CHAPTER 5 - THE FAILURE OF LANGUAGE Flashcards
5.1 Language and language manipulations
This is a book about words. Language and language learning = one of essential dimension of each voyages. The very first voyage start with the impenetrable strangeness of unknown language.
Swift himself is interested in the ? of language and English language.
Swift was conservative : he wanted to conserve the political order etc. He was concerned that the changes the english language had during their life will make incomprehensible for – generation
Swift ‘s 1712 proposal for correcting. Improving and ascertaining the english tongue = essay where he criticises the over abundance of mono-syllable. He can’t bear abbreviating words and shorten vowels for shorten syllables.
Vowel reduction
in BK 3
Voyage to Luggnag : entire sentences in the luggnagg. III, 9, 191. It is unpronounceable because only ¼ vowels. “ Luggnagg: Ickpling Gloffthrobb Squutserumm blhiop Mlashnalt Zwin tnodbalkguffh Slhiophad Gurdlubh Asht.” (III, 9, 191)”
Monosyllables in BK3
The absolute vacuity of such projects are made even more evident when related to 2 other projects ; aiming at transforming and universalizing language.
In luggnagg, device that gathers all languages. Elimination of language entirely. Instead of using words people will use objects.
Academy of Lagado:
project to “shorten discourse by cutting pollysables into one, and leaving out Verbs and Particles, because in reality all things imaginable are but nouns” (III, 5, 172)
scheme “for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever » (III, 5, 173)
5.2 Lost in translation
Gulliver, the great linguist (or so he boasts)
learn french, spanish & learn new languages & is able to communicate
In lilliput he speaks the language in just 3 weeks and when he is among the Hyhnhms he is able to understand in about 10 weeks and in about 3 months he is able to answer these questions.
We shouldn’t completely trust G’s words. And question his efficiency in foreign languages.
- Beginning chap 3 he is seized by pirates,
- Approximate translations
“Quinbus Flestrin” (phrase used to refer to himà : Great Man Mountain (I, 2, 29)
Great injects the character’s pride. Great doesn’t refer to his size but to his superiority. The translation is immediately followed by parenthesis in which he explains that it is his personal explanation.
Paragraph long complicated Circumvoluted conjectures about the etymology of Laputa (III, 2, 148)
Obvious where Laputa comes from YET this paragraph = satire of physiological discussion. The term is pretty transparent.
– Gulliver’s audience with the King of Luggnagg
Beginning chap 3 he is seized by pirates,
Gulliver assumes that one of the pirate is japanese because keep repeating ‘christianus’ however it isn’t a japanese term.
– Gulliver’s audience with the King of Luggnagg
Gulliver has hired a young man as an interpreter. He speaks to his interpreter in language of Barnibarbi and then translates B in the language of Lugnag. In the passage, the language that is used as go between doesn’t appear
Engl ⇒ lugnag
In other parts of the voyage the language is also reproduced ⇒ creates exoticism. The lugnang language is produced and own translated.
The meaning is not as important as what it is supposed to convey : respect for the authority of the figure of the king. Serie of Seit phrases as if there was coded language to address the king.
2nd phrase : the text here is parodying the translating effort of his character and of other marinor writers
⇒ no communication whether G comes to translate or not it’s beyond the point. No communication because G is merely repeating what — decorum. This is blatant in this passage. If you look at the other 3 books, G communicates but without always understanding the exchange of idea or understanding the significant of the words he is learning.
Clear in BK 4 with term “Yahoo”
G communicates without weather understanding or being understood.
BK 4: chapters 5 and 6: logorrhea
Bk 4 = long treatise. Logorrhea = excessive and sometimes incoherent – when someone can’t stop talking. Actually, Women’s master “commands him to silence” (bk 4, 5, 230)
VS chapter 7: silent listener
end of the voyages: only answers his wife’s questions “with the utmost brevity” (IV, 12, 276) but “converse[s]” with his horses at least four hours a day (IV, 11, 271). No longer wants to communicate.
BK 1 takes sea because ♥ meet new people and talk new languages. So he likes to communicate
Chap 11 : no longer wants to communicate = in contradiction with project of book writing. Only answer his wife question with utmost brevity and converses with his ex horses 4 hours a day
? of communication participate to circular question of the narrative
5.3 “The thing that is not”
A. Perverting, confounding, eluding”
→ You have clearly proved that Ignorance, Idleness, and Vice are the proper Ingredients for qualifying a Legislator. That Laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose Interest and Abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. (II, 6, 120)
Bk 2, 7, 125
Opposition btw corruption of language and an ideal of simplicity. Corruption of lanauge is condemned in this passage and is recurring motif in the voyages ⇒ manifest “the corruption of the world manifests itself in the corruption of language which departs from the primal function of truth-telling” (Brian Tippet, friend wife )
Way language is used and abuse = give moral conditions of each society that Gulliver discovers.
BK 2 = try to glorify ENgland
BK 4 = harsh criticism of england and english society and english political system
Chiasmic structure
I told him, that a First or Chief Minister of State […] applies his Words to all Uses, except to the Indication of his Mind;* That he never tells a Truth, but with an Intent that you should take it for a Lye; nor a Lye, but with a Design that you should take it for a Truth; That those he speaks worst of behind their Backs, are in the surest way to Preferment; and whenever he begins to praise you to others or to yourself, you are from that Day forlorn. (IV, 6, 237)
Society of Men among us,bred up from their Youth in the Art of proving by Words multiplied for the Purpose, that White is Black, and Black is White, according as they are paid. (IV, 6, 231)
=> Using language to manipulate and in such a way that Language itself becomes meaningless. The words that are used become meaningless.
Language of hynhm is semantically simple :
: have few words, limited in range and display a simple pattern of simple information. Has no expression for things or concepts which have no place in their world.
Attention of buying into the obvious opposition between simplicity and complexity. Btw ideal of purity and corruption. Questions of language reduction in the text participate to present their society in an ideal. It is difficult not to identify link btw language and reasoning. Btw language and critical thinking.
++ opposition btw veracity etc = common trope of voyage literature = something that Gulliver the narrator eludes to when he talks about it, when he worry about he will be accused of having written the text which is not.
–CHAP 12: “The Author’s Veracity. His Design in publishing this Work. His Censure of those Travellers who swerve from the Truth.”
–prefaces of the novels published in the 1720s
Issue which gain prominence in last chapter bk 4 in chap 11 : it is explicit in the –story
“Those travellers who swerve from the truth”
⇒ chapter 11 is relevant from numerous prophecies of the novels published in the 1720s
Except that here we have it at the very end of the book.
Claim to truth and veracity and rejection to fiction.
chapter 11, G takes on the role of the moralist
⇒ correlation btw truth telling and moral values which in itself is reminiscent of the Hynhmhs.
⇒ This gets a little bit more complicated because Gulliver takes great offence when Pedro questions his account (last quote)
–“For I had quite forgotten the Faculty of Lying, so peculiar to Yahoos in all Countries where they preside, and, consequently the Disposition of suspecting Truth in others of their own Species. I asked him, Whether it were the Custom of his Country to say the Thing that was not? I assured him I almost forgot what he meant by Falshood” (IV, 11, 269)
⇒ Passage which begins with the fact that he forgot how to lie but
According to character only Yahoos lie but at thispoint Gulliver identifies as a Yahoo ⇒ gulliver lies
Link with Swift’s project : a fictional account = lying for the good cause = satirical project which underpins the entire book.
G admits that he lie on several occasion : chen Gulliver tell story to dutch sailor
⇒ This passage = a metafictional comment : text reflects on how it is written and read.
–they were curious to enquire into my Voyages and Course of Life. I made up a Story as short and probable as I could, but concealed the greatest Part. I knew many Persons in Holland; I was able to invent Names for my Parents, whom I pretended to be obscure People in the Province of Guelderland.” (III, 11, 203)
⇒ the characters who are listening to Gulliver’s stories are avatars of the reader of G’travels the book.
In other words, Gulliver, who is presented as the very beginning of the narrative as a magnificent liar is here shown to be lying which shave down on the veracity of the account.
Paratext : one has to wonder why is he lying : opposition btw truth and lie = sth of a diversion, to divert our attention. Swift doens’t intend for us the reader to read the travels and believe it is true. (talking horses lol)
