Language is the basic tool people use to communicate with each other, including verbal language and non-verbal language. Language is used to announce, to persuade, to queries, to express emotions, to transmit complicated ideas or even to hurt people. Generally speaking, using the language correctly allows people to communicate better, compared with animals. However, we live in a big world, which has more than 6 billion people now. With the existence of many different languages, the issues of translation are generated. After reading Alberto Rios essay – Translating Translation: Finding the Beginning, I know Rios understands languages and translation in complex and stratified ways, from cultures and manners. He writes “Language is more than what we say – it’s also how we say it, and whether or not we even understand what we are saying. ” in his short essay (508). It can be understood easily why Rios pays so much attention to languages and translation. He grew up on the southwestern borderlands, having a Mexican father and an English mother. (504) The place he grew up is a place where cultures of the United States and Mexico meet and collide. Based on his own experience of dealing with different cultures and different languages, he points out how to say is more significant than what we say.
The elements making his essay to be persuasive and compelling is worth to be analyzed, such as his personal background, the examples of his experience he gives, the way he arrange the examples and the his unique writing style. Rios’ personal background not only determine the topics he prefers to write about languages, but also make his writing on these topics become more convincing because he experiences many problems of languages and cultural conflicts by himself and it cannot been denied. As I mentioned before, he grew up in a place where cultures of the United States and Mexico meet and collide. “My father was born in Mexico, on the border of Guatemala, and my mother was born in England. I had languages.”(506) We can see that, because of his parents, he is doomed to face a lot of bi-languages problems. In order to understand both people speaking Spanish and people speaking English, he has to know how they say in different way rather than just know what the words mean in Spanish and English. He needs to understand the ways of how people say for getting the real meanings beyond the simple words. Because of his experience of languages differences, he has special interests in figuring out how people use languages in different ways. That’s also why he is fond of topics on languages and translations between different languages. Due to the special background Rios has, he has some interesting experiences of translation problems.
All three examples Rios gives help to make his writing persuasive since the examples are typical and are related to his idea of importance of how we say perfectly. Through those three examples, Rios tries to demonstrate that translation incorporates understanding what it says and how it say, instead of explaining what is translation and how to move from one language to another. In order to claim his viewpoint, he picks up three typical examples. In the first example: “My mother when asked what color she wanted the kitchen, said to the workers who were all Mexican, and who spoke very little English, limon. But when we came back the next day, the kitchen was painted bright green, like a small jungle. Mexican limones, my mother found out, are small and green that color exactly, no mistake.” (506) Rios’s mother asks the workers to paint their kitchen in the color of limon, but the workers understand it as limones, which is different from limon. It’s a small understanding in the communication. The misunderstanding happens because author mother’s wrong pronunciation but the workers do not really understand what she wants. It’s quite normal for a new leaner to have incorrect pronunciations. But in native speakers’ ears, they will think that may be another word.
This is a small example that different understandings of words cause misunderstand between people who speak different languages. The second example tells a story that a man, who was arrested for illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the United States was arrested, and then was left in the jail without anyone coming to see him from a Thursday to a Saturday because of lack of understanding between the man and his jailers. (507) In that situation, everyone is supposed to say something even yell out when finding their own are forgotten by the jailers. But the man didn’t because he had manners. This example let me think of an observation of mine. Americans say “can I have a…” when they order in the restaurant, but most Chinese are accustomed to say “I want a …” when ordering.
This difference cannot jump to the conclusion that Chinese are impolite. The expression difference happens due to the difference manners of language. This kind of case is more complicated than the first example. People have the same understanding of words but different manners still cause misunderstandings. Rios select this example to tell people if you want to understand other completely, the manner behind word cannot be ignored. The third example is interesting. The conversation took place between Rios and one of his students. “Hey,ese,” he said to me, with a small pointing of the right hand. “Hey” I said.
He nodded his head. “You really like this poetry shit.” He asked. “Yes.” I said.
And then he followed with the very best thing I could ever hoped for. ”So how many fights you had?” (508) A student of Rios asks Rios “how many fights you had?” Rios understands the student is using his way to communicate. The boy was just looking for an equation for something to understand instead of embarrassing the teacher. If at that time, Rios didn’t understand what the boy really tried to do, Rios would be mad at the boy. This example perfectly shows that language is more than what we say, it’s also how we say it. If Rios just cares about the language that the boy says from his mouth, he will misapprehend the boy and have very bad impression of the boy. When we try to understand what others say, how can we only understand the words others say? We also should try to dig out the original meanings of the speaker in order to avoid the misunderstandings of verbal communication. The author, Rios, tries to illustrate the idea that language is more than what we say and we need to understand the way of how we say it by these three examples step by step.
There is a point deserved to highlight. Rios does not arrange these examples randomly. Rios organizes the examples in a progressive relation rather than choose three examples in the same layer. He puts his mother’s example in the first place because it was very small example but it’s also enough to let people have the first understanding of what translation problem can happen between different languages. Compared with first example, the second example doesn’t only lead people to consider the issues of words, but also manners behind the words that different cultures hold. The progressive relation can be noticed here easily. The focus is moving from simple misunderstanding of words to misunderstand of manners because of different cultures. The feature of third example is more obvious. Rios add many action descriptions. For example, “Hey,ese,” he said to me, with a small pointing of the right hand. (508) Languages include body languages. By adding action description, Rios leads the focus move again, to a higher layer – action expression. Perhaps “pointing of the right hand” shows nervous in this case, so Rios notices that his student was looking for an equation but he just didn’t know how to do that and felt nervous. Rios arranging the examples in this order makes his essay persuasive because readers can reach the main idea of the essay step by step which helps his main idea to be more acceptable. Apart from adopting three appropriate examples to express his idea, Rios also has his own unique writing style to make his essay compelling. In an interview, he said “I would say that I write in Spanish – it just looks like English.”(504) I found the entire interview from Internet, he says” I do occasionally write in Spanish, but when I do it’s from another time, from childhood, often, I listen hard for how ideas come to me, in what container they are being delivered, and I try to be true to it. Sometimes that container is Spanish. ” (Twenty-Four Questions: A conversation with Alberto Alvaro Rios) It means Rios sometimes form his ideas in Spanish although he writes in English. As a non-English speaker who but lives in an English speaking country, I got a deep feeling for this. Although I live in America where I listen English and speak English everyday, I still think in Chinese. I form my ideas in Chinese way and then say it from my mouth in English. Rios grew up in a Spanish speaking environment, and he used to think in Spanish. As he says, Spanish sometime is the container which holds his ideas in his mind. So his poems and stories are written in English but flavored by the sensibilities of his first language, Spanish. As Rios writes in his essay, “I often talk about the duality of language using the metaphor of binoculars, how by using two lenses one might see something better, closer, with more detail. ”(506)
We can see Rios regards the duality of language as a significant part of translation. Rios claims that the body itself speaks a language differently, so that moving from one language to another is more than translate words. (506) He changes the expression method rather than just translate the words from Spanish to English in order to keep the original meanings expressed in Spanish. Compared with other writers, this specialty of his writing makes his writing compelling. Language is the bridge of communication. According to Alberto Alvaro Rios, just understanding what we say is not enough. It’s necessary to know how we say it if we need to really understand what other say. Misunderstandings take place easily because of the unsuccessful translation of language or act. When a person says something or do something, but the listener misunderstand the person, it’s a unsuccessful translation. Especially in different languages, unsuccessful translations happen more frequently due to the different cultures. Therefore, when we listen to others, we should consider the different cultural background, different manners and different way of using language. That’s also what Rios means by “Language is more than what we say – it’s also how we say it. ”
Work Cited
Bartholomae, David, and Tony Petrosky. “Short Talks.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. 264.67. Print.
“Twenty-Four Questions: A Conversation with Alberto Alvaro Rios.” Alberto Álvaro Ríos. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.
Stylistic Analysis Of A Poem
Introduction
Oppose practicing the learned rhetoric in poetry writing, Williams finds his subjects in such homely items as wheelbarrows. He believes that “localism aline can lead to culture”. Imagism finds its full expression in The Red Wheelbarrow, one of the masterpieces of William Carlos Williams. This paper analyses the linguistic features of this poem, including phonological, lexical, syntactic and semantic features, and we can have a more clear idea of this poem.
The poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” is actually a bright colored picture. The contrast of the white chicken beside the red wheelbarrow is a testament to the colors of the world we live in and that fall within the spectrum of our site. The fact that it is glazed with rain takes us back to the smells of youth when a storm finally breaks and everything is fresh and clean with the sun coming back out. The wheelbarrow is a symbol related to the idea of sustenance. The opening line of the poem “so much depends” is indicative to that William Carlos Williams wanted to write a poem which would create in us a thought process in regards to what is really important in life and link us to memories of our senses in the past based on the exposure an individual had to certain things.
Body
Linguistic presentation of the theme:
(1) Phonological features
In terms of sounds, quite apart from its images or its vocabulary, Williams intricately tunes the poem. The first and second stanzas are linked by the long “o” in the words “so” and “barrow” and by the short “u” in the words “much”, “upon” and “a”. “l” and “r” interlace the core stanzas that is the second and the third stanzas. These two sounds, however, are not in the first and the fourth stanzas. This simple device distinguishes the framing stanzas from the central stanzas. One result of this distinction is that the central stanzas are mellifluous, the frame stanzas choppy. Then, however, the honeyed and the choppy are linked in the third and fourth stanzas.
They are joined by means of a parallel construction: the long vowels in “glazed with rain” match those in “beside the white”. In the last stanza, another loop is closed when the sounds “ch” and “ens” in the last word of the poem echo the sounds in the initial line: “so much depends”. The fourth, sixth and eighth lines each has only one word. “barrow”, “water” and “chickens”. These words are all stressed on the first syllable and weaken on the second syllable.
(2) Graphical features
This poem is a sentence “So much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens.” to be divided into four stanzas. These four stanzas are always three words and then one word, the one word, moreover, always of two syllables, while the three-word line having four syllables the first and the last time, but only three syllables on its two middle occurrences. This sixteen-word sentence is banal but it is changed into a great poem without displacing a single word except typographically, the sixteen words exist in a different zone altogether, a zone remote from the word of sayers and sayings. That zone is what Williams in the 1920s started calling “the imagination”.
(3) Lexical features
Lines 3-4
Here the image of the wheelbarrow is introduced starkly. The vivid word “red” lights up the scene. Notice that the monosyllable words in line 3 elongates the line, putting an unusual pause between the word “wheel” and “barrow”. This has the effect of breaking the image down to its most basic parts. Using the sentence as a painter uses line and color, Williams breaks up the words in order to see the object more closely.
Lines 5-6
Again, the monosyllable words elongate the lines with the help of the literary device assonance. Here the word “glazed” evokes another painterly image. Just as the reader is beginning to notice the wheelbarrow through a closer perspective, the rain transforms it as well, giving it a newer, fresher look.
Lines 7-8
The last lines offer up the final brushstroke to this “still life” poem. Another color, “white” is used to contrast the earlier “red” and the unusual view of the ordinary wheelbarrow is complete.
Compound words: wheelbarrow, rainwater
It is important to know that the author means “wheel barrow” instead of “wheel” and “rain water” instead of “rain”. The rigorous metrical convention of the poem demands simply three words in the first line of each couplet and a disyllable in the second. But the line termini cut the words “wheelbarrow” and “rainwater” into their constituents, without the use of hyphenation to warm that the first noun is to be part of a compound, with the implication that they are phenomenological constituents as well. The wheel plus the barrow equals the wheelbarrow, and in the freshness of light after the rain, things seem to lose their compounded propertie. Instead of shifting back and forth from original to derived meanings of words, Williams etymologizes his compounds into their prior phenomena, and his verbal act represents, and makes the reader carry out, a meditative one.
(4) Syntactic features
Since this poem is actually formed by a sixteen-word sentence, it does not have any complete sentences in each stanza. In fact, every stanza is a short phrase. Each stanza includes four words and the first line of every stanza is three words and the second is one word. It seems like a that clause as an object at the beginning of the sentence, giving the readers a kind of feeling that the head is heavier than the feet. In this top-heavy structure, the readers may have a feeling of heaviness and stress, implies the pressure of life.
(5) Semantic features
Metaphor：
The wheelbarrow is described as “glazed with rainwater”, that is, shining, with a suggestion of hardness. The author sees the wheelbarrow immediately after the rain, when the bright sun has created the wheelbarrow’s shiny surface and has made the chickens immaculately white. In nature, this scene occurs when dark clouds still cover a portion of the sky. In this short time after the rain has ceased, the chickens have emerged from whatever refuge the sought during the storm. They are reassured that they can begin normal living again and do so calmly. The metaphor “glazed” captures time in the poem. In a moment, the wheelbarrow will be dry, its sheen gone, yet the hardness suggested by the metaphor is not irrelevant. This moment is like others in life. Periods of danger, terror and stress do not last. The glaze, like the rainbow, signals a return to normality of restoration. The poem
creates a memorable picture of this recurring process, reflections upon its meaning may provide the reassurance that makes us more durable.
Contrast：
We can identify two contrasts in the poem. One is between the latest advances in machine technology and the continuing but overlooked importance of elementary machines. The other is between the universal and age-old scene depicted in the poem and the radically new free verse form in which it exists.
Conclusion
With careful word choice, attention to language, and unusual stanza breaks, Williams has turned an ordinary sentence into a great poem. After an analysis of the linguistic features of this poem, we can have a better understanding of the author’s idea and appreciate the beauty of every aspect of this poem. References:
Anders, P. & Bos, C. (1986). Semantic feature analysis
CARR, E. & Wixson, K. (1986). Guidelines for evaluating vocabulary instruction. Lewin Hugh, (1998). An easy approach to Stylistics
Miller, Doughlas. (2002). Stylistics and its study
Hawk Bags In SM Cubao – Style Of The Sales
“HAWK BAG”
What is the selling style of the salesperson?
As soon as I reached the stall of Hawk Bags in SM Cubao, their sales representative approached and greeted us with a genuine smile on the face. He first asked my need, if I was looking for a bag for laptop or for a daily use. Undecided I was still to choose a specific bag, the salesman spoke of the quality of the Hawk bags. When he noticed that I was quite more interested with backpacks for women since I moved on that side of the stall, he followed me and showed one of their new designs. He spoke of the bag’s feature, like it is waterproof, light weight and is made of nylon materials, comparing it to ordinary bags, putting it “bag pa lang mabigat na”. He talked about the stitches even. He said that Hawk bags have fine stitches which they refer as “lockstitch” and that their strap stitches are embroidered.
He pulled the bag and pointed these stitches. He showed me the strap’s pad support while explaining that it has dual density foam which is thicker compared to foams used in ordinary bags. He also pointed about the lining that only Hawk bag has, a dura-shield fabric made from Thailand. He also discussed about the service warranty of the bag, that if there’s something to be repaired you have just to go to the nearest SM near you and SM will be the one to forward the bag to the service centers. The service is free but if they are things that need to be altered or replaced that can cost some, customers will be notified through text message and the service centers will also notify customers if the bags are ready for pick-up.
The salesperson discussed about the bag’s feature, demonstrating and explaining it all to me. He stressed on the quality of the bag and service warranty. He offered alternative bag of lower price when I couldn’t seem content with the first bag. All throughout the 15 minutes transaction with him, he kept his smile and enthusiasm, he listened and addressed my concerns. He was aggressive but not to the point that I would be annoyed and walk away.
How do you find the sales service given by the salesperson?
I was very much satisfied with the sales service given by the salesperson. He was very accommodating and very patient. When I was a little quiet at the start of the transaction, he was the one talking, presenting to me the product and its features, asking me questions and these help me to be more open and relaxed afterwards. During the whole transaction, his attention was all in me, he wasn’t easily distracted by other salespeople offering, as a customer this made me feels important.
Was he/she able to handle objections effectively?
I asked about few objections such as if there warranty was really “lifetime” and if their materials were really durable as they claimed. For the warranty, I asked if all kinds of repair are included and if it’s free. His reply was “Hanggang kayang repair Ma’am, because there are instances na indi na kaya ng repair like masunog but if you want to change the cloth baka may charge but for example like the zipper na hindi sumasara, tahi natastas pwede yun Mam. If they are charges Ma’am, the service center will notify you first.” For the durability of the product, he repeated the materials used for the bag. When asked about the replacements of purchased bag. He said that it’s allowed but you have to do replacement of the bag within one month. He handled objections well and was very polite.
Was he/she effective in selling the brand?
I went at Hawk Bags store in SM without knowing about the product. What I only know is that the sell bags. From the salesperson I talked to, I learned that Hawk Bags is a Philippine brand, and that being so makes it more convenient for customers to have their bags repaired since the service centers are just located in the country. He introduced me to the brand and made me well-informed of it. The salesperson stressed that Hawk Bags is a trusted brand for quality bags.
Was he/she effective in selling the bag?
The salesperson talked about the features of the product, its difference from ordinary bags and its benefits. He demonstrates and explains the product in a manner I would understand. He would explain terms like EBA – Ethyl Benyl Acetate, lockstitch, durashield, air flow technology and its benefits. He
would offer alternative designs or show the bag looks when it is filled.
Would you buy the bag assuming that you had the money and need for a bag?
With his patience and knowledge of the product he is selling, absolutely I would buy the bag. The whole time I was transacting with him I felt his genuine enthusiasm to sell the brand. He was all smiles, very accommodating and polite. As a matter of fact, more than the bag’s quality, feature and design, I guess I would buy the bag because of the salesperson. And the least I could do for his kindness that time was to thank him and ask for his name which is Benjie.