Language
and Ecology Online Magazine
Feb 2004. www.ecoling.net/magazine.html <close window to return>
Towards
poetic activism...
by Arran Stibbe
Each of the many discourses which
construct the social spheres in which we live may, by influencing our actions,
contribute to ecological destruction or to ecological harmony. Toward achieving
the goal of ecological harmony, Critical Discourse Analysis can be used to
resist destructive discourses by raising awareness of the ideologies hidden
within them. The next logical step is the replacement of destructive discourses
by alternative ways of thinking, talking and writing. The question is, how is this to be achieved?
In Article 2 of this
magazine, the value of ecological 'political correctness' is questioned.
Portraying specific words or grammatical constructions of ecologically damaging
discourses as false or deceptive, and prescribing expressions one-by-one in the
form of rules, narrows the range of alternatives to a singular 'correct'
formulation, with no guarantee that strict application of the rules will
produce a consistent, persuasive or even acceptable discourse. Compare this
with the opening up of alternatives afforded by poetic activism.
Poetic activism is based on the
appreciation of 'the power of language
to make new and different things possible and important - an appreciation which
becomes possible only when one's aim becomes an expanding repertoire of
alternative descriptions rather than The One Right Description' (Rorty 1989:39-40). While verbal hygiene represents its
prescribed alternatives as more accurate, truthful or 'correct', poetic
activism promotes 'provocative, glamouring, and
compelling ways of talking and writing, ways that unsettle the common sense,
taken for granted realities, and invite others into new dialogic spaces' (Gergen 2000).
A compelling example
of the power of discourse to unsettle our perceptions of otherwise taken-for-granted
realities is to be found in Japanese haiku. Haiku are poems of three
lines restricted to the syllabic pattern 5-7-5. The restrictions demand an economy of
expression which leaves much to be filled in by the readers' imagination,
general knowledge, and cultural insight. The following haiku is by Uejima Onitsura:
gyozui no / sutedokoro
naki / mushi no koe
No place / to throw out the
bathwater / sound of insects (in Bowers 1996:38)
To make sense of this poem,
readers rely on their general knowledge: they know that old Japanese houses did
not have plumbing, so Uejima would have had to throw
his bathwater outside. But what about the connection between
'sound of the insects' and Uejima's dilemma about
where to throw his bathwater? To understand this connection, the hearer
must be aware that the genre of haiku contains the ideological assumption that
life is important, and that all life, including the commonest of insects and
plants, is to be treated with consideration. When readers supply
the unstated, cultural link respect for all life,
they realise Uejima is concerned that he may disturb
the insects he hears by dousing them.
Requiring 'gap-filling'
(Fairclough 2001:71) of the reader in this way is a variation of the technique
used in many ecologically destructive discourses, here turned to the opposite
effect because the reader of the haiku has to bring a positive assumption to
mind. And respect for all life is one of the key elements of deep ecology
(Devall and Sessions 1985).
Poetic activism in
ecolinguistics involves the careful analysis of discourses such as Japanese haiku, and the active promotion of such discourses on the
grounds that the ideological assumptions they contain have the potential to
contribute to ecological harmony. Goatly's (2000)
analysis of Wordsworth's The Prelude comes close to this form of
activism.
Among the many aspects of Goatly's analysis of the discourse of The Prelude,
he points to Wordsworth's representations of animals as Experiences, which
suggests 'they are worth observing and noticing for their own sake' (ibid 298),
and to the representations of nature as an Actor, or a Sayer
(a river murmuring, brooks prattling, torrents roaring etc) (ibid 292,293).
Goatly explicitly contrasts Wordsworth's representations of nature with the
currently destructive discourses of technology, and he hopes for better:
The idea that
nature can speak to us and that we should be receptive to its messages as Experiencers can, of course, give us another trajectory for
our scientific and technological advances, perhaps a more positive one than
when technology is used to enhance our power as Actors. (Goatly 2000:293)
Probably for the first time ever,
The Prelude is compared with constructions of nature in The Times newspaper.
Goatly (ibid, 301) criticises The Times for presenting 'a domesticated,
processed and relatively passive nature', and his compelling conclusion is that
'the view of the natural world represented by Wordsworth, along with aspects of
his grammar, provides a much better model for our survival than that
represented by The Times' (ibid: 301).
Of course, the 'view of the
natural world' presented by Wordsworth and the 'aspects of grammar' are not
separate entities. As Fairclough (1992b) points out, form is an integral part
of content. Now, an approach based on political correctness would concentrate
only on form, prescribing the use of grammar on Wordsworth's model (eg, we should represent nature as an Actor or Sayer, animals as Experiences). The power of Wordsworth's The
Prelude, however, derives from an organic whole which cannot be broken down
into a list of rules for vocabulary and grammar. Linguists, more than anyone,
should realise how much is lost when complex linguistic phenomena are reduced
to technical rules. There is no guarantee that a new discourse based on such
rules would be ecologically beneficial. In addition, rules close down the
possibility of creating equally ecologically-beneficial discourse along new
grammatical lines.
An approach based on poetic
activism would promote Wordsworth's writings themselves as exemplars
of an ecologically beneficial discourse. Critical Discourse Analysis which
exposes ecologically beneficial ideologies in poetry, art, photography, film
and convention-breaking prose can be used to stimulate thinking along new,
ecologically-beneficial lines. But no discourse is perfectly 'beneficial' - all
have beneficial aspects and drawbacks, and limited ranges of application. The
language of haiku would be hard to apply to instruction manuals for
photocopiers, but other alternative discourses may be applicable. The
suggestion that a single discourse is the 'correct' one immediately ends
further poetic activism.
To conclude: it is time to be
critical of hegemonic discourses which have destructive ecological
consequences, time to point out that there are alternatives, and to
promote these alternatives, but without falling into the trap of simply
creating new hegemonic discourses. Time for a little poetic activism perhaps...
References
Bowers, Fabion (1996) The classic tradition of haiku. New York: Dover
Devall, Bill and George Sessions
(1985) Deep Ecology: living as if nature mattered. Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith
Fairclough, Norman. (2001). Language
and Power (2nd edition) London: Longman
Fairclough, Norman (1992a) Discourse
and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press
Fairclough, Norman (1992b) Critical
Language Awareness. London: Longman
Gergen, Ken (2000). Interview in PMTH NEWS 11
May 2000,
available online http://www.california.com/~rathbone/pm051100.htm, accessed 6 June
2003
Goatly, Andrew. (2000) Critical reading and writing:
an introductory coursebook. London: Routledge
Rorty, Richard (1989) Contingency, irony and solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.