The Oral
Tradition: A Mexican Polish Song
Emily Bencsics
Indiana University
South Bend
English L502
Rebecca Brittenham
1/22/2012
The Oral
Tradition: A Mexican Polish Song
Before writing,
there is sound; there is music in the mind long before pen hits paper, or
phalanges strike keys. Oral language
came long before any written language, and has never left our side. “Oral language is our original gift…For
centuries people identified the breath with which we speak with the spirit or
the soul and the language they spoke with their unique humanity” (Gee &
Hayes, 2011, p. 5). When the power and
overall history of the spoken word is discovered, there tends to be a moment of
excitement and wonder. As an instructor
of Presentation Skills (affectionately known as Speech class), I am acutely
aware of my student’s internal (and forcibly external) music within their
words. How exciting it is to watch the
discovery that the cadence, pitch, and volume of a speaker can be so integral
to the message, whether it is written down somewhere or not. In essence, my students are unveiling their
own literacy narratives, and it is ironically, the “literacy” of the oral
tradition.
Just as my
speech students come into a new knowledge, theory, or idea, the oral language
tradition is absolutely crucial for their understanding of this new
material. The oral tradition is
especially important for those coming into a new literacy. “…the best predictor of a child’s success in school, including learning to
read, is the child’s oral vocabulary around the age of five…Oral language
development is the foundation for success in school and in school-based literacy”
(Gee & Hayes, 2011, p. 18). As is
illustrated in the works of Richard Rodriguez and Eva Hoffman, oral language
plays an enormous role in the literacy narrative genre, and in their personal
experiences contained within.
Richard
Rodriguez has an acute awareness of the oral tradition even at the very
beginning of the selection. “I stand in
the ghetto classroom – ‘the guest speaker’ – attempting to lecture on the
mystery of the sounds of our words to rows of diffident students. ‘Don’t you hear it? Listen! The music of our
words’” (Rodriguez, 2005, p. 562). In
the upcoming pages, Rodriguez goes on to reveal interesting (albeit, stressful)
vignettes about the sounds of language within his home, and in the
classroom. At first reading, it appears
to be truly maddening that the dichotomy between his Mexican-American household
and his classroom is so vast. “But he senses those differences early. Perhaps as early as the night he brings home
an assignment from school and finds the house too noisy for study…The next day,
the lesson is apparent at school…Discussion is ordered” (Rodriguez, 2005, p.
565). In this particular instance, it
feels as though we are witnessing the end of Rodriguez’s oral tradition with
Spanish only to see it being replaced by this new English literacy. As Rodriguez continues his studies, it
becomes powerfully evident that natural speech of family life is slipping
away. After a brief exchange with his
mother, she responds with “[a] half smile, then silence. Her head moving back in silence.
Silence! Instead of the intimate sounds
that had once flowed smoothly between us, there was this silence” (Rodriguez,
2005, p. 567). Although not discussed in
much detail, Rodriguez must feel some sense of loss of family, or loss of
culture here. It is interesting to note
that as Rodriguez descends into his new literacy, one of the very first signs
of change is within the spoken word, or lack thereof.
As
Rodriguez continues in school, “[n]othing is said of the silence that comes to
separate the boy from his parents…His story makes clear that education is a
long, unglamorous, even demeaning process – a
nurturing never natural to the person one was before one entered a classroom”
(Rodriguez, 2005, p. 577-578). Eventually,
Rodriguez senses the loneliness, isolation, and silence that being “educated”
can bring. Throughout the essay, he
mentions free-flowing conversation being replaced with silence. One cannot help but wonder if this
self-inflicted chipping away of his own oral tradition has caused his
recognition of his loss of a basic human trait in the end.
Just as Rodriguez expressed losses within the
oral tradition in his essay, so does Eva Hoffman with her journey from Poland
to Canada. Hoffman’s hyper awareness of
the differing sounds of her native language (Polish) from those of English
plays an important role throughout her narrative. Like Rodriguez’s selection, Hoffman’s
narrative is tinged with a sense of loss for the native oral language
(arguably, more so). “‘Shut up,
shuddup,’ the children around us are shouting, and it’s the first word in
English that I understand from its dramatic context…I can’t imagine wanting to
talk their harsh-sounding language” (Hoffman, 1989, p. 104-105). This observation by the author gives the
reader such an interesting perspective on how a non-English speaking individual
might feel upon listening to a foreign tongue.
Oral language is inexorably linked
to the way one perceives and feels about the world. “‘River’ in Polish was a vital sound,
energized with the essence of riverhood, of my rivers, of my being immersed in
rivers. ‘River’ in English is cold – a
word without an aura…It does not evoke” (Hoffman, 1989, p. 106). The music of language conjures images, and
not just regular images, but vivid ones, which in essence, gives us our
reality. Later on, we see these losses
of word connotations as being nothing short of an identity crisis for the
author.
Indeed, it is internal dialogue
that when jeopardized, threatens our very being – our very core. From the immigrant’s perspective, “[t]he
verbal blur covers these people’s faces, their gestures with a sort of fog…I’m
not filled with language anymore, and I have only a memory of fullness to
anguish me with the knowledge that, in this dark and empty state, I don’t
really exist” (Hoffman, 1989, p. 108). After
digesting this statement, one wonders how anyone in history could move away
from his or her native language. What an
amazing feat to move away from what one knows into what could only be described
as a self-imposed language/culture identity nightmare.
In addition to one’s own internal
dialogue, the oral tradition is essential to everyday conversations and
interactions with others. Something as
simple as telling a joke can be intimidating at best in one’s own native
tongue, and downright terrifying in a foreign language. “But as I hear my choked-up voice straining
to assert itself, as I hear myself missing every beat and rhythm that would say
‘funny’ and ‘punch line,’ I feel a hot flush of embarrassment…Telling a joke is
like doing a linguistic pirouette” (Hoffman, 1989, p. 117-118). This passage beautifully illustrates how the
music of language plays such a vital role in social situations, conveying
messages, and overall effective communication.
Interestingly, this shift from one
oral language to another has some rather unique personality consequences. Both Hoffman and Rodriguez experience a form
of silence and isolation from their former selves. “I’ve never been prim before, but that’s how
I am seen by my new peers. I don’t try
to tell jokes too often, I don’t know the slang, I have no cool repartee. I love language too much to maul its beats,
and my pride is too quick to risk incomprehension that greats such forays”
(Hoffman, 1989, p. 118). Honestly,
Hoffman appears to have been quite a witty one back in Poland, complete with
the lush sounding vocabulary to back up her banter. One cannot help but sense she misses this
ability terribly.
Because oral language is more
primal than the written word, there tends to be a certain physicality
associated with it. As one is initiated
into a new oral language, quite literally there are physical changes happening
within. “My voice is doing funny
things. It does not seem to emerge from
the same parts of my body as before. It
comes out from somewhere in my throat, tight, thin, and mat – a voice without
modulations, dips, and rises that it had before, when it went from my stomach
all the way through my head” (Hoffman, 1989, p. 121-122). Hoffman is so attuned to the sounds of words,
that she can actually “feel” the changes in her own body as she speaks
them. This most definitely makes the
case for the understanding of the power of oral language within the framework
of the literacy narrative genre.
In conclusion, it is at once
crucial and fair that we look upon languages and literacies through the lens of
the oral tradition. Gee and Hayes (2011)
even state that “[w]e have lost a good deal of the art of using, and many of
the language devices for telling, epic oral stories…We still find them in
poetry, but they have nothing like the robust and central place they had in
oral cultures…few of us are even aware of the loss of epic storytelling as a
way of passing down knowledge and binding a culture together” (p. 19-20). In some deep down visceral sense, Rodriguez
and Hoffman were aware of this; whether or not they considered it a loss
remains somewhat ambiguous. Basically,
before one can write a good story, one must tell
a good story; this is true regardless if one is a speech student, an immigrant,
or a teacher. It is only human, after
all.
References
Gee, J. P., &
Hayes, E. R. (2011). Language and
learning in the digital age. New York: Routledge.
Hoffman, E.
(1989). Lost in translation: A life in a
new language. New York: Penguin Books.
Rodriguez, R.
(2005). The achievement of desire. In D. Bartholomae & A. Petrosky (Eds.), Ways of reading: An anthology for writers (pp.
561-581). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
No comments:
Post a Comment