Cliches

[Leila Monaghan]

Interesting discussion on clichés.  May I steal it for the blog?

I once took a short summer course from Kon Kuiper on formulaic 
language, and I’ve been fascinated by his ideas ever since.  In this 
case, his ideas give a sense of the context for clichés. He looks at 
formulaic language from a number of different perspectives including 
changing Chinese greetings and in settings where language use is 
restricted by limitations of time—service encounters, sports announcing 
(particularly horse racing) and auctioneers.  In a service encounter 
(for example, checking out at a supermarket), he describes the overall 
interaction, how there is a greeting, an optional conversation, a 
totaling of purchases, the giving of a price, the payment, and then a 
closing.  He describes one cashier as being particularly fluent, able 
to carry on brief conversations with customers while getting through 
all the other stages of the interaction.

While this interaction is familiar to all of us, I think it is 
interesting that it isn’t seen as clichéd.  In this setting (and as Kon 
would argue, in many others) formulaic language is the norm.  As Alex 
and Timothy point out, in French, there also seems to be less stigma 
attached to clichéd language as well.  What this implies for me is that 
there is a language ideology in English that specific kinds of language 
use, language in specific and public settings such as writing or public 
speaking, where newness and originality is valued.  As with other 
specific linguistic practices, individuals need to be socialized into 
this one. My grandmother told a story about her English boarding school 
experiences c. World War I. She and the other young ladies of her 
school were instructed when eating meals, and presumably practicing 
polite conversations, to never use the same word twice.  I suspect this 
didn’t include articles, helping verbs and connectors but did include 
less common verbs and nouns.

A website from a graduate course of Kon’s has a number of good 
references on his formulaic language work.
http://wwwlot.let.uu.nl/GraduateProgram/LotSchools/Winterschool2003/cdKuiper.htm

Going along with the idea of context being important in understanding 
the use of clichés, the New York Times had an article on Sunday, “The 
Racial Politics of Speaking Well” about African American suspicions 
about the use of the term “articulate,” particularly when applied to 
Barak Obama rather than to Al Sharpton.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/weekinreview/04clemetson.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin

(Connected to this is the discussion with the African American 
community about Obama’s candidacy for president:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/us/politics/02obama.html)

cheers, Leila

(Note: NY Times articles require free registration)


--
Leila Monaghan, PhD
Department of Communication and Culture
Indiana University
Ashton Mottier Hall
1760 E. 10th Street
Bloomington, IN 47405-9700
(812) 855-4607
monaghan at indiana.edu