The Impact of Imprecise Language as a Literary Device - Essay Example

and number (day, month, year) Broken English: The Impact of Imprecise Language as a Literary Device What a person says is often less important as how they say it. “Sorry of my English” is the first line of Xiaolu Guo’s novel, The Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. With it she signals the use of the literary device that has the main character speaking in broken English. While interesting from a literary perspective it is a dangerous choice considering writers want their writing to be read, and if they don’t like the style they will put the book aside. But the more interesting question is not whether readers embrace the broken English used throughout, but whether or not in choosing it the author successfully advances the story. In a definitive statement of fact, Le Guin believes the “bad English” style the author has chosen definitely advances the plot, and without it, the novel would present an entirely different work. The story is about "I" and "you", and the title promises us love. The book keeps the promise. It is also, of course, about language, and translation, and the immense difference between thinking in Chinese and thinking in English, and being Chinese and being English, and about what can and cannot be understood between even the tenderest lovers. (Le Guin, para. 7) We understand from the outset that Z (as we shall call the main character) is very much involved with thinking about her future. “I not met you yet. You in future” (Guo, Prologue 3) can be interpreted as a general “You,” as in all of the people she will meet on her journey, or a specific person with whom she will form a particular attachment or relationship. It can also mean, as it is not clear how a Chinese person might think about such generalities, that the “You” may be a personalized substitute for a place rather than a person—London or other places unknown at this point which she will visit. Using the language promotes a sense of positive foreboding--the art of keeping the reader wondering rather than giving more detailed insights into what she is thinking and feeling at the risk of giving away too much too soon. We do not know yet who the “You” is to which Z refers and will only decide for ourselves in reading on. In terms of character development, that of Z must be drawn in the first person as the author, in keeping with the adage, “write what you know” needs to tell the tale from the Chinese cultural perspective of parents having everything to say about their children’s lives, particularly their educations. Z says, “...must to study English like parents wish...I not caring if I not speaking English or not” (Guo, 4). Guo understands the power of the Chinese family and its dictates on the individual. It is interesting to note how Guo weaves into the storyline the nouveau rich aspect of the family which later informs her brash if a bit naïve behavior.” Z learns lessons in interpretation, linguistics and cultural survival as she fends off a possible attack from a taxi drive who tells her to shut the door “properly.” She has shut the door but apparently not hard enough or with the aggressive authority that most Brits shut taxi doors. She is in a different world. Grammer? She questions. “Chinese we not having grammer. We say things simple way” (Guo, 20), another justification for the use of the device and perhaps for the way in which she interprets her future lover’s simple statement as an invitation to move in with him. “I want see where you live,” I say. You look in my eyes, “Be my guest” (Guo, 44). There is a common language of seduction implied here in his glance, which she, combining it with the word “guest,” interprets as living with him. At times Guo slips and her use of dialect seems out of place, as in the heroine’s statement about her lover and his offering of cold food. “Maybe you don’t know how cook, because you are a bachelor” seems stilted. The article a sounds inappropriate and inconsistent with previous “bad English” statements. Here their lovemaking takes over as catalyst for moving the story forward but language remains at the center. He speaks slowly; she hears “every single word” but still does not understand [literally]. But, she says, “I understand you more than anybody else I meet in England” (Guo, 50), the intimation being that one can learn words, but human interaction and caring relationships are the pillars on which speak the ultimate language of all humans. Humor is a key element, a starting point for breaking down the cultural barriers about sex. Starting with a discussion of Adam and Eve and fig leaves, the story moves forward on the wings of their garden toward a natural sexual relationship that knows no bounds. She is new to this, and when he asks if “she likes it,” she replies, “it make me feel comfortable” (Guo, 57). By comfortable we come to learn she is warmed by his feminine side that he keeps a garden, something no respectable Chinese city man would do at the risk of being called a “looser” (Guo, 56). The political world evolves along with her command of the language. “As the story grows in complexity with Z’s growing vocabulary — the narration acquires fluency and tenses almost imperceptibly” (Harrison, para. 4). It becomes clear in a discussion about the word, “worship.” He says, “Worship? It’s how the Chinese feel about Mao.” Z responds, “I don’t know what to say. Don’t you know now we worship America?” (Guo, 65) The progress in her speech presents an interesting metaphor for China’s entry into the world economy, the language and topic moving the story forward in time. A sense of progress while simplistic hits home, and expresses the Chinese confusion over their current identity as a nation of capitalist progress amid political totalitarianism. The particular use of abbreviated language in describing her life in China renders the whole account particularly touching if not, perhaps, somewhat jading an outsider [reader] opinion of life in rural China. The impression here is that the author must incorporate this story for two reasons: she needs to explain to her “lover” why she behaves certain ways in relationship to her young life there where things for girls were hard to say the least. Her relationship with her mother and father cast light on her reluctance to trust others other than the lover. “I dared not to reach my chopsticks to the meat…only for my father. My mother…she hated me, because I was a useless girl” (Guo, 101). The author weaves this profile with the graphic description of her experience at the peep shoe, the stilted English offering the text as perhaps even more erotic than had it been described in more detail by a native speaker. It is simplicity almost charming, journalistic in style—clinical, as would be a description offered by someone for whom this experience is completely and culturally foreign. Sending her from “home” as she lovingly sees it, as a comfortable place, may expand her view of her simplistic world as reflected in her simplistic language style but we contemplate now the intentions of her lover. Le Guin writes, “Later on, when her lover sends her across the Channel ‘to gain experience’, her ignorant indifference to local convention leads her into some very risky behaviour. She certainly gains experience, though what she learns from it is questionable” (17). Supporting this view, Z says of one new sexual experience, “Love making is a torture. Love making is a battle. Then I get used to it. I am addicted by it” (Guo, 104). Conclusion Hong writes: As Zs language improves, "you" inevitably tires of her. Her naive curiosity becomes a burden, her emotional needs prove stifling, their cultural divide is too vast. As "you" drones on about privacy and freedom, Z compensates with exaggerated self-incriminations: ‘As long as one has black eyes and black hair, obsessed by rice, and cannot swallow any Western food, and cannot pronounce the difference between r and l, and request people without using please - then he or she is a typical Chinese: an ill-legal immigrant... (Hong, para. 6). In conclusion, Guo, in using “wrong English” throughout the novel is accomplishing the point she sets out: no matter how the language itself improves, acceptance as the individual speaking it has a much farther and more difficult way to go. More than its simple acquisition, the cultural meanings lying hidden “between the lines” remain to distort and inhibit the formations of interpersonal relationships. As in the colloquial dialect of The Beans of Egypt Maine by Carolyn Chute, and the Nadsat fictional register or argot used by Anthony Burgess in Clockwork Orange, language unpure is often the best medium with which to tell the tale. As Harrison writes, Guo needs “…the necessary naivety of Z’s fledgling English skills to pick out the settled weirdnesses of British life” (Harrison, para. 2). Works Cited Guo, Xiaolu. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. New York: Doubleday 2007. Retrieved from: http://books.google.com/books?id=AR3RxEkYqxIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=e nglish+dictionary+for+lovers+xiaolu+guo&source=bl&ots=yE2BAdPTWX&sig =85BBrB7W5mqkiUBglYDTSYzrz2M&hl=en&ei=qZptS573MM_k8QbghJn2B Q&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFQQ6AEwCA#v=onep age&q=&f=false Harrison, Sophie. “The Language of Love.” Review: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. The Sunday Times, (11 February, 2007) Retrieved from: Web Site: Times Online. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/ar ticle1346128.ece Hong, Terry.” Chinese Woman Finds Language, Love in a Foreign Country.” Review: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. San Francisco Chronicle, (Sunday, 23 September 2007). Retrieved from: Web Site: SFGate. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/23/RVQ5RP0CP.DTL Le Guin, Ursula K. “Sorry of my English.” Review: A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. The Guardian, (Saturday, 27 January 2007). Retrieved from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/jan/27/featuresreviews.guardianreview33 Read More