Jason - Texture, Text and Context vs Indexing

8/9/2019 Jason - Texture, Text and Context vs Indexing

1/5

Heda JasonTexture, Text, and Context of the Folklore Text vs. Indexing

Of alt possible aspects of ordering and classifying oral and folk literaiure, Ihave chosen to discuss here the relations betvveen indexing and the investi*gadon of context(s). In recent decades, in folkloric parlance, context" has bcen narrowed down to performance, i.e., to the most immediate andsimple social and theatricai aspects that are most readily and easilv observ-able and describable (Dundes 1964; Fine 1984). However, there are otherkinds of contcxt that are much morc important for thc shaping o f works oforal and folk literature, for their significance in society, and for theirsignificance for individuals. The invesdgadon o f these olh er contcxts cansub$tandally benefit from putung thc tcxts into some kind of ordcr, andmany quesuons can be answered only on the basis of a body of well*orderedtexts. By anatyzing works in terms of moufs, cpisodcs, typcs, and genres andtheir texture in terms of formulae and figures of speech and by orderingthese into meaningful groups and semandc fields, the invesugator preparesthe material for many and variegated quesuons. A series of contexts forwork$ of orai and folk literature will be briefly sketched and their reladons loordering on various levels oudined.

1) Language. The dialect(s) used by a performer/author (or group of performers) to perfo rm /compose the works forms its linguisdc context.The invesdgauon of the language and of its dialects is the domain oflinguisdcs proper and no t o f folklorisucs, bu t the results of linguisdc invesu-

gadon have to be considered as a basis from which the folklorist's invesuga-uon begins. The semandc aspcct of the vocabulary and the ordering o f thevocabulary into semanuc fields are of paramount importance when culturaland social signiflcance, meanings, and funcdons arc invcsugaied.

2) Sound. Any vocat pcrformance carries somc musical component, evcn ifno t sung. (We are not concemed here with instrumental music but with themusical component of a performed text.) The aspect of sound also relatesto the wording of a recited work (i.e., a work not sung, be it couched in proseor verse) insofar as intonadon may determine meanings in the text. Sen-

tcncc structure and melody are closely connected and shape the prosody ofa work (see below, secdon 4.1).

Jo ur na l o f Folklort R tu arth . Vol. S4. No. S. 1997Copy right C 1997 by ihe FolkJore Im titute. India na Um venlty


2/5

222 Ilea Jason

While ihe musica! component of sung texts has received much scholarlyattention, very litUe research has been done on the sound component ofrecited texts. The musical culture of the society forms the sound context for

both sung and recited works o f oral literaturc. Investigation of this musicalculturc is the responsibi!ity of musicologists (ethnomusicoiogists), and the

investigator of oral literature will build on thc results received from themusicologist (classiftcations and othenvise).

3) Kinetics. Any work performed in view of an audience indudcs a kineticcomponent which is the third aspect of the oral teKt, after the wording andsound components. Movement i$ the subject of a special field of inquiry;$ystematic descriptions and classification schemes for movement in a cul-ture have not been made as yet (comparable to descriptions of music, forexample). Such descriptions and schcmes would help put the performance

into its contcxt.4) Literary-artistic qualitie$. The two basic levels of the work are the textstexture organized by the prosody and the content organized into logicalforms and content patterns.

4.1) Texture. The metric organization of the works wording into verscs,alliteration, and rhymes; its formulae; and thc figurative language of poeticimages used have bcen much investigated. Both organizc the contcxt forhandv use by the performer-improvisor. No index of formulae has been made to date (of any ethnopoetic genre),

and no invcstigation has come to the authors attcntion that would scarchfor those parts of thc content that are organized into formulac (semanticfields). Both kinds of investigations would put the individua! formula intothe wider context of its literature and culture. Recently the first index ofsimilcs has been compiled with thc prospect o f organizing the two parts ofsimilcs into scmantic fields and thus has put the individual simile into itsliterary and cultural context (Selivanov 1990, done for Russian epics and

ballads; it is a pity that texts from several genres have been mixed and thusthe picture is not clear).4.2) Content. Contem has been most elaborately investigated and ordered.

A. Aarnc (1910) bascd his typc$ for narrative and qua$i-narrativc genres oncontent, while Wienert (1925) based his Sinntypen for parables on the ideathat the content expre$ses. For the non-narrative genre of proverbs,Permjakov has established a scheme of logical types based on the logicatform of thc argument in the proverb (see Permjakov 1968 and Kapits1983).

All threea content type, a Sinntypc, and a logico-thematical typebringa singlc text into the immediate litcrary context of its variants (a serics ofvariants forming a primary Iiterary context) and into the wider contexts ofits genre (or sub-genre) and o f the rcpertoirc of thc rcspcctivc social unit(see below, point 7).


3/5

T e x t u r e , T f .x t , a n d C o n t e x t o f t h e Fo l k l o r e T e x t v s . I n d e x i n g 223

The scheme of types for a genre orders the genre$ pool of contems forvarious purposes. It should be kept >n mind that the meanings andsignificances of works of oral and folk literature are encoded in theircontent (and not in their form!). Among thc uses of an index is thcsystematic investigation o f the development in history of a culiure-society'soral and folk literature. This is achievcd on thc basis of a series of descrip-tions of $ynchronic cross


4/5

may be performed as a production of a group of people (each piaying adiffereni pari in the production).

7.2) The audience. The audience of a performer in a single performancemay be thc fellow villagers/tribesmen of the performer, or a chance groupof people for an itinerant performer-visitor. The audience may also be permanent, i.e., the perform ers villagers/tribesmen who are largely con*stant th roughout life. The oral artist's performance is socially meaningfulonly in the framework of the audience. The audience-community i$ againdivisible into age, sex, professional, and class groupings; each of these can attimes function as a closed audiencc for certain groups of works. Thesc two,the performcr(s) and the audience, are primary social actors who can bcreadily and empirically observed. Their behavior and interaction are the

uppermost level of the oral*literary work, open to immediate observationand most easily recorded and described.

More complex groupings are secondary: they are theoretical and notobservable. They have to be consiructed by the investigator on the basis ofobservable data in primary performance-audience groups, i.e., thcir investi*gation needs much more sophisticated scholarly tools. Such secondarygroupings include ethno-religious, generational, gcnder, professionai, and

class groupings, the members o f which exceed the local community. Thesemay be scattercd in spacc and time throughout the overall $ociety; a wholeculture-society (e.g., a nation) which is ethnically homogenous; and acultural area including both many ethnically homogenous culture-societiesand scattered groupings of the kinds mentioned above (consider, for in*stance, the Muslim cultural area with its many ethnoreligious nations andgroups).

7.3) Social organizadon. A third factor impinging very much on oral andfolk literature is a societys organization and institutions. Ufe flow$ in theframework of social organizations and institutions, and literature is part ofiifes activity. Let us mention, for example, popular religious literature

produced by religious instilutions, religious preaching that entcrs directlyinto oral tradition, the culdvation of oral literature at medieval courts, oral-literary works that are obligatory parts of rituals and customs, and themeddling into the flow of oral literature by political agents using it for

propaganda purposes. All of these change meanings and messages bychanging the pool of contents, its symbolic meanings, and the combinauonssimpler units en ter into to form more complcx compositions.

Each social unit, from the individual performer to a wholc sociecy, has arepertoire of works built from a pool of contents, combined with the help ofa set of certain composidon rules into works of various gcnres. A mouf indexdescribes thc pool of contents and orders it into semandc fields; the typeindex (or index of logical forms) orders and describes wholc works; and thcgcnre indcx dcscribcs thc composidon o f the repertoire. Indices of formu*

224 Heda Jasort


5/5

T e x t u r e . T e x t , a n d C o n t e x t o f t h e F o l k l o r e T e x t v s . 1n d e x i n c 225

lae and of figures of speech should describe and order the poetic means thatshape the texture of works. Thus, on every level indexing is a ncccssary prerequisite to research. For a list of indices for motif, type, and genre up to1992, see the second volume ofjason (forthcoming).

Jemsalem

REFERENCES CITED

Aame, Antti1910 Vmeichnis der Marchentypen. FF Communications No. 3. Helsinki:

Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Toimituksia.

Dundes, Alan1964 *Texture, Text and Context." Southem Folklore Quarteriy 20:251-65.Finc, Elisabeth C.

1984 TheFolklore Text. Bloomington: Iniana University Press.Jason, Heda

(forthcomingJiVfo/i/, Typeand Genre. Vo). 1: A Manual for Compilation of Indices.Vol. 2: Bibliography of Indices and Indexing. FF Communications.Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatcmia Toimituksia.

Kapiis, Gcorgi I_ 1983 Somaiijskieposlovid ipogovorhi. Moscow: Nauka.Pcrmjakov, Grigorii L.

1968 hbrannyeposlovici i pogovorki narodov Vostoka. Moscovv: Nauka.Selivanov, Fedor M.

1990 Hssdoiestvennye sravnenija msskogo pesennogo eposa: Sistematieskij ukazale Moscow: Nauka.

VVienert, Waltcr

1925 Die Typen der griechisch-romischen Fabel. FF Communications No. 56. Hcl*sinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Toimituksia.

Documents

Jason - Texture, Text and Context vs Indexing