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Roger Fowler and F. W. Bateson
(reprinted from Fowler, R. (1971)
The Languages of
Literature
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul)
Literature and linguistics: Roger Fowler
Mrs Vendler, in her review (Vendler 1966) of my
Essays on Style and Language
(Fowler
1966), is apparently optimistic that ‘descriptive linguistics will in the end be of
immense use to literary criticism’. If, however, we were to accept her generalisations
about the critical attempts of linguists, we would have to doubt whether this predic-
tion can come true; certainly it is doubtful that she wishes it. The hostility of Mrs
Vendler’s voice is depressingly familiar to those of us who have suffered from an
unnecessary schism between ‘language’ and ‘literature’ which has so long marred
English studies. Her tone betrays the fear, common among teachers of literature
although perhaps less so among the great critics, that linguists may invade and ravage
precious literary territory. I shall reserve my remarks on this opposition of linguists
and critics until the end of this paper, commenting at the moment only that Mrs
Vendler’s open invitation of confrontation in her first paragraph is a damaging
strategy. [. . .]
I hope that in these unsettled days linguists will be slow to claim too much, and
literary critics for their part [will be] more patient than Mrs Vendler. One can agree
on one level with some of her comments: ‘that is what most linguists are – begin-
ning students’ (1966: 458), ‘linguists . . ., who are simply under-educated in the
reading of poetry, tend to take on, without realising it, documents whose primary
sense and value they are not equipped to absorb’ (460). In so far as this means that
linguistics has only just started to attempt literary analysis, and that linguistics has
thus not yet finalised its methods, this is a just observation. But to turn it into an
unkind accusation, as Mrs Vendler does (as if ‘linguists as a species are incapable of
treating literature’), is only harmful to the progress she pretends to welcome. True,
sometimes linguists have approached literature with non-critical motives (e.g. Thorne
1965) and some work will probably be cited more often by linguists than by critics
(Levin 1962). I personally see no objection to a linguist deliberately advancing
his linguistic research by the study of literary uses of language which really put his
assumptions to the test. Critics and linguists [. . .] should welcome the fact that we
have at last turned to material which inevitably forces us out of our assurance.
Although the ‘use’ of literature is really not the issue here, it needs comment because
critics seem to consider that linguists doing such kinds of linguistic work with liter-
ature think it is critical work. The real allegation is that, perhaps because of their
‘scientific’ education, linguists are not equipped to know the difference between
linguistic analysis and criticism, nor indeed sensitive enough to be critics. This is
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L A N G U A G E A N D L I T E R A T U R E
149
Roger
Fowler
and F. W.
Bateson
nonsense. Many mathematicians and physical scientists are fine musicians and poets.
There is no reason why a linguist should not be a humane, literate, sensitive person.
He may write on literature (1) purely as a linguist for linguistic ends; (2) for critical
motives, using only a selection from his linguistic apparatus; or (3) no differently
from the non-linguist, without appeal to linguistics at all. The three separate
approaches are all valuable, and I would urge non-linguists to stay their conviction
that a knowledge of linguistics must make only the first approach possible.
The primary justification for the use of the methods of linguistics in literary study
is that noted by Mrs Vendler (1966: 458): any information about language is useful
in studying an art-form whose stuff is language. If linguistics is defined as ‘the study
of language’
tout court
, then its contribution is unchallengeable. But this bleak logic
does not allow that all specific brands of linguistics are admissible. Briefly, this means
that, in the first case (1), although literature is language and therefore open to ordi-
nary formal linguistic investigation, it has, like other formally distinctive texts,
essentially distinctive contexts which the linguist no less than the critic must study.
That is, the investigator must be curious about the extra-linguistic features which
condition the distinctive style of a literary work. As for the applicability of different
linguistic models (2), this is obviously variable. The appropriateness of the model is
a concern for the individual analyst; just as important for this general discussion
is that all those who engage in it realise that bland undefined accounts of ‘linguis-
tics’ lead nowhere. There is no one linguistics except in community of certain basic
and general ideals held since Saussure’s time. We cannot switch on a standardised
linguistic analysis machine and stand by while it puts out a definitive breakdown of
a text. Doubtless the lack of such a device has its advantages.
My third prescription for a successful linguistic criticism is that it should proceed
not merely from a theory of language but also from a respectful consideration of the
demands and peculiarities of the many kinds of literary study. Now, the substance
of this remark is addressed not only to linguists. There is no single thing ‘criticism’
any more than there is ‘linguistics’, although literary people, faced with the imagined
threat of linguistics, tend to talk as if there is. (This impression is gained partly from
the tendency to use ‘criticism’ and ‘critical’ as treasured value terms.) [. . .] In the
real world, we are dealing with, above all, teachers of literature whose pedagogic rela-
tions with their subject-matter and with their students are much more vital than the
role of the public critic. Most often literature teachers are involved in nothing more
mystical than, at various degrees of sophistication, showing the ways to efficient
reading of literature. Many a time literary study comprises historical, stylistic or
openly technical investigation: genre description, stylistic tests of authorship, metrical
analysis, for example. For some reason, ‘interpretation’ (an exceedingly difficult term)
and ‘evaluation’ have come to be regarded as the only activities which are worth
doing and which are actually done. Just as we need to be wary in our use of ‘linguis-
tics’ as a term describing all procedures involving the study of language, so we should
give careful scrutiny to terms like ‘criticism’, ‘interpretation’, ‘evaluation’, ‘explica-
tion’, ‘stylistics’, ensuring that we do not think that there is just one objective (of
whatever kind) in studying literature, with ‘linguistics’ straightforwardly an alterna-
tive ‘technique’ for reaching that goal.
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