Special Issue: Literature, Criticism, Theory || A Stylistic Approach to Irish Writing

A Stylistic Approach to Irish WritingAuthor(s): Patricia LynchSource: Irish University Review, Vol. 27, No. 1, Special Issue: Literature, Criticism, Theory(Spring - Summer, 1997), pp. 33-54Published by: Edinburgh University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25484701 .

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Patricia Lynch

A Stylistic Approach to Irish Writing

The conjunction of a stylistic examination and a piece of Irish writing needs complex treatment. The method warrants definition and descrip tion, with its evolution and some areas of controversy being sketched

in, before being applied to a text. This process can then lead to con

clusions, however tentative.

Stylistics is usually regarded as the study of style, using linguistic methods to examine a text and then proceeding to interpret the findings as pertaining to literature. It has had a wide and varied history in this

century, beginning in Europe in the early decades and becoming a fixture in the English-speaking world in the second half. It has been the site of

deep-rooted and acrimonious debates, due in part to its straddling of

the traditional science/humanities divide in learning. Not only that, but

within humanities, and in particular linguistics and literary theory, it

has had to evolve in relation to the formalist/functionalist, and descrip tive/evaluative fields. As time went by, its application was extended to

non-literary as well as literary texts. It might even be claimed to have a

gendered aspect, in that the qualities attributed to the linguistic and

literary approaches in some way resemble psychological attributes often

regarded as male and female. The succeeding pages will develop these

ideas in more detail.

Modern stylistics has had its remote origins in the study of elocutio in

rhetoric. Its early twentieth-century forebear, Frederic de Saussure, is

also an ancestor of much modern literary theory. In turn, his pupil, Bally,

produced a treatise on French stylistics in 1909, which spread interest in

the discipline. This was taken up by Leo Spitzer in several publications in the years before 1950, and engendered research across Europe. In the

post-war context, influential publications by linguist Noam Chomsky,

speech-act theorist Grice, and other noteworthy theorists such as Barthes

and Kuhn became available and promoted vigorous discussion. The

1960s saw it become a matter of debate in the English-speaking world,

especially in Britain and the United States.1 The catalyst for the develop ment of modern stylistics is claimed to have been a conference on style held in Indiana in 1958 at which one of the most notable contributors was Roman Jakobson.2 Its proceedings were published as Style in

1. K. Wales, A Dictionary ofStylistics (London: Longman, 1989), p. 437.

2. D. Attridge, "Closing Statement: Linguistics and Poetics in Retrospect", in N. Fabb, D. Attridge, A. Durant, and C MacCabe, The Linguistics of Writing: Arguments between

Language and Literature (Manchester Manchester University Press, 1987), pp. 15-16.

33



IRISH UNIVERSITY REVIEW

Language in I960.3

The years after 1960 saw stylistics grow in two traditions. On the one

hand, there was the model of generative linguistics, founded in gener ative or transformational grammar, which looks at rules designed to

change forms in the deep structure of sentences into their actual surface

forms: for example, active sentences to passive. It is interested in forms, and in the way in which the brain works to produce language, and hence

has connections with today's disciplines of psycholinguistics and

cognitive science. On the other hand, the area of systemic linguistics had a strong influence, too. Developed by Firth and Halliday, it looked

at language as built up of systems?from the morpheme to word, group, clause and up to sentence; in categories from a single unit to structure,

class, and up to full system. Within the systems choices are made, and

these are related to the uses or functions to which language is put. This

kind of linguistics, therefore, is related to sociolinguistics, or the way

language is used in society, and to the communicative uses or functions of laivguage.4

Within literary texts, stylistics began by concentrating mainly on

poetry. Leech's classic book, A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry, is an

example of this.5 The concentration on this genre is not surprising as a

poem is a convenient, usually short, self-contained piece of text which exhibits many easily-observed features such as rhyme and rhythm not

found in other pieces of literature, or at least rarely to the same degree. Attention was then given increasingly to fiction, and to other prose texts,

usually in the form of short extracts, though linguistics grew gradually more capable of handling longer stretches of discourse. Leech exemplifies

this progression in the work in which he co-operated with Short.6 Drama was slowest in being taken up, but with the growth of speech-act theory, rules arising from the examination of conversation came to be developed and applied to it.

Other developments which contributed to the evolution of today's stylistics were the displacement of New Criticism by structuralism, the

movement from structuralism to post-structuralism, and the extension of the debate to non-literary texts such as those of the media, not only in

the written but in the spoken word, and in related visual and aural codes.7

3. N. Fabb and A. Durant, "Introduction: The Linguistics of Writing: Retrospect and Prospect after Twenty-five Years", in Fabb et al, pp. 1-14. Cf. also J.V. Catano,

"Stylistics", in M. Groden and M. Kreiswirth, The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary

Theory & Criticism (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), pp. 702-03.

4. Cf. Wales, pp. 202-04 and 450-51; also Fabb and Durant, pp. 1-2. 5. G.N. Leech, A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry (London: Longman, 1969). 6. G.N. Leech and M. Short, Style in Fiction: A Linguistic Introduction to English Fictional

Prose (London: Longman, 1981). 7. Fabb and Durant, p. 2; Leech and Short, pp. 4-5.

34



A STYLISTIC APPROACH TO IRISH WRITING

Not surprisingly, the decade was one of fierce debates, in particular between traditional literary critics and linguistic critics, over the sup

posed "subjectivity" and "objectivity" of either side's approach.8 But more of that later in the paper.

As the dust died down, there was an increasing concern in the nineteen

eighties with the area of discourse, in particular speech-act theory, and

also with the social and historical contexts, which the text-focused

approach of linguistics seemed to ignore.9 Literature, which had fallen into disrepute among linguists, came to be re-admitted to use.10 The new,

more pacific mood led to the consideration of stylistics as a bridge between linguistics and literature.11 Defined by most recent authorities

simply as "the study of style",12 stylistics could be described as straddling the two fields, for example, Mair: "a body of work whose common feature is that linguistic terminology and methods are introduced into the study of literary style" which is a "highly desirable synthesis"; Robey: "a

convenient label... for the branch of literary studies that concentrates on the linguistic form o? texts."13 In a similar way, Leech crossesbameTS

by associating with his definition of stylistics a combination of the for malist and functionalist approaches which, as we have seen, are related

to generative linguistics and systemic linguistics respectively.14 There are two areas of debate with regard to modern stylistics which

must be tackled before demonstrating an example of its use. The first of

these, the centre of "shrillest debate",15 is that of the subjectivity/objec tivity divide, with its related topic, interpretation of results. The most trenchant statement of it which the writer of this paper has found, is couched in the words of Roger Fowler, echoing his epic battle with Bateson in the nineteen sixties:16

First, linguistic criticism is technically superior because it is explicit, systematic and comprehensive. Second, the

literary criticism of

8. Wales, p. 437; C. Mair, "The 'New Stylistics': A Success Story or the Story of Success ful Self-Deception?", in Style, vol. 19, pt. 1 (Spring 1985), p. 119; Catano, p. 704;

C. MacCabe, "Language, Linguistics and the Study of Literature", in The Oxford Literary Review, vol. 4, pt. 3,1981, p. 69.

9. Catano, p. 703.

10. R. Carter, "Directions in the Teaching and Study of English Stylistics", in M. Short

(ed.), Reading, Analysing and Teaching Literature (London: Longman 1989), pp. 16-17; R. Carter and M. Long, Teaching Literature (Essex: Longman), p. 1.

11. Cf. Mair, p. 17.

12. For example, Wales, p. 437; Catano, p. 701; Leech and Short, p. 13; G. Leech, "Stylistics and Functionalism", in Fabb et al, p. 76.

13. Mair, pp. 117 and 118; D. Robey, "Modern Linguistics and the Language of

Literature", in A. Jefferson and D. Robey, Modern Literary Theory: A Comparative Introduction (London: Batsford Academic and Educational, 1982), p. 54.

14. Leech (1987), p. 76. 15. MacCabe, p. 69. 16. Cf. Wales, p. 437; Mair, p. 116.

35




language is logically inferior because the critic makes up his mind in advance and then supports his claims by citing selected aspects

of the text.17

Aside from the clash of these Titans, the other great name in the attack is

Stanley Fish in his article, "What is stylistics and why are they saying such terrible things about it?"18 He criticises stylisticians not for the way in which they scrutinise the data but for the way in which their interpre tation from the data is "asserted rather than proven", and gives four

different possibilities for the observed linguistic facts from the one chosen

by Milic in assessing Swift's use of series (pp. 54-5). "Intrinsic theory has always wanted to be a science", says Yarbrough,19

and that includes linguistics. Jonathan Culler describes linguistics as

being "by common consent... the closest we have to a scientific approach to language".20 Yarbrough agrees with this, but says that it is not an

empirical science, and is therefore "not an appropriate science to serve

as a model for criticism" (p. 98). In an effort to make it so, many people have used computer applications, with techniques such as concordanc

ing, analysing for word frequencies, and for frequency of occurrence of

grammatical categories. Word and data processing have provided a

useful base and a swift method for the statistics of style. The whole field

of Natural Language Processing, with its widespread and often well

funded research, has provided valuable spin-offs for the study of

literature. Associations such as the ACH (Association for Computing and the Humanities) and ALLC (Association for Literary and Linguistic

Computing), and publishers of electronic texts, are to the forefront in

pioneering this area of investigation. An application of a scientific method yields results of some kind. Some

linguists in examining literary texts rest content with these findings, and

do not attempt to go further, that is, to interpret them; for example,

Halliday, in his stylistic analysis of Yeats's "Leda and the Swan" in the

nineteen sixties. He points out linguistic features of the poem which

distinguish it from other texts, but leaves it to the literary specialist to

determine the nature and degree of their literary significance.21 More

usually in today's stylistics, interpretation "becomes the articulation of,

17. R. Fowler, Linguistic Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 3. Cf. also

D. Burton, Dialogue and Discourse: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Modern Drama Dialogue and Naturally Occurring Conversation (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980),

p. 9, where literary criticism is seen as "mere intuition and assumption". 18. In D.C. Freeman, Essays in Modern Stylistics (London: Methuen, 1981), pp. 53-78

(originally published in 1973). 19. S.P. Yarbrough, "Structuralism and the Quest for a Scientific Criticism", in New

Orleans Review, vol. 12, pt. 3 (Fall 1985), p. 94.

20. In Yarbrough, p. 94.

21. Cf. Robey, p. 62.

36




or response to, patterns derived from elements within lower strata".22

Allowing for the fact that they take more care not to make the sort of

sweeping statements that incurred the wrath of Fowler, Burton, and Fish

(above), can this be taken as a healthy progression? Not so, apparently.

Linguistic theory in itself may be flawed; in its close attention to text it

has often ignored context. In the eyes of some literary theorists at least, it represents "simplifications of complex cultural and philosophical

phenomena".23 Classic studies such as those of Eagleton24 cast doubts on the nature of the objectivity of theory's claim to excellence. This led

to "less grandiose claims for the explanatory potential of stylistics in the

teaching and study of literature".25 Dan Shen, for example, looks at

structural feature as conventional fact in the conventional system of

language, and infers from this a corresponding system of literary conventions on which the reader works actively as interpreter. Follow

ing this approach, the linguistic facts may be seen as "'independent evidence"' of the literary impressions which the reader gets from the

text.26

One final comment remains to be made on the strict linguistic versus

interpretation discussion: it often seems to oppose psychological qualities

perceived as male and female. The supposed rationality, objectivity, and

systematic nature of linguistics is placed against the intuitive, subjective, and perhaps spontaneous quality of literary interpretation.27 Stylistics

may not only be a bridge but a union between formerly opposed disci

plines. The second area of controversy concerns the degree to which stylistics

borrows from disciplines other than linguistics. It is one of the grounds on which Fowler condemns literary criticism in his 1986 book:

What is best is not the critic's imperfect recollections of scraps of school grammar ('participle', 'past historic' 'gerund') eked out with old rhetorical terms ('zeugma', 'oxymoron') and modem value terms

used pseudo-descriptively ('complex', 'cohesive', 'polyvalenf). The random descriptive jargon used by most critics who practise verbal

analysis will communicate with readers only fortuitously.28

22. J.B. Smith, "Computers and Literary Theory", in Journal of the Association for Literary and Linguistic Computing, vol. 9, pt. 3 (1981), p. 2. Cf. also H.G. Schogt, Linguistics,

Literary Analysis, and Literary Translation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988),

p. 93: "aesthetic evaluation begins when the linguist's work has come to an end".

23. D. Attridge, p. 23.

24. T. Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983). 25. Carter, p. 15. The new note of caution can be found in, for example, Mair, p. 120;

Attridge, p. 26; Robey, p. 56, Milic in Fish, p. 55.

26. D. Shen, "Stylistics, Objectivity, and Convention", in Poetics: International Review for the Theory of Literature, vol. 17, pt. 3 Qune 1988), pp. 222-37.

27. Cf. J. Culler, in CB. Torsney, "The Critical Quilt: Alternative Authority in Feminist

Criticism", in G.D. Atkins and L. Morrow, Contemporary Literary Theory (New York:

Macmillan, 1989), p. 183.

28. Fowler, p. 3.

37




The picture becomes even more confused when we look at the work of a

linguist of repute, of whom Fowler approves: Geoffrey Leech; we find that he uses terms which Fowler praises along with others of which he

disapproves. A section of the contents page of Leech (1969)29 includes

"Oxymoron"; in Leech's book with Short, Style in Fiction (1981), other terms disapproved of by Fowler appear, for example, "complex" and

"cohesive".30

The truth is that stylistics "draws eclectically" on trends in literary

theory as well as using models and terminology from linguistic theory,31 so much so that one commentator believes there is a possibility that

stylistics may fade into literary theory in the future.32 That is not likely to happen soon, if at all, in the view of the author of this paper. Individual

uses of the methodology may veer towards linguistics or a form of literary

theory, just as in literary theory several areas may be used together, but

the firm definitions of influential theorists such as Leech and Short

(above), and Wales33 point to a recognisable union of linguistic method

ology plus interpretations of a literary nature, that is likely to prevail for

quite some time to come.

There are strong links and resemblances between the two areas, however. Earlier paragraphs touched on the relationship of linguistics, and by extension stylistics, to various kinds of literary criticism, notably to its neglect of context in contrast to historically and socially-based critical methods, such as Marxism, Feminism, Psychoanalytic criticism

and Reader-response theory. Because of its scant attention to these areas

Mair34 sees linguistic criticism even as a reincarnation of New Criticism.

More typically, because linguistics and structuralism have a common

ancestor in de Saussure, and because linguistic theory often seeks to

discover patterns in texts, linguistics might be considered to be a form

of structuralism. However, they soon move apart; for example, the

concentration on word-signs common to structuralism and linguistics

developed into a wider study of codes, with the ultimate aim of discover

ing the structure of the human psyche, in structuralism/semiotics.35

Linguistics outgrew its parent, as did post-structuralism.36 The above is a very brief account of the origins, development, con

troversies, and contributions to the literary field. It is time now to make an application of the methodology to a passage of Irish writing.

*

29. Leech, p. xiv. 30. See pp. 193-04 and p. 107. 31. Wales, p. 438. 32. Catano, p. 705.

33. See pp. 437-48. 34. Seep. 120. 35. Cf. L.H. Lefkovitz, "Creating the World: Structuralism and Semiotics", in Atkins

and Morrow, pp. 60-80; also Fabb and Durant, p. 12. 36. Fabb and Durant, p. 2.

38




The extract which I am using comes from Brian Friel's Translations (1981), Act Two, Scene 1, and it is between five to six hundred words long.37 It

represents part of a conversation between Hugh, Yolland, and Owen

(whom Yolland mistakenly calls "Roland"). The events supposedly take

place in a hedge school in the eighteen thirties. Hugh is the schoolmaster, Owen is his younger son, and Lieutenant Yolland is a young officer in

the British Army who is engaged in carrying out a cartographic survey of the area. This process includes the translation or anglicisation of the

Gaelic place names. The young men are engaged in their work and in

drinking the local illicit spirits when Hugh stops to speak to them. He is on his way to the priest, to collect a reference which might enable him to

obtain the post of teacher in the new national school. The extract begins with the part of the dialogue that discusses the Irish language and culture

and finishes with the words of Yolland which show that he has under

stood the underlying significance of the exchanges (in Appendix 1). The first method of analysis chosen is what is sometimes called

stylostatistics or stylometry.38 It consists in quantifying the lexical and

grammatical categories, the cohesion features, and the tropes of a text; in testing mathematically the significance of these by using the Chi-square formula, to see if certain aspects of each are foregrounded; and in drawing conclusions from the results. The particular format which I have used is

based on Leech and Short's 1981 book, Style in Fiction. The stylistic methods exemplified and discussed in this book have won praise from

a number of sources.39 In particular it is commended for having avoided

the pitfalls inherent in linguistics, of confining the treatment to the level

of the sentence alone, by looking at features such as tropes and cohesion

which pertain to text discourse, and for having included context as

a feature of the text in Part II of the book. However, it is not a foolproof method. New machine-readable corpora with more comprehensive

figures for words and grammatical frequencies of occurrence have come

on the market and are being used in the area of computational stylistics; and the validity of the Chi-square test for the purposes of detennining

significance has been challenged, in a recent series of e-mail letters to

the Corpora network, for example. Nevertheless, in spite of these and

perhaps other limitations, it serves as an example of what can be done

by using a quantification method; it has yielded some interesting results, which the following paragraphs will develop. In describing this and the

succeeding forms of analysis, there is not sufficient space to go through the full process; my purpose is to concentrate on the feasibility of using

37. B. Friel, Selected Plays (London: Faber and Faber, 1984), pp. 418-20.

38. D. Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985),

p. 292.

39. E.g. Shen, p. 228; Mair, p. 126.

39




the linguistic methodology to examine literature, and so just the key points of the theory, method and conclusions will be given.

Stylostatistical Analysis

The full mathematical figures of the stylostatistical analysis appear in

Appendix II. The different categories can be seen to yield different results, with some overlap. They can be summed up as follows:

(a) Verbs predominate in this passage, being much higher than the mean

for the language in the case of all three speakers (item 7 in table). The verbs moreover tend to be stative, or intransitive, and with an above

average use of the copula be: "Yes, it is a rich language"; "Words are

signals"; "... who actually converse in Greek and Latin" (items 24, 25, 29, and 30 in table). Another noteworthy feature is that the nouns are

much lower in number than the mean for the language; many of them are abstract, for example, "truths"; "exclusion"; more than half are proper nouns; e.g., "Irish (language)"; "Termon"; and nearly half are meta

linguistic; e.g., "language"; "vocabularies"; "syntax" (items 6,20,21 and

22 in table). These, together with statistics arising from an examination

of other parts of speech, suggest that the action is mainly cognitive,

revolving as it does around a discussion of the state of affairs of the Irish

language and culture.

(b) The grammatical features of the extract highlight conjunctions,

dependent clauses, and some very long sentences, e.g., "And it can

happen ... fact" (items 13, 14, and 48). This shows a complexity of

thought, especially on the part of Hugh.40 He uses very involved syntax, with constructions that are sometimes archaic: his language is that of a

rather self-consciously learned man, for example, "You'll find, Sir, ...

lives".

(c) The cohesion features of a text consist in the repetition of words,

e.g., "rich"; "nonsense"; in cross-reference by use of the definite article,

demonstratives, and "elegant variation", that is, the use of synonyms instead of repetition of the same lexical item (items 66-70 in table). Here

they indicate, not surprisingly, that this is a conversation between three

40. In his analysis of a passage from Golding's The Inheritors, Halliday uses the notion

of syntactic complexity as indicating stylistically a complexity of thought. Fish,

pp. 59-64, attacks this idea, as do Shen, p. 224, and Mair, p. 126. Shen accepts the

idea, however, as used in Leech and Short, p. 221, on the grounds that: "[t]he basic

psychological value here ... through which the linguistic form functions can be

regarded as a conventional value base for contextual association" (p. 228). In the

Friel passage above, too, the complexity in syntax is associated with a complex meta

linguistic discussion and a high number of abstract nouns, making complexity of

thought a sustainable claim.

40




people: "I... you

... that nonsense ...", etc. In addition, these speakers

repeat and echo names ? of persons, place, and the names of languages, for example, "Lieutenant... Lis na Muc ... Irish ..." ?

and evaluative

words such as "good", and "splendid", all of which come to have a

thematic significance.

(d) The figures of speech (not in table) include: patterns in grammar and vocabulary; rhyme, alliteration and assonance; and tropes such as

metaphor and metonymy. A study of them in this extract proves very

rewarding. It highlights the tensions, ambiguities and dangers inherent

in the relationships between the men and the cultures they represent, as

new friends are made, new causes are adopted, and old allegiances are

renounced. For example, they talk as friends, but their repeated titles

for each other: "Lieutenant", "Sir", "Father", indicate that they are also

role-bound as officer of the colonising forces, schoolmaster, and parent and son. The figures of speech highlight key points about the attractions

and consequent perils of this ancient civilisation for both its members

and neophytes: "A rich language"; "certain cultures expend... acquisitive

energies and ostentations"; "full of the mythologies of fantasy and hope and self-deception

? a syntax opulent with tomorrows"; "it can happen ... that civilisation can be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no

longer matches the landscape of ... fact". Their respective positions are

full of threat for them, but only the older man, the teacher, can see this.

He shows his mastery in several ways: in the awareness to which I have

just alluded, in his mastery of a rhetorical style, as exemplified in the

passages above, and in his ability to sharpen the perceptions of the one

who listens willingly to him; Yolland comes to realise that the name

changing process in which he is engaged is "an eviction of sorts".

Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis: (a) An Adaptation of Transaction

Management and Dominance

These areas overlap, in that pragmatics focuses on language in use, par

ticularly in the area of conversation, and in that drama is a form of

discourse, and includes conversation; thus it can be analysed as discourse

and as conversation. The first kind of analysis from this common area

represents my adaptation of Transaction Management41 and of Domin

41. D. Burton, "Conversation pieces", in R. Carter and D. Burton (eds), Literary Text and

Language Study (London: Edward Arnold, 1982), pp. 86-115. A synopsis of the method

is as follows: Exchanges can be pre-topic or topic exchanges. Within each exchange, the speakers make opening, supporting, challenging, bound-opening, or re-opening

moves. Within each move, utterances are divided into the following acts: marker, summons, silent stress, starter, metastatement, conclusion, informative, elicitation,

directive, accusation, comment, accept, reply, react, acknowledge, excuse, preface,

prompt, clue, nomination, and evaluate. This provides a manageable analysis which

lends itself to an interpretation based on patterns and frequencies.




ance (in Short),42 using graphological (diagrammatic) representation to

elucidate these and further findings.

(i) From Transaction Management I took the concept of moves

(roughly, contributions from each speaker): Opening (the topic),

Bound-opening, Re-opening, Supporting, or Challenging. This was

felt to be very relevant, as the stylostatistical study had indicated

that the relationships between the speakers were strongly marked

by approval and disapproval. (ii) Showing moves alone would give a limited view of the power

relationships in the text, so I decided to use, in addition to the above, Short's ideas about dominance in conversation, e.g., the use of the

pronouns system to indicate nearness or distance in relationships, the use of names and titles to indicate social relationships; also, commands, taking the initiative in exchanges, and the production of longer exchanges to gain control of the conversation.

(iii) When I experimented on paper with diagrams representing the interactions of the three speakers, a third strand of possible analysis

emerged: a graphological representation of the way in which Hugh interacts with the two other men, in managing to keep one on either

hand. The column representing his speech thus appears in the

middle of the other two.

In the diagram (Appendix II), arrows depict the direction of the

utterance of each speaker (graphology; taking initiative). Typing in the

full text shows who spoke the most and when characters were silent,

(production of longer exchanges); putting the moves consecutively shows the sequence of the dialogue; and initial letters in the margin

classify each move (moves): b.o being bound-opening, o for opening, s

for supporting, c for challenging, and r.o for re-opening. "Naming" is

indicated by underlining (names and titles); personal pronouns relating to the three speakers (first and second persons, third person masculine, and also reflexive/reciprocal) are shown in bold type (pronoun system); the infrequent commands are indicated in brackets after utterances

(commands), along with the graphological word number in each

utterance (production of longer exchanges). These features are totalled

at the end of the diagram, under each of the speakers' names.

You can see even from a cursory look at the diagram that Hugh is

the dominant speaker, acting as the pivot of the conversation, and with

the greatest number of words. A full analysis is not possible here, but

it can be summed up as follows: The initial dominance of Yolland ("I'm

42. M. Short, "Discourse Analysis and the Analysis of Drama", in R. Carter and P.

Simpson (eds), Language, Discourse and Literature: An Introductory Reader in Discourse

Stylistics (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), pp. 139-68.

42




learning to speak Irish, sir") softens to give way to Hugh ("Indeed, Lieutenant,."). The son's attack subsequently ("Will you stop that

nonsense, Father") is a set-back to his position, but even though he is

stung, Hugh fights back magnificently ("Yes, it is a rich language ...") and regains pre-eminence over both the younger men, even after he has

left their presence. In the ensuing dialogue, Owen is sullen about being vanquished ("An expedition

... pompous ... drinks too much"), but

Yolland is full of respect for the schoolmaster, and acknowledges his

debt of perception to him ("He's an astute man ... knows what's

happening ... It's an eviction of sorts").

Pragmatics/Discourse Analysis: Implicature

The second method of analysis from Pragmatics /Discourse Analysis examines Implicature. It is indicated by the use of asterisks in the diagram in Appendix III. The theoretical base of it can be summarised as follows:

Grice43 believes that the basic principle in conversation is that of co

operation between the speakers, or being polite to each other. This com

prises four maxims:

(i) Quantity: making their contributions as informative as is required, and not any more than that;

(ii) Quality: telling the truth; (hi) Relation: being relevant;

(iv) Manner being clear, to the point, and orderly.

These maxims can be broken in four ways, e.g., by lying. The one which

concerns me here is that of flouting, or exploiting the maxims (as opposed to breaking them), to convey an additional meaning, e.g., "Mr Ryan is

not in his office", when both speaker and listener are aware that he is in

his office; the maxim of Quality has been flouted; the listener implicates from this that Mr Ryan does not wish to see him/her. The same principle

applies also to conversation in drama; speakers break the maxims at

conversational level. At a deeper level still, the author, by representing a

character breaking the maxims, is implicating something which the

audience or reader is intended to decipher.44 An examination of the extract, using this method, shows that Hugh

flouts the maxims most, e.g., of Manner, or being to the point, by his

elaborate claim for the stance of his people in regard to their culture, and of Quality, or telling the truth, by his use of metaphors rather than

more literal language: "You'll find, Sir, that certain cultures expend on

43. In G. Brown and G. Yule, Discourse Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

44. This application to literature can be found in M.L. Pratt, "Literary Co-operation and

Implicature", in DC Freeman (ed.), Essays in Modern Stylistics (London: Methuen,

1981), pp. 377-412.

43




their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive energies and ostentations

entirely lacking in their material lives". This enhanced form of utterance

is made necessary by the delicacy of the situation (a warning for the

young member of the colonising army against romanticising the culture of the colonised, from one of the colonised), and the complexity of the

thought. Going deeper still, at the level of authorial implicature we see

Friel implicating:

(i) the complexity of the metalinguistic topic; (ii) the intelligence and erudition of Hugh;

(iii) the failure of Owen to comprehend him, especially where the author

shows the son misquoting the father in a significant way; Hugh's ironic words "We like to think we endure around truths immem

orially posited" become "Enduring around...". Meanwhile Yolland

progresses from idealism to a genuine understanding; "how

remarkable a community this is ..." gives way to "It's an eviction

of sorts".

(iv) the varying relationships between the three men and the develop ment of these; Hugh in magisterial form is also Hugh the failed

schoolmaster, penniless, and father to a critical son. Yolland is an

officer in the colonising army, a position compromised perhaps by his friendship with the son and admiration for the father;

(v) the strong contrasts between the characters: an idealistic Yolland; a pragmatic and materialistic Owen; a wise, ironic and possibly

world-weary older man, Hugh.

*

What was the value of using three forms of linguistic criticism to

examine the Friel extract? What has each form of analysis to offer? Are

they equally valid? These questions cannot be answered definitively and

comprehensively, but the conclusions arrived at from the readings will

be presented, with some comments about their wider relevance.

The methods of analysis used in this study yielded individual results, with some overlap. They each emphasised a different aspect of the text.

(a)The stylostatistical analysis drew attention to the complexity in the

lexis and the syntactic structures, which in turn made me aware of the

complexity of the ideas; the metalinguistic topic is "foregrounded", therefore. Irony, and the attitudes of the speakers to each other, were

also underlined.

(b) The Transaction Management/Dominance analysis focused strongly on the relationships. An initial dominance by Yolland gives way to, but

is also answered by, the conflict between father and son concerning their

culture. Hugh is the character who emerges on top: he uses the most

words, he is the most knowledgeable, he relates to both of the others

44




often simultaneously, he wins over the third person (Yolland) to his side, and leaves himself as the topic of conversation in his wake.

(c) The analysis using the theory of Conversational Implicature also

highlights the superiority of Hugh, this time in his ability to use language

flexibly, both to inter-relate to the two young men, and to convey the

complexity of the topic. Authorial intention is seen in the implicatures, in general, but more specifically by showing Owen to misunderstand

and misquote his father; his ability to comprehend the situation is thus

shown to be the weaker, just as the previous method showed him losing the power-struggle.

Perhaps it could be argued that these discoveries could have been

made without resorting to a detailed form of linguistic analysis. To this

I can answer that certain facts will be obvious to the reader or audience,

e.g., the metalinguistic nature of the discussion, or the basic attitudes of

the characters. However, the close analysis enabled me to do two things: (i) to give a factual base to the observed points

? something analogous

to scientific proof; (ii) to discover things that lay below the surface, e.g., the friendliness of the conversation being undercut by the use of titles; the effect of the son's misquotation of his father's words; most of all the

dominance of Hugh. Let me elaborate on this. My previous acquaintance with the play had taken the form of reading the text, discussing it with

others, reading some critical commentaries, attending a stage

performance of it, and using it as a class text. With regard to the passage chosen here, certain facts were established in my mind: the importance of the topic of language and culture; the nature of the family relationships; the use of irony; the latent tragedy. On stage especially, Hugh's mild

manner, his shabbiness, his less endearing social habits of pressing someone for a loan and drinking to excess, obscured his importance. In

contrast, the character and presentation of Yolland is dramatically very attractive; the high point of the play is his love scene with Maire, and his

disappearance at the end gives him a sort of tragic apotheosis. The

analysis carried out on this extract, however, shows Yolland rather as a

vehicle for extracting thematic and dramatic developments from the other

participants in the scene; he, like Voltaire's Candide, and science-fiction's

aliens from outer space, serves to set in relief what already exists in the

world to which he comes. With regard to Owen, his wish to change the

world in a hurry and to keep a foothold in two cultures is even more

exposed in the detailed analysis. This uncovering of what falls "well

below the ordinary reader's level of consciousness" is what Robey praises in discussing Jakobson's linguistic analysis of a Shakespearean sonnet.45

For me, personally, this deep mining process was the most important conclusion of my experiment in analysis.

45. 1982, p. 51.

45




APPENDIX I Extract from Brian Friel's Translations (1981)46

YOLLAND: I'm learning to speak Irish, sir. HUGH: Good. YOLLAND: Roland's teaching me. HUGH: Splendid. YOLLAND: I mean ? I feel so cut off from the people here. And I was trying to

explain a few minutes ago how remarkable a community this is. To meet

people like yourself and Jimmy Jack who actually converse in Greek and Latin. And your place

names ? what was the one we came across this

morning? ?

Termon, from Terminus, the god of boundaries. It

- it

- it's

really astonishing. HUGH: We like to think we endure around truths immemorially posited. YOLLAND: And your Gaelic literature

? you're a poet ourself

?

HUGH: Only in Latin, I'm afraid. YOLLAND: I understand it's enormously rich and ornate. HUGH: Indeed, Lieutenant. A rich language. A rich literature. You'll find, sir,

that certain cultures expend on their vocabularies and syntax acquisitive

energies and ostentations entirely lacking in their material lives. I suppose you could call us a spiritual people.

OWEN (Not unkindly; more out of embarrassment before Yolland): Will you stop that nonsense, Father.

HUGH: Nonsense? What nonsense? YOLLAND: Do you know where the priest lives? HUGH: At Lis na Muc, over near ...

OWEN: No, he doesn't. Lis na Muc, the Fort of the Pigs, has become Swinefort.

(Now turning the pages of the Name-Book ? a page per name). And to get to Swinefort you pass through Greencastle and Fair Head and Strandhill and Gort and Whiteplains. And the new school isn't at Poll na gCaorach

? it's at Sheepsrock. Will you be able to find your way?

(Hugh pours himself another drink. Then) HUGH: Yes, it is a rich language, Lieutenant, full of the mythologies of fantasy

and hope and self-deception?a syntax opulent with tomorrows. It is our

response to mud cabins and a diet of potatoes; our method of replying to ... inevitabilities. (7b Owen) Can you give me the loan of half-a-crown? I'll

repay you out of the subscriptions I'm collecting for the publication of my new book. (To Yolland) It is entitled: 'The Pentaglot Preceptor or Elementary Institute of the English, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Irish Languages; Particularly Calculated for the Instruction of Such Ladies and Gentlemen as may Wish to Learn without the Help of a Master'.

YOLLAND: (Laughs) That's a wonderful title! HUGH: Between ourselves ? the best part of the enterprise. Nor do I, in fact,

speak Hebrew. And that last phrase ?

'without the Help of a Master' ?

that was written before the new national school was thrust upon me ? do

you think I ought to drop it now? After all you don't dispose of the cow

just because it has produced a magnificent calf, do you? YOLLAND: You certainly do not. HUGH: The phrase goes. And I'm interrupting work of moment. (He goes to the

door and stops there) To return briefly to that other matter, Lieutenant. I

46. Here published by kind permission of Mr Brian Friel and Messrs Faber and Faber

Ltd.

46




understand your sense of exclusion, of being cut off from a life here; and I

trust you will find access to us with my son's help. But remember that words are

signals, counters. They are not immortal. And it can

happen ?

to use an image you'll understand ? it can

happen that a civilisation can

be imprisoned in a linguistic contour which no longer matches the

landscape of ... fact. Gentlemen. (He leaves). OWEN: 'An expedition with three purposes': the children laugh at him*, he always

promises three points and he never gets beyond A and B. MANUS [sic]:He's an astute man.

OWEN: He's bloody pompous. YOLLAND: But so astute. OWEN: And he drinks too much. Is it astute not to be able to adjust for survival?

Enduring around truths immemorially posited ? hah!

YOLLAND: He knows what's happening. OWEN: What is happening? YOLLAND: I'm not sure. But I'm concerned about my part in it. It's an eviction

of sorts.

APPENDIX II Table of Frequency Distribution in the Passage

Yolland (Y) Hugh(H) Owen(O) Average in

English Language per 100

_words

Language per 100 Words

1. No. of (graphological) words in the extract 126 320 116

2. No. of (graphological) sentences 17 29 13

3. No. of questions and

commands in relation

to declaratives per

graphological sentences 0:17 6:29 5:13

4. No. of words per sentence 7.4 11.0 8.9 (17.8)

(per 100 words)

5. No. of multi-syllable

(graphological) words 13 10.32 48* 15 11 8.8 (11.37)INT

(A) LEXICAL DATA (per 100 (per 100 (per 100 words) words) words)

6. Nouns 21* 16.4 74 23.3 24 22.2 (27.2) 7. (Main) Verbs 24 18.8 45 14.2 21* 19.4 (13.1) 8. Adjectives 10 7.8 26 8.2 5* 4.6 (7.4) 9. Adverbs 10* 7.8 14 4.4 6 5.6 (5.3)

TOTAL (65) (50.8) (159) (50.1) (56) (51.8) (52.0)

Minor word classes

10. Prepositions 7* 5.5 37 11.6 9 8.3 (12.3) 11. Pronouns 27* 21.1 36 11.3 13 12.0 (10.2)

47




Yolland (Y) I Hugh (H) I Owen(O) I Average in English

Language per 100 words

12. Determiners 12 9.4 41 12.9 9 8.3 13. Conjunctions 8 6.3 13 4.1 9* 8.3

(coordinating) (5.6) 14. Conjunctions

(subordinating) 2 1.6 6 1.9 -

15. Auxiliaries 5 *3.9 21 6.6 6 5.6 (6.4) 16. Negative (not/n'O 2 1.6 3 0.9 5 4.6 (0.6) 17. Others

- - 2 0.6 1 0.9

18. TOTAL (63) (49.4) (159) (49.9) (52) (48.0) (48.0) 19. TOTAL NO. OF WORDS (128) (318) (108)

Selected categories

ofwords Nouns (per 100 of

same speech class):

20. Proper: Common 8:13 17:57 14:10* (1:6:77) 21. Abstract: Concrete 18:3 62:12 22:2* (7.4) INT

22. Linguistic or relating to language 9 42.9 24 32.4 15* 62.5 (45.9) INT

23. Nouns in other

languages 2 13

Main Verbs:

24. Stative: dynamic 14:10* 18:27 8:13

1.40 .67 .62 (.90) INT 25. Copula (BE) 10* 41.67 5 11.11 4 19.05 (23.94) INT 26. Copula % of language 7.81* 1.57 3.7 (3.79) 27. Verbs pertaining to the

teaching situation 7 29.17 19 42.22 2* 9.52 (26.97) INT 28. Verbs pertaining to

money - 4 -

29. Transitive verbs 4 16.67 19* 42.22 6 28.57 (29.15) INT 30. Intransitive verbs 20 83.33 25* 55.56 15 71.43 (70.11) INT

Adjectives: 31. Adjectives of provenance 1 5 -

32. Evaluative 6* 60 10 38.46 2 40 (46.15) INT 33. Emotive adjectives 3 - -

Adverbs:

34. Adverbs of location 1 2 1

35. Adverbs of time 1 2 1 36. Intensifying adverbs 4 4 2 37. Focusing adverbs 3 4 -

(even, only, etc.) 38. Pronouns: 1st person

personal pronouns 9 33.33 15 41.66 -* 0 (25) INT 39. Pronouns: 2nd person

personal pronouns 2 8 4

40. Pronouns: 3rd person

personal pronouns 8 8 8

48




I Yolland (Y) I Hugh(H) I Owen(O) I Average in English

Language per 100 words

41. Demonstratives (this, that, those! 2 1

~

(both pronouns and

determiners)

Prepositions: 42. Locative 4 57.14 14 37.83 7* 77.77 (46.25) INT 43. Other 3 42.86 23 62.16 2* 22.22 (42.41) DSJT

Determiners:

44. Definite article 3* 25.00 15 36.59 4 44.44 (35.34) INT 45. Indefinite article 5 41.67 13 31.7 1* 11,01 (28.13) INT

(B) GRAMMATICAL DATA Clauses (per 100 clauses)

46. Independent clauses 15 53.57 21* 34.42 15 65.22 (51.07) INT 47. Dependent clauses 13 40 8

48. Ratio of independent clauses to dependent

clauses 1.15 .53 1.88* (1.19) INT

49. No. of clause

coordinations 7 13 4

Dependent clauses:

(a) Finite clauses

50. Noun Clauses 3 7 1

51. Relative clauses 2 ^ "

52. TOTAL 5 11 1

(b) Non-finite clauses

53. Infinitive clauses 3 6 4 54. Participle clauses (-ing)

- 1 1 55. Participle clauses (-ed) 1 2 1 56. Verbless clauses 4 14.29 13 21.31 1* .04 (11.88) INT 57. Others - 7

TOTAL 8 22 7

Noun phrases (per 100 NPS) 58. Premodification 4 44.44 14* 58.33 1 50 (50.92) INT 59. Postmodification 5 55.55 10* 41.67 1 50 [(49.07) INT

Verb phrase constructions

60. Modal auxiliaries - 10 2

61. Progressive aspect 4 3 1

62. Perfective aspect - 1 1

63. Passive voice - ^ *

Prepositional phrases (per 100 PPS) 64. Asadverbials 3 50 15 28.84 8* 88.88 (55.90) INT 65. Aspostmodifiers 3 50 37 71.15 1* 11.11 (44.08) INT

(C) COHESION DATA (per 100 expls of cohesion)

66. Lexical repetitions 7 21.21 9 17.65 8* 32 (13.06) INT

49




Cross reference by: I I I I 67. (i) Personal pronouns 19 57.58 30 58.82 12* 48 (54.8) INT

68. (ii) Definite article 1 1 3

69. (iii) Demonstratives 2 4 I

70. (iv)'elegant variation' 4 7 *

1. This table is based on that of Leech and Short, pp. 112-17, with adaptations to the

present context. It includes supplementary material from A. Ellegard, The Syntactic Structure of English Texts: A Computer-based Study of Four Kinds of Text in the Brown

University Corpus (Gothenburg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1979), a book which

supplied the figures in the right-hand column. The chi-square test has been used to

determine significances to the second degree of freedom at 95% confidence (cf. J.

Kmenta, Elements of Econometrics (New York: Collier, 1971), and the category of each

set of three with most significance is marked with an asterisk (*). Where averages of

frequency of occurrence in the English language is not given in Ellegard, the sign INT

refers to the norm for the three speakers.

APPENDIX III

Pragmatics/DA:(a); Pragmatics/DA: (b)

YOLLAND HUGH_ OWEN_

I'm learning to ~M III speak Irish, sjr_(6) 0.. <- Good. (1)

RpJansLs teaching S me. (3) ~M

b.o

\ i- \ Splendid. (1) S

-

I mean ? I feel so ~* I cut off from the '

people here. And I b.o

was trying to explain a few minutes ago how remarkable a

community this is.

To meet people like

yourself and Jimmy Jack who actually converse in Greek

and Latin. And your

place names ? what

was the one we came

across this morning? ?

Termon, from I Terminus, the god of boundaries. It-it-it's really

astonishing. (67)

50




YOLLAND 1 HUGH I OWEN <- We like to think we

S endure around truths

immemorially

posited. (10)

And your Gaelic ->

literature ? you're b.o

a poet yourself ?

(8)

<r- Only in Latin, I'm

S afraid. (5)

I understand it's -?

enormously rich and b.o

ornate. (7)

<r- Indeed, Lieutenant.

S A rich language. A

rich literature.

You'll find, sir, that certain cultures

*

expend on their vo

cabularies and syntax

acquisitive energies and ostentations

entirely lacking in

their material fives. I suppose you could

call us a spiritual

people. (39) <- C Will you stop that

+ 0 nonsense, Father.

(6) (Command)

Nonsense? What ->

nonsense? (3) C

<- Do you know *

C where the priest + lives? (17) b.o

At Lis na Muc, over -?

near ...(6) S

?- No, he doesn't.

C. Lis na Muc, the

b.o Fort of the Pigs, has become

Swinefort. (turning

pages) And to get to Swinefort you

pass through Greencastle and

Fair Head and

Strandhill and Gort

and Whiteplains.

51




YOLLAND |

HUGH 1 OWEN

And the new school

isn't at Poll na

gCaorach ? it's at

C Sheepsrock. Will you be able to find your way? (52)

(HUGH pours -?

another drink. Then: C <- Yes, it is a rich r.o language. Lieutenant.

full of the

mythologies of

fantasy and hope and self- deception ? a syntax opulent

*

with tomorrows. It

is our response to

mud cabins and a

diet of potatoes; our

method of replying to .., inevitabilities.

Can you give -?

me the loan of

half-a-crown? I'll 0.

repay you out of

the subscriptions I'm collecting for

the publication of <- my new book,

b.o It is entitled: *

'The Pentaglot

Preceptor or

Elementary Institute of the English, Greek, Hebrew, Latin

and Irish Languages;

Particularly Calculated for the

Instruction of Such

Ladies and Gentle men as may Wish to

Learn without the

Help of a Master'.

(105) That's a wonderful ->

title! (4) S.

<- Between ourselves ?

S. the best part of the

enterprise. Nor do

b.o I, in fact, speak Hebrew. And that

b.o last phrase ?

'without the Help of a Master' ?

that

52




YOLLAND_ 1 HUGH_ IpWEN_ was written before

the new national *

school was thrust

upon me ? do you think I ought to

drop it now? After

all you don't

dispose of the cow

just because it has I [ produced a magnifi cent calf, do you? (64)

You certainly do "~M not. (4) S

j <- The phrase goes.

S And I'm interrupting <- work of moment. ~*

O \ (Goes to door). To <r- return briefly to

r.o the other matter,

LkuleDanl. I under

stand your sense of *

exclusion, of being cut off from a life

here; and I trust

you will find access

to us with my son's

help. But remember *

that words are

signals, counters.

They are not

immortal. And it

can happen ? to use

an image you'll understand

? it can

happen that a

civilisation can be *

imprisoned in a

linguistic contour

which no longer I matches the land

scape of... fact. <- Gentlemen. (87) ->

(Command) (He leaves).

<- 'An expedition with

0 three purposes': the children laugh at him: he always promises three

points and he never

gets beyond A and I I |B. (23)

He's an astute man. I -> I | (4) I C | | III I

53




YOLLAND_ HUGH_ OWEN_

<- He's bloody C pompous. (3)

But so astute. (3) -?

C

<- And he drinks too

r.o much. Is it astute

not to be able to

C adjust for sur

vival? Enduring r.o around truths im-

*

memorially posited ? hah! (22)

He knows what's ?>

happening. (4) C <- What is happening?

C (3) I'm not sure. But ?>

I'm concerned about S

my part in it. r.o

It's an eviction of

sorts. (16)

TOTALS:_YOLLAND_HUGH_OWEN

Words (graphological) 126 320 116 Commands Oil

Use of names/titles 2 5 1 Use of personal pronouns 15 24 10

Opening moves 112

Bound-opening moves 4 4 2

Re-opening moves 12 2

Challenging moves 3 2 7

Supporting moves 3 8 0

54



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