 20
Std. error of the mean 0.48 0.44 0.45
Sd 2.56 2.35 2.42
Skewness Ratio
Skewness
Std. Error Skewness
-0.53 -0.38 -0.33
0.44 0.44 0.44
-1.2 -0.86 -0.75
Table 2. Normality of the distributions of scores of the three groups
The results of the Levene’s test in table 3, also, indicated that the p value was higher than 0.05. So, the three groups did have homogeneous error variances.
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F df1 0.067 2 P>.05 (F (81, 2) = 0.07, p = 0.94).
df2 81
Sig. 0.935
Table 3. Levene’s test of equality of error variances
However, to check whether the differences between mean scores were significant or not, ANOVA was run as shown in table 4. Source
Type III Sum of Squares 0.286a 7581.000 0.286 484.714 8066.000 485.000
Df Mean Square 2 0.143 1 7581.000 2 0.143 81 5.984 84 83
F
Sig.
Partial Eta Squared 0.024 0.976 0.001 1266.851 .000 0.940 0.024 0.001 0.976
Corrected Model Intercept Group Error Total Corrected Total a=R Squared=.001(adjusted R Squared=-.024)
Table 4. ANOVA results on the idiom test
There was no significant difference among the variances of the three groups (F (81, 2) = 0.024, p = 0.976 > 0.05). This shows that the difference between means was not large enough to be attributed to the difference between the population means and, thus, the three groups were homogeneous in terms of their idiom knowledge. Post test was finally administered and a one-way ANOVA was required the assumptions for which were met. Analyzing the scores on post test indicated that, as shown in Table 5, students in the first experimental group, namely SMS group scored the highest (M = 25.40), followed by those in the second ones, i.e. email group (M = 22.25), with those receiving the same idioms without using technology doing the worst (M = 16.35).
Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Total
Test type SMS E-mail Control
N 20 20 20 60
Mean 25.40 22.25 16.35 21.33
SD 3.87 2.86 4.49 5.31
SE 0.86 0.64 1.00 0.86
Table 5 . Means and Standard Deviation for Idiom Post Test scores
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Table 6 shows the results of the one-way ANOVA for the idiom post test. As it is observed, there is a significant difference among the performance of the three groups (df = 2, F = 29.16, P = 0.00). SS Df Between 844.23 2 groups within 825.10 57 groups Total 1669.33 59 SS=sum of squares; F= statistic probability value; MS= mean square
MS 422.11
F 29,16
P 0.00
29.47
-
-
value; df= degree of freedom; P= Table 6. ANOVA of Post Test Scores
Table 7 illustrates Tukey's procedure of comparing the sets of mean scores of three groups on the idiom post test. Group SMS Email Control
M 25.40 22.25 16.35
SMS 3.15 9.05*
Email 3.15* 5.90*
Control 9.05* 5.90* -
Table 7. Tukey's HSD procedure for comparing means of post test
It shows a significant difference among the students' performance in the three groups. That is, the SMS group scored the highest followed by Email and the control group respectively. This suggests that the use of emailing and text messaging of idioms on students' computers or mobile phones has significant effects on the students' idiom learning. Therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected. One can conclude that out of the two treatments given to the two experimental groups, SMS had a significantly more effective impact on the idiom learning of the participants. Maybe, it was easier and more fun for the students of the first experimental group to remember English idioms because they enjoyed learning English idioms via mobile phones every time and everywhere outside the classroom. 4. CONCLUSION The comparison between SMS and e-mail has always been an issue of debate in all the technological forums around the world. And this debate had to happen as two equally powerful technologies, namely, computers and mobile phones are standing face to face with each other (Bhim, 2010). While we analyze both mediums, SMS is a short message that is a more informal method of staying in touch and yet it is more accessible in comparison to an e-mail. However, the 114
drawback of SMS is that you have a limited word limit (160 words) and you are charged money for sending an SMS. On the other hand, e-mail has always been free of cost and is more economical and without any word limit. So, you can write as long as you can while texting your e-mail. Despite all these debates, no research has been done to compare whether teaching and practicing idioms via e-mail on students’ computers or through SMS on their mobile phones has more significant effect on their idiom learning. This is what this study aimed to investigate. It showed that SMS was more efficient than email and that may be due to the fact that it works everywhere and the students can check their SMS even while they are outside. Although there was a significant difference between the mean scores of SMS and email groups, both had significant effect on the students’ idiom learning because both outperformed the control group. The finding of this study rejects the null hypothesis and suggests that for the purpose of encouraging long-term retention of idioms in EFL learners, teaching and practicing idioms through SMS is preferable to teaching them via e-mail or on paper. The results of this study, along with those of the previous studies, can help a diversity of professions concerned with language teaching/learning. Among all, we can name teachers, syllabus designers, and material developers. In addition, another group concerned with language teaching/learning, that is, language students can also take advantage of such technologies to learn and retain idioms more efficiently. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alavi, M. & Leidner, D. E. (2001). Research Commentary: Technology-Mediated Learning – A Call For Greater Depth And Breadth of Research. Information Systems Research, 12(1), 1-10. Bhim.S. (2010). SMS Integration In Website. On Technology . September 4th, 2010. Cavus, N.,& Ibrahim, D. (2009). M-Learning: An Experiment In Using SMS To Support Learning New English Language Words. British Journal of Educational Technology, 40(1), 78-91. Chen, Ch.M., & Hsu, Sh.H. (2008). Personalized Mobile Learning System For Supportive Effective English Learning. Educational Technology And Society, 11 (3), 153-180. Fahim, M., Motallebzadeh, K.,& Sazegar,Z. (2011). “The Effect of E-Mailing On Vocabulary Retention Of Iranian Lower Intermediate EFL Learners”. Journal of Language Teaching And Research, Vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 1385-1391, November 2011. García Moreno, E. M. (2010). The Role of Etymology In The Teaching of Idioms Related To Colours In An L2. Porta Linguarum 16, Junio 2011 Pp. 19-32 Jarvia, P., Holford, J., & Griffin, C. (2003). The Theory And Practice of Learning. London: Kogan Page. Jensen, R. (1993). The Technology of The Future Is Already Here. Academe 8-13. Kearney, M., Schuck, S.& Burden, K. (2010). "Locating Mobile Learning In The Third Space" Http://Hdl.Handle.Net/10453/16188.
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Levy, M., & Kennedy, C. (2005). Learning Italian Via Mobile Sms. In A. Kukulska-Hulme & J. Traxler (Eds.), Mobile Learning: A Handbook For Educators And Trainers. London: Taylor And Francis. Nagel, P. S. (1999). E-Mail In The Virtual ESL/EFL Classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, 5 (7). Available Online At Iteslj.Org/Articles/Nagel-Email.Html. Hayati, A. M., Jalilifar, A., Mashhadi, A., (2011). "Using Short Message Service (SMS) To Teach English Idioms To EFL Students." British Journal Of Educational Technology, Vol. 43, Issue 3. Sasaki, A. & Takeuchi, O. (2010). "EFL Students’ Vocabulary Learning In Ns-NNs E-Mail Interactions: Do They Learn New Words By Imitation?" Recall (2010), 22: pp 7082. Thornton, P.,& Houser, C. (2002). M-Learning In Transit. In P. Lewis (Ed.), The Changing Face of Call (pp. 229-243). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets And Zeitlinger. Thornton, P.,& Houser, C. (2003). Using Mobile Web And Video Phones In English Language Teaching: Projects With Japanese College Students. In B. Morrison, C. Green, & G. Motteram (Eds.), Directions In Call: Experience, Experiments & Evaluation (pp. 207-224). Hong Kong: English Language Centre, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Thornton, P. & Houser, C. (2005). Using Mobile Phones In English Education In Japan. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 21, 217-228.
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SHIFTS IN TYPES OF COHESIVE TIES THROUGH TRANSLATION IN ENGLISH AND ROMANIAN PROVERBS Anca-Mariana PEGULESCU Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (Romania) ABSTRACT Cohesion ties can do much more than provide continuity and create the semantic unity of a text. I do consider proverbs small texts having their own autonomy. In the following article I am going to analyse the choice of cohesive markers used in proverbs, in specific ethnofields like home, house, household, casă, gospodină. Linked to cohesion, coherence can be understood through the limits of translatability. Bridging across English and Romanian languages, the reader-based shifts in proverbs aim perhaps at two ways of seeing and understanding the world. Keywords: interpretation, shift, source language, target language, pattern
1. LANGUAGES AND PROVERBS. COHESION VS COHERENCE Languages and proverbs are linked by ways of thinking and shared rules.These rules are sometimes complex algorithms. For both languages and proverbs forms, there are different patterns as well as sets of contextual parameters. Even if proverbs are particular language units, there is no doubt that when a proverb as a message is launched, a speaker should be taken into account. The hearer or addressee is most of the time more guessed than known. Proverb interpretation needs specific shared knowledge between the sender of the message and the receiver. That is why I consider the search for cohesion a general principle in provebs interpretation. Compared to cohesion, coherence ’can be viewed as a covert meaning relationship among the parts of a text’ [BlumKulka, S: 2000 p.298 in Lawrence Venuti ed.:2002]. Both cohesion and coherence involve a process of interpretation and language specific markers. On the other hand, possible shifts of cohesion and coherence can appear in the translation of written texts.Proverbs as small texts in themselves, are rich examples of cohesive markers. There are two directions that can be explored when referring to the types of cohesive markers used in translation (I have used as a corpus both Romanian proverbs translated in English and English proverbs translated in Romanian): • the level of explicitness – the general level of the target texts; • the level of text meaning(s) – the explicit and implicit meaning potential of the source text that can change through translation; 117
2. THE LEVEL OF EXPLICITNESS OF THE TARGET TEXT The level of explicitness of the target text can be higher or lower than that of the source text: a)
R: Muierea când lipseşte, casa se risipeşte. E: The wife is the key of the house. b) R. Nicăieri ca la casa omului. E. East or west, home is best. The chosen examples show that there is not a word by word translation. If the a) examples display a metaphor (the wife is the key of the house), the b) examples retain only the idea of the best place (home is best). The b) Romanian version is also rendered in English by: E. There is no place like home. 2.1. Differences in stylistic preferences for types of cohesive markers in the two languages involved in translation can be seen in: – lexical repetition: a) R: Pe cine primeşti în casă, te scoate din casă. E: Let an ill man lie in thy straw and he looks to be thy heir. b) R: Vai de casa cu mulţi stăpâni. E: Everybody’s business is nobody’s business. The a) examples are illustrative for the Romanian version, where the word ‘casa’ is nearer the English word ‘home’ ( that is replaced by the translator with the word ‘straw’, suggesting, perhaps, a very primitive form of living). The b) examples lead to the possible change if concepts between the idea of ‘house’ and ‘company’/’business’. -
pronominalization: R: Să cumperi vecinii întâi, şi apoi casa. E: You must ask your neighbour if you shall live in peace.
Pronominalization is preferred whenever possible in English as compared to Romanian (for most of the time Romanian does not use pronouns, especially if they have the synthetic fonction of a subject): R: Nevasta frumoasă e belea la casă. E: 1. Who hath a fair wife needs more than two eyes. The process of translation in the above cases may be called a successful one, even if the nuances of the two languages are felt only by the native speakers. When using the Romanian word ‘belea’ an English native speaker can think of ‘trouble’, ‘misfortune’, mischief, ‘scrape’. Still, the Romanian native 118
speaker should understand all the nuances of the English terms that can render the word ‘belea’. From ‘trouble’, ‘misfortune’ and ‘scrape’ the Romanian native speaker can select ‘mischief’ or ‘scrape’ that are explained by the EnglishRomanian dictionaries through the term ‘belea’ among other terms. In such a situation the Romanian translator can only pick up the word ‘trouble’ which is the most neuter one and is also explained through the term ‘belea’. Sometimes the text in the target language (TL) may appear as redundant. The redundancy is explained by a ‘rise’ in the level of cohesive explicitness in the TL text. Researchers admit the existence of different types of interlanguages shifts produced by language learners or non-professional (even sometimes professional) translators. The English versions of Romanian proverbs may display referential linkage over lexical cohesion like in: R: Omul fără soţie e ca o casă pustie. (a) E: Woeful is the house that wants a woman. (b) In the a) example ‘man’ is referred to as ‘the inside human being living alone in a house that has no wife in it’, while the b) example focuses on ‘the sadness of a house that has no wife in it.’ 2.2. The difference in length (counting the words in SL version and TL version) can start from the same number of words (in a word by word translation): R: În casa lăutarului fiecare joacă. E: In a fiddler’s house everyone dances. and can change into a slight difference in the words’ order: R: În casa leneşului e totdeauna sărbătoare. E: Everyday is holiday with sluggards. Sometimes we assist to an expansion in the TL text, adding to the starting point (the text in SL) elements that are absent in the SL: R: Vai de casa cu mulţi stăpâni. E: There is no good accord where every man would be a lord. (here the English version replaces the word ‘casa’ [house] with what might be within a couple as ‘agreement’). The argument of the ‘explicitation hypothesis’ is to be taken into account if the explicitation is seen as a universal strategy, inherent to the process of language mediation: R: Fudulia intră-n casă, sărăcia-i după uşă. E: Great boast and small roast makes unsavoury mouths.
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3. COHESION TIES Cohesion ties can do more than provide continuity or create the semantic unity of the text. The ’texture’ of a proverb can be affected by the types of cohesive markers: E: If an ass goes a-travelling, he’ll not come home a horse. R: Măgar s-a dus, măgar s-a întors. (the English version is the explicitation where the referent ’ass’ is preserved and is compared with a universal ‘horse’; it is the English version that introduces the idea of ‘home’, idea that is not expressed by the Romanian version of the same proverb) For almost 80% of the English versions of Romanian proverbs, explicitation may take the form of a noun. It may be also regarded as a language pair-specific phenomenon. Coherence defies quantitative methods of analysis if it not viewed as the realization of the text’s meaning potential. Such a realization can be approached both theoretically, postulating an ideal reader [Fillmore: 1981] or empirically, taking into account various readers’ interpretations. Referring to ‘shifts in coherence’, through translation, proverbs may change or lose their meaning potential during such a process: a) E: Although the sun shines, leave not thy cloack at home R: Pe vremea cea mai bună, ipingeaua să fie cu tine. b) E: The evening brings all home. R: Bătrâneţea împacă toate duşmăniile. In the (a) examples we can admit that the reader-focused shift of coherence (the presence of the possessive adjective thy in the English version and the associative object cu tine in the Romanian version) may be the image of a relevant schema based on world knowledge – it is better to be warm than cold. The (b) examples favour the text-focused shift of coherence where the result comes from the change in audience and not so much from the area of reference. The allusion that the evening of a day may be compared to ‘the old age’ is tranparent. The evening brings all home seems to be a universal truth, irrespective of languages and boundaries. The Romanian version is displaying a conclusion that can be true or not: old people are tempted to forgive and forget. However such a reality cannot be considered a universal truth as very many old people cannot forget and forgive. I have to underline the fact that both English versions of the Romanian proverbs or Romanian versions of the English proverbs can have the issue of shared or non-shared reference. The relevant implications of the addressee of the message can be carried by the cohesion and coherence markers: E: A man’s house is his castle. R: Omu-n casa lui e-mpărat. 120
(even if the translation here is almost a word by word translation, there is a clear difference between what a native English speaker can think and associate a ‘house’ with a ‘castle’). Text-based shifts of coherence can be linked to various differences between linguistic systems. In an English proverb the use of the subjunctive attracts a regret: E: Home is home, though it be never so homely. while the Romanian version of the above proverb is balancing a comparison between a poor lodging (in Romanian ‘colibă’) and a rich one ( in Romanian ‘palat’). R: E mai bine-n coliba ta decât în palatul altuia. 4. THE TRANSLATION PROCESS Most of the researchers admitted that translation is a process that operates on texts rather than words or sentences. Consequently, translating is an act of communication and the process itself, as well as the final product and the effects it has on the addressee(s) of the message, should be studied within the methodological framework of studies on communication. Changes in levels of explicitness through translation may be regarded as a result of differences in stylistic preferences between two languages. A very elliptic message of an English proverb like: E: Master absent and house dead. can be developed in Romanian through a verb that has no equivalent in SL (the Romanian verb ‘a părăgini‘ has no English equivalent). The Romanian version of the above English proverb is also enriched by the adverbial particle ‘când’ introducing the idea of the master’s absence: R: Când stăpânul nu-i acasă, casa se părăginește. Romanian does nor make a very clear difference between the inside or the outside of the building called ’casă’ that is rendered in English by the nouns ‘house’ and ‘home’. In the following example we face the idea of ‘building’ both in the SL and in the TL: E: Make not the door wider than the house. R: Să nu-ți faci poarta mai mare decât casa. (the difference in meaning between the two nouns that preceed and explain the noun house/casă is between something belonging to a building and something belonging to the outside of a building, which can be a courtyard). The inside of the building is rendered in English by the noun ‘home’ while Romanian may find some other term: E: Every dog is a lion at home. R: Orice câine e leu în cușca lui. (Romanian would not equalize the nouns ‘home’ and ‘cușcă’, the two terms having not so many common elements but only the idea of ‘closure’ and ‘small space where animals can live’). 121
In different cases, there are different types of ‘choices’ of cohesive ties, like: – optional: E: Dry bread at home is better than roast meat abroad. R: Fie pâinea cât de rea, tot mai bună-n ţara mea. (home here is associated with country) – obligatory: E: East or west, home is best. R: Nicăieri ca la casa omului. Cohesion and coherence shifts will lead to investigations on text effects. Such effects may be concluded by either a homogeneous group of senders in SL messages or a paralleled group of addressees in the TL: a) R: Casa e casă, când ai gospodină-n casă. E: Woeful is the household that wants a woman. ( [+ animate] Romanian noun ‘ gospodină’ is replaced in English by [animate] noun ’household’ which may show a ‘sad’/’woeful’ atmosphere. b)
R: Nu toate femeile cu cheile la brâu sunt gospodine. E: All are not hunters that blow the horn. (the parallel between women that carry the keys of a household and are not always efficent in accomplishing their responsibilities and the hunters that can blow a horn but might not get some venison is here a good comparison). CONCLUSIONS The present study was conducted within a corpus containing 63 paremic units that cover related ethnofields like ’house’ vs ’home’ vs ’household’ and ’casă’ vs ’ gospodină’. It revealed that: • cohesive patterns in TL texts tend to approximate the norms of TL texts of the same register; • cohesive patterns in TL texts reflect norms of SL texts in the same register, reflecting the process of transfer operating on the translation; • cohesive pattern in TL versions may form a system of their own, sometimes indicating a process of explicitation; Empirical research proves to be needed in the process of interaction between texts and the audience to which they are addressed. BIBLIOGRAPHY Soares, R, 2008 The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, 5th edition, OUP. Venuti, L, 2002 The Translation Studies Reader, Routledge, London and New York. 122
POLITICAL THREAT AS COMMUNICATIVE PERFORMATIVE CONSTRUCT Aleksey ROMANOV Tomsk National-Research Politechnical University (Russia) ABSTRACT Political threat is considered as communicative performative construct. Making of communicative construct of political threat includes study and systematization of I-speaker and I-hearer’s possible emotional state dispositions in the political discourse. Number of communicative construct elements shows its cognitive complexity. Keywords: performative practice, political threat, communicative performative construct and its elements, continuum of the political threat construct, emotional state, I-speaker and I-hearer’s dispositions (affect – comfort – discomfort).
The basic ways of different kinds to organize and classify knowledge are of considerable interest at all levels of subject’s cognitive ability and communicative activity nowadays. Indeed, the flow of life events, meetings with different problem domains and interactive areas may be turned into chaos if a person (as cognitive agent) doesn’t have a specific semantic and cognitive structure to organize and understand them. It is also an actual problem how a cognitive agent can classify different events, real-world information and speech acts (Romanova, 2009: 16-17). It is known that there is possibility to measure all objects in any objective units (meters, for example, or centimeters) in the world of objects. But there are no generally accepted methods and measurement units in the world of events and actions (Romanova, 2009: 16-17). According to the basic ideas of some theoretical works (Kelli, 2000; Romanov, Nemec, 2006; Romanova, 2009) a person uses communicative construct to interpret, “evaluate” and predict people’s behavior and different kinds of events in the world. There are different construct systems for different problem domains, so all typical scenarios of life have a concrete meaning when they are included in the context of a specific subject area (Romanov, Nemec, 2006; Romanova, 2009). Communicative construct is a semantic unit of higher level than concept. It is important to bear in mind that each construct isn’t applicable to all objects, but to some of them. The latter are called elements. For example, the construct “high” or “low” can be applied to houses, but it is not applicable to weather or insects. Constructs vary in their composition and content. The construct “order”, “advice” or “threat” applies to people because only they recognize rules (standards) of conduct in our society and speech acts. Such verbal labels as “high” and “low” or “order”, “advice” and “threat” have a concrete meaning when they are included in 123
the context of a specific subject area. It means that construct applies to any class of homogeneous objects (Romanov, Nemec, 2006; Romanova, 2009). In this regard, attention is drawn to the inseparability of construct from the elements for description of which it is intended. The most important elements to reflect experience in the form of construct are I-speaker’s modalities. Like other elements, each I-modality has a definite location on the construct continuum. In speech acts can sound one, two, rarely three and almost never four or more modalities. However, this does not mean that they don't exist and have no effect on speaker’s behavior. It should not be supposed that disposition is a judgment of a cognitive agent about himself. Judgment may be false, and disposition is always true. The combination of possible true I-modality manifestations creates illocutionary “size” of construct, represented in cognitive agent’s mental space in the form of a frame. Any manifestation of this I-modality can only be seen "within" construct. Each disposition tends to manifest itself in cognitive and performative behavior in a certain form of performative practice. If we follow the logical tradition formally, we can find out that construct is a type of relationships between concept-antonyms (speaker-listener, addresseraddressee, subject-object, etc.) in a socio-communicative interaction. One of the main and universal features of communicative construct is its bipolarity, i.e. communicative construct has two opposite poles, for example: the communicative construct "consolation" has harmony and disorder (Romanov, Nemec, 2006; Romanova, 2009); the communicative construct “political threat” has comfort and discomfort. This type of relationships is called opposition (Romanov, Nemec, 2006; Romanova, 2009) and it implies that there is at least one average element in addition to the antonyms in construct (Romanov, Nemec, 2006). In other words, the relationship of opposition is characterized by continuance. For example, the communicative performative construct of political threat has comfort and discomfort as opposite poles and affected emotional state as average (neutral) element: comfort -----------------– affect-free -------------------- discomfort | affected emotional state | The disposition of affect-free (zero, 0) emotional state divides the communicative construct of political threat into two equal parts: the left part of this construct reflects interlocutors’ positive emotional feelings (+A) and the right part reflects their negative emotional states (-A). The following chart shows I-speaker and I-hearer’s possible dispositions of emotional states in the communicative construct of political threat: a) Comfort -----------(+ A) ----------------------------------------- Discomfort b) Comfort -------------------------– 0------------------------------- Discomfort c) Comfort ---------------------------------------------(-A) --------- Discomfort 124
It is important to understand how the hearer interprets and “evaluates” threats in a discursive space of political communication and how political threat can influence I-speaker and I-hearer’s dispositions of emotional states. LDPR’s political threats (72 utterances from 6 articles of political discourse, see web-site www.ldpr.ru) served as research material. LDPR’s political threats (the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) are characterized by I-speaker’s disposition at the point of affected emotional state (A+ or A-). I-politician’s disposition of this emotional state is determined by difficult pre-election campaign situation, economic and social problems in Russia, political competition and politician’s intention to win the election. This affected emotional state is characterized, for example, by politician’s following threat-utterances: (1) Пора кончать с этой скотской жизнь, с воровством чиновников, наглостью бандитов, с гнилой культурой, с разрушенной наукой, (2) Мы больше не хотим вранья, мы устали от него, (3) Отвечаю: страна умирает, спасти ее может только участие в политической жизни широких народных масс. The author of political threats isn’t aware of his recipients’ exact emotional states. He directs his threat-utterances to the target audience (most likely voters) and focuses his attention on them in analyzable political discourse. Besides, addresser supposes that his potential voter is in a negative affected emotional state or in a position close to the point of discomfort. LDPR’s political threat is aimed at seeking of electors (dissatisfied by the situation in Russia) who can be persuaded to vote for the LDPR to avoid movement of their emotional state disposition to the point of discomfort. Politician begins political struggle to cause people to vote for him or his party. Illocutionary aim of political threat is an appearance of elector’s uncomfortable emotional state in which he agrees to perform actions caused by politician. So, addresser changes I-hearer’s dispositions of emotional state by political threat (see I-hearer’s dispositions 1, 2, 3). * * * | I-speaker | comfort ---------– affected emotional state -----1-----2-----3- discomfort * * * | I‐hearer | Unit designations are the following: symbol | means I-speaker and Ihearer’s possible emotional states; symbol * means I-speaker and I-hearer’s favorable emotional states). Also the politician wants to keep electors in affected emotional state by some political threats. For example, he declares hearer’s impossibility to drop out of affected emotional state without performing some actions caused by him. Politician uses slogan-threats for it, for example: (4) За задержку зарплаты – в тюрьму, (5) За все ответите, (6) Долой взяточников, (7) Чтобы с этим покончить, надо отправить более половины губернаторов в отставку! (see I-hearer’s disposition 1). Addressees of these threats (4) – (7) are electors but the menacing action isn’t targeted at them because these utterances declare punishment to other political parties. This kind of threats is used by the LDPR to maintain 125
negative attitude to different parties among the electorate and to motivate and encourage electors to vote for the LDPR. It should be noted that changes in preliminary conditions of speech act performance are typical for this kind of threats (more about preliminary conditions of speech acts at: Romanov, 1988: 55-62). For example, the threat (8) За задержку зарплаты – в тюрьму cannot be performed by the speaker there and then because he doesn’t have ability to do it. Politician can intend to worsen I-electors’ affected emotional state by some political threats. He declares possible movement of I-hearer’s disposition in the communicative construct of political threat to the point of its worsening because of situation worsening in Russia in case of different political party’s victory (see Ihearer’s disposition 2). For example, (9) И до чего мы докатимся в итоге?, (10) В противном случае на территории России течение 100-200 лет будет создано 170 государств, и никакой России не будет. Politician can declare also possible movement of I-hearer’s disposition in the communicative construct of political threat towards the extreme point of escalation (or discomfort) because of situation escalation in Russia (see I-hearer’s disposition 3). For example, (11) ЛДПР – последняя надежда России, (12) В каждом направленном в мой адрес обращении люди пишут о том, что предчувствуют приближение катастрофы и не могут больше жить так, как им велит “барин” – чиновник, бандит, олигарх. It is obvious that politician effects I-hearer’s disposition of emotional state by the mean of political threat in a way that leads hearer (voter) into uncomfortable emotional state (movement to the right on a scale of communicative construct of political threat). So politician changes electorate’s emotional state to cause them to vote for the LDPR, but he gives them ability to return into their comfort state, i.e. they should perform actions caused by him. It is important to note that politician aims political threat to effect voter’s emotional state (in which he is likely to perform a required actions). So, an introduction of the communicative performative construct to the study of emotional effect of political threat can help to study and systematize Ispeaker and I-hearer’s possible dispositions of emotional states caused by political threats. Number of communicative construct elements refers to a cognitive complexity of political threats. The communicative construct of political threat contains a chain of threat-utterances used in political discourse and making this kind of construct can be successful if its continuum contains I-politician and Ielector’s possible dispositions of emotional states. Political threat is one of the possible I-politician and I-elector’s dispositions, while the communicative construct of political threat is a set of their possible dispositions of emotional states. Thus, the political threat can be considered any constituent of the construct continuum between points "comfort – discomfort" and associated with I-elector’s change of emotional states at the mention of menacing events by politician.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Kelli Dzh. Psihologija lichnosti. Teorija lichnyh konstruktov. – SPb.: Rech', 2000 -182 s. Romanov A. Sistemnyj analiz reguljativnyh sredstv dialogicheskogo obwenija, M.: IJA AN SSSR, 1988. – 183 s. Romanov A.A., Nemec N.G. Diskurs uteshenija: Lingvopsihologicheskij analiz. – M.: IJa RAN, 2006 – 144 s. Romanova L.A. Strukturno-semanticheskie aspekty performativov v funkcional'noj paradigme jazyka. – M.: IJa RAN, 2009. – 180 s.
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CORPUS LINGUISTICS APPLICATIONS AND DIGITAL GENRES IN THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH IN BRAZIL. INFLUENCE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN ELT Elisa Mattos de SÁ Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil ABSTRACT Usually regarded as a methodological framework – as opposed to a theoretical framework – CL has guiding principles which are worth mentioning: the idea that is language in use that should be investigated, for instance, or the fact that a corpus should be carefully constructed for the purpose of research, and not randomly compiled simply to collect data. A corpus should also be available for access or manipulation via computerized means, so that quantitative analysis can be made more practically. In Brazil, new technologies play a key role in education and in language teaching and have been increasingly used in the English classroom, ranging from potential applications in primary and secondary levels to language schools and in-company classes. This paper reports some experiences in which new technologies – namely corpus linguistics tools and digital genres such as blogs and microblogs – have been applied in Brazilian contexts of ELT. This paper is therefore not intended at giving a comprehensive account of how technology has been used in the teaching of English in Brazil, as this would take up much more space and time. Rather, it aims at presenting successful experiments that can be replicated in other teaching contexts. Keywords: linguistics, technology, CL, language teaching
1.
INTRODUCTION
The influence of new technologies 1 (i.e. digital genres, the Internet, computers etc.) in English Language Teaching (ELT) is undeniable. Whether as a means of communication in a globalized world – thus creating the need for addressing such genres in the classroom, by having classes online or even by using online databases in teaching practices, the influence of new technologies in the teaching of English is a fact – and a growing trend. In Brazil, new technologies play a key role in education and in language teaching and have been increasingly used in the English classroom (cf. Prata, 2010), ranging from potential applications in primary and secondary levels 1
One must remember, however, that technology has been part of our every day lives – and of our teaching practices for a long time. A pen, for instance, is a technology. The term “new technologies” refers to the computer, the Internet and everything else that emerged after their advent. See Paiva (2008, in press) and Godoy & Suzuki (2008/20009) for a review on how technology – in a more general sense – has been used in ELT.
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(Casarin, 2008/2009) to language schools (cf. Sá & Borges, 2011) and in-company classes (cf. Sá, 2012a). As discussed in Sá (2012a), the Brazilian Educational Guidelines (2006) reflect that technology is important because: “(...) technology-based communication is a complex process that involves a set of different skills and genres – reading, writing, blogs, chats etc. – and it is vital that learners be trained in such skills and have a comprehensive understanding of digital genres, as digital literacy can provide them with the opportunity to participate in social situations that take place online, as well as to engage in various interactions, social movements etc, that are virtually-centered. Being digitally literate, therefore, is a primary need these days, as it can help avoid social exclusion, and it is one of the ways in which people can have an active role in the world”. (Sá, 2012a, p. 6050). This paper reports some experiences in which new technologies – namely corpus linguistics tools and digital genres such as blogs and microblogs – have been applied in Brazilian contexts of ELT. This paper is therefore not intended at giving a comprehensive account of how technology has been used in the teaching of English in Brazil, as this would take up much more space and time. Rather, it aims at presenting successful experiments that can be replicated in other teaching contexts. 2.
CORPUS LINGUISTICS APPLICATIONS
Corpus Linguistics (CL) is the study of language through large bodies of empirical evidence found in a corpus of spoken or written language authentically produced by native speakers (language corpus) or non-native speakers (learner corpus). A corpus 2 is only considered as such if linguistic data in it can be retrieved and/or manipulated by electronic means (McEnery & Wilson, 2001). Usually regarded as a methodological framework – as opposed to a theoretical framework – CL 3 has guiding principles which are worth mentioning: the idea that is language in use that should be investigated, for instance, or the fact that a corpus should be carefully constructed for the purpose of research, and not randomly compiled simply to collect data. A corpus should also be available for access or manipulation via computerized means, so that quantitative analysis can be made more practically. There are many possibilities of applying CL to ELT 4. A traditional way is using corpus-driven information in teaching and reference materials. As stated by Mukherjee (2006), nowadays the most important English language dictionaries are produced using corpus information – Collin Corpus 5, for instance, contains over 2 2
For a review of the main characteristics of a corpus, see Sá & Nunes (2012, submitted to publication) and McEnery, Xiao and Tono (2006), in English, and Sardinha (2004) in Portuguese. 3 For a comprehensive understanding of CL, please refer to Lüdeling & Kytö (2008a, 2008b). 4 I refer the reader to O’Keeffe, McCarthy & Carter (2007) for a full discussion of such applications. 5 http://www.mycobuild.com/about-collins-corpus.aspx.
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billion words 6 and is the basis for the Collins Cobuild dictionaries, which generally include phonemic or phonetic descriptions, collocations, high-frequent words and examples retrieved from corpora, among others 7. Another application of CL in ELT is via learner corpora, which are collections of texts produced by learners of English as a foreign language (Granger, 2003). Benefits of learner corpora include a) access to empirical information about learner language, as discussed by Granger (1998), thus creating b) possibility of more understanding towards how understanding of how foreign language learners use English, which can then serve as c) reference material for scholars and teachers, as argued by (Sá & Nunes, 2012, submitted to publication). Here are some important learner corpora 8 compiled today, as adapted from Sá (2012b): • ICLE (International Corpus of Learner English): the corpus has many subcorpora of different mother tongues, and consists of argumentative essays written by learners of English. – http://www.uclouvain.be/en-cecl-icle.html. • LINDSEI (Louvain International Database of Spoken English Interlanguage): currently available in different mother tongues – http://www.uclouvain.be/en-cecl-lindsei.html. • ICCI (International Corpus of Crosslinguistic Interlanguage): aims at gathering linguistic information about young learners of English across different proficiency levels and mother tongues – http://cblle.tufs.ac.jp/llc/icci/, http://tonolab.tufs.ac.jp/icci/index.jsp. Pedagogical applications of CL in ELT are discussed by Granger (2008), who distinguishes them as corpus tools (collections of texts and software packages for corpus access) and corpus methods (analytic techniques used with corpus data), both to be used indirectly – when teacher uses these tools and methods to help with decisions about what to teach and when to teach it – or directly – through browsing and analyzing corpora in the classroom, usually via concordances. Direct applications are usually called Data Driven Learning (DDL) and are frequently pointed out as the main way by which corpora can be used in ELT (Tagnin, 2004). DDL provides learners with the opportunity of seeing and being involved with actual data (Shaw, 2011) and invariably require the need of concordances, which are defined as “computer software used to access and sort data from the corpus” (Bennet, 2010, p.18). Concordancing programs make it possible for large corpora to be manipulated, especially through frequency lists, by way of showing concordance lines from a selected corpus, in which the immediate context of the word/phrase chosen can be 6
Of which 650 million words come from the Bank of English™. New words are added to the Collin Corpus every month. 7 Not to mention online dictionaries, which contain the aforementioned data as well as audio/visual information that can be really helpful for learners, such as the audio files for pronunciation of words. For the Collins Online Dictionary, see: http://www.collinsdictionary.com/. 8 For a list of contemporary learner corpora, please see: http://www.uclouvain.be/en-cecllcworld.html.
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examined. The selected word is called the “node word” (Hunston, 2002). In ELT, it is usually the node word and its context that teachers and students analyze, as did Sá (2012, in preparation) for Business English students in Brazil. In this experiment, Sá followed Bennet’s framework for creating corpusdesigned activities, as reproduced below: A Framework for Creating Corpus-Designed Activities (Bennet, 2010, p. 18) 1. Ask a research question. 2. Determine the register on which your students are focused. 3. Select a corpus appropriate for the register. 4. Utilize a concordancing program for quantitative analysis. 5. Create exercises for students. 6. Engage students in a whole-language activity. . Sá (2012, in preparation) created an activity in which her students did research on the word “send” in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) 9. This verb was making the students confused and by having them investigate the frequency and immediate contexts of “send” in the aforementioned corpus, Sá aimed at providing her students with the opportunity to study language in use and to develop greater awareness on the part of the learners in regards to their understanding of this lexical item. For this experiment, the teacher used the KWIC 10 (Key Word in Context) concordancer provided by the corpus. The figure below shows the results for the word “send”, as retrieved from the COCA:
Since her students are studying Business English, Sá (2012, in preparation) decided to filter the search by asking the students to select “newspaper” and ignore “fiction”, as she believed results from fiction would probably not be as relevant for the learners. Results from newspaper entries, on the other hand, would. Results from this experiment are still being processed, but the immediate reaction of the students was very positive. 9
http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/. http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ModProb/KWIC.html.
10
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3.
BLOGS
Blogs are usually seen as the space where the writer "can express what s/he wants in the activity of (his) writing, with the choice of images and sounds that make up the whole of the text posted on the Internet" (Komesu, 2004, p.113) 11. According to Marcuschi (2004), the main features of blogs are: a) asynchronicity, b) free text, c) interpersonal function, d) informal style and e) different semiosis, among others. In this genre, the writer can have a specific reader in mind or not – s/he may write to whoever has access to the Internet and can therefore read such texts (Sá, 2005). Sá & Borges (2011) have previously reported Borges’s teaching experiment regarding the use of blogs in ELT as a means of developing writing skills. A total of 10 intermediate-level students of English from a language school in Brazil participated in this experiment, which consisted of creating and writing a blog for the whole of one teaching semester. No points were awarded for this task. The students created the blog in the school’s computer laboratory and went on adding blog entries at home. Let us now look at one example: 1. Because sometimes the sky is blue when I cry my world changes. After... the clouds makes party, slowly... Trying to hide the strong blue of the sky 2. Cos the age arrives The age always arrives. Today it arrived again. This is like MY new year. Just for me. Calls, holds, messages, kisses, cake... How many candles are there in my brain? Lighting my thought... making my cake better... So... Big party... in my soul! kisses little world. 3. Cos my teacher gives order Where's my inspiration today? Dear teacher... I don't know where is it. Can you forgive me? Table 1: Selection of posts from a blog created by a student
The experiment was evaluated by Borges as successful and positive. In the students’ blogs we identified discourse markers of interaction: the students produced their writings with a reader in mind, whether the teacher or a virtual, unidentified reader. Students included unexpected elements in their writings, such as argumentation and poetry, and several passages are heavy with subjectivity, which may be related to the genre in question.
11
My translation of the original: “pode expressar o que quiser na atividade da (sua) escrita, com a escolha de imagens e de sons que compõem o todo do texto veiculado pela internet”.
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4.
MICROBLOGS
Microblogs 12 involve the production and circulation of online texts up to 140 characters (Kwak et al., 2010; Silva, 2010; Praça, 2011) and have been previously defined as a mixture of blog and social networking with instant messaging (Orihuela, 2007), constituting a hybrid genre that is susceptible to high interactivity among users, as this is a typical feature of social networks. Microblogs also present characteristics that correspond to those listed by Marcuschi (2004) for blogs: free text, interpersonal communication, informal style, multiple types of content (video, text, audio etc) and multiple participants, among others. The teaching experiment regarding microblogs was carried out in a language school in Brazil, involving 15 pre-intermediate students and consisted in using microblogs throughout the teaching semester as a main source of communication outside the classroom. The goals of this experiment were a) develop interaction between the teacher and the students, and among the students; b) develop communicative competence in the target language, and c) provide the students with the opportunity to interact in the virtual world. Two marks were awarded for this task. We will now look at an example of how students interacted and developed communicative competence in the production of microblogs: 1. I´m chating on msn Mar 14th 2. I´m going to the job. I really love my EJA students. Mar 23rd 3. Beautiful night!! Cruzeiro won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Apr 26th 4. @V V, Thanks God that you're well now. Take care! May 2nd from web in reply to V 5. @C Hi. Where is the pub? Maybe next week I´ll go there. I like rock music. May 17th from web in reply to C Table 2: Selection of posts from micrblog productions created by a student
The conditions of production and circulation of microblogs account for informality and frequent use of non-standard linguistic forms, as we have seen in the example. We also identified a high level of interactivity among the students, and we see this as a positive result of the experiment. Most students really interacted via Twitter and made an effort to communicate in English. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS In one way or another, technology has always shaped teaching practices. From the traditional blackboards to the pen and paper we still use as a basis for writing, technology has always been a companion to education, in a general sense, and to ELT, more specifically. The advent of the Internet, most importantly, has changed the way we teach English – we have started using new technologies as a mean of 12
There are other microblogging services in the virtual world, but Twitter (www.twitter.com) is the most popular.
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communication and then added such technologies to our professional reality and to our students’ learning process. This paper presented some teaching experiments carried out in Brazil, in which new technologies were used to raise language awareness and to develop interaction and writing skills. By briefly reviewing these experiments and reporting on their results I aimed at showing how CL and digital genres such as blogs and microblogs can be applied to ELT. This paper therefore does not constitute an attempt at providing the reader with an understanding of all applications of new technologies in Brazilian contexts of English teaching. That is a very ambitious enterprise, one that would involve more efforts and, certainly, more time. What I hope the reader gets after reading this paper is an understanding of how the aforementioned experiments were carried out and that these experiments can be replicated in a number of different teaching context around the world – provided they are properly adapted to such contexts. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bennet, G. R.(2010). Using Corpora in the Language Learning Classroom: Corpus Linguistics for Teachers. Michigan ELT, 2010. Partially available online: http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472033850-part1.pdf. Brasil. (2006). Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais. Linguagens, códigos e suas tecnologias. Secretaria de Educação Básica – Brasília: Ministério da Educação, Secretaria de Educação Básica. Casarin, D. P. (2008/2009). As Tecnologias de Informações e Comunicação e o Ensino/Aprendizagem de Língua Inglesa. Programa de Desenvolvimento Educacional. Secretaria da Educação. Governo do Paraná. Brasil. Available at: http://www.diaadiaeducacao.pr.gov.br/portals/pde/arquivos/1742-8.pdf. Godoy. D. T. & Suzuki, C. K. (2008/2009). Tecnologia e Ensino da Língua Inglesa: Das Propostas do Estado ao Cotidiano da Sala de Aula do Ensino Fundamental na Escola Pública do Paraná. Programa de Desenvolvimento Educacional. Secretaria da Educação. Governo do Paraná. Brasil. Available at: http://www.diaadiaeducacao.pr.gov.br/portals/pde/arquivos/1537-8.pdf. Granger, S. (2008). Learner Corpora. In: LÜDELING, A., KYTÖ, M. (eds.) Corpus Linguistics: An International Handbook: 1. Pp. 259-275. Mouton de Gruyter. Granger, S. (2003). The International Corpus of Learner English: a new resource for foreign language learning and teaching and second language acquisition research. In: TESOL Quarterly, v. 37, n. 3, pp. 538-546. Granger, S. (1998). (ed.) Learner English on Computer. London & New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Hunston, S. (2002). Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Komesu, F. C. (2004). Blogs e as práticas de escrita sobre si na Internet. In: MARCUSCHI, L. A.; XAVIER, A. C. (orgs.) Hipertextos e gêneros digitais: novas formas de construção do sentido. Rio de Janeiro: Lucerna. Kwak, H. et al. (2010). What is Twitter, a Social Network or a News Media? In: WWW 2010, April 26–30, 2010, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Retrieved from: http://an.kaist.ac.kr/~haewoon/papers/2010-www-twitter.pdf. 135
Ludeling, A. & Kyto, M. (eds.) (2008a). Corpus Linguistics: An International Handbook: 1. Mouton de Gruyter. Ludeling, A. & Kyto, M. (eds.) (2008b). Corpus Linguistics: An International Handbook: 2. Mouton de Gruyter. Marcuschu, L. A. (2004). Gêneros textuais emergentes no contexto da tecnologia digital. In: MARCUSCHI, L. A.; XAVIER, A. C. (orgs.) Hipertextos e gêneros digitais: novas formas de construção do sentido. Rio de Janeiro: Lucerna, pp.13-67. McEnery, T., Xiao, R. & Tono, Y. (2006). Corpus-Based Language Studies: An Advanced Resource Book. London & New York: Routledge. McEnery, T. & Wilson, A. (2001). Corpus Linguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Mukherjee, J. (2006). Corpus linguistics and language pedagogy: The state of the art – and beyond. Justus Liebig University. Gessen: Germany. Available at: http://www.unigiessen.de/anglistik/LING/Staff/mukherjee/pdfs/CorpusLinguisticsandLang uagePedagogy.pdf. O’keeffe, A., McCarthy, M. & Carter, R. (2007). From Corpus to Classroom: Language Use and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Orihuela, J. L. (2007). Twitter y el boom del microblogging. Retrieved from: http://portal.educ.ar/debates/educacionytic/super-sitios/twitter-y-el-boom-del-microblo.php. Paiva, V. L. M. O. (2008). O uso da tecnologia no ensino de línguas estrangeiras: breve retrospectiva histórica. In press. Available at: http://www.veramenezes.com/techist.pdf. Praca, G. M. S. (2011). Subjetividades fluidas, informações permanentes: o caso Mayara Petruso no Twitter. In: Intercom Sudeste. Retrieved from: http://www.intercom.org.br/papers/regionais/sudeste2011/resumos/R24-0270-1.pdf Prata, V. (2010). Ensino de inglês mira tecnologia. Folha de São Paulo – 01/08/2010. Caderno Educação. Available at: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/saber/776033-ensino-deingles-mira-tecnologia.shtml. Sá, E. M. (2005). Mecanismos enunciativos em diários virtuais: a emergência de posicionamentos enunciativos. In: Proceedings from the I Encontro Nacional de Hipertexto, Recife, PB. Sá, E. M. (2012a). The use of digital genres and social networks in English Language Teaching – enhancing interaction, developing communicative competence and promoting digital literacy. In: Proceedings from the INTED 2012, 6th International Technology, Education and Development Conference. Valencia, Spain. Sá, E.M. (2012b). Using Corpus Linguistics tools in Business English – a teaching experiment. In preparation. Sá, E.M. & Nunes, L.P. (2012). Language and learner corpora in ELT: reviewing the impact of Corpus Linguistics in the teaching of English. Submetido a publicação no BELT – Brazilian English Language Teaching. Porto Alegre: ediPUCRS. Sardinha, T.B. (2004). Linguística de corpus. Barueri, SP: Manole. Shaw, E. M. (2011). Teaching vocabulary through DDL. Brigham Young University. Available online: http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/files/Teaching_Vocabulary_Through_DDL.pdf. Silva, M. L. H. (2010). O Twitter dentro do Universo da Cibercultura – Uma Abordagem Teórica da Ferramenta. In: Intercom Centro-Oeste. Retrieved from: http://www.intercom.org.br/sis/regional/resumos/R21-0142-1.pdf. Tagnin, S. (2004). Corpora: o que são e para que servem (Corpora para Terminologia). Available online: http://www.fflch.usp.br/dlm/comet/Novo/Lexicografia.pdf. 136
ABBREVIATUREN IN DER DEUTSCHPRACHIGEN RUMÄNISCHEN PRESSE. EINE FALLSTUDIE AN DER NEUEN BANATER ZEITUNG UND DEM NEUEN WEG Irene STÜTZ The Institute of Germanistics, Vienna ABSTRACT In my project I would like to present the results of a scientific research of newspapers that I realized for the proseminar „Language Use: Linguistic Variety using the example of the German speaking enclaves in the Banat, Bucovina and Transylvania”. The research was carried through in the Austrian National Library. An assortment of Romanian newspapers in German dating back to the year of 1969 was analysed. Focussing on abbreviations, I used samples of newspaper articles on the one hand and on the other hand I realized a statistic scheme to get an overview of the language use. The results of both methods are corelated with the aspects of language economy and political instrumentalisation of language. Keywords: newspapers, abbreviation, romanian, german, linguistic variety
EINLEITUNG In der vorliegenden Proseminararbeit möchte ich meinen persönlichen Arbeits– und Lernprozess dokumentieren, den ich im Rahmen des Proseminars Sprachgebrauch: Varietätenlinguistik am Beispiel der deutschen Sprachinseln Banat, Bukowina und Siebenbürgen in Form einer durchgeführten Zeitungsrecherche im Archiv der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek durchlaufen habe. Den verwendeten Kanon bilden deutschsprachige rumänische Zeitungen aus dem Jahre 1969, im Speziellen folgende Ausgaben: Neuer Weg: 3.-4. Januar 1969, 1.-2. Juli 1969; Neue Banater Zeitung: 2. Juli 1969, 6.-14. November 1969. Nach einigen Besuchen im Zeitungsarchiv und Rücksprache mit Professor Gadeanu kristallisierte sich ein Thema für meine Untersuchung heraus, nämlich die Spezialisierung auf die Verwendung von Abbreviaturen. In meiner Untersuchung habe ich einerseits ausgewählte Zeitungsartikel auf Abbreviaturen analysiert und andererseits Statistiken angefertigt. Aus beiden Herangehensweisen entsprangen Schlussfolgerungen. Um einen Zusammenhang zu schaffen habe ich meine Ergebnisse in den Kontext der Sprachökonomie und der Politischen Instrumentalisierung von Sprache eingebettet. Durch die freie Wahl des Themas meiner Proseminararbeit und die eigenständige Recherche in der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek war ich sehr 137
gefordert, habe mir aber gleichzeitig im Bereich des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens einige wertvolle Fähigkeiten angeeignet, die mir im weiteren Verlauf meines Studiums und sicher auch später in der Berufswelt, nützlich sein werden. Wien, März 2011 1. ALLGEMEINES 1.1. Abbreviaturen als Form von Sprachökonomie „Unter Ökonomie (oder Wirtschaftlichkeit) kann man sich den größtmöglichen Effekt beim Einsatz der geringsten Mittel vorstellen.“ (Ernst 32) Mit dieser Definition nähert sich Peter Ernst in seinem Einführungswerk „Deutsche Sprachgeschichte“ dem Begriff Sprachökonomie, der eine Sprecherleichterung und damit die Bequemlichkeit des Sprechers impliziert. Während Ernst aber in weiterer Folge Assimilationen der verschiedenen Umlaute erläutert, wird hier der Bogen gezogen zur Sprachökonomie der Schriftlichkeit. Beim Schmökern in deutschsprachigen rumänischen Zeitungen aus dem Jahr 1969 stößt man auf zahlreiche, teils erklärte, teils unerklärte Abbreviaturen. Die Verwendung dieser Menge an Abbreviaturen kann als eine Form von verschriftlichter Sprachökonomie gedeutet werden. Mit plakativer, bündiger Sprache kann somit in dem Artikel einer Tageszeitung geballte Information weitergegeben werden ohne wertvollen Platz durch Ausformulierungen zu verschwenden. 1.2. Abbreviaturen als Trend Bei diesem Ansatz wird der Terminus „Kurzwort“ synonym mit „Abbreviatur“ verwendet. „Kurzwörter sind zum Charakteristikum des ausgehenden 20. Jahrhunderts geworden. […] In allen Sparten des öffentlichen Lebens ebenso wie in den Wissenschaften nimmt der Gebrauch an Kurzwörtern ständig zu. Besonders in der Fachkommunikation sind Kurzwörter heute nicht mehr wegzudenken – haben sie doch dort ohnehin eine lange Tradition.“ (Steinhauer 1). In der Fachkommunikation werden also immer mehr Kurzformen gebraucht, sowohl mündlich als auch schriftlich. Häufig existieren sogar mehrere „Abkürzungswörterbücher“ innerhalb einer Fachsprache nebeneinander, die Aufschluss über die Wortbedeutungen geben (Steinhauer 2-3). Die in der deutschsprachigen rumänischen Presse auftretenden Abbreviaturen stammen zumeist aus dem politischen Bereich. Mangels Ausformulierungen ist es ohne Vorwissen oft unmöglich die Bedeutungen aus dem Kontext zu erschließen. Ebensowenig existiert für die verwendeten Kurzformen ein Abkürzungswörterbuch oder -verzeichnis, sodass sich das Erschließen der Bedeutungen gewisser Abbreviaturen schwierig gestaltet. Über die Gründe für die Tendenz, immer mehr Kurzwörter zu bilden, ist man sich weitgehend einig. Im Vordergrund steht nach 138
einhelliger Meinung der Wunsch nach Sprachökonomie, die durch Wortkürzung erreicht werden kann (Steinhauer 2-3). 1.3. Kurzportrait der verwendeten Zeitungen • Neuer Weg Der Neue Weg erschien seit 1949 in Bukarest und bildete die einzige überregionale deutschsprachige Zeitung in Rumänien. Jahrelang war sie das „Organ des deutschen antifaschistischen Komitees“, dann ein „Organ der Volksräte“ und später, Mitte der 80er Jahre „Zeitung des Landesrates der Front der sozialistischen Demokratie und Einheit“ (Müller 350). • Neue Banater Zeitung Die Neue Banater Zeitung erschien als tägliche Kreiszeitung in deutscher Sprache in Temeswar. Sie wurde 1957 gegründet und erlangte eine Auflage von 16 000. Der Chefredakteur war Nikolaus Berwanger (Grothusen 564).
1.4. Politische Instrumentalisierung von Sprache „Es ist bekannt, daß auch im sogenannten Sozialismus, der sich angeblich immer von wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen leiten ließ und bei dem das Wort „Gesetzmäßigkeit“ eine Art Beschwörungsformel war, Sprachregelungen existierten, die die jeweilige taktische Position, die Parteilinie, getreu widerspiegelten.“ (Müller 334). In der Zeit vor 1989 zielten auch in Rumänien Massenmedien darauf ab, die Rumänische Kommunistische Partei (RKP) mit allen Kräften zu fördern und die Menschen in deren Sinne zu erziehen. Auch wurde man immer nationalbewusster (Müller 334). Die Partei wurde als Einheit gesehen und verkörperte sich in der Person des Staatspräsidenten und Generalsekretärs der RKP, Nicolae Ceauşescu. Alle Massenmedien sind völlig auf seine Person ausgerichtet und die ersten Seiten der Tageszeitungen sind reserviert für die Berichterstattungen seiner Amtshandlungen (Grothusen 560). „Seine oft stundenlangen Reden werden immer in vollem Wortlaut wiedergegeben. Reist er ins Ausland oder empfängt er einen ausländischen Besuch, so werden die jeweiligen Tischreden, das seitenlange Kommuniqué und oft noch zusätzliche lange Grundsatzerklärungen ebenfalls wörtlich wiedergegeben, und es gibt nicht wenige Zeitungen […], die in erster Linie Bilder des Präsidenten […] in vielfachen Abwandlungen wiedergeben.“ (Grothusen 560-561). Selbst großformatige Zeitungen sind oft zu drei Viertel mit Nachrichten über die Tätigkeiten Ceauşescus ausgefüllt (Grothusen 561). Dieser Weg zum neuen Personenkult erstreckt sich hauptsächlich über die Jahre von 1972-1989. Fast ein Jahrzehnt brauchte Nicolae Ceauşescu, um vom Generalsekretär der Partei zum Präsidenten der Republik und zum alles und alle beherrschenden Diktator zu werden (Müller 347). Superlative waren in der Berichterstattung beliebt und traten oft auf, außerdem Sprüche und Leerformen, die mit der Wirklichkeit kaum zu tun hatten. Deren Wurzel war der Totalitarismus. Demagogie und brutale Gewalt herrschten de facto vor, Befehlsstrukturen waren erkennbar und die Sprache wurde 139
missbraucht und politisch instrumentalisiert. In den Medien wurde ein gemeinsames Wollen der Bevölkerung vorgetäuscht, das sich in Unterwerfungsformeln äußerte (Müller 358). Abgesehen davon finden sich in diesen Zeitungen zahlreiche Kommentare und Berichte, die zu erhöhtem Einsatz in der Industrie und in der Landwirtschaft aufrufen (Grothusen 561). Man versuchte zum Beispiel den Gemüse– und Weinbau wieder zu intensivieren und hoffte auf Gewinne durch Export. Doch trotz täglicher Siegesmeldungen in den Zeitungen waren die Ergebnisse der Arbeitsproduktivität gering (Müller 344-345). Eine zusätzliche Schwierigkeit ergibt sich für die Zeitungen und Zeitschriften der Minderheiten, wie zum Beispiel der Deutschen, denn es war nicht immer leicht, die neuesten Schlagwörter aus der Landessprache in die Muttersprache zu übersetzen. Einerseits wünschte man möglichst originale Entsprechungen, andererseits orientierte man sich an den in Ostberlin verwendeten Wendungen, die vielleicht aus Moskau stammend schon einmal ins Deutsche übersetzt wurden (Müller 343). Meldungen über Unfälle und Verbrechen finden sich kaum, und wenn, nur unscheinbar aufgemacht, meist irgendwo versteckt. Diese Praxis verrät, dass viele Entscheidungen nur parteiintern geregelt werden. Auch die Auslandsberichterstattung ist eher zurückhaltend. Meist ist die letzte Seite der Großformate für die internationalen Berichterstattungen reserviert. Kulturellen Beiträgen wird neben den Rubriken Politik und Wirtschaft wenig Bedeutung beigemessen. Durch das Beziehen aller aktuellen Mitteilungen von der zentralen Nachrichtenagentur Agerpres (Agenţia română de presă) wird eine sorgfältige Beachtung aller Grundsätze und Anweisungen der Partei erleichtert. Agerpres besitzt rund 20 Zweigstellen im ganzen Land und somit ein Nachrichtenmonopol. Außerdem hat Agerpres auch Korrespondenten in vielen Hauptstädten der Welt und hat Austauschabkommen mit den meisten Nachrichtenagenturen abgeschlossen (Grothusen 561-562). 2. SEMANTISCHE ANALYSE ANHAND VON STICHPROBEN Im Folgenden werden anhand von ausgewählten Beispielen exemplarische Tendenzen erklärt, die sich bei einem genaueren Auseinandersetzen mit Kurzformen in einer Auswahl deutschsprachiger rumänischer Zeitungen aus dem Jahr 1969 ergeben. Als Anschauungsbeispiele werden drei Zeitungsartikel verwendet. 2.1. Abbreviaturen ohne Erklärung Wie eingehend schon erwähnt stößt man beim Untersuchen der Zeitungsartikel auf zahlreiche Abbreviaturen, die ein Vorwissen voraussetzen und im Rahmen des Artikels nicht erklärt werden. Natürlich ergeben sich manche Bedeutungen auch ohne das Wissen über die Bedeutung der Kurzformen aus dem Kontext, nicht zuletzt deswegen, weil einige Abbreviaturen noch heute verwendet werden. 140
Beispiel 1: Neuer Weg, 4. Januar 1969, S 5 Raketen auf US-Stellungen NBF-Einheiten haben Kampfhandlungen wieder aufgenommen Saigon (Agerpres.) – Nach der vom Oberkommando der NBF einseitig ver-kündeten dreitätigen Waffenruhe haben die südvietnamesischen Berfreiungskämpfer ihre Kampfhandlungen gegen die amerikanischen und Saigoner Truppen wieder aufgenommen. Ein Hubschrauber-stützpunkt in der Nähe von Da Nang sowie einige vorgeschobene US-Stellun-gen in der Nähe von Saigon waren Ziel-scheibe von Granaten– und Raketen-angriffen, die dem Feind grosse Verluste zufügten. Andererseits setzten die US-Truppen ihre sogenannten Säuberungs-aktionen in verschiedenen Teilen Süd-vietnams fort. * Im Einklang mit einem früheren Be-schluss des Zentralkomitees der NBF übergab eine Delegation des Oberkom-mandos der NBF im Gebiet von Nam Bo drei amerikanische Kriegsgefangene einer US-Militärdelegation. Die Freilassung die-ser Kriegsgefangenen wurde anlässlich des 8. Gründungstags der NBF beschlos-sen.
In diesem ausgewählten Zeitungsartikel kommt die Abbreviatur NBF vor, die für Nationale Beifreiungsfront steht. Es handelt sich um eine politische Textpassage, die über die jüngsten Geschehnisse im Vietnam-Krieg Bericht erstattet. In einem Artikel von insgesamt 27 Zeilen mit Überschrift finden wir die Abbreviatur NBF fünf Mal, während die Bezeichnung US vier Mal vorkommt. Das gibt Aufschluss über den offenbar weit verbreiteten Bekanntheitsgrad der beiden Abbreviaturen. Die Tatsache, dass der Begriff NBF am Anfang des Artikels nicht ausgeschrieben und erläutert wird, lässt darauf schließen, dass es sich um eine damals geläufige Bezeichnung handelt. Es wird vorausgesetzt, dass die RezipientInnen des vorliegenden Artikels wissen, was die Abbreviatur NBF bedeutet, dass sie also mit einem gewissen Vorwissen an das Lesen der Berichterstattung herangehen; ein Vorwissen, dass 40 Jahre später nicht mehr vorherrscht. Im Gegensatz dazu setzt sich die Bezeichnung US durch und wird auch heute noch verwendet. Ein anderer Artikel aus dem wirtschaftlichen Bericht wirft die Bezeichnung EWG (Neuer Weg, 2. Juli 1969, S 5) auf und meint damit Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft, die als Vorläuferin der heutigen EU gesehen werden kann. Auch diese Abbreviatur wird nicht erklärt oder ausgeschrieben, jedoch ist synonym von den „Sechs“ die Rede, was sich offensichtlich auf die Gründungsstaaten der Union bezieht (Belgien, die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Frankreich, Italien, Luxemburg und das Königreich der Niederlande). In einer weiteren Berichterstattung wird Bezug genommen auf einen TASSKorrespondenten (Neuer Weg, 3. Januar 1969, S 5), der einen Mitarbeiter der Sowjetischen Nachrichtenagentur bezeichnet. Auch hierbei wird das Wissen der Leserschaft über die verwendete Abbreviatur vorausgesetzt. Ein weiteres Beispiel stammt aus der Neuen Banater Zeitung vom 2. Juli 1969. Es handelt sich um einen landwirtschaftlichen Artikel mit dem Titel „Zur 141
Zeit der Heumahd“ auf Seite 2. Die hier geradezu exzessiv auftretende Bezeichnung LPG für Landwirtschaftliche Produktions-genossenschaft wird nicht erläutert. In einem Artikel, der sich über zirka eine halbe Großformat-Seite erstreckt, wird sie 12 Mal verwendet. Die Bezeichnung LPG findet man sowohl im Neuen Weg als auch in der Neuen Banater Zeitung häufig, sie scheint der alltäglichen Sprache inbegriffen zu sein. Die vor 1962 gängige Bezeichnung „Kollektivwirtschaft“ verschwand praktisch über Nacht, und an ihre Stelle trat LPG, ein Terminus, der auch in der DDR verwendet wurde (Müller 344). Ebenfalls in den wirtschaftlichen Bereich lässt sich die Abbreviatur RGW, Rat für gegenseitige Wirtschaftshilfe (Neuer Weg, 2. Juli 1969, S 5) einordnen, ein Begriff, der allerdings nicht erklärt wird. 2.2. Abbreviaturen mit Erklärung Natürlich trifft die definitionslose Verwendung von Kurzformen nicht ausnahmslos zu. Im folgenden werden einige Beispiele aufgelistet für Abbreviaturen, die im Rahmen des Zeitungsartikels erläutert werden. Ein Beispiel für eine Abbreviatur, die erklärt wird findet sich auf der selben Seite in einem Kurzbericht über sechs Zeilen. Neuer Weg, 2. Juli 1969, S 5 Einen 45-Millionen-Dollar-Kredit gewährte die UN-Organisation für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (FAO) der VAR. Der Betrag soll dazu dienen, in der Zeit von 1970 bis 1974 die Ernährung von rund 100 000 Arbeitern im NilDelta sicherzustellen.
Die FAO bezeichnet also die UN-Organisation für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft. Wahrscheinlich lautet die englische Bezeichnung dafür Food and Agriculture Organisation. Diese Schlussfolgerung ist naheliegend, scheint aber in dieser Form ebenfalls nicht explizit in der Zeitung auf. Die Bedeutung des R in VAR geht aus der Berichterstattung nicht hervor. Tatsächlich steht VAR für Vereinigte Arabische Republik und bezeichnet die Staaten Ägypten und Syrien, die bis 1961 einen Zusammenschluss gebildet hatten. Ebenfalls in den wirtschaftlichen Bereich lässt sich die Abbreviatur ELDO (Neuer Weg, 4. Januar 1969, S 5) einordnen. Sie bezeichnet die Europäische Organisation für die Entwicklung von Trägerraketen, die Buchstaben der Kurzform sind auf die englische Bezeichnung European Launcher Development Organisation zurückzuführen, die 1962 gegründet wurde. In einem wissenschaftlich-technischen Beitrag tritt die Bezeichnung IRME (Neuer Weg, 2. Juli 1969, S 3), Betrieb (oder vielleicht Institut) für die Rationalisierung und Modernisierung der Energieanlagen auf. Im selben Artikel stößt man auf ISPH, Institut für hydroenergetische Studien und Projektierungen. Im Gegensatz zu der oben angeführten politischen Abbreviatur NBF werden diese wissenschaftlich-technischen Bezeichnungen erläuternd ausgeschrieben. Ein weiteres Beispiel stammt aus der Neuen Banater Zeitung vom 4. Juli 1969: 142
Plenum des Zentralkomitees der ISP Pietro Nenni ruft zur Einheit auf / Beobachter behaupten, die „Scheidung“ sei unvermeidbar
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Bei dem vorliegenden Dokument wird schon in der vierten Zeile die im Titel vorkommende Abbreviatur ISP erläutert als Italienische Sozialistische Partei. Im folgenden 335 Wörter langen Artikel tritt die Bezeichnung ISP sieben Mal auf. ISDP bezeichnet hier die Italienische Sozial-Demokratische Partei. Ebenfalls auffällig ist die Abbreviatur ZK in der letzten Spalte im oberen Drittel, die nach dreimaligem Ausschreiben des Wortes Zentralkomitee aus der Reihe tanzt. Hier handelt es sich um einen politischen Text und die Kurzformen beziehen sich auf politische Parteien. Immer wieder auftretende Abbreviaturen bezeichnen zahlreiche Staaten und Staatsformen. Sie kommen oft vor und werden nur selten ausgeschrieben. (Neuer Weg, 1. Juli 1969, S 5): CSSR: Tschechoslowakische Sozialistische Republik VR: Volksrepublik SSR: Sozialistische Sowjetische Republik UdSSR: Union der Sozialistischen Sowjetrepubliken SFR: Sozialistische Föderative Republik 3. STATISTISCHE ANALYSE ANHAND VON VIER AUSGABEN Um einen weiteren Überblick über die Häufigkeit der Verwendung von Kurzformen zu erhalten, wurden vier Ausgaben deutschsprachiger rumänischer Tageszeitungen systematisch untersucht und empirisch ausgewertet. Für die Erstellung einer Statistik über die verwendeten Abbreviaturen wurden zwei Ausgaben der Zeitung Neuer Weg und zwei Ausgaben der Neuen Banater Zeitung untersucht. In der ersten Spalte sind die abkürzenden Bezeichnungen angeführt, in der zweiten Spalte das Gesamtvorkommen in der Ausgabe. Die dritte Spalte zählt die Artikel, in denen die Abbreviatur auftritt. Die letzte Spalte gibt an, wie oft die vorkommende Abbreviatur im Rahmen des Artikels erklärt wird. Zumeist findet man keine Erklärung dazu. Die letzte Spalte wurde pro forma angelegt, denn in einigen Artikeln ergibt sich die Bedeutung der Abbreviatur aus dem Kontext oder ist noch heute bekannt; erklärt wird sie innerhalb der Berichterstattung jedoch nur sehr selten. 3.1. Neuer Weg In der Zeitung „Neuer Weg“ wurden alle Artikel untersucht, bis auf das Rundfunk– und Fernsehprogramm, das Kreuzworträtsel und dessen Auflösung. Der volle Titel der Zeitung lautet „Neuer Weg – Politische Tageszeitung in der Sozialistischen Republik Rumänien“ und ist mit dem Slogan „Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!“ versehen.
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Beispiele: Im Neuen Weg vom 4. Januar 1969 tritt beispielsweise die Abbreviatur DR (Demokratische Republik) insgesamt fünf Mal in einem Artikel auf. Die Bedeutung wird dabei nicht ausgeschrieben oder erklärt. Daraus lässt sich ableiten, dass die Bezeichnung DR für LeserInnen 1969 nicht erklärungsbedürftig war und somit ein gängiger Ausdruck. Die Abbreviatur BRD kommt im Neuen Weg vom 4. Januar 1969 insgesamt sieben Mal in zwei Artikeln vor. Das hängt in dieser Ausgabe einerseits mit einem Sportartikel zusammen, in dem ausführlich über die Nationalitäten der Sportler Auskunft gegeben wird, andererseits mit einer Bücherliste, in der ebenfalls die Nationalitäten der Autoren erwähnt werden. Sowohl Bücherliste als auch die Sport-Endergebnisse werden als ein Artikel gezählt. Allerdings weisen die Abbreviaturen auch unerwartete Variationen auf. Im Neuen Weg vom 2. Juli 1969 stößt man ebenso wie in der Ausgabe vom 4. Januar 1969 auf die Abkürzung EM. Jedoch beschreibt die Bezeichnung EM in der JuliAusgabe eine brasilianische Unterwelt-Organisation namens Esquadrãos Da Morte, während es sich in der Januar-Ausgabe um die Europameisterschaft handelt. Die oftmalige Nennung von UdSSR im Neuen Weg vom 2. Juli 1969, zehn Nennungen in neun Artikeln, entstammt Sport-Kurzmeldungen, wobei jede Kurzmeldung als eigener Artikel gezählt wurde. Die Häufung der UdSSRNennungen ist außerdem auch politisch erklärbar, da Rumänien 1969 dem Warschauer Pakt angehörte und unter der politischen Schirmherrschaft Moskaus stand. Die Angabe von 0,5 Erklärungen bei der Abbreviatur UNO erklärt sich dadurch, dass in dem Artikel einmal UN-Organisation 1 geschrieben steht. Es handelt sich daher vielleicht in Ansätzen um eine Erklärung, aber dennoch keine vollständige.
1
siehe oben „Abbreviaturen mit Erklärung“, S 9.
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Neuer Weg, 2. Juli 1969
Abbreviatur ADAS BRD CEC CSSR DDR DR ELDO EM
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2 7 1 2 4 5 3 1
1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1
Abbreviatur ADAS AK BRD CEC Anmerkung CFR 0 CSSR 0 Sportteil und Bücherliste CSSR 0 DDR 0 EM EWG 0 FAO 0 FIFA 0 FSE 0 IOK IRME ISPH KP LKW NASA NL NW PVC RGW RKP SFR SSR UdSSR UNO US USA USAP VAR VDR VKJ
be n) Ge sa mt vo in rko wi mm ev en ie l da en vo Ar ne tik e ln rkl ä rt (a u sg es ch rie
Ge sa in mtvo wi e v rkom iel en men Ar tik eln
Neuer Weg, 4. Januar 1969
2 1 3 1 1 1 4 9 4 11 1 3 1 3 3 1 2 1 1 1 23 1 3 8 1 3 10 3 9 10 2 1 1 4
1 1 2 1 1 1 4 8 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 15 1 1 7 1 3 9 3 4 7 1 1 1 2
Anmerkung 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 bezeichnet „Esqu 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 hängt zusammen 0.5 es steht „UN-Orga 0 0 0 0 0 0
3.2. Neue Banater Zeitung Auf dem Titelblatt einer jeden Ausgabe der Neuen Banater Zeitung findet man täglich drei Elemente; den Titel „Neue Banater Zeitung“, den Untertitel „Organ des Kreiskomitees der RKP und des Kreisvolksrates Temesch“ und den Slogan „Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!“. Die Abbreviatur RKP tritt also gewissermaßen schon im Titel der Zeitung auf und dieser wurde als ein Artikel gerechnet. Auch in der Neuen Banater Zeitung wurde das Fernsehprogramm aus der Analyse ausgeklammert. Die Zeitung tritt in zwei Formen auf: Die untersuchte Juli-Ausgabe ist noch ein traditionelles Großformat wie der Neue Weg. Ab November 1969 wird die Neue Banater Zeitung aber im Kleinformat gedruckt, das etwa halb so groß ist wie die vorhergehenden. Eine Layoutveränderung im Kleinformat äußert sich in der Statistik: Im Kleinformat steht auf jeder Seite neben der Seitenzahl die Bezeichnung NBZ, deswegen kommt diese Abbreviatur in der November-Ausgabe 22 Mal vor. Diese Seitenzahl-Vorkommen wurden als ein Artikel gezählt. Beispiele: In der Ausgabe vom 2. Juli 1969 tritt die Bezeichnung LPG insgesamt 17 Mal in drei verschiedenen Artikeln auf, ohne einmal erläutert zu werden. Wie oben bereits erwähnt erklärt sich die 22-malige Wiederholung der Abb NBZ durch die Anführung derselben neben der Seitenzahl. Eine weitere Häufung ebendieser Abbreviatur findet man in Form eines Interviews, in dem die fragende Person als NBZ bezeichnet wird. Die normalerweise immer abgekürzte Bezeichnung RKP tritt in dem politischen Leitartikel 2 von der November-Ausgabe ausgeschrieben auf, scheinbar nur, um den Artikel in die Länge zu ziehen. In beiden Zeitungen wird die Kurzform der Titel (NW bzw. NBZ) vermehrt verwendet. Der Grund dafür ist vermutlich eine Eigenwerbung oder die Intention, diese Abbreviatur im Alltagssprachgebrauch der LeserInnen zu etablieren.
2
siehe oben „Politische Instrumentalisierung von Sprache“, S 5.
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Abbreviatur BRD 4 DDR 1 DIFOT 1 FSE 1 IRUM 1 km 1 KP 1 kV 3 LKW 1 LPG 17 NATO 2 NBF 1 NBZ 8 Nr. 1 PS 1 RKP 8 SSR 1 UNESCO 1 UNO 1 USA Fazit 4 VEB 1 ZK 1
Abbreviatur AGVR 1 1 ARLUS 2 1 DSAPC 1 1 kW 1 1 LKW 15 3 LPG 6 3 MEN 1 1 NATO 3 1 NBZ 22 10 Nr. 9 3 S 2! PS 2 1 RKP 5 3 UdSSR 4 2 USA 1 1 VKJ 2 2 VSVR 1 1 Teil d. Titels: „Neu ZK 3 1
Anmerkung
2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 8 1 1 5 1 1 1 4 1 1
0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Neue Banater Zeitung, 7. November 1969 Ge sa mt vo in rko wi m ev i da e l e me n vo nA ne rtik rkl eln ä rt (a u sg es ch rie be n)
Ge sa mt vo in rko wi mm ev i e da e le vo nA n ne rtik rkl e ln ä rt (a u sg es ch rie be n)
Neue Banater Zeitung, 2. Juli 1969
Anmerkung 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 auf jeder Seite ne 0 0 0 Tritt im politische 0 0 0 0 0
In der stichprobenartigen Untersuchung deutschsprachiger rumänischer Zeitungen aus dem Jahr 1969 ist die Verwendung von Kurzformen auffällig hoch. Grund für diese Tendenz ist die Sprachökonomie. Meist werden die verwendeten Abbreviaturen nicht definiert, was ein Lesen und Verstehen der Zeitungsartikel 40 Jahre später erschwert. Viele Bezeichnungen sind für heutige LeserInnen unklar. Es erfordert ausgiebige Recherche, um die ursprünglichen Bedeutungen dieser Abbreviaturen zu erschließen. Einige davon, wie zum Beispiel USA, UNO oder LKW haben bis heute überlebt, andere wiederum nicht. Allerdings ist diese Geschwindigkeit im Sprachwandel lediglich für die Abbreviaturen festzustellen. Der Fließtext der untersuchten Artikel weißt heute, 50 Jahre später, keine wesentlichen Unterschiede zum Gegenwartsdeutsch auf.
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LITERATURVERZEICHNIS Kanon Neuer Weg, 3. Januar 1969 Neuer Weg, 4. Januar 1969 Neuer Weg, 1. Juli 1969 Neuer Weg, 2. Juli 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 2. Juli 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 6. November 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 7. November 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 8. November 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 9. November 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 10. November 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 11. November 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 12. November 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 13. November 1969 Neue Banater Zeitung, 14. November 1969 Sekundärliteratur Ernst, Peter: Deutsche Sprachgeschichte. Eine Einführung in die diachrone Sprachwissenschaft des Deutschen. Wien: Facultas Verlags– und Buchhandels AG, 2005. Grothusen, Klaus-Detlev (Hg.): Rumänien. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977. (= Südosteuropa-Handbuch Bd. 2). Müller, Hans: Wortschatz und Losungen der Diktatur in der rumäniendeutschen Presse (1949-1989). In: Steineke, Klaus (Hg.): Die Sprache der Diktaturen und Diktatoren. Beiträge zum Internationalen Symposion an der Universität Erlangen vom 19. bis 22. Juli 1993. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1995. Steinhauer, Anja: Sprachökonomie durch Kurzwörter. Bildung und Verwendung in der Fachkommunikation. Tübingen: Günter Narr Verlag, 2000.
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A BRIEF FORAY INTO LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS AND THE MODERN USE OF TECHNOLOGY Dara TAFAZOLI University of Applied Science & Technology, Iran Sebastian CHIRIMBU Spiru Haret University, Bucharest ABSTRACT For the last few decades, digital media have dramatically impacted almost every aspect of human life. As Stevan Harnad (1991) predicted than two decades ago, they have brought about a fourth revolution in the means of production of knowledge, joining the great prior revolutions of language, writing, and print. The field of education has been slower to integrate new technologies than many other fields of endeavor, but that is now changing. The role of digital media in language and literacy learning is especially important, given how new technologies are transforming reading, writing, and communicating. For many language learners around the world, new digital environments represent not only a useful means for learning language, but also the main medium in which they will actual use their second language in every day life. Keywords: education, technology, CALL, context of learning
1. INTRODUCTION Using technology in pedagogy is important for both teachers and students. Technologies can handle a range of activities and carry out programmed functions in different situations. However, technology has not yet gotten to the point where it can make real difference in educational environments. This short introduction is aiming to have a brief review on different tools and devices my use in our classrooms. Perhaps the most important aspect of applying different technologies in our classroom is computer competence. Most our students have had little or no experience with computers; or some have technophobia. But we can use some more user-friendly technologies in our classes. One of the major advantages of using technology in education is that this field is highly eclectic. The advantages of application of technology in language learning classes or what is called Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is mentioned clearly by several scholars in Leech and Candlin (1986): 151
1.
Computers can cope with real needs of individuals. (Phillips,
1984). 2. They increase motivation, mainly in non self-motivated students. (Windeatt, 1984). 3. Computers are more and more familiar with everyday even for young students and contribute to break the walls between the classroom and the outside world. (Phillips, 1984). 4. There is an improvement of security. (Alderson, 1984). 2. BRIEF HISTORY OF CALL From the middle of nineteenth century to date, some learning theories are emerged. The rise of Behaviorism, inspired by the ideas of Skinner (1957), has had a significant influence on language learning. Behaviorists believes that utterances and speeches served as conditioned and stimulus response. Thus, they consider reinforcements and associations as the main factors in language acquisition. The applications of CALL from 1960s to 1970 were greatly influenced by Behaviorism. At that time, most of the CALL programs usually based on grammar and vocabulary tutorials, drill-and-practice programs which followed the computer-astutor model (Warschauer, 1996; Warschauer & Healey, 1998). According to Behaviorism principles, we can guess that these programs designed to provide immediate feedback on the learners` accuracy, and they emphasis was on explicit grammar instruction. Cognitive psychologists focused on the significance of meaning, knowing and understanding that construct internal representations. The second phase of CALL development emerged along with cognitive constructivist views of learning in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is focused on this issue that CALL should be concentrate on using languages more than language itself. In this period, the first principles of communicative approach to language learning manifested. The focus on forms shifted to focus on form by computer-base learning. Moreover, it encouraged students to produce original utterances rather than manipulate prefabricated ones. Vygotsky (1930) placed more emphasis on social context of learning, although he shared many of Piaget’s assumptions about learning. He believed that social interaction plays a fundamental role in cognitive development. He claimed that everything is learned on two levels: (1) through interaction with others, and then (2) integrated into the individual’s mental map. In Vygotsky’s opinions, the social cultural environment gives people the cognitive tools needed for learning. This attitude towards learner’s interaction developed CALL programs for meaningful interaction in authentic discourses.
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3. TECHNOLOGY-BASED TOOLS IN CLASSROOMS 3.1. Podcasts & RAs One of the first tools in our all classrooms is audio files in CDs, USBs and other devices. Graham Davies (2005) claims that the single piece of technology that has affected language learning most is the cassette recorder. After those audio and MP3 files, today other audio files such as podcasts are created. Podcast or audio blogs are downloadable broadcasts with Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds which allow listeners to subscribe (Salameh, 2011). It is a new way in teaching languages and provides better materials (McNicol, 2004; Chartrand & Pellowe, 2007; Kargozari & Tafazoli, 2012). The major difference with traditional Internet audio or radio broadcasts is that podcasts can be listened to when and where the user chooses to, and that they are automatically delivered to subscribers (Diem, 2005; Sloan, 2005).
Fig. 1. Taxonomy of uses of podcasting for language learning (Rosell-Aguilar, 2007: p. 477)
Real Audio (RA) is another audio file that my help us in language classrooms. Nunan (1993) believes that allowing students to choose the information they will listen to or watch is inherently motivating. Tuzi (1998) in a study mentioned that “RA sound clips are intrinsically motivating as the materials themselves are of interest to the students”. He also claimed that RA has some benefits to students such as: …listening to information that interests them, listening to sound clips over and over again, listening to a variety of voices which strengthens listening ability, being encouraged to become more independent learners, listening to spontaneous speech, and reading and listening at the same time. (Tuzi, 1998).
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3.2. Video clips & Vodcasts The use of films in classes has been a popular method of teaching for many years. Some research papers reported the positive effects of language learning with video clips (McGreal, 2004). Naturally, watching full-length films is not always the best way to spend classroom time with our students (Heffernan, 2005), but it is possible to bring some movie and trailers into classrooms. Vodcast is a combination of "vod" and "cast". Vod is an acronym for "video on demand" and "cast" stands for broadcasting (Kargozari & Tafazoli, 2011). Vodcasts are posted on the internet and can be played back on mobiles, personal computers, or laptops. Vodcast that is called video podcast has one advantage over podcast and it is its ability to connect visuals to audio. Vodcasts as well as podcasts have potential to support learning in a range of settings and across multiple disciplines. Kargozari & Tafazoli (2011) in a study confirmed the fact that the use of vodcasts was a valuable means of instruction. Students had access to the material of instruction whenever and wherever they liked. 3.3. Mobile Cell phones are one of the most wide spread and available devices for education in the hands of almost every university student (Chirimbu 2012:41) Most of them are equipped with functionalities including internet access, mp3/mp4 player, digital camera, video recorder and many are Flash-enabled and/or Javaenabled and can run multimedia contents including audio and video. Among different disciplines which took advantage of mobiles we can call the field of language learning. Today Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) is moving into the field of language acquisition and is used as a device to improve different aspects of language learners' proficiency (Kukulska-Hulme & Shield, 2007). Mobile devices have the potential of moving language learning from predominantly classroom –based learning contexts into contexts that are free from time and space and in which learning is to a larger extent defined by learners’ participation, engagement and context awareness (Levy & Kennedy, 2005). Mobile devices such as the mobile phone enable the learner to learn from context and in context, gathering information from the environment and requiring support and assistance when this is needed. This kind of appropriate support can be seen as a form of scaffolding (Naismith, et. al., 2004). Song & Fox (2008) found that some learners were capable of using a mobile device to support and extended their learning in self-directed ways. Michelsen (2008) suggested a self-directed and learner-centered design of mobile learning which enables second language learners to practice language by their own pace. Stockwell (2007) has explored vocabulary learning on a mobile device. They found that mobile phones facilitated vocabulary learning among their subjects. Several studies tried to integrate cell phones into language learning, for an example using SMS to teach English language (Qing Li, 2008; Thornton & Houser, 2003; Kargozari & Tafazoli, 2011). 154
3.4. Internet & Web 2.0 The Internet has become a very powerful tool in our daily life. Using email, weblog, social networks, etc. became a vital part of our life. This amazing invention becomes popular in education, too. With the widespread use of the Internet, many online tools are increasingly available for use in educational and non-educational settings. In view of the need for CALL researchers and practitioners to find, choose, use and evaluate educational tools for further development and implementation of CALL, it should be fruitful to introduce new and useful tools that can be used for language learning and teaching. Bicknell (1999) stated that using the Internet and its applications act as a motivational apparatus which gives students the chance to use all four language skills. The Internet also allows students to connect with each other in ways they normally would not be able to do (Haffernan, 2005). Web-based activities such as message boards, chat rooms, email, and discussion groups provide learners with a healthy forum in which to communicate with others. Healy (2000) noted that the above activities give learners a "direct and immediate communication between peers while using genuine language". From psychological point of view, Warschauer's study (1997) noted greater participation by so-called "shy" students when using the Internet as a language-learning tool. 3.4.1. Internet Communication Tools Communication tools enable students and teachers to make audio and video calls over the Internet. By these tools, it is necessary for users to have a microphone and audio capabilities. Some scholars used the Internet communication tools in their education (Davis, 2006; Mirtschin, 2008; Smith, 2009; Stephenson, 2009; Waters, 2008; Eaton, 2010). One of the main features of these tools is crosscultural exchanges with other students in different countries. Eaton (2010) believes that Skype, a communication tool, can be used to provide a variety of authentic learning experience to students. 3.4.2. Emails Email as one of the Internet-based devices, “the mother of all the Internet applications” (Warschauer, Shetzer, & Meloni, 2000), has been under investigation of so many scholars and they find it a useful device in education (Belisle, 1996; Liao, 1999; Fox, 1998; Trokeloshvili & Jost, 1997; Muehleisen, 1997). Wilkinson (1996) tries to encourage other teachers to introduce e-mail into their classrooms by giving the most basic guidelines for teachers and students, together with the URLs of places to find teacher partners to set up a successful e-mail connection. Nagel (1999) in a study deals with more advanced issues connected with the use of e-mail in teaching, and specifically with how to be most effective and to get optimal results in the use of e-mail as an instructional tool. Oxford (1997) believes that emails can be a medium of real communication in the target language, including composing and exchanging messages with other students in the 155
classroom or around the world. According to Gonglewski, Meloni & Brant (2001) emailing has so many benefits in pedagogy such as: …extends language learning time and place, provides a context for realworld communication and authentic interaction expands topics beyond classroombased ones, promotes student-centered language learning, encourages equal opportunity participation, and connects speakers quickly and cheaply. 3.4.3. Concordancing Hasselgard (2001) defined that corpora, plural term of a 'corpus', refer to electronic authentic language databases that can be available via internet or as software installed in desktops. A concordance is a list of the occurrences of either a particular word, or a part of a word or a combination of words in context and it is drawn from a text corpus, which is presented in context. A corpus is a large body of text often in electronic format. (Baker, 1995; Francis, 1993; Johansson, 1995; Leech, 1991; St.John, 2001) Nowadays, concordancing is a tool that has been used by teachers, linguists and researchers in different fields as it provides authentic context. There are some free online resources from the Internet such as British National Corpus (BNC), Virtual Language Center (VLC), and the International Corpus of English (ICE). Moreover, a study of Gaskel and Cobb (2004) shows that learner also can use concordance feedback for writing errors. 3.4.4. Weblogs Godwin-Jones (2006) describes weblogs as “one, large, loosely interwoven net of information, as blog entries are linked, referenced, and debated”. Weblogs are other useful devices that have some features such as interactivity, collaboration and achievability. The number of educational blogs soars in recent years. Some papers are published and presented about the potentiality of weblogs in education (Williams & Jacobs, 2004; Kadjer & Bull, 2004; Blood, 2002; Godwin-Jones, 2006; Oravec, 2002; Martindale & Wiley, 2005; Murray & Hourigan, 2006). 3.4.5. Word Clouds Wordle is a kind of data visualization tool. Barret (2010) defines data visualization tools as devices which use for representing information in the form of charts, maps, tag clouds, animation or any graphical means that make content easier to understand. Friendly (2008) mentioned that data visualization serves as a way to communicate information clearly and effectively through visual representation. These tools can help to make the understanding of complex thing easier because they provide data in multi aspects incorporating visual, textual animated input and etc. Wordle.net is a useful web 2.0 tool for English for foreign or second language classes, enables teachers and students to provide word clouds for language classrooms. Tafazoli (2012a) used some techniques for teaching different language skills and components in which teachers benefit from and use them in their classes. 156
3.5. Video Games Today, playing video games is detachable part of every child’s life. Although there is a tendency towards using new technology in language classes, but there is a less tendency towards video games. Some teachers believe that video games are time consuming and they are not very efficient tools. Game-Based Learning (GBL) refers to different kinds of software applications that use game for learning or educational purposes. In recent years, both in potential of computer game as learning and teaching tools and in research into their use, there has been interesting interest. So many studies supported the applications of video games in classrooms (Wolfe & Crookall, 1998; Reiber, 1996; Tafazoli, 2012b). Integrating game-based learning into more coherent view of learning relies upon two factors: (a) preparation of learners to adapt to a new learning tool, and (b) institutional support. Oblinger (2004) says: “Games also offer advantages in terms of motivation. GBL has this ability to integrate different cognitive tools, such as discussion forums, bulletin boards and concept mapping software. Whitton (2007) stated that “games researchers tend to be highly motivated to play games themselves, and do not consider those individuals for whom game playing is not motivating, or indeed is actually demotivating”. 4. CONCLUSION To sum up, we would like to conclude with some general remarks about successful planning and implementing technology in our classrooms taken from Warschauer and Whittaker (1997). They stated that teachers should carefully consider their goals, since little is gained by adding random on-line activities into the classroom. Clarifying course goals act as an important first step toward the successful use of technology in classrooms. The next vital aspect of the technology-based instruction is integration, and the teacher should think about how to integrate technology-based activities into the syllabus. Also, the teacher should be aware of all the complexities of using technology in learning environment, such as cultural, infrastructural, structural, etc. difficulties. We have to be careful that computers can not change the role of teachers, but they use to support and assist teachers and learners in different situations. Technology offers learners opportunities for much more valuable communicative interaction in the target language than was ever possible in the traditional language classes. We would urge language teachers to make use of technology in their language classrooms. Such projects are a good way of motivating students to use technology outside the classroom and to make learning a part of their daily lives. Although it is to some extent impossible to present all technology tools and devices in a paper, but this paper has presented a range of projects, papers and studies; while it would probably not be desirable or even possible to use all of these devices with one class, we hope that you will use some of the ideas here with your classes. 157
BIBLIOGRAPHY Arrington, M. (2005). 85% of college students use Facebook. TechCrunch. Retrieved on September 30, 2005 from http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/09/07/85-of-college-students-use-facebook/. Baker, P. (1999). Creating learning communities: The unfinished agenda. In B. A. Pescosolido & R. Aminzade (Eds.), The social works of higher education (pp. 95-109). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press. Barret, T (2010) Forty-five Interesting Ways to Use Wordle in the Classroom [Slideshare slides], Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/boazchoi/fortyfive-interesting-ways-to-use-wordle-in-theclassroom. Bartlett-Bragg, A. (2006). Reflections on Pedagogy: Reframing Practice to Foster Informal Learning with Social Software. Retrieved from http://matchsz.inf.elte.hu/TT/docs/Anne20Bartlett-Bragg.pdf Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, 210-230. Charnigo, L., & Barnett-Ellis, P. (2007). Checking out Facebook.com: The impact of a digital trend on academic libraries. Information Technology and Libraries, 26, 23-34. Chirimbu, S (2012, 2013) Curriculum development, Cermi, Iaşi, p.41 Dwyer, D. (1994). Apple classrooms of tomorrow: What we`ve learned. Educational leadership, 51, 7; p. 4-10. Facebook Press Room. (2011). http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics. Friendly, M (2008) A Brief History of Data Visualization, in C.-H. Chen, W. K. Härdle, & A. Unwin (Eds.), Handbook of Computational Statistics: Data Visualization (pp. 15–56). New York: Springer. Hewitt, A. & Forte, A. (2006). Crossing boundaries: Identity management and student/faculty relationships on the Facebook. Presented at the Computer Supported Cooperative Work Conference, Banff, Alberta, Canada. Kargozari, H. R. & Tafazoli, D. (2011). Vodcasting: A reusabale learning object to teach writing. Presented paper at the proceedings of the 4th international ELT conference on practical aspects of ELT, Fatih University, Turkey, Istanbul. Kargozar, H.R. & Tafazoli, D. (2012). Podcasting: A supporting tool for listening. Proceedings of INTED2012, Spain: Valencia, pp. 3870-3873. Kukulska-Hulme, A. & Shield, L. (2007) Overview of Mobile Assisted Language Learning: Can mobile devices support collaborative practice in speaking and listening? Paper retrieved at http://vsportal2007.googlepages.com/, last accessed January 21, 2012). Lenhart, A. & Madden, M. (2007). Social Networking Websites and Teens: An Overview. January 15th, 2009, from http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/198/report_display.asp Levy, M., & Kennedy, C. (2005). ‘Learning Italian via mobile SMS’. In A. Kukulska– Hulme & J. Traxler (Eds.) 76-83. Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Educators and Trainers. London: Taylor and Francis. Mathews, B. S. (2006). Do you Facebook? networking with students online. College & Research Libraries News, 37, 306-307. Mazer, J. P., Murphy, R.E., & Simonds, C. J. (2007). I’ll see you on ‘Facebook’: The effects of computer-mediated teacher self-disclosure on student motivation, affective learning, and classroom climate. Communication Education, 56, 1-17. Michelsen, K. (2008) Tradition, innovation, or both? A research and practice model for the design of a digital revision space for the University of Cambridge First Certificate in English exam, paper 3. Master of Arts thesis, King’s College London, School of Social Science & Public Policy. Muñoz, C. L. & Towner, T. L. (2009). Opening Facebook: How to Use Facebook in the College Classroom. Presented at the 2009 Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education conference in Charleston, South Carolina.
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II. LITERATURĂ, STUDII CULTURALE A TRIBUTE TO TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’ PROSE: MEMOIRS OF AN OLD CROCODILE Maria ALEXE Technical University of Civil Engineering, Bucharest
ABSTRACT The whole title of his book Memoirs of an Old Crocodile, shows the author ironic vision upon himself as well as his talent as a prose writer. Starting with his happy childhood the book is not following a straight line, being at the same time postmodern and an example of the so called stream of consciousness, one story opening the gate for the next one. The analysis is not intending to recommend this book because it is a masterpiece, but because it shows a different Tennessee Williams and is a proof of how sincerity may impresses the readers of all times. The wonderful part concerning this controversial work is the fact that it presents the glamorous world of Hollywood and New York artistic life as well as the dark side of an artist’s life, his addiction to pills his phobias and alcoholism. The whole book is an expression of the freedom of speech turned into literature. Keywords: prose, sincerity, commitment, realism, autobiographical If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. George Washington – first American President
Tennessee Williams whose real name was Thomas Lanier Williams III is an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theatre. His work is a complex one, as he also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs. His professional career lasted from the mid 1930s until his death in 1983. Many of his plays are regarded as classics of the American stage, but he was not a successful writer from the very beginning, his first great success Glass Menagerie was in 1944. Williams adapted much of his best known work for the cinema. As mentions in his autobiographical book, Memoirs of an Old Crocodile, Tennessee had a happy childhood, even if his family was not a rich one and they had to move from one place to another due to all sort of financial problems. Tom, as he used to be called in his childhood, never had a brilliant relationship with his father, a hard-drinking travelling shoe salesman, who spent most of his time away from home and who did not encourage him writing. 161
Tennessee Williams loved his mother, Edwina, who was an archetype of the ‘Southern belle’. He called her Mrs. Edwina and had tolerant attitude concerning her behavior which quite often was neurotic and hysterical. He was very close to his maternal grandparents and long periods in his early childhood were spent in their house in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Tennessee Williams developed a close bond with his sister Rose. When a young girl Rose was diagnosed with schizophrenia and later institutionalized following a lobotomy, and she spent most of her adult life in health institutions. Her brother visited her as often as he could and paid for her care. Rose is considered to the model for some of Tennessee Williams’ most remarkable characters. Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie was understood to be modeled on Rose. Some biographers believed that the character of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire is also based on her. Between 1948 and 1959 seven of his plays were performed on Broadway: Summer and Smoke (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1951), Camino Real (1953), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Orpheus Descending (1957), Garden District (1958), and Sweet Bird of Youth (1959). By 1959 he had earned two Pulitzer Prizes, three New York Drama Critics' Circle Awards, three Donaldson Awards, and a Tony Award. This decade was the best of his literary career. The 1940s and 50s were a period of global success, on the other hand the 1960s and 70s brought personal problems and theatrical failures. Critics and audiences alike may have failed to acknowledge Williams' new style and innovative approach to theatre he developed during 1960s and were redundant to accept daring and different work, much more critical. Williams said, “I’ve been working like a son of a bitch since 1969 to make an artistic comeback… there is no release short of death”(Spoto 335), and “I want to warn you, Elliot, the critics are out to get me. You’ll see how vicious they are. They make comparisons with my earlier work, but I’m writing differently now” (Spoto 331) 1. His personal life was not happy either. It was in this period that Williams’ long-time companion, Frank Merlo, died of cancer. This lost caused him a deep depression and Tennessee Williams began to depend more and more on alcohol and drugs and though he continued to write, completing a book of short stories and another plays like The Night of the Iguana. The film, on the other hand, was a great success, probably because the main roles were interpreted by Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborach Kerr 2. In 1969 his depression was so severe and he became totally deepened on alcohol and drugs so he was hospitalized by his brother. He managed to recover by writing his Memoirs.
1
Spoto, Donald. The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 1997. 2 It won the 1964 Academy Award for Best Costume Design, and was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography. Actress Grayson Hall received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and Cyril Delevanti received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
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In 1975 he published Memoirs, which detailed his life telling stories about him and his friends and family and discussed his addiction to drugs and alcohol, as well as his homosexuality. It is in this book that the writer expresses his opinion that sincerity and honesty have to be the major aim of any writer. In 1980 Williams wrote Clothes for a Summer Hotel, based on the lives of Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but this was not a great success and once again the writer was disappointed that the audience did not fallow him. Only three years later, Tennessee Williams died in a New York City hotel, (in his suite at the Elysee Hotel) on February the 25th. He was only 71 years old and it is most probably that the use of drugs and alcohol may have contributed to his death. Contrary to his expressed wishes (he wanted to be buried by the sea) but at his brother Dakin Williams' insistence, Tennessee Williams was interred in the Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri. For his attitude and mainly for his opinion expressed in Memoirs, Tennessee Williams was blacklisted by Roman Catholic Church, which condemned his books and his scripts as “revolting, deplorable, morally repellent, and offensive to Christian standards of decency.” Tennessee Williams’ way to glory was not an easy one, although he succeeded in becoming a successful writer, well known all over the world. After staging several worldwide famous plays as The Glass Menagerie or A Street Car Named Desire, produced in the ‘50 and immediately turned into scripts for Hollywood films, his way of writing in a very sarcastic and bitter way started to be questioned by the critics. One by one they left him alone. It was in 1972, when he was asked to write his Memories, a strategy imagined by his editors to keep him into the public attention. It was not for the first time when he writes prose instead of drama. In 1948, Tennessee Williams travelled to Europe and coming back he published his first novel The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, (adapted into a film in 1961 3). Now we do not know exactly which were the public and the critics’ attitude concerning his prose in the ‘60. At the time he was mainly a writer of several successful dramas and movie scripts. The ’60 was a terrible time for Tennessee Williams. After his lover Frank Merlo’s death he felt into a deep depression and nobody was capable to comfort him. He was more and more under the drugs and alcohol influence, more and more hysterical and incapable of communication. Beside of Frank’s death his career as a playwright was failing and his new plays could not reach the popularity of his first plays and he started to run out of money. When the editors asked him to write his Memories he accepted, at the beginning, mainly for financial reasons. He confesses in the book that it was for the first time that he wrote for money. He states in Memoirs that the only thing he ever wrote for monetary reasons is the very memoir that he is in the process of writing. This was only his starting attitude, because during the writing process he was
3
Recently the novel was adapted for stage and this new text is performed at Teatru Mic in season 2011-2012.
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captivated by his own work and felt comfortable in this, in that shape of writing, a kind of self revelation 4. The strange and ironic subtitle was suggested by what told him his cardiologist from New Orleans. Once after a visit, the doctor said to Tennessee Williams to go home and live as a crocodile. At the beginning he ignored his advice because he thought that living as a crocodile meant to sink and to splash to mud, a way of life Williams hated. Then he understood that it meant living for what you really liked, immune to other aspects of live, quite a conservative way of living. It was the moment when he decided to consider himself an old crocodile. “Tennessee Williams’s theatre has enjoyed a steady appreciation in our country, as evidenced by the large number of translated pieces, mounted and played on the Romanian scene continues to maintain freshness and to capture public attention because of the originality of the message and addressed topics but also due to the artistic skill of the author” (Chirimbu 2012:12). In the ’60 and ’70 the American writer’s plays were subject of great theatrical success due to very original way of interpreting. Head line roles in The Glass Menagerie, A Street Car Named Desire were interpreted by great Romanian actors. On the other hand the Memoirs translation had to wait. It was only in 2010, that Minerva Publishing House offered to its readers the translation of this book, due to Antoinette Radian’s translation. Almost thirty years passed, the general mentality has changed a lot, in USA as in Romania, social debates are much more open to all sort of subjects, but Tennessee Williams’ book is still shocking a large category of his readers. The critical judgments can be divided at least into two parts. Some like Ovidiu Şimonca in his chronicle published in the cultural magazine Observatorul literar is impressed by the Memoirs, when others as the literary critic Dan C. Mihăilescu, or professor Bogdan Ulmu, from National University of Theatre and Cinema Art are disappointed lecturing the book. They consider that this volume does not fulfil their expectations and that from the literary value point of view the prose does not reach the level of his plays. They consider that the whole book is nothing else then a journal of his love affairs, described in an interesting way. Personally, I cannot agree with their opinion. The writer is always pointing the deep connections between his life and his work and those two aspects cannot be separated. When he speaks about his beloved sister Rose, often called Miss Rose, Tennessee Williams is underlining the similarities between her and some of the characters of his plays, mainly Blanche (A Streetcar Named Desire) one of the most outstanding of his feminine characters. At the same time there are a lot of details about the way in which he selected the actors or the directors for his plays. It is quite obvious that for Tennessee Williams his whole life was cantered around his work. One of the most interesting aspects concerning the Memoirs is the way in which he describes the writing process of most of his work.
4
Apud Ovidiu Şimonca– Observatorul cultural, 511/2010. feb. – Homosexual, depresiv, neprefăcut şi scriitor.
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The writing process Tennessee Williams wrote his book during three years, from 1972 to 1975 and considered that as a good therapy for his soul. Finally published under the title Memoirs of an Old Crocodile the book was a great scandal and lot of readers were shocked by the stories written there. Reading the book now, one has to make an effort to imagine the social atmosphere, even in the artistic environment of the 70. The sexual revolution has just started and homosexuality was still a forbidden subject for public debates, a thing to be ashamed of. In front of an American society which still had quite a puritan way of thinking, Williams revealed his homosexuality, his problems with drugs and alcohol, hypochondria and described his life with a great, even cruel sincerity, but finally everything is connected to his writing. A nice young boy he once met at a party is turned into a character, he comes or goes to a performance, and he has to travel because he has to write. When he started to write his Memoirs, Tennessee Williams was 61, not a young artist anymore, but not really old, successful as plays and scripts writer, known worldwide, experiencing the success on Broadway, as well as at Hollywood. The fact that his creation is associated with great stage directors as Elia Kazan or actors as Marlon Brando, as well as scripts for successful movies, contributed to turn him into a worldwide known writer. The decline of his glory as well as various conflicts he has with American mass-media are largely described and debated in his book. He notice the fact that Orpheus Descending (wrote in 1952, stage 1959. 60) was rejected by New York public and media, but was appreciated in Russia where the play was performed successfully for 8 seasons. One of the most interesting facts that can be noticed by the reader of the year 2012 is that in the ’70 Tennessee Williams uses quite a postmodern way of writing his Memories. The writer completely ignores the chronological development of the action, constructing and deconstructing different periods of his life. All kinds of episodes of his young ages, evoking his happy childhood the early days as a professional writer (unsuccessful at the beginning) are interrupted by episodes relating meetings with famous writers as the Russian poet Evtuşenco, glamorous Hollywood life, his meeting with students from Yale University, part of his life as a crocodile. At the same time his way of writing has certain resemblance with that call the stream of consciousness, proper to William Faulkner or Virginia Woolf. Memoirs of an Old Crocodile, the ironic title which shows Williams’ opinion about himself, is a jagged read, moving from far past tense to present-tense within paragraphs at times, and you can feel his decline in capability. Many paragraphs end with ellipses, as though you can feel him trailing off, unsure what the point of writing the memoir is. All the time he seems to have a dialogue with his potential reader. Despite those obviously influences of postmodernism Tennessee Williams was concerned about the construction of his plays and wrote in the Memoirs: “I realize how very old-fashioned I am as a dramatist to be so concerned with classic form but this does not embarrass me, since I feel that the absence of 165
form is nearly always, if not always, as dissatisfying to an audience as it is to me. He is sometimes definitely in favour of classical unity I persist in considering Cat my best work of the long plays because of its classic unities of time and placer and the kingly magnitude of Big Daddy. There are in Memoirs passages in which Tennessee Williams is imagining a dialogue with his readers. As many postmodern writers do now, he continues by imagining certain answers. Then he talks to himself as the most important witness of his activity, approving or disapproving his words or his attitude. The author always took care of his characters and he always selected himself the actors for his plays. In Memoirs he underlines that he never agree to give a part to an actor/actress he considered to be inappropriate and this was a way of protecting his work. The readers are invited to approve his attitude. Somewhere in the Memoirs he writes about the way in which Marlon Brando received the main role in A Streetcar Named Desire. Reading Tennessee Williams’ book the reader faces images of important modern writers (they are literary characters) such as Ernest Hemingway, Jean Paul Sartre, or fancy meetings at White House with President John Kennedy and the French writer André Malraux. Then all of a sudden he writes about the period when he was just a simple bell boy in Manhattan, or a waiter in a picturesque restaurant in an obscure New Yorker neighborhood. He starts speaking about things that happened “yesterday” and then all of a sudden turns back to the ’30, the time when he was a student or a young anonymous author. He talks about his success with The Glass Menagerie and on the same page he refers to the way in which The Night of the Iguana; ‘a dark and bitter play’ was rejected by public and critics. Even if it is not obvious from the very beginning, reading the Memoirs one may discover the dramatist creative mechanism. There are in Memoirs pages were he remembers the days of Sweet Bird of Youth (1959) first rehearsals, his nervous attitude, his fear that it should turn into a failure. He is ready to give up the rehearsals and the text itself. No matter what his feelings or condition was the audition for a play was a major event. For the first performance of Sweet Birds of Youth the director was Elia Kazan and the main actors Paul Newman and Geraldine Page, nevertheless Tennessee Williams was quite anxious about the way the play would be accepted by the public. With the same directness, compassion, and insight that epitomize his plays and his own life the writer speaks about his amazing friends from the worlds of stage, screen, and literature. Sometimes he writes in a melancholically way, other time quite ironic. He always expresses his feelings for people like: Laurette Taylor, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, Elia Kazan, Marlon Brando, Vivian Leigh, Carson McCullers, Anna Magnani, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, and Tallulah Bankhead to name a few. About Lorette Taylor, the wonderful actress who played in his first great success The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams wrote: “I also wrote that there are sometimes hints, during our lives, of something that lies outside the flesh and its mortality. I suppose these intuitions come to many 166
people in their religious vocations, but I have sensed them equally clearly in the work of artists and most clearly of all in the art of Laurette. There was radiance about her art, which I can compare only to the greatest lines of poetry, and which gave me the same shock of revelation as if the air about us had been momentarily broken through by light from some clear space beyond us”. The book is more about the man and his deep feelings than about his career as may be some of his readers expected. He readily concedes that he is not about to bore himself and others to death with chronological descriptions about the fruition of each play and the way in which it was staged. As he says here: "The plays, what about them? If this was a book only about my plays, it would be a very short book. The plays speak for themselves". In fact, there is nothing chronological about this book. The reader does not learn spectacular things about Tennessee Williams in his Memoirs but he is impressed by his complete sincerity in analyzing his feelings and his relationship with the others. A kind of nostalgia, concerning certain moments of his life, such as his happy childhood or the days he spent with his friend in bungalow on the sea shore, can be noticed. The book helps one better understand how autobiographical many of his works are. From his upbringing by a tyrannical, indifferent and alcoholic father, who was disappointed in his "sissy" son, his overbearing mother, and his relationship with his lifelong, deepest love, his sister Rose and his beloved grandfather, they are all there in Williams’ plays. Tennessee Williams had many lovers, but he was deeply attached to Frank Merlo. When Frank died he was disoriented and he described his relationship like that: “As long as Frank was well, I was happy. He had a gift for creating a life and, when he ceased to be alive, I couldn’t create a life for myself”. After his death he found it difficult to write but writing was the best therapy. That is why he wrote in his Memoirs: “Work!! – the loveliest of all four-letter words, surpassing even the importance of love, most times! Very interesting are the pages where the author recalls the days when he had started to write. In his childhood he was very ill, than in a magical way he recovered. After that miraculous recovering he never was the same. Before he was a very active child, suddenly after the illness he turned into a lonely child. He thinks that his mother encouraged him to stay inside and to play alone. Probably due to his isolation his imagination developed and when he was 12 had started to write. Since then writing was always his major concern and a kind of comfort. The key word for the way in which Tennessee Williams writes about his life is sincerity. He does not try to impress his reader or to ask for his compassion he just tries to present things as they are. Tennessee Williams – his characters and his friends Memoirs of an Old Crocodile is not a journal is not a collection of stories about a writer who became famous, is much more than that is a book about the author and his family and friends. The remarkable facts concerning the history of 167
literature are there because Tennessee Williams and his friends took part to them. Some of the described facts were considered quite scandalous at the time and that is why sometimes the writer changes the name. Sometimes he considers that it is important for his readers to be witness of real facts. An example is his first meeting with Hemingway and Fidel Casto, the Dictator of Cuba. The meeting took place at Floridity, the place where Hemingway used to spend his time when he was not on see, and it was a pleasant surprise. He was expecting a kind of macho man and instead he discovered a charming fellow, friendly, even a little bit shy. They started talking about the corridas, one of Hemingway’s hobbies. Tennessee Williams was not very keen on that sort of fights, but he knew Antonio Ordonez, one of Ernest Hemingway’s idols. The conversation goes on and Williams asked Hemingway to facilitate him a meeting with Fidel Castro. There are some lines, written in a very drama style which brings in front of the reader two titans of American literature. Even in 1975, when the book was first published to be a gay was not an easy attitude to assume. After the sexual revolution of the ’60 it was okay to speak about love life in general but not about love between two men. For Ernest Hemingway, for example it was okay to describe his love life because he was straight, but for a gay man it was (and still largely is) expected to be kept discreetly in shadow zone of his life. But Tennessee was not ashamed of his nature and not ashamed of his life and his relationships, in that way this memoir (and his life itself) is an act of cultural defiance. Some of his feminine characters are artistic projections of his beloved sister Rose, a strange person, suffering of mental disease. Her illness started in their childhood and the poor girl could never have a normal life, for long periods of time she lived in various institutions. Remembering the nice days of their childhood, Williams describes in details a scene which was very impressive for him and is very touching for his readers and of great significance in analyzing the relationship with his sister: Then there was the wild weekend Mother and Dad had gone to the Ozarks, I believe, and Rose and I were alone in the house on Pershing. That weekend I entertained my new group of young friends. One of them got very drunk – maybe all of them did – but this particular one got drunker than all of us put together and he went up on the landing, where the phone was, and began to make obscene phone calls to strangers. When our parents returned from the Ozarks, Miss Rose told them of the wild party and the obscene phone calls and the drinking. I was informed by Miss Edwina [Williams’ mother] that no one of this group should ever again enter the house… After she had tattled on my wild party … I went down the stairs as Rose was coming up them. We passed each other on the landing and I turned upon her like a wildcat and I hissed at her: “I hate the sight of your ugly old face!” Wordless, stricken, and crouching, she stood there motionless in a corner of the 168
landing as I rushed on out of the house. This is the cruelest thing I have done in my life”. His first meeting with one of his favourite actors, Marlon Brando is described in a beautiful way and is a representative scene which shows Williams’ attitude concerning his friends. It was summer and he and his friends had gone at Cap Code where he wanted to finish his play A Streetcar Named Desire. It was in that bungalow in Cape Cod that Blanche’s last line was written. The play was ready and as usual he was afraid of the public reaction. Having one of his anxiety crises was absolutely sure that the performance would be a failure. One day Elia Kazan sent him a young actor named Marlon Brando. When Brando arrived he started to fix all sort of things in the bungalow and around it and then he played for the audition. It was an informal audition yet very convincing and after many years Tennessee Williams was still convinced that Stanley Kowalski was the most important role played by Brando on stage. Most of his roles were done for the cinema and the writer considers that Brando could be a very good actor in theatre. A Chance – The Cinema When Tennessee Williams became a famous writer, both Broadway and Hollywood were at their climax. To be staged in one of those places was a supreme glory. He had the great chance to see his plays not only on Broadway, the most famous stage in America, but also at Hollywood. He wrote screenplays for The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Names Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly, Last Summer, The Rose Tattoo. The cinema gave him fame and celebrity all over the world. Of course, the productions of his most successful plays – round the world since the first productions – helped give Williams some financial stability that he really needed. But financial stability isn’t everything for; he the cinema meant a rewarding experience and the opportunity to meet wonderful people. He writes about miraculous meeting with Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy – who was a remarkable Blanche DuBois, in A Streetcar Named Desire with Anna Magnani, with Elia Kazan, his favourite director. He evokes the wonderful friendship and commitment for all those stars. Williams recalls with a sort of nostalgia the glamorous period of Hollywood and all those stars come to life due to his funny little stories. At the same time he makes some comments about the changes in the way of acting, comparing the tendencies of the ’50 (when most of the films with his screenplays were made to those of the ’70. He is definitely in favour of a natural way of acting and considers that cinema itself has manage to find it own language, way of representation, different to the theatre. As he said he always has loved the cinema, may be not as much as the theatre, but he liked even more the cinema of the ’70. In the book he remembers scenes during the time they were working together, meetings with famous actors, his disputes with Elia Kazan. The writer was willing to compromise up to a certain point, but then there was a point where he wanted to have the last word, because as he underlined “wrote the damn thing”. 169
An example is given by retelling the dispute about the revisions to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, it turned into a titanic fight between Kazan and Williams. It seemed that Kazan was winning the battle (the production went with Kazan’s version) but Williams winning the war (the published version having both Kazan’s and William’s versions, with a long explanatory essay from Williams about how he still preferred his own version). Sometimes he wanted to give up the whole production, and the studios were forced to negotiate with him. Conclusion In the end of his Memoirs the writer’s own conclusion is that his life deserves a book, even if it was so much influenced by madness, alcohol and psychotic accesses, because it was his writing which always helped him and finally saved him. He was lucky to have good friends and good models, among whom Cehov has to be mentioned in the first place, because he was his mentor and then Ibsen whose plays made him to write drama. Tennessee Williams comes in front of his readers and describes what he likes and what he hates without any fear of being ridiculous or misunderstood. Many beautiful words were written about Rome, his favourite town and a lot of arguments were given against towns he hated. The inherent drama, passion and thirst for life itself jump out of the page and carry one through to the end and the potential reader can't help, but be touched by his humanity and his passion and his drive to express himself through his art. Reading his Memoirs one may feel that Williams (as always) has had the last say. His Memoirs are (like so much of his work) ahead of their time – so ahead of their time that they were not completely understood when first performed or read, ultimately they seem timeless. His whole work and the analyzed book as well is a mind-boggling body of work, when looked at it as a whole. It continues to grow in stature, and now it is going to be reconsidered. As one of Tennessee Williams prose reviewer I strongly believe we may assume that Williams, finally get rid of his anxiety and will have the last laugh. He is a nonconformist writer virtually wandering in postmodern society. He was a visionary able to see the face of American in the third millennium and that is why people still goes to his movies and watches his plays. After reading the book the best thing to say was written by John Waters in the Introduction of the 2006 edition of the Memoirs. I never met Tennessee Williams[...] But reading his Memoirs it’s like having a few stiff drinks with Tennessee on one of his good nights as he tells you juicy stories that were once out of record. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexe, M., Faţa mai puţin cunoscută a unui dramaturg –Tennessee Williams Memorii, CD Lucrările prezentate în sesiunea omagială din cadrul Sinuc 2011, Bucureşti, 15-16 decembrie, pp. 7-11. 170
Chirimbu, S. “Tennessee Williams. Biographic landmarks and echos of his work in Romania” in 100 Years Celebration of an Ever Young Writer.Critical Essays,Ed. Universităţii Emanuel din Oradea, 2012. Jackson, M. Eather, Tennessee Williams in vol The American Theatre Today, Basic Books, Inc. Publishers, New-York, London, 1977. Mihăilescu, D., C, www.protv.ro/omul care aduce cartea, luni, 29 iunie, 2011. Ralian, A., Tennessee Williams. Memorii – România literară, nr.45, 2008. Şimonca, O., Homosexual, depresiv, neprefăcut şi scriitor, Observatorul cultural, 511, feb. 2010. Williams, Tennessee, Memoirs of an Old Crocodile with an Introduction by john Waters, edited by New Directions Book, New York, 2006. Williams, Tennessee, Memorii ale unui bătrân crocodil, Editura Minerva, Bucureşti, 2009.
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AS MUITAS CARAS DE A MURALHA: UMA LEITURA PARATEXTUAL Samantha BORGES Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brasil RESUMO Este trabalho apresenta a análise do processo de adaptação da obra A Muralha, de autoria de Dinah Silveira de Queiroz, para o formato minissérie, escrita por Maria Adelaide Amaral, sob a perspectiva da paratextualidade, definida pelo autor francês Gerard Genette em sua Teoria da Transtextualidade. Para compreender a transtextualidade também são introduzidas as concepções de dialogismo, trabalhado por Mikhail Bakhtin e de intertextualidade, desesnvolvida por Julia Kristeva. A narrativa literária A Muralha foi encomendada à autora em homenagem ao aniversário de 400 anos da cidade de São Paulo, ocorrido no ano de 1954. Já a minissérie foi transmitida pela Rede Globo de Televisão, no ano 2000, em comemoração aos 500 anos de descobrimento do Brasil. A partir de uma leitura transtextual, observa-se que os elementos paratextuais, ao serem modificados, transformados ou reescritos no processo de adaptação de A Muralha, constroem novos significados sobre o texto pré-existente e enriquecem o diálogo entre as narrativas. Palavras-Chave: Paratextualidade; Adaptação; Genette; A Muralha
DIALOGISMO E INTERTEXTUALIDADE: A BASE DE UMA LEITURA TRANSTEXTUAL A teoria da adaptação apresentou, ao longo do tempo, inúmeros estudos que visaram fundamentar teoricamente o processo adaptativo e especialmente compreender a relação construída entre o texto que dá base a uma adaptação e o texto adaptado propriamente dito. Mikhail Bakhtin (1993), já destacava, no início do século XX, a importância de se compreender esse constante diálogo entre textos, denominado por ele como dialogismo. O autor russo se torna o primeiro a organizar uma teoria sobre a concepção dialógica entre os textos e que mais tarde será resgatada sob o termo intertextualidade por Julia Kristeva. Para Bakhtin, o texto não deve ser entendido como algo isolado, pois tanto sua produção quanto sua recepção “dialogam” com outras esferas de constituição individual, social e cultural. O “dialogismo” bakthiniano se refere no sentido mais amplo, às infinitas e abertas possibilidades geradas por todas as práticas discursivas da cultura, a matriz de expressões comunicativas que “alcançam” o texto não apenas através de citações reconhecíveis, mas também através de um processo sutil de retransmissão textual. Qualquer texto que tenha “dormido com” outro texto, como disse um 173
gracejador pós-moderno, também dormiu com todos os outros textos que o outro texto já dormiu (STAM, 2006, p. 28). Bakhtin é o pioneiro ao trabalhar com termos como polifonia, plurilinguismo e dialogismo, todos ligados diretamente à concepção de que um texto é uma construção dialógica entre diferentes vozes e textualidades, que inclusive não estão de maneira alguma apartadas de sua condição social e cultural. A multiplicidade de discursos que podem compor um texto, considerando-se assim a sua relação inevitável com outros textos já apresentados torna-se, enfim, o embrião para a intertextualidade, que virá mais tarde revisar o conceito que Bakhtin fundou ainda na década de 20. Dialogismo e intertextualidade apresentamse assim como ideias próximas e complementares: segundo Samoyault (2008, p. 18) “em todo texto a palavra introduz um diálogo com outros textos; eis a ideia que Julia Kristeva toma emprestada de Bakhtin, acarretando sua euforia neológica e sua abstração teórica”. É partindo do prisma de Bakhtin – do dialogismo –, portanto, que Kristeva é a primeira autora a utilizar o termo intertextualidade, também corroborada na década seguinte por Genette, que formaliza as questões debatidas pelos autores anteriores através dos estudos do Estruturalismo e Pósestruturalismo. JOGO TRANSTEXTUAL: A PARATEXTUALIDADE EM FOCO O teórico francês Gerard Genette, em seu livro Palimpsestes, oferece como alternativa ao estudo do texto o conceito de “transtextualidade” ou “tudo aquilo que coloca um texto em relação com outros textos, seja essa relação manifesta ou secreta” (GENETTE, 2006, p. 07). O estudo de Genette aprofunda as pesquisas sobre o dialogismo e a intertextualidade, bem como retoma suas próprias investigações, trazendo novos critérios de análise do texto, que para ele, deve ocorrer de maneira a compreendê-lo em sua “transcendência”. O objeto texto não é trabalhado somente em sua singularidade, mas também em suas relações transtextuais, abarcando assim outros elementos como a paratextualidade (termo que Genette utilizava em pesquisas anteriores), a arquitextualidade, a metatextualidade, a intertextualidade e a hipertextualidade. Dessa maneira o conceito de transtextualidade se torna mais completo – e logicamente mais complexo – para a análise textual. Assim, juntamente com a leitura dialógica e a intertextual, a transtextualidade expressa a capacidade de poder lançar incessantemente ao jogo textual novos olhares, significados e sentidos. Uma transposição, ou o que chamamos aqui em nosso trabalho de adaptação, é uma das formas desse jogo, em que aspectos culturais, históricos, sociais, políticos e, principalmente, mercadológicos, definem o que é transformado, refeito, ampliado, reduzido, reformulado. Como o próprio Genette afirma, dificilmente as modificações realizadas em uma transposição são inocentes: elas ocorrem de maneira a responder e encaixar-se em uma lógica cultural e de mercado que vigore no momento de sua produção. 174
A transtextualidade não foi configurada por Genette em um estudo sobre adaptação televisiva, objeto de análise deste trabalho, porém, Stam destaca a transposição possível desses critérios, no desenvolvimento de um estudo analítico sobre o processo adaptativo cinematográfico, apresentando a transtextualidade, de maneira sucinta, em: 1. Intertextualidade: efeito de co-presença entre dois textos, geralmente na forma de referências e conhecimentos anteriores que são assumidamente conhecidos; 2. Paratextualidade: relação, dentro do texto a seus paratextos (na literatura os paratextos são títulos, prefácios, epígrafes, etc. No cinema, é todo o material solto do texto, como pôsteres, trailers, resenhas, entrevistas com o diretor, franchise, etc.); 3. Metatextualidade: relação crítica entre um texto e outro (adaptação que nega outras versões ou adapta sob o ponto de vista de personagens secundários), ou evocação silenciosa do mesmo (relação difusa e não declarada com o romance original); 4. Arquitextualidade: reescrita de títulos ou subtítulos com o objetivo de criar novas sugestividades sobre a obra original; 5. Hipertextualidade: relação entre um texto (hipertexto) que transforma, modifica, amplia, reelabora um texto anterior (hipotexto). Nesse artigo, a análise irá concentrar sua atenção ao jogo paratextual construído no processo de adaptação da obra A Muralha para a sua versão no formato minissérie televisiva. Segundo Genette, o critério que diz respeito ao aspecto paratextual de uma obra literária ou, como o próprio prefixo do termo indica, todos os textos que circundam paralelamente o texto literário em si, torna-se importante por tratar, muitas vezes, de elementos que se configuram no primeiro contato entre o leitor/telespectador e obra/adaptação. Tem-se entre esses elementos os títulos, a capa, os subtítulos, os prefácios, pósfacios, notas, epígrafes, ilustrações, até mesmo autógrafos que influenciam na leitura da obra: ao ter o livro em mãos, a partir desses elementos paratextuais, o leitor já está “lendo”. Resumidamente, muitos desses paratextos antecedem a leitura do texto em si, gerando no leitor certa expectativa em relação ao que vai encontrar na obra e mesmo influenciando na recepção do texto pelo leitor. Para Genette (2006), a paratextualidade traz ainda questões problemáticas como quando ocorre a reescrita de um paratexto ou quando um texto é, por exemplo, publicado após a morte do autor: teria o autor, realizado modificações nessa publicação? E que significações diferentes são construídas a partir de possíveis modificações paratextuais? Esses questionamentos geram discussões um tanto quanto incertas ou superficiais, ou ainda, como conclui Genette (2006, p. 11) “a paratextualidade, vê-se, é sobretudo uma mina de perguntas sem respostas”. A partir desses aspectos e questionamentos, serão observadas abaixo alguns diálogos construídos entre os elementos paratextuais da obra A Muralha e sua adaptação televisiva. PARATEXTUALIDADE NO PROCESSO DE ADAPTAÇÃO DE A MURALHA Para passar das 414 páginas do livro para os 49 capítulos de minissérie, a história de A Muralha sofreu várias alterações. Além disso, a minissérie inicialmente faria parte de um projeto maior em comemoração aos 500 anos de 175
descobrimento do Brasil, que abarcaria a produção não de uma, mas de cinco minisséries, cada uma delas correspondente a um dos cinco séculos de história do país. Alguns fatores na articulação da minissérie mudaram os rumos de sua produção. Em entrevista disponível no site de acervos da Rede Globo, Maria Adelaide Amaral, autora da minissérie, relata que ao sentarem-se para reunião os prováveis cinco autores para as respectivas produções, cada um deles escolheu rapidamente o “seu século” a ser trabalhado, restando-lhe o século XVI. Questionada sobre o que faria, ela imediatamente mencionou São Paulo – segundo ela um verdadeiro “chute” –. “E o que seria São Paulo no século XVI?”, foi questionada novamente. Sem pestanejar a autora respondeu: “A Muralha”. A proposta foi aceita, porém as outras minisséries foram suspensas e optou-se por aumentar a trama, que primeiramente havia tido a extensão estipulada em mínimo de oito e máximo de 24 capítulos, chegando aos 49 capítulos transmitidos em 2000. Isso aumentou a responsabilidade de se realizar uma grande produção. Outro porém, que trouxe mudanças significativas na adaptação da narrativa ao meio televisivo, foi o fato de que, ao ter a obra em mãos, Maria Adelaide descobriu que o romance não se passava no século XVI e sim em finais do século XVII e início do XVIII. Maria Adelaide conta na entrevista o que pensou: Vou fazer retroagir a ação histórica e vou colocar essa história em 1599, não na época da Guerra dos Emboabas, mas eu vou falar não só exatamente sobre a trama romântica, mas eu vou usar os avós desses personagens, os primeiros, os pioneiros bandeirantes. Aquele pessoal que não saía pra descobrir nem ouro nem pedra, aquele pessoal que saía pra pegar índio mesmo. Os primeiros habitantes, os primeiros brancos da terra, São Paulo 1 Essa última circunstância foi decisiva na criação de novos personagens, de novas tramas e de nova temáticas históricas que não foram abordadas na obra original. Além disso, as modificações ocorreram tanto na narrativa em si, quanto em seus elementos paratextuais. Vale sempre relembrar que a análise dessas mudanças será feita de maneira comparativa entre obra e minissérie, mas que mais importante que uma simples identificação do que foi modificado, permutado, alterado, é tentar observar de que maneira esses elementos, dispostos de maneira diferenciada na adaptação, transformaram a percepção e fruição da narrativa. Que novos significados são postos em jogo em determinada alteração? Que novos aspectos são trabalhados? O que muda ao se omitir um determinado aspecto da trama? Tais questionamentos contribuem para que a análise não permaneça apenas na busca por diferenciações, mas que se permita adentrar no terreno da reflexão. O suporte audiovisual se apropria de elementos e obras literárias para criar seus produtos, mas por outro lado também a literatura pode se valer de produtos veiculados nos meios de comunicação em suas produções. Sandra Reimão, em “Livros e televisão: correlações” dedica um capítulo à adaptação que realiza o 1
Depoimento retirado de www.memoriaglobo.globo.com
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caminho inverso, ou seja, ao invés de a obra literária ser adaptada para o cinema ou televisão, é uma telenovela que é adaptada em forma de livro. O processo, denominado “novelização”, foi empregado pela primeira vez a partir da telenovela A Deusa Vencida, transmitida pela TV Excelsior e que foi transformada em livro entre os anos de 65 e 66 (Reimão diz não ter encontrado data exata da publicação durante a pesquisa a diversos acervos). Duas décadas mais tarde, em 1985, a Rio Gráfica Ltda. lança, no Rio de Janeiro, uma coleção de 12 volumes intitulado As Grandes Telenovelas, que apresentava a adaptação em forma de texto de novelas de grande repercussão na grade de programação da Rede Globo. Já nos anos 2000, diversos roteiros de novelas e minisséries Globais foram publicados, como A Invenção do Brasil, Presença de Anita, além de álbuns ilustrados sobre temáticas desenvolvidas em produtos mediáticos, como Um outro olhar: O Mundo Árabe e Islã Através da Novela O Clone, material produzido a partir da telenovela O Clone, transmitida pela Globo entre 2001 e 2002. Esses diferentes processos de transposição de narrativas para os diversos suportes colocam em foco como literatura e mídia podem seguidamente estar em diálogo, independente de que percurso que realizem e sempre em uma via de mão dupla, em que os dois objetos, quando em contato, se transformam. Veremos que a obra A Muralha, percorreu um caminho inverso de maneira peculiar, não a partir de um processo de novelização propriamente dito, mas a partir de algumas modificações em seus paratextos, como a capa, por exemplo. Observemos três capas do livro e a capa do DVD da minissérie: a sua primeira edição, em 1954; uma edição de 1961; e por fim, e mais importante, a edição publicada em 2000, mesmo ano de veiculação da minissérie na Rede Globo. Dessa forma é possível perceber uma mudança entre as capas anteriores à minissérie Global e a que foi publicada no ano de transmissão da mesma, mudança essa provocada justamente pela difusão da narrativa televisiva. Nas capas de 1954 e 1961, assim como outras capas encontradas em acervos digitais como edições de 1969 e 1971, há semelhanças: em todas elas há uma figura feminina e pouco se tem de ilustrativo referente à Serra do Mar – a muralha de que trata a obra. Já na edição de 2000, os elementos representativos da Serra e especialmente o logotipo utilizado na abertura da minissérie são inseridos na capa, além de nela estar contida explícita referência ao programa televisivo, na frase “Romance que inspirou a minissérie”. Essa mudança na apresentação de um paratexto, que representa o primeiro contato do leitor com a obra – capa – mostra como é possível observar que a literatura não se desenvolve de maneira isolada, mas em correspondência às características culturais e tecnológicas de sua época. Isso significa – e está demonstrado através das capas abaixo dispostas em Figura 2 – que assim como é correto dizer que o cinema e a televisão se valem da literatura para produzir suas ficções, a literatura não passa incólume de sua convivência com o avanço da cultura imagética: ao longo do tempo, o próprio fazer literário se modifica. Observa-se isso tanto nas inovações narrativas da contemporaneidade, como nas diferentes concepções de tempo e espaço, quanto como realizado na última edição de A Muralha. 177
Figura 1: Capas da obra A Muralha, respectivamente dos anos de 1954, 1961, 2000 e capa do DVD.
A aproximação do leitor à obra é feita por meio da identificação, no livro, de elementos que referenciem um produto audiovisual já conhecido, afinal nenhuma narrativa está desvinculada de sua capa, ela é o primeiro contato que se processa entre leitor/telespectador e livro/DVD. A história já começa a ser contada a partir de sua face externa. No caso de A Muralha, a referência no livro à sua adaptação para TV se torna uma estratégia comercial para atrair o leitor e ao mesmo tempo um exemplo de intertextualidade entre o texto livro e o texto minissérie. Desta forma, Averbuck já na década de 80, destacava: Ainda que mascarada, a literatura (no seu sentido mais amplo), uma das modalidades que funciona como resposta à necessidade universal de ficção, ressurge, hoje, transformada e enriquecida, devolvida, frequentemente, em novas formas. No gesto que move o ficcionista, o cineasta, o desenhista de quadrinhos, ou o roteirista de televisão, define-se de um lado o milenar gesto de narrar, testemunhar; do outro, sua esperança de contentar a inesgotável sede de fantasia, sonho e imaginação de seu leitor/espectador. Na realização deste ato avulta a marca transformadora dos novos modos de (re) produção da arte (1984, p. 06).
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Mesmo passados 30 anos, essas particularidades contemporâneas de alimentar o sonho e a fantasia por meio de diferentes mídias que dialogam entre si, continua sendo utilizado. O próprio objeto aqui analisado, adaptado no ano de 2000, comprova que o alcance do meio de comunicação mais popular do país pode fazer com que um número maior de pessoas tenha acesso à história que começou a ser contada por Dinah e terminou nas mãos de Maria Adelaide. E é a partir dessa transformação de um texto em outro, que a relação leitor-obra pode se modificar e transcender sua leitura inicial, especialmente no momento em que o audiovisual entra em cena. É assim que através de uma nova (re) produção de A Muralha, torna-se possível que ao se ter acesso ao livro, o leitor construa mentalmente uma referência à minissérie. A produção do DVD também proporciona ao telespectador o contato com diversas paratextualidades exploradas pela edição. O telespectador tem acesso a entrevistas com diretores, atores e produtores, o que o aproxima do “fazer” teledramatúrgico; o primeiro DVD (a minissérie está compilada em quatro DVDs, devido a sua extensão) apresenta um trailer, certamente com o objetivo de provocar a atenção e a curiosidade desse telespectador; além de apresentar making of de cenas. Entre os elementos paratextuais que chamam a atenção, têm-se ainda os textos de apresentação tanto da obra (na contracapa), quanto no DVD (no verso). É interessante transcrever os textos, para perceber suas particularidades: Romance que inspirou a minissérie da TV Rede Globo, A Muralha narra a bravura, a violência, as paixões, intrigas e ódios dos primeiros desbravadores do coração do Brasil. A paisagem e os costumes, a família colonial, as lutas dos homens na selva e a busca do ouro que a terra não se preocupava em ocultar são recriados neste livro, marcado por personagens fortes como Dom Braz, Isabel, Tiago, Mãe Cândida, Margarida e Aimbé. Autora, entre outros, dos livros Florada na Serra e Margarida La Roque, Dinah Silveira de Queiroz recebeu, em 1954, o Prêmio Machado de Assis pelo conjunto de sua obra (Texto – paratexto – sem autoria impresso na contracapa da obra A Muralha).
A contracapa do livro apresenta ainda duas declarações, uma de Rachel de Queiroz, que diz: “A escritora transpôs para o seu romance um mundo inteiro de gente, paixões e de sucessos violentos, dentro de um cenário igualmente copioso e dolorido”; e a outra de José Lins do Rêgo: “As figuras humanas crescem de vulto e assumem a importância de absorventes estados de alma. Aí o livro vence e se expande como força de criação autêntica”. Já no DVD, lançado em 2002, o texto se revela mais melodramático, demonstrando que as características folhetinescas apresentadas no livro, são acentuadas no momento da transposição, revelando que a ficção televisiva consegue absorver e acomodar essas características do romance folhetinesco: Lutas sangrentas entre brancos e índios; aldeias inteiras passadas ao fio da espada. Assaltos, embustes, emboscadas: há sangue nas trilhas. Um mundo entre a cruz e o arcabuz. Duelos em ruas enlameadas: caçadores de homens, foras-dalei e mestiços renegados apresentam suas armas. Tesouros escondidos, juras de 179
sangue, ouro e maldição – sim, amigos, o Brasil teve seu faroeste! Muito antes, e com muito mais ação, do que nos Estados Unidos. O que o Brasil não teve foi uma indústria como a de Hollywood para produzir mitologia a partir de sua própria história. Mas você tem nas mãos o embrião do projeto: A Muralha, minissérie produzida e exibida pela TV Globo no ano do quinto centenário do descobrimento do Brasil, desbrava o caminho e aponta a direção: faz a mistura fina entre ação, reflexão e entretenimento. Eis a história, outra vez, ao ar livre. Escrita por Maria Adelaide Amaral, inspirada no livro homônimo que Dinah Silveira de Queiroz (1910-1982) publicou em 1954, A Muralha, dirigida por Denise Saraceni, mergulha nos primórdios do século XVI e nos conduz ao coração das trevas de São Paulo de Piratininga, a capital dos temíveis bandeirantes. Um épico vigoroso sobre o nascimento de uma nação, com toda paixão, fulgor e sangue sobre os quais nunca nos falaram na escola (Minissérie A Muralha, 2002).
Percebe-se que o texto apresentado no verso do DVD, lido de uma só vez, tira o fôlego do leitor. Isso se deve certamente às frases curtas, impactantes, objetivas e ao uso de palavras fortes para descrever a história, configurando um texto com ritmo tenso e intenso, muitas vezes característico do meio audiovisual, em que cortes, ganchos e edições, fazem parte da narrativa. Por outro lado, mesmo mais curto e não tão expressivamente melodramático, o texto presente na contracapa do livro, edição de 2000, traz como frase de entrada “Romance que inspirou a minissérie da TV Globo”, marcando assim, a referência intrínseca entre obra e sua adaptação televisiva. Certamente a paratextualidade é um dos elementos mais bem explorados no processo de adaptação da obra A Muralha. Além dos elementos apresentados nas capas do livro e do DVD, esse último também apresenta novas construções de títulos. O título principal da obra continua sendo A Muralha, porém, os capítulos do livro intitulados “Descoberta da Terra”, “A Madama do Anjo” e “Canção de Margarida”, transformam-se, na versão para DVD, em “Velhos pecados em um Novo Mundo”, “A febre do ouro e os apelos da carne”, “De Lagoa Serena ao Ribeirão Dourado” e “O nascimento de uma nação”. Ao se modificarem pode-se perceber nesses títulos a presença de novos elementos significativos. O título do primeiro DVD, por exemplo, ao utilizar a palavra “pecado”, remete diretamente a um contexto religioso, especialmente a questão da Igreja Católica e a abordagem sobre a Inquisição, que não se faz presente na obra. O título pode instigar também outras leituras, como a ideia de que o pecado é trazido ao Novo Mundo pelos europeus, no momento em que utiliza “velhos pecados”. Se os pecados são velhos, imediatamente são referenciados ao “Velho Mundo”. O primeiro DVD, em suma, se restringe realmente à chegada dos personagens principais da narrativa ao Brasil, tendo como destaque a personagem Dona Ana, que já desembarca carregada de um passado de sofrimento por ser judia. Na obra, como não existe a temática religiosa da perseguição e tortura de judeus, o início da narrativa se limita à chegada da personagem principal que traz consigo apenas um coração carregado de esperança e crença no amor romântico. Novas significações à parte, é possível apreender que, mesmo que os títulos 180
tenham sido reformulados para a versão em DVD, há a permanência de uma ideia inicial de chegada em uma nova terra e a ideia final de esperança, de sentimento de um devir, como se a história houvesse passado pelo processo de encontro com um mundo novo, a luta para “domar” essa nova terra selvagem e o que leva, ao fim, à construção dos alicerces de uma nova nação. Considerações finais O artigo teve como objetivo apresentar uma análise sobre as modificações, transformações e ressignificações dos elementos paratextuais da obra A Muralha e sua adapatação televisiva homônima. Sob o alicerce do diálogo entre os textos e do jogo intertextual, a transtextualidade de Genette destaca a paratextualidade como um dos critérios importantes a serem considerados na leitura e apreciação de uma narrativa. Assim, a partir dessa análise comparativa, em que o processo adaptativo da obra literária para a minissérie é esmiuçado em seu nível essencialmente transpositivo, pretendeu-se mostrar que a adaptação pode ser compreendida como um momento possível em que literatura e os meios de comunicação se entrelaçam e se mostram parceiros, não concorrentes, revelando que as mais diferentes linguagens e suportes conseguem além de conviver, ser complementares. A proposta dialógica, intertextual, de relações entre os textos paratextuais aqui apresentados vai ao encontro de um mundo onde nada ocorre isoladamente. Afinal, se no mundo contemporâneo a comunicação é um instrumento legitimador de forte expressividade, compreender de que maneira seus suportes se relacionam com a literatura, que ao contrário do que defendido por algum tempo não desaparecerá diante de outros formatos, é uma forma de refletir sobre a arte, sobre a mídia, sobre a cultura, sobre a sociedade, enfim, sobre o homem. A literatura, não desaparecendo diante das infindáveis formas de se construir, propostas pela sempre transformadora e criativa ação humana, obrigatoriamente se reinventa a cada dia. E é no processo insistente de se reinventar, em um mundo que preza pelo novo e pelo movimento, que ela se enriquece.
REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS AMARAL, Maria Adelaide. Entrevista. Disponível em www.memoriaglobo.globo.br. Acesso em: 13 de jul. de 2012. A MURALHA. Minissérie de Maria Adelaide Amaral. Direção geral Denise Saraceni e Carlos Araújo. DVD vídeo (13h30min), color. 2º Grande Prêmio Cinema Brasil – Melhor série de TV. BAKHTIN, Mikhail. Questões de literatura e de estética: a teoria do romance. 3ª edição. São Paulo: editora UNESP, 1993. CARVALHAL, Tânia Franco. Literatura comparada. São Paulo: Ática, 2006. *** Literatura comparada: a estratégia interdisciplinar. In: Revista Brasileira de Literatura Comparada. Niterói: Abralic, n. 1, 1991. GENNETE, Gérard. Palimpsestos – A literatura de segunda mão. Belo Horizonte: Faculdade de Letras, 2006. 181
QUEIROZ, Dinah Silveira. A Muralha. Brasília: EBRASA, 1971. ***. A Muralha. São Paulo: Record, 2000. Site Memória Globo. Disponível em: www.memoriaglobo.globo.br. Acesso em: março a dezembro de 2012. SAMOYAULT, Tiphaine. A intertextualidade. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2008. STAM, Robert. Teoria e Prática da Adaptação: da fidelidade à intertextualidade. In: Ilha do Desterro. Florianópolis: 2006.
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EDUCATION IN ANCIENT ATHENS. XENOPHON ON THE FORMATIVE ROLE OF HUNTING Răzvan BRAN University of Bucharest ABSTRACT In this paper we attempt to present Xenophon’s perspective on Greek education, as it emerges from his hunting treatise Cynegeticus. Hunting, in Xenophon’s opinion, is the best way to shape a young man’s personality and body. According to the Greek educational model, the harmony of both mind and body, expressed by the word kalokagathia, was considered the ideal of human personality. Thus Xenophon tries to demonstrate the superiority of hunting and criticizes the sophistic educational model of the time. Keywords: Xenophon, Cynegeticus, hunting, education, Athens.
1. INTRODUCTION Every society creates its own educational model, which aims at shaping an ideal of man who thinks and acts according to the dominant values. In the Greek society, the ideal of human personality was expressed by kalokagathia, defined by Jaeger (1945: 13) as “the chivalrous ideal of the complete human personality, harmonious in mind and body, foursquare in battle and speech, song and action”. So the development of the human being implied the harmony of mind and body, conduct and speech. In ancient Athens, men were trained to become active citizens in the political life and prepared for both peace and war. In this paper we will present the educational model suggested by Xenophon in his treatise on hunting, Cynegeticus, in agreement with the general and traditional conception about education. Our paper is structured as follows. Section 2 focuses on hunting and its social function in ancient Greece, while Section 3 presents Xenophon’s view about the formative role of hunting. Finally, Sections 4 and 5 refer to the benefits of hunting in two areas of the society: war and political life. 2. HUNTING IN ANCIENT GREECE Hunting appeared as a necessity and played a major role throughout history. Although, at the beginning, people hunted only out of necessity, to get food or other products (e.g. animal skins), since then the role of hunting has changed a great deal. From a hunter-gatherer society, people became farmers and hunting had to acquire other functions within society. 183
In ancient Greece, hunting was not merely an economic activity or a profession, as people did not hunt only for food, but also for pleasure. The essential function of hunting was a social and an educational one. It represented the basis of the traditional education in ancient times and played an important role in shaping young men’s personality. In Sparta little boys were taught to hunt, but this custom was not agreed by everybody (Isocrates, for instance, criticized it in his writings). On the other hand, authors like Plato or Xenophon claimed the importance of hunting and its benefits in a man’s education. During the cynegetic expeditions, boys were initiated into the adults’ world. Boys were not anymore under the maternal protection of the house and passed from the infancy to the adulthood (Vidal-Naquet 1985: 191). They had to face new and more difficult situations and privations: lack of food or sleep, pain, fatigue, difficult conditions of life, exhausting pursuits, dangerous animals, environment and weather conditions (rain, cold, high temperatures etc.). Hunting was the privilege of males and could also be considered a sort of denial of the cultivated lands and domestic space, represented by women (Detienne 2001: 7880). But, in spite of all these functions, hunting and this traditional system of education fell into desuetude. Therefore Xenophon, with his military formation and passion for hunting, tries to revive this old model based on hunting, in the spirit of kalokagathia. 3. XENOPHON’S CYNEGETICUS As we know, Xenophon (c. 430 – 354 BC) was a Greek historian, a soldier and a mercenary in the Persian army. That period of time was dominated by a political and civic type of personality, reflected in Xenophon’s historical works, philosophical and technical treatises. Moreover, the sophistry, the dominant educational model of the time, was a system mainly based on the development of intellectual and rhetorical abilities, in order to create good statesmen and orators. On this general background, Xenophon, in his Cynegeticus, defends the values of traditional paideia by praising and making hunting an educational paradigm. As we have already said, the main purpose of the Greek education was to prepare the boy for adult activities and to involve him in the social life of the city-stare. As Jaeger says, each individual had to reflect the image of the community (1945: xxiv). The relation between education and society was very close and the Greeks were deeply rooted in the life of the community. Written in the 5th century BC, Cynegeticus is the first technical manual or treatise on hunting in the Greek literature. This manual, through a pedagogical style, provides a full image on the hunting practised in Xenophon’s times. It describes different instruments (nets, traps) and techniques and it gives useful advice regarding breeding dogs, using the instruments etc. We should emphasise the fact that all these useful information, advice and educational principles came from an experienced person, with a military carrier, who practised hunting and was an admirer of it. Xenophon’s main purpose was to shape not only a good hunter, but also a good and active citizen. 184
In the following, we shall refer mainly to chapters I and XII-XIII of Cynegeticus, where the author expresses his opinions on the benefits of practising hunting. However, these ideas regarding the educational function of hunting recur throughout Xenophon’s treatise. The model presented by Xenophon is a counterpart of the sophistic system of the time, based on the intellectual education. The acid tirade against the sophists reaches a peak in chapter XIII that closes the treatise. The sophists could not educate young boys in order to become valuable citizens, because they themselves had perverted souls and sought only for money. In the first chapter, to legitimate his opinions, the author provides an example taken from the mythological and literary tradition. Thus hunting is seen as a study for young heroes. The Centaur Chiron, who received the art of hunting directly from the gods Apollo and Artemis, was considered the educator of the Greeks and all the important mythological figures were Chiron’s disciples: Asclepius, Nestor, Peleus, Telamon, Meleager, Theseus, Hippolytus, Odysseus, Diomed, Castor, Pollydeuces, Aeneas, Achilles and many others. By giving this example, Xenophon tries to persuade young men that even great personalities of the past practised hunting. It was the basis of their education and enabled them to become great warriors and heroes: Thanks to the careful heed they paid to dogs and to the chase, thanks also to the other training, they all greatly excelled, and were admired on the score of virtue. (Cynegeticus, I, 5) Moreover, in Xenophon’s view, hunting, as the basis of education, transmitted a sum of spiritual and moral values and gave young ephebes a kind of certainty of thought and action. Among these values and virtues, we should mention courage, perseverance, discipline and patience. We must also refer to hunting as an exercise of the body and health. The sophistic education seemed to be very limited and incomplete, because it aimed only at one part of the personality and neglected the physical development. In our opinion, the following fragment sums up Xenophon’s ideas about the formative role of hunting: For my part, then, my advice to the young is not to despise hunting or the other training, these are the things that make them good men, good not only in war but in any other situations in which they have to think, talk and act well. (Cynegeticus, I, 18) Xenophon’s Cynegeticus promotes hunting as an ideal form of education, which develops both the mind and the body and enriches Greek ephebes with a lot of virtues, moral values and principles. All these find their utility in two essential areas of the Greek and, more precisely, Athenian society: war and political life that we will discuss in the following sections. 185
4. HUNTING AND WAR First of all, hunting proves its practical efficacy as a preparation for the most important pursuits, including here battles, wars and political arguments (Cynegeticus, chapters XII-XIII). War was almost a general state of the Greek society, as two out of three years the Greek city-states were engaged in a conflict. Men fought till their late adulthood and had to be well trained and always prepared for fight. Hunting and war were similar activities considered from the point of view of the means, techniques, instruments (weapons) and conditions: weather, lack of sleep and food, dangerous situations. Therefore hunting could be considered to be the perfect preparation for war. It was a good mental and physical exercise, due to the fact that it simulated the conditions of a real war. As mentioned above, by practising this activity young men gained physical strength, a better sight, courage, capacity to obey an order and pursuit their pray or enemy, endurance, resistance, discipline etc. Men so trained were able to sleep on hard beds and to be brave guardians. But there are many benefits which the enthusiastic hunter may expect to derive from this pursuit. I speak of the health which will thereby accrue to the physical frame, the quickening of the eye and ear, the defiance of old age, and last, but not least, the warlike training which it ensures. To begin with, when some day he has to tramp along rough ways under arms, the heavy infantry soldier will not faint or flag – he will stand the toil from being long accustomed to the same experiences in capturing wild beasts. (Cynegeticus, XII) To sum up, hunting is the best training of your body (strength, resistance, agility) and educates your personality (endurance, courage, self-control, rules of conduct). Hunters also acquire new skills (pursuit, using weapons), which are very useful in fights and wars. In chapter XII, Xenophon says that in a real encounter with an enemy, as a result of practising hunting, a good soldier will know how to react and attack, will chase his target, will obey the commands and use the weapons properly. He will also help his friends and the other combatants He learnt all these during the expeditions when he hunted wild animals. Last, but not least, in the past their forefathers were convinced that hunting was the source of all the military victories and that is why they gave it a great importance in educating boys. Xenophon (Cynegeticus, XII) says that this is the way good soldiers and generals are made in hunting. 5. HUNTING AND SOCIAL LIFE Nevertheless, hunting did not only form skilful soldiers or generals for war times, but also good men and citizens. In chapter XII, 10, Xenophon argues that 186
hunting distracts young men from household affairs. Some people claimed that spending too much time in hunting expeditions was very dangerous and harmful, because men neglected their homes and compatriots. On the contrary, the author stated that hunters were useful to their homeland and family. Only those men who used to work hard and to learn new things would save the homeland, not those who lived in disorder and without working. We should have in mind the example given by Xenophon in the first chapter: the Greek heroes acquired experience, information and knowledge, which helped them to develop other skills. As we have already seen, by practising hunting, young men can shape their personality and acquire some spiritual qualities, values and virtues that every citizen should have, preparing them to be active citizens in the city-state. This is the other aspect of the Greek education, offered by hunting, as well. Xenophon (chapter XII) even claims that chase widens hunters’ intelligence. In addition, hunters learn to be honest, to obey rules and respect laws. Although sophists claimed that they prepared young boys and led them to virtue, Xenophon said that he had not seen anybody to be the result of the sophistic education. On the contrary, sophists themselves were not capable to teach virtues to others, due to their own lack of virtues. They taught young boys nothing, as their main concern was how to get more money. The sophistic educational system is a fundamentally rhetoric one, which teaches you how to persuade and contend your ideas, but it does not teach you to think. Xenophon argues that ideas and the way of thinking are more important than words. The sophists are the true enemies of the community. 6. FINAL REMARKS In a period of time when the traditional ideal of education was in decay and the sophistic model tended to replace it, Xenophon offers, in his Cynegeticus, an alternative to this model. He praises the virtues of hunting, its paideutic and propedeutic function in shaping young men’s personality and in preparing them for social and political life. As the author himself tells us in chapter XIII, the main purpose of his treatise on hunting is not to form sophists, or men who have a convincing speech, but to form wise and active citizens. Hunting, practised not only by ordinary men, but also by nobles, kings, heroes and even gods, represents the basis of a good and solid education. Young boys should take up hunting in their early age in order to learn how to control their passions and overcome their needs. Taking part in hunting expeditions meant not only the separation from the maternal education, but also stepping into men’s world. This was the main formative and educative function of hunting in Greek society. In Xenophon’s opinion, the benefits of hunting consist of the health, moral virtues, precepts and skills. Moreover, the practical benefits of hunting were visible in two important areas of the Greek society, namely war and political life. The sophistic model focused on one side of education and, therefore, Xenophon considers it incomplete and limited. According to the traditional model of 187
education, expressed by kalokagathia, it was essential to develop your personality as a whole and to be useful to your homeland, city, community as a soldier and/or a political man. To sum up, in Xenophon’s opinion, apart from the social function, hunting had a paideutic role, too, because it educated young boys, by giving them solid values and virtues. On the other hand, Xenophon claims that hunting had a propedeutic role, as it had to be the basis of any education, on which you could build your carrier. BIBLIOGRAPHY Alderman, Alexander. Serio-Comic Elements in Xenophon’s Socratic Writings, Providence: 2011 (Dissertation, manuscript). Web (accessed on 28.06.2012). Detienne, Marcel. Dionysos şi Pantera parfumată, Bucharest: Symposion, 2001. Print Jaeger, Werner. Paideia. The Ideals of Greek Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press, l945. Print Marrou, Henri-Irénée. Istoria educaţiei în antichitate, Bucharest: Meridiane, 1997. Print Vernant, Jean-Pierre (coord.). Omul grec, Iaşi: Polirom, 2001. Print Vidal-Naquer, Pierre. Vânătorul negru, Bucharest: Eminescu, 1985. Print Xénophon. L’art de la chasse, Paris: Belles Lettres, 1970. Print
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THE BIRTH OF A EUROPEAN MODERN METROPOLA. BUCHAREST DURING THE PHANARIOT EPOCH Sebastian CHIRIMBU Adina BARBU-CHIRIMBU Spiru Haret University, Bucharest ABSTRACT The present-day Bucharest is the result of many centuries of growth and transformations. From among them, the 18th century is of a special importance as it is the time when when the emerging city becomes a European cultural landmark. The purpose of the present paper is to gather together and to analyse comparatively and in relation those aspects, events, that turned Bucharest into a cosmopolite metropola, situated at the border of two worlds, the Oriental and the Occidental ones, in a key moment of our history, the dawn of modernity. Keywords: phanariot epoch, emerging infrastructure, church, guilds, Princely Academy
The phanariot period is unanimously recognized as one of the least fortunate epochs of the Romanian history. Covering more than one century (1711 – 1821), it is characterized by the foreign rule exercised by the Ottoman Empire by means of their Greek representatives on the Romanian territory, the phanariot princes. From the political point of view, the phanariot period is certainly a drawback, as the relative independence of the Romanian provinces is diminished, the national army is also reduced, and the rulers, with a few exceptions, are – and consequently act as – nothing more than mere employes of the Sultan. They bought the princely thrones with very large sums of money However, economically speaking the situation is less dark than the one at the political level. The 18th century is the period when the Romanian Provinces finally leave behind the late Middle Ages situation characterizing its economic and political life. The number of employed civil servants increases as well as the number of merchants bringing products from all over Europe, traders producing goods and selling services. The guilds of traders and merchants become powerful and impose their position especially in the capitals of the two provinces, Bucharest and Iassy. At the end of the 17th century, Bucharest is still a medieval settlement, but the century to come will change its face profoundly, turning it until the end of Enlightenment, into a cosmopolitan space, inhabited by a variety of people of 189
different nationalities and cultures whose mark is still to be discovered by the traveller or by the curious residents in its old centre. The rule of Constantin Brancoveanu at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries had already brought about a changes and modernization initiatives, as nothing seemed to be too expensive when it came about the beauty of a dwelling or of a church for Brancoveanu. The number of buildings raised in Bucharest during his rule, and often at his initiative and on his expenses is impressive. The ruler increases and redecorates the Princely Court, re-designs the gardens of the Court and hires a team of gardeners to take care of them. He builds imposing dwellings in many other locations in the present day old centre of the city, for his children, and a magnificent – and famous over centuries – palace at Mogosoaia for his son Stefan. Most of the churches built by Brancoveanu can still be admired in the contemporary city. Therefore, the settlement that Nicolae Mavrocordat, the first phanariot prince on the thrones of the Romanian Provinces finds when he is appointed ruler of The Romanian Country is one rich in majestic buildings and with an incipient infrastructure, but still tributary to feudalism from the point of view of the social structure and occupation of its inhabitants. The future capital of Romania develops in a fast rhythm during the 18th century and it becomes an important economic and cultural centre on the map of Eastern Europe. Everybody wants to live in Bucharest: country boyards try to obtain more or less important jobs at the princely court. All that matters is the position at the Court (dregatoria) which is most often treated as a means of acquiring wealth and eventually acceding to an even higher position. Both the Romanian and the Greek aristocracy buy their ’dregatorie’ and in their turn, sell favors and lower jobs. Therefore corruption will become one of the main characteristics of the epoch. However, although it is true that, taken globally, the political situation of the two Romanian provinces is worse 1, as far as the economic and cultural life of their two capitals is concerned, the 18th century is undoubtedly a flourishing period. The ranks and importance of the boyards came to be directly influenced by the jobs they had at the princely court, jobs that became, along the century more numerous and varied. Everybody wanted to move to the capital and to be as close to the prince as possible. An illustrative example is that of Craiova’s ban, who preferred to dellegate his power to a deputy ruler in order to move to Bucharest. The number of Bucharest’s inhabitants increases steadily all along the 18th century, and so do their economic needs. The direct and rapid consequence is that 1
One should not ignore the fact that the situation of the two Romanian provinces could have been even worse, and its’s Alexandru Mavrocordat, the future prince Nicolae’s father who prevented turning of the Romanian territories into Ottoman province. The sultan’s intention was to change the regime of Moldavia and The Romanian Country but Alexandru Mavrocordat, his private and much trusted counselor managed to convince him to partial freedom of the provinces, whose thrones he wanted for his sons. History proved that he was successful in his intention. 190
the guilds of merchants and traders become bigger, richer and more diversified. They occupy whole streets in the emerging city, which come to be known from the name of their activity (Selari, Blanari) of from the place they come from (Gabroveni, Lipscani). As expected, the steady economic development of the city during the whole phanariot epoch triggers a cultural development as well. The number of churches founded by the princes themselves or by the members of the aristocracy, by the the guilds or individual merchants or traders is impressive and remarked by all the foreign travellers to the Romanian territories. The Academy of Bucharest will rival the similar institutions from all over Europe and its beneficiaries are not only young boyards and princes but also sons of enriched merchants and traders from the whole South-East Europe. The importance of this higher education institution, its status of a centre generating and dissemination Romanian and Greek culture becomes even more obvious if place it in the context of C-tin Giurescu’s remark that Ellada itself did not have any similar instituion. 2 The Princely Academy of Bucharest benefits from the acacdemic support of the Jerusalim Patriarch, Hrisant Notaras, an outstanding cultural personality of his time, with a vast classical and religious culture, whose personality is connected both to the Brancoveanu and to the Mavrocordat families 3. In 1707 the Princely Academy of Bucharest had three professors with a yearly salary, who taught logics, metaphysics and psychology, physics and astronomy, rhetorics, grammar and spelling.” 4 It is not a surprise that the authors studied are predominantly Greeks: Xenofon, Plutarh, Tucidide, Socrate, Demostene, Esop, Sofocle, Euripide, Pitagora. The exact sciences are taught using the handbooks conceived by very influent scientists in the epoch: Teofil Corydaleu, Gherasim Vlahos. The success of the Academy of Bucharest will lead, towards the end of the 18thbcentury to the founding of numerous other similar schools, of course at a smaller scale, in the province towns of the country 5. The presence of the Princely Academy in Bucharest and of a number of printing houses represent an important stage in the process of institutionalization and passage to modernism of the Romanian culture 6 . In the 18th century we became masters of the Greek culture and of Orthodoxy, a priviledge which meant that we had assumed all the duties and prestige, all the influence and hegemonic position of the Byzantine emperors (“noi 2
Giurescu, C., Istoria românilor, partea a II-a, Bucureşti, Fundaţia regală pentru ştiinţă şi artă, 1946, p. 783. 3 Istoria României, vol. VI, lucrare colectivă editată de Academia Română, Bucureşti, Editura Enciclopedică, 2002, p. 737. 4 Giurescu, C., Istoria Bucureştilor, Bucureşti, Ed. Vremea, 2009, p. 196. 5 Camariano-Cioran, A., Les Academies princieres de Bucharest et de Iassy et leurs professeurs, Thessalonique, Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974, p. 50. 6 Bărbulescu, M., Deletant, D., Hitchns, K., Papacostea, S. Pompiliu, T., Istoria României, Bucureşti, Grupul Editorial Corint, 2007, p.225.
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deveniserăm patroni ai culturii greceşti cum deveniserăm patroni ai ortodoxiei prin aceea că asupra noastră trecuseră toate datoriile în acelaşi timp cu tot prestigiul, toată influenţa şi toată situaţia de hegemonie a împăraţilor Bizanţului.” 7) In this context, Bucharest becomes one of the most outstanding centres of economic and cultural activity in the region. The Princely Academy from Bucharest is a point of interest for all the Phanariot rulers who periodically reorganize and modernize it, endowing it with new buildings, valuable books for its highly representative book collection and attracting the most enlightened minds to teach in the capital of the Romanian Country. The Princely Academy attracts students from all over the oriental part of Europe. This tendency should be placed in the larger context generated by the fall of Constantinople two centuries and a half earlier. Many learned men of the Christian Orient found shelter and support in the Romanian provinces, whose capitals become increasingly recognized cultural centres in the Orient and SouthEastern European Region. The population of Bucharest becomes gradually more educated and an aspect which characterizes the 18th century is the emergence of valuable laic libraries. From this point of view, the illustrious Mavrocordat family made Bucharest known all over Occidental Europe due to their fabulous library. Bucharest became a destination for the letters sent by the secretaries of the French king and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Not only them, but also the representatives of the Vatican were also interested in learning information about the huge and valuable library of the Mavrocordats. They desired to obtain copies of the library’s catalogue but the first phanariot prince refused to make it public for many years. He preferred to offer gifts to the destinataries of his correspondence and to exchange books with them. 18th century Bucharest did not only host the richest private library in Oriental Europe, it was also the place where the largest monastery in South-Eastern Europe was built, the Vacaresti Monastery, an architectural treasure whose fabulous riches and majesty were known in the whole Orthodox world. In spite of its darker side – wars, pest, fires – the century of the Enlightenment was a time of glory for the largest city of the Romanian Country; it was the time when Bucharest turned into a cosmopolite metropola, situated at the border of two worlds, the Oriental and the Occidental ones, in a key moment of our history, the dawn of modernity.
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Iorga, N., Istoria românilor prin călători, Bucureşti, Ed. Eminescu, 1981, p. 301.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Bărbulescu, M., Deletant, D., Hitchns, K., Papacostea, S. Pompiliu, T., Istoria României, Bucureşti, Grupul Editorial Corint, 2007, p. 225. Camariano-Cioran, A., Les Académies princières de Bucharest et de Iassy et leurs professeurs, Thessalonique, Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974, p. 50. Giurescu, C., Istoria românilor, partea a II-a, Bucureşti, Fundaţia regală pentru ştiinţă şi artă, 1946, p. 783. Giurescu, C., Istoria Bucureştilor, Bucureşti, Ed. Vremea, 2009, p. 196. Iorga, N., Istoria românilor prin călători, Bucureşti, Ed. Eminescu, 1981, p. 301. Istoria României, vol. VI, lucrare colectivă editată de Academia Română, Bucureşti, Editura Enciclopedică, 2002, p. 737.
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MALCOLM BRADBURY’S PERSPECTIVE OVER MRS THATCHER’S BRITAIN Elena CIGĂREANU University of Bucharest ABSTRACT The paper aims to underline some of the characteristics of Mrs Thatcher’s regime, especially the effects of the financial reductions. One of the novels that summarize these effects is Malcolm Bradbury’s Cuts. The first part of the paper compares Bradbury’s position towards the idea of regimes, communist on one hand and capitalism, on the other. In the second part, we analyse the way in which the author’s view is presented and sustained with examples from the above mentioned novel. Furthermore, we try to offer a global perspective over the implications of these changes in the society, by comparing the author’s opinions expressed in some other novels in which he deals with the fall of the regimes. Keywords: communist regime, capitalism, novels, Malcolm Bradbury, Britain
WRITING LITERATURE: RECREATING HISTORY THROUGH THE EYES OF A ‘POSTMODERN’ Malcolm Bradbury’s interest in the fall of the communist regimes is just one of the aspects of his complex areas of interests. If we are to generalize we can reckon that Bradbury is mostly interested in the evolution and the fall of political systems, and most important the effects on the societies. He likes analysing and mocking regimes and leaders, and also the societies that are trying to recover. His irony is even more acid when that society is actually the one in which he lives, the British world. He finds his pleasure of comparing and contrasting the systems and at times he even implies that the capitalism is just another form of communism. He does not believe in all of the changes that can appear overnight, and he manages to demonstrate that the fall of the communist regimes did not actually change anything in the lives of people living in these countries. Of course he admits the existence of differences between these regimes, the advantages of capitalism towards the restrictions of communism, but his vision as it appears in Doctor Crimale, Rates of Exchange or Why come to Slaka? provides an example of excommunist states that are undergoing changes that cannot apply to all the levels of society. Malcolm Bradbury manifested a great interest over the changes in societies, starting with the 1960’s when he saw the re-organization of the British society, through the eyes of a person who lived both outside and inside the process. In the 1960’s he saw the changes in the British society, such as the students’ movements, the new tendencies and the huge evolution of technology that still characterizes the societies, the democratization of education, the free access to 194
education and culture. On the other hand, after the 1960’s Britain was reinterpreting and reconsidering not only the society, but also the cultural perspectives. The new liberalism was trying to recreate a new democratic system, with rights and freedoms, and it can also be seen as a reaction against totalitarism or communism. This was also a period of big opening towards the new tendencies coming from America, under the context of becoming a democratic society. This is one argument in favour of the fact that Bradbury’s novels present a satirical view over Britain that was trying to survive after the war and under the pressure of capitalism. He also had the chance of observing these changes through the eyes of a British person who had the opportunity of travelling both in the Soviet Empire and the American one, in search of academic experiences. However, the situation in America and Britain was somehow different from what the rest of the Europe was undergoing. Both countries had different definitions for the concept of liberalism, as the political system had opposing liberalized institutions: Britain had a monarchy and America had an elected bicameral system. But regardless of this, from the intelligentsia’s perspective, the two systems interchanged ideas, as America represented a source of free thinking for the British academics, thorough the scholarships, grants and the international magazines they were able to provide. Beginning in the 1960’s and continuing in the 1970’s, Britain was in a complete change, and even if it was trying to overcome all the economic problems, there was a general disappointment and rebellion among the classes and especially, the workers. This is why the 1970’s can be seen as a decade of strikes, and punk music became a form of expression. The main causes of discontent were the failing industries, unemployment and inflation. In these times of great evolution, one of the main beneficiaries was literature, as a form of expression, together with art and music. Writers now felt free and decided to go along with the changes and to get their sources of inspiration from the social changes. This is how the campus novel appeared, writers became critics and critics decided to try their hand at fiction writing. The background of this evolution in the cultural dimension of the society was given by the raise in the number of those going to universities, and the importance the human studies had gained within the academic domains. In terms of relationships between what is said, what is implied and the reasons why all of these events occurred, we can state that the general context was also given by another change, meaning the swift from Modernist to Postmodernism. Bradbury is also a literary critic, among many of the complex faces of his public and artistic personality. But for Bradbury, post-modernity does not mean a complete change of direction from modernism, but more like a period that came afterwards, just like a continuation of a period that has not ended. Furthermore, Bradbury’s perspective is a very clear one, as it appears in From Puritanism to Postmodernism, ‘Postmodernism looks like a stylistic phase that ran from the 1960’s to the 1980’s’ (Bradbury, Ruland:1991). So, Bradbury is not the only one who considers that around the 1990’s we can speak more about post-modernism, or post-postmodernism. Moreover, the same idea is also shared by Patricia Waugh who claims: 195
By the early eighties, however, the term [postmodernism] had shifted from the description of a range of aesthetic practices involving “double-coding”, playful irony, parody, parataxis, self-consciousness, fragmentation and the mixing and meshing of high and popular culture, to a use which encompassed a more general shift in thought and which seemed to register a pervasive cynicism towards the progressivist ideals of modernity (Waugh: 2008, 293). Another point of view that should be considered when we speak about the literary postmodern criticism is David Lodge’s opinion expressed in The Modes of Modern Writing (1977). In his study he establishes the three most important modes of writing that characterize the twenty-first century: modernism, postmodernism and antimodernism. In the second chapter of the book, Lodge examines four of the most important features and elements of postmodernism: life as expression of realism, metafiction, intertextuality and carnivalesque. In terms of justification of his perspectives, Bradbury explains his opinions upon post-modernism in The Modern British Novel, Chapter Six – The sixties and after, Chapter Seven – Artists of the Floating World, 1979 to the Present, Coda – An Afterword from the Nineties, where he discusses the changes in the society that influenced the fiction of the times. He calls all of the people who had the courage to produce a change in history, with the term ‘artists’. They are the one that had the power of influencing conceptions by means of creation: Literary criticism (now elevating itself into literary theory) was not slow to acknowledge a significant cultural change was occurring – not surprisingly, since cultural politics were central to the Sixties, and the mood of revolt was disproportionately derived from artists, painters, actors, film-makers, musicmakers, dramatists, poets and novelists, rather than political figures. Contemporary forms were changing fast; so were the underlying structures. (Bradbury:1993, 356). REAL BRITAIN AND FICTIONAL PERSPECTIVES A new change in the society was about to start from the 4th April 1979, when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. She changed the course of history through the measurements she imposed on indirect and direct taxes and other incomes, privatisation; she reduced the power of the trade unions, and managed to lower the inflation rate. By the 1987, all of these measures seemed to have an effect, as the economy was recovered. But things were to change only in three years’ time, when her attitude and personal style lead to a huge discontent within the Conservative party and so she lost their support. In short time, she was made to resign and to leave 10 Downing Street. Bradbury’s works can be seen then as acts of summarizing the consciousness of the time; and this can be also seen in terms of setting the scene of the Bradbury’s novels. Cuts is one of Bradbury’s novels that deals with English television industry’s ambition to become successful in a very short time and with no real investments. The plot is inspired from the author’s real experience related to television adaptations, after his involvement in the adaptation of the novel The History Man. The novel is a synthesis of the social events that characterized the 196
period of 1980’s. The title itself mocks all the measurements that the Thatcher regime tried to implement, through a great deal of “cuts” at every level. On the other hand, the novel expresses the author’s disappointment related to the general low esteem accorded to the writers of that time, and especially to those interested in the television production. The novel continues the series of unsuccessful British university teachers, but this time our interest is oriented towards Henry Babbacombe, a writer and teacher in a provincial university in the south of England, where the government is cost-cutting everything. Set in 1986, the great Eldorado television is getting ready to cut and edit something which seemed to be a series of great success, better than the Jewel in the Crown, starring Sir Luke Tremble. Not having too much money but still aiming to hit big, the television hires Henry to write something extraordinary, in no more than 13 episodes, with foreign locations and luxurious places. But this atmosphere of tightening and shortage of money is set even from the early beginning of the book, in a delightful punning manner: It was the summer of 1986, and everywhere there were cuts […] Cut was the most common noun, cut was the most regular verb. They were axing the arts, slimming the sciences – chopping at the schools, hewing away at the universities, scissoring at the health-service, shutting down operating theatres (British for operating rooms) – so that, in one sense at least, there were actually far fewer cuts than before. (Bradbury: 1987, 1). Bradbury manifested in many of his novel this idea of reduction, which he expresses in a very direct manner. The use of the verb ‘to cut’ presents the things in a very dark manner, because when you cut something there is no chance of revitalising the thing that disappeared. Usually, when you cut something you either have to wait for a very long period to grow back, or you eliminate something, you destroy it. In the case of taxes and payments, Bradbury implies the fact that everything is cut, not reduced, so the chances of recovering in the next period falls dramatically. But Bradbury is an ironist, and to stay within the same pattern after a couple of chapters he reminds the readers that: They were cutting in the number of students, cutting the courses, cutting the secretaries, cutting the porters; they were cutting the playing fields, cutting the teaching buildings. They were also cutting the staff. (Bradbury: 1987, 44) Bradbury is in his essence a ‘university novel’ writer, so at the back of his mind he never forgets to take the readers back to the academic filed. He wanted to emphasize the idea of reduction applied not only at very basic level of life, meaning food and salaries, but also in all of the areas. Everything was cut, including aspects of university life. This takes us back again to the 1960’s when Britain was facing the opposing phenomenon. At that time, education was gaining support from the state, and new sciences were given the credit and of course, the necessary money. But, while this was happening all around the country, the television company is in search of the huge success and is enjoying all the pleasures of life. Here, we come across people obsessed with writing and writing everything; till 197
they have no result and the original material is completely lost. This endless rewriting is the reason for expensive dinners and constant changes of location, caused by constant changes of financial resources. Bradbury is trying to take the pulse of Britain in the context of the drastic financial measures imposed by the Thatcher regime. Even if at the moment when the action takes place, the effects were not as visible, Bradbury somehow anticipated them and presented everything in a very dark perspective. In the end, all of the descriptions of urban and rural life do not only resume to modern vs. traditional, which might be expected, but to having or lacking money: The people who used to talk art now talked only money, and they murmured of the texture of Telecom, the lure of Britoil, the glamour of gas. They got out of Japan and into Europe, out of offshore and into unit trusts. In money, only in money, were there fantasies and dreams. (Bradbury: 1987). However, it cannot be stated that Bradbury only emphasizes the poor life of people living in the countryside, who of course, in the context of a financial crisis, will have a different perspective on the effects. He also mocks the urban life, even if it is presented in opposition to the other one, with his characteristic descriptive and implied humour: On the fortieth floor of the great glass tower that was Eldorado, Lord Mellow had reserved a large area for himself. There was his vast office, with three secretaries, a white desk and several Danish settees, into which his guests and employees sank as if into a foam bath. There was his reception room, stocked with fine wines […]. Beyond that, on the other side of the glass doors, there was this huge wide bedroom, with seven television screens hung over the vast fourposter vibrator bed, and even further beyond that his marble bathroom with ceiling mirrors and television receivers. (Bradbury:1987, 17). Meanwhile, in the tiny and depressing hill-village where Henry Babbacome, an author virtually unknown, even to himself, lived and breathed and had his being, they were cutting the corn. (Bradbury:1987, 25). Bradbury’s stories are always funny, because most of his novels can be considered comedies of humorous or meta-jokes. His style is at time commercialized and accessible, he wants his readers to smile when reading and that might be a reason why the plots of the novels are not always as gripping as expected. This is also the case with Cuts, considered actually by some of the critics more like a novella, than a novel, as it only has 122 pages. He likes the ambiguities between fiction and reality and so he plays with the reader’s mind. He likes to give the impression that he is writing a detailed description of reality, when in fact everything is a comedy written with seriousness. But except playing with the narrative, he also plays with words. Consequently, the repetition of the verb ‘to cut’ in various contexts refers to the financial disappointment of a society who claimed its rights in the 1960’s, gained them, and afterwards had to deal with the perspective of not having enough 198
resources to gain the advantages. Furthermore, as Bradbury likes jokes, he also invents some nominal jokes, apart from the verbal ones. That is how we find out that the name of the producer is Cynthia Hyde-Lemon, the catering firm is called GNOSH, the exchange system between the universities is called Westland Chair of Anglo-American Relations, and there is also a Kingsley Amis Chair of Women’s Studies and the Durex Chair of French Letters. CONCLUSIONS The fall and the rise of a country can be usually analysed from its ability to adapt to the financial situation. The same idea applies both to countries that are trying to reintegrate after the fall of the iron curtain, and also to Great Britain. Even if communism was not the regime that produced changes, the country had to undergo a situation similar from some other points of view. If in the 1960’s the society felt the need to change something, to adapt to the new reality created after the War and to have the same rights like the other states, in time these requirements proved to be hard to accomplish and adapt to them. Mrs Thatcher’s regime was a sort of integration, but it involved changes and restrictions to which the society found it hard to adapt. All of these changes provided the artists the chance to explore their creative limits. This was also a period of massive art production, and the artistic spirits became free. Malcolm Bradbury was one of the writers who was free to express himself, and had at hand all the means to do it: literature, literary criticism, television and teaching. Cuts is one of the novels that presents both the differences between urban and rural existence, and also the drama a writer has to live in order to adapt to the new social reality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Bradbury, Malcolm, Cuts, London, Picador, 1987, print. Bradbury, Malcolm, The Modern British Novel, Glasgow, Penguin, 2001, print. Bradbury, Malcolm, From Puritanism to Postmodernism, U.S.A, Viking Adult, 1991, print. Lodge, David, The Modes of Modern Writing, U.S.A, Bloomsbury, 1987, print. Nicholl, Charles, The Literature Man, London Review of Books Volume 9, Issue 1987, pages 20-21, Web, 25.06.2012. Waugh, Patricia, in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume IX, Chapter 22, pages 289 – 305, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001, print.
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LONDON AS AN AUGUSTAN TOPOS Andreea Cristina CRIŞAN Spiru Haret University, Bucharest ABSTRACT We would like to discuss the city of London as a cultural space in the Augustan age and also its portrait in D. Defoe’s work, particularly in The Journal of the Plague Year. The quality of a civilization shows itself best in its arts. This is notably true of the Augustan age in England whose most celebrated art is architecture. It related itself not only to aesthetic but also to political, ethical, educational codes. A writer like Defoe confidently refers the new triumphs of architecture to the country’s growing prosperity. Much of the Augustan inspiration goes back to artists such as Inigo Jones, H. Mills, Ch. Wren. Defoe’s London is also a community, described during the Great Plague of 1665. The city in Defoe’s novel is a social artifact; it is a real, identifiable, familiar place. London is a world by itself, to quote Thomas Brown in Amusements Serious and Comical (1700). Keywords: London, architecture, Ch. Wren, Daniel Defoe’s works, metropolis, spatial techniques, description. London is a World by itself Thomas Brown, Amusements Serious and Comical (1700)
The quality of a civilization shows itself best in its arts.This is notably true of the Augustan age, convinced of the ethical-intellectual content of its art forms. The Renaissance belief that a new philosophical era demanded a new literature and aesthetic was as deeply rooted in England as in France. According to the critic A.R.Humphreys (Architecture and Landscape) “this was a deliberate movement in civilization, an allegiance no longer to the medieval, but to humanism whose artistic development expressed the general spirit of the age in a conscious way, pleading that architecture was the Augustans’ most celebrated art” 1. The arts related themselves not only to aesthetic, but also to political, ethical and educational codes. They had a political bearing since they were held to express the national spirit. A writer like Defoe could confidently refer the new triumphs of building to the country’s growing prosperity. Much of the Augustan inspiration goes back to Inigo Jones (1573-1652), the Welsh genius who introduced in England the Palladian style, a classical but also a graceful one. The Augustans also credited his 1
Humphreys, Arthur, 1972, ”Architecture and Landscape” in The Pelican Guide to English Literature, edited by Boris Ford, vol.4, Penguin Books Ltd, London.
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contemporary H. Mills (1600-1670) with having provided London’s first regular façade and having pointed away from Tudor individualism. But the next great stage is that of Ch.Wren (1632-1723), one of those who, with Newton, Boyle, Locke, Milton or Purcell, remind us that the late 17th century was among the most imaginative periods of English civilization. His art is intellectual, with classical scholarship assimilated in the Renaissance way: he became responsible for designing London’s public buildings, City churches, inventively varied and subtly modulated through all stages of their interior and exterior. Many other artists (Gibbs, Hawksmoor, Archer) are also worth mentioning since their combined work marks England’ s approach to “barroque” taste – a taste expressing not the accuracy of strict classic, but using such a language to express dramatic energy and emotion in varied outline or ebullient forms. The town of LONDON had an importance in the national life of the time that was unequalled elsewhere. Throughout the period it was over ten times as large as any other town in England, and perhaps even more importantly it was there that such social changes as economic individualism, the increase in the division of labour or the development of the family, were most advanced, while it also contained a large proportion of the reading public – from 1700, over half of the booksellers of England were established there. The continuous increase of the size of London was noted by many observers. They were especially struck by the proliferation of buildings beyond the ancient limits of the twin cities of London and Westminster, which became particularly evident after the Great Fire of 1660. Fashion moved westward and northward, while to the east settlements arose which were almost exclusively inhabited by the labouring poor. This increasing difference was commented on by Addison in “The Spectator”: “When I consider this great city in its several quarters and divisions, I look upon it as an aggregate of several nations, distinguished from each other by their respective customs, manners and interests”. The growth of London and its accompanying social and occupational differentiation is perhaps the most important single feature of the social history of the late Stuart period, and we should therefore expect to find out that some of the distinctive psychological features of modern urbanization began to manifest themselves at the same time. The streets and places of resort in the various quarters of the town presented a variety of ways of life, ways of life that anyone could observe and yet for the most part utterly alien to one individual’s personal experience. This combination of physical proximity and vast social distance is a typical feature of urbanization, and one of its results is to give a particular emphasis to external, material values in the city-dweller’s attitude to life: the most conspicuous values, common to visual experience, being economic. This decline of religious values in the town made way for the supremacy of material values, symbolized in the way London was rebuilt after the Great Fire: it was the Royal Exchange, and not St. Paul’s which became the architectural focus of the city. At the same time, London figured in much of the drama and fiction of the time as the symbol of 202
wealth, luxury, excitement: for Sterne’s novel-reading girl Biddy Tipkins, for Defoe’s Moll Flanders, for Eliza Haywood’s Betsy Thoughtless, it is the milieu where everything happens: triumph in a big city has become the Holy Grail in the individual’s secular pilgrimage. From the reign of Charles II to the early Georges, the London coffee-house became the centre of social and literary life. It afforded a much needed relaxation of the severe drinking habits of the time, filling the place now occupied by the club but in a more informal manner. To such houses merchants came for the latest information and for personal advice necessary for all transactions. The spoken word did many things that print does today, and for merchants the word was spoken at Lloyd’s. Capitalism brought a great increase of economic specialization, and this combined with a less rigid and homogenous social structure, while a less absolutist government enormously increased the individual’s freedom of choice. For those fully exposed to the new economic order, the effective entity was no longer the family nor the guild, nor the township, but the individual: he alone was responsible for determining his own economic, social, political, religious, philosophic or literary ideas. However, few participated in the glories and miseries of London life more intensely than Defoe. London born and bred, he ran the gamut of Court and jail, and finally, like the complete Tradesman he wanted to be, finished life with coach and country house. He was intensely interested in all London’s problems, as it is evident in such studies as Augusta Triumphans (1728), an interesting essay in urban reform, as well as in many of his other works – he even planned to take profit from London’s growth by establishing his ill-fated manufacture of bricks and tiles at Tilbury. His literary work embodies many of the positive aspects of urbanization. His heroes and heroines make their way through the immoral metropolitan space in pursuit of fortune, and as we accompany them we are given a very complete picture of London milieus, from the poor tenements to fashionable houses of the West End. Yet, although the picture has its selfish and sordid aspects, Defoe’s London is still a community, composed by an almost infinite variety of parts, but at least of parts which still recognize their kinship; it is large, but somehow remains local, while Defoe and his characters are part of it. There are probably, as Ian Watt explains it “many reasons for Defoe’s buoyant and secure tone. He had some memory of the days before the Great Fire, and the London he had grown up in was still an entity much of it enclosed by the city Wall” 2. But the major reason is surely that, although Defoe had since seen enormous changes and he himself had participated in them actively, he lived in the age when the foundations of the new way of life were being laid. He had all the vigour of the textile tradesmen pictured by Deloney over a century earlier; like them, he was in part a countryman, as much at home riding up and down the country as in the shop or the counting-house. 2
Watt, Ian, 1971, The Rise of the Novel, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, p.28.
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Even in London, the streets supply him with the equivalent of watching the saga of countryside, his experience harking back to the days of the independence of citizenry, with its multifarious and casual relationships, opposed to the fewer but more intense ones which Richardson portrayed in his novels (Pamela and Clarissa). No other historical event in London’s evolution so captivated the mind and imagination of Defoe as did the awesome Plague of 1665. If it had not occurred, Defoe (one is tempted to say) would have invented it. The problems is posed the questions it raised – whether social, religious, economic, and philosophic – are similar to the ones found in his works generally, even in some passages of his various novels. However, not least in significance is that the tragedy of London was a particularly urban drama, of a city inspiring perennial fascination to Defoe. There was something voracious in his relation to the metropolis, a zest for every aspect of it, inns, streets, markets, buildings, its beauty and its platitude that often generates a lyrical energy in his prose when London is the subject. Defoe was the laureate of 18th century London; and what appealed to him most of all was the spectacle of a teeming, bustling, dynamic city, infinitely complex, a pageant of movement and colour, splendid despite its tawdry aspects, impressive and intricate by virtue of the intertwining of the lives and fates of its massive population. What the Great Plague of 1665 presented to his imagination was London in a wholly different guise, diametrical and yet fascinating in the very magnitude of the change, its vitality withered, its streets deserted, a city desolate, stricken, dying. Although Defoe’s Journal is many things, it is perhaps first and foremost a story of London. People died by thousands, families and parishes are decimated, physicians, clergymen and tradesmen, rich and poor are carted off to graves; first these are nameless dead and the tragedies, with a few exceptions, are not individual. Where deaths are so abundant, poignancy is diffused. The real tragedy is corporate. It applies less to this or that person or family, more to the greater organism, the stricken city ravished by plague, its people either fled or dying, its marts closed, its vast energies replaced by silence and inaction. Defoe wished this to be a paramount impression of his narrative, and he ordered his material to gain that end. He was so intent on depicting a city lying desolate and inert that he may have gone beyond the historical facts. Although large numbers fled and certain activities ceased, we know from Pepys, Evelyn and others that many of the customary routines of daily life continued; and even Defoe has not wholly obscured this fact however he tried to minimize it. The Journal of the Plague Year is therefore a historical narrative of London in a year of agony, a variety – of local history as limited temporally as geographically, evincing affinities with a kind of “history” congenial to the age: that of particular accounts of natural calamities, of extraordinary manifestations in nature, such as storms, floods, and earthquakes, plagues, fires, or blazing stars. To conclude, Defoe’s major prose fiction has a great deal to say about space: he often transports his characters to parts of the world that he himself had visited, whose landscape he knew well and which represented much more than names to him. The sense of space is therefore frequently coloured in many of his works and 204
since Defoe knew London intimately as his Tour for instance shows, his fiction is expected to be quite specific about the city, and London’s image proves it. When considering Colonel Jack’s London, Samuel Holt Monk points out: “Topographically Defoe is impeccable; we do indeed see scenes and places in the London of the plague year”. Monk seems to be right – in his Journal of the Plague Year, a brilliantly imagined portrait of London in the crisis of 1665, Defoe offers us a possible literary equivalent of Hogarth’s memorably noisy, crowded ”scenes and places”, while he also shows his skill in evoking a locale, without using an over-extended description. For another coarse imagery of the interior of a pub, for instance, we might have to turn to such writers as Ned Ward or Thomas Brown. In his London Spy, Ward defines the space by the activity of the people in it: his “London Spy” is a countryman plunged into the city and almost overwhelmed by it, while Defoe’s narrator is a keen observer of communal activity, participating in it, whose space is not generic as the city is often described for its own sake by someone swept along within its turbulent waves of noisy activity. We might also compare Defoe’s “spatial” technique with Thomas Brown’s picture of the busy traffic of a London street, enough to make Covent Gardern market seem tranquil “Make Way there, says a Gouty Leg’d Chairman, that is carrying a punk of quality to a Mornings Exercise; Or a Bartholomew – Baby Beau, newly launch’d out of a chocolate-house. Make room there, says another Fellow driving a Wheel-barrow of nuts that spoil the lungs of the city prentices... One Draws, another Drives. Stand up there, you Blind Dog, says a Carman, will you have the cart squeeze your guts out? One tinker knocks, another bawls, Have you Brass pot, Iron pot, Kettle, or a flying-pan to mend, Two a Groat, and Four for Six Pence Mackarel. One yells louder than Homer’s Stentor, Buy my Flawnders and is followed by an old burly Drab that screams out the sale of her maids and her sole at the same instant.”3 In Brown’s vision of the teeming city, “where repose and silence dare scarce shew their heads in the darkest night”, the observer, parallel to Ward’s countryman, is a bewildered Indian visitor, similar to Hogarth’s “Enrag’d Musician” who covers his ears with his hands to fend off an assault on his nerves. Their earthy, active narrative style, full of short but detailed rhythms seems Defoesque but his characters generally make use of a minute observation of the city and of its people, while seeming to be quite impressed by its “generalized wholes” (rather than particular events). Although Defoe defended St. Paul’s Cathedral against its detractors by appealing “to the particular beauties of every part separately considered” 3 and viewed London as a real, identifiable, familiar place, however, the city – as Max Byrd 4 observes – remains sometimes two dimensional, with an abstract environment sensed out of colours, smells, windows and doors”.
3 Brown, Thomas, 1700, Amusements Serious and Comical, calculated for the Meridian of London, Hanson and Co, London, pp. 20-21.
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He responded to space, as many architectural writers did too, by conceiving it as a political entity, but his London, unlike theirs, is also a space that is defined not only by its porticoes and proportions, but through the activity of one individual inhabitant. The city in Defoe’s novels is a social artifact, while the isolation, alienation of his main characters is imagined spatially: the spaces of the city become important in spite of their lack of specificity, since they enable a subject in a discourse of power to establish his own subjectivity and overcome the least desirable consequences of his alienation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Brown, Thomas, 1700, Amusements Serious and Comical, calculated for the Meridian of London, Hanson and Co, London. Humphreys, Arthur, 1972, ”Architecture and Landscape” in The Pelican Guide to English Literature, edited by Boris Ford, vol.4, Penguin Books Ltd, London. Humphreys, Arthur,1982, ”The Arts in the eighteenth century Britain” in The Cambridge Cultural History edited by Boris Ford, vol.5, Cambridge University Press. Watt, Ian, 1971, The Rise of the Novel, University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles. .
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SPLIT IDENTITIES REVISITED: HOW TO LIVE WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES OF CULTURAL CONFINEMENT Monica GOT, MA, Comenius Assistant – Tàrrega, Spain ABSTRACT Constantly reassessing the canon is acutely central not only to a more refined understanding of the cultural clash in the world nowadays, but also to a discovery and redefinition altogether of new directions and visions in literature. And what better way to rearrange hierarchies and challenge established dichotomies than an investigation of the enduring opposition between the East and the West? The true nature of the coloniser-colonised relationship has, in fact, always been ambivalent. It is quite obvious that the actions of the West regarding the Orient have not just influenced the latter, but have rather set the two poles in an equation that has left neither impervious to the cultural shock, a shock whose repercussions have changed the face of today’s world. Keywords: cultural clash, Orientalism, cultural identities, Westernisation, East/West dichotomy, ambivalence.
But who [...] has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood? (Carl Gustav Jung, Aspects of the Feminine 72)
Throughout the ages, it has been difference rather than resemblance, disparities rather than cohesion and the mania of pointing the finger and casting the first stone – rather than the halo of unity – that have driven the human race forward and have established the winners of the day 1, winners whose blinding glory cast the shadow of oblivion over the ones defeated in the long battle known to us all as the history of mankind 2. And, as far as contemporary man’s conclusions go, history has always been – before anything and beyond any reasonable doubt – exclusively written by the winner. The main target of this paper is trying to pinpoint exactly where postmodern thought and the evolution of mentalities situate the trend today as far as the attitude towards Orientalism and the literary preoccupation with ‘marginal’ cultures is concerned. 1
“Memory says, «I did that». Pride replies, «I could not have done that». Eventually memory yields.” (Friedrich Nietzsche 68) 2 “The history of a nation is, unfortunately, too easily written as the history of its dominant class.” (Kwame Nkrumah 63)
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Postcolonialism has, for quite a considerable amount of time now, stopped being the latest piece of news in terms of critical theory; hence, an exclusively fresh, innovative and off-basis approach to this area of interest often seems no longer possible. The ramifications of the mere notions of Postcolonialism, Orientalism and the like are far beyond the grasp of anyone exclusively concerned with one-sided explanations and clear-cut, mathematical definitions. The previously-mentioned concepts and their countless literary representatives are as complex and intricate as the cultural melting pot they originate in. Constantly reassessing the canon is acutely central not only to a more refined understanding of the cultural clash in the world nowadays, but also to a discovery and redefinition altogether of new directions and visions in literature. And what better way to rearrange hierarchies and challenge established dichotomies than an investigation of the ongoing clash between the East and the West? In his essay “Religion in Politics” 3, while discussing the concept of jihad inside and outside the Muslim tradition, Eqbal Ahmad concludes that the fundamentalists’ oversimplification of the Islamic doctrine – which thus becomes no more than a “penal code” – is indeed “very reassuring to the men and women who are stranded in the middle of the ford, between the deep waters of tradition and modernity.” These “deep waters” mentioned by Eqbal Ahmad are a perfect metaphor of today’s world, which includes not only the nations struggling to take the huge step towards transition, but also (and perhaps in an all the more symbolic manner) those which have already been tagged as ‘emancipated’, ‘democratic’ and ‘free’ – yet the same ones which, when the time came, repeatedly failed to shed prejudices and ready-made opinions of whatever is distinct, unfamiliar and far away. In the middle of the confusion of attitudes and standpoints, an academic pursuit to define and clarify not only the nature of those circumstances which cause entire ethnic/religious groups to be situated on either side of what Samuel P. Huntington calls “the clash of civilizations” 4, but also the very concepts that are used to identify them, is needed. Clearly such an attempt is neither new, nor trouble-free. Huntington’s point of view, although not more than a fairly decent analysis of the state of contemporary political circumstances, has caused significant reactions and stirred the academic and political environment as a revolutionary vision. The study’s main message is basically that, politically speaking, the world is bound to enter a new stage, in which mankind will be faced with dramatic conflicts, first and foremost at a cultural level. Since civilization is the highest form of cultural alliance formed by human beings, it is the problematic matters defining these civilizations (such as the differences in language, history, religion and tradition) that will make up the very source of ongoing conflict. Considering the 3
Dawn – Opinion; January 31, 1999, http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Library/9803/eqbal_ahmad/eqbal_religion_politics.html. 4 From “The Clash of Civilizations?” by Samuel P. Huntington, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993.
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fact that, according to Huntington, this age of cultural divergence has already begun, the author suggests a coalition of the related and a policy of overt cultural imperialism, so that Western values are disseminated as much as possible. The text concludes that the Occident must promote a position of acceptance when it comes to foreign civilizations, yet consider a more aggressive approach, should circumstances call for it. Nevertheless, Huntington’s overall reflections point to a solution involving tolerance between cultures and, more generally, the Other. The creed he strongly supports in his essay states the following: “The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” This assertion – together with the entire thesis that derives from it – is what causes Edward Said, in his article “We all swim together” 5, to virulently contradict the points of view of both Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations?” and Bernard Lewis’ “The Roots of Muslim Rage” 6. Said’s stand is extremely clear; he denounces the extremist positions of the two authors, accusing them both of turning the Orient and the Occident alike into cartoonish representations, a categorization lacking subtlety and demeaning the very significance of the East/West dichotomy: In both articles, the personification of enormous entities called “the west” and “Islam” is recklessly affirmed, as if hugely complicated matters such as identity and culture existed in a cartoon-like world where Popeye and Bluto bash each other mercilessly, with one always more virtuous pugilist getting the upper hand over his adversary. According to Said, what is chiefly embarrassing about the vision of the Other in either cultural community is the complex of superiority it invariably implies. The parallel never seems to allow differences in the directions evaluated, nor compensatory values of any kind. Comparisons are always strict and unbending, to the point where whatever is alien cannot but be labelled as inferior, and always looked down on with a condescending smile at best. The ‘us’ versus ‘them’ issue lies at the core of the self-proclaimed civilized and unbiased West, as well as it is the basis of Oriental views. Conflict and opposition are always, most of the time unconsciously even, the paradigm which cultural identity is subject to; sadly enough, the coexistence of values and reciprocal assimilation of such is seldom taken into account or praised. Usually – since it is unacceptable in the lines of the ‘either/or’ manner of thinking which characterizes even the most liberal minds – the idea that, typically, there is a part of ‘us’ in ‘them’ and vice versa quickly dissolves in denial. As Said puts it:
5 6
Magazine article by Edward W. Said; New Statesman, Vol. 130, October 15, 2001. The Atlantic, September 1990 – http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199009/muslim-rage
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This is the problem with unedifying labels such as Islam and the west: they mislead and confuse the mind, which is trying to make sense of a disorderly reality that won't be pigeon-holed. I remember interrupting a man who, after a lecture I had given at a West Bank university in 1994, rose from the audience and started to attack my ideas as “western”, as opposed to the strict Islamic ones he espoused. “Why are you wearing a suit and tie?” was the first retort that came to mind. “They're western, too.”
This is a typical illustration of the intertwinement of cultures, so subtle and deeply rooted in the collective unconscious that it completely and absolutely eludes any kind of rationalization. It is perhaps the point of disruption that Said is trying to warn us about, the moment when the ultimate clash takes place – and it is not a clash of cultures in the sense that Huntington, for that matter, defines it; in fact, this particular clash is quite the contrary. It is a clash whose origin resides within the modern individual’s own mind: an uninterrupted yet perfectly involuntary and unconscious process of thought. The case of Said’s student is but a clear and undistorted picture of modern cultural beliefs, whether they are explicit or not, whether the ones who adopt them are even aware of their stand or otherwise. The brief but significant occurrence during one of Said’s university courses is an uncomplicated parabola of the entire modern world, be it Eastern or Western. One is hereby faced with one’s innermost hypocrisies and weaknesses; since, no matter how hard one tries to rationalize and hence come to terms with one’s own limitations as to understanding the Other, one oh-so-often finds oneself in the shoes of the Oriental student who, wearing a suit and a tie – utterly ignorant of the elements of the other culture which he has by all means integrated as his own – poses as an intransigent judge of the vile process of ‘westernization’. This is a common problem which characterizes a dramatic majority of the individuals nowadays, regardless of their degree of education and knowledge of the intercultural problem. What is indeed interesting is that we tend to think in patterns and are prisoners of categorizations long after we have begun denouncing them – in a manner most overt and brave, yet only at the level of appearances. It seems, however, that this sheer hypocrisy is almost never intimately acknowledged and taken upon oneself; rather, it translates as proof of the human being’s incapacity to assimilate and internalize beliefs that, at a rational level, are being endorsed and extensively discoursed. Personally, I assume this phenomenon occurs because, more often than not, we (modern preachers of cultural open-mindedness) fail to recognize any sort of influence of the Other – be it positive or less so – upon our own culture. On the contrary, we constantly prefer to turn a blind eye and live in denial, trapped in a black-and-white vision of the world around. Therefore, we may assume that this intolerance to difference and rejection of representations, rather than concrete realities, is merely a manifestation of intellectual limitation and self-deceit. It is easy to cast the stone as long as the ‘opposing’ culture is merely an alien set of values, an empty concept or some other 210
random prejudice with a given name. The really difficult part, though, is gathering enough courage to single out that very moment when day-to-day details (such as the suit and tie in Said’s example) – which remind one that culture is a living organism, subject to transition – become manifest. Indeed, the fact that cultural values fluctuate and are part of an ongoing process of involuntary lending and unconscious borrowing has become more and more obvious in (post)modern times. As a result, the discourse of this paper must slowly shift towards yet another key aspect of the colonial phenomenon, namely the colonisation of the mind. But in order to do so, one is of course compelled to recurrently return to the opinions of ground-breaking cultural critic Edward Said. According to Orientalism, his most seminal work, it has always been man’s obsession to divide the world into different regions, in such a way that these differences could be either real or imaginary. It took years and even centuries to establish an absolute demarcation between the Orient and the Occident. The contacts established involved not only trading and politics, but other aspects as well. Thus, in recent history Europe has started developing a continuously growing knowledge of the Orient – nonetheless, paying at all times more attention to the colonial phenomenon than factual reality, always interested in the Other (as an alien, exotic entity) and all that the Other represents in view of this falsely projected status. Such a mythical interpretation of the Orient has been mainly a product of literature and the arts. It is common knowledge that Europe has always enjoyed the dominant position, which is an objective historical reality and cannot be turned into a euphemism. I solidly agree to Said in that, however diplomatic the position of dominant Europe has tried to be, striving to compensate the general state of affairs by emphasizing the so-called grandeur of Oriental civilizations, the relationship between the two poles continues to be one of power – defined within the limits of the superior/subaltern dichotomy. As a result, an unconditional cliché is what has always stood at the core of the Occidental’s perception of the Oriental, namely: the Oriental is devoid of reason, debauched, childish and ‘alien’, whereas the European is – in direct opposition – reasonable, virtuous, mature and ‘normal’. For my part, I deem the antagonism so striking that it is almost evocative of the Romantic/Classic one in literature. In view of Said’s Orientalism, it is made perfectly clear that the coherence and intelligibility of the Oriental’s world, as far as it existed, was never the direct outcome of the Oriental’s struggles or a mirror of his efforts, but once again the circuitous influence of the Occidental, whose own reading of the former’s existence offers that existence rules and a consistent, articulate essence. The knowledge of the Orient, having originated in a political and cultural power struggle, creates the very Orient, the Oriental and his entire world. Thus the Oriental, being subject to interpretation, observation and representation of all sorts, is no longer a complex type, but is reduced to the status of an object, an inanimate exhibit in a museum where the dominant power writes the tags. 211
For a very long time in history, the East/West dichotomy has been troublefree, a riddle without any catch, with the colonisers constantly playing the part of the enlightened and the colonised unknowingly accepting the role of brutes. From my point of view, what has persistently been ignored is the true nature of the coloniser-colonised relationship, which is characteristic of any relationship for that matter, namely ambivalence. It is quite obvious that the actions of the West regarding the Orient have not just influenced the latter, but have rather set the two poles in an equation that has left neither impervious to the cultural shock, a shock whose repercussions have changed the face of the world today. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Bhabha, Homi. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 2004. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 2008. Jung, Carl Gustav. The Psychology of the Unconscious. Tel-Aviv: Dvir Co., Ltd., 1973. ***. Aspects of the Feminine. London: Routledge, 2003. Lewis, Bernard. Islam and the West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2007. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. New York: Vintage, 1989. Nkrumah, Kwame. Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization and Development with Particular Reference to the African Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1965. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993. ***. Orientalism. London: Penguin, 2003. Wa Thiong'o, Ngugi. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: Heinemann, 1986.
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HOW NEW WERE NEW WOMEN IN THE WORKS OF WILDE, GISSING AND SCHREINER? Neslihan GÜNAYDIN Süleymanşah University, Kartal/İstanbul, Turkey ABSTRACT Towards the end of the nineteenth-century educated middle-class women experienced a developmental process from a traditional position to the new woman position through modern views and improvements in social status and roles, and domestic life. This new woman challenged conventionality and fought to be the master of her own life without being exempted from anything men can reach, and to gain as much influence in public life as domestic sphere. The charm of paid work for educated women created revolt against the domestic sphere especially when women faced gender discrimination in the work place and were accused of unsexing themselves by trying to earn their living in the patriarchal public sphere. The broadening employment of women led to new liberties in public life by forcing the world to accept their independence. Therefore the aim of my paper is to demonstrate how new the New Women were in late-Victorian Britain by principally focusing on the lives of protagonists such as Lyndall in Screiner’s The Story of An African Farm, Vivie in Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession, and Rhoda Nunn in Gissing’s The Odd Women. Moreover, I will try to discuss whether this newness turned out to be for the better or worse for these lateVictorian women in the long-run by putting emphasis on their end, fraught with despair, regret and helplessness behind a self-confident, adamant and independent profile against patriarchy. The New Women were new in their ideals such as education, marriage for love, social usefulness, economic independence and equal opportunities for both genders. They left an invaluable legacy behind that next generation of women will build on for more social, political and economic prominence. Their novelty was their attempt and deep devotion to women’s emancipation. What made them new was the desire to be recognized as people and to fight for freedom equal to men in late-Victorian Britain. Keywords: New women, free love, economic independence, emancipation, unwomanly woman, odd women
Towards the end of the nineteenth-century educated middle-class women experienced a developmental process from a traditional position to the new woman position through modern views and improvements in social status and roles, and domestic life. This new woman challenged conventionality and fought to be the master of her own life without being exempted from anything men can reach, and to gain as much influence in public life as domestic sphere. Sally Ledger notes, “the ‘newness’ of the New Woman marked her as an unmistakably ‘modern’ 213
figure, a figure committed to change and to the values of a projected future”. 1 ‘Christened’ in 1894, the new woman was first regarded as a threat to the status quo, because of her elusive position in homogeneous Victorian society. However, more democratic, and rationalistic, the modern industrialized society required the old patriarchal laws to meet the needs and expectations of the rapid transition in the social and economic position of women. Thus the role of women in the maledominated Victorian society changed tremendously through the end of the nineteenth-century as women gained economic independence, entered into the labour market and gained greater choice of occupation due to the demands of an increasingly industrializing world. The charm of paid work for educated women created revolt against the domestic sphere especially when women faced gender discrimination in the work place and were accused of unsexing themselves by trying to earn their living in the patriarchal public sphere. Emma Liggins stated this “uncertain status of the woman worker was the product of large-scale shifts in women’s education, vocational training and employment associated with the rise of the New Woman.” 2 The broadening employment of women led to new liberties in public life by forcing the world to accept their independence. Therefore the aim of my essay is to demonstrate how new the New Women were in late-Victorian Britain by principally focusing on the lives of protagonists such as Lyndall in Screiner’s The Story of An African Farm, Vivie in Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession, and Rhoda Nunn in Gissing’s The Odd Women. Moreover, I will try to discuss whether this newness turned out to be for the better or worse for these late-Victorian women in the long-run by putting emphasis on their end, fraught with despair, regret and helplessness behind a self-confident, adamant and independent profile against patriarchy. The question of what made “New Women” new in the second-half of the nineteenth century can best be answered by looking at women’s remarkable ‘modern revolt’ 3 against the restrictions and passivity which had been imposed on them through nineteenth-century gender ideologies. Their protest against the limitations on their sex expresses a conflict between the greater freedom they pursue and the restrictive concepts of womanly nature and duty imposed by external factors. They aim at providing women with greater freedom through having a share in economical life as well as in other maledominated spheres. This did not necessarily involve a total rejection of traditional duties or responsibilities by women; Chris Willis states: “Victorian feminism is not a simple 1
Sally Ledger, The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the fin de siecle (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), p.5. 2 Emma Liggins, George Gissing, the Working Woman, and Urban Culture (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006), xii. 3 Eliza Lynn Linton, ‘The Modern Revolt’, Macmillan’s Magazine (December 1870), in ‘Criminals, Idiots, Women, and Minors’: Victorian Writing by Women on Women, ed., Susan Hamilton (Toronto: Broadview, 2004), p. 151.
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story of a radical break with tradition. For example, even by the fin de siecle, many New Women wanted to achieve social and political power by reinventing rather than rejecting their domestic role.” 4 Within the concept of woman as a domestic being they strived for the amelioration of their rights and liberties by active contribution to society rather than maintaining their existence as useless, passive and idle identities. Liggins argues, “the revolt of the modern woman against parasitism and dependence was related to the importance of her choice of a ‘life-work’, and women’s need for economic independence was related to their struggle for political emancipation.” 5 As far as the origins of New Women are concerned, Willis traces the resistance to the patriarchal restrictions on women back to the late eighteenth century: The New Woman did not appear from nowhere. During the course of the nineteenth century women had increasingly challenged their subordinate social and political position...Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), had condemned the sexual double standard and urged women’s right to education, employment and full citizenship.” 6 Although there were many instances of earlier resistance to social constraints imposed on woman in British society, the revolutionary movement of these unwomanly women became increasingly prominent and controversial in the late-Victorian period and the ‘New Woman’ became the subject of many writers. Olive Schreiner especially, a self-supportive and self-educated woman writer, is a feminist heroine who speaks for women’s struggle for emancipation in her works. Described as ‘the first wholly serious feminist heroine in the English novel’ 7 by Showalter, the protagonist, Lyndall in The Story of An African Farm is the prototype of the new woman identified with Schreiner’s own female identity as vulnerable to the gender biases of her age. In the novel, thirst for learning makes Lyndall conscious of her disempowerment as a woman and the double standard applied to women, both firing her feminist goals and leaving her discouraged. Lyndall places great importance on education by claiming that “there is nothing that helps in this world, but to be very wise, and to know everything – to be clever”(45) 8. Nevertheless, she is disappointed, as her desire for knowledge is thwarted by the true nature of female education provided at Boarding Schools. She states “they are called finishing schools, and the name tells accurately what they are. They finish everything but imbecility and weakness, and that they cultivate.”(185) 4
Chris Willis &Angelique Richardson, The New Woman in Fiction and in Fact (London: Penguin, 1915), p.9. 5 Emma Liggins, George Gissing, the Working Woman, and Urban Culture, xvii. 6 Chris Willis &Angelique Richardson, The New Woman in Fiction and in Fact, p.1. 7 Elaine Showalter, A Literature of their Own. British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (London: Virago, 1984), p.199. 8 Olive Shreiner, The Story of An African Farm (New York: Penguin, 1883), p. 45.
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These schools do not enable Lyndall to develop herself further. The scene of her burning the window frame for the girls to escape to see Otto symbolizes her feminist struggle in life. However, the spark she ignites is not strong enough and soon dies, just as her tragic end refers to how little she accomplished in her cause. (92-3) In her speech to Waldo, Lyndall bemoans the condition of women: “we fit our sphere as a Chinese woman’s foot fits her shoe, exactly”(189). The social roles prescribed for women are thus described as deforming and constricting women’s lives. In fact, as Mill comments, “What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing – the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others.” 9 In attacking the shaping force of society on gender roles, Lyndall challenges the imposing idea that women are naturally weak, vulnerable and helpless without physical strength, knowledge and the capacity for socially valuable labour. She bitterly confesses, on the part of men and women by saying: “we were equals once when we lay new-born babes on our nurse’s knees. We will be equals again when they tie up our jaws for the last sleep.”(190) She attracts our attention to the social obstacles that hinder women’s struggle to redefine female roles and positions in the real world. In the Introduction to Women and Labour, Schreiner addresses the next generation: “you will wonder at the passionate struggles that accomplished so little” 10. However hard they struggle for the emancipation of women, their efforts give little result because they are surrounded with such powerful social constraints. The New Woman is often described as “an advocate of free love” 11, opposing legal marriage, domestic work and family, claiming absolute personal independence and supreme power over men. In The Story of An African Farm, Lyndall chooses a life of free love, rather than a legal marriage, which distinguishes her from a conventional woman. She is driven to subject herself to social and moral disapproval for freedom’s sake. She decides to elope with her lover and to separate from him when they consummate their love, condemning herself to loneliness and abandonment, since she believes “marriage for love is the beautifullest external symbol of the union of souls; marriage without it is the uncleanliest traffic that defiles the world.”(190) She looks for a great and pure love to free herself, not a binding, oppressive one, but believes that the stranger’s motives are not pure: “you love me because you cannot bear to be resisted, and want to master me…I treated you and all men with indifference.You resolved to have me because I seemed unattainable.”(28) Never finding anyone equal to her in mind and heart, she prefers to suffer life as a pregnant fallen woman, forced into solitude after even her nurse deserts her, rather than submit to an imperfect marriage. In her letter to Rev. Lloyd 9
John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1988), p. 22. 10 Olive Schreiner, Women and Labour (London: Virago, 1978), pp. 29-30. 11 Grant Allen, The Woman Who Did (London: Roberts Bros., 1895).
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Schreiner, Olive Schreiner explains that “it was because Lyndall, small child that she was, felt what a sacred and deathless thing true marriage should be that she refused to save her reputation by binding herself forever to that man” 12. Lyndall is severely against marriage and children, regarding marriage as something that will tie her down. She agrees to marry a man on the condition that he submits to her and serves her without expecting anything in return. She states, “I would not like to bring a soul into this world. When it sinned and when it suffered something like a dead hand would fall on me”(209); In the end the death of her little girl baby confirms her former gloomy wish, however much she longs to be happy through a love marriage in changed conditions (but she is aware she is too weak to change anything). Gregory, a traditional man, writes to his sister: “I don’t believe in a man who can’t make a woman obey him”. However, when he meets the unwomanly woman, Lyndall, he is ready to do anything to serve her, even wearing female clothes in the role of a nurse at her death-bed. At this point, Gregory’s manner is a revolt against traditional gender roles. Although he exhibits traditional masculine traits, such as the instinct to dominate women, later Gregory does not abstain from exceeding the sexual and social barriers for love’s sake, just as Lyndall forces the social barriers in her new identity to gain freedom in a male-dominated society. In this sense Gregory’s manner is the reflection of Lyndall’s rebellious nature that she could not exhibit as effectively as Gregory. In a way Lyndall’s death shows us the difficulty of living freely for a woman in a male-based society. However much she struggles to become a New Woman, she cannot find the ideal place she is longing for to live properly and independently from any masculine boundaries. She is disappointed because life does not offer the opportunity to assume a new liberalistic identity. She is the mouthpiece of all imprisoned women who had to lead their lives in despair, helplessness and conventionality. The tragic conclusion of the novel with Lyndall’s death mirrors the vicious circle in women’s lives, which provides no vent for the feelings and objectives of women. For the new woman, Lyndall, every life constituent, including family, marriage and love is acceptable as long as they are open to her freedom. Life is inhabitable for her, when equality is provided between men and women. It is the ideal to undermine the constrained social roles for women and reconstruct them to encourage women’s contribution to social life. It is possible within the enlargement of their social rights and reformation of their repressive living conditions. In this case newness for Lyndall is social change and defence of women’s emancipation against the old oppressive power. The problems and life choices of New Women such as Schreiner’s Lyndall were in many ways born from the situation of another significant social group that engaged the agenda of Victorian society by their uncertain position in the secondhalf of the nineteenth-century: the “Odd Women”.
12
Letter from Olive Schreiner to Rev. J.T. Lloyd(1895), in Olive Schreiner Letters, Volume I: 18711899, ed., Richard Rive (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp.259-260.
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The census of 1851 revealed there were “400 000 ‘surplus’ women” 13, destined to remain unmarried. The census of 1891 showed “there were just under 2, 5 million unmarried women in a total population and among the single women population there were nearly 900,000 more females than males.” 14 These surplus women posed a considerable threat to the institution of marriage by defying traditional gender roles and boundaries of Victorian society. If some measures were not taken, such odd, unmarriageable women would soon be visible and public, making it difficult to insist on the idea of women’s role as Angel in the House. Like Beatrice Webb’s thinking “how could I select the partner until I had chosen the craft?” 15 These women pursued their financial freedom to survive and privileged their profession over love and marriage issues. “The need of earning money has compelled them to become free, and has compelled the world to recognize their freedom.” 16 Economic independence enabled them to control their lives properly by highlighting their individuality more clearly. As Showalter claims, “sexual anarchy began with the odd woman. The odd woman – the woman who could not marry – undermined the comfortable binary system of Victorian sexuality and gender roles.” 17 However, feminist movements insisted that it was necessary to channel the energy of these surplus, unlabouring women into other social, economical and educational spheres to save them from an unproductive, parasitic lifestyle. Otherwise, bad results and social calamities were inevitable. Schreiner reasons, such a woman “whether as a wife or mistress, lives by the exercise of her sex function alone, the one who bears few or no children, and performs no other productive social labour…There is but one step farther to the prostitute, who affects no form of productive labour” 18 These lines demonstrate that, “Schreiner collapses the dichotomy between the angel in the house and the streetwalking whore – so central to the dominant Victorian ideology of femininity – into a single vision of parasitical woman.” 19 Focusing on the policy of social usefulness The Odd Women by George Gissing portrays the struggles of these surplus women against the social, economical and sexual barriers by “dealing with the questions of feminist celibacy, ‘womanliness’, 13
1851 Census of Great Britain: General Reports, cited in Judith Worsnop, ‘A reevaluation of “the problem of surplus women” in 19th-century England:the case of the 1851 Census’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 13 (1990) 14 Martha Vicinus, Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850-1920 (London: Virago, 1985), pp. 293-4. 15 Beatrice Webb, My Apprenticeship (Middlesex: Penguin, 1926), p. 26. 16 Clementina Black, ‘The Organization of Working Women’, Fortnightly Review 52 (1889), 695-704 (p. 696). 17 Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, 1991), p.19. 18 Olive Schreiner, ‘Parasitism’ in Woman and Labour (London: Virago, 1978), pp. 103-4. 19 Sally Ledger, The New Woman: Fiction and Feminism at the fin de siecle, p. 42.
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and sexual repression, but also with more submerged male agendas about competition with women for power and speech.” 20 In Victorian Britain, social mores banned middle-class women from the work force and made them dependent upon their fathers and husbands; ‘odd’, ‘redundant’ or ‘superfluous’ women destined to lead their lives singly had to support themselves like the Madden sisters in The Odd Women. All of these odd women in the novel are candidates to become a New Woman, but their efforts turn out to be a fiasco due to the confusion and dilemmas in an increasingly changing world. They are torn between the old, patriarchal rules and their life expectations and ideals transformed by this industrial world. The inability to reconcile these two separate spheres results in the failure of their struggle for greater freedom and independence. Dr Madden, representative of Victorian social mores in The Odd Women, dictates to his daughters that they should “Let men grapple with the world”(31) 21, and “women, old or young, should never have to think about money”(32), thinking that these kind of material concerns corrupt domestic life. After the death of their father, the six Madden sisters look for the ways to survive, as they have nobody to depend upon, but poverty harms their health and only three of them (Virginia, Alice and Monia) survive. For such women there is not opportunity to work except for being a governess, or a shop girl; however, they can be trained in type-writing like Juliet Appleton who has “all the trappings of the New Woman” and indicates “the Victorian angel in the house could be successfully transplanted into the business world” 22. Representing feminist women in the novel, Miss Barfoot and Rhoda Nunn try to help these hopeless and purposeless women to gain their independence and self-confidence by teaching them how to think and act for themselves. As a passionate candidate to become a New Woman with her radical views on the social position of women, Rhoda Nunn defies marriage and regards so many odd women as a great reserve. She expresses her aim to Monica: “when one woman vanishes in matrimony, the reserve offers a substitute for the world’s work… I want to help … to train the reserve.”(64) However, Miss Barfoot has more moderate ideas about marriage and reminds her of “their mission not to prevent girls from marrying suitably, – only to see that those who can’t shall have a means of living with some satisfaction.”(76) Despite her seemingly opposite views and her desire to challenge the traditional role of a “womanly woman”, Rhoda cannot repress her romantic feelings towards Mr Barfoot. Her dignity and honesty struggle against the impulses of her heart. The representative of a New Man, who rejects the institution of marriage and supports free love like the new woman, Mr Barfoot opposes the conventionality and stereotypical gender roles of Victorian moralism. Both Rhoda and Mr Barfoot seem to defy marriage and to defend a free union in love, but in fact they take marriage very seriously. As Mr Barfoot tests 20
Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle, p. 27. George Gissing, The Odd Women (London: Broadview Press, 1998), p. 31. 22 Grant Allen, Introduction to The Type-Writer Girl (London: Broadview Press, 1897), p. 9. 21
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Rhoda about her true devotion to her new, modern and rebellious convictions, Rhoda tests Mr Barfoot about his sincerity and devotion in love. They cannot come together under the institution of marriage by submission, since they maintain their pride and obstinacy. However, Rhoda realizes Mr Barfoot does not return her love, since he does not take any action to prove his love to her. When Rhoda refuses to marry him, he soon plans to marry Miss Agnes Brissenden, which shows the frivolity and hypocrisy of his love. As seen at the end of The Odd Women, “the New Woman had only a few, while the New Man had many choices.” 23 In a fantastic idealism Mr Barfoot plays with Rhoda’s emotions and leaves her as what she is with her adamant view of feminism, while he goes his own way carelessly with another alternative candidate for a wife. Even if he cannot break the power of her convictions, he deceives and lets her down as a patriarchal force upon her. This disappointment of Rhoda’s love is an attack upon her identity as a New Woman. She is torn between her feminist cause and her personal feelings towards love. Social pressure and her pride as a feminist cause her to abandon the idea of free love and to insist on marriage. It refers to a concession on the part of her feminist principles. It fails her ‘new woman’ ideals. Moreover, this concession under the social pressure makes an opposite effect on the New Man, Mr Barfoot, who shares the same opinion about marriage and love. It returns to her as a slap, as she started to abandon the way of the New Woman. After this turbulent stage Rhoda has to attach herself to her former cause for the sake of women’s emancipation, which is the only option for her struggle of life against the conception of restrictive love. On the other hand, Monica’s traditional marriage with Mr Widdowson because of financial reasons does not make her happy and satisfied. She understands she made a mistake by marrying Mr Widdowson, a stern, anti-social, conservative and oppressive man. She is unable to bear his jealousy and lordship over her and starts to hate him despite his extreme love for her. When she meets Bevis, she realizes that “the independence she had been struggling to assert ever since her marriage meant only to love.”(232) Her illegal affair with Bevis forces her to lie to her husband, making Mr Widdowson doubt her. When she decides to abandon him to elope with Bevis, she is disappointed by Bevis’s unmanly and unwilling manners. Pregnant and helpless, she loses her hope for life. She is victimized by death as if it were atonement for her sins. Monica’s drift from a traditional marriage through an illegal love affair reflects her protest against patriarchy, and her death in shame without justifying herself signifies her inability to defend her rights in this masculine society. She strays from being a selfsufficient woman following the policy of social usefulness and chooses to marry a man for financial relief, but this time she ignores her own satisfaction in life and love. By challenging the rules of the new woman, the icon of free love, antimarriage and a career-oriented social life, Monica restricts her own freedom and condemns herself to domestic world in which she is unhappy to live with the man she does not love and has no free will.
23
Elaine Showalter, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle, p. 57.
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Other examples of late Victorian literature show the newness of the New Woman by presenting a conflict between the generations, emphasizing how gender ideas had changed with he advent of the New Woman. At the beginning of the Victorian period the model of “womanly woman” showed social and characteristic features correspondent with the family system in an unbroken way even if she had unconscious conflicts like sexual repression under the surface. However, this situation was overturned during the late-Victorian period. “The consciousness and existence of well-to-do women were increasingly challenged and the womanly woman was turned into a beleaguered model rivalled by a new competitor known as the “new woman”. 24 The struggle for female emancipation prevailed through the end of the 1870s and it created a gap between the family and the character of womanly woman in late Victorian society. “By the early nineties the disjunction created the most profound gap of the nineteenth century between mothers and daughters. The older generation of mothers, Womanly Women, were confronted by a new generation of daughters, the New Women.” 25 This case was to the advantage of women in the long-run, though at first it caused conflicts and gaps of understanding between generations. “The Womanly Woman had nothing to lose but her tightly corseted existence, hang-ups, guilt-feelings, crucified flesh, innocent mindlessness, and self-absorbing roles of daughter, wife and mother. After the take-off into emancipation there was hope of her becoming a human being.” 26 Thus high humanistic intentions were underlying this New Women movement despite some difficulties in practice. Mrs Warren’s Profession by Bernard Shaw is a very good example of the conflicts stemming from generation gaps with the rise of New Women. The new woman, described as ‘unwomanly woman’ and ‘the desexualized half-man’, was sometimes seen as “the victim of the universal passion for learning” 27. The protagonist Vivie in Mrs Warren’s Profession symbolizes the New Woman in conflict with her mother, a conventional woman. Vivie is an educated, unconventional, career-oriented woman who rejects domesticity and womanliness, unlike Mrs Warren, who pays for Vivie’s education and hopes in exchange Vivie will look after her in her old age. Because of underpayment, Mrs Warren became involved in prostitution as a means to provide income. As Walkowitz confirms, “poor working women often drifted into prostitution because they felt powerless to assert themselves and alter their lives in any other way.” 28 The main reason for prostitution is not female depravity or male licentiousness, but unfair working conditions which force women to search for different ways to support themselves. However, even after she becomes wealthy, Mrs Warren does not give up this profession as she wishes to maintain the wealth and status that it has provided her. 24
Martha Vicinus, Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age (London: Indiana University Press, 1972), p. 171. 25 Ibid., p. 172. 26 Ibid., p. 172. 27 Hugh E. M. Stutfield, ‘Tommyrotics’ (1895), p. 837. 28 Judith R. Walkowitz, Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p.21.
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This fact separates the daughter and mother from each other. Related to the causes of prostitution, Acton points out that he comes across “vanity, vanity, and then vanity, – for what but this are love of dress and admiration, and what sacrifices will not tens of thousands of the uneducated make to gain these?” 29 This zeal for luxury leads Mrs Warren to follow her sister, Lizzie’s example and choose prostitution as a profitable business. Prostitution was thus a reaction to the miserable conditions women would otherwise suffer and the lack of opportunity for self-betterment. Described as one of most respectable ladies by Mrs Warren, Lizzie tempts her saying: “what are you doing there, you little fool? Wearing out your health, your appearance for other people’s profit.”(123) 30 Led astray by their vanity and selfinterest, both sisters become the slaves of a traditional view of life, working within patriarchal restrictions, rather than seeking to expand women’s opportunities into the male-dominated world of work. Mrs Warren could have given up this sordid job and open a new page in her life, but her ambition for money hinders her. “Prostitution leads to nothing… the prostitute has no future. Her life, saving the excitement of the moment, is a blank.” 31 Aware of this fact, the prudish daughter, Vivie refuses to reconcile with her conventional mother and finally says good-bye to her. Vivie represents the middle-class women who desires greater social and economical independence. Equality and justice in work and education become key elements of these new women. In Vivie’s time “degree-less Cambridge women could have the personal satisfaction of knowing that they had completed one of the most demanding curricula in the country, but their knowledge did not open new doors in science, law, or other traditional male fields.” 32 Eventually Vivie works as a partner in a female law firm, but she is still not free to enter into the maledominated work sphere which conditions the law degree. What makes Vivie new is her unrelenting manners and invincible power of will against conventionality. Mill reflects: “all women are brought up from the very earliest years in the belief that their ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will, and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others.” 33 Thus for the rebellious new woman the realities and expectations of the society is, most of the time, a barrier against her ideals and desires.
29
William Acton, Prostitution Considered in its Moral, Social and Sanitary Aspects, in London and Other Large Cities, with Proposals for the Mitigation and Prevention of its Attendant Evils, p. 21. 30 Bernard Shaw, Mrs Warren’s Profession (Plymouth: Broadview Press, 2005), p. 123. 31 Henry Mayhew, London labour and the London Poor: […] Those That Will Not Work, (London: Griffin, Bohn, and Company, 1862), p. 236. 32 Martha Vicinus, A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women (London: Indiana University Press, 1977), p. XVİİ 33 John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1988), p.16.
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CONCLUSION On the final overview we can conclude that the new in the New Woman is the social prominence which her concerns came to have and how she was being expressed progressively more vocally. The New Woman was new in her ideals such as education, marriage for love, social usefulness, economic independence and equal opportunities for both genders. Most of the time she was offended by anti-liberalist, oppressive, male-dominated Victorian society and so alienated from life in which she could not find her proper place and her beloved, worthy of her high convictions and feelings. And her distinguished, singular ideas and status were mostly repressed. However, she did not give up for the sake of her high cause. Lyndall who intended to fire the old world with her sparky nature and create a new light for women’s emancipation in a new world realized that women are cursed from birth until death, beauty rather than intellect is an advantage for them, marriage for love rather than for convention is most preferable and both men and women can reach happiness only through equality and justice on the earth. Rhoda, torn between her love and feminist ideal, discovers she should bind herself to her cause more devotedly in the face of hypocritical men and their deceptive policies. For Rhoda to fight to train the reserve is more indispensable for the birth of brave and self-content women.Vivie, whose ideals and view of life completely conflict with her mother’s, is brave enough to challenge even her own mother for the sake of what she represents as a new woman. The patriarchal nature of their society did not enable all these new women to practice their own rules and be happy and were doomed to death and despair in this world of failures unless humanist tenets such as love, justice, equality and freedom dominate the earth. Nevertheless, they left an invaluable legacy behind that next generation of women will build on for more social, political and economic prominence. Their novelty was their attempt and deep devotion to women’s emancipation. What made them new was the desire to be recognized as people and to fight for freedom equal to men in late-Victoain Britain. BIBLIOGRAPHY Acton, William, Prostitution Considered in its Moral, Social and Sanitary Aspects, in London and Other Large Cities, with Proposals for the Mitigation and Prevention of its Attendant Evils (London: Churchill, 1857). Allen, Grant, The Type-Writer Girl (London: Broadview Press, 1897). * * * The Woman Who Did (London: Roberts Bros., 1895). Black, Clementina, ‘The Organization of Working Women’, Fortnightly Review 52 (1889), 695-704, p. 696. Gissing, George, The Odd Women, (London: Broadview Press, 1998). Ledger, Sally, The New Woman: Fiction and feminism at the fin de siècle (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997). Liggins, Emma, George Gissing, the Working Woman, and Urban Culture (Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006). Linton, Eliza Lynn , ‘The Modern Revolt’, Macmillan’s Magazine (December 1870), in 223
‘Criminals, Idiots, Women, and Minors’: Victorian Writing by Women on Women, ed., Susan Hamilton (Toronto: Broadview, 2004). Mayhew, Henry, London labour and the London Poor: […] Those That Will Not Work (London: Griffin, Bohn, and Company, 1862). Mill, J. Stuart, The Subjection of Women, ed. Susan M. Okin (Cambridge: HackettPublishing Company, 1988). Richardson, Angelique & Willis, Chris, The New Woman in Fiction and in Fact (London: Penguin, 1915). Rive, Richard, Olive Schreiner Letters, Volume I: 1871-1899 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). R. Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century, cited in Family Fortunes (Harmondsworth, 1982). Schreiner, Olive, The Story of An African Farm, (New York: Penguin, 1883). * * * Women and Labour (London: Virago, 1978). Shaw, Bernard, Mrs Warren’s Profession (Plymouth: Broadview Press, 2005). Showalter, Elaine, A Literature of their Own. British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (London: Virago, 1984). * * *, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle (London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd, 1991). Stutfield, Hugh E. M., ‘Tommyrotics’ (1895). Vicinus, Martha, A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women (London: Indiana University Press, 1977). Vicinus, Martha, Suffer and Be Still: Women in the Victorian Age (London: Indiana University Press, 1972). Walkowitz, Judith R., Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). Webb, Beatrice, My Apprenticeship, (Middlesex: Penguin, 1926). Worsnop, Judith, ‘A Reevaluation of “the Problem of Surplus Women” in 19th– Century England: the Case of the 1851 Census’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 13 (1990).
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DIE EINFLUSSE VON HEINRICH HEINE IN MIHAI EMINESCUS LYRIK Mihaela HRISTEA (MA) Spiru Haret University, Bucharest
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Das Gedicht von Heine hat sich im großen Sturm der deutschen romantischen Lyrik verflochten, Lyrik mit der unser Nationaldichter in Berührung gekommen ist, und sie nicht nur beeinflusst hat, sondern sich auch auf sein ganzes schriftstellerisches Schaffen geprägt hat. Eminescu hat alle diese Elemente in der Eigentümlichkeit seiner Schreibar vereint, und hat trotz all dieser Einflüsee seinen Originalton behalen. Die beiden Schriftsteller sind sich ähnlich, nicht nur in was die Thematik ihrer erotischen Gedichte betrifft, der Verwendung in ihrer Lyrik der Synthese des nördlichen und südlichen Gebietes, aber auch in der Verwendung derselben Bilder, Motive, Symbole und der einfachen und schlichten Schreibart der Volkslieder. Als Publizisten haben die Beiden, sowohl gegen die sozialen Ungerechtigkeiten, als auch für gleichen Rechte und für die Freiheit der Menschheit gekämpft . Schlüsselwörter: Romantismus, Polemik, Publizistik.
Einfluss,
Originalität,
Gedicht,Volksgut,
In der Leidenschaft mit der die zwei Persönlichkeiten der Weltliteratur die Rechte der Ausgebeuteten behandeln, sowohl in ihren Europäischen-Dasein, aber auch in der Neigung für das Aufnehmen der Thematik der nördlichen und mittelmeerischen Gebiete, kann man Analogien festhalten. Eminescu und Heine sind in der Weltliteratur wiederzufunden durch ihr gemeinsames allgegenwärtiges Thema, aber auch durch die Elemente, die sie trennen. Was jedoch sicher ist, ist die Tatsache, dass Eminescu die dichterische Sprache, den dichterischen Wortschatz und die dichterische Ausdrucksweise der romantischen Epoche mit in die rumänische Literatur gebracht hat. Bei Eminescu ist die Liebe in seiner erotischen Lyrik immer tiefer, ernster, indem scheinbar dieses Gefühl die Leidenschaft der Vorfahren speichert: Pe lângă plopii fără soţ („Oft ging ich, wo die Pappeln sind”): „Denn ich liebt dich mit Augen, die/ in Heidenschmerzen brannten, / dem Gut, das Vater Väter mir/ in früher Zeit vermacht/(…) Dein Leben hätte fort gedauert,/ Jahrhundert um Jahrhundert;/ du wärst mit deinen Armen kühl/ ein stolzes Marmorbild/” 1. Die Sinnlichkeit seiner Gedichte wird in Bildern widerspiegelt, die das unerreichbare Ideal oder die Marmorstatuen suggeriert, während bei Heine die 1
Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S.166.
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Liebe sinnlicher und irdischer als bei Eminescu ist. Den Einfluss von Heine erkennt man bei Eminescu vor allem in seinen Liebesgedichten, wobei bei den rumänischen Dichter die Liebe als ein feines Gefühl, das von der Seele erragt wird, ohne keine Frivolitätspur erscheint. Dieses Gefühlt wird auch in der Fruhlyrik von Heine widerspiegelt. In Venin şi Farmec („Erbitterung und Verführung“), Vre-o sgâtie de fată („Ein sehr keines Mädchen“) und Ochiul tău iubit („Dein beliebtes Auge“) bemerkt man den Einfluss der Lyrik und die Schreibart von Heine. De câte ori iubito mă uit în ochii tăi („Wie oft, meine Geliebte, schaue ich in deine Augen“) beginnt mit ähnlichen Versen wie diejenigen des deutschen Dichters und tragen sogar denselben Titel: Wenn ich in deine Augen seh 2, aber der Inhalt des rumänischen Textes unterscheidet sind vom Deutschen. Ohne Zweifel hat Heine Eminescu beeinflusst, aber es wirkt nicht vorherrschend auf sein Schaffen, sondern es verflechtet sich im Geiste der deutschen Dichtung, die sich insgesamt auf Eminescus Schaffen ausgeprägt hat. Wir bemerken im Gedicht von Eminescu ähnliche Wendungen mit denen von den Versen der deutschen Dichter, zum Beispiel in Singurătate („Einsamkeit“): „Und mir will das Herz verbrennen,/ daß so schnell verstreicht die Stunde,/ wenn ich flüsternd mit ihr sitze,/ Hand in Hand und Mund an Munde/” 3. Die finden wir auch bei Heine wieder in Lyrisches Intermezzo, Nr.52 in Mir träumte wieder der alte Traum: „Das war ein Schwören und Schwören aufs neu/, Ein Kichern, ein Kosen, ein Küssen” 4. Die Geliebte erscheint in der erotischen Lyrik von Eminescu wie ein Traumbild, wie auch bei Heine in den Versen: „Liebste, sollst mir heute sagen:/Bist du nicht ein Traumgebild/” 5. Die Frau hat bei Eminescu das gleiche Antlitz wie die in der Ballade Lorelei, reflektiert im Gedicht Crăiasa din poveşti („Die Märchenprinzessin”): „Und sie schaut... Gesicht und Blondhaar/ leuchten in des Mondes Scheinen,/ da in ihren blauen Augen/ alle Märchen sich vereinen.” 6 In der Lirik des rumänischen Dichters erscheint das Fraubild auch in anderen Versen. Sie verfügt über blondes Haar, zum Beispiel in Lasă-ţi lumea ta uitată („O vergiß die Welt der Deinen“): „Durch den Nebel zittern Flammen,/ sprühen vom Mond den Wassern zu,/ und nur er sieht uns zusammen,/ süße blonde Liebste, du.” 7 Die Geliebte hat „weisse Arme” „aus Marmor” wie im Gedicht Noaptea („Die Nacht”): „Mit deinen weichen weissen Arme, rund und duftende/ Du umarmst mir den Hals und legst dein Haupt auf meine Brust(...)/Und dann als erwacht vom Traum, mit weissen, sußen Händchen/ Von meinen traurigen Stirn, machst du meine Haare weg/” 8.
2
Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.73. Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 95. 4 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.94. 5 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.78. 6 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 67. 7 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S169. 8 Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1884, S.84, rumänische Auflage. 3
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Die Frau wird im Gedicht von Eminescu in einem Bild, das die Ewigkeit suggeriert dargestellt: Atât de fragedă („Du bist so hauchzart”):„Ein Marmorbildnis, bleibst du stehen,/ beseeligt hängt an dir mein Blik./In deine Augen will ich sehen,/ die voller Tränen sind und Glück/” 9. Bei Heine haben wir das gleiche Bild im Gedicht Deine weißen Lilienfinger 10. Die Geliebte wird von Heine mit einer Blume verglichen im Geicht Du bist wie eine Blume: „Du bist wie eine Blume,/ So hold und schon und Rein/”, tatsächlich finden wir auch im Eminescus Gedicht Noaptea („Die Nacht”) dasselbe Bild 11 wie in Eminescus Gedicht Atât de fragedă („Du bist so hauchzart”): ”Du bist so hauchzart, so erlesen,/ den Kirschenblüten ähnelst du;/ ein Engel unter Erdenwesen,/ so kommst du milde auf mich zu/” 12. Ein anderes gemeinsames lyrisches Element der beiden Dichter ist „die Rose”. Diese Blume, das Liebessymbol, erscheint in mehreren Gedichten von Heine. Als Beispiel werde ich nur ein paar Verse hervorbringen, aus dem Lyrischen Intermezzo Nr.23: „Warum sind denn die Rosen so blaß,/ O sprich, mein Lieb, warum?” 13, aber auch in Eminescus Verse Crăiasa din poveşti („Märchenprinzessin“) findet sich dieses Liebessymbol wieder. 14 In Luceafărul („Der Abendstern”) ist die Liebe ein romantisches Gefühl, eine Neigung zum Unendlichen. In anderen Gedichten aus der Frühlyrik von Eminescu hatte der Dichter in Versen, alles was die Liebe des verliebten Mannes fur eine MarmorStatue bedeutete dargestellt. Die Gefühle des Verliebten verschwinden vor der Marmorstille. Die Marmor ist das Symbol der ephemerischen Liebesgefühle der Frau und bringt das Empfinden der Abneigung des Dichters vor dem kalten Herzen der Frau hervor. Die romantische Liebe in Eminescus Lyrik ist von dem Nostalgiegefühl eingehüllt, denn der Dichter sucht den ersehnten Stern im Himmel, was eine schöpferische Wirkung auf ihn hat. Aus den Tiefen seiner erotischen Inspiration hebt Eminescu den Blick zum Himmel empor. Die Sterne erscheinen in mehreren Gedichten als ewige Zeugen der menschlichen Problematik wie zum Beispiel im Gedicht Călin richtet das Mädchen eine Frage an den Himmel und ebenso in den Kampfberichten von Rovine in Scrisoarea a treia („Dritter Brief”) erscheint das Bild des Sonnenuntergangs und in Scrisoarea a patra (“Vierter Brief”) finden wir dieselbe Darstellung. Im Gedicht Luceafărul („Abendstern“) erscheint der niederfallende Stern, der erlöscht, indem er ins Meer abstürzt. Der Stern ist bei Eminescu das Symbol der immerwährenden Liebe und und er ist vor allem in den Gedichten La steaua („Bei dem Stern”) und „Stelele-n cer”(„Die Sterne im Himmel”) dargestellt. Die Gestalt des Mannes aus dem Gedicht Înger si Demon („Engel und Dämon”) erweckt in seiner Geliebten starke Gefühle, die von ihren Gedanken 9
Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S.167. Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.121. 11 Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1884. S. 84, rumänische Auflage. 12 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 107. 13 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe,1972, Band1, S.81. 14 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 67. 10
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widerspiegelt werden 15 und im Gedicht Strigoii („Die Gespenster”) ist die geliebte Frau, die die Liebesworte findet aber in Povestea teiului („Das Lindesmärchen”) Făt-Frumos füllt das Herz von Blanca mit seinem schmerzvollen Reiz und in Luceafărul („Der Abendstern”) spricht Cătalina die Begeisterungsworte aus. Im Gedicht Scrisoarea a treia ( „Dritter Brief”) und in Călin spielt sich die gleiche Problematik ab. Die zwei Gefühle, die Traurigkeit und die Nostalgie, die in den meisten Gedichte von Eminescu erscheinen, bekommen verschiedene Intensitatsniveaus, wie man bemerkt in den Gedichten Departe sunt de tine („Weg bin ich von dir”), Pe aceeaşi ulicioară („Auf die gleiche schmalle Gasse”) De ce nu-mi vii, („Warum kommst du zu mir nicht”) und in vielen anderen noch. In den Gedichten Despărţire („Trennung”), Adio, („Abschied”), Te duci („Du gehst weg”) erlebt der Dichter den Augenblick der Trennung, wie ein Vergangenheitserreigniss, das mit Wehmut erfüllt wird. Im Gedicht Floare albastră („Blaue Blume) finden wir ein Symbol, das von den Romantikern und zwar von Novalis aufgenommen wurde, das die Ewigkeit suggeriert und ein Symbol der Nostalgieneigung ist. Bei Eminescu suggeriert dieses Symbol die verlorene Liebe, ein Kennzeichen der erotischen Lyrik des Dichters. Der schmerzhafte Reiz einiger Gedichte von Eminescu in denen die Liebe von den beiden Geliebten mitgeteilt wird, erhält einen metaphysischen Sinn. Die Sinnlichkeit ist ewig und sonderbar mit dem Schmerz verflochten. Sowohl Heine als auch Eminescu haben mehrere Motive, Bilder, Symbole und Wendungen vom Volksgut aufgenommen. Die Sprache, die von Eminescu in seiner erotischen Lyrik verwendet wird, ist einfach und nähert sich in dieser Form der einfachen Sprache von Heine, wobei beide sich dem Volksgedicht nähern. Deswegen wurden sie auch in Romanzen aufgenommen und verspielt, denn die Lyrik, die knappe und klare Sprache passt sich sehr gut der Romanzen an, die von vielen Leuten gesungen wurden und somit weltweite Anerkennung gefunden haben. Durch die Darstellung der Waldeslandschaft und der Musik der Natur ist Eminescu mit dem gesamten europäischen Romantismus verwandt, aber bei ihm wird der Wald in eine eigene Weise vorgestellt, indem der Dichter ihn aus Erfahrung schildert. Der rumänische Dichter stellt das Bild des Waldes in der Mehrzahl seiner Gedichten dar: Lasă-ţi lumea ta uitată („O vergiß die Welt der Deinen”), Ce te legeni, codrule („Warum wiegst du, lieber Wald”), La mijloc de codru des („Tief im dichtem Wald”), Dorinţa, („Der Wunsch”), Povestea codrului („Das Waldmärchen”) und viele andere noch. Bei Heine erscheint dieses Bild in mehreren Gedichten aus der Frühlyrik. Ich gebe im Folgenden einige Beispiele aus dem Zyklus Lyrisches Intermezzo und zwar von den Versen: ”Mein Wagen rollt langsam/ Durch lustiges Waldgrün” 16 und ebenso vom Gedicht ”Wir haben viel füreinander gefühlt” und zwar von den Versen: ”Wir haben zusammen gejauchzt 15 16
Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1884, S.93, rumänische Auflage. Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.95.
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und gescherzt,/ Und zärtlich uns geküβt und geherzt./Wir haben am Ende aus kindischer Lust/, «Verstecken» gespielt in Wäldern und Gründen/” 17. Der Wald ist auch in Im Walde wand’ ich und weine vom Zyklus Heimkehr 18 dargestellt oder in den Versen vom Lyrischem Intermezzo, Nr. 61: „Die Mitternacht war kalt und stumm;/Ich irrte klagend im Wald herum” 19. So wie im Volksgedicht auch bei Eminescu erscheint die Natur fast in allen Gedichten als die Menschenfreundin, indem die Natur sympatyhisiert mit den Gefühlen vom Menschen. So geschieht auch am Ende des Gedichtes Călin, wo, wahrend der Hochszeitsfest der wiedergefundenen Geliebten kommt auch eine Insektenhochszeit hinzu, das einen Humorton am Gedichtende bringt. Der lyrische Ton mit sarkastischen Nuancen wurde bei den beiden Dichtern mit Nostalgie erfüllt, als Zeichen der romantischen Übersensibilität, die bei Eminescu auch durch das Beschreiben der Insektenhochzeit auffällt. In anderen Gedichten vom rumänischen Dichter bemerkt man, dass die Bäume und Tiere einander Dialoge führen über die Liebe an dem sie teilnehmen. Ein solcher Dialog treffen wir im Freamăt de codru („Waldesrauchen”): „Kuckuck ruft: „Wo bleibt die Reine./ Unsere Schwester, Traum der Nächte/ Eines Sommers? Lieb und schlank,/ Ihr das Auge müde sank,/ Fee geheimnisvoller Mächte,/Uns erscheine/” 20 aber auch in Povestea codrului („Wäldmarchen”): „Schaumesweiße Meerespferdchen, /Ure, deren Stirnen blenden./Berggewohnte schlanke Hinden/ Hirsche, das Geweih voll Enden.// Und sie fragten unsere Linde,/ Wer wir sind und reden weise:/ Unser Wirt, der legt die Äste/Auseinander, flüstert leise:// Seht: den Traum des Buchenwaldes/ Träumt das schlummerfrohe Pärchen,/Und sie lieben sich in Treuen/ Wie in einem alten Märchen” 21. Der Dichter stellt das Geliebtebild dar, als eine Mitteilung der vergangene Liebe, indem er das Melancholiegefühl wiedergibt, das tatsächlich in vielen Eminescus Gedichte anwesend ist. Man bemerkt das Mitmachen der Natur, das Eminescu vom Volkgut aufgenommen hat. Die Natur ist eigentlich ein ständiger Liebeszeuge, so dass, wenn die Frau fehlt, ist die Natur dem Geliebten nah, um ihn zu trosten. Bei Eminescu erscheinen auch viele Seelandschaftbilder, ein romantischer Treffpunkt der zwei Geliebten, wie zum Beispiel im Gedicht Lacul („Der Weiher”): „Laß uns zauberhaft entschweben/ In die sanfte Mondeshelle,/ Unterm Windeshauch im Schilfe,/ Unterm leisen Klang der Welle!/” 22 und bei Heine in den Versen: „Mein Liebchen, wir saβen beisammen,/Traulich im leichten Kahn./” 23 Im Povestea codrului („Waldmärchen”) erkennt man das Bild der zwei Geliebten, die im Schatten der Linde sitzen: „Wenn wir schlafen, wird die Linde/ Uns mit Blüten überschneien;/Und der Hürde frommer Schafe/Hören wir im
17
Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.82. Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.105. 19 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.99. 20 Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1964, S. 73. 21 Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1964, S. 93. 22 Mihai Eminescu, 1964, Gedichte, S. 77. 23 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.89. 18
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Traum Schalmeien.“ 24, aufgenommen vom Heinegedicht Mir träumte wieder der alte Traum vom Zyklus Lyrisches Intermezzo: „Es war eine Nacht im Maie,/ Wir saβen unter dem Lindenbaum,/ Und schwuren uns ewige Treue” 25. Wenn wir im Betracht nehmen die künstlerische Weise, in dem der Dichter die Welt wie eine Theaterbühne schlidert, dann fragen wir uns in welchem Maß haben die beiden Dichter in ihrem schöpferischen Darstellung die Elemente des nördlichen Gebietes aufgenommen und wie sollen wir das Dringen des mittelmeerischen Gebietes in ihren dichterischen Schaffen interpretieren. Heine ist der Autor des Gedichtszyklus Die Nordsee, wo er das Meer mit seinem ganzen blendenden Landschaft aus seiner phylosophischer Perspektive schildert. Man bemerkt auch im Eminescus Epos Decebal ähnliche Elemente wie bei Heine, und zwar die Nordgötter auf dem gefrorenen Meeresgrund, ein Element des nördlichem Gebiets, das neben dem Walhalla in seinen Versen anwesend ist. Im Eminescus Gedicht Strigoii („Die Gespenster”), treffen wir einen deutschen Element, das auch bei Heine bemerkbar ist und zwar „das Dom” in den folgenden Versen: „Weil Odin das höhe Dom verliess”. Bei Eminescu bemerken wir die Neigung zum Meergebiet, das am besten in seinem Wunsch ausgedrückt ist, am Meeresufer zu sterben, weil das für ihn die Paradies bedeutete und der Meeresgrund, Walhalla, der mit dem Diamanten verwandte fließende Eden. Eminescu bringt Bilder der nördlichen Gebietes in Memento Mori, Odin şi poetul („Odin und der Dichter”) und Diamantul Nordului („Der Diamant des Norden”), indem er mit Symbole als „Odin”, „Walhalla”, „die Dome” und „das nordliche Saal” verwendet und versucht künstlich die nordliche und mittelmeerische Gebiete zusammenzusetzen; eine Tendenz, die auch bei Heine erscheint, aber in einer schwer erkennbare Weise. Die beiden Dichter nutzen Wasserweltbilder ins besondere Meerbilder. Cântecul oceanidelor („Das Lied der Okeaniden”) umfasst symbolischerweise die Ozeanlandschaften einschließlich der Zauber der Sirenen. Im Gedicht Die Götter Griechenlands, vom Zyklus Die Nordsee, stellt Heine das griechische Meer dar, so dass dieses mittelmeerisches Element, das im Eminescus Gedicht dabei ist, fehlt auch nicht bei Heine. Bei den beiden Dichter erscheint die Meerlandschaft im Hintergrund des Gedichtes, indem es ein kathartisches Effekt von Seelereinigung hat, was eine Beruhigung, eine „Aufheiterung”, ein Wiederkriegen des seelischen Ruhe bedeutet und damit die innere Identität des Gedichtes bringt. Bemerkenswert ist bei Eminescu das Bild, das Oedip widerspiegelt, während er die Lira ins Meer wirft; ein Motiv, das von der hellenischen Tradition aufgenommen ist; das ist das Symbol der unzerstörbare Verbindung unter dem mustergültigen Schaffen der Griechen und „das heilige Meer”, das die Umwelt der Weltgenese suggeriert. Aus dem Referenz-System Nord-Sud ist die Tatsache bemerkenswert, dass die beiden Dichter das italieniche und spanische Element verwenden als ein Teil der künstlerischen und mittelmeerischen Schaffensmillieu. Sowohl Heine als auch Eminescu haben in ihrer Lyrik die spanische Perspektive über die Liebe 24 25
Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1964, S. 92. Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.99.
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aufgenommen, indem sie vor allem die feuerhafte und passionvolle Liebe in ihrem Schaffen dargestellt haben. Namen als Donna Clara, Don Ramiro und viele andere mehr, mittelmeerischen Akkente und der Beweis dergleichen sinnlichen Liebe und der romantischen Phantasie finden wir im Gedicht der beiden Schriftsteller. Bei Eminescu erscheint das Mond-Motiv in fast allen seinen Gedichten, zum Beispiel im O vergiß die Welt der Deinen in den Versen „Sieh, die Mondesstrahlen weben/ auch dem See ein Lichtgeschmeid,/ lassen ihn im Glanz erbeben/ vor der eigenen Einsamkeit/” 26. Diesem fügt sich das Wolken-Motiv hinzu in den Versen vom Gedicht Und Pappeln neigen sich: „Und Sterne strahlen in den See,/ hell leuchtend bis zum Grunde,/ damit sich lindere mein Weh,/ mein düsterer Sinn gesunde.// Und glanzend bricht des Mondes Schein/ durch dichte Wolkenbänke,/ damit umwandelbar ich dein/ für alle Zeit gedenke./” 27 Erstens gibt es bei Eminescu ein Mond, der als ein einsamer Himmelsstern wirkt, und zweitens der Mondschein ist als ein vielfältiges Einflussspektrum verstanden, und daneben kommt oft auch ein Mondschein mit einem pfantomatischen Glanz. Die Neigung für die Mond-Effekte erscheint in vielen Eminescus Gedichte, wie folgt: Schwermut, Die Märchenkönigin, Der Weiher, Călin, Das Waldmärchen, Erster Brief , aber auch in vielen anderen Abschnitten vom Zyklus der Romanzen. Ein anderes romantische Motiv, das von den beiden Dichter verwendet wird ist das Mitternacht-Motiv: Se bate miezul nopţii („In erzner Glocke”) 28 das auch im Heine-Gedicht Die Mitternacht war kalt und stumm 29 erscheint. Das Sterne-Symbol ist ebenso anwesend in den Gedichten von Eminescu, zum Beispiel im Gedicht Misterele nopţii („Nachtgeheimnisse”) 30, aber auch im Heines Gedicht Sterne mit dem goldnen Füβen vom Zyklus Neue Gedichte, Abschnitt Neuer Frühling. 31 Bei Eminescu erscheint auch das Symbol „der niederfallenden Sterne” im Gedicht Stelele-n cer („Himmlisch und leicht”): Himmlisch und leicht / leuchtet das Sternenheer/ Wassern und Fernen her,/ bis es erbleicht./” 32, aber auch in Heines Versen „Es fällt ein Stern herunter/ Aus seiner funkelnden Höh’!” vom Zyklus Lyrisches Intermezzo, nr.57. 33 Das Augen-Symbol bemerkt man im Gedicht Când amintirile („Ruft mich Erinnerungen”): „Wie konnt die Liebe nur so schnell/ vergehn in Nacht und Schweigen ,/ wenn immer noch empor im Quell / die Wasser schluchzend steigen, // wenn seine Bahn in Ewigkeit/ der Mond zieht uber Bäumen, / wenn deine Augen, groß und weit ,/ voll süßer Wehmut träumen?/” 34. Diese Versen erinnern an 26
Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972 S.170. Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972 S.167. 28 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S.119. 29 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.99. 30 Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1964, S. 260, rumäniche Auflage. 31 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.231. 32 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon,1972, S.119. 33 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S. 98. 34 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 165. 27
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Heines Gedicht Wenn ich in deine Augen seh vom Lyrischenm Intermezzo, nr.4: „Wenn ich in deine Augen seh,/So schwindet all mein Leid und Weh;/Doch wenn ich küsse deinen Mund,/ So werd ich ganz und gar gesund“. 35 In Eminescus Lyrik bestimmt das Auge nicht nur einen einfachen Kontakt mit dem Weltall, indem es die Ewigkeit wiederspiegelt, sondern es wirkt beim höchsten Grad das Bewußtsein und potenziert die tiefe Persönlichkeit, indem es das ganze Wesen aufklärt. Assozziert dem Sehen ist auch das Hören und die beiden schaffen die Harmonie vom Eminescus Gedicht, sogar in den erotischen Mitteilungen, im umgangssprachlichen Monolog oder in der Intensität der Lebenserfahrung. Bei Eminescu ist das Meer-Symbol ein Ausdruck der Intensität der Wasserkraft und ihres Geheimnis und ist immer ein Vorwand zum Nachdenken über die Problematik der Menschheitexistenz. Der Mensch in Eminescus Lyrik erlebt den Tod mit einer Sonderintensität, denn er weiß es, daß das Leben und der Tod zwei Hauptbestandteile das Menschendasein sind (In Rime alegorice /„Alegorische Rheime”). Der Tod hat im Eminescus Schaffen ins besondere im Gedicht Memento Mori eine Sondersymbolik, denn er dehnt sich in der Welt aus und konzentriert sich in einem einzigem Punkt der Weltall. Der Dichter nimmt eine heitere, resignierte Stellung vor dem Tod wie man bemerkt in seinen Gedichten: Glosă („Glosse”) und Odă în metru antic („Ode”). Die mittelmeerischen Elemente erscheinen nicht nur im Eminescus Gedicht Memento Mori, sonern auch im Ägypten. Im Memento Mori treffen wir Bilder vom mittelmeerischen Gebiet 36; Ein Solches ist es, dass im Meeresspiegel das Bild des prächtigen Griechenlands wiederspiegelt wird. Im demselben Gedicht erscheint auch das Bild des Norden. Eine ähnliches Bild erkennt man auch im Gedicht De câte ori, iubito („Wie oft meine Geliebte”): „Wie oft ich, meine Geliebte, an uns erinnere, / Der Eisozean ericheint mir hervor/” 37. Dasselbe Bild erscheint auch auch im Heine Gedicht Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam vom Zyklus Lyrische Intermezzo, Nr.33 in den Versen: „Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam/ Im Norden auf kahler Höh’!/ Ihn schläfert; mit weiβer Decke/Umhüllen ihn Eis und Schnee/”, aber ins besondere gibt es Solches im Abschnitt Die Nordsee. 38 Das Todbild trifft man bei den beiden Schriftsteller. Das suggestive Element dafür ist „der Sarg” und ist im Eminescus Gedicht Mai am un singur dor („Ein letzter Wunsch mich noch beseelt”): „Mag nicht im reichem Totenschrein/ Im Fackellicht mich zeigen,/ hüllt mich in weiches Lager ein/ aus jungen Blütenzweigen./” 39 oder in Melancolie („Schwermut”): „Es schien mir zwischen Wolken ein Tor sich hell zu weiten/ und bleich der tote König der Nacht hervorzuschreiten./ Geh heim, ehrwürdiger Alter! Kehr um, Monarch der Nächte!/ Daß um den Schlaf der Himmel dir Kerzenkränze flechte,/ mit tausend stolzen Bogen dein Mausoleum brücke/ und dir im blauen Grabe dein Silberlaken 35
Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.73. Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1994; S. 358, rumäniche Auflagee. 37 Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte, 1994, S. 62, rumäniche Auflage. 38 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe 1972, Band 1, S.85. 39 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 144. 36
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schmücke!” 40. Die Heiterkeit, der Frieden ist vor allem suggeriert im Eminescus Gedicht Ein letzter Wunsch mich noch beseelt: „Auch sei mein Schlummer leis und sacht,/ der dunkle Wald nicht ferne,/und heiter strahle durch die Nacht/ das Heer der tausend Sterne/.” 41 Bei Heine treffen wir ein ahnliches Bild ins besondere in den letzten zwei Gedichten vom Lyrisches Intermezzo in den Versen „Nacht lag auf meinen Augen,/ Blei lag auf meinem Mund,/ Mit starrem Hirn und Herzen/ Lag ich im Grabesgrund./” 42, aber auch in Die alten bösen Lieder: „Die alten, bösen Lieder,/ Die Träume schlimm und arg,/ Die laßt uns jetzt begraben,/ Holt einen grossen Sarg./”. 43 Heine so wie Eminescu war ein Rebell und gleichzeitig sensibel bei den Problemen der ausgebeuteten Menschen. Der deutsche Dichter hatte ein sowohl antifeudale als auch antibürgerliche Haltung, indem er kämpfte gegen der Ausbeutung, die unter der Maske der Religion und Politik verborgen war. Heine war ein Anhänger der Freiheit, deswegen hat er erbittert den Adel gehasst und war wie Eminescu, ein offener Feind der sozialen Ausbeutung und Ungerechtigkeit. Er hat scharfe Kritik in gleicher Maße auch gegen den Adel geübt, wie wir von seinem revolutionärem Gedicht Die slesischen Weber bemerken. 44 Was sein satirisches Gedicht betrifft war Eminescu nicht gleichgültig vor der marxistischen Richtung in der Politik der Zeit. Aber Eminescu so wie auch Heine war nicht ein Marxismusanhänger im deutlichen Sinn des Wortes, sondern sie waren kürze Zeit von den revolutionären Ideen dieser Richtung beeinflusst. Eminescus Philosophie war utopisch, so wie auch der berühmte rumänische Kritiker George Călinescu in seinem Werk Mihai Eminescu, unser Nationaldichter betonnt. Die virulente Satire von Eminescu in den zweiten Teil vom Dritter Brief richtet sich an die korrupten Institutionen, und an ihren Vertreter, die im Sinne ihrem Willen wirkten und dabei reich wurden. Das Gedicht Împărat şi proletar („Kaiser und Proletarier”) bringt die Kampfidee für Freiheit, indem Eminescu der Verteidiger der Menschenmasse und der Ausgebeuteten wird: „Nur Lügen sinds und Phrasen, worauf die Staaten stehen/ und wider die Natur ist die Ordnung ihrer Macht;/ ihr Gut sollst du beschützen, den Glanz, ihr Wohlergehn,/ du sollst, bewaffnet schließlich, den Strick dir selber drehen,/ denn gegen euresgleichen führen sie euch in die Schlacht/.” 45 Die romantische Ironie bemerkt man vor allem bei Eminescu in seinem Frühschaffen geklingelt. Ein Beispiel von solchen romantischen Sensibilität gibt es im Gedicht Diamantul Nordului („Der Diamant des Norden”) 46. Die besten Muster der romantischen Ironie trifft man in Eminescus Prosa, vor allem in Sărmanul Dionis („Der arme Dionis”), wo nach dem tiefen Beginnnachdenken über den 40
Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 66. Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 144. 42 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.100. 43 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.102. 44 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 2, S.343. 45 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 38. 46 Mihai Eminescu, Werke. Gedichte, Band I, S. 506, rumäniche Auflage. 41
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Raum und die Zeit, werden einigen Zeilen im romantischen Stil hinzugefügt, indem man die vom Schmutz bedekten Straßen der Hauptstadt beschreibt. Diese Bilder sind unterbrochen von den Ironieakkzenten, die die Rolle haben, die vorher dargestellten Gedanken zu spötern, wie folgt: „Das ideelle Vorhandensein dieser Betrachtungen fand seinen Ursprungsquell in einem Kopf mit unregelmäßigen, verwildeten Strähnen, der in einer Lammmfellmütze stak” 47. Eminescu schildert dann auch das Bild der Flut, die den methaphisischen Menschen umgab: ”Der Schatten unseres Helden verschwand in dem Regenguß, der seinen Haupt das Aussehen eines begossenen Hammels verlieh, und es war zu verwunden, wie seine Kleider – oder seine Metaphysik – dem strömenden Regen noch widerstanden”. 48 Ähnliche Bilder sind auch inm folgenden düsteren Bild anwesend: „Hier und dort ging ein romantisch angehauchter Fußgänger pfeifend seines Weges; irgendeiner aus dem niederen Volke hielt weinbenebelt Zwiesprache mit den Wänden und dem Winde, oder der Schatten irgendeiner Frau, den mit einer Kapuze vermummt, glitt durch den nelligen Raum, gleich den düsteren Gottheiten aus den nordischen Helden gesängen.../” 49. Solche Akkzente trifft man auch in den Prosastücken Bei der Geburtstagsparty, in Archaeus,, aber auch in Cezara, die auf dem Hintergrund der romantischen Begeisterung der Tatsachen die Kontrast– und Gleichgewichtelemente im Eminescus Schaffen bilden. Die Romantische Ironie im Heines Werk ist ähnlich dem vom Eminescu, die in Der arme Dionis dargestellt ist; es geht zwar von den berühmten Zeilen von Der Harzreise, in denen der deutsche Schriftsteller die Stadt Göttingen und ihre Bewohner beschreibt: „Die Stadt Göttingen, berühmt durch ihre Wüste und Universität, gehört dem Konige von Hannover und enthält 999 Feuerstellen, diverse Kirchen, eine Entbindungsanstalt, eine Sternwarte, wo das Bier sehr gut ist. Der vorbeifließ ende Bach heißt „die Leine” und dient des Sommers zum Baden; das Wasser ist sehr kalt und an einigen Orten so breit, daß Lüder wirklich einen groß en Anlauf nehmen mußte, als er hinübersprang. Die Stadt selbst ist schön und gefallt einem am besten, wenn man sie mit dem Rücken ansieht..Sie muß schon sehr lange stehen, denn ich erinnere mich, als ich vor fünf Jahren dort immatrikuliert und bald darauf konsiliiert wurde, hatte sie schon dasselbe graue, altkluge Ansehen und war schon vollständig eingerichtet mit Schnurren, Pudeln, Dissertationen, Thédansants, Wäscherinnen, Kompendien, Taubenbraten, Guelfenorden, Promotionskutschen, Pfeifenköpfen, Hofräten, Justizräten, Relegationsräten, Profaxen und anderen Faxen.” 50 So wie in einigen Gedichte von Heine wie Im nächt’gen Traum hab ich mich selbst geschau vom Abschnitt Traumbilder 51 und Die Fräulein stand am Meere 52 bemerkt man auch in Eminescus Lyrik das Bild der Welt als Theaterspiel und der Menschen als Schauspieler, das Hauptthema, tatsächlich seines Schaffens. 47
Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 201. Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 203. 49 Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 204. 50 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 2, S.302. 51 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.18. 52 Heinrich Heine, Werke und Briefe, 1972, Band 1, S.240. 48
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Ein aufklärendes Beispiel dazu ist sein berühmtes Gedicht Glosse: „Sieh dir an das Weltenwalten,/wie ein Schauspiel auf der Bühne:/Spielt auch einer vier Gestalten,/ kennst du dennoch seine Miene./ Mag er weinen, aufbegehren,/soll es deinen Geist nicht binden;/ seine Kunst wird dich belehren;/Was dran gut und schlecht zu finden/(...) Denn dasselbe Los erfahren/alle Wesen auf die Dauer,/ und seit vielen tausend Jahren/ ist die Welt voll Lust und Trauer./Neue Masken, alte Stücke,/ andrer Mund, dieselben Klagen-/ oft getäuscht durch List und Tücke,/ sollst nie hoffen, nie verzagen” 53. Die Welt als Theater trifft man auch im Der arme Dionis „Gleichen wir nicht etwa jenen Statisten, die eine große Armee darstellen wollen und darum über die Bühne gehen, um den Hintergrund der Bühne herum, und dann von neuem erscheinen? Gleicht nicht vielleicht auch die Menschheit einer solchen Armee, die als alte Kompanie verschwindet, um sodann als neue wieder zu erscheinen? Für den Zuschauer ist es aber stets dieselbe begrenzte Anzahl; Sind es nicht immer dieselben Schauspieler, wenn auch die Stücke andere sind?” 54 Heine beeindruckt als Publizist vor allem durch seine Korrespondenz zwischen 1840-1843, die in der „Allgemeine Zeitung” von Augsburg veröffentlicht wurde. Da war der Schriftsteller in seinem vollem Schaffenskraft und er fühlte sich verpflichtet, eine Stellung zu nehmen gegen der gespannten politischen Situation, die in Deutschland und Frankreich seiner Zeit herrschte. Begeistert von dem Gedanken, daß es der Tag der Befreiung vom Joch der klerikalen und adeligen Reaktion und zwar das Jahr 1948 näherte, war der Dichter voll von Hoffnung in der Zukunft, aber er wurde danach entäuscht vom Scheitern der Revolution, indem er inzwischen auch krank war. Die Korrespondenz vom dieser deutschen Zeitung ist von der Idee des Nähern einer großen Revolution beherrscht. Der Publizist versucht ein treuer Chronist seiner Zeit zu sein, darum hat er alle Briefe, die in dieser Zeitung veröffentlicht wurden, unter dem Titel Lutzia gesammelt, ein sehr spannendes Werk, das uns ein Bild der Epoche jener Zeit übermittelt, indem es uns Informationen über die Straßen und Salons, über die Literatur und die politischen Streiten, über die Institutionen und die Bewöhner von dem Paris seiner Zeit wiedergibt. Heine hat zehn Jahre als Publizist gearbeitet. Er hat auch bei den Zeitschriften „La Revue des Deux Mondes” und „L’Europe littéraire” gewirkt. Der Journalist mitteilt dadurch, daß er in seinen Publizistberuf das Ziel seines Lebens gesehen hat, und zwar er wollte damit eine Verbindung unter Frankreich und Deutschland schaffen. Heine wollte durch sein Schreiben Frankreich in Deutschland verstanden zu machen, um die Pläne denen, die in ihrem Vorteil die internationallen Streiten und Vorurteilen nützten zu vereiteln. Heines Reiseberichten und Chroniken waren eine Übungsart für sein wahres Angehen und zwar die Entwicklung der Verstandensmöglichkeiten unter dem deutschen und französischem Volke. Seine Neigung zum Behandeln der Politischen und sozialen Probleme seiner Zeit waren vorwiegend vor seinem Geschmack für malerische Landschaften 53 54
Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 139. Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon, 1972, S. 258.
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und Träumen, die in seinen literarischem Werk dargestellt waren. Seine beänstigende Polemik hat seine Waffen vor allem in seiner Tätigkeit als Publizisten und Pampfletist enthüllt. Der Journalist Eminescu soll nicht vom Dichter Eminescu getrennt werden. In der Publizistik nimmt der rumänische Schriftsteller eine heftige Stellung, indem er seine Ideen ausbreitet und auf Papier meisterhafte Phrasen schrieb, indem er darin geduldig logische Demonstrationen seiner Ideen bringt. Seine Hauptbeschäftigung in seinen Artikeln war die Verteidigung der Nationalidee. 55 Eminescus ethischer Mensch ist der, der die nackte Wahrheit und der Weltall-Standpunkt vertretet und damit beurteilt die Sachen, die anderen Menschen und Sich-selbst. 56 In seinen Artikeln stellt Eminescu den Ideenkampf, der durch den Personenkampf ersetzt wurde, über die politischen Behörde, die er stark kritisiert, über die Konfusion der kulturellen, soziallen und moralischen Werte, über die problematischen Aspekte des Kosmopolitismus, der Wirtschaft und über die Interaktion zwischen Wirtschaft, Moral und Politik. Seine journalistischen Schriften sind außerschließlich das Produkt seiner Persönlichkeit, Intoleranz und Weiterbestehen in seinem Kampf mit den Gegnern. Eminescu war in seinen Artikeln der Anhänger der Nationalidentität, der Sprache und der Einheit des rumänischen kulturellen Raumes. Seine politischen und polemischen Artikeln bewahren auch heute ihre Qualität, indem sie die Wahrheit mit dem politischen Gedanken verflochten haben. Eminescu wird also einer der größten Journalisten unserer Nation, denn seine Publizistik war immer ernst, moralisch, gut gedacht und tief erlebt. Eminescu hat erlitten, wie wir bisher bemerkt haben die Einflusse des deutschen Romantismus, vorwiegend von Heine, aber unser Nationaldichter hat gewusst, seine Eigenart zu bewahren, indem er die aufgenommene Elemente von der deutschen Lyrik in deinem Eigenen Schaffenslaboratorium geschmolzen hat. Der rumänische Schriftsteller hat also seinem Vers den Ton des rumänischen Liedes und des unsterblichen Gedichtes gegeben; sei es die Rede um Liebe, Natur, Rebellion, sei es um die Liebe für das Volksgut oder das philosophische Nachdenken, wird seine Lyrik immer der Beweis seiner unvergleichbarer Perrsönlichkeit sein. LITERATURVERZEICHNIS Călinescu, M., Conceptul modern de poezie. De la romantism la avangardă , Editia a 2-a. Cu un argument al autorului. Postfaţă de Ion Bogdan Lefter. Paralela 45, Piteşti, 2002. Călinescu, G., Scriitori străini. Antologie şi text îngrijit de Vasile Nicolescu şi Adrian Marino. Prefaţă de Adrian Marino, Bucureşti, Editura pentru literatură universală, Bucureşti, 1967. 55 56
Mihai Eminescu, Werke, rumänische Auflage, 1990, Band IX, S.165. Mihai Eminescu, Werke, rumänische Auflage, 2001, Band X, S.107.
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Călinescu, G., Studii de literatură universală. Prefaţă de Adrian Marino. Editura Albatros, Bucureşti, 1972. Călinescu, G., Opera lui Mihai Eminescu, vol.II, Editura Minerva, Bucureşti, 1985. Cioculescu, Ş., Eminesciana, Minerva, Bucureşti, 1985. Cioculescu, Ş., Streinu, V., Vianu, T., Istoria literaturii române moderne, Eminescu, Bucureşti, 1985. Dumitrescu-Buşulenga, Z., Eminescu şi romantismul german, Piaţa Scânteii 1, Editura Eminescu, Bucureşti, 1986. Eminescu, M., Opere, Ed. Naţională, Bucureşti, 1990. Eminescu, M., Poezii, Editura Librăriei, Socecu & Comp., Bucureşti,1884. Eminescu, M., Poezii. Editura Universităţii “Al.I.Cuza”, Iaşi, 1994. Eminescu, M., Sărmanul Dionis, Editura Corint, Bucureşti, 2007. Eminescu, M., Opere, I, Poezii, Editura Gunivas, Chişinău, 2001. Eminescu, M., Gedichte. Mit einem Vorwort von Mihail Sadoveanu. Übersetzung. Bukarest, Das Buch, 1955. Eminescu, M., Gedichte (Ausgewählt von Alfred Margul-Sperber). Vorwort von Ion Oană (Übersetzung). Bukarest: Jugend-Verlag, 1964. Mihai Eminescu, Engel und Dämon. Dichtungen. (Aus dem Rumanisvhen herausgezogen von Ronald Erb.) Leipzig, Philipp Reklam junior, 1972. Mihai Eminescu, Gedichte. Einleitung von Edgar Papu (Herausgegeben von Dieter Roth. (Übersetzung), Bukarest: Kriterion, 1975. Heine, H., Werke und Briefe in zehn Bänden, herausgegeben von Hans Kaufmann, Aufbau – Verlag Berlin und Weimar, 1972. Heine, H., Heinrich Heine, Heines Werke in fünf Bänden, herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Helmut Holtzhauer Aufbau – Verlag Berlin und Weimar, 1991. Streinu, V., Clasicii nostri..., Elion, Bucureşti, 2002. Streinu, V., Eminescu, ediţie îngrijită, prefaţă, note şi indice de nume de Mihai Drăgan, Junimea, Iaşi, 1989.
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LA ESTÉTICA TRÁGICA EN EL TEATRO DE CALDERÓN Andreea ILIESCU Universidad de Craiova ABSTRACT The Spanish Golden Age literary scholars were not very much interested in debating whether tragedy permeated or not the theatrical plays. Its existence, though, particularly echoes in the Contemporary Era consciousness. In Calderón’s Daughter of the Air, the interference of goddesses in the mundane world of mortals doesn’t necessarily forge the protagonist’s destiny. Semiramis, the Asirian queen isn’t depicted suffering, torn apart by any of these wrong choices she unceasingly makes. The playwright aims more at conveying a moralizing message (people should be punished according to their merciless deeds) and entertaining his public than substantiating an aesthetics of tragedy. Keywords: free will, prophecies, hybris, fatal denouement
Lo trágico es un fenómeno turbador, complejo, y diverso. Parcialmente, escapa a una definición cierta. Rivaliza con la tragedia de la cual procede. Nos enseña tanto la grandeza del ser humano como su miseria. Convierte al héroe en un culpable y en un inocente, al mismo tiempo. Lo trágico entristece y atrae a la vez. Aristóteles pensaba que la tragedia tenía que mostrar la acción de un carácter elevado, que inspirara terror y pena. Los trágicos del clasicismo griego lograron hacer que sus personajes cayeran en la desgracia, enseñándoles, de esta manera, el sufrimiento. Para Aristóteles, la tragedia alcanza su propósito al desembocar en lo patético: tiene que proporcionar el espectáculo de la desgracia. La experiencia trágica sólo es posible donde es posible la conciencia trágica. La tragedia confirma la existencia de un mundo imperfecto, indómito y a la vez impotente, incapaz por lo demás de soluciones posibles o definitivas. Lo trágico emana siempre de un problema insoluble. Los problemas que cuentan con soluciones apropiadas, o posibles, no desembocan en tragedias, sino en dramas; es decir, no constituyen en sí mismos un hecho trágico, o un acontecimiento del que se desprenda una concepción trágica de la vida, sino un hecho desgraciado, luctuoso, dramático, de la experiencia humana, pero no esencialmente trágico. Lo que encuentra solución o recompensa no provoca una tragedia. La tragedia se debe siempre a la ejecución de un error de consecuencias trascendentes. El ser humano se equivoca, actúa de forma errada, interpreta equivocadamente un enigma, y causa una serie de acontecimientos que desencadenan desgracias irreversibles. Entonces no hay soluciones posibles. La tragedia se basa en un error humano de tipo moral e intelectual, es decir, ético y cognoscitivo. El comportamiento y el conocimiento hacen al hombre incurrir en 239
una equivocación gravísima, hasta tal punto que no hay vuelta atrás, no hay perdón posible, ni misericordia, ni indulto, ni olvido, ni indiferencia, ni mucho menos recompensa o redención. Lo único que permanece vivo es la conciencia de haber cometido, de forma tan incomprensible como voluntaria, un error fatal, cuyas consecuencias son siempre insolubles y definitivas. Toda tragedia se basa en una carencia humana – ignorancia, temeridad, flaqueza moral, impulsos pasionales... – que la subordinación a un orden moral trascendente habría subsanado, evitado o compensado. (Maestro, 2004: 152-53).
Es bastante difícil delinear lo que, en lo trágico, se circunscribe al carácter humano y lo que pertenece a la divinidad. En efecto, en la tragedia griega, los humanos actúan: su acción forja la tragedia entera. Pero ellos se mueven en un mundo regido por los dioses. Por consiguiente, los actos humanos se someten a una causalidad que los supera. Lo trágico se compone, entonces, de esta ambigüedad fundamental de la acción humana que es, a la vez, asumida por el hombre y deseada por los dioses, enlazándose con un destino inexorable. El héroe trágico se enfrenta a un mundo al que cree entender, pero al que, sin embargo, no acaba de conocer. A pesar de esto, las deidades le envían al ser humano señales y advertencias para guiarlo a lo largo de su paso por el mundo, de su compromiso con la vida terrenal. Estas interferencias divinas, a causa de una cruel ironía, no hacen más que sumergir a los seres humanos en el desengaño, por equivocarse en descifrar los mensajes divinos. El héroe entiende demasiado tarde el destino con el que está cumpliendo. Asimila su desgracia a un desenlace fatal, a una coronación de las causas trascendentes que nunca consiguió analizar. Lo trágico del héroe estriba en el hecho de darse cuenta, demasiado tarde, del poder divino que lo ha arrastrado a tal situación sin salida. Se encuentra inmerso en lo trágico cuando se vuelve consciente de la necesidad de su destino y de los límites de la condición humana. Con su actitud desobediente, al héroe se le obliga a cuestionar el orden divino, a instituir en el mundo organizado un desorden, cuya primera víctima es él. El héroe que se enfrenta a los dioses acaba por incurrir en un error. Se muestra desmesurado (hybris), vagando por las vías de su orgullo. Al tratar el teatro de Calderón, buscaremos analizar en qué medida nos podemos referir al drama La hija del aire con el término genérico de tragedia. La obra fue representada por primera vez en sus dos partes los días 13 y 16 de noviembre de 1653, ante los soberanos Felipe IV y Mariana de Austria. La expresión «tragedia cristiana» refleja ante todo el deseo y el intento, por parte de una moral como la cristiana, de apropiarse de unos valores procedentes de una cultura pagana, como era la cultura griega – de la que procede el concepto genuino de teatro y de tragedia – cuyas creencias metafísicas se objetivaban en una mitología religiosa, y no en una disciplina dogmática. La cultura laica moderna y contemporánea ha desarrollado el concepto estético de tragedia con recursos comparables a los utilizados en el mundo antiguo por las culturas paganas de Grecia y Roma: la soledad del héroe trágico, la ansiedad de lo absoluto, la creación de personajes que demandan el protagonismo de una acción 240
trascendente, héroes que se mueven siempre en el reino de lo conflictivo, y cuyos actos son difíciles de sancionar; interpretaciones que nos llevan siempre a tropezar con la realidad de una ley moral; principios éticos cuyas formas de conducta discuten los fundamentos del bien y del mal, y cuyas consecuencias se postulan a menudo más allá de nuestro terrenal mundo del hombre […]. (Maestro, 2004: 166)
En torno al carácter trágico de la obra de Calderón ha surgido un complejo debate: estudiosos como Parker y Edwards defienden la viabilidad de la existencia de tal tesis: Desde los primeros años de su producción artística, creó un universo trágico que Alexander A. Parker caracterizó por el principio de responsabilidad difusa: «Calderón se dio cuenta […] de que el bien y el mal no pueden ser diferenciados mediante una simple división entre lo que es justo y lo que es injusto». Sus tragedias desarrollan los confusos perfiles de la realidad moral. Los personajes son al mismo tiempo culpables e inocentes. Se ven abocados a un mundo hostil que los lleva a conflictos difíciles de superar; pero son ellos mismos los que deciden, bien dejándose arrastrar a la catástrofe por sus errores morales, bien superando su destino con la voluntad y el espíritu de renuncia. (Pedraza y Rodríguez, 2000: 289).
Otros, sin embargo, la consideran insostenible: […] Calderón no definió como tragedia ninguna obra suya. Sólo en tiempos relativamente recientes se ha definido como tal el conjunto de algunas obras que en parte pueden justificar tal definición genérica. [...] tal vez se ha dado el error inicial de confundir la riqueza conceptual y la profundidad filosófica de Calderón con lo trágico... (Froldi, 2003: 321).
Si los siglos VI y VII no parecen haber sido un período propicio a la valoración de la tragedia por la crítica literaria, la Edad Contemporánea esgrime innumerables argumentos para rescatar el carácter trágico del teatro calderoniano: […] en el siglo XVII español no es posible encontrar, ni en la preceptiva ni en la literatura, una reflexión tan poderosa como la que hoy día nos proponemos a propósito de la tragedia. Nuestros interrogantes acerca de la experiencia trágica del teatro de Lope y Calderón, exigiendo para algunas de sus obras el reconocimiento de la estética de lo trágico, constituye una preocupación característica de la crítica de la Edad Contemporánea. Los comentaristas y preceptistas de los siglos XVI y XVII simplemente echaron de menos en la creación dramática española el éxito y el cultivo de formas trágicas, pero jamás se obstinaron, como hacen algunos de nuestros contemporáneos, en convertir a Lope o a Calderón en poetas trágicos singulares. El mérito de sus obras no necesitaba entonces, al contrario de lo que parece suceder para la crítica de nuestros días (no así para el espectador corriente), de la dignidad de la experiencia trágica para hacer más valiosa o distinguida la calidad y recepción de sus comedias. El público las exaltaba y celebraba, y no precisamente por una concepción trágica de la vida en ellas contenida, pues no es ése el mensaje que transmiten sus autores (ni el que deseaba recibir el espectador), sino sobre todo por la emoción y el vitalismo que 241
suscitaba su puesta en escena, en la que se objetivaba la confirmación, entre otras cosas, de determinados ideales morales y religiosos, sociales y políticos, sobre los que se consolidaba por aquellos tiempos la forma de vida española. (Maestro, 2004: 162).
El mito de Semíramis 1 ha sido valorado por muchos escritores. Las circunstancias particulares del nacimiento de la futura reina, el haber sido recogida y criada por el sacerdote Tiresias, custodiador de la mujer, al amparo de una gruta, lejos de cualquier contacto con los seres humanos, el hecho de estar enterada del porqué de su encarcelamiento se convierten en pautas para la lectura del drama: TIRESIAS ¿Te acordarás que te dije...? SEMÍRAMIS Sí, que Venus te anunció, atenta al provecho mío, que había de ser horror del mundo, y que por mí habría, en cuanto ilumina el Sol, tragedias, muertes, insultos, ira, llanto y confusión. TIRESIAS ¿No te dije más? SEMÍRAMIS Que a un Rey glorioso le haría mi amor tirano, y que al fin vendría a darle la muerte yo. TIRESIAS Pues si eso sabes de ti, y el fin que el hado antevió a tu vida, ¿ por qué quieres buscarle? SEMÍRAMIS Porque es error temerle; dudarle basta. ¿Qué importa que mi ambición digan que ha de despeñarme del lugar más superior, si para vencerla a ella tengo entendimiento yo? 1 http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sem%C3%ADramis| Semíramis| 15 de junio de 2011| español: Semíramis fue, según las leyendas griegas, reina de la antigua Asiria durante 42 años. Se le atribuye la fundación de numerosas ciudades y la construcción de maravillosos edificios como Babilonia, con sus palacios y hermosos jardines colgantes. Conquistó Egipto y según la leyenda, ascendío al cielo en forma de paloma. Según una versión de su leyenda, Semíramis fue hija de una diosa siria llamada Derceto, con rostro de mujer y cuerpo de pez, que la abandonó en el desierto para que pereciera. Unas palomas la alimentaron y un pastor llamado Simas la recogió. Años después, se convirtió en la fundadora del imperio babilónico.
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Y si ya me mata el verme de esta suerte, ¿no es mejor que me mate la verdad, que no la imaginación? Sí; que es dos veces cobarde el que por vivir murió; pues no pudiera hacer más el contrario más atroz, que matarle, y eso mismo hizo su mismo temor. Y así, yo no he de volver a esa lóbrega mansión; que quiero morir del rayo, y de sólo el trueno no. (La hija del aire, I,vv.131-166).
En los tres actos de la primera parte del drama, se presenta la rápida e irresistible ascensión de Semíramis, que desde la gruta subirá al trono real, sin que nada ni nadie la detenga. SEMÍRAMIS Sí. Menón, aunque agradecida a tus finezas me siento, ningún agradecimiento obliga a dejar perdida toda la edad de una vida; que el que da al que pobre está, y con rigor cobra, ya no piedad, crueldad le sobra, pues aflige cuando cobra más que alivia cuando da. Si ya tu suerte importuna, si ya severo tu hado pródigos han disfrutado lo mejor de tu fortuna, la mía, que hoy de la cuna sale a ver la luz del día, la luz quiere; que sería horror que una a otra destruya; y si acabaste la tuya, déjame empezar la mía. […] La vida que te debí, con tomarla la pagué; por ti lo hiciste, pues fue antes de saber de mí. La que yo a Nino le di, la misma duda ha tenido; mas si él honrarme ha querido, ¿no será, Menón, error, 243
por seguir a un acreedor, dejar a un agradecido? Del Rey en desgracia estás, sin privanza y sin estado, fugitivo y desterrado, de su vista huyendo vas. No puedo hacer por ti más hoy que el no ser tu esposa, que hermosa mujer no hay cosa que tanto a un pobre le sobre, porque es sátira del pobre el tener mujer hermosa. (La hija del aire, I, vv.2742-2761; 2772-2791).
La primera parte del drama terminará con la escena de la coronación de Semíramis por Nino, ensombrecida su gloria por la terrible voz de Menón, quien, vacías ya las cuencas, sin luz, pero interiormente iluminado por la fuerza superior que rige la acción trágica, lanza su maldición, en donde vuelve a actualizarse el oráculo. MENÓN Pero aquí mi voz se mude, no a mi arbitrio, sino al nuevo espíritu que se infunde en mi pecho, pues me obliga no sé quién a que articule las forzadas voces que ni vivas, reines ni triunfes. Soberbiamente ambiciosa, al que ahora te constituye Reina, tú misma des muerte y en olvido le sepultes, siendo aqueste infausto día universal pesadumbre de los vivientes; y, en muestra de que presagios lo anuncien de cielos, astros y signos, la gran monarquía deslustren. (La hija del aire, I, vv. 3287-3303)
Lidoro, el rey de Lidia, «áspid humano de mortal envidia» 2, desencadena la furia de Semíramis con la virulencia de sus acusaciones, con su atrevimiento de cuestionar el carácter moral de todos los hechos de la reina usurpadora:
2
Pedro Calderón de la Barca, La hija del aire, Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, 2009, p. 199.
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LIDORO En este intermedio quiso el gran Júpiter supremo que, súbitamente, Nino también muriese. No puedo excusar aquí el seguir (perdóname si te ofendo) la voz común, que en su muerte cómplice te hace, diciendo que, al verte con sucesión que asegurase el derecho de sus estados (pues Ninias, joven hijo del Rey muerto, afianzaba la corona en tus sienes), tu soberbio espíritu levantó máquinas sobre los vientos, hasta verte Reina sola: fácil es de ti el creerlo. […]También de tu tiranía es no menor argumento el ver que teniendo un hijo de esta Corona heredero, y tan digno por sus partes de ser amado, que el cielo le dio lo mejor de ti, pues te parece en extremo, sin nada de lo que es alma, en todo de lo que es cuerpo; pues, según dicen, la docta Naturaleza un bosquejo hizo tuyo en rostro, en voz, talle y acciones, y siendo hijo tuyo, y tu retrato, le crías con tal despego, que de Nínive en la fuerza, sin el decoro y respeto debido a quien es, le tienes, donde de corona y cetro tiranamente le usurpas la majestad y el gobierno. (La hija del aire, II, vv.207-224; 247– 268)
La reina asiria arremete contra su enemigo ya vencido en el campo de batalla, se venga de lo que ella considera ofensas lanzadas por Lidoro, dando realce a su innata crueldad, vaticinada por los dioses: 245
SEMÍRAMIS Que yo me diese a prisión fue tu intento; y, siendo así, será prenderte yo a ti debida satisfacción. Fiera ingrata me llamaste hoy, cuando a ti can leal: luego si con nombre tal me ofendiste y te ilustraste, tiranías no serán que yo en esta parte quiera, procediendo como fiera, tratarte a ti como can. De mi palacio al umbral atado te he de tener, allí has de estar, que he de ver si me lo guardas leal y vigilante desde hoy; que si del can es empeño el ser leal con su dueño, desde aquí tu dueño soy. (La hija del aire, II,vv. 587-606)
El dramaturgo desvanece cualquier duda que al lector le pueda atormentar referente a la naturaleza tíranica de Semíramis; las mismas palabras de la reina bastan para perfilar su indudable personalidad. El morbo del poder sella cualquier elección que Semíramis haga: SEMÍRAMIS Ya nada miro. Quédate, pueblo, sin mí. Todos me dejad conmigo. Nadie venga: Rey tenéis, seguidle a él. (Aparte) Un basilisco tengo en los ojos, un áspid en el corazón asido. ¿Yo sin mandar? ¡De ira rabio! ¿Yo sin reinar? ¡Pierdo el juicio! Etna soy, llamas aborto; volcán soy, rayos respiro. (La hija del aire, II, vv. 870-880)
La vuelta al poder de Semíramis bajo la apariencia de Ninias es explotada por Calderón magistralmente, tanto en términos dramáticos como ideológicos, mediante el tema del Doble, manipulado con gran originalidad y eficacia. Entre espectador y personaje se produce una total ruptura en el modo de 246
percibir la acción y su sentido, pues si el primero conoce la diferencia entre Semíramis y Ninias, es decir distingue el ser y el aparecer, el rostro y la máscara, el segundo los ignora, consciente sólo de la identidad. Asimismo, tal como nos lo plantea José Antonio Maravall, El hombre barroco […] conoce la condición apariencial de la realidad y juega con ella. El hombre del Barroco puede pensar: «Duran y durarán hasta el fin del mundo, indistintos y confusos, desconocidos y encubiertos, buenos y malos, como representantes en la tragedia de esta vida»; conforme dice Suárez de Figueroa, «mas acabada, quítanse las máscaras», pero de una sentencia de ese tipo, es más general y eficaz que saque una última consecuencia de acomodación, más que no de rigurosa ascesis. El tópico de la teatralidad del mundo se formula incluso de manera que acentúa y resalta la básica contradicción de la realidad: «toda esta vida y sus acciones y accidentes – asegura Céspedes – representan al vivo una farsa o comedia, en quien los personajes que ayer hicieron reyes, hoy salieron esclavos, y en un pequeño espacio, a los que vimos en mayores caídas y desgracias, los miramos luego dichosos y contentos». El hombre del Barroco se apoya en la experiencia y afirma la calidad ilusoria de la misma. (Maravall, 2007: 404).
Llevando la vestimenta de su hijo, Semíramis logra disfrutar del poder que tanto anhela, pudiendo comprobar a todos sus dotes de gobernador: SEMÍRAMIS Ayer premié, y hoy castigo; que, si ayer una ignorancia hice, hoy no he de hacerla; diciendo una acción tan rara que, de lo que errare hoy, sabré enmendarme mañana. Llevadle. LISÍAS Señor, advierte que de un extremo a otro pasas. SEMÍRAMIS ¿Cómo he de obrar, si a ti el premio ni el castigo te agrada? LISÍAS Con el medio. SEMÍRAMIS Nunca fue capaz de medio esta instancia. U obro mal o bien: si obro bien, ¿por qué el premio embarazas? Y, si mal, ¿por qué el castigo? 247
Y, en fin, atiende y repara que las públicas acciones del vulgo debe premiarlas o castigarlas el Rey; que en sólo ellas no hay templanza. LISÍAS No conozco tus discursos. (La hija del aire, II,vv.2554-2574)
La invocación de Fortuna remite, no tanto a la existencia de una instancia superior como a los cambios impredecibles del orden habitual de las cosas: SEMÍRAMIS ¡Ah, qué presto has acabado, Fortuna, con mi vida y con mis hechos! (La hija del aire, II, vv.3235-3237)
Acerca del conflicto entre las deidades presentes en La hija del aire, Rinaldo Froldi advierte que: la lucha entre las divinidades paganas provoca una idea de rígido determinismo en el espectador y en el lector. Semíramis, si inicialmente reivindica la libertad, después – obtenida la libertad física, que no la moral – acaba siendo víctima de su desenfrenada ambición y se ve sometida a un proyecto superior, externo. (Froldi, 2003: 320). SEMÍRAMIS En fin, Diana, has podido más que la deidad de Venus, pues sólo me diste vida hasta cumplir los severos hados que me amenazaron con prodigios, con portentos, a ser tirana y cruel homicida y de soberbio espíritu, hasta morir despeñada de alto puesto. (La hija del aire, II, vv. 3240-3249)
Calderón insiste en la falta de remordimientos de Semíramis, que no se siente agobiada ni por un instante por el daño que ha infligido a lo largo de su vida; más que a su tragedia, arraigada en el haber transcurrido gran parte de su existencia encarcelada, habría que apuntar a todas sus víctimas, esparcidas por el camino que la reina misma ha elegido recorrer para satisfacer el ansia de poder.
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SEMÍRAMIS ¿Qué es vivir? Aunque no es mucho que ella viva, si yo muero. Mas lo poco que me queda de vida, lograrlo pienso; que a costa de muchas muertes, morir bien vengada intento. (La hija del aire, II, vv. 3254-3259)
Victimario de tantas almas, la reina adicta al poder se nos muestra renuente a redimir sus culpas hasta en el último momento de su vida. Los interrogantes de Semíramis agudizan la carga dramática del enfrentamiento delirante entre vida y muerte, entre pecados y castigo, entre lo que ya pasó y lo que está por suceder, entre el libre albedrío y el destino trazado por los dioses. El episodio de su final, advierte Rinaldo Froldi, «no es precisamente trágico, ya que está privado de una manifiesta crisis interior del personaje, último episodio de una vida equivocada, irracionalmente orgullosa, sustancialmente vana». (Froldi, 2003: 320). SEMÍRAMIS ¿Qué quieres, Menón, de mí, de sangre el rostro cubierto? ¿Qué quieres, Nino, el semblante pálido y macilento? ¿Qué quieres, Ninias, que vienes a afligirme triste y presto? CHATO Sin duda que ve fantasmas éste que se está muriendo. SEMÍRAMIS Yo no te saqué los ojos, yo no te di aquel veneno, yo, si el Reino te quité, ya te restituyo el Reino. Dejadme, no me aflijáis: vengados estáis, pues muero, pedazos del corazón arrancándome del pecho. Hija fui del Aire, ya hoy en él me desvanezco. (La hija del aire, II, vv. 3268-3285)
Aunque la sociedad del siglo XVII está impregnada de violencia, su mera presencia en una obra de teatro no la convierte en tragedia. La percepción de las distintas formas de violencia por la sociedad de aquel tiempo, las consecuencias conllevadas por la perpetración de actos violentos, la conciencia misma de la vida se funden en el crisol del teatro, porque «Ya tiene [...] su fin propuesto, como todo 249
género/ de poema o poesis, y éste ha sido/ imitar las acciones de los hombres/ y pintar de aquel siglo las costumbres». (Reyes Cano, 2010: 374). El hombre, según se piensa en el XVII, es un individuo en lucha, con toda la comitiva de males que a la lucha acompañan, con los posibles aprovechamientos también que el dolor lleva tras sí, más o menos ocultos. En primer lugar, se encuentra el individuo en combate interno consigo mismo, de donde nacen tantas inquietudes, cuidados y hasta violencias que, desde su interior, irrumpen fuera y se proyectan en sus relaciones con el mundo y con los demás hombres. (Maravall, 2007: 328).
La Hija del aire pone de relieve la complejidad de la naturaleza humana con sus muestras de crueldad, de fiereza. El motivo de la violencia contra los humanos, una violencia inflingida por la misma raza humana, viene respaldado por un verso de Plauto: […] un verso de Plauto que durante siglos se había leído sin llamar demasiado la atención – o, en todo caso, levantando respuestas de contraria opinión-, se convierte ahora en un tópico aceptado, en un aforismo que rueda de mano en mano, porque en él encuentra expresión un vivo sentimiento de la época. Nos referimos a una frase acerca del carácter agresivo que, a consecuencia del pesimismo ya dicho, se imputa al ser humano: homo homini lupus. (Maravall, 2007:329).
BIBLIOGRAFÍA CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA, Pedro (2009), La hija del aire. Madrid, Ediciones Cátedra. GARCÍA LOPEZ, José (1968), Historia de la literatura española, Barcelona, Editorial Vicens-Vives. MAESTRO, Jesús G. (2004), El mito de la interpretación literaria, Madrid, Iberoamericana. MARAVALL, José Antonio (2008), La cultura del Barroco. Análisis de una estructura histórica, Barcelona, Editorial Ariel. PEDRAZA JIMÉNEZ, Felipe y RODRÍGUEZ CÁCERES, Milagros (2000), Historia esencial de la literatura española e hispanoamericana, Madrid, Editorial EDAF. REYES CANO, José-María (2010), La literatura española a través de sus poéticas, retóricas, manifiestos y textos programáticos (Edad Media y Siglos de Oro), Madrid, Ediciones Cátedra. Recursos Web | La http://cvc.cervantes.es/literatura/criticon/PDF/087-088-089/087-088-089_321.pdf legendaria reina de Asiria, Semíramis, en Virués y Calderón |10 de junio de 2011| Froldi| Rinaldo| 2003| CRITICÓN. Núms. 87-88-89| español http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sem%C3%ADramis| Semíramis| 15 de junio de de 2011| español
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BRAZILIAN FEMALE WITCHES: WITHCRAFT IN BRAZILIAN LITERATURE FROM 1880 to 1910 Waldyr IMBROISI Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brasil ABSTRACT The witches are characters found throughout the world literature in most periods, and, despite having different characteristics, they’re all similar because of their knowledge of something which is beyond human abilities. During the last moments of the Empire and the first years of Republic in Brazil, sorcery suffered much legal restraint, and female witch characters became more common in the national prose. This paper aims at drawing an overview of these characters, pointing out its relevant characteristics and paving the way through deeper and more specific studies and reflections. Keywords Witches; magical practices, Brazilian Literature
This paper aims at building a brief outline of the female witchcraft representation in Brazilian Literature between the 19th and 20th centuries. The African religions, which arrived in Brazil amongst the slaves, added to the European magical practices, created an environment of strong cultural mixture and blended witchcraft practices, which was not yet satisfactorily studied. For Parés and Sansi, “even today, it is very difficult to find academic research on Brazilian Candomblé that addresses issues of sorcery” (2011, p. 13), and most of it does not focuses on the literary representation of the phenomenon. We seek to build up a short resume about the arrival and practice of sorcery in Brazilian territory, based on reflections about the popular and the elite’s culture. Then, we wish to enlist and reflect about the female characters that could be considered witches in the literary work from 1880 to 1910. This time frame was picked because it was the period in which magical practices started to be more repressed by Brazilian Empire and media (REIS, 2003, p. 387), being completely forbidden by the Republic constitution in 1890 (NEGRÃO, 1996, p. 44). It is also the period with most literary representation of sorcery and of the arrival of many new religions and ideas came from the USA and Europe THE IDEA OF WITCHCRAFT OVER THE OCEAN Over the centuries of Portuguese colonization, European beliefs and practices were introduced in Brazilian territory, altogether with African practices and the autochthonous religion. In order to understand the formation of the witch stereotype in Brazil, it is important to trace a distinction between the popular and 251
the elite cultures: the shared system of non-stable meanings, attitudes and values are not exactly the same for the people and for the elite, at least not until the Contemporary Age (BURKE, 2010). The main difference between popular and elite’s culture is the fact that the upper classes had access to the popular culture – to its tales, habits and beliefs – but the lower classes had not access to the elite’s culture. This last would be considered bicultural, while the people only experienced non-prestige cultural modalities (BURKE, 2010, p. 56). However, these two cultural extracts cannot be seen as monolithic realities: there were “underground changes, in both directions, between the high culture and the popular culture” 1 (GINZBURG, 2006, p. 190), and these interactions were especially strong in the case of the witch. The image of this character between the XVI and XVII centuries were build on popular elements, “like the belief that some people had the power to fly through the air or harm his neighbors by supernatural means”, and erudite ideas, mainly the notion of a pact with the devil (BURKE, 2010, p. 99). The people had an intense use of magical means in order to control life and make it easier, and, because of a huge distance between their thought and the official religious doctrine, they were immerse in many pagan surviving habits, which, disconnected of its original meanings, still represented the habits of great part of the population in Middle and Modern Ages (NOGUEIRA, 2004, pp. 108-9). This favored the search for magical help and for the performance of the witch. Though, the 13rd century, marked by social and political disturbs and by the rising of heretic groups, by the long Arabian presence in European territory and the spread of the plague, created an environment that favored the creation of “escape goats”, individuals to bear the guilt and the aggressiveness of collectivity. The main targets in this contexts were the Saracens, the Jews and, of course, the witches (NOGUEIRA, 2004, pp. 144-6). By the XV century, the image of the sorcerer was already built by the scholastic and inquisitorial theorists: it was a heretic and evil practice, defined by the existence of a pact with the devil and made prominently by women. This new picture of the sorcerer is transmitted to the people by duress and coercion and is widely adopted, but it did not erase the popular perspective of the magical helper. For the people, the witches represented the possibility of aid in hard difficulties, the only perspective of cure in an age of few and expensive physicians (THOMAS, 1991, p. 155), and the blooming of a sense of control by the divination and magical acts (THOMAS, 1991, pp. 183-4), very important in a context full of war, diseases, hunger and poverty. This popular image seems to linger in the Iberian Peninsula, in England and other regions because of great geographic distances or small participation of inquisitors. In these countries, the stereotype of the witch was not much affected by the ecclesiastic tone, and the first ideas of sorcery that arrived in Brazilian colony were based on popular belief. Adding to this, the Church recommended certain 1
This quotation, as all textual quotations found in this text were translated into Englosh by me, mainly by Portuguese versions of the books.
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condescendence in the New World cathecism, which, in a territory without a well defined religious organization, favored a familiar religiosity and a spread of other religious forms (SOUZA, 1995, pp. 87-92). Also, there was not inquisition in our territory – differently from the Spanish colonies – and, although we passed through three official visits of inquisitorial courts, the influence of orthodox ideas was small in the forming Brazil. In the lathing of indigenous, African, European official and popular facets of religiosity, our country was nearly “fated” to religious syncretism (SOUZA, 1995, p. 93). Our multiple cultural traditions “debauched in witchcraft and popular religiosity” (SOUZA, 1995, p. 16). If there were different views of the devil and the witches in elite’s and popular culture, the “colony seems to have worked perpetuating the second and melting the first” (SOUZA, 1995, p. 258). It was built, so to speak, a context where magical thought and popular religiosity were widespread. And this magical thought remained for a long time. During the Empire period, Lilian Moritz Schwarcz points out an “abyss between the popular practices and the projects of the court and the elite” (2012, p. 281). The rising Republic is also a moment when multiple religious groups and ideas disseminate through Brazil, and, alongside with swedenborgian churchs, new protestant groups and spiritist séances, hundreds of temples, ran mostly by afro descendant people, offered from predictions of the future to love charms, including hexes to harm and kill people (RIO, 1976). By this time, most of these cults were already organized around its leaders, and the prominence of women in them was already a fact. As we have done a brief contextualization, we can now analyze the literature produced in this period, and how the witches represented in it ratify or deviate from the popular stereotype we found in Brazil. 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES. BRAZILIAN LITERATURE AND THE WITCHES Literature is full of witches. From Medea to the three witches of Macbeth, from Circe to the sorcerers of the fairy tales, they appear offering difficulties, turning men into animals, taking positions by force and killing to get what they want. This fascinating character may be found also in Brazilian literature, with diverse characteristics and equal charm. In the period we choose, only two books show men practicing witchcraft (O Tronco do Ipê – 1871 and A carne – 1888) 2. On the other hand, the feminine presence is wider and more important, especially during the vogue of the naturalistic novels. Inglês de Souza, a naturalistic writer who lived in Northern territory, wrote one of the few stories in which the sorcerer is the main character: A Feiticeira (or The sorcerer), published in 1893 in the book Contos amazônicos (Tales from Amazonas). In this work, the author makes an effort to show the folklore of the 2
The names of the books might be translated into English as The trunk of the trumpet tree and The Flesh, respectively.
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region, especially from the surroundings of Pará state, and portrays a witch as a “skinny little old woman, with small eyes, protruding cheekbones, a gloomy mouth that, when opened in a horrible smile, showed a teeth – only one! – dark and long” (SOUZA, 2011, p.29). The narrator tells us about a young lieutenant who, not believing in sorcery, invades the house of the witch – called Maria Mucoim – and kills her goat, an animal linked with the devil. The great revenge of the woman is causing a flood in the region. Here, the powerful witch is considered to have a “pact with the enemy” (SOUZA, 2011, p. 29), an elite’s concept, and the narrator seems to believe in her magical powers. In a very different way is presented to us the witch of A Cartomante (The Fortune-teller, 1884), by Machado de Assis. An unfaithful friend, Camilo, is cheating Vilela with his wife. Some day, he receives a letter from Vilela calling him immediately to the house of the couple. He gets anxious, thinking the friend might found the truth about the betrayal he committed, and then he looked for a fortune-teller to aid him. The woman play her cards and announces that nothing bad will happen to none of the two dishonest lovers, and he pays her five times the price for the news. However, arriving at Vilela’s house, the husband showed him the bleeding, died body of Rita, and then killed him with two bullets of a gun. This brilliant tale puts the fortune-teller as a charlatan, and shows how human behavior seek for security and control of his destiny – even if it is a false one. In 1890, Olavo Bilac and Pardal Mallet published a historical and melodramatic feuilleton, portraying love adventures of D. Pedro I. The work, called O Esqueleto (The skeleton), mixes history and fiction. The meeting with the sorcerer, called “old mother, is also marked by the divination: she says that the king would perish far from his kingly condition, and prophesizes that D. Pedro would die by the hands of his squire, Satanás, or the opposite. The idea disturbs both of them, like the prophecy of the witches make Macbeth a different person; however, the prediction is not fulfilled in the novel: the end points to the desire of Satanás to kill his master in revenge of a dishonor suffered. In the same year, came into light A Fome (The Hunger), from Rodolfo Teófilo. Little read nowadays, it is a naturalistic and crude narrative about the drought in Brazilian Northeast in 1887-1879. The second part of the narrative, in which the Freitas family is in the coast receiving governmental help, a witch called Quitéria do Cabo is living next to them. Having the abilities of curing, divining and causing harm, she appears also as a procuress – a common connection in Brazilian first centuries (SOUZA, 1995, p. 187). She, however, has not real powers, appearing in the book as an avaricious, mean and ambitious liar. The narrator shows her deliberately faking a divination and overcharging Simeão, the antagonist, by her deeds. She ends up dead, in a sinister way. Aluísio Azevedo, the greatest name of Brazilian Naturalism, has also some characters that might interest us. In O Mulato (1881, The mulatto), the former slave Domingas is considered a witch because of two elements: first, her complete madness, developed because of maltreatment and the death of her beloved; second, because of the “mysterious” death of José da Silva, owner of the farm, who was actually killed by the priest Diogo. Diogo, then, makes up a story of phantoms and 254
witchcraft to pull away the guilt from him. The description of the witch, who does not appear doing any magical acts, is sorrowful: “the most squalid, ragged and skeletal figure of woman which is possible to imagine. It was a tall black woman, cadaveric, tragically ugly, with slow, sinister movements, hollow eyes and teeth with no flesh” (AZEVEDO, 2005, p. 411). But the most important witch figures of this period in Brazilian Literature are two caboclas 3: Paula, from O Cortiço (1890, The slum), and Bárbara, from Esaú e Jacó (1904, Esau and Jacob). The condition of caboclas are, at first, a mark of cultural and racial mixture – the characters described above are described as Caucasian (The fortuneteller, Quitéria do Cabo), Indian-like (Maria Mucoim) or Black 4 (Domingas). These two, mixing beautifully elements of European and Indigenous origin, are the two only witch characters who actually “serve as a vehicle to conduct the creative chain” (CANDIDO, 2000, p. 6); that means, the only that significantly modify the narrative and, by its actions, change the course of the story. So let’s go to them. Paula, another character of Aluísio Azevedo, lives in a slum called São Romão. The environment is perfect for the narrator to descant about the popular habits, the attitudes of the lower classes and the relationships among the “working people” (AZEVEDO, 2005b, p. 451). The witch is portrayed as an old and halfidiotic cabocla, to whom “all respected for the virtues only she had to bless skin diseases and cut fevers through prays and sorceries” (AZEVEDO, 2005b, p. 464, our italics). It called our attention the enumeration, at the same level, of the “prays and sorceries”: it seems that, for the people who looked for aid, the way of cure were not of much importance; also, it suggest that religious and magical practices were used with no distinction, as described by Keith Thomas in pre-industrial England (1991, p. 218). In this period, Brazilian physicians were few and too expensive for the poor people to afford; then, it was common that subaltern people treated others with low or no cost, using methods of popular knowledge, herbal manipulation or prays and sorceries (PIMENTA, 2003, p. 231). Three times Paula is called in the book to deal with the body: prescribing to Jerônimo a medicine when he gets sick, finding out that Marciana’s daughter was pregnant and, described by flashback, giving to a woman drugs in order to cause an abortion. We see abilities in solving quotidian problems, and a distinct, respected and necessary knowledge. She also is considered able to enchant men or bring them back after a break out (as it is demanded by Piedade, when Jerônimo leaves her), and to divine the future through the reading of cards – where the predictions are never clear and punctual, but always generic. One last thing interests us in this witch: the linking between sorcery and madness. More than once, Paula is described as acting and speaking apart of the other laundresses; she speaks alone and does not care about the major events that happen in the slum. She occupied a position slightly away of the society, and she 3 4
A person of mixed Brazilian Indian and European or African ancestry. The two male characters, cited in the beginning of the section, are also Black, former slaves.
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was always in a precarious condition regarding inclusion or social isolation (THOMAS, 1991, p. 207). Her anti-social facet is demonstrated when she tries to set the slum on fire – unsuccessfully, at first, and then burning half of the houses in a second try. And then she laughed, “drunken in satisfaction, not felling the burnings and wounds, victorious inside that fire orgy” (AZEVEDO, 2005b, p. 592). Here, the evil signature of the witch is patent, but more important is its explanation through madness, a common discourse to naturalistic authors. At last, Bárbara, the divining cabocla living in a hill in Rio de Janeiro is the last character of this study. She is called by Perpetua and Natividade, two sisters, in order two know about the destiny of the twin children of the second. Natividade is a mother who is eager for his sons to have a great, incredible fate; she desires them to be great people. She cannot bear the curiosity, and, ignoring her husband’s requests – who considered sorcery practices “beliefs of paltry people” (MACHADO DE ASSIS, 1978, p. 36), she goes for a consult with the well-known witch. Differently of most of the witches described, Bárbara is a young, light woman, with hairs tight in a branch of rue (MACHADO DE ASSIS, 1978, p. 21). Fascinated by that figure, the two demanding women give her a piece of hair and photos of the kids, being asked by Bárbara if the children fought in her belly 5. Natividade links it to some discomfort she had during the pregnancy, and answers affirmatively. The prediction of the witch, after some suspense, is just two words: “Future things!” (MACHADO DE ASSIS, 1978, p. 23). Insisting, the mother wants to know if they are going to be great and happy, and Bárbara confirms; but, regarding the quality of their glories, “future things”! The “fought” of them both is repeated through the entire narrative. The two boys disagree in everything, and are always arguing and fighting. Nothing, not even the death of their mother, is capable of ceasing their fights. However, the mother comforts herself with the certainty of their greatness. This is an attitude of major interest: first of all, the seer did not say anything in particular; she did not even say a word without first being questioned by Natividade. The prediction could easily be made by anyone, if it was possible to know the same things Bárbara knew – Natidade’s social position, what she wanted to hear and so on. She gets so attached to it that she things of the prophecy during the entire novel: imagining the profession of their sons, their wives, their positions in the government… The narrator tells us something important about her thoughts: she went to the seer to “confirm her hope of being [her children] great men. It did not passed through her head the opposite prediction” (MACHADO DE ASSIS, 1978, p.40). The formula “Future things” is repeated by her nine times along the book, and references to the cabocla are made more than fifty times. With a single, small prediction, she travels the entire narrative and fills the mind and acts of the family. As commented Keith Thomas, “the diviners exist to fortify the decisions of their customers and reinforce their optimism” (1991, p. 205). Here, it is impossible 5
From here it is taken the name of the novel: in the biblical Genesis, Esau and Jacob, sons of Isaac, fought for the primogeniture in the belly of their mother.
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to know if the cabocla had, in the narrator’s point of view, any powers; what we knows is that after the enunciation of the prophecy, the life of the family – especially Natividade’s – is built by it, in a way she even neglects her sons’s education believing in the prediction. Exactly as in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the witch does not predicts the future: she makes it (Cf. MICHELET, 2001, p. 12). The outline of the witches is ended. From afro descendants to Caucasians, from diviners to crazy, poor women, they have a relevant space in our literature. In this paper, we only seek to draw the panorama of this problematic – female witchcraft – in the works produced during the period of major restraint of these practices in our country, pointing its relevant characteristics and paving the way through deeper and more specific studies and reflections. Some more reflections are being made in my Master’s research and by historians and anthropologists concerned by these matters, as Luis Nicolau Parés, Roger Sansi, Laura de Melo e Souza, João José Reis and Yvonne Maggie. Our goal is trying to answer a little part of the “Innocent question”, posed by the Brazilian Poet Mario Quintana: “If the witches have so many powers – / why are they so old, so ugly, so poor, so dirty?”. If we are able to throw some light to that discussion throughout our research, we are going to feel satisfied with our efforts. BIBLIOGRAPHY ALENCAR, José de. O tronco do ipê.Tecnoprint Gráfica S.A. – Editora – Rio de Janeiro. 1980. AZEVEDO. A. O Cortiço. In: AZEVEDO, A. Ficção completa, vol. 2. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Aguilar, 2005, pp. 439-634. ***. O Mulato. In: AZEVEDO, A. Ficção completa, vol. 1. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Aguilar, 2005, pp. 261-504. BURKE, Peter. Cultura Popular na Idade Moderna. 1ª edição. São Paulo: Companhia de Bolso, 2010. 465 p. CANDIDO, A. Literatura e Sociedade. São Paulo: Publifolha, 2000. COELHO, Nelly Novaes.O Conto de Fadas. 2ª edição. São Paulo: Paulinas, 2009. 159 p. FERREIRA, Luiz Otávio. Medicina Impopular: ciência médica e medicina popular nas páginas dos periódicos científicos (1830-1840). In: CHALHOUB, S. Et al. Artes e ofícios de curar no Brasil. Campinas: Editora Unicamp, 2003, pp. 101 a 122. GINZBURG, C. O Queijo e os vermes. 1ª edição. São Paulo: Cia de Bolso, 2006. 255 p. MACHADO DE ASSIS, J. M. Esaú e Jacó. 1ª. edição. São Paulo: Editora Egéria, 1978. ***. A cartomante. In: Obra completa em quatro volumes. Vol. 2, Rio de Janeiro: Nova Aguilar, 2008. MICHELET, J. A Feiticeira. 1ª edição. São Paulo: Editora Aquariana, 2003.142 p. NEGRÃO, L.N. Entre a Cruz e a encruzilhada. Formação do campo umbandista em São Paulo. São Paulo: EDUSP, 1996, 384p. NOGUEIRA, C. Bruxaria e História: as práticas mágicas no ocidente Cristão. 1ª edição. Sagrado Coração: EDUSC, 2004. 310 p. ***. O nascimento da bruxaria. 1ª edição. São Paulo: Editora Imaginário, 1995. 217 p. 257
PARÉS, Luis Nicolau; SANSI, Roger. Sorcery in the Black Atlantic. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011, pp. 55-74. PIMENTA, Tânia Salgado. Terapeutas populares e instituições médicas na primeira metade do século XIX. In: CHALHOUB, S. Et al. Artes e ofícios de curar no Brasil. Campinas: Editora Unicamp, 2003, pp. 307 a 330. REIS, João José. Candomblé and slave resistance in Nineteenth-Century Bahia. In: Sorcery in the Black Atlantic. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011, pp. 5574 RIBEIRO, R. A Carne. São Paulo: Martin Claret, 2010. RIO, J. As Religiões do Rio. Versão pdf. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Nova Aguilar, 1976. 82 p. SCHWARCZ, L. M. As barbas do imperador: D. Pedro II, um monarca nos trópicos. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2012. SOUZA, I. Contos Amazônicos. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2010. SOUZA, L. O Diabo e a Terra de Santa Cruz. 2ª edição. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1995. 396 p. SHAKESPEARE, W. Macbeth. In: CROSS, W; BROOKE, T (org). The Yale Shakespeare complete works. New York: Barnes and Nobles, 2006, pp. 1152-1154. TEÓFILO, R. A Fome. São Paulo: Tordesilhas, 2011. THOMAS, K. Religião e declínio da magia. 1ª edição. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. 728 p.
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ROMANIAN IDENTITY AND NATIONALISM IN ALEXANDRU VLAHUŢĂ’S ŢARA. POPORUL Isabel LAZĂR University of Bucharest ABSTRACT My paper presents the way in which the concept of “national identity’ is understood and put forward by the Romanian author Alexandru Vlahuţă in his best known literary work, namely România pitorească. The analysis relies on Benedict Anderson’s theory regarding nationalism and “imagined communities”. Keywords: national identity, post-colonial theory, hybridity, imagology
I chose to analyze the concept of the Romanian national identity because of the rich past and history which characterize our country. Alexandru Vlahuţă is one of the most fervent authors who continually illustrated the uniqueness of the Romanian land and moreover, of the “Romanians”. In addition, his greatest masterpiece is represented by România Pitorească which is basically an ode to the immemorial, revolutionary and visionary spirit of the Romanian individual. The analysis of Vlahuta’s last chapter of Romania Pitoreasca entitled “Tara. Poporul” 6 will relate to Benedict Anderson’s critical perspective stated in his famous book Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism 7. Furthermore, the aim of the present essay is to demonstrate Anderson’s view on the concept of community and nation-state with reference to Vlahuţă’s “Ţara. Poporul”. Benedict Anderson highlights nationality and nationalism as “cultural artifacts” found in the complex web woven by “self-consciousness, social terrains, and political and ideological constellations” (Anderson, 1972:4). Furthermore, Benedict Anderson’s use of the “correspondingly wide variety of political and ideological constellations” proves the author’s respect for the national identity of each nation he included in his study. According to Anderson, Vlahuţă’s text was written in a very important era, namely, in a time of re-generation which basically coincided with the “dawn of the age of nationalism” (Anderson, 1972:11). In other words, it was after the age of the Enlightenment that the Romanians became more and more aware of their national consciousness through their cultural roots. Vlahuţă’s views on Romanian national 6
Vlahuţă, Alexandru. “Ţara. Poporul” in România Pitorească. Bucureşti: Editura Minerva. 1972. pp.155-157. 7 Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991.
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identity portrayed in the essay are derived from his own sense of nationality. Here are Vlahuţă’s own words: Ca trestia ne-am îndoit sub vânt, dar nu ne-am rupt. Şi-am rămas stăpâni pe moşioara noastră. Ştie numai bunul Dumnezeu cu cât sânge ne-am plătit noi pământul acesta, scump tuturor românilor, scump pentru frumuseţile şi bogăţiile lui, scump pentru faptele măreţe şi înălţătoare care s-au petrecut pe el. (Vlahuţă, 1991:155). Anderson puts forward the argument that a nation is highly influenced by geographical boundaries and the historical background. Wars, revolutions and peaceful times frame and outline the national characteristics of what being a Romanian actually means. Vlahuţă also highlights the above mentioned temporal and spatial settings in his “Ţara. Poporul”: Dunărea, Marea, Carpaţii şi Prutul – iată cele patru hotare caringrădesc pământul Ţării Româneşti. Am fost trăit, pe vremuri, în graniţi mai largi. S-au fost învârtit, pe vremuri, paloşele sclipitoare ale Voievozilor noştri şi peste Carpaţi şi peste Prut. (Vlahuţă, 1991:155). In other words, the Romanian lands were protected at the cost of its young soldiers’ and sons’ lives. According to Vlahuţă, the Romanian history was written with letters of the blood of the courageous ancestors on the battlefields of Adamclisi, Posada and Rovine. According to both Anderson and Vlahuţă, national identity has always been Romanians’ greatest treasure. Vlahuţă points out the impact that visionary leaders like Decebal, Traian, Mircea cel Bătrân, Ştefan cel Mare and Mihai Viteazul had on the foundation of the Romanian nation and the preservation of the Romanian national identity. Moreover, Romanian literature has always stood as a written proof for the historical, geographical, political, social and religious backgrounds which stood witness step by step of the gradual creation and continuous development of the national consciousness. In addition, Anderson emphasizes the role of language and literature in that the literary revolution created a certain sense of belonging and that people gradually became aware of their common cultural inheritance (Anderson, 1972:84). In his famous work, Anderson posits that the continuous flow of history interceded with the struggle for national identity and put the basis of the sine qua non pillars of the national stream of consciousness inside the historical, social, geographical and cultural boundaries. In this respect, Vlahuţă said: “Multe războaie am avut şi multe nenorociri ne-au călcat în vremea asta. Vijelii cumplite-au trecut peste noi, la toate-am ţinut piept, şi nu ne-am dat, ş-aici am stat”. (Vlahuţă, 1991:155). 260
Furthermore, Anderson puts forth the importance of the process of migration in the nothing less and nothing more than the shaping of a nation which enlarges and enriches the conquered nation’s perspective and cultural horizon. Vlahuta follows the same route: Dar s-au vărsat încoace înecuri de potop, neamuri pe neamuri sau împins – noroade, ce nu le mai încăpea lumea, au curs mereu peste noi şi-a trebuit – ca să putem trăi – să ne mai strângem ţara, şi de la miazănoapte şi de la răsărit. (Vlahuţă, 1991:155). Therefore, Vlahuţă underlines the uniqueness of the Romanian character that basically represents an indigenous mixture of Old and New, of Dacian and Roman blood. Consequently, Aduşi în Dacia de împărătul Traian, rămaşi aici, în urma celei mai vajnice lupte ce-au văzut timpurile vechi, am păstrat în sângele nostru vitejia acelor două popoare mari din care ne tragem, şi nu o dată, în zbuciumul atâtor veacuri, ne-am arătat urmaşii vrednici şi ai legionarilor biruitori, care au vânzolit lumea şi-au abătut codrii, ca să răzbată în cetatea lui Decebal, şi ai uriaşilor învinşi, care – ne mai putându-se apăra – şi-au dat o moarte aşa de măreaţă şi de tragică în flăcările Sarmisegetuzei. (Vlahuţă, 1972:155). Vlahuţă’s “România Pitorească” represents a poetic historical essay that actually mirrors Benedict Anderson’s approach towards the concept of patriotism. In addition, Anderson highlights the fact that It is useful to remind ourselves that nations inspire love and often profoundly self-sacrificing love (…) On the other hand, how truly rare it is to find analogous nationalist products expressing fear and loathing even in the colonized peoples who have every reason to feel hatred for their imperialist rulers, it is astonishing how insignificant the element of hatred is in these expressions of national feeling (…) In the vocabulary of kinship (Motherland, Vaterland, Patria) or that of home (heimat or tanah air [earth and water, the phrase for the Indonesians’ native arquipelago]). Both idioms denote something to which one is naturally tied. (Anderson, 1972:141, 142, 143) Alternately, Vlahuţă asserts the strong bound between the simple peasant and the sacredness of the land. In other words, the Romanian feels an unconditional and almost touchable sense of belonging for his homeland. Moreover, it is tremendously important for one to acknowledge the great impact that the concept of patria has on the collective consciousness. This means that the Romanian 261
soldier has to know no fear on the battlefield! The Romanian soldier has to fulfill his ethical duty to protect his ancestral land! It is his destiny to worship his parents’ and grandparents’ legacy! Vlahuţă transposes these noble patriotic thoughts into words: Ştie numai bunul Dumnezeu cu cât sânge ne-am plătit noi pământul acesta, scump tuturor românilor, scump pentru frumuseţile şi bogaţiile lui, scump pentru faptele măreţe şi înălţătoare care s-au petrecut pe el. Odihnească-n pace gloriosul Ştefan, că n-au fost spuse în deşert cuvintele mândre şi-nţelepte pe care ni le-a lăsat cu limba de moarte: „"Dacă duşmanul vostru ar cere legăminte ruşinoase de la voi, atunci mai bine muriţi prin sabia lui decât să fiţi privitori împilării şi ticăloşiei ţării voastre. Domnul părinţilor voştri, însă, se va îndura de lăcrimile slugilor sale şi va ridica dintre voi pe cineva carele va aşeza iarăşi pe urmaşii voştri în voinicia şi puterea de mai înainte”. (Vlahuţă, 1991:155-156). So, patria et populus qui vicerunt! 8 In contrast, Benedict Anderson’s main idea is that there is no such thing as community but rather imagined community: It is imagined because the members of even the smallest nations will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each leaves the image of their community. (Anderson, 1972:6). In addition, Anderson explains that “a nation exists when a significant number of people in a community considered themselves to form a nation or behave as if they formed one” (Anderson, 1972: 6). The author uses the term of imagined communities because he considers communities as limited only by their spatial boundaries of their minds, of the sovereignty of the geographical and political boundaries of their countries which are therefore, finite. These imaginary boundaries are fluid and elastic, according to Anderson, as the intellectual movements rooted in the cultural nationalism are limitless from a physical point of view. At the other end of this concept, Vlahuţă does support the idea of a united community that shares the same goals and ideals. Moreover, he applies Anderson’s notion of “true” communities that exist if advantageously juxtaposed to nations (Anderson, 1972:6). So, nations create “the true communities” in that “they are connected by people that have never seen each other” even if divided by space and time:
8
Lat.: The victorious people and homeland!
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Din straşina munţilor ce-nalţă marginea ţării de la Severin până la Dorohoi, râuri frumoase, dătătoare de viaţă, şi nenumărate pâraie se despletesc, în cărări de argint, peste-ntinsele şesuri ale Valahiei şi printre dealurile blânde ale Moldovii. Singura câmpia Ialomiţei s-aşterne tăcută, netedă, uscată – vast ostrov însetat, în mijlocul atâtor ape ce-mpodobesc pământul României. Doarme sub şuierul vânturilor deşertul larg, nemărginit al Bărăganului. (Vlahuţă, 1991:156). The Romanian author also discusses the temporal dimension of the national identity: De mii de ani visează râuri limpezi şi lacuri sclipitoare: în zilele senine de vară visu-i se răsfrânge-n undele aerului şi-ngână peste lanurile şi balăriile uscate ale pustiului acele ape vrăjite, amăgitoare ale „mirajelor”, aşa de frumos numite de popor "apa morţilor". Călătorii străini care-au străbătut văile României pe drumuri hrintuite, în căruţele de poştă de-acum patruzeci de ani, cu greu ar mai cunoaşte astăzi locurile pe unde-au umblat. Li s-ar părea că altă ţară s-a pus între Carpaţi şi Mare. Şi-ntr-adevăr, o ţară nouă s-a ridicat de-atunci în răsăritul Europii. Moşia lui Mircea ş-a lui Ştefan, liberă şi mândră Românie de azi nemaicrescând în lături, a trebuit să crească-n sus, şi saltă zi cu zi – o saltă puterea tinereţii şi setea de lumină! (Vlahuţă, 1991:156). Vlahuţă’s words have a parallel echo in Anderson’s “The Biography of Nations”. The author asserts that time and space have their own national identity if “autobiographies begin with the circumstances of parents and grandparents” (Anderson 1991:204). He also reminds us of “the Gospel according to Saint Mattheu” which enumerates the generations from “the Patriarch Abraham down to Jesus Christ”. In other words, one’s national identity cannot be constructed without the continuity given by the strong relationship between generations in space and time. Anderson successfully branches out to the modernity of national identity and “modern persons” who give national space and time its own identity. That has its roots in “the secular story of the ‘person’” which structures the national features (Anderson, 1991:205). This is how history is created. This is what history means, from “beginning to an end” from the beginning of a social and historical generation, from a nationally identifiable generation to its end which coincides with the beginning of the “secular story” of the next “person” generation. The genes of the nationally identifiable generation put their print and hand out their characteristics onto the next generation which will bear them as the social, political, cultural, historical and geographical DNA for centuries to come. According to the law of nature, the imprint of national identity will be filtered, transformed and passed on in a continuously evolving changing process to the stage of identifiable nation. The 263
cocoon will get out of its chrysalis as a genealogically identifiable nation and will spread its wings into its background. Vlahuţă metaphorically describes this complex birth process in the following way: “Şi largi îşi deschid acum porţile altarele luminii – treptat poporul se înviorează, se deşteaptă, la o viaţă de pace şi de muncă roditoare”. (Vlahuţă, 1991:156). Anderson puts forward the impact that the propagandistic discourse has on the masses in the study of nationalism. This perspective can be observed in Vlahuţă’s work, namely, in the rhetorical statements. This means that he talks of an idealistic nation with exceptional features that distinguish it from other from the Balkans. According to him, the Romanian nation is the priceless treasure which is strategically hidden in the heart of the Carpathian Mountains. The beauty of the Romanian spirit is majestically embodied in the sweet sound of the traditional folk poems and songs of suffering named “doine” which dressed the wounds and healed the historical scars of the Romanian soul hurt in old battles throughout ages. Vlahuţă emphasizes the strong character of the Romanian people who lived through hard times and witnessed both bad and good times, hardships and celebrations, disillusion and hope. The historical trajectory of the Romanian people on the road to asserting its own identity was neither one paved with silver and gold, nor nourished with honey and milk, according to Vlahuţă. Their journey was one less trodden in that they tried to assert and preserve their own national identity in spite of the crucial and merciless twists of their historical fate. Furthermore, Vlahuţă shows his unconditional love towards his people and his homeland by outlining an idyllic image of the Romanian common people who are courageous on the battlefield and inside the boundaries to defend the ancient homeland, and eager to pay their country’s debts which might threaten their national independence and territorial unity and integrity. Following Anderson’s conceptual discourse on the “messianic time”, seen as “a simultaneity of past and future in an instantaneous present” (Anderson, 1991:24), Vlahuţă talks of an endless process of re-generation and re-birth of the Romanian nation: “căzând şi ridicându-se iar, murind în şes şi renăscând în munţi, pururea tânăr, pururea mândru, cu toate nevoile ce-au dat să-l răpuie” (Vlahuţă, 1972:157). In other words, Vlahuţă brings into discussion the cosmogonist picture of the interwoven three dimensions of the universal flow of time – past, present and future. Moreover, Vlahuţă explains that the Romanian people unreels the infinite time line between the ancestral past and the modern future. Both Anderson and Vlahuţă pay great attention to the importance of the national land. Vlahuţă posits that the national character was highly influenced by the positive energy source which is symbolically represented by our ancestors’ homeland which oozes history as an everlasting fountain of cultural knowledge: În faţa scundelor şi sărăcăcioaselor chilii, unde-acum optzeci de ani dascălul Lazăr punea în mâna copiilor cea dintâi carte românească, se-nalţă falnic palatul universităţii, iar pe locul acela sfânt s-au aşezat trei statui: Eliade, Mihai Viteazu, Gheorghe Lazăr – poetul, eroul şi apostolul. (Vlahuţă, 1991:157). 264
Benedict Anderson states that “it is fraternity that makes imagined communities possible, over the past two centuries, for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings” (Anderson, 1972:7). Vlahuţă generates the same ideas in his poetic and descriptive writing. The last paragraph of “Ţara. Poporul” highlights Anderson’s concepts of “colossal sacrifices” and “cultural roots of nationalism” (Aderson, 1972:7) in Vlahuţă’s words that put forth one’s highly praised gift of devotion towards sacro sacta patria 9: Într-o ţară aşa de frumoasă, c-un trecut aşa de glorios, în mijlocul unui popor atât de deştept, cum să nu fie o adevărată religie iubirea de patrie, şi cum să nu-ţi ridici fruntea, ca falnicii strămoşi de odinioară, mândru că poţi spune: "Sunt român!". (Vlahuţă, 1991:158). All in all, Vlahuţă summons the readers to becoming aware of their national identity using the Romanian nation as a shaping force for the national character. From a literary point of view, Vlahuţă uses narrative tricks with the visible purpose of calling the readership’s attention on Andersonian concepts such as nationalism and national features through literary persuasion techniques. The Andersonian concept and terms of “masses” and “missionary of nationalism” apply to Vlahuţă’s poetic hymn to Romanians’ glorious and daring exploits of the wise rulers such as Mircea cel Batrân, Ştefan cel Mare and Mihai Viteazul. Nonetheless, Anderson sees it all differently from Vlahuţă who imagines the nation as an entity that breathes through the lungs of green forests that stretch over the Carpathians. Anderson states openly that: As with modern persons, so it is with nations (…). Nations (…) have no clearly identifiable births, and their deaths if they ever happen, are never natural. Because there is no Originator, the nation’s biography can not be written evangelically, “down time”, through a long procreative chain of begettings. The only alternative is to fashion it “up time” – towards Peking Man, Java Man, King Arthur, wherever the lamp of archaeology casts its fitful gleam. This fashioning, however, is marked by deaths, which, in a curious inversion of conventional genealogy, start from an originary present. (Anderson, 1972:205).
9
Lat.: Sacred homeland.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Vlahuţă, Al. “Ţara. Poporul” in România Pitorească. Bucureşti: Editura Minerva. 1972. Vlahuţă, Al., Scrieri alese, vol.I, III, Ed. îngrijită de V. Râpeanu, colecţia “Scriitori români”, Editura pentru Literatură, Bucureşti, 1963. Vlahuţă, Al., Iubire, Ed. Litera, Chişinău, 1998. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991.
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ENDURANCE AND VIOLENCE IN HORACIO QUIROGA AND SERGIO FARACO Amalia LEITES Universidade Federal de Santa Maria ABSTRACT This paper is the result of a research that performed a comparative study of four short stories from Uruguayan author Horacio Quiroga and four more from Brazilian author Sergio Faraco, taking into account the historical context and the authoritarianism in Latin America to better understand how the society was formed, how was the behavior of the people who lived in such regions, and how the relation with the frontier interfered in their concepts of life and death. The comparison of the eight short-stories started with the aspect of endurance, and after the analysis we verified that it is manifest in the authoritarian relationship of man against man, where the violence and the economic power are the vehicle of the ruling class’ oppression. The endurance is also the element that comes out in the conflict between man and nature – at isolated and still wild territories; the environmental forces defeat the man and break his original harmony with the place. The ideal of the noble savage who lives in total equilibrium with his environment has no place at Quiroga’s and Faraco’s America. The nature, in this paper, is directly related to the inhuman realm, to the instincts opposed to the reason, to the expressions of violence not monopolized by the state, to the violence and brutality in its ancestral condition. Keywords: authoritarianism, frontier, narrative transculturation, Latin America, violence.
The struggle for geographical territories is not only about space, with soldiers and armies. It goes far beyond and it is about, as Edward Said 1 said, a struggle for ideas, images and imaginations. In Latin America, the expansion of Portuguese and Spanish crowns brought us much more than exploitation and death through colonization. The violent imposition of the European ideology shows that, more than knowing, the colonizers wanted to dominate, subordinate and, according to their conceptions, “civilize” the barbarian native peoples. Through religion and power, the European doctrine was forcedly assimilated and Latin America transformed into a copy, simulacrum that tries to be more and more similar to the
1
SAID,1994.
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original, although it was, since the beginning, completely wiped off by the conquerors. 2 Centuries have passed since the times of Brazil colony, but what happened was the simple substitution of the old system for its successor, neocolonialism. More subtle and therefore more dangerous, it causes the slow and gradual absorption of the “metropolis” values – being this metropolis either European or North American. But the neocolonialism will meet a society that is different from the older one, and in it the absorption of the way of life and think of the European spirit will not happen in such a pacific way, as it was five hundred years ago. The reason is that the neocolonial society is essentially hybrid and it is inserted in a reality where the European and native elements are mixed, lost their condition of purity, passed through deep transformations and finally are not recognizable anymore. The “barbarian” is influenced by the “civilized”, but at the same time hits and changes it. Since it is impossible to close itself for the European influence, Latin America cannot go back to its original condition, before the colonization. This condition is represented by the local artist that, situated in the middle of these Latin and European influences, will create a unique and hybrid discourse. So, the Latin American artist’s discourse will exist where Silviano Santiago nominated “in-between place”: between the submission to the code and the aggression, the obedience and the rebellion. The value of this speech would dwell exactly in those points in which it was more different from the metropolis’ speech. The importance of the difference at cultural and literature studies will inevitably bring the question of what makes us so different from the Europeans. The first answer, more evident, is that the historical and social contexts of Latin America and Europe are the elements that distinguish us. But according to many authors, it is not sufficient to insist on the importance of these differences, but to study their relations with the literary systems that they are part of. 3. Besides, to study the historical context of the work of art does not diminish its value at all. Its complexes affiliations make it even more interesting as art. Such as Edward Said observes, the tendency of the fields of dividing and specializing is contrary to the understanding of the whole. When such understanding is pursued, we add to this perspective the characteristics, interpretations, directions and tendencies of the cultural experiences in the work’s historical context. Authors Coutinho and Santiago are added to Said’s voice when he affirms that cultural forms are hybrid and impure, and that the time has come to the cultural analysis reconnect its analysis with the reality. 4 To think about frontiers means to bring out different ways of perceiving life and different sensitivities. Through comparative analysis, it is possible to deal with subjects of numerous times and spaces, and see how they dialogue and approach to each other. In order to find one of the ways by which it is possible to do this dialogue between Latin American writers, we analyze eight short stories: 2
SANTIAGO, 2000.p.14. COUTINHO, 1996.p.202. 4 SAID,1994, p.14 3
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four from Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga, one of the masters in short narratives in the continent, and four more from Brazilian writer Sergio Faraco, one of the biggest contemporary authors in Brazil. Faraco’s stories selected here are A voz do coração, Noite de matar um homem, Guapear com frangos and Hombre, which are the stories where we can see better the protagonists’ responses, in the moment of the conflict with the other and in a limit situation. For the same reason and aiming to reach a richer comparison, we chose, among hundreds of Quiroga’s stories, the narratives Los mensú , A la deriva , Una bofetada and Los desterrados. Still nowadays the discussions about local identities and frontiers in Latin America are extremely valid. After all, as Hugo Achúgar 5 affirmed, we locate ourselves and we establish our own position when we locate the other who is the object of our speech. To recognize the other implies recognizing oneself, and this process, because it is subject to constant transformations, involves the transit in the past and in the present, so the past can be better understood. Thence the importance of studying the literature of different historical moments for a better understanding of what is said when we say “Latin American identity”. Thus, our goal here is to analyze in which ways the misionero and pampiano identities represented in these short stories are constructed in their relation with the respective environments, the Argentinian and the Brazilian frontiers. Although the writing of these short stories is separated by many decades, the historical similarities of the spaces approach them, since the consequences of the colonialist and neocolonialist processes appear such in Quiroga’s narratives as in Faraco’s. But is it not enough to declare it, if such factors are not explained. In order to do so, we choose the interdisciplinary path and we dialogue with History and Geography. From Geography we borrowed the concept of “territorialization” 6, a movement composed by the diverse territory’s conquests, establishments and losses by the individuals. This concept is one of the keys to understand the relation of the characters with their environment, and it is considered in its concrete, symbolic and abstract aspects. Beyond the space as general category of analysis, the concept of territory may help to discuss the individual’s subjectivity and the personal identity. Among many understandings of territory, the one that concerns us most is the symbolic and cultural dimension, in which the territory is defined by the appropriation and valorization of a space by a group and, because of that, is an essential element in the identity construction. The idea of territorialization, from this point of view, would consist in the construction of this space with the individuals, and would include since the concrete aspects of human existence as the most symbolic ones, such as the power relations. The man seen as “territorializing animal” 7would be able to inhabit more than one territory, and then to formulate an effectively multiple territorialization. These actions origin many kinds of conflicts, in which each individual suffers 5
ACHÚGAR, 2006. HAESBAERT, 2004. 7 BAREL apud HAESBAERT, op. cit,p.344. 6
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deterritorializations and posterior reterritorializations. And doing so, they change their identities and their ways of being and seeing the world. We just have to see the characters of Los desterrados, who since their youth until their old ages look for territorialization and safety in their environment. Or the complex and delicate relation of those short stories in which the protagonists are the guarani indians, whose ancestors were part of the Jesuitical missions project and that posteriorly were marginalized workers at hierba-mate mills. So, we can see through Quirga’s narratives that the existent social factors in the formation of the Misiones border region ended up approaching three nations. In that geographic area Argentinians, Paraguayans and Brazilians lived together, mixed and influenced each other, when they were still called only Europeans, Criollos or Indians, because the countries as we know them nowadays were not constituted yet. But all of them had in common, above everything, the fact that they were borderers isolated in the jungle and condemned to a miserable existence, permeated of suffering and violence, in which the human being did not worth more than the animals that surrounded him. In the four short stories analyzed here, death appears as something hackneyed, and to understand this aspect it is impossible to separate it from its context. The peasant has to deal with death day to day, whenever he is hunting wild animals or slaughtering his owns. Kids are born and grow up in this environment, they know that death is needed to the maintenance of their own lives, and they ignore concepts such as cruelty or brutality. What exists is the need of survival, and starting from this idea, the other moral values are constructed. The death of the animals is necessary, as necessary as the death of those who impair the business or those who killed the friend. When the man is dead, the food chain is inverted and the animals obtain the right to feed from the human body. Man’s natural state resurfaces in an intense way at the frontier zone, which is now distinguished as stage of the inhuman and the ancestral return to the violence. These complex relationships that happen in the frontier may be better perceived if we understood the concept of “transculturation”, as designed by anthropologist Fernando Ortiz 8 and adapted to the literary ambit by critic Ángel Rama. Transculturation would better express the complex culture changes in countries that already had native peoples but received immigrant waves, such as those from Spain and Africa, with people extracted from their original social nucleus and that had had their cultures destroyed and oppressed, being forced to readapt them to the New World. Rama 9 brought to the literary ambit the anthropological neologism and identified the transculturation in literature. To understand these process in Latin America is extremely important, and it approaches to the concept of territorialization, since both imply a constant movement of losses and gains. At Quiroga’s and Faraco’s short stories, one common characteristic is highlighted: the attempt to endure to all the ways of oppression, even though these 8 9
ORTIZ, 2002. RAMA, 2001. p.209-238.
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attempts fail in one way or another. Such endurance is verified in two manners: initially, as the authoritarian relation of man versus man, where the violence and the economic power are the vehicle of the ruling class oppression; and also in the resistance of man against the nature forces, in a Latin America full of isolated and wild environments, where the nature defeats man and the original harmony is broken. In these stories, the endurance is not about an attempt to confront an authoritarian and repressor official state. At the Misiones province in century XX the state control did not exist yet and the natural zones such as the jungle were considered only a source of exploitation to maximize gains. Since the very first chronicles written by travelers, like Pero Vaz de Caminha’s letter or Columbus reports, America was set as a natural region without history, a remote heaven or hell without previous human activity and, because of so, ready to be colonized and commercially exploited. Thereby since it belonged to a zone of little or null state control, Argentinian jungle had some particularities in what refers to its economic development. The hierba mate exploration at Misiones region was conducted by private companies that took advantage of the absence of a State and converted themselves into autonomous entities, controlling the commerce and the justice (according, of course, to their point of view) and ensuring the workers’ discipline through the use of terror and indebtedness 10. Deluded with the promises of quick wealth, those workers used to arrive from many points of South America and even from Europe, ending up to set a space full of tensions and where the conflicts would be unavoidable. At the gaucho pampa the absence of state power was also essential to the formation of its first inhabitants. Isolated from the metropolis, the region was always a place of disputes for territory, civil wars and revolutions that, in the course of time, left indelible marks at gaucho people psychology. The main economic activity at the pampa, the cattle, was based on the authority and the power of the landowners, who made their own laws and dictated the rules. For those excluded from this system, the options were illegal hunting or smuggling of products across the border. Since 18th century, smuggling was a not sanctioned social practice that invaded all the spheres of daily life, as explained by critic Léa Masina 11. It was not seen as illicit or unwanted, and it was even practiced by rich landowners. At the borderer society of 18th and 19th centuries, smuggling was an integrant part of the economy. Although, what is apprehended from Faraco’s stories it that the 20th century smuggling is a symptom of the gauchos’ miserable situation. In the stories Noite de matar um homem, Hombre and a A voz do coração, the idealized view of the brave and invincible gaucho does not exist anymore. It is replaced by the need of survive and work, whether in the confront with another smuggler who invades their territories or in the confronts with the employees at the ranches where they pass by, the protagonists prove their abilities to face the authorities. This coping 10 11
QUIN, 2011. MASINA, 1994.
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does not happen face to face though, it is through a shot in the back or a strategical boycotts at the enemy’s boat. This attitude can be explained by the inequality of forces, because the landowner, in the end, had by his side the economic and social power at the pampa. The fundamental feature of the characters’ endurance at Quiroga’s stories is also about the power relations. When we focus on the endurance against the authoritarianism originated at the employer, we perceive, in stories such as Los mensú and Una bofetada that the non-acceptance of a repressive system provokes different answers from the characters. In the first story, the attempt to escape – yet with the posterior conformity with the situation; at the second, the revenge against the oppressor, planned for years and conducted with refinements of cruelty and without moral conflicts. Also in the first part of the narrative Los desterrados the narrator explores the youth of the protagonists and the way João Pedro gets the respect of his fellows when he kills his employer, famous for never paying his employees. In different ways, these characters endure to the authoritarianism of their environments, such as Faraco’s characters. The endurance against a stronger force, the nature, is showed in Quiroga’s short story A la deriva, which presents the confront with a violent nature that, instead of creating, destroys the human life. The protagonist tries in every way to defeat the snake, the Paraná River, the jungle that separates him from the assistance, but it is in vain. The same happens in Faraco’s Guapear com frangos, where numerous references to the sun and the heat pervade the narrative, suggesting the oppressive force of the star. The environment of the gaucho frontier in the summer is presented as violent and arid, and it causes the torment of the protagonist and his final decision of giving up the fight against the environment. To endure against the nature, which insists in destructing the human being in these stories, is even more impracticable than enduring to the authoritarianism and oppression. Briefly analyzing the history of both regions, we perceive as, since always they were marked by the violence and the presence of unquestionable authorities who kept the social order. The modernization occurred in 20th century also brought the exclusion of those who did not adapt themselves, and this somehow linked even more the border regions of Latin America. These borders are not only limits or contours in a map anymore, either only a transition, but an overlapping of both ideas, of thinking from inside and outside at the same time. When we approached Quiroga’s and Faraco’s stories, it was the condition of cultural and economic misery of the characters that was highlighter. These characters, ignoring such condition, became victims of an authoritarian system impossible to contest and to escape from. The construction of their identities went through a disharmonious and unstable relation with their environments – the pampa border, in Faraco, and Misiones region, in Quiroga. And in those scenarios the contact with the other happened and the borderers’ characters were formed. The history of both regions is also similar when it comes about the omnipresence of violence in the “civilizational” processes through which they passed in different moments of their past. The region of Misiones suffered the 272
colonialist imposition of “civilization” and the extermination of native peoples over the stimulation of European migration, what originated a promiscuous territory where the contact with the other was marked by conflicts. This was also the case of the Brazilian border, which was constant scenario for battles among Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina and ended up creating in its inhabitants a state of continuous belligerence in which the different manifestations of violence were assimilated to the local culture. Therefore, the process of constructing the identity has to imperatively pass through the relation of the characters with their environment, and this relation is established based on the endurance to the external oppression. In the short stories study we perceived that the manifestation of this endurance is not pacific at all, but extremely violent: Infertile violence against more powerful opponents as the nature or the employer; frustrated violence as an attempt of revenge that does not satisfy the thirst for justice for the friend’s death; psychological violence, the humiliation imposed by the boss at the hierba mate mills; violence in a territory teeming of conflicts and cultural shocks. Although they are separated by many decades, we can observe that the narratives reflect common moments of Latin America, in which the colonialism and neocolonialism could not effectively universalize the societies and the local identities, as it may seem at first glance. Otherwise, how could we explain that still nowadays there are isolated villages in Latin America where a person may die because of snakebite? Where is the civilizational development occurred at the last century, when a short story like Una bofetada was written, if until the current society the law of retaliation applies, whether in the arid gaucho pampa or Brazilian slums? Until nowadays people kill and are killed because of revenge and honor. Until nowadays the man is even more exploited by the capitalism and tries to endure in different ways. The bestial aspects of human psychology did not change with the advent of globalization. But it is not that a complete symbolic homogenization of society is taking place, on the contrary. Rama’s concept of transculturation remains current to explain the culture as a set of transformations full of gains and losses, which converge for a result always different from the original elements. We must go further and realize that the local traditions did not finish, only changed. As Hugo Achugar 12 declared, a universal identity, common to all Latin America countries, would only be possible starting with the recognition of its own heterogeneity, and in order to do so, we would need to look from inside and from the outside at the same time, starting from the region we want to talk about. It is in the recognition of this heterogeneity that this work attempted to contribute, showing that it is exactly in this insertion of failures, defeats and deaths that the beauty of Hoaracio Quiroga and Sergio Faraco narratives lies.
12
ACHÚGAR, 2006.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY ACHÚGAR, Hugo. Planetas sem boca. Escritos efêmeros sobre arte, cultura e literatura. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2006. ANTELO, Raul. “Os confins como reconfiguração das fronteiras”. In: Revista da Associação Brasileira de Literatura Comparada. Rio de Janeiro. n.08. 2006. pp.59-83. COUTINHO, Eduardo. Literatura Comparada na América Latina. Rio de Janeiro: UERJ, 2003. FARACO, Sergio. Contos Completos. 2.ed. Porto Alegre: L&PM, 2004. GOLIN, Tau. A fronteira. Porto Alegre: LPM, 2004 HAESBAERT, Rogério. O Mito da Desterritorialização. Rio de Janeiro: Bertand Brasil, 2004. MASINA, Lea. “Um escritor na travessia de culturas”. In: Percursos de leitura. Porto Alegre: Movimento,1994. pp.71-79. ORTIZ, Fernando.Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y el azúcar. Madrid: Cátedra, 2002. QUIN, Alejandro. Taming the chaos: nature, sovereignty, and the politics of writing in modern Latin America. 261f. Tese (Doutorado em Filosofia) – University of Michigan, Michigan, 2011. QUIROGA, Horacio. Cuentos de Amor de Locura y de Muerte. Buenos Aires: Flor Negra, 2007. ***Cuentos. 3.ed Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2004. *** Los desterrados. Prólogo de Fernando Rosemberg. Buenos Aires: Kapelusz, 1987. RAMA, Ángel. Literatura e Cultura na América Latina. São Paulo: EDUSP, 2001. SAID,Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994. SANTIAGO, Silviano. Uma literatura nos trópicos: ensaios sobre dependência cultural. 2.ed. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2000.
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VILLE ET ESPACE URBAIN Alexandru MATEI Université Spiru Haret, Bucarest
RÉSUMÉ Paris représente le centre de gravitation des premiers romans de Jean Echenoz, auteur né dans le Midi, mais parisien par adoption. Le Paris de Jean Echenoz est une ville en permanente mutation, où les anciennes banlieues se transforment au jour le jour, mais dont les quartiers historiques restent eux-mêmes des points de repère absolus pour l’imaginaire urbain de ses romans. Le lecteur peut y discerner la confrontation entre la ville traditionnelle, centralisée, et l’espace urbain moderne, fonctionnel, dynamique mais sans géométrie. Ce sont des éléments de micro-réalisme, ayant déjà été relevés par d’autres commentateurs de la littérature echenozienne, qui rendent évidente la tension entre les deux aspects de l’urbain, qu’une seule aperception est censée réunir et rendre. Mots clés: Paris dans la littérature, Jean Echenoz, ville et littérature, littérature française contemporaine
Personnettaz et lui se trouvaient au bord d’une grande route rapide à six voies – deux fois trois séparées par une médiane ensemencée de plantes comateuses et bordée de garde-fous tuméfiés – coupés du monde par un grillage entre les mailles duquel voletaient des lambeaux de matière plastique, d’étoffe et de papier souillés, froissés, agglutinés au pied des poteaux. Au-delà de cette frontière, le monde ne se décidait pas entre l’état de friche et celui du chantier. Pas d’être humain en vue à pied. (GB 101)
I. Le plus clair de l’espace représenté dans les romans de Jean Échenoz est urbanisé. Mais nous ne devons pas identifier l’espace urbain à l’espace de la ville, tant à la suite de recherches en urbanisme qui apportent des critiques au concept traditionnel de ville 13 qu’ayant en vue la multitude des déplacements qui 13
Dès 1965, Françoise Choay parle d’une explosion de la structure monadique représentée par la ville et son éparpillement planétaire: «Peut-être assistera-t-on à la prolifération des agglomérations urbaines indéfiniment extensibles sur toute la planète, de sorte que toute signification de la ville se sera perdue. » : Françoise Choay, L’Urbanisme. Utopies et réalités, Paris, Seuil, 1965. Il semble, selon Lewis Mumford, qu’on assiste de nos jours au « crépuscule des villes » traditionnelles: « La
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délocalisent les personnages. L’affaissement de la ville, remplacée par l’espace urbain est la raison essentielle pour laquelle, chez Jean Échenoz, les représentations spatiales renchérissent sur la désorientation et la monotonie de la ville dans l’Occident contemporain: il s’agit, en premier lieu, de Paris qui, avec ses banlieues, composent un vaste réseau ou les repères qui l’identifient en tant que capitale de la France alternent avec des espaces anonymes qui pourraient faire partie de n’importe quelle autre ville. La ville et l’espace urbain sont deux thèmes qui se trouvent au centre des débats théoriques dans les sciences sociales depuis quelques décennies. Chronologiquement, le débat sur la ville précède celui sur l’espace urbain. Il y a aujourd’hui de nombreuses histoires de la ville qui rendent compte d’un phénomène évolutif, du point de vue historique et sociologique 14. Il y a aussi nombre d’approches de la ville que l’on pourrait ranger en deux rubriques: les discours de la ville traditionnelle comme espace de communion (les essais de Pierre Sansot thématisent un ensemble de phénomènes culturels et psychologiques dans le cadre d’une anthropologie de la ville dont l’habitant est plutôt le spectateur 15) et ceux de la ville contemporaine comme espace de flux (voir la ville postmoderne thématisée par Jean-Luc Nancy 16 ou la ville comme source d’une vaste réflexion sur la pragmatique des échanges linguistiques 17). Un concentré de la pensée philosophique (européenne pour la plupart) sur la ville fait l’objet d’une remarquable anthologie parue sous la direction de Pierre Ansay et René Schoonbrodt 18. Les nouvelles formes de la ville constituent, en outre, le sujet essentiel des débats dans les discours architectural et urbanistique. C’est à l’intérieur de l’architecturologie 19 que la différence entre ville et espace urbain a pris explicitement forme pour la première fois. Les chercheurs ont constaté que, depuis la fin de la deuxième guerre mondiale, la réalité de la ville tend à s’effacer au profit raison d’être de la grande cité disparaît au moment ou elle prend la forme d’une vaste et illimitée conurbation. », cité par Michel Ragon in op. cit., p. 224. 14 Ainsi, l’étude sociologique de Marcel Roncayolo, La Ville et ses territoires, Paris, Gallimard, 1997 qui rassemble des articles publiés par l’auteur pendant la fin des années 1970; l’essai de Jean Duvignaud Lieux et non lieux, Paris, Galilée, 1977 ou l’histoire de la ville européenne de Leonardo Benevolo, La Citta nella storia d’Europa, Roma-Bari, Laterza & Figli, 1993. 15 Poétique de la ville, Klincksieck, 1973; Anonymat et espace urbain, Grenoble, Université des Sciences Sociales, 1982; Du bon usage de la lenteur, Payot & Rivages, 1998 sont les titres les plus connus de Pierre Sansot qui conçoit la ville comme le lieu d’une pratique esthétique, du voir plutôt que du faire. Ses ouvrages sont relayés par celui plus récent de David Le Breton: « La ville met mutuellement les passants en position de regard. Elle montre en permanence une forêt de visages » (Éloge de la marche, Paris, métaillie, 2000, p.140). 16 Jean-Luc Nancy, La Ville au loin, Mille et une nuits, 1999 : c’est une déconstruction phénoménologique très subtile du phénomène de la ville contemporaine. 17 Lorenza Mondada, Décrire la ville. La construction des savoirs urbains dans l’intéraction et dans le texte, Paris, Économica, 2000. La ville est pour cet auteur en premier lieu une structure langagière dynamique régie par les injonctions de la vie menée ensemble dans un espace varié et flottant. 18 Pierre Ansay, René Schoonbrodt, Penser la ville. Choix de textes philosophiques, Bruxelles, Archives d’architecture moderne, 1989. 19 Terme proposé par Philippe Boudon, Sur l’espace architectural, Paris, Dunod, 1971
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de l’espace urbain. Françoise Choay en est une des premières – et la première architecte française – à s’en rendre compte. Depuis, nombre de chercheurs thématisent la fin de la ville et l’avènement d’un nouvel espace urbain éclaté qui revêtirait la structure du réseau et se dispenserait ainsi du centre et de la périphérie qui ont structuré la ville moderne 20. Nous serions entrés, depuis la fin de la deuxième guerre mondiale, dans « le troisième âge de l’urbanisme » 21, au-delà même de l’idée de ville, comme très récemment Marcel Henaff croit constater: « de même que la révolution industrielle avait brisé l’unité organique de la ville traditionnelle et fait naître une urbanité de banlieue qui est restée un problème non résolu des sociétés modernes, de même la croissance exponentielle des réseaux électroniques finit par mettre en cause l’idée même de ville. » 22 La ville moderne tend à disparaître au fur et à mesure que « l’industrie s’est mise à quitter les villes en les laissant dans un état de délabrement souvent irréversible » 23 pour être engloutie par «le réseau de communication» 24: « à strictement parler, la “cité” a disparu. Le nom reste, l’idée de la ville n’est plus.» 25 Le nouvel espace urbain, décentré, technologisé, « contredit aux lois de l’assignation au lieu », car ses habitants sont toujours « ici et là-bas, toujours dans le passage du local au global.» 26 La différence entre ville et espace est donc exprimable en termes qualitatifs: 1. La ville traditionnelle est fermée (les portes de Paris, aujourd’hui simples signes indiciels, sont néanmoins renforcées néanmoins par la ceinture du boulevard périphérique), tandis que l’espace urbain est ouvert. 2. La ville traditionnelle est discontinue (scandée par les monuments qui en épaississent la structure, découpée en quartiers à identités distinctes, ou à «caractères» ) tandis que l’espace urbain est un flux continu. Dans les livres consacrés à la ville que nous venons d’évoquer, la préoccupation pour la notion d’urbain ne manque pas. Marcel Roncayolo en témoigne dans le chapitre « Ville et culture urbaine » de son livre La Ville et ses territoires 27. Pierre Sansot rehausse les vertus de l’anonymat dans l’espace urbain dans son étude de 1982 Anonymat et espace urbain.Ulf Hannerz plaide, quant à lui, «pour une théorie de la ville et du vécu urbain» 28. C’est que la ville a engendré une
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Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe, La fin des villes, Paris, Calman-Lévy, 1982. L’auteur s’y fait le porte-parole de ceux qui crient à la déstructuration des relations humaines dans le régime capitaliste – la disparition de la ville n’en étant qu’un des symptômes. 21 Albert Lévy, « Les trois âges de l’urbanisme », in Esprit, janvier 1999, p. 46-61. 22 Marcel Henaff, « Vers la ville globale: monument, machine, réseau », in Esprit no.303, mars-avril 2004, p. 265. 23 Idem, p. 267 24 Idem, p. 265 25 Idem, p. 270 26 Idem, p. 274. Une bibliographie consacrée à la ville et aux mutations de l’idée de ville dans les dernières décennies se trouve à la fin de cet article, p. 277-8. 27 Marcel Roncayolo, « Ville et culture urbaine » in op .cit. 28 Ulf Hannerz, Explorer la ville. éléments d’anthropologie urbaine, Paris, Minuit, 1983, p. 301.
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culture spécifique dont l’analyse est devenue indispensable pour la connaissance de l’homme moderne en tant qu’être urbain 29. Dans les romans de Jean Échenoz, la tension entre la ville traditionnelle et l’espace urbain se précise dans l’opposition entre le « Paris historique » et « les banlieues ». Surtout dans ses premiers romans, c’est à Paris que les événements décisifs pour la suite des narrations ont lieu, tandis que les banlieues et les chantiers périurbains abritent les personnages du monde interlope ou bien constituent le décor terne des acteurs pris dans l’écheveau d’innombrables aventures. Dans la plupart des cas, la nostalgie du lieu revient à la nostalgie de Paris manifestée par les personnages – parisiens, du moins dans le cas des protagonistes – contraints à voyager tout le temps. L’Équipée malaise est le roman où Jean Échenoz met en avant la figure du SDF parisien, dont l’appartenance à la ville de Paris contribue, comme nous allons voir dans le chapitre consacré à la représentation de Paris dans les romans échenoziens, à brosser son portrait de roi de la jungle urbaine. II. 1. 2. 1. Espace urbain extra-muros. Banlieue. C’est pourquoi nous parlerons de l’espace urbain extra-muros et de l’espace urbain intra-muros, ville. Le premier syntagme est l’un des thèmes les plus rebattus de l’urbanologie, après que, dans le monde occidental, les différences entre le rural et l’urbain se sont émoussées. Le rural est envahi et annexé de façon existentielle, comme tel, dans le rythme de l’urbain. Ainsi, la « maison », le « foyer » définissent, aujourd’hui, une zone, un environnement entier plutôt qu’un lieu. La sphère du privé devient petit à petit monde, cependant que la ville semble devenir optionnelle et strictement computationnelle. 30 Cet espace de frontière entre le rural et l’urbain, « rurbain », est connu de nos jours sous le nom de banlieue: un territoire contigu à la ville qui se trouve sous son autorité administrative, marge de la ville, interstice entre l’intérieur et l’extérieur au moment même où le sens de ces deux termes est en train de se perdre. La banlieue est, depuis le deuxième roman de Jean Échenoz (Cherokée), une présence constante dans tous ses livres. Tous les voyages en voiture hors Paris traversent les banlieues et beaucoup de rendez-vous en cachette sont placés à l’extérieur des portes parisiennes. L’allure massive et monotone des banlieues décourage d’y habiter: un paysage gris et terne à de longues barres et [les] hautes tours de la banlieue […] qu’on voit du côté de Bagnolet, quand on revient de l’aéroport par l’autoroute A3. Max avait du mal à croire que ces constructions contenaient de vrais appartements qu’occupaient de vrais gens, dans de vraies cuisines et de vraies 29
« S’il y a une personnalité ‘urbaine’, elle se définit au moins à la rencontre d’une écologie et de trajectoires collectives ou individuelles, elles-mêmes variées et capables de donner un sens différent, selon le cas, à l’urbanisation. » , Marcel Roncayolo, op. cit., p. 85. 30 Bogdan Ghiu, « Sat, oraş, onirism funciar », in Cuvântul, no 7, juillet-août 2006, p. 17. Notre traduction.
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salles de bains, de vraies chambres où l’on s’accouplait authentiquement, où l’on se reproduisait réellement, c’était à peine imaginable. (AP 182) L’étonnement de Max devant ce qu’il se figure comme l’inauthenticité de la vie menée par les habitants de la banlieue témoine de la critique exprimée par la littérature de Jean Échenoz, surtout à partir de Nous trois, de l’urbanisme fonctionnaliste, dépersonnalisant et ségrégationniste. Il s’agit là encore d’une convergence avec un thème – la banlieue comme diaspora urbaine et les banlieusards comme les exilés de la ville – de plus en plus récurrente au cours des années 1990 31. Christina Horvath parle dans son article de deux Paris: la ville des nonlieux, dans sa région périphérique, et la ville lieu par excellence, intra-muros: « il est vrai que les non-lieux existent aussi dans Paris: il suffit de penser aux gares, aux stations de métro, aux voies rapides, aux terrains vagues et paysages d’entrepôts de la banlieue. » 32. Sophie Deramond semble plus synthétique lorsqu’elle dresse « une hiérarchie dans la qualification des quartiers » 33 où deux échelles sont consacrées à la périphérie (les banlieues) et aux villes nouvelles. La première en est la « patrie de l’insignifiance », ce que Christine Jérusalem appellerait un lieu « de l’entredeux », car elle « sépare et isole deux mondes étrangers »: la ville de Paris et le reste du monde. 34 Quant aux villes nouvelles, elles concentrent tout ce que l’architecture du XXe siècle a apporté de mal à l’habitation urbaine: espace rationalisé, strictement fonctionnel, où presque aucune inscription de l’histoire humaine n’est possible. 35 Nous voudrions infléchir le caractère péremptoire de ce propos. C’est le propre de cet espace d’être le cadre de l’expérience la plus récente que l’être humain ait de l’espace: la confrontation avec le vague, l’indistinct, l’absolu ouvert. Et c’est le propre des personnages échenoziens de vivre dans la proximité et dans l’ambiance même des espaces en ruine. Dans L’Equipée malaise, par exemple, au terminus du métro, station Pont de Levallois, Charles rejoignit une rue nommée Madame-de-Sanzillon tout au long de quoi les constructions rapetissaient en noircissant, se dégradaient au point de 31 La bibliographie de la sociologie des banlieues s’accroît sans cesse. Nous en avons consulté Liane Mozère, Michel Peraldi, Henri Rey, Intelligence des banlieues, Paris, Ed. de l’Aube, 1999 (pp. 11-29 pour un sommaire de la problématique reprise dans des recherches appliquées) et Dominique Schnapper, Exclusions au coeur de la cité, Paris, Économica, 2001 (pp. 19-67, pour l’analyse d’un cas concret de la banlieue parisienne). Après les violences urbaines connues par Paris en fin d’automne 2005, les débats autour du thème se sont intensifiés. 32 Christina Horvath, art. cit., p. 7-8. Elle cite en appui un fragment de Je m’en vais. 33 Sophie Deramond, art. cit., p. 8. 34 Ibidem, p. 12. Sophie Deramond cité à l’appui des fragments de Cherokee (p. 18, op. cit.)et de Lac (p. 188, op. cit.) 35 Voir Françoise Choay, op. cit., passim, mais aussi: Albert Lévy, art. cit., p. 46-61, où l’architecture fonctionnaliste représente le deuxième âge de l’urbanisme (1945-1975), Michel Ragon, op. cit., surtout p. 230-236 et 289-292, Paul-Henry Chombart de Lauwe, op. cit. Une étude moins polémique et plus descriptive, de géographie urbaine cette fois-ci, appartient à Giuseppe Dematteis, «Représentations spatiales de l’urbanisation européenne » , in Arnaldo Bagnasco et Patrick Le Gales (dir.), Villes en Europe, Paris, La Découverte, 1997, pp. 67-91.
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s’effondrer parfois, ceintes de franges de terre où proliféraient de mauvaises herbes géantes, affolées par leur propre croissance, génétiquement inhabituées à ce laisser-aller. (EM 55). Il y a, d’autre part, note Sophie Deramond, « les banlieues plus cossues de Fontainebleau (Cherokée) et Chantilly (L’Equipée malaise) » 36 qui projettent une image différente des environs de Paris, mais il est vrai que leur présence est tout à fait isolée. C’est une bonne preuve que, en matière de banlieues, les quartiers pauvres dépassent de loin en nombre et en population les quartiers les plus aisés. II. 1. 2. 2. Le chantier Une excellente observation de Christine Jérusalem nous rend attentifs à l’espace des chantiers prolongeant parfois intra-muros les terrains vagues et dégradés que nous avons retrouvés en dehors des portes parisiennes. La démolition est, d’une part, une image forte de la périssabilité du monde habité; de l’autre, elle illustre la dynamique de l’urbain. Chez Jean Échenoz , la présence du chantier n’a pas seulement le rôle de rendre encore plus détestable l’architecture fonctionnaliste des plans français d’occupation des sols – reflet « gauchiste » s’il en est 37 – mais aussi celui de rappeler la précarité du monde. L’espace est avant tout transformation; non seulement espace vécu, mais être vivant et, par conséquent, mortel. Le chantier met un terme aux équivoques des descriptions spatiales extramuros, mais il s’agit en fait encore une fois de déterritorialisation. L’espace vert de L’Occupation des sols dépérit, mais sa disparition ne fait que désoccuper un lieu où une autre construction s’élèvera: « Il suffit d’un objet pour enclencher une chaîne, il s’en trouve toujours un qui scelle ce qui le précède, colore ce qui va suivre […]. » (OS 13) Le chantier représente une hypostase inouïe de l’espace: dégradation, déstructuration – donc mort d’un côté, commencement, renaissance de l’autre, quoique autrement, en décalé. Mais le chantier, d’où est issue Suzy Claire, « princesse de la ZUP » (Lac 23), offre au sujet des avantages dont tout praticien doit tenir compte: c’est le territoire qui, n’ayant encore pas de forme, peut à tout moment en recevoir une. Voici par exemple le château d’eau où Paul, le neveu trentenaire de Jean-François Pons, dans L’Équipée malaise, est emmené après l’enlèvement par le couple d’infracteurs belges Toon et Van Os. La description commence par une comparaison déterritorialisante: « c’était un château d’eau 50, en forme de vase 50 38, son galbe rappelait aussi certains sabliers, certains poivrier. » Le bâtiment est placé ensuite dans un contexte spatial et temporel particulier, qui rappelle la précarité de l’espace construit: On s’était bien servi de lui pendant trente ans avant d’en construire un autre plus capable, à dix kilomètres, puis on l’avait abandonné après l’avoir vidé de son eau. (…) Il n’y avait alentour aucune construction visible qu’une seule ferme 36
Sophie Deramond, art. cit., p. 14. Jean Échenoz avait milité pour l’extrême gauche à la fin des années 1960. Voir l’entretien de Les Inrockuptibles, no 27, 11 octobre 1995. 38 Il s’agit de la hauteur standard d’un château d’eau : 50 m. 37
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ruinée. (…) à l’abandon, le château d’eau s’écaillait; une colonne de mousse rasé rongeait en triangle son septentrion. (EM 237). Le château d’eau est l’un des endroits qui appelle l’aventure – car L’Équipée malaise reprend et ronge les ficelles d’un roman d’aventures: on est en 1986, à l’époque où Jean Échenoz retravaille les genres mineurs. Seul au milieu de la rase campagne, absent de la carte, le château d’eau, sec depuis longtemps, ne fait plus partie d’aucun plan urbanistique et reste introuvable à moins qu’un savoirfaire exceptionnel de l’espace ne se manifeste par miracle: à savoir celui de Charles Pontiac qui, souverain de l’underground parisien, « en deux heures traversa la ville trois fois » (EM 244) et trouva vite la cachette des kidnappeurs. Ce qui démontre que la zone, dont le bâtiment fait certainement partie (on est en Île-de-France) peut évoluer « de rupture, en couture » 39 et, loin de constituer la frontière de l’intérieur, devenir le seuil de l’ouverture: « L’Avenir est presque limitrophe du Loiret. Sis dans la corne sud-ouest de la Seine-et-Marne, c’est le plus proche lieu-dit du château d’eau. » (EM 247). II. 1. 2. 3. Espace urbain intra-muros. Paris Une fois arrivés au centre de la toile géographique représentée par l’œuvre de Jean Échenoz , le moment est venu d’expliciter une distinction terminologique spécifique de l’anthropologie urbaine contemporaine, issue de l’observation d’anciennes pratiques de la ville qui, à l’époque de la société occidentale strictement normée et contrôlée comme jamais auparavant, prennent la valeur de réinventions clandestines de l’espace et aboutissent à une construction plus libre, quoique plus risquée, du moi social. En ville, et surtout dans une grande ville comme Paris, le sujet ne peut plus projeter le monde oppressif du « on » heideggérien, mais doit se préparer à investir le monde de la pratique, décrit par Jan Patočka en termes de co-présence et récupère par la pratique du monde comme bricolage prônée par Michel de Certeau. L’Equipée malaise est le roman qui illustre le mieux le passage d’un réalisme « antimoderniste », doublement endetté à un existentialisme sombre et à l’image de la société-prison plébiscitée, à partir de Guy Debord, par Michel Foucault et Jean Baudrillard dans les années 1970, à un réalisme des lendemains chantants, qui fait l’éloge de la libre pratique. C’est sur lui et sur son héros clochard Charles Pontiac que nous allons porter notre attention. Paris est un lieu identitaire tout d’abord parce que son espace est inscrit dans l’histoire, orienté et stable, pour les personnages échenoziens. A peu d’exception près, leur vie quotidienne est intimement liée à la capitale de la France. L’espace référentiel de la plupart des narrations a son origine autour de la gare Saint-Lazare (rue de Rome, boulevard Haussmann, parc Monceau): Deux hommes paraissent au fond du boulevard de Courcelles, en provenance de la rue de Rome » (AP 9, première phrase) . Au croisement de la Chaussée d’Antin, Béliard se retourne, lui fait un petit signe et Max, plus mort que 39
Ioana Tudora, « Maidanul (la zone, n.n.) ca alternativă. Spontaneitate versus planificare », in Ciprian Mihali (coord.), Altfel de spaţii. Studii de heterotopologie, Bucureşti, Paideia, 2001, p. 129.
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jamais, les voit reprendre leur marche, s’amenuiser dans la perspective du boulevard avant de prendre à droite et disparaître dans la rue de Rome. (AP 223, dernière phrase). Presque tous les personnages – surtout les femmes – y ont leur domicile. Leurs déplacements dans la ville ont des itinéraires habituels et, s’il s’agit des couples qui se séparent, chaque membre emprunte une direction contraire 40. Paris est un lieu identitaire car il est parcouru d’axes qui relient dans un réseau fixe les différents endroits qui le composent. Chaque quartier a sa personnalité distincte et traditionnelle, au point que l’allure des personnages définit leur appartenance à tel ou tel quartier. C’est ainsi que, dans Au piano, une femme élégante qui passe dans le 18e arrondissement, « du côté du Château Rouge » , « au milieu de cette zone populaire, bruyante, multicolore » paraît « anatopique » 41. Les quartiers sont eux-aussi organisés selon une hiérarchie esquissée par Sophie Deramond qui répartit les quartiers parisiens en zones de pouvoir. Le 8e et le 9e arrondissements, avec le boulevard Haussmann, sont situés sur la première échelle. Viennent ensuite les arrondissements 16e et 17e auxquels l’on peut rajouter le 18e, agglutinés autour de la rue de Rome. Les portes de Paris sont franchies par les voyageurs dont les trajectoires s’entrelacent pour nouer l’intrigue des romans 42. Les constructions monumentales de Paris figurent comme repères pour une lecture d’identification, mais, au moment où le narrateur s’y arrête, elles sont toujours déterritorialisées. Le Paris historique se décline comme somme d’adresses et lieux de passage (stations de métro ou places publiques par exemple). Sophie Deramond observe que, si le Paris historique est une référence textuelle renvoyant aux « marques de produit » (comme la Tour Eiffel, la plus connue des « marques » parisiennes), les exceptions que constituent de courtes descriptions des monuments parisiens ne font qu’en nier la monumentalité: « à gauche, dominant le portail du Museum d’histoire naturelle orné de fauves et de fougères, homards et lézards, un aigle de pierre jetait un long coup d’œil sur la gare d’Austerlitz. » (Lac 16), l’Opéra Garnier ressemble à une «grosse amandine» et l’arc de triomphe du Louvre est un « joli objet clair qu’on voudrait toujours emporter avec soi » (MdG 26). La grande Histoire est donc adoucie dans les descriptions loufoques de ses monuments, tandis que les petites histoires des petits bâtiments sont celles qui intéressent vraiment l’écrivain. C’est que le Paris historique n’est qu’une fiction qui transcende le quotidien en tant que telle. Puisque la valeur d’un lieu ne s’acquiert qu’au cours de la pratique quotidienne que les gens (habitants, visiteurs, gens de passage) en font, on peut dire du Paris historique qu’il n’est jamais pris en compte comme lieu de mémoire. Pour preuve, le musée Jacquemart-André apparaît dans L’Équipée malaise comme abri de nuit pour le protagoniste, Charles Pontiac. Quant au musée Gustave Moreau, il est le lieu d’une rencontre mystérieuse entre Théo Selmer et Lafont qui était en train d’admirer « le supplice de Prométhée » (MdG 29). 40
Voir Christina Horvath, art. cité, pp. 8-9. Jean Échenoz, Au piano, op. cit., p. 34. C’est la seule occurrence d’un adjectif que Jean Echenoz a forgé lui-même en écho de « anachronique ». 42 Sophie Deramond, art. cité, pp. 8-12. 41
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Si les monuments ont plutôt une valeur pratique, de repère, dans les innombrables déplacements qui entraînent les personnages vers des destinations inouïes ou même de domicile, c’est parce que Paris est un immense réseau «dont chaque élément communique avec tous les autres» 43 , comme une toile d’araignée au centre de laquelle prend place le narrateur tout-puissant, quoique oisif: « Dans mon fauteuil, sur la terrasse, je l’examine [le ciel, n.n]. Il est midi. Le ciel est blanc. J’ai tout mon temps. » (NT 7) C’est vrai, mais lieu relationnel vise non pas un perimètre ouvert – car il n’y a pas à proprement parler de lieu absolument nonrelationnel – mais celui d’une communion possible, de la solidarité. Le Paris intramuros en est un, surtout dans L’Équipée malaise, au moment de la disparition de Paul, le neveu du duc Pons. Il suffit à Charles Pontiac d’ « alerter toutes ses connaissances après la disparition » de Paul (EM 243), de se lever tôt le lendemain grâce à la « convention » avec le conducteur d’une rame de métro numéro 8, qui donnait à cet effet « trois légers coups de klaxon » (EM 243) que le repaire des deux ravisseurs belges est deniché. Mais, dans ce cas qui n’est pas singulier, surtout au cours du premier âge de la création échenozienne, lorsque le monde interlope y occupe une place de choix, ce n’est pas le Paris des monuments qui est un lieu relationnel, mais plutôt la ville « interdite », renouant ainsi un vieux topos du roman « de consommation »: celui de l’impénétrabilité des « mystères de Paris », de la profondeur de l’invisible par rapport à la pauvreté significative du visible devenu vite cliché. Après tout, Paris, lieu identitaire, historique et relationnel remplit une dernière et essentielle fonction: celle d’abri. Si le personnage échenozien se sent toujours mal en point « chez-soi » 44, cloîtré entre les parois d’un appartement, il aime inconditionnellement Paris, lieu ouvert tant vers le monde que vers soi-même , à l’amour comme à la déception, cosmopolite et traditionnel à la fois. Paris remplit ainsi une fonction essentielle du territoire, celle appelée par Liane Mozère « abri-asile»: La territorialisation renvoie à l’interconnaissance, sur un mode parfois inattendu. […] Mais l’interconnaissance n’est pas seulement liée au registre des perceptions: La cité reste la maison, au sens large, là où l’on retrouve les parents, mais aussi les copains, les connaissances […]. 45 Le Paris de Jean Échenoz ne se réduit pas au perimètre de la gare SaintLazare. Des quartiers populaires y figurent aussi, ou l’on assiste à une «’mise à nu’ de l’intimité des classes populaires qui culmine en quelque sorte avec la figure du sans-dominile fixe». Ce sont les SDF qui développent, pour échapper à l’indifférenciation dans la masse, des « identités substitutives » 46. 43
Christina Horvath, art. cité, p. 10. «Byron Caine existait à vrai dire sans attache sensible, sans ancrage particulier. […] Jamais il n’avait pu acquérir la notion de domiciliation, se mouler à l’impératif civique du lieu privé, intime, adhésif» (MdG 217) et «Pas facile, pour un type comme moi, d’être obligé de rester chez-soi» (NT 50). 45 Liane Mozère in Liane Mozère, Michel Peraldi, Henri Rey, Intelligence des banlieues, op. cit., p. 17. 46 Idem, p. 18. 44
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BIBLIOGRAPHIE 1. Romans de Jean Echenoz: Le Méridien de Greenwich, Paris, Minuit, 1979. Cherokee, Paris, Minuit, 1983. L’Equipée malaise, Paris, Minuit, 1986. Lac, Paris, Minuit, 1989. Nous trois, Paris, Minuit, 1992. Les Grandes blondes, Paris, Minuit, 1995. Un an, Paris, Minuit, 1997. Je m’en vais, Paris, Minuit, 1999. Au piano, Paris, Minuit, 2003. Ravel, Paris, Minuit, 2006. 2. Bibliographie critique Christine JERUSALEM, Equivoque et fragmentation: L’Esthétique de la disparition dans l’oeuvre de Jean Echenoz, 2 tomes, Université Jean Monet de Saint-Etienne, Faculté de Lettres, Langues et Arts, 2000. Christine JERUSALEM, Géographies de Jean Echenoz, http://remue.net/cont/echenozChrisJer.html, 2002. Christine JERUSALEM, « Sections urbaines: l’aller et le retour, la nostalgie dans Au piano de Jean Echenoz », http://remue.net/cont/echenozChrisJer.html, 2003. Christine JERUSALEM, Jean Echenoz: Géographies du vide, Publications de l’Université de SaintEtienne, coll. « Lire au présent », 2005. Isabelle BERNARD, Nouveaux savoirs et nouveau réalisme dans le roman français à la fin du XXe siècle: Chevillard, Deville, Echenoz, Toussaint, thèse de doctorat, Département des lettres modernes, Université Paris III, 2000. Isabelle DANGY, « L’Obsession de la planète chez Echenoz: latitude, longitude, magnitude, altitude », dans Arlette BOULOUMIÉ et Isabelle TRIVISANI-MOREAU (coord.) Le Génie du lieu. Des paysages en littérature, avec une Préface de Michel TOURNIER, Paris, Imago, 2005 (ouvrage publié avec le concours du CERIEC de l’Université d’Angers). Sophie DERAMOND, « Les Cercles concentriques de l’espace décrit chez Jean Echenoz », www.remue.net (Saint-Etienne, Colloque sur Les objets architecturaux chez Jean Echenoz, 12.IV.2003). Sophie DERAMOND, « Jean Echenoz, l’écrivain architecte » dans Architecture, littérature et espaces, textes réunis par Pierre Hyppolite, Limoges, PULIM, 2006, coll. « Espaces humains », pp. 55-63. Christina HORVATH, « La Surabondance spatiale et le vide: lieux et non-lieux dans la fiction urbaine de Jean Echenoz », http://glane.cicv.fr/index2.html, mai 2001. Christopher ALEXANDER, « The City as a Mechanism for Sustaining Human Contacts », in W.R. EWALD (ed.), Environment for Man, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1967. Marc AUGE, Non-lieux. Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité, Paris, Seuil, 1992. Marc AUGE, L’Impossible voyage. Le Tourisme et ses images, Paris, Payot & Rivages, 1997. Jean CAYROL, De l’espace humain, Paris, Seuil, 1968. Michel de CERTEAU, La Culture au pluriel, Paris, Seuil, 1972. Michel de CERTEAU, L’Invention du quotidien, I. Arts de faire, Paris, Union Generale d’Editions, 1980. Jean DUVIGNAUD, Lieux et non lieux, Paris, Galilée, 1977.
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“BAUDOLINO”, PORTAVOCE DEL POSTMODERNISMO ITALIANO Claudia MIRCESCU Spiru Haret University, Bucharest ABSTRACT Il gusto di narrare, tratto distintivo del postmodernismo, è il pernio dell’ultimo romanzo di Umberto Eco, Baudolino. Infatti, l’intero libro appare attraversato dal filo rosso di tutta una serie di elementi appartenenti alla stessa tendenza: l’intertestualità, l’ironia, la reinterpretazine, la re-invenzione della storia. Numerosi sono i riferimenti intertestuali all’Ultima Thule, paese degli iberni, alle contrade abitate da popoli i cui individui hanno la testa munita di corna e la pancia con al centro una grande bocca, richiami che fanno pensare alla lunga serie di espedienti palinsestiali presenti in Il nome della rosa, in Il pendolo di Foucault, nonché in L’isola del giorno prima. Keywords: postmodernismo intertestualià, palinsesto
italiano,
anacronismo,
citazionismo,
iberni
Il gusto di narrare, tratto distintivo del postmodernismo, è il pernio dell’ultimo romanzo di Umberto Eco, Baudolino. Infatti, l’intero libro appare attraversato dal filo rosso di tutta una serie di elementi appartenenti alla stessa tendenza: l’intertestualità, l’ironia, la reinterpretazine, la re-invenzione della storia. Numerosi sono i riferimenti intertestuali all’Ultima Thule, paese degli iberni, alle contrade abitate da popoli i cui individui hanno la testa munita di corna e la pancia con al centro una grande bocca, richiami che fanno pensare alla lunga serie di espedienti palinsestiali presenti in Il nome della rosa, in Il pendolo di Foucault, nonché in L’isola del giorno prima. Narrando la storia di Baudolino, Eco racconta in terza persona le peripezie del bugiardo personaggio (una specie di Epimenide cretese, il quale dice bugie ammettendo di dire bugie) che, vantandosi delle sue meravigliose avventure davanti al bizantino Niceta, gli consegna le sue prime prove di scrittura. Ma, appena scomparso Baudolino, Niceta preferisce non mantenere la promessa e sceglie di tacere l’incredibile storia. A questo punto, subentra l’autore stesso per affermare che l’accattivante storia nessuno verrà a saperla, in quanto il mondo è pieno di bugiardi creatori di meravigliose narrazioni avventurose. Bugiardo l’autore, bugiardo il personaggio: ma, in fin dei conti, la natura falsa e piena di finzioni del racconto non viene celata nemmeno per un attimo al lettore. La struttura di base del romanzo è una di natura chiaramente medievale: cortese e cavalleresca appare l’avventura di Baudolino, alla ricerca delle sacre reliquie e del Santo Graal; cortese è anche l’immagine del protagonista, un Lancilotto che non cessa di cercare le tracce della Regina, signora di Barbarossa. 285
Ma, in fin dei conti, la stessa apparenza di romanzo cavalleresco, d’amore e d’avventura, si può individuare pure in L’isola del giorno prima, in cui non mancano il tema del naufragio, i misteri e i dibattiti sulla pluralità dei mondi. Dopo la morte di Federico, verso la fine di giugno 1190, troviamo Baudolino circondato da una sua propria corte (il Poeta, Borone, Kyot, Salomone, Boidi, Zosimo e qualche alessandrino: Cuttica di Quargnento, Colandrino Guasco – fratello di Colandrina -, Porcelli e Aleramo Scaccabarozzi, detto Ciula, ai quali si accompagnano Ardzrouni), insieme alla quale si mette in viaggio, come la schiera dei Re Magi, per raggiungere il regno del Prete Giovanni. Visto, però, che, la sera prima della partenza, Zosimo scappa e tutti credono che sia fuggito con il Santo Graal, Ardzrouni decide di costruire una specie di pupazzo grottesco, dai capelli di paglia, abbastanza simile alla figura del fuggiasco, da mostrare da tutte le parti dove sarebbero arrivati, a coloro che, magari, potessero parlare lingue a loro sconosciute. Risulta chiaro l’espediente scelto da Eco, nell’intrecciare elementi di romanzo cavalleresco medievale e trovate postmoderne tipo Mosto Wanted, caratteristiche dei film western. Ma gli accenti ironici continuano a susseguirsi. Camminando verso le terre del Prete Giovanni, Ardzrouni scorge degli strani sassi neri, lucidi e nitidi, che si affretta ad afferrare per farli vedere ai suoi compagni. Bruscamente, si accorge che il suo volto, il petto, le membra iniziano ad assumere il colore dell’ebano. Ottima occasione per Baudolino di ricordare che, infatti, almeno uno dei Re Magi aveva la pelle nera, di conseguenza il loro gruppo aveva già aquisito ancora più credibilità. Il viaggio dei nostri personaggi si converte in un vero e proprio percorso iniziatico: attraversano le terre dell’Abcasia, una gigantesca selva dove regna il buio più cupo che si potesse immaginare, per poi uscire alla luce del sole, non prima però di veder apparire davanti a loro tre bestie che gli sbarrano la strada (echi intertestuali in cui il lettore modello non stenterà a individuare gli elementi danteschi.) Riferimenti intertestuali sono da cercare anche nel capitolo intitolato “Baudolino attraversa il Sambatyon”, evidente allusione al mitico Stige. Passandovi oltre, il protagonista raggiunge la terra di Pndapetzim, popolata da stranissime creature che si reggono su un unico piede, prive però di testa, da gente le cui enormi orecchie fungono anche da mantello, da specie che sfoggiano il proprio sesso in mezzo al petto. É in quest’universo ibrido, dove lo strano convive accanto al grottesco e all’anomalo, che Baudolino incontra Ipazia, bianca, tenera, dai morbidi, lunghi capelli biondi, dal viso rosastro e angelico: un unicorno giovane e affascinante che fa innamorare perdutamente il nostro eroe. L’immagine di Ipazia è plasmata da Eco in base ad una parodia letteraria. La più evidente appare quella del Cantico dei Cantici, piena dello stesso fervore, dell’elogio della bellezza del corpo e delle virtù dello spirito. Sono le stesse che avevano affascinato anche Adso, perso davanti all’immagine della fanciulla contadina e che avevano ammaliato Petrarca stesso, nel contemplare la bellezza di Laura sulle rive del Sorga. Infatti, Ipazia appare a Baudolino in mezzo ad un incantato bosco, in riva al fiume. 286
Gli stessi riferimenti intertestuali che ricordano il Cantico dei Cantici sono da cercare in L’isola, nelle parole del padre Caspare che, descrivendo la colomba, dipinge le sue ali d’argento, scintillanti come l’oro, alta nel cielo come l’aurora e fiammeggiante come il sole, ma anche nelle parole di Adso che, sconvolto, si chiede chi possa essere quella creatura che gli era apparsa come l’aurora, bella come la luna, luminosa come il sole, con i suoi occhi simili a colombe. Un elemento di intertestualità è rappresentato dal nome stesso del personaggio femminile: Ipazia (Hypathia), la filosofa neoplatonica, matematica e astronoma pagana, uccisa da un gruppo di fanatici cristiani, infiammati dal vescovo Cirillo. Figlia di una comunità matriarcale, governata da una “Madre” che accompagna le giovinette dai satiri –che-non-si-vedono-mai, Ipazia perde la convinzione che l’unione carnale rappresenti un errore della creazione soltanto nel momento in cui scopre l’amore. Svanisce in lei l’innata apatia quando si unisce con Baudolino ed è così che riuscirà, con la passione la anima, a redimere l’umanità. Pronta al sacrificio, quando viene a sapere che porta il frutto dell’amore con Baudolino, si mostra disposta a sacrificare la sua natura fantastica, a diventare donna, cristiana, mortale. La separazione dei due è però imminente: l’invasione degli unni bianchi costringe alla fuga l’infelice innamorato. Lo ritroveremo a Costantinopoli, dove si scioglierà anche il mistero del Graal: Baudolino lo aveva sempre portato con sé, dappertutto, nascosto nella reliquia donatagli da Ardzrouni, la testa di San Giovanni Battista. Si scioglie anche il mistero della morte di Barbarossa, in una maniera tipica del giallo. A capire che era stato lui a uccidere il proprio padre, Baudolino decide di isolarsi in cima ad una bianca colonna di pietra, sovrastata da un balconcino, dall’altezza della quale cercherà di aiutare, con i suoi consigli, tutti coloro che vengono a cercarlo. Ben presto però, deciderà di rinunciare, spiegando che la verità, l’unica volta quando l’aveva detta, non gli aveva procurato altro che sofferenza. Con quest’affermazione del suo personaggio, Eco ammette che dallo scrittore non si può aspettare la verità nuda e cruda, ma solo la fantasia, l’immaginazione, quel mondo illusorio che è la letteratura. Deluso quindi, Baudolino lascia Costantinopoli. Isolato in cima alla sua colonna di pietra, aveva capito che, se voleva essere perdonato, aveva il dovere di risolvere tre aspetti, ancora incompiuti, della sua vita: trovare la tomba di Abdul e alzarci sopra una cappella; mantenere la promessa fatta al padre e al vescovo Oto, quella di raggiungere il regno del Prete Giovanni; tornare da Ipazia e dal figlio, per dedicarsi a loro. Ri-scrivere è la regola di base secondo la quale funziona Baudolino: la capacità di mentire, di inventare, di modificare la realtà sono qualità sue innate ma portate alla perfezione lungo l’intera esistenza. Durante il periodo dei suoi studi parigini, Baudolino scrive ai cari ma neanche nelle lettere può tradire la sua vera natura. Inventa tutta una serie di manoscritti, riuscendo in questo modo a ri-creare la storia, così come riuscirà a far rivivere il mito del Graal. Arrivando alla conclusione che il sacro oggetto poteva benissimo essere un semplice recipiente, banale e a portata di mano di tutti – e appunto per questo nessuno si era 287
immaginato che fosse proprio quello – Baudolino prende la ciotola di suo padre, la lava per benino e la porta con sé come una preziosa reliquia. Infatti, tornato a Costantinopoli, insieme ai suoi compagni, si mette a creare tutta una serie di assurde reliquie, le quali ricordano il boccaccesco frate Cipolla: un chiodo della Santa Croce, un dente di Sant’Anna, cassette con dentro l’ostia. Ecco perché la storia narrata da Eco è, esplicitamente, un racconto fittizio al quale il lettore è invitato a partecipare come testimone di un vero e proprio processo di elaborazione della finzione. I suoi romanzi danno l’impressione di autentici lavori di ricerca all’interno dei quali si insinua un filo narrativo; sembrano una specie di letteratura-palinsesto, fatta di interi brani ricopiati da trattati, come in un tentativo di adattare il romanzo alle idee intertestuali e non le idee allo schema narrativo. Caratterizzata quale “citazionista”, l’estetica postmoderna si colloca al polo opposto dell’estetica del modernismo tipico delle avanguardie, per la quale i riferimenti apparivano “impuri”. Ricostruire il passato è un approccio descritto da Jencks e Hutcheon quale molteplicità di codici, alla quale si arriva (Scarpetta) attraverso l’uso dell’allusione, della citazione, del riferimento, dell’anacronismo ricercato ma anche tramite il miscuglio di più espedienti stilistici o storici. Eco stesso viene a spiegare la ragione per cui i suoi romanzi sono intessuti di lunghi brani volutamente difficili: le decine di pagine iniziali hanno un ruolo di “penitenza”, uno scopo iniziatico, in quanto penetrare nella narrazione è come salire una montagna – ci vuole esercizio per imparare a respirare, ad avanzare, altrimenti l’impresa è fallita. Sono pagine che devono formare un lettore preparato per il lungo e difficile percorso della lettura. Due secoli prima, Alessandro Manzoni aveva ideato lo stesso tipo di “penitenza” per i suoi lettori. Basta pensare all’introduzione ai Promessi Sposi, alla grafia secentesca di tanti vocaboli, perfettamente imitata dallo scrittore ottocentesco. A parte le ragioni di ordine narratologico o storico, Manzoni propone una penitenza al suo lettore modello, avvisandolo in questo modo che ciò che si accinge a leggere non è solo la storia amena di due sfortunati innamorati, ma anche un romanzo che necessita dell’attenzione e della totale complicità del lettore. Si tratta, in entrambi i casi, di narrazioni apparentemente accessibili a qualsiasi categoria di lettore, aventi però più di un livello, più di una chiave di lettura. Ma, per Eco, il vero lettore modello è colui che, una volta superata la fase iniziatica, si trasforma nella preda dell’autore e del testo stesso, capace di pensare e di desiderare esclusivamente ciò che il testo gli offre. Un testo quale esperienza in grado di trasformare il proprio lettore. BIBLIOGRAFIA Cărăuş, Tamara, Efectul Menard Rescrierea postmodernă: perspective etice – Piteşti, Ed. Paralela 45, Colecţia Deschideri. Poetică şi teorie literară, 2003. Lefter , Ion Bogdan, Postmodernism. Din dosarul unei „bătălii” culturale, Bucureşti, Ed. Paralela 45, 2000. 288
Stănciugelu, Irina, Prefixul „post” al modernităţii noastre, Bucureşti, Ed. Trei, 2002. Hutcheon, Linda, Politica postmodernismului, Bucureşti, Ed. Univers, 1997. Călinescu, Matei, Cele cinci feţe ale modernităţii, Bucureşti, Ed. Univers, 1995. Mancaş, Mihaela, Tablou şi acţiune. Descrierea în proza narativă românească, Ed. Universităţii Bucureşti, 2005. Marinescu, Luiza, Umberto Eco în labirintul romanului postmodern, Bucureşti, Ed. Fundaţiei România de mâine, 2003. Eco, Umberto, Numele trandafirului, Iaşi, Ed. Polirom, 2004. Eco, Umberto, Pendulul lui Foucault, Constanţa, Ed Pontica, 1991. Eco, Umberto, Insula din ziua de ieri, Constanţa, Ed Pontica, 1995. Eco, Umberto, Baudolino, Bucureşti, Ed Pontica, 2001. Eco, Umberto, Limitele interpretării, Constanţa, Ed Pontica, 1996. Eco, Umberto, Postille a "Il nome della rosa", 1983, Alfabeta no 49, giugno 1983. Kant, Immanuel, Critica facultăţii de judecare, Bucureşti, Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, 1981.
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JULES VERNE, LE CHÂTEAU DES CARPATES. LES FIGURES DU DOUBLE ET LE LIEU DE L’IMAGINAIRE Efstratia OKTAPODA Université Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV), France
ABSTRACT Between science fiction and fantasy, The Castle in the Carpathians by Jules Verne is characterized by true ambiguity generic. The author says the novel, but the demented throughout the novel. He wants to anchor the events in a real setting and uses the geography of Romania and Transylvania to create a universe ‘repository’. It is a true generic instability. But at the same time, the whole geography opens up a place, the castle, converges to this attraction, and it succeeds. However, this place could be in any other place on earth. So it’s a real literary curiosity than devoting so much effort to build a world-oriented referential to take him to a place that is outside of space and time. It is this ambiguous relationship between geography and the imaginary, between fiction and fantasy that our discussion will attempt to elucidate. Keywords: Jules Verne; The Castle of the Carpathians; Transylvania; space; ambiguity generic; imaginary; double figures.
Vrai nom du château: Sur aucune carte Et que lui-même ignore. P. Grouix, “Dit du château”. DE LA TRANSYLVANIE COMME DECOR ET COMME MYTHE Si ambiguïté générique existe et que les frontières oscillent entre sciencefiction et fantastique pour bon nombre d’écrivains, pour ne citer que Bioy Casanes (ami de Borges), Villier de l’Isle d’Adam, le Balzac d'Illusions perdues ou encore Mary Shelley dans Frankenstein, il n’est d’aucun doute pour Jules Verne et Le Château des Carpates. Machines, nature et artifices, appareils phonographiques et simulacres machiniques, sont au rendez-vous. Une «apothéose de la fantaisie» (Picot, 1980, 111) qui constitue un «cosmos truqué», «le cosmos vernien». (Picot, 111) Le texte vernien écrit le rêve d’une captation complète et généralisée des énergies: construction d’une série de machines à disposer des forces, à canaliser les flux par leur mise-en circuit, pour aboutir à une totale maîtrise du monde par la domination des énergies. Machines de plus en plus efficacement captatrices à chaque nouveau roman (Buisine, 1980, 33), Le Château des Carpates est un roman 291
où l’énergétique des machines et des réseaux électriques décline toute une série d’explosions et de flammes. Toutefois, Le Château des Carpates est l’un des rares romans «romantiques» de Jules Verne où l’amour joue un rôle central et noue toute l’intrigue. Les événements relatés par Jules Verne dans Le Château des Carpates se déroulent en effet en Roumanie. Jules Verne y fait souvent référence, il décrit comme à l’accoutumée des lieux et se réfère à plusieurs reprises à Elisée Reclus. Or, comme il l’annonce lui-même, il ne s’agit pas d’un roman fantastique mais d’une œuvre romanesque. L’auteur même l’annonce en exergue de son roman: «Cette histoire n’est pas fantastique, elle n’est que romanesque. Faut-il conclure qu’elle ne soit pas vraie, étant donné son invraisemblance? […] le pays transylvain est encore très attaché aux superstitions des premiers âges. Ces provinces de l’extrême Europe, M. de Gérando les a décrites, Élisée Reclus les a visitées». (CC, 2002, 285-286). L’auteur qui ne cache pas son admiration pour Élisée Reclus dont il a toutes les œuvres (Compère, 1990, 165) et s’y appuie pour faire vrai, s’aventure à une véritable quête amoureuse. La géographie de la Roumanie et de la Transylvanie est utilisée pour créer un univers prétendument “référentiel” au sein duquel se déroulent des événements d’origine douteuse: fantastique, démoniaque, superstitions populaires. C’est une véritable instabilité générique. Mais en même temps, toute la géographie s’ouvre sur un lieu, le château, converge vers ce pôle d’attraction, et y aboutit. Or, ce lieu pourrait être dans n’importe quel autre lieu de la terre. C’est donc une véritable curiosité littéraire que de consacrer tant d’efforts à construire un univers à vocation référentielle pour le conduire à un lieu qui se situe en dehors de l’espace et du temps: le château, lieu aussi de la mémoire éternisée. C’est ce rapport ambigu entre la géographie et l’imaginaire, entre le romanesque et le fantastique que notre propos va tenter d’élucider. La structure romanesque contredit toute logique inscrite dans le projet d’écriture vernienne selon laquelle tous les romans de Verne sont des histoires vraies et rationnelles. «[S’] il ne se crée plus de légendes au déclin de ce pratique et positif XIXe siècle, ni en Bretagne, la contrée des farouches korrigans, ni en Ecosse, la terre des brownies et des gnomes, ni en Norvège, la patrie des ases, des elphes, des sylphes et des valkyries, ni même en Transylvanie, où le cadre des Carpates se prête si naturellement à toutes les évocations psychagogiques (CC, 285), écrit Jules Verne en tout début de son roman […] Longtemps encore, la jeune génération du village de Werst croira que les esprits de l’autre monde hantent les ruines du château des Carpates». (CC, 481). «En vertu du “contrat de confiance», en partie affectif, en partie commercial, qui fait de lui une sorte d’intermédiaire entre la volonté (instruire en amusant) de ses deux éditeurs successifs, Hetzel père et fils, et le désir supposé (la culture par le plaisir) des jeunes garçons qui sont censés constituer le gros de ses lecteurs, Jules Verne doit solidement incruster ses intrigues romanesques «extraordinaires» – c’est-à-dire le plus souvent extravagantes – dans un décor réputé réel» (Mourier, 1992, 257). 292
Pour ce faire, il s’appuie sur le travail de savants. L’auteur lui-même cite consciemment au début de son livre l’ouvrage de géographie d’Élisée Reclus. Dans la Nouvelle géographie universelle, à l’entrée «L’Europe centrale», le savant géographe donne des détails sur la Transylvanie occidentale d’est en ouest et ses massifs. Il parle plus précisément des «ogres» hongrois qui étaient des “êtres surnaturels d’origine diabolique: «Une longue dent, semblable à la défense d’un sanglier, sortait du côté gauche de leur bouche; leur visage […] était couvert de cicatrices et de difformités provenant des morsures et des entailles qu’avaient faites leurs mères pour les habituer à la douleur et les rendre terribles à voir; ils aiment à se nourrir de chair crue, à boire le sang qui jaillit en écumant des blessures; leur nom, répété par les nourrices dans les heures des veillées, épouvante encore les petits enfants». (Reclus, Nouvelle géographie universelle, III, 1878, 336). À l’instar des légendes terrifiantes suscitées par les conquérants hongrois, Reclus oppose la passivité historique des Valaques: «Quelle que soit l’origine des Valaques de Transylvanie, que l’on doive reconnaître en eux les descendants d’anciens Daces latinisés restés sur le plateau après le rappel des colons par l’empereur Aurélien, ou bien les fils d’immigrants revenus du Sud, il est certain que leur rôle historique fut nul pendant le Moyen-Âge». (Reclus, 350). Autre emprunt du géographe. Le Château des Carpates est avant tout une histoire d’amour. Le fait que l’intrigue du roman tourne autour de l’amour (avec trois couples en action: Rodolphe-Stilla, Franz-Stilla, Nic-Miriota) et de sa conclusion logique, le mariage, – ce qui est plutôt le cas du troisième couple –, a sans doute fait que Jules Verne ait emprunté à Reclus la scène de «la foire aux fiancés»: «…les jeunes Slaves de religion grecque les demandent [les femmes valaques] fréquemment en mariage de préférence à leurs compatriotes, d’autant plus qu’il leur suffit alors d’une somme moins forte pour acheter leurs fiancées». (Reclus, 352). Toutefois, ancré complètement dans la fiction, l’imaginaire vernien fera de Rodolphe de Gortz et d’Orfanik, d’origine pourtant roumaine, des êtres effrayants comme les Ogres de Reclus, alors que les habitants de Werst font plutôt partie de cette même catégorie des Valaques heureux du Moyen Âge sans histoires. LE CHÂTEAU, ESPACE D’AMBIGUÏTÉ Nous allons examiner comment la poétique du château est conditionnée par l’existence des trois couples précités et leur fonction dans le récit. Nous verrons en particulier, comment le château fait apparaître le motif du héros solitaire et fait s’évanouir toute géographie et tout univers référentiel. Il devient labyrinthe, puis tombe, enfin lieu où s’éternise la mémoire de l’être aimé, et enfin la tombe de Stilla. Enfin, question légitime, nous nous interrogerons pourquoi l’auteur a choisi les Carpates comme cadre de son roman. La première des singularités de l’œuvre, c’est qu’il s’agit d’un roman de mystère. Mais est-ce pour autant fantastique? Malgré les réserves répétées du récit à l’égard des terreurs qui agitent les héros, le mystère, dans le château, existe bel et bien. Il provient des personnages: aucun des protagonistes de cette sombre histoire 293
n’est véritablement plausible. Mais le mystère vient aussi et surtout des lieux, notamment du château avec tout le support substantiel de légendes que celui-ci engendre. «Les gens du pays transylvain et les voyageurs qui remontent ou redescendent le col de Vulkan ne connaissent du château des Carpates que son aspect extérieur. À la respectueuse distance où la crainte arrêtait les plus braves du village de Werst et de ses environs, il ne présente aux regards que l’énorme amas de pierres d’un burg en ruine». (CC, 443). Écrit avant le Golem de Gustav Mayrink (1916), peu avant le Dracula de Bram Stocker (1897), Le Château des Carpates (1892) est imprégné d’une atmosphère merveilleuse qui doit beaucoup à un tissu de légendes dont la Kabbale et la mort en sont l’origine. S’il est «un espace archétypal qui traverse le temps, inaltérable en sa puissance de signification, c’est bien le château». (Auraix-Jonchière, 2004, 7). «Et quand bien même ce dernier serait détruit», écrit George Sand à l’ouverture de Mauprat, «il ne cesserait pour autant d’exercer son influence, maléfice ou séduction» (Ibid.). Des châteaux, on en connaît dans la littérature romantique et gothique (Eugène Sue, Nodier, Balzac, Sand (Consuelo, Le Château des Désertes), Gautier ou Villiers de l’Isle Adam,…). Comme le suggère Annie Le Brun à l’orée de son essai, Les Châteaux de la subversion, «les formes, les lieux, les êtres qui nous retiennent le plus, [sont] ceux qui livrent le moins leur secret et masquent le mieux le cours de notre vie» (Le Brun, Les Châteaux de la subversion, 1986, 9) Or, comme le note le Dictionnaire des symboles, «ce que protège le château, c’est la transcendance du spirituel. Il est censé abriter un pouvoir mystérieux et insaisissable» (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, Dictionnaire des symboles, 1973). C’est aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles que le château s’impose avec le plus de force et de poésie. À la suite de Loti et de Barrès, Verne réactive à sa manière le topos de la «Belle au bois», en faisant du château un espace d’entombement. Le château prend vie à la suite d’un amour déçu. Il se constitue en forteresse pour capter une passion secrète. Merveilleux et gothique se croisent pour faire de l’édifice un lieu herméneutique. Après avoir fait de Stilla sa «prisonnière» (CC, 442), Rodolphe de Gortz, personnage redoutable, propriétaire du château, emprisonne Frank de Télek, ex-fiancé de la belle Stilla. En considérant Rodolphe de Gortz, on ne peut s’empêcher d’évoquer le célèbre comte de Dracula: une taille élevée, «une tête étrange, aux longs cheveux grisonnants, aux yeux de flamme […] sa figure extatique était effrayante de pâleur…». (CC, 406). Le berger Frik, qui tient place de sorcier, est le porte-parole de ces puissances magiques, puisqu’il s’en fait l’interprète. C’est à lui qu’un mystérieux colporteur vend la lunette d’approche, qui déclenche tout le drame. Cet instrument scientifique a un pouvoir magique, puisqu’il permet de faire voir au loin et donc d’accroître un don qui est souvent celui des “chamans”. Des éléments maléfiques de tout genre, des voix mystérieuses et des terreurs superstitieuses, des fumées diaboliques sont au menu. Épouvante et terreur atteignent le plus haut degré. Des phénomènes effrayants et inexplicables se 294
produisent dont le plus imprévu la paralysie qui frappe le forestier Nic Deck. Le burg est miné, et le terrible baron prépare l’ultime piège mortel pour se débarrasser à tout jamais de Franz, son redoutable rival. Icône du merveilleux, et grâce au détour mythologique, médiéval ou gothique, le château devient au fil du récit, un véritable topos. Dès lors, se pose la question de la place du château au sein de la sociopoétique de l’espace et surtout de son rôle dans le cheminement amoureux des protagonistes. Dans un premier temps, le Château des Carpates redouble les personnages. Dans un deuxième, l’édifice propose paradoxalement une ouverture. Et là il y a une ambiguïté de plus qui paraît se résoudre dans la dimension initiatique du lieu. «Les gens du pays transylvain et les voyageurs qui remontent ou redescendent le col de Vulkan ne connaissent du château des Carpates que son aspect extérieur. À la respectueuse distance où la crainte arrêtait les plus braves du village de Werst et de ses environs, il ne présente aux regards que l’énorme amas de pierres d’un burg en ruine» (CC, 443). Par sa topographie, le château oscille entre nature et féerie. Or, nul n’ignore que le château est un espace de mystère, de terreur et de… mort. Malheur à ce qui l’oublie. La malédiction tombe forte. Emprisonnement, folie et embuscade font du Château des Carpates un roman noir et gothique aux traces de Dracula où sang et meurtre sont plus que d’actualité. Des fantômes et des silhouettes féminines, des morts ressuscités emportés au clair de lune dans une danse macabre. Dragon ou monstre, son maître, le baron de Gortz, est sans doute une figure allégorique de la Mort. L’hésitation propre au fantastique saisit à la fois lecteur et personnages de ce qui relève de la réalité et de ce qui relève du fantastique. REALISME, ROMANTISME ET IMAGINAIRE TERRIEN Appuyés sur l’imaginaire terrien, la catabase du récit, je m’efforcerai de chercher les éléments qui sont utilisés dans l’imaginaire propre du récit afin de voir comment ensuite celui-ci organise les indices de l’angoisse. Histoire incontestable d’amour, Le Château des Carpates est forcément doté de héros (Franz de Télek) et des anti-héros (Rodolphe de Gortz). Mais quel est le support réel de cette histoire fondée sur les efforts désespérés d’un vieux baron délabré pour préserver du monde sa passion inassouvie? Le château est au centre d’une forêt. On est en présence d’une topographie qui a l’air vrai. L’espace est donné comme repérable, le burg de Werst, le plateau d’Orgall et le col de Vulkan. Reste à savoir s’il construit un vrai décor enraciné dans le Réel, si le récit renvoie à une réalité concrète du pays ou bien si le château est le lieu de l’imaginaire, et dans ce cas-là on est donc en plein fantastique. La Roumanie est annoncée comme vraie, mais pas le château, pour du moins ce qu’on puisse affirmer. De toute évidence, malgré tout le manichéisme déployé et en dépit de tous les efforts, Le Château des Carpates est un roman où l’amour joue un rôle central et noue toute l’intrigue. Il y a certes des flammes et des explosions destructrices. Mais les flammes et les explosions sont autant psychiques que physiques. La machine se veut en contre poids des flux passionnels d’amour. Les énergies mises 295
en jeu par la fiction sont aussi celles d’Éros. Mais Éros engendre Thanatos. Toutefois, la femme est la grande absente de la fiction, comme souvent dans toutes les fictions des Voyages extraordinaires. Et pourtant c’est pour une femme que Rodolphe et Franz sont prêts à mourir. LA POÉTIQUE DU CHÂTEAU ET LA PRÉSENCE FÉMININE Si le château est le lieu du fantastique, il est aussi le lieu de la mémoire. Le château en est même le tombeau. La femme que Rodolphe aime, Stilla, meurt de peur à sa vue. Dès lors, le château du baron de Gortz, devient haut lieu d’un moment éternisé. Stèle des temps anciens, le château est spatialisation de la mémoire. En tant que tel, il se fait à tour de rôle monument, édifice palimpseste, ou encore miroir du moi. Pour protéger ses propres illusions, le baron de Gortz s’est enfermé dans sa forteresse féodale défendue par des réseaux électriques minutieusement tissés en une fluidique toile d’araignée pour tendre au piège les indésirables curieux. «[s]inistre foyer lumineux qui projette une lumière sépulcrale, violentes décharges électriques, couteaux qui aimantent les bottes ferrées et paralysent les curieux» (Buisine, 46), le château acquiert déjà son aspect terrible et moyenâgeux). Or, le roman, en dépit de toutes ces précautions et compensations, ne raconte qu’une longue suite de catastrophes, rythmée par les crises de démence et les explosions. Le seuil secret est découvert par Franz de Télek qui aimait passionnément la Stilla. Il repère le château dont la colonne de fumée inquiète les gens du voisinage. La demeure moyenâgeuse, imposante et ténébreuse, dotée de nombreuses galeries labyrinthiques proches des entrailles terrestres, prend figure de cratère de volcan et Orfanik, le savant fou, borgne, portant une œillère à son regard verdâtre, devient figure cyclopéenne qui confirme la scénographie volcanique. (Buisine, 47) «Quand l’électricité alimente le fonctionnement de l’illusion phonique complétée par un simulacre optique, quand les flux énergétiques déterminent la représentation, rien ne va plus. Bien d’autres imaginaires devront donc être dépliés avant que le texte vernien n’avoue sa complexité» (Ibid.), écrit Alain Buisine. Quand Gortz comprend que le château est forcé, il décide de dynamiter et de le faire sauter. Surpris dans ses préparatifs, il brise la glace, et l’image adorée s’éparpille dans les mille éclats de verre du miroir. La Stilla momentanément ressuscitée par les artifices de l’optique se disperse irrémédiablement. Rodolphe tente de s’enfuir avec l’enregistrement de la voix: une balle brise les précieuses plaques. Enfin, une terrible explosion anéantit le château qui vole en morceaux. Rodolphe de Gortz est tué, Franz de Télek est fou. (Ibid.) Désastre total, le château part en fumée, feux du désir et feux d’artifices se relayent pour tout détruire, comme si celui-ci n’avait jamais existé. Autre trait caractéristique, l’ambivalence du château. Le château c’est le double du château. Par une espèce de jeu de glace, la présence de la femme réapparaît. Le château devient miroir, il devient double. Ces aspects structurels de l’œuvre de Jules Verne confèrent une symétrie à l’intérieur du roman. 296
La persistance de l’imaginaire est fulgurante dans Le Château des Carpates. Dans cette œuvre poétique, le romanesque et le réel se croisent et donnent libre cours à une véritable poésie fantastique. LE CHÂTEAU: LABYRINTHE ET TOMBEAU Le château est un labyrinthe aux couloirs et aux détours «multiples» (CC, 445), aux «interminables passages» (444) et aux «galeries» (445). Dès qu’on est dans le château, on est dans le romantisme. Le château est le seul lieu imaginaire, un centre fantasmé. «…tout était obscur, insondable, et c’est en vain qu’il cherchait à s’orienter au sein de ce labyrinthe, véritable travail des taupes». (CC, p. 444) Par ce dédale des escaliers et des cours intérieures, le château doit cacher de l’extérieur et des villageois du plateau le secret du baron de Gortz. À l’opposé du château magique et merveilleux de La belle au bois dormant, on a ici un château désenchanté et léthargique dans une forêt tragique. Une écriture décadente de fin de siècle, un château en souffrance, abandonné, un château en ruines. Si son architecture garde son côté merveilleux, tout crie à sa déperdition. Haut lieu de la malédiction, le château inscrit une géométrie de valeurs funestes. Et si on n’y organise pas des soupers de viande humaine, selon l’habitude perraltienne, la mort guette, les pièges aussi. Sous sa forme montagneuse et «dédaleuse», le château-labyrinthe est le motif même d’enfermement. Machine monstrueuse, le château emporte le baron dans un espace clos et le tient prisonnier de sa propre invention. De même pour le rival de Télek. Arrivé au pied des inaccessibles murailles, Franz ne s’est pas encore décidé à pénétrer dans le burg, puisqu’il pensait en s’y rendant, satisfaire sa curiosité. Mais au vu de la silhouette de l’Étoile, Franz s’apprête à confronter le monstre-gardien. «Franz se précipita sous la voûte obscure. Mais à peine avait-il marché quelques pas que le pont-levis se relevait avec fracas contre la poterne […] Le comte Franz de Télek était prisonnier dans le château des Carpates» (CC, 443). Il s’agit en effet de pénétrer dans un lieu interdit, où se tapissent des forces mystérieuses et superstitieuses. La nuit, forme du labyrinthe dans la mesure où elle égare le héros, s’apprête au jeu et préfigure la mort. L’antre de monstre est refuge dangereux, il est prison. Franz de Télek devient le prisonnier du baron, du reste doublement prisonnier, puisque le héros est enfermé dans une crypte dont il ne peut sortir. Endormi dans un sommeil étrange, sa montre s’arrête, le héros perd la notion du temps, lorsqu’il se réveille, il est hors du temps. Lieu d’enfermement, le château et le baron barbon résument “à merveille”, cette situation d’isolement du jeune prétendant Télek. Comme le château de Minos, le mystère ne se laisse percer que de l’extérieur, par le forestier Nic Deck qui vient au secours. Mais le château est aussi tombeau. Tombeau pour son propriétaire Rodolphe de Gortz qui trouve la mort à la fin du roman; tombeau également pour le comte Franz de Télek. C’est du haut du donjon que Franz de Télek se fait électrocuter. Il survit finalement à l’embuscade provoquée de ce lieu sombre qui détient le secret du mystère. Il est aussi tombeau pour la belle Stilla dont l’image se brise avec le miroir brisé; la belle étoile s’éteint à tout jamais. 297
LES MOTIFS ROMANTIQUES, LES STRUCTURES IMAGINAIRES ET LES FIGURES DU DOUBLE Les Voyages extraordinaires s’affirment comme une suite de romans scientifiques. Des romans dans lesquels la science et l’invention tiennent une part importante. Mais plus que la science et le discours scientifique dans son extension, on a une action et un dénouement, une fiction et des personnages, des héros métamorphosés, des héros caricaturés. «Le personnage est le point de fixation privilégié de l’intérêt du lecteur, l’aventure se vit au travers de l’existence romanesque de la personne, le processus d’identification a besoin de figures fortes pour être efficace. […] Le portrait des personnages devient indispensable et remplit plusieurs fonctions: il peuple l’univers romanesque en entraînant le lecteur avec lui; il crée de la réalité parce qu’il construit une référence ouverte, il signe l’adéquation annoncée entre le personnage et ce qu’on peut attendre de lui» (Cassayre, 1998, 2). En même temps, dans un système linéaire et syntagmatique, l’auteur cerne ses personnages doublement. Chacun des personnages du Château des Carpates se présente comme le double l’un à l’autre. Par un jeu d’opposition, l’auteur oppose l’un l’autre en leur achoppant leur projet, et en les caricaturant en même temps. La mise en défaut du héros dans la diégèse du récit dépasse et écrase le personnage. Dans le roman trois couples apparaissent: le forestier Nic et sa fiancée Miriota, le couple Franz de Télek et son domestique, et un troisième: Rodolphe et son savant, une espèce de double qui le suit partout. Paradoxalement, les deux figures principales de double dans le roman, Franz de Télek et Rodolphe de Gortz, forment un motif d’opposition. Ils sont amoureux de la même femme, Stilla, petite brebis et étoile. Le héros vernien parvient à franchir le seuil du château, demeure interdite. Ce sont des «êtres tenaces qui finissent par vaincre les obstacles dressés devant eux» (Vierne, 1973, 113). Il faut qu’ils soient deux pour faire surgir dans la thématique du récit une sorte de nécessité du récit: cela fonctionne par double, ils se voient comme des spectres, mais chaque couple est particulier. Si les protagonistes sont doubles, c’est à cause, ou par l’intermédiaire de la Stilla, personnage principal sans qu’il en soit un véritablement. Elle n’apparaît que dans un long retour en arrière au chapitre neuf du roman, et elle ne joue qu’un rôle posthume dans la diégèse. Elle est sans doute la plus belle des femmes de tous les Voyages extraordinaires «d’une beauté incomparable, avec sa longue chevelure aux teintes dorées, ses yeux noirs et profonds, où s’allumaient des flammes, la pureté de ses traits, sa carnation chaude, sa taille que le ciseau d’un Praxitèle n’aurait put former plus parfaite» (CC, 399-400). Elle meurt en scène, lors de sa dernière représentation, alors qu’elle a accepté la demande de mariage du comte de Télek. La Stilla Stella fait ses adieux au public lorsqu’elle aperçoit le visage effrayant du baron de Gortz qui la persécute depuis un moment avec son allure sinistre et son regard halluciné. Elle tombe paralysée par l’épouvante; la Stilla vient de mourir. 298
«Si la fée électricité ne joue qu’un rôle symbolique dans les Indes noires, elle est au cœur du secret que cache Le Château des Carpates. Si Nell est l’un des plus attachants personnages féminins de Jules Verne, la Stilla, l’héroïne du Château des Carpates, en est, sans nul doute, le plus beau. Elle aime Franz et en est aimée, même la mort ne pourrait pas la séparer. Face au couple, le baron de Gortz qui adore la Stilla d’un amour sans espoir: il ne pourra l’atteindre qu’à travers le trépas» (Aziza, 2002, V-VI). Nouvel Orphée, Franz pose son regard sur le miroir où tremblote l’ombre de la Stilla (Ibid.) dont l’image vampirique ne se reflète nulle part ailleurs. Pairs et repaires, le baron essaiera de faire périr le rival détesté dans l’explosion du château miné qui doit détruire son repaire. Toutefois, le roman ne finit pas avec la mort du jeune rival, mais avec la mort du redoutable baron dans l’explosion du donjon du château que lui-même a provoquée. Franz de Télek survivra à la destruction du château, mais sa raison ne résistera pas à la cruelle déception de perdre à tout jamais sa bien-aimée Stilla. Retrouvant progressivement sa lucidité, il pourra raconter les détails de cette dernière nuit au château des Carpates. Curieusement, une série des figures secondaires viennent consolider une fiction circulaire tissée autour de cette notion du double qui prédomine dans le roman. Orfanik: Grâce à son génie de physicien, le baron Rodolphe de Gortz a reconstitué la voix et l’image de la Stilla morte, et la cantatrice revit illusoirement grâce à des appareils phonographiques, à des projections d’un système de miroirs, un simulacre technique qu’un fantasme réalisé. Personnage monstrueux comme son maître, Orfanik est le double du baron: génie scientifique, il travaille en exclusivité pour le baron. Mais le double se présente chez lui aussi par opposition: une fois Rodolphe de Gortz décédé, l’infidèle savant aide la police contre son maître. De surcroît, Nic Deck, le forestier, est par opposition le double du baron, alors que Miriota Koltz, est d’une part, par lien familial, le double du maître Koltz, son père, et de l’autre, le double de Nic, son fiancé. Frik, le berger, est le double du maître Koltz, le juge du village de Werst dont il garde le troupeau. C’est d’ailleurs lui qui signalera au maître Koltz la fumée s’échappant du château du baron de Gortz. Patak, le «docteur», est par opposition le double de Frik; alors que le berger se prétend sorcier et vend des charmes, Frik rejette toutes les superstitions de ses compatriotes de Werst et du burg du plateau d’Orgall. Mais il est aussi le double de Deck le forestier qu’il accompagne au château dans l’intention de vérifier l’origine de la fumée suspecte. Comme lui, il n’a pas peur, il est plein d’appréhension, mais il fait face à la situation avec un sens pratique. Si Télek est le double de Gortz, Rotzko, domestique fidèle de longue date, est le double de Télek, depuis son adolescence. Rotzko lui prodige des soins quand celui-ci tombe malade au lendemain de la disparition de la brise de la boîte du baron de Gortz contenant le dernier enregistrement de la Stilla. C’est lui aussi qui rachète à l’inventeur Orfanik les phonographes renfermant les chants de la Stilla, et qui les fera écouter à son maître inconscient qui retrouvera peu à peu ses esprits. 299
Enfin, la projection fixe sonorisée de Stilla n’est-elle pas le double de la diva elle-même ? Invention certes mélomaniaque du baron de Gortz et de son inventeur Orfanik qui ne travaillait que pour lui. Son artifice transpose l’image et la voix de la belle cantatrice, pour le plaisir exclusif du baron: le baron est heureux à l’avoir, de plus, il n’a que pour lui. Double est aussi Orfanik, ce savant étrange, maigre et chétif à la figure pâle. Il partage l’existence du baron de Gortz, qui finance ses travaux, et lui réserve l’exclusivité de ses inventions. Il a conçu pour lui un modèle de phonographe d’une grande fidélité sonore, afin d’enregistrer la voix de la cantatrice Stilla. Il a inventé un système de projection fixe pour visionner l’image de la diva, enfin, il a réalisé le dispositif de défense “anti-curieux” qui équipe le burg du plateau d’Orgall. CONCLUSION À l’interrogation initiale, pourquoi les Carpates, la réponse semble évidente. Un décor de conte, de légende merveilleuse, d’imaginaire superstitieux et de la sorcellerie qui donnent au roman un fantastique merveilleux hors du commun. Dans tout le roman on recèle une ambiguïté générique entre l’imaginaire et le réel, entre le roman et le fantastique. Jules Verne annonce du romanesque mais le dément tout au long du roman. Hormis la mort de la cantatrice, aucune explication rationnelle n’est véritablement fournie au mystère du château. Monde d’ordre ou de désordre, Le Château des Carpates ne forme pas une continuité dans laquelle on peut progresser. Le système des personnages du roman est bien complexe, et s’il fonctionne, c’est par jeu d’opposition, des personnages couples, des personnages doubles. Choisie ou pas, cette structure est révélatrice de la vision de l’auteur, une vision du monde conservatrice où les gentils gagnent et les méchants meurent. Un livre fascinant fait d’un tissu d’énigmes et d’une obsession extraordinaire où le rêve et la fiction ont tout à gagner. Toute création artistique a besoin du réel qui se définit comme le reflet, dans l’art, de toute vie réelle. Le romancier redevient poète, créateur. L’imaginaire prend forme et l’écriture s’ancre, tout simplement, dans le merveilleux. La science-fiction offre à l’auteur un modèle véridique. Toutefois, comme dans le mythe de Minos, le questionnement sur l’existence du château, est plus que d’actualité. Le Vrai ne va pas toujours de pair avec le Beau et tout est bon pour y parvenir. Roman initiatique et d’amour, Le Château des Carpates est une œuvre poétique par excellence. «La nature se plie alors au Jeu du Livre, et tous les coups du rêve humain y sont permis, tous les jeux de l’illusion et du trucage», écrit J.-P. Picot. (Picot, 111) «Je suis artiste», déclare solennellement l’auteur. (cité dans Compère, 167).
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BIBLIOGRAPHIE Auraix-Jonchière, Pascale éd. Ô saisons, Ô Châteaux. Châteaux et littérature des Lumières à l’aube de la Modernité (1764-1914), Clermont-Ferrand: Presses Universitaires Blaise Pascal, coll. «Révolutions et Romantismes» 6, 2004. Aziza, Claude, édition présentée et commentée par Jules Verne, Les romans du feu, de l’eau, de l’air, de la terre, 4 vol., Paris: Omnibus, 2002. Buisine, Alain, «Machines et énergétique», François Raymond éd., Jules Verne 3, Machines et imaginaire, La Revue des Lettres Modernes, Minard, 1980. Cassayere, Luc, Le système des personnages dans les Voyages extraordinaires, thèse de doctorat, Université Paris IV, 1998. Chevalier J., Gheerbrant A. «Château», Dictionnaire des symboles, Paris: Seghers, 1973. Compère, Daniel, Entretien, «Jules Verne, le tour d’une vie», in Magazine littéraire, No 281, octobre 1990, pp. 160-167. Le Brun, Annie, Les Châteaux de la subversion, Paris: Gallimard, coll. «Folio/essais», 1986. Mourier, Maurice, “Dossier”, Jules Verne, Le Château des Carpates, Paris: Presses Pocket, coll. “Lire et voir les classiques”, 1992, pp. 257-349. Picot, Jean-Pierre, «Véhicules, Nature, Artifices», François Raymond éd., Jules Verne 3, Machines et imaginaire, La Revue des Lettres Modernes, Minard, 1980. Reclus Élisée, «L’Europe centrale», Nouvelle géographie universelle, tome III, 1878. Verne, Jules, Le Château des Carpates, Les romans du feu, vol. 3, édition présentée et commentée par Claude Aziza, Paris: Omnibus, 2002, p. 283-481. Vierne Simone, Jules Verne et le roman initiatique, Paris: éditions du Sirac, 1973.
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PÉRIPHÉRIES CULTURELLES. LE CAS DES « 300 » À AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS Anita PONTI Université Paris Diderot – Paris VII U.F.R. de Sciences Sociales RÉSUMÉ Plusieurs disciplines issues des sciences humaines, voir la philosophie, la sociologie, l’anthropologie, la géographie ont abordé, avec des approches différentes, la question de la ville et de son rapport avec les espaces « marginales ». Parmi ces disciplines, seulement récemment, la sémiotique s'est intéressée à la « question du sens » par rapport à l’espace. Or, dans quelle mesure la science de la signification peut-elle interpréter un tel objet de réflexion? Pour le dire avec le sémiologue russe Juri Lotman: comment reconnaître périphéries et centres des systèmes culturels? En partant de ces premières questions, le but de ce travail sera de comprendre comment les différentes cultures se décrivent à travers l’espace, comment elles construisent, à travers l’espace, leur altérité et comment elles la relèguent aux marges. Mots clés: Sémiotique de la culture, sémiotique de l’espace, quartiers populaires, marginalité urbaine, cité des 3000.
1. AVANT-PROPOS Au X siècle, le lexème cité désigne «un ensemble de citoyens qui composent, qui font partie d'une ville, d'une cité, d'un État» 1. À partir du XIV siècle, la cité est entendue comme «la partie la plus ancienne d'une Ville». Au XIX siècle, en revanche, la cité désigne «un groupe isolé d’immeubles ayant même destination». En voulant fournir une interprétation actuelle du terme, on peut dire que la naissance des cités correspond à l'avènement des grands ensembles dans le territoire urbain. Comme exemple pratique de cette transformation, le contexte de ma recherche tourne autour de la Cité des 3000, à Aulnay-sous-Bois 2. L’objectif de ce travail est de construire des modèles qui rendent compte de comme l’espace urbain est hiérarchisé et pas hiérarchisé, organisé et structuralement désorganisé. Dans Le texte et le polyglottisme de la culture et L’architecture dans le contexte de la culture, Jurij Lotman détermine la relation entre culture, espace, ville et architecture. On assiste, dans ce cas, à un réseau d’interdépendances, c’est à dire à une liaison des termes débiteurs l’un de l’autre. Selon l’auteur «la culture et la conscience humaine sont débiteurs de l'espace et de 1
Dictionnaire Etymologique et Historique de la Langue Française, 1996. Aulnay-sous-Bois est un Commun du département 93 de la Seine-Saint-Denis qui constitue la première couronne périphérique qui entoure la Ville de Paris.
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la spatialité: l'espace assimilé culturellement, et donc aussi architecturalement, de l'homme est un élément actif de la culture humaine» (Lotman 1987). 2. ESSAIS SEMIOTIQUES Dans le livre Dix thèses pour une étude sémiotique de la ville. Notes, observations, propositions (2009), Marrone se pose une série de questions, notamment comment la sémiotique peut avoir une spécificité dans l'étude de la ville et comment la science de la signification peut intervenir sur un tel objet d'analyse. Le premier élément qui émerge c’est que la ville n'est pas une « chose » mais une « relation » entre deux plans, de l'expression et du contenu. La ville est donc à entendre comme un texte surtout parce qu'elle rassemble des morceaux, les tient ensemble à travers des relations fonctionnelles différentes mais sensées, la ville stratifie et hiérarchise (cfr. Volli 2009 en Marrone 2009). Le texte sera alors entendu comme dispositif formel à travers lequel le sens, s’articulant, se révèle, circule dans la société, dans la culture. Enfin, Marrone identifie les éléments constitutifs de la textualité inhérents à la ville. D’abord il faut rappeler, comme nous avons dit, la relation entre les deux plans du langage, c'est-à-dire le plan de l'expression et le plan du contenu. À ce propos, un élément qui rend considérable l'hypothèse de reconnaître la ville comme texte, c’est dans l’être un objet hyperstratifié et pour cela complexe, de lecture difficile. Contrairement à ceux qui voient dans la définition de ville, entendue comme un texte, un certain statisme, je me retrouve complètement en accord avec l'hypothèse qui voit au contraire le texte comme un élément dynamique étant donné que, faire l'analyse sémiotique d’un espace urbain, en le considérant comme tel, comporte « structurer, déstructurer et restructurer » continuellement l'objet. Comme nous l’explique Marrone (2009), en-dessous de la manifestation empirique, immédiate de la ville, faite d’immeubles et parcours, zones ouvertes et publiques et zones fermés et privées, il est possible de cueillir des éléments sémantiques constants qui traversent transversalement 'les choses' de la ville vécue. Dans ce domaine, l’architecture a un rôle très important parce que c’est impossible d’analyser sémiotiquement un artefact architectural sans prendre en considération les relations humaines et intersubjectives qui se déroulent à son intérieur. Dans L’espace et le sens des lieux (2000), Pierre Pellegrino amène une analyse détaillée, principalement centrée sur le langage architectural comme structuration de l’espace, en articulant soit les formes du contenant territorial, soit les formes du contenu social. Le langage architectural, second Pellegrino est, comme tous les langages, inscrit dans une culture et il permet une communication sociale. 3. LA ROSE DES VENTS: UN CAS D’ENCLAVEMENT SPATIAL Considérée dans son ensemble, Aulnay-sous-Bois présente un habitat hétérogène et se divise en trois secteurs différents. Au sud se développent principalement les quartiers résidentiels, constitués de pavillons. Pôle dynamique de ce secteur c’est le Centre Gare qui place la ville à vingt minutes de Paris. Les 304
quartiers qui se développent autour de la Gare, et à proximité, jouissent d'une influence positive. Ce qui rend vivant ce secteur est en outre la concentration de différents commerces associée à la présence du marché qui se tient le long de tout le boulevard de Strasbourg. La partie centrale d’Aulnay représente en revanche une zone de transition qui marque le passage d'un tissu urbain à un autre, dans laquelle alternent les premiers logements sociaux et les pavillons. Cette zone est représentée par le Vieux Pays et l'hôtel de Ville, siège communal d'Aulnay-sous-Bois. Constituée par un ensemble de logements sociaux et individuels, cette zone frontière reçoit les quartiers mixtes de la ville et c’est pour cela qu'il jouit d'une influence double, positive au sud car il est à proximité de la gare et du secteur pavillonnaire, négative au nord car proche des cités. Par comparaison au sud, au nord prévalent plutôt les quartiers constitués de grands ensembles, même si dans ces zones on peut retrouver des ensembles pavillonnaires. Parmi les quartiers de logements sociaux, le plus renommé est le quartier nord la Rose des Vents, à l'intérieur duquel se développe la cité des 3000. Sa localisation géographique est le premier facteur d’isolement par rapport au reste de la Commune. Au-delà de la ceinture d’équipements qui entoure la partie logements, on trouve, au Nord, au Sud et à l’Est de la cité, des planes agricoles parsemées des zones industrielles. Cette donnée morphologique de base est très ressentie par la population. La dichotomie qui s’est créée fait qu’à la limite, les personnes habitent à Aulnay ou « aux 3000 ». Cette appellation est plus fréquente que celle de la Rose des Vents. Ceci témoigne de la référence au grand ensemble de logements et non à celle d’un quartier de la ville. Pour le dire avec Hatzfeld, « en vingt ans, le projet d’une ville ouverte à la mixité sociale va se retourner complètement » (1998, p.31). Construit en 1967, le programme de la Rose des Vents a pour but de loger une population composée par toutes les classes sociales. Au moment de sa programmation, sont prévus des équipements, des commerces, des activités économiques. En réalité, après une période de développement initial, le quartier la Rose des Vents va se vider de toutes les caractéristiques qui en faisaient, au début, un projet ambitieux. 4. SPATIALITÉ ET CONSTRUCTION DU SENS: LES « 3000 » Partant de l’expérience passée 3, ce texte se développe, aujourd’hui, à travers l’analyse de certains lieux urbains, à savoir des parties de la Cité des 3000, située dans le quartier nord la Rose des Vents. La première phase de cette étude a mis à jour ma focalisation sur certains espaces, en essayant de répondre graduellement aux questions suivantes: comment reconnaître un quartier « sensible »? Quels sont les éléments qui le constituent ? Un des thèmes privilégies de ce travail a été donc d’analyser, en l’espèce, les formes spatiales3
Ce travail s’insère dans un parcours de recherche sur les quartiers populaires françaises débouté en 2007. Grâce à une bourse d’étude pour effectuer une thèse de laurea à l’étranger en Sémiotique, acquise à l’Université de Rome “La Sapienza”, j’ai mené une enquête de terrain de quinze mois dans les quartiers populaires de Paris et de sa banlieue, notamment le quartier la Rose des Vents, à Aulnaysous-Bois.
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urbanistiques. Pour définir les dynamiques produisant les espaces et les territoires, j’ai espéré faire interagir les catégories d'analyse de la sémiotique structurale et générative avec celles de la sémiotique de la culture. 4.1. Intérieur/extérieur 4 À travers l'opposition suivante, j'ai essayé de déterminer, au sens général, comment se développe le quartier, en tâchant de comprendre s'il y a des éléments récurrents qui rapprochent les espaces intérieurs par rapport à ceux extérieurs au quartier. D'un point de vue architectural, la continuité qui se retrouve entre espaces intérieurs et extérieurs est engendrée, au niveau de l’habitation, par la présence de grands ensembles et pavillons. Ajoutons que sauf la nature commune des immeubles, on retrouve dans les deux cas, l'absence de commerces, d’espaces destinés au stationnement, rapprochant ainsi les espaces en question. À un niveau général, sauf les secteurs pavillonnaires et une partie des services présents, on assiste à le desémantisation 5 à laquelle sont soumis ces endroits, en particulier ceux qui sont limitrophes avec la route nationale N2. 4.1.1. Continu/Discontinu Si nous partons de la présupposition que c’est seulement avec la discontinuité que le sens commence à émerger, créant des différences entre les lieux et conséquemment les chargeant de signifié (Marrone, 2001) nous voyons que la cité des 3000 (Fig.1) se pose comme un élément qui structure et marque de manière évidente l’espace physique à l’intérieur du quartier, divergeant au niveau architectural et du point de vue stylistique de tout ce que l'entoure. Le premier élément qui engendre la discontinuité au regard des éléments intérieurs du quartier est lié à la nature des immeubles. Le sens produit par la présence de la cité des 3000 est interrompu par une série d'ensembles de micro habitation qui se constituent comme différents. Nous distinguerons donc la zone des grands ensembles de la zone pavillonnaires. En particulier, ce que je tâcherai de déterminer c'est la batterie de signifiés engendrée par l'étendue de la cité des 3000 dans le quartier. La perception de la forte différence entre les espaces nous amène à attribuer aux deux complexes une série de signifiés qu’on verra par la suite et qui se constituent de la manière dont ils ont été conçus.
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L'analyse spatiale de la cité des 3000 est un extrait d’un article intitulé « Un parcours sociosémiotique dans les quartiers populaires de Paris et de sa banlieue », Anita PONTI, Nouvelle Revue de Psychosociologie, Erès, 2011-12. 5 Dans ce cadre, ces espaces se présentent comme des éléments étrangers, différents du système qui les englobe, se posant comme négation même de codes préconstitués. Or, l’importance de ces espaces est liée au fait qu’ils n'assument pas seulement le sens d'un manque mais, comme nous l’explique Marsciani (1999, p.127) ils représentent «une neutralité déterminée».
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Fig.1 Cité des 3000 Photo Anita Ponti
4.1.2. Les « 3000 » Restant à un niveau "macro", les « 3000 » se disposent d'un côté et de l'autre de l'axe principal qui coupe en deux le quartier, la rue Edgar Degas, et se délimitent par deux autres axes, secondaires, perpendiculaires au premier, les rues Matisse et Renoir. Du fait de la disposition du bâtiment populaire il a été difficile au début de déterminer les confins de la cité et des chemins à prendre pour la parcourir. De manière graduelle, j'ai découvert que les entrées étaient multiples et qu’il y avait en son sein, des points d’entrée différents. Du point de vue de l'organisation eidétique, les barres d’habitations se disposent sur le territoire de manière fragmentée et la forme qui en résulte nous évoque celle d'un labyrinthe. Chaque barre est dotée, en outre, de sa propre entrée, large d'accès, et il n’y a pas de limites réelles. 4.1.3. Intérieur/Extérieur de la cité En parcourant l’intérieur de la cité nous voyons par ailleurs qu’entre une structure d’habitation et l'autre, se succèdent en alternance des espaces verts, qui peuvent être utilisés tant comme lieu d'arrêt que de traversée, joignant entre eux les différents bâtiments. Le manque d’entretien de l’espace et de ces endroits, souligne l'abandon dans lequel ils sont relégués et, à l’intérieur, passant d'une barre à l'autre, sous les fenêtres des habitations, il est possible de trouver la présence de déchets qui va engendrer une dévalorisation dysphorique de l’espace. Nous pouvons également retrouver les dégradations présentes dans les « 3000 » (Fig.2) en grande partie à l’extérieur de la cité, particulièrement dans la 307
zone non encore restructurée qui constitue le principal objet du projet de rénovation urbain. En outre, en ce qui concerne l'extérieur, l'agglomération s'oriente sur une partie dégradée et une partie restructurée et les espaces se divisent selon l'opposition pratiqué/abandonné.
Fig.2 Cité des 3000 Photo Anita Ponti
Par rapport au secteur en voie de restructuration (Fig.3), dans la zone dégradée il n’y a pas de limites concrètes comme par exemple des grilles et il existe un manque d’entretien des espaces à la différence des habitations restructurées et cela se manifeste selon l'articulation dégradation/entretien. À ce propos, il est intéressant de remarquer qu’une partie du complexe en phase de restructuration, limitrophe avec une zone pavillonnaire (Fig.4), est d’une certaine façon adaptée au style architectural et aux règles de privatisation de l’espace. Les complexes restructurés se délimitent en effet par l'installation de grilles qui servent de limite entre l’intérieur et l’extérieur des habitations.
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Fig.3 Cité des 3000 en voie de restructuration Photo Anita Ponti
Fig.5 Secteur pavillonnaire Le Blanc Village Photo Anita Ponti 309
4.1.4. Ouvert/Ferme L'opposition entre ouvert et fermé sert à examiner la manière selon laquelle les espaces différents se définissent l'un en relation à l'autre. L’analyse qui suit est focalisée sur deux ensembles contigus mais très différents entre eux dans lesquels s'inscrive le complexe de bâtiments populaires, les 3000, et le secteur pavillonnaire Les Petits Ormes. Il s'agit de deux ensembles qui, selon la manière dont ils sont structurés constituent une forme d'homogénéité intérieure en se donnant comme totalités autonomes. La première chose que j'ai tenté de recueillir a été la nature des confins qui vont caractériser les complexes, ainsi que tous les éléments qui constituent des configurations reconnaissables en produisant des effets de sens d'intégration ou éloignement. Voulant recourir à la catégorisation ouvert/fermé, qui se montre importante pour examiner la manière dont les différents espaces se définissent les uns par rapport aux autres, dans cette intention, nous avons vu comment la présence d'entrées multiples et l'absence de grilles produisent, dans la cité des 3000 une neutralisation de l'opposition entre extérieur et intérieur. Contrairement à ce système, la présence de grilles et de haies en ce qui concerne les ensembles pavillonnaires, provoque le sens d'une limite très forte. L'organisation figurale des deux complexes, le pavillonnaire et le populaire, permet au plan de l'expression de se structurer selon les oppositions: entretenu/dégradé et dense/dispersé. En outre, comme nous avons pu constater, si les complexes privés présentent des limites à travers le traitement de l’espace, le complexe des grands ensembles se définit par une absence de limites manifestée par le manque de formes de séparation entre intérieur et extérieur, propre et d'autrui, sauf la zone restructurée dans laquelle il est possible de retrouver l'usage des grilles. Cela explicite, à l'intérieur du même espace, l'opposition public/privé. 4.1.5. Centre/Périphérie À travers des explorations répétées j'ai pu vérifier comment le quartier, placé à la « périphérie » de la périphérie, a pu se constituer en isolés différents entre eux en présentant à son intérieur différents critères d'orientation. Du fait de sa structuration et de sa configuration des différents ensembles, l'agglomération des 3000 se pose comme un espace fragmenté qui se constitue comme trait dominant à l'intérieur du quartier. Même dans ce cas-là, on voit comment la disposition en blocs des immeubles va créer des micro-centralités inégales, rendant l’espace acentrique. Les analyses présentées ci-dessus montrent que le problème de la centralité n’est pas en relation avec un centre hypothétique retrouvable à l'intérieur de la commune ou du quartier, mais avec la notion de centre sémiotiquement entendu. Existent des micro-centralités liées aux complexes d’habitations et à différentes portions d’espace, mais le centre entendu comme maximale concentration des codes, se clive complètement. Dans ce cas, la modalité «positive» du pouvoirstationner et du pouvoir-faire est inexistante: si nous faisons référence, encore une 310
fois, aux modalités sémantiques des lieux proposés et à l'absence des structures, on se rend compte que la volonté de la population est contrariée continuellement par les dynamiques internes, mais aussi externes au quartier. L’organisation et la structuration spatiale du quartier ne permettent pas la création de lieux sociaux. 5. CONCLUSION Dans une optique foucaldienne, l’hétérotopie se constitue plus spécifiquement comme un espace déterminé qui oppose et nie un autre espace déterminé, introduisant dans le continuum de l’espace une essentielle discontinuité. Si, en effet, traditionnellement, chaque espace ou chaque partie d’espace est dans un rapport d’exclusion, mais aussi d’homogénéité avec une autre partie d’espace, dans le cas de l’hétérotopie l’exclusion devient opposition et incompatibilité. Revenant à l'analyse, à un niveau «macro», il a été dit que le secteur nord se définit comme «espace différent», en manifestant en revanche des oppositions sémiotiques considérables au regard du secteur sud, surtout en ce qui concerne le tissu urbain, principalement pavillonnaire 6. Il est important de confirmer, en outre, que la commune entière d’Aulnaysous-Bois, et pas seulement le nord, est constituée d’une multiplicité d’espaces, «nœuds sémantiques» différemment caractérisés et que ce n'est pas le changement de l'architecture ou la présence ou non de commerces et d’endroits attractifs qui engendre une temporalité différente dans les pratiques quotidiennes, puisque la résidentialisation excessive de l’ensemble de la commune est destinée à créer un effet de «ghettoïsation» présent au nord, mais aussi relatif aux quartiers populaires. Reportant l'analyse à un niveau «micro», on se rendra compte que tout ce qui sépare l’extérieur du quartier de l’intérieur, est conditionné par la présence du centre commercial Forum Galion qui va créer une fracture physique du territoire, renforcée à son tour par la disposition du quartier à la «périphérie» de la périphérie. En réalité il n'existe pas une «ligne idéale» qui sépare les deux dimensions symboliques, même si la présence du centre commercial, renforcé de la route Nationale N2, sépare les deux espaces. Dans ce cas spécifique, nous avons déjà vu que l’environnement présent en dehors du quartier comporte des similarités avec les espaces intérieurs du fait de l'architecture et de la manière dont l’espace est conçu et structuré. Ceci va engendrer une non hiérarchisation entre les espaces intérieurs et les espaces extérieurs et, au pouvoir-ne pas faire qui se dessine à l'intérieur du quartier correspond un pouvoir-ne pas faire relatif à l’espace extérieur. À ce propos, au moment où nous analysons le secteur de la cité des 3000, on se rend compte que, d’un point de vue figuratif, la « sensibilité » est manifestée soit par des structures d’habitation fortement dégradées, soit par la qualité de la vie qui s’y trouve. En réalité, le quartier ayant des poches d’hétérogénéité à l’intérieur, liées pour la plupart aux ensembles d’habitation publics ou privés, nous voyons comment le 6
Cette expression fait référence à la forte présence de pavillons, basses maisonnettes avec jardin, dans le secteur sud de la commune, et à une absence manifeste de grands ensembles.
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lexème « sensible » acquiert une diversité de sens selon les espaces. À ce sujet, Manar Hammad explique comment quelques marques sémantiques restent inchangées, d’autres changent en revanche selon les différents contextes. L’idée d’identifier des « marques sémantiques inchangées » est relative au fait qu’il existe un sens général, en ce cas attribué au quartier nord, dans l’ensemble perçu comme « zone sensible », et beaucoup de sous-signifiés, c’est-à-dire des marques sémantiques qui assument un sens spécifique selon les lieux. Selon l’analyse de l’auteur, en effet, on a vu que l’organisation du quartier est clivée en deux parties: l’une se présente comme urbanistiquement ordonnée et douée des services essentiels, alors que l’autre est en réalité un espace très fragmenté, se posant comme une agglomération d’espaces publics et individuels, privatisés, qui font de la banlieue un lieu fondamentalement hétérogène. En outre, le caractère très résidentiel du territoire empêche que s’établisse une vrai communication entre les différentes réalités présentes en son sein. Pour le dire avec le sémiologue russe Lotman, la ville reproduit le propre et l'autrui, l'intérieur et l'extérieur, l’ordre et le désordre. On assiste, dans ce cas, à un mécanisme de multiplication des espaces qui prolifèrent les uns dans les autres. De la ville dans son ensemble, jusqu'au même édifice, on assiste à une fractalisation de la structuration spatiale. La ville se présente alors comme un ensemble organique et un lieu d’hétérogénéité structurelle, comme un tout fait de plusieurs parties.
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