ENG303.1002 James L'Angelle University of Nevada, Reno Dr. A. Johnson 24 April 2020
22 April 2020--
Dictionary of Critical Terms, Installment # 003:
Term 001--Ebonics: As defined in Chapter 11 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today; "...double consciousness sometimes involves speaking two languages. Black culture lived at home sometimes includes the use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE, also called Ebonics or Black vernacular English) (346) In relation to language, the origin of the term is unclear. The word itself. ebonic, was used in an advertisement related to a dance in Iola, Kansas in 1934;
"Andy Kirk and his 12 Clouds of Joy: Enjoy that Hi-de-ho ebonic rhythm as only Andy can play it...3D's Nightclub" (Iola Daily Register, 3) Another newspaper article (The Pittsburgh Courier, 12 April 1952) references the word as used by Nat D Williams in 1952: "according to some ebonic folks.." Williams was a disc jockey so the word apparently has its origin from music.
In contemporary language modeling, the term is considered a hybrid of "ebony" and "phonics" and credited to Robert L. Williams of Washington University, as noted in Dorothy K. Williamson-Ige's 1984 Journal of Black Studies article, citing Williams and Rivers;
"Ebonics is defined as the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of West African, Caribbean and United States slave descendants of African origin. Ebonics includes the various idioms, patois, argots, ideolects and social dialects of these people." (Williamson-Ige, 22-23)
Further on, Williamson-Ige cites another scholar, E.A. Smith, with reference to other culturespeak; "no one refers to English spoken by Indians as 'red English' or that of Chinese as 'yellow English..." (25)
The use of ebonics locally is what led to controversy in the Oakland school district involving the teaching of it in the classroom in 1996; (Los Angeles Times)
Iola (KS) Daily Register, 21 Sept 1934, Page 3
Pittsburgh Courier, 12 April 1952.
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Williams, R. L. 1975 Ebonics: The true language of Black folks. St. Louis: Institute of Black Studies. Williamson-Ige, Dorothy K. “Approaches to Black Language Studies: A Cultural Critique.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 1984, pp. 17–29. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2784114. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
Oakland school district, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-20-mn-11042-story.html
Term 002--Orality: As defined in Chapter 11 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today;
"or the spoken quality of its language, gives a literary work a sense of its immediacy... In African American literature, orality is usually achieved by using Black Vernacular English and by copying the rhythms of black speech. (369)
Hiram Walker, the runaway slave in Ta-Nehisi Coates' antebellum novel, The Water Dancer, is forced to play a brutal game when he is captured and allowed to run again to see how far he can get before being recaptured;
"I would need all the assets I could manage. And so in my mind I began to call out the very anthems that Lem and I exchanged that last Holiday:
Going away to the great house farm
Going on up to where the house is warm
When you look for me, Gina, I'll be far gone." (Coates, 146)
The "great farm house" may represent a particular "patois" or "argot" of the vernacular of the antebellum Virginia tobacco farm slave; in Coates' terminology, the "Tasked," to separate them from the master, or "Quality." When he is captured again, suffering from an injured ankle, he shouts, this time, "out loud for all to hear;"
Going away to the great farm house
Going up, but won't be long
Be back, Gina, with my heart and my song. (148)
This enforces the Williamson-Ige definition of African-American Vernacular English from the term "ebonics" above with relation to its roots in West African, Carribean and slave origin.
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Coates, T., The Water Dancer, One World, NY, 2019
Term 003--Sissy: As defined in Chapter 4 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today;
"Clearly, one of the most devastating verbal attacks to which a man can be subjected is to be compared to a woman. Thus, being a 'real' man in patriarchal culture requires that one hold feminine qualities in contempt." (Tyson, 84)
A trace of the origin of the term leads all the way back to the middle of the Nineteenth century but it came into predominate use around President Theodore Roosevelt's time, with an example in the short essay titled "The Boyhood of a Sissie," by Adam Beaseley, Having been tagged a "Sunday school monstrosity," the label had its advantages;
"...not a boy in all the school ever wanted to fight me. Who would fight a Sissie?" (Beaseley, 1193)
Beaseley admitted fearing everything from the bullies in the schoolyard to being alone in the dark, he was jealous of his own sister;
"But I had a sister two years younger, a bouncing tomboy, who was everything I ought to have been, and who despised me for liking too well to play with the girls." (1193)
It was acceptable for a young girl to be a tomboy but not for a boy to be weak and effeminate. He was "persecuted with kisses" and wouldn't even let his "manly" sister kiss him.
Tyson doesn't address the polar opposite of sissy, that being a "tomboy," the girl who usually in adolescence rejects feminine traits and acts more like "one of the boys." As C. Lynn Carr notes in her journal article for Gender and Society;
"As 'aberrant' girls or pseudo boys, tomboys are ambiguous entities, begetting ambiguous reactions in both the mainstream and academe. While tomboys are granted more social and parental acceptance than their 'sissy' counterparts due to tomboy display of socially rewarded masculine traits or behaviors, and/or beliefs that tomboyism is temporary, tomboy is also a pejorative label, implying gender deviance.” (Carr, 530)
Using case histories, Carr makes a strong argument for why girls want to be like boys as opposed to Beaseley's wimpy justification for not wanting to be a man. Evident from Carr, the tomboy may find a place in a patriarchal culture far more easily.
Tyson, L., Feminist Criticism, Critical Theory, Routledge, 2015
Beaseley, A., "The Boyhood of a Sissie," The Independent, Vol. LIII, No. 2718, 3 January 1901,
Carr, C. Lynn. “Tomboy Resistance and Conformity: Agency in Social Psychological Gender Theory.” Gender and Society, vol. 12, no. 5, 1998, pp. 528–553. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/190119. Accessed 19 Apr. 2020.
Term 004--Indeterminacy: As defined in Chapter 4 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today; “...indeterminate meaning, ... refers to ‘gaps’ in the text--such as actions that are not clearly explained or that seem to have multiple explanations--which allow or even invite readers to create their own interpretations.” (166)
Along with its counterpart, determinacy, it is a method by which reader response criticism opens the door for interpretation of a text beyond the meaning implied by the author. Citing this Wolfgang Iser theory, an actual distinction with respect to reader response can be found in Menachem Brinker’s comparison in Poetics Today of Iser to the aesthetician Roman Ingarden;
“In finding material for the removal of textual indeterminacies the reader draws on his own experience (in life and literature) in order to bring into existence a whole ‘world’ of represented objects. The concretization of the representational stratum is more clearly dependent on the personality and experience of the reader; the demands made upon the reader in connection with it are unique. Without meeting them partially at least, there is no way of turning ‘the work’ into an aesthetic.” (Brinker, 203)
Brinker refers to Ingarden’s concept of authorial intention, as found in Tyson (130) and calls him out, through Iser, for still showing the “influence of classical aesthetics.” It is then carried one step further by looking at the reader’s intention. Brinker’s strongest point is with the introduction of gestalt to define the process of indeterminacy;
“On the basis of a consistent ‘reading,’ i.e., a coherent organization of information given to the reader at various places, the reader will form various Gestalten. This construction will be linked to the rejections of alternative ‘readings’ and to the neglect of various aspects or materials which do not fit the chosen Gestalt. The continuation of reading may cast doubt on the validity of the Gestalt.” (206) Gestalt is defined as the whole being more than the sum of its parts. This fits well into Tyson’s transactional process including the New Critic process of the “single best reading.”. (166)
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Brinker, Menachem. “Two Phenomenologies of Reading: Ingarden and Iser on Textual Indeterminacy.” Poetics Today, vol. 1, no. 4, 1980, pp. 203–212. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1771896. Accessed 19 Apr. 2020.
Reflection:
The first two terms, ebonics and orality, are similar as they represent language not considered formal in a linguistics sense. Also known as “Standard American English,” it is considered the language of the nation and in some cases, in some states, the “official” language. Between linguistics and anthropology that isn’t always the case. One finds there are innumerable dialects, vernaculars, hoodspeaks and what is also classified as code-switching and code-mixing in everyday conversations. Modern literature demands a knowledge of all of the aspects and variations of language, from the military jargon of Going After Cacciato to the gang rap of My Pafology.
The third term, sissy, is almost self-explanatory as one of the chosen-four with my experience in the military. No tough guy wants to be called one and at the same time, no tough guy wants to be considered a representative of the patriarchal society in which he was raised. We are caught in the crossfire of an obsolete socially acceptable norm and the modern world with its cultural subtleties. I found Beaseley’s short essay very funny but also very true, probably an early anti-patriarchal reaction to the Teddy Roosevelt bully pulpit of his day. If there was no place for sissies then, there is no place for name-callers today.
Number four, indeterminacy, has taken on new meaning throughout the intellectual world, from its roots in math equations and physics to finding solid ground in literary interpretation. Its value in reading with respect to the concept of gestalt gives a clear picture of something as important as the author’s intention, that being the reader’s intention. Not every writer is an omniscient narrator and even then, misreading the intent might reveal valuable new insight in the story.
O’Brien, T., Going After Cacciato, Bantam, 1978
Everett, P., Erasure, Graywolf Press, 2001
ENG303.1002 James L'Angelle University of Nevada, Reno Dr. A. Johnson 24 April 2020
Term 001--Ebonics: As defined in Chapter 11 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today; "...double consciousness sometimes involves speaking two languages. Black culture lived at home sometimes includes the use of African American Vernacular English (AAVE, also called Ebonics or Black vernacular English) (346) In relation to language, the origin of the term is unclear. The word itself. ebonic, was used in an advertisement related to a dance in Iola, Kansas in 1934;
"Andy Kirk and his 12 Clouds of Joy: Enjoy that Hi-de-ho ebonic rhythm as only Andy can play it...3D's Nightclub" (Iola Daily Register, 3) Another newspaper article (The Pittsburgh Courier, 12 April 1952) references the word as used by Nat D Williams in 1952: "according to some ebonic folks.." Williams was a disc jockey so the word apparently has its origin from music.
In contemporary language modeling, the term is considered a hybrid of "ebony" and "phonics" and credited to Robert L. Williams of Washington University, as noted in Dorothy K. Williamson-Ige's 1984 Journal of Black Studies article, citing Williams and Rivers;
"Ebonics is defined as the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum represent the communicative competence of West African, Caribbean and United States slave descendants of African origin. Ebonics includes the various idioms, patois, argots, ideolects and social dialects of these people." (Williamson-Ige, 22-23)
Further on, Williamson-Ige cites another scholar, E.A. Smith, with reference to other culturespeak; "no one refers to English spoken by Indians as 'red English' or that of Chinese as 'yellow English..." (25)
The use of ebonics locally is what led to controversy in the Oakland school district involving the teaching of it in the classroom in 1996; (Los Angeles Times)
Iola (KS) Daily Register, 21 Sept 1934, Page 3
Pittsburgh Courier, 12 April 1952.
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Williams, R. L. 1975 Ebonics: The true language of Black folks. St. Louis: Institute of Black Studies. Williamson-Ige, Dorothy K. “Approaches to Black Language Studies: A Cultural Critique.” Journal of Black Studies, vol. 15, no. 1, 1984, pp. 17–29. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2784114. Accessed 12 Apr. 2020.
Oakland school district, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-12-20-mn-11042-story.html
Term 002--Orality: As defined in Chapter 11 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today;
"or the spoken quality of its language, gives a literary work a sense of its immediacy... In African American literature, orality is usually achieved by using Black Vernacular English and by copying the rhythms of black speech. (369)
Hiram Walker, the runaway slave in Ta-Nehisi Coates' antebellum novel, The Water Dancer, is forced to play a brutal game when he is captured and allowed to run again to see how far he can get before being recaptured;
"I would need all the assets I could manage. And so in my mind I began to call out the very anthems that Lem and I exchanged that last Holiday:
Going away to the great house farm
Going on up to where the house is warm
When you look for me, Gina, I'll be far gone." (Coates, 146)
The "great farm house" may represent a particular "patois" or "argot" of the vernacular of the antebellum Virginia tobacco farm slave; in Coates' terminology, the "Tasked," to separate them from the master, or "Quality." When he is captured again, suffering from an injured ankle, he shouts, this time, "out loud for all to hear;"
Going away to the great farm house
Going up, but won't be long
Be back, Gina, with my heart and my song. (148)
This enforces the Williamson-Ige definition of African-American Vernacular English from the term "ebonics" above with relation to its roots in West African, Carribean and slave origin.
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Coates, T., The Water Dancer, One World, NY, 2019
Term 003--Sissy: As defined in Chapter 4 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today;
"Clearly, one of the most devastating verbal attacks to which a man can be subjected is to be compared to a woman. Thus, being a 'real' man in patriarchal culture requires that one hold feminine qualities in contempt." (Tyson, 84)
A trace of the origin of the term leads all the way back to the middle of the Nineteenth century but it came into predominate use around President Theodore Roosevelt's time, with an example in the short essay titled "The Boyhood of a Sissie," by Adam Beaseley, Having been tagged a "Sunday school monstrosity," the label had its advantages;
"...not a boy in all the school ever wanted to fight me. Who would fight a Sissie?" (Beaseley, 1193)
Beaseley admitted fearing everything from the bullies in the schoolyard to being alone in the dark, he was jealous of his own sister;
"But I had a sister two years younger, a bouncing tomboy, who was everything I ought to have been, and who despised me for liking too well to play with the girls." (1193)
It was acceptable for a young girl to be a tomboy but not for a boy to be weak and effeminate. He was "persecuted with kisses" and wouldn't even let his "manly" sister kiss him.
Tyson doesn't address the polar opposite of sissy, that being a "tomboy," the girl who usually in adolescence rejects feminine traits and acts more like "one of the boys." As C. Lynn Carr notes in her journal article for Gender and Society;
"As 'aberrant' girls or pseudo boys, tomboys are ambiguous entities, begetting ambiguous reactions in both the mainstream and academe. While tomboys are granted more social and parental acceptance than their 'sissy' counterparts due to tomboy display of socially rewarded masculine traits or behaviors, and/or beliefs that tomboyism is temporary, tomboy is also a pejorative label, implying gender deviance.” (Carr, 530)
Using case histories, Carr makes a strong argument for why girls want to be like boys as opposed to Beaseley's wimpy justification for not wanting to be a man. Evident from Carr, the tomboy may find a place in a patriarchal culture far more easily.
Tyson, L., Feminist Criticism, Critical Theory, Routledge, 2015
Beaseley, A., "The Boyhood of a Sissie," The Independent, Vol. LIII, No. 2718, 3 January 1901,
Carr, C. Lynn. “Tomboy Resistance and Conformity: Agency in Social Psychological Gender Theory.” Gender and Society, vol. 12, no. 5, 1998, pp. 528–553. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/190119. Accessed 19 Apr. 2020.
Term 004--Indeterminacy: As defined in Chapter 4 of Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today; “...indeterminate meaning, ... refers to ‘gaps’ in the text--such as actions that are not clearly explained or that seem to have multiple explanations--which allow or even invite readers to create their own interpretations.” (166)
Along with its counterpart, determinacy, it is a method by which reader response criticism opens the door for interpretation of a text beyond the meaning implied by the author. Citing this Wolfgang Iser theory, an actual distinction with respect to reader response can be found in Menachem Brinker’s comparison in Poetics Today of Iser to the aesthetician Roman Ingarden;
“In finding material for the removal of textual indeterminacies the reader draws on his own experience (in life and literature) in order to bring into existence a whole ‘world’ of represented objects. The concretization of the representational stratum is more clearly dependent on the personality and experience of the reader; the demands made upon the reader in connection with it are unique. Without meeting them partially at least, there is no way of turning ‘the work’ into an aesthetic.” (Brinker, 203)
Brinker refers to Ingarden’s concept of authorial intention, as found in Tyson (130) and calls him out, through Iser, for still showing the “influence of classical aesthetics.” It is then carried one step further by looking at the reader’s intention. Brinker’s strongest point is with the introduction of gestalt to define the process of indeterminacy;
“On the basis of a consistent ‘reading,’ i.e., a coherent organization of information given to the reader at various places, the reader will form various Gestalten. This construction will be linked to the rejections of alternative ‘readings’ and to the neglect of various aspects or materials which do not fit the chosen Gestalt. The continuation of reading may cast doubt on the validity of the Gestalt.” (206) Gestalt is defined as the whole being more than the sum of its parts. This fits well into Tyson’s transactional process including the New Critic process of the “single best reading.”. (166)
Tyson, L., African American Criticism, Critical Theory Today, Routledge, 2015
Brinker, Menachem. “Two Phenomenologies of Reading: Ingarden and Iser on Textual Indeterminacy.” Poetics Today, vol. 1, no. 4, 1980, pp. 203–212. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1771896. Accessed 19 Apr. 2020.
Reflection:
The first two terms, ebonics and orality, are similar as they represent language not considered formal in a linguistics sense. Also known as “Standard American English,” it is considered the language of the nation and in some cases, in some states, the “official” language. Between linguistics and anthropology that isn’t always the case. One finds there are innumerable dialects, vernaculars, hoodspeaks and what is also classified as code-switching and code-mixing in everyday conversations. Modern literature demands a knowledge of all of the aspects and variations of language, from the military jargon of Going After Cacciato to the gang rap of My Pafology.
The third term, sissy, is almost self-explanatory as one of the chosen-four with my experience in the military. No tough guy wants to be called one and at the same time, no tough guy wants to be considered a representative of the patriarchal society in which he was raised. We are caught in the crossfire of an obsolete socially acceptable norm and the modern world with its cultural subtleties. I found Beaseley’s short essay very funny but also very true, probably an early anti-patriarchal reaction to the Teddy Roosevelt bully pulpit of his day. If there was no place for sissies then, there is no place for name-callers today.
Number four, indeterminacy, has taken on new meaning throughout the intellectual world, from its roots in math equations and physics to finding solid ground in literary interpretation. Its value in reading with respect to the concept of gestalt gives a clear picture of something as important as the author’s intention, that being the reader’s intention. Not every writer is an omniscient narrator and even then, misreading the intent might reveal valuable new insight in the story.
O’Brien, T., Going After Cacciato, Bantam, 1978
Everett, P., Erasure, Graywolf Press, 2001
ENG303.1002 James L'Angelle University of Nevada, Reno Dr. A. Johnson 24 April 2020