The Art of English - Assignment Example

?The Art of English As a whole, humanity is an intensely analytical race. Every moment of the day is spent, in one way or another, attempting to interpret each interaction, each observation, and each conversation. Not only is this same focus applied to the mundane tasks of everyday life, but to the written word as well. Whether it is a poem, a short story, a novel, a newspaper article, or an advertisement, people attempt to read between the lines and to understand what exactly lies beneath in terms of creativity which is indicated inherently, by socio-cultural elements, and cognitive elements. By analysing individual works, the varying degrees of creativity and literariness can be observed. To begin, it is important to understand two distinct concepts: creativity and literariness. According to the textbook entitled “The Art of English: Literary Creativity,” creativity is defined as the skill level of the writer in areas such as “sounds, words, phrases, and overall linguistic form” (Goodman & O’Halloran, 2006). Literariness is a concept that relates to different kinds of literature such as those that are more traditional like poetry, short stories, and novels. However, literariness can also refer to other types of writing such as blogging, websites, pamphlets, and print media advertising(Goodman & O’Halloran, 2006). These two elements are very important in the process of analysis. According to the textbook entitled “The Art of English: Everyday Creativity,” in order to perform a complete textual analysis, a linguistic analysis, interactional analysis, and ethnographic analysis are needed (Maybin &Swann, 2006, p.429).Completing each analysis will reveal the elements that make up the degree of creativity within the piece. Linguistic analysis looks at the individual language elements such as metaphors, word usage, repetition, parallelism, etc., (Maybin &Swann, 2006, p.429). Essentially, the linguistic analysis looks at what is “inherent” within the text. Interactional and ethnographic analyses seek to explain how a specific pieces’ context and style contribute to social and cultural aspects (Maybin &Swann, 2006, p.429). The socio-cultural indicators within the text are analyzed within the realm of interactional and ethnographic examination. Each of these also helps a reader to take a more cognitive based approach to the text by looking at how it contributes to the bigger picture of human existence. The poem entitled “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” by Emily Dickinson, is a poem that fits within the literary world. Emily Dickinson, who was born in Massachusetts on the 10th of December 1830, is considered to be one of America’s greatest poets and produced over 1,700 poems throughout her life (Pettinger, 2006). On the surface, it appears to be a poem about a person witnessing their own funeral. Whether or not this is truly the situation is up to the reader. Emily Dickinson is an author whose work often inspires analysis due to the multitude of contextual meanings that may be applied to her work. This quality is known as polysemy (Goodman & O’Halloran, 2006, p.70). The critical analysis of the poem through the inherent clues of the poem’s linguistics may find evidence to support several of these theories. This particular poem has sparked multiple analyses. Some readers believe that the poem is about a person’s descent into madness. Others think that it is about writer’s block. Still others claim that the poem is simply about death as the basic context might imply. The fact of the matter is that it does not matter who is right in the end. The myriad of possible meanings speaks to this poem’s high degree of creativity. In terms of linguistics, Dickinson utilizes heavy deviation. Deviation is defined as being when words, phrases, and grammatical structures draw attention themselves (Goodman & O’Halloran, 2006, p.70).This can be seen in the poem by the capitalization of words that are not normally capitalized such as “Funeral, Brain, Mourners, Sense, Service, Drum, etc” (Dickinson, 1896, The American Tradition to Literature pg. 2040). It gives these words a certain authority, a greater characterisation and power, than they might normally have if these words were not capitalized. An example of this comes in this sentence “That Sense was breaking through” (Dickinson, 1896, The American Tradition to Literature pg. 2040).The capitalization of “Sense” personifies the word, giving it a human quality. The author also creates a poem with an unusual structure by way of dashes and sentence pattern. It creates a choppy effect which fits well with the dark tone and mood as the person in the poem tries to figure out what is happening. The structure helps the reader to experience this uncertainty along with the poem’s subject. Furthermore, Dickenson utilizes repetition such as when she writes “Kept treading—treading...Kept beating—beating” (Dickinson, 1896, The American Tradition to Literature pg. 2040).The effect of the repetition in this particular instance is to create a feeling of foreboding or to inspire a sense of dread. The cognitive and socio-cultural approaches can also be applied in conjunction with an interactional and ethnographic analysis. Perhaps the biggest aspect that may be observed is the time period of the piece. This poem is reported to have been written in 1896 when male and female roles were firmly rooted in stereotyping. According to an article entitled, “Women’s History in America,” women were seen as weaker, capable only of housework and bearing children (WIC, 1994, The Weaker Sex? section, para. 1 & 2).Few were allowed to attend college and their primary job was to care for the husband and children (WIC, 1994, The Weaker Sex? section, para. 1 & 2). This schematic pattern is not reflected with this particular literary piece. Primarily, this is due to the fact that the poem is written by an articulate, educated female—Emily Dickinson. Additionally, the subject matter is considered to be dark for modern times and would be even more so over one hundred years ago and would be considered fairly unusual for a female to think about or write about such a dark subject as death. It is also interesting to note how the poem ends. The final two lines of the poem are “And hit a World, at every plunge,/And Finished knowing—then.” The poem leaves a reader wondering, for the briefest instance, if that was really the end of the poem. The halted or unfinished nature to the poem appears to be purposeful due to the subject matter of death which is sometimes unexpected and always mysterious. For this piece, the degree of creativity is extremely high. Although, it is impossible to say for sure as to what motivated the author, it may be appropriate to hypothesize that she simply was seeking to create something and was not particularly concerned with creating something with literary value. For the most part literary value is assigned to a piece long after publication. A third party typically decides whether something should be deemed literature or whether something should be deemed a “classic.” Dickinson displays an intensity and anguish within her poem that is all the more astounding due to the fact that it is only 20 lines long. She has a very stylized method of writing that is distinctive in each of her poems; however, she tackles a different aspect of the darkness within humanity. Additionally, the knowledge that Dickinson herself was something of a recluse only adds to the high degree of creativity that a poem such as this exhibits. In terms of the socio-cultural and cognitive aspects, creativity is also high due to the fact that Emily Dickinson’s poem differs greatly from other poetry of this time period meaning that the author did not subscribe to schematic patterns and instead wrote about elements that might be deemed controversial. There is a marked difference between an Emily Dickinson poem of yesterday and a public advertisement of today; however, they do share a common connection. Both aim to communicate something to the audience by using logos, ethos, and pathos. Poetry such as Dickinson’s tend to utilize pathos or emotion in its communication whereas an advertisement uses each of these elements in some form or another. The goal of each is a bit different as well. A print advertisement wants its reader to take action as a result of reading it. The action for a print advertisement that is selling a specific shoe wants a reader to go out and buy that particular shoe after seeing the ad. A poem, on the other hand, does not have such a purpose. Mainly, a poem is art. It is simply there to be looked at, interpreted, and shared. In analyzing these different purposes, it would appear that an advertisement would have much more difficult time of achieving what its authors want it to. Many print advertisements are image based and are very minimalist in terms of the words that accompany them. However, there are still stylistic, cultural, and cognitive elements to be uncovered in a multimodal approach. According to the text entitled “The Art of English: Everyday Creativity,” the multimodal approach is defined as “the contribution of other modes as well as verbal texts, and the relationships between modes, to creative effects” (Maybin &Swann, 2006, p.429). In this particular case, the mode is both visual and textual. This particular print media advertisement is promoting a specific product with the intention of getting a consumer to purchase it. The product is a pesticide by the name of Baygon. The image depicts a terrified woman in the arms of a character that appears similar to Jason Voorhies who is the main villain in the Friday the 13th horror movies. The tag line on the print media ad is “For your worst fear, use Baygon” (Ferman, 2009). The print media advertisement aims to make the argument that insects and bugs are more terrifying than a fictitious serial killer. The main stylistic approach with this would be irony and humour. Additionally, there is a strong tie to society and to culture due to the characterization of a popular horror movie character. This character is well known for massacring frisky, attractive teenagers. Therefore, it is ironic that an attractive female would rather be held by a machete wielding killer than face the possibility of standing anywhere near an insect. The word choice that accompanies this print media advertisement is short and to the point. It essentially supplements the image which is the primary draw for this advertisement. Without the added text; however, the ad would be merely interesting or eye catching. The text “For your worst fear, use Baygon,” give the advertisement a specific purpose: to sell Baygon. The two work together in order to achieve this goal of communicating to the consumer that having a bug infestation is the worst thing that can happen to a person and is even more terrifying than coming face to face with a notorious, bloodthirsty killer who has frightened generations of movie goers for decades. The degree of creativity is average for this print media advertisement. The use of popular movie or television characters is a great marketing strategy in that it is easily recognizable and also draws a consumer in. This is something that is getting more and more difficult to do in a world that is already oversaturated with advertisements. However, in some respects, the failure to produce an original character makes a statement about the creator’s skills in coming up with fresh ideas. Additionally, the advertisement fails to challenge the existing schemata when it comes to horror movies and when it comes to bugs. A young, beautiful, blonde female is the secondary focus of the image (Ferman, 2009). The image of this woman plays directly into the societal stereotypes of frightened and helpless females. Perhaps this was done in order to keep with the horror movie theme which routinely utilizes this stereotype within its movies. The text, by itself, is not particularly creative; however, it becomes much more creative when paired with the picture. In the overall analysis, the concept and outcome of the advertisement is very strong. The individual pieces that make up the Baygon print ad are relatively weak and only are impactful due to the recognisability of the Jason Voorhies character. Perhaps this advertisement could have raised its degree of creativity by placing an unexpected victim such as a tattooed, tough-looking man in the arms of Jason Voorhies instead of the blonde female. This would have been a much more innovative, creative choice. There are definitely strengths to analysing a piece based on linguistics and style. It is the most practical means of analysis for one thing. There are specific linguistic elements that a person can look for which is helpful in providing an overall focus to the analysis. Of course, there are weaknesses that accompany this as well. Simply looking at the stylistic element can be limiting when working with a multimodal piece such as a print advertisement. There is not enough to work within the analysis process when there are only a handful of words to sift through. Such is the case with the Baygon print advertisement. There is not a whole lot of analysis that can be done on the sentence “For your worst fear, use Baygon.” Therefore, it would be fair to limit linguistic analysis to works that are rich in text. The Interactional and Ethnographic analysis both seek to analyze a piece by way of society and culture. The strength of analyzing a piece of literature with these two elements lies in the background of a piece. Being aware of the time period, the author, and the geographical location can really be valuable in determining how these elements impacted the work. For Emily Dickinson’s poem, these two analyses look at the identity of the author, the time period that the author lived in and what sort of society the author would have been a part. Typically, analysis by way of these methods requires additional knowledge and research. This further investment is the biggest weakness of both the Interactional Analysis and the Ethnographic Analysis. It is difficult to locate enough information, at times, to provide a complete background picture of identity, society, and culture. Simply overlooking one aspect can severely impact the analysis of a piece. For instance, there are so many different sides of an everyday person’s life in the late 1800’s that it is impossible to know how much one particular aspect impacted a writer, such as Emily Dickinson, over another aspect. Additionally, it is impossible to know the mindset of Dickinson, so any analysis completed on the piece is done with an abundant amount of guesswork. On the surface, these two texts are incredibly different with one being a classic poem and the other being a modern advertisement. As discussed previously, the similarity of the two lies in the desire to communicate something specific to another person or group of people. Interestingly enough, the modern print media advertisement does not break the schematic patterns or the societal and cultural norms that apply to today’s world. This can be observed by the use of a pop-culture character with a horror movie female stereotype. It does not present a challenge to anything in the modern day world and simply piggybacking off of another person’s idea. However, Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” does present a challenge to modern schema and norms for the time period that it was written. Additionally, it presents the reader with the opportunity to draw their own conclusions in terms of what the poem means. The Baygon advertisement, although ironic and humorous, does not attempt to provide multiple meanings. It is important to recognize that these two pieces belong on different categories of literariness. The Emily Dickinson poem would fit into the classic literature category where respected authors tend to end up due to their high degree of technique, skill, and creativity. For the Baygon advertisement, it is a part of media based literature which is catering to a world that has a small attention span and need something flashy in order to snag their attention. Therefore, each of these selections should not be judged using the same criteria. It would seem that the linguistic approach, in particular, would be most effective in analysing the Emily Dickinson poem for inherency, socio-cultural indicators, and cognitive indicators. The Interactional and Ethnographic analysis methods are also helpful in providing subtext for this piece of literature as well. The multimodal analysis approach is best applied to work that does not utilize a large amount of text and instead focuses on other mediums such as the visual field presented in such work like the Baygon advertisement. Each of the three main approaches—the inherency approach, the socio-cultural approach, and the cognitive approach—all build off of each other in order to create pieces that both contain a certain degree of creativity and credibility. The stylistic or inherency approach is the foundation upon which the rest of the approaches can rest. Without the words, patterns of words, and style of the words, there available context and subtext, needed for the other approaches, would not be available. Even if a particular piece is stronger in one area than another, there is still a need for each to be included in some way or another in order to create as complete of an analysis as possible. Appendix 1 A Appendix 1B Baygon: Jason References Dickinson, E. & (2007), "I felt a funeral in my brain". In Perkins, G. & Perkins, B. The American Tradition in Literature, The McGraw Hill Companies, New York, p.2040 Ferman (2009), 40+ Creative Print Media Advertisements. Available from: http://pelfusion.com/inspiration/40-creative-print-media-advertisements/ [Accessed: June 7, 2011]. Goodman, S. & O’halloran, S.(2006), The art of English: literary creativity, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Maybin, J. & Swann, J.(2006), The art of English: everyday creativity, Palgrave Macmillan, New York. Pettinger, Tejvan. "Biography of Emily Dickinson", Oxford, Available from: www.biographyonline.net [Accessed: June 26, 2006 Women's International Center (1994), Women's History in America. Available from: http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm [Accessed: June 7, 2011]. Read More