Nov 29
penpaneducation and academia, general observations, parody, stylistics anthroplogy, conferences, description, identity, style
The anthropological bent has dogged me, one might say, for a goodly period of my life. Occasioned, no doubt, by most of my early and formative years being spent on the sub-continent where many ethnic identities and language groups made themselves apparent to each other by the laying on of identity signifiers, many of which took the form of clothing – as well as an array of related adornment of a less practical motivation. My later adolescence on the Antipodean continent-cum-island can also be considered formative, at least in this regard, in that the teenaged Sydney-sider, even in the far-off decades of the 60’s and 70’s, was regularly required to focus their attention on the outward signifiers of dress that identified the wearer as in alignment (or not) with the local power structure. This self-scrutiny and the accompanying scrutiny of others on the part of teenaged female high-school students at the time, was enhanced and given direction in 1970 by the first appearance in the media-scape of the highly colourful and yet not very bright DOLLY magazine. I well recall my first perusal of that initial edition, to the extent that I remember to where and with whom I was travelling, and by what means. My reaction at the time may have included scoffing, I may even have suggested throwing the publication from a window of the top deck of the double decker bus in which we were being transported away from rather than in the direction of our secondary school on a weekday.
At the end of the following year, for the school farewell ball, I brought, in lieu of a beau, my adoptive older brother, a person I had adopted to fill the space that a genetically-related brother might have occupied should I have had one – which indeed I should have had. The point of this short anecdote is that my adoptive brother, as my escort, had refused to follow the ruling set down by the school rule-makers, to wit, that escorts (interlopers, you must admire, into the all-female domain of our high school cohort) needed to be sporting a tie, worn in the appropriate fashion around the neck and collar. Instead, our rebellion was realised in a resistance of the local power structure through non-compliance with the dress-code, whereby he attended the event in a polo-necked jumper. We were rewarded for our efforts with a series of counter-resistant entry-level embarrassments in the form of discussions between my teachers and my escort. Since it was no longer the sixties at that juncture, I still wonder whether the polo was a good move to make.
In terms of formativeness too, I have not even mentioned the Mater’s influence on my later psychological make-up. Suffice to say that we (my sister and I) were subject to constant admonitions regarding the attire of exemplary others. And by ‘exemplary’, I do not necessarily wish the reader to imagine I refer to its regular positive connotation, but that attention was regularly drawn to those exemplars of style and taste which might advise us, in the words of those very clever mass media mavens Trinny and Susannah, what not to wear. With apologies for being less than precise here, we can summarise some of these instances of clothing error through the use of broader labels encompassing the main idea entailed. Certainly, for example, girls with fat legs should not wear mini-skirts. I personally could not agree more, and not primarily because I would hope to restrict anyone’s freedom to wear what they wanted – this would no doubt redound on myself in some way (I was born in India after all you see) – but because I am afflicted by a very nasty turn at the sight of visual arrangements which are not aesthetically-pleasing, which by the by has always been a great burden to both myself and to any companions, on occasions of traversing any locale where, for example, a McDonald’s has set up shop. Other combinations that one should avoid included that of dirty hair and a white collar, a stiletto and a bare leg, green and blue in the same outfit, a scarf tied about the rollers on the head, garish jewellery, and so on – these all administered by the Mater with a small disapproving grimace.
These notes that I offer here have been occasioned by a recent excursion stateside, where I attended a conference in NYC (a pretext, one might observe) in which context I was alerted once again to a phenomenon I am aware I have been subconsciously registering for some time, but have not systematically described as yet. My attention in this instance was arrested, or motivated perhaps, by the outward appearance of one of the presenters, whose self-satisfied but dull readings of the writings of some favoured performance artists while standing before blurry blown-up images of the same artists – all of course having lead intense and thwarted lives until their activities as performance artists meant that their subjugated and hitherto unappreciated inner selves had been released – caused me to interrogate in an extended fashion the basis for my sudden wave of displeasure at her delivery. On that score, I could uncover no satisfaction, but in the process I became aware of her vestimentary attributes, collocations of clothing items I have in the past remarked repeated in a variety of ways such that they can be considered variations on a theme, instantiations in fact of a genre, a conventional combination, an iconic reference to a potential state of identity rather than, say, indexical of an object.
/……to be continued
Oct 23
eldonlanguage and culture, stylistics
Australian Attitudes: comparing 3 pieces
[This was first presented at Bologna, March 2009. It’s a draft, so comments welcome, but do not quote without attribution to this blog – lexie]
Appraisal analysis to date has been used to investigate the evaluative resources and interpersonal aspects of a number of different text-types and genres. A brief survey includes such areas as newspaper rhetoric (e.g. White 1998, Thomson and White 2008), academic discourse (e.g. Tang 2005, Hood 2006, 2007) and email interaction (Don 2007). The Appraisal framework comprises a set of grammatico-semantic categories which provide the analyst with a means of highlighting linguistic patterns within the texts, and so enable statements to be made regarding the evaluative stance of the writer towards his or her audience, the sequencing of evaluative terms of whatever type within the development of a text’s argument, or the comparison of corpora based on evaluative or attitudinal features – to offer a number of examples.
For the present study, three ‘lyrical’ pieces were chosen on the same topic in order to demonstrate the use of two tools of linguistic analysis in providing a basis for stylistic comparison of these types of work and their effects. One of these tools, transitivity analysis – and in this case a simple investigation of the dispersal of Process types both across a text and their sequence within a text – was chosen because it has become a familiar tool in stylistic analysis, inspired perhaps by Hasan (1985). Hasan’s stylistic analyses makes reference to a “Cline of Dynamism” (1985: 45), and the relationship of agentive Participants to the Processes involved in the piece, and so this relationship was also examined in each of the texts. In addition, an Appraisal attitude analysis was also performed on the texts, with the sequencing and types of evaluative resources used as a focus for comparison. These features of the texts were noted to differ greatly for each of the pieces, and thus Appraisal analysis provides another means of discussing and accounting for their rhetorical effects.
The three pieces were chosen for their similarity of topic, but also for their difference in treatment of the topic. Each is a lyrical piece (one represents the words of a rock music song), and the first, I Love a Sunburnt Country, by Dorothea McKellar, written in 1906, is one of Australia’s most familiar poems. Its familiarity is such that it is able to be successfully parodied by local comedians even today, and is something most Australians of my generation have at least heard at various times during our schooling. It relies on a comparison of the Australian landscape and climate with that of Europe, a place from which most of Australia’s white population can trace their ancestry. At the time this poem was written such ancestry was not so distant for many of its intended audience members, who were likely to still see the UK and Europe as their spiritual and cultural ‘home’. Despite Federation and independence from England in 1900, many Australians of that era would typically make the long ocean voyage back to Britain should they have the time and resources. For this reason it might be said that the poem adopts a somewhat brazen stance towards its readership – it acknowledges the harshness of Australia, but frames these acknowledgements with high values of positive Affect, exemplified by the first line of the second stanza, and title of the piece, I love a sunburnt country. It also repudiates the landscape familiar in the British Isles, and so risks alienating those readers to whom such a landscape represents comfort and identity.
The second piece, by A. D. Hope, was written somewhat later in the century and published in 1972, after a period in which two world wars intervened. Its topic would appear to be more straightforward, as it is titled simply Australia. However, the target of the attitude in this piece is not so much the Australian landscape, as it is in McKellar’s piece, but its inhabitants of European ancestry. In contrast to the McKellar piece in which she does not retire from claiming responsibility for the arguments regarding her positive regard for the Australian landscape, Hope does not appear as responsible subject at all, except in the closing phase of the piece where he identifies with unnamed others: some like me. And in contrast to McKellar’s piece, positive Affect is almost lacking in Hope’s piece: apart from one explicit instance, it only occurs via what Appraisal terms ‘evocation’, that is, the betokening of an attitude via reference to ‘tokens’ associated with such attitudes. Furthermore, with this piece there is no risk that readers may be alienated – it’s almost certain. The only concession offered the audience requires that they also admire the spare state of mind which Hope alludes to. His stance then, is not so much innocently ‘brazen’, as world-wearily disdainful, and the analysis helps to validate such an assertion regarding the writer’s orientation to his audience.
The third piece is not only chronologically later than the other two, but is also of a completely different genre – the lyrics of a pop song. It was released in 1987, with the title The Dead Heart – an intentional triple entendre. The expression is often used in Australia to refer to the geographical centre of the country, a vast desert. In the context of this song, it is also an ironic statement making reference to another metaphor associated with the word heart – the spirit or essence of a place, person, or thing. The target of this piece is once again the European inhabitants of Australia, but also the indigenous inhabitants whose voice is appropriated here in order to underline the contrast between white and black inhabitants. In this piece, there is no single subject to take responsibility, rather the statements are made by an exclusive and vast ‘we’. This voice is also disdainful, rejecting with a series of negations what white people do and think, at the same time rejecting their view of Australia’s heart as ‘dead’.
After a transcription of the first piece in full, a short attitude analysis of the first two stanzas appears in the table which follows (a full tabulated attitude analysis appears in the appendix [- not here, ed]). Those elements of the text which help provoke either a positive or negative reading of the targets have been underlined, while more explicitly evaluative items have not been highlighted. The table repeats the underlined items for convenience.
1. The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies –
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
2. I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me.
3. The tragic ring-barked forests
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the crimson soil.
4. Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
5. Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold;
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
6. An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown Country
My homing thoughts will fly.
| text |
triggers |
target |
attitude |
1. The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins; |
love |
field and coppice
green and shaded lanes
ordered woods and gardens |
+ Affect |
| Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies – |
strong love |
grey-blue distance
brown streams
soft dim skies |
+ Affect
[attributed] |
| I know but cannot share it, |
but cannot share it
[counter + disclaim] |
the love of field and coppice, etc |
– Affect |
| My love is otherwise. |
love |
otherwise
(i.e. different than ~) |
+ Affect |
| This stanza split between acknowledged positive Affect for the target by “you”, with contrasting Affect by speaker. |
|
| 2. I love a sunburnt country, |
sunburnt |
country |
– Apprecn
evoked |
|
love |
a sunburnt country,
a land of ~
sweeping plains
ragged mountain ranges
drought and flooding rains |
+ Affect
[scopes ‘attributed’ neg appreciation of what follows] |
| A land of sweeping plains, |
sweeping |
plains |
+ Apprecn
evoked |
| Of ragged mountain ranges, |
ragged |
mountain ranges |
– Apprecn |
| Of drought and flooding rains, |
flooding |
rains |
– Apprecn |
|
drought and flooding rains
[contrast: extremes] |
[land’s climate] |
– Apprecn |
| I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea, |
far
jewel |
her horizons
her sea |
+ Apprecn
provoked |
|
love |
her far horizons
her jewel sea |
+ Affect |
| Her beauty and her terror – |
beauty |
her |
+ Apprecn |
|
terror |
her |
– Affect ˆ
– Apprecn |
| The wide brown land for me. |
for me |
the wide brown land |
+ Affect
provoked |
| in this stanza, positive Affect frames all of the negatively and positively appreciated aspects and extremes of “the country”
while the verbal process ‘love’ is repeated as a mantra |
|
|
|
|
|
| 3. The tragic ring-barked forests |
tragic |
ring-barked forests |
– Affect/ Apprecn |
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes |
stark white
sapphire-misted
hot gold hush
green tangle |
forests
mountains
noon [climate]
brushes |
+ Apprecn
provoked |
| Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the crimson soil. |
lithe |
lianas |
+ Apprecn |
|
orchids deck treetops
ferns deck crimson soil |
where [brushes] |
+ Apprecn
evoked |
| here, the values are all positive Appreciation, with one transitional negative Appreciation linking those negatives from the previous stanza |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The first three stanzas of this poem then, use the resources of both (positive and negative) Affect, and (positive and negative) Appreciation. Instances of Affect are ascribed to either the audience or to the speaker in response to landscape and climate, while instances of Appreciation describe the landscapes and climate of Australia as contrasted with the green of Europe. In general under Appraisal, resources of Appreciation are used to label those elements of any text which ascribe attitudinal values to objects, artefacts, and products of human behaviour – as distinct from Affect which refers to the emotional responses of a conscious participant, or something imbued with consciousness. The evaluation in this piece is ordered as alternating negative and positive emotions and appreciations of the landscape and climate, somewhat like an argument which concedes the audience’s attitude before making a rebuttal with counter-attitude.
In the following analysis, the verbal groups [were highlighted in colours representing the three Process types appearing in the poem: Material, Mental and Relational, but these are too much trouble to render in html for the moment] are italicised for Material, and boldened for Mental, and for convenience.
in addition,
Subjects/responsible Participants are underlined.
1. The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies –
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
2. I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me.
3. The tragic ring-barked forests
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns [deck] the crimson soil.
4. Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die –
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
5. Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold;
Over the thirsty paddocks,
^ Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
6. An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown Country
My homing thoughts will fly.
In the above analysis, mental and material processes dominate the piece. In terms of Hasan’s notion of a cline of dynamism, the fact that the landscape, or ‘environment’ sometimes takes the active Participant role, for example, ferns, the grey clouds, she (land of the Rainbow Gold), the filmy veil of greenness, underscores the way that McKellar implies that the landscape and environment of Australia is worthy as an object of her affection – it is an active, wilful land. Stylistically, the opening stanza announces the speaker’s stance in setting up a contrast which she will defend in the remainder of the piece, and it is here that the only relational process is found: My love is otherwise.
[to be continued…]
In A.D. Hope’s Australia, despite the topic being ostensibly the same as the McKellar piece, the actual targets of appraisal and the way in which the Processes are distributed demonstrate stylistically the contrast in stance and attitude. Below, the piece is reproduced in full, and this is followed by a tabulated appraisal analysis, showing how the targets of the negative attitude are eventually associated with the white inhabitants of Australia, and explicitly linked in the final stanza to Europeans. The tabulated appraisal analysis is followed by a further reproduction highlighting the Processes used and the [Subjects] “Agents” (i.e. Actor, Senser, Sayer, Carrier) of the Processes.
In contrast to the McKellar piece, the landscape is portrayed as passive rather than active, despite the association of Material Process and ‘landscape’ Actors. A contrast also is drawn between what white commentators say about the country and what the country actually consists of: Hope rejects the implicit relationship drawn between the inhabitants and the place itself in the oft-heard comment at that time that “Australia is a young country”. The negative evaluative prosody of the piece is underscored when the landscape is cast as an active Participant in Material clause – as the McKellar piece also does, but here the semantic value of the verbs are less ‘neutral’: while McKellar uses such verbs as deck, gather, pays, and thickens, Hope’s landscape darkens, drown, floods, and drains. So that, although these are all Material Processes in active clauses, they do not imply directed activity in the context of the poem. The exception here, drains, is used at a transitional point in the piece, where the Actor of the clause is not the landscape itself, but an ‘element’ of it: Australia’s five teeming cities, used here as a metaphor for the inhabitants of the cities. It is from this point on that the actual inhabitants are more directly the target of the poem’s negative appraisal, because it is actually the land itself – her – which is the Goal of the draining. The passivity of the land, in contrast to the active landforms of the McKellar piece is associated with a number of elements in the text [which will be addressed in more detail later – ed].
‘AUSTRALIA’
[From A. D. Hope, COLLECTED POEMS 1930-1970,
Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1972]
1. Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
2. They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
3. Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity
4. Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.
5. And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.
6. Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,
7. Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which [escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.]
| text |
triggers |
target |
attitude |
| 1. Nation of trees, |
[- app of trees] |
nation [Australia] |
negative
appreciation |
| drab green and desolate grey |
drab
desolate |
trees |
neg apprecn |
| In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, |
the field uniform of modern wars
darkens |
trees |
neg apprecn |
| those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away. |
endless
demolished
worn away |
her hills |
neg apprecn |
| |
|
|
|
| 2. They call her a young country, |
a young country
[attribution only] |
her [Australia] |
pos apprecn:
evoked |
| but they lie: |
but
lie |
they |
neg judgement: Veracity |
| She is the last of lands, the emptiest, |
the last of lands
the emptiest
[graduation] |
she [Australia] |
neg apprecn
provoked |
| A woman beyond her change of life, |
beyond her change of life |
a woman [Australia] |
neg apprecn
provoked (co-text) |
| a breast
Still tender |
tender |
breast [a woman: Australia] |
pos apprecn |
| but within the womb is dry. |
but
womb is dry |
a woman [Australia] |
– apprecn
provoked |
| this stanza operates via counter: contrast: say – lie/ young – old/ appearance – real/ |
| |
|
|
|
| 3. Without songs, architecture, history:
|
without [pos value items] |
a woman [Australia]
her |
– apprecn/ judge?
provoked |
| The emotions and superstitions of younger lands, |
[without]
emotions
superstitions
younger |
a woman [Australia]
her |
+ judge? |
| Her rivers of water drown among inland sands, |
drown |
her [Aus] rivers |
– apprecn
provoked |
| The river of her immense stupidity
|
immense stupidity |
her |
– judge: Capacity |
| again, the stanza operates via counter: contrast: outer: trees, called young, tender BUT inner: dry, empty, waters drown in sand |
| |
|
|
|
| 4. Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth. |
[stupidity] floods
monotonous
[lexical graduation] |
her tribes [Aus white people] |
– judge: Capacity
– apprecn |
| In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”, |
at last
ultimate
boast not
live
but
survive
[lexical graduation +
disclaim +
counter: contrast + attribution] |
[tribes] men/ the ultimate men [Aus [white] people] arrive [à Europeans] |
– judge: Capacity
provoked |
| A type who will inhabit the dying earth. |
dying
[+ attribution?] |
a type [ultimate men] |
[- apprecn]
– judge?
provoked |
| – contrast: live – survive, inhabit – dying (earth) |
| |
|
|
|
| 5. And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
|
teeming sores |
her [Aus] five cities |
– apprecn |
| Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state |
drains |
her [Aus] five cities |
– judge: Propriety
provoked |
| |
vast
parasite
robber-state
[lexical + reduplicating graduation] |
[Australia] |
– apprecn |
| Where second hand Europeans pullulate |
second-hand |
Europeans |
– judge: Capacity |
| Timidly on the edge of alien shores. |
timidly
on the edge |
2nd-hand Europeans |
– judge: Capacity/Tenacity |
| |
alien
[attribution] |
shores [Aust: ventriloquised] |
– apprecn |
| |
|
|
|
| 6. Yet there are some like me turn gladly home
|
gladly |
(some like me) turning home |
+ affect |
|
home |
[Australia]
x[the desert of the mind] |
+ apprecn |
| From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find |
[turn from] the lush jungle |
modern thought |
– apprecn |
| The Arabian desert of the human mind, |
|
[the desert of the mind] |
+ apprecn
evoked |
| Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,
|
hoping |
prophets still come from the deserts
[that some savage and scarlet spirit springs in that waste] |
+ affect |
| |
the prophets come |
the deserts [of the human mind] |
+ apprecn |
| |
|
à the prophets from the desert = ? |
|
| contrast: modern thought = lush jungle / the human mind= Arabian desert, home |
| 7. Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
|
dare
[denied] |
green hills |
– judge: Tenacity |
| |
savage and scarlet |
[some spirit]
[Aus landscape] |
+ apprecn
+ judge: Tenacity |
| Springs in that waste, |
waste |
[the deserts] |
– apprecn |
| some spirit which [escapes
The learned doubt, |
escapes
learned doubt |
some spirit |
+ judge: Cap/Ten |
| |
escapes
[=chatter of cultured apes] |
learned doubt |
– apprecn |
| The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
|
chatter
of cultured apes |
[European people] |
– apprecn
– judge |
| The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.]
|
learned doubt
chatter of cultured apes
called |
civilization over there [Europe] |
– apprecn
– judge |
| hoping [affect] frames:
if prophets still come from the desert
then [Australia/ human mind] can be a place where
(unlike in places of green hills)
a savage and scarlet spirit can spring
by escaping
the learned doubt and chatter of cultured apes
which Europeans call civilization |
Material, Mental, Verbal, Relational, Existential Processes all appear in the piece. […again, these were originally highlighted in colour, but you will have to wait for this formatting to re-appear in the following transcript… to be continued… for the moment only the Subjects/responsible Participants have been underlined in the following]
—————————–
1. Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
In the field uniform of modern wars,
Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
2. They call her a young country, but they lie:
She is the last of lands, the emptiest,
A woman beyond her change of life, a breast
Still tender but within the womb is dry.
3. Without songs, architecture, history:
The emotions and superstitions of younger lands,
Her rivers of water drown among inland sands,
The river of her immense stupidity
4. Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth.
In them at last the ultimate men arrive
Whose boast is not: “we live” but “we survive”,
A type who will inhabit the dying earth.
5. And her five cities, like five teeming sores,
Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state
Where second hand Europeans pullulate
Timidly on the edge of alien shores.
6. Yet there are some like me[who] turn gladly home
From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find
The Arabian desert of the human mind,
Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come,
7. Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare
Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes
The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes
Which is called civilization over there.
[to be continued…]
What follows is a reproduction of the lyrics of the Midnight Oil song “The Dead Heart”. Because the lyrics depend on the medium for conveying some of its message (pace Cleirigh 2010), they cannot be stylistically compared to the previous two pieces to the same degree. However, given that the topic (Australia) is the same and that in each piece tropes to do with landscape, heart, and spirit are introduced, the analysis of this piece is warranted as a comparison in terms of stance – i.e. the ways that the implied speaker sets up positions of alignment with the targets of the piece and thus with projected readers – and use of evaluative prosody and transitivity patterns to convey this stance.
meanwhile, you’re invited to listen to the song on youtube (sorry, embedding has been ‘disabled by request’)
The Dead Heart (1987)
1
We don’t serve your country
Don’t serve your king
Know your custom
Don’t speak your tongue
White man came took everyone
2
We don’t serve your country
Don’t serve your king
White man [^]listen to the songs we sing
White man came took everything
3
We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken
4
We don’t need protection
Don’t need your land
[you don’t] Keep your promise on where we stand
We will listen, we will understand
5
Mining companies, pastoral companies
Uranium companies
Collected companies
Got more right than people
Got more say than people
6
Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things
The dead heart lives here.
7
We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken
| text |
triggers |
target |
attitude |
| 1.We don’t serve your country
[we]Don’t serve your king |
disclaim [+ counter via
‘your –‘]
don’t serve your country,
don’t serve your king
[negation] |
we |
+ Judge: Tenacity
invoked |
|
|
[you]
[via ‘your ~’] |
– Affect
invoked |
| [we don’t]Know your custom
Don’t speak your tongue |
disclaim [+ counter]
[don’t] know your custom
don’t speak your tongue
[repetition] |
we |
+ Judge: Ten
invoked |
|
|
[you]
[via ‘your ~’] |
– Affect
invoked |
| White man came took everyone |
graduation
took everyone
[comparison] |
white man |
– Judge: Propriety
invoked |
|
|
|
|
| 2.We don’t serve your country
Don’t serve your king |
disclaim + graduation
[ + counter]
don’t serve your country,
don’t serve your king
[negation + repetition] |
we |
+ Judge: Ten
invoked |
| White man [^]listen to the songs we sing |
[don’t] listen to the songs we sing
[negation? + comparison]
|
white man |
– Judge: Capacity/
Propriety
invoked |
| White man came took everything |
graduation
took everything
[repetition + comparison] |
white man |
– Judge: Prop
invoked |
|
|
|
|
| 3.We carry in our hearts the true country |
true |
country |
+ Apprecn: Composition/
Valuation |
|
carry in our hearts
[via pos Appreciation + pos saturation ‘hearts’: comparison] |
we |
+ Judge: Ten
invoked |
| And that cannot be stolen |
disclaim [neg state]
cannot be stolen
[comparison: ‘true country’ versus everything and everyone (has been stolen: implied)] |
that
[the true country] |
+ Apprecn: Val
invoked |
|
disclaim [neg state]
that cannot be stolen
[comparison: ‘carried in hearts’ versus everything and everyone (has been stolen: implied)] |
[thieves= white man] |
+ Judge: Ten/Prop
invoked |
|
disclaim [+ counter]
that cannot be stolen
[comparison: taken] |
[white man] |
– Judge: P |
| We follow in the steps of our ancestry |
experiential meanings
follow in the steps of our ancestry |
we |
+ Judge: T/P
invoked |
| And that cannot be broken |
disclaim [neg state]
cannot be broken |
that
[following our ancestry] |
+ Aprecn: V |
|
disclaim [neg state]
cannot be broken
[comparison: has been broken] |
[white man] |
– Judge: P
invoked |
|
[via comparison: other things may be broken] |
[we (following our ancestry)] |
+ Judge: C/T
invoked |
|
|
|
|
| 4.We don’t need protection
Don’t need your land |
disclaim: deny
+ repetition |
we |
+ Judge: T/C |
| Keep your promise on where we stand |
disclaim via repetition + attribution [pos App]
[you don’t] keep your promise on where [you] stand |
[white man] |
– Judge: P/V
invoked |
| We will listen, we will understand |
[ irony] |
we |
+ Judge: C |
|
|
|
|
| 5
Mining companies, pastoral companies
Uranium companies
Collected companies
Got more right than people
Got more say than people |
comparison + experiential meanings +
repetition
got more right than –
got more say than –
– people |
[the fact that
(white man’s) companies] ~ |
– Judge: P
invoked |
|
|
|
|
| 6
Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things |
graduation[time]
can make a difference |
the state of things [indigenous history/ true country/ culture] |
+ Apprecn: V |
| The dead heart lives here. |
attribution + experiential meanings + counter
dead heart lives |
the dead heart |
+ Apprecn: V |
|
|
|
|
| 7
We carry in our hearts the true country
And that cannot be stolen
We follow in the steps of our ancestry
And that cannot be broken |
repetition: graduation |
|
|
[Material, Relational, Verbal and Mental Processes all appear in the lyrics.
Colour highlighting will appear in a later edit. Below, each line is numbered to make future reference convenient -ed]
Subjects
—————–
1.We don’t serve your country
2.Don’t serve your king
3.Know your custom
4.Don’t speak your tongue
5.White man came took everyone
6.We don’t serve your country
7.Don’t serve your king
8.White man [^]listen to the songs we sing
9.White man came took everything
10.We carry in our hearts the true country
11.And that cannot be stolen
12.We follow in the steps of our ancestry
13.And that cannot be broken
14.We don’t need protection
15.Don’t need your land
16.Keep your promise on where we stand
17.We will listen, we will understand
18.Mining companies, pastoral companies
19.Uranium companies
20.Collected companies
21.Got more right than people
22.Got more say than people
23.Forty thousand years can make a difference to the state of things
24.The dead heart lives here.
25.We carry in our hearts the true country
26.And that cannot be stolen
27.We follow in the steps of our ancestry
28.And that cannot be broken
REFERENCES
I Love A Sunburnt Country
Dorothea MacKellar (1908: written 1906)
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