Difference between revisions of "Concept of "language performance" (LP)"
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| + | Language performance (LP) is a general term covering a wide variety of performative acts, including those conventionally identified as "music", "singing", "hymnody", "prayer", and "speech". The LP concept includes textual (syntactic and semantic) as well as sonic and pragmatic (social-contextual, behavioral, proxemic, kinesic) ''aspects'', as described elsewhere. | ||
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| + | (from an unpublished paper by Michael Frishkopf) | ||
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The tricky part of the definition is the notion of “awareness of actness”. All behavior consists of acts; with this portion of the definition I am trying to distinguish that which is self-consciously regarded as such. Such performance need not meet the criteria set forth by folklorists such as Bauman when he says “It is part of the essence of performance that it offers to the participants a special enhancement of experience, bringing with it a heightened intensity of communicative interaction...” (Bauman 1975:305). But this condition is often sufficient for language performance. When experience is enhanced, being separated from more ordinary experience by the presence of a social group, special linguistic codes, concurrent use of other sensory channels (colors, incense, sounds), or the presence of a large social group, an awareness of the “actness” of what is going on is more likely, since attention is thereby called to the act of performing. We are trying to exclude that which is performed casually, without attention being paid to the very fact of doing something. This is not a means of excluding the informal and including only the formal, for informal speech may frequently be the object of conscious manipulation (as when someone is trying to get a raise), while more restrictive linguistic codes, though “ritualistic”, are performed rather unthinkingly (as when someone says “how do you do?”). Awareness of actness implies an awareness that the act comprises a multitude of parameters, which can be manipulated; at the very least, there is always an awareness of boundaries: that the performative act starts at some point, and ends at some later point. The stretch between the two points is thus reified as a unit, and the word “act” can legitimately be applied to it. | The tricky part of the definition is the notion of “awareness of actness”. All behavior consists of acts; with this portion of the definition I am trying to distinguish that which is self-consciously regarded as such. Such performance need not meet the criteria set forth by folklorists such as Bauman when he says “It is part of the essence of performance that it offers to the participants a special enhancement of experience, bringing with it a heightened intensity of communicative interaction...” (Bauman 1975:305). But this condition is often sufficient for language performance. When experience is enhanced, being separated from more ordinary experience by the presence of a social group, special linguistic codes, concurrent use of other sensory channels (colors, incense, sounds), or the presence of a large social group, an awareness of the “actness” of what is going on is more likely, since attention is thereby called to the act of performing. We are trying to exclude that which is performed casually, without attention being paid to the very fact of doing something. This is not a means of excluding the informal and including only the formal, for informal speech may frequently be the object of conscious manipulation (as when someone is trying to get a raise), while more restrictive linguistic codes, though “ritualistic”, are performed rather unthinkingly (as when someone says “how do you do?”). Awareness of actness implies an awareness that the act comprises a multitude of parameters, which can be manipulated; at the very least, there is always an awareness of boundaries: that the performative act starts at some point, and ends at some later point. The stretch between the two points is thus reified as a unit, and the word “act” can legitimately be applied to it. | ||
| − | + | --[[User:Michaelf|mf]] 09:58, 7 February 2006 (MST) | |
Revision as of 11:01, 7 February 2006
Language performance (LP) is a general term covering a wide variety of performative acts, including those conventionally identified as "music", "singing", "hymnody", "prayer", and "speech". The LP concept includes textual (syntactic and semantic) as well as sonic and pragmatic (social-contextual, behavioral, proxemic, kinesic) aspects, as described elsewhere.
(from an unpublished paper by Michael Frishkopf)
By “language performance” (henceforth, LP) I mean the sonic realization of language in a social setting, such that the “actness” of performing is recognized, i.e. in which language is being performed, and the participant(s) are particularly aware that they are doing something, aware that what they are doing is an act. By “social setting” I do not mean to imply “groups”; LP can occur in private contexts in which one person only is present. Rather, I mean to imply that the concept of LP–as a tool of analysis–is intended to take account of social as well as linguistic and sonic features, whatever those features may be.
The tricky part of the definition is the notion of “awareness of actness”. All behavior consists of acts; with this portion of the definition I am trying to distinguish that which is self-consciously regarded as such. Such performance need not meet the criteria set forth by folklorists such as Bauman when he says “It is part of the essence of performance that it offers to the participants a special enhancement of experience, bringing with it a heightened intensity of communicative interaction...” (Bauman 1975:305). But this condition is often sufficient for language performance. When experience is enhanced, being separated from more ordinary experience by the presence of a social group, special linguistic codes, concurrent use of other sensory channels (colors, incense, sounds), or the presence of a large social group, an awareness of the “actness” of what is going on is more likely, since attention is thereby called to the act of performing. We are trying to exclude that which is performed casually, without attention being paid to the very fact of doing something. This is not a means of excluding the informal and including only the formal, for informal speech may frequently be the object of conscious manipulation (as when someone is trying to get a raise), while more restrictive linguistic codes, though “ritualistic”, are performed rather unthinkingly (as when someone says “how do you do?”). Awareness of actness implies an awareness that the act comprises a multitude of parameters, which can be manipulated; at the very least, there is always an awareness of boundaries: that the performative act starts at some point, and ends at some later point. The stretch between the two points is thus reified as a unit, and the word “act” can legitimately be applied to it.
--mf 09:58, 7 February 2006 (MST)
