Cliches

[Jim Wilce]

Alexandre, although the "clichédness" would be a matter of controversy 
between performer and audience, or sometimes between performers, of 
course you are right to invoke musical analogies. I mention "melodic 
textuality," i.e. the repeatable, regularized qualities of melody that 
make laments not only discursively but musically recognizable in my 2005 
JLA article.

2005 Traditional Laments and Postmodern Regrets: The Circulation of 
Discourse in Metacultural Context. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 
15(1):60-71.
http://www.anthrosource.net/doi/abs/10.1525/jlin.2005.15.1.60?prevSearch=%5Bauthor%3A+Wilce%5D


Jim

Alexandre Enkerli wrote:
> Jim,
> Thanks a lot for those ideas and references.
> Important links made between language ideology, author status,
> intertextuality, interdiscursivity, indexicality, philosophy of
> language, power relationships, improvisation, tradition as
> continuity...
>
> Equivalent ideas work extremely well in music, especially in
> situations in which small, easy to remember units ("motifs," "licks,"
> "quotes") are highly valued. While Jazz improvisation might be an
> obvious case for such "musical clichés," is there really anything
> preventing us from thinking about oral-formulaic theory in similar
> terms?
>
> Most of these have become quite prominent in folkloristics, over the
> years. Especially among those who follow the lines through performance
> theory. What might be surprising to some is that such an approach is
> quite compatible with Stith Thompson's notion of "motif" (as opposed
> to "type") in fairy-tales.
>
> Stimulating ideas indeed.
>
> Thanks again!
>
> Alex
>
> On 2/4/07, Jim Wilce <jim.wilce at nau.edu> wrote:
>> I tried to send this response to Ron Kephart yesterday. Here it is …
>>
>> Jim
>>
>> I think it's important to recognize here, as in all instances, the role
>> of language ideologies, and also perhaps to introduce (or at least keep
>> in mind since all of them might not go over equally well on air) notions
>> like text, interdiscursive chains, and circulation.
>>
>> First, some sort of an ideology of language that views the individual as
>> author of her utterance, and valorizes individual creativity/authorship
>> over anything like conventionality. The connections of such an ideology
>> to broader cultural patterns need not be mentioned here.
>>
>> Then, it seems perfectly obvious to me that what we call clichés are
>> texts and circulate as such, having managed by some feat of
>> entextualization to move beyond some initiatory event of use, some
>> baptismal event, and to circulate with more or (increasingly) less
>> conscious reference back to such an event. In cases where such baptismal
>> events are mass mediated—and here we have idioms that come into popular
>> use from, for example, films—users might feel that they add some sort of
>> luster to their speech by indexically anchoring it to such origins
>> (Savan 2005).
>>
>> Asif Agha's just-released book, Language and Social Relations, provides
>> excellent background to such issues as interdiscursive chains. On the
>> circulation of even smaller bits of "text" (as small as particular uses
>> of "we," see Greg Urban's 2001 book, Metaculture).
>>
>> Savan, Leslie
>> 2005 Popspeak. New York Times Magazine July 10, 2005 p. 16. (You can
>> find a copy here:
>> http://andeesworld.blogspot.com/2005/07/popspeak-by-leslie-savan.html)
>>
>> -- 
>> Striving to teach and publish the best in linguistic anthropology--an 
>> ethnographic approach to the analysis of semiotic and discursive 
>> forms in relation to sociocultural processes
>>
>> Jim Wilce, Professor of Anthropology
>> Editor, Blackwell Studies in Discourse and Culture
>> Box 15200
>> Northern Arizona University
>> Flagstaff AZ 86011-5200
>> Bldg. 98D, Room 101E
>> 928-523-2729
>> jim.wilce at nau.edu
>> http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22
>>
>>
>
>

-- 
Striving to teach and publish the best in linguistic anthropology--an ethnographic approach to the analysis of semiotic and discursive forms in relation to sociocultural processes

Jim Wilce, Professor of Anthropology
Editor, Blackwell Studies in Discourse and Culture
Box 15200
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff AZ 86011-5200
Bldg. 98D, Room 101E
928-523-2729
jim.wilce at nau.edu
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22