Jakobson’s Place in Hasan’s Social Semiotic Stylistics: ‘Pervasive Parallelism’ as Symbolic Articulation of Theme

Jakobson’s place in Hasan’s Social Semiotic Stylistics: Further explorations of ‘pervasive parallelism’ as symbolic articulation of the theme of verbal art The foremost aim of this chapter is to provide further evidence for the proposal put forward in Miller (2012; 2013) concerning the rightful place of Jakobson’s theory of ‘pervasive parallelism’ (1966: 423) within Hasan’s Social Semiotic Stylistics (SSS) framework. These papers argue the case but offer inadequate evidence for it – substantiation that is required to make the case more convincing, if Hasan’s (privately communicated) reservations are to be successfully countered. The chapter begins by making plain and justifying its premises: unqualified advocacy of Hasan’s analytical model of ‘verbal art’ and the theory behind it (e.g., chapt. 4 of 1985/1989; 2007) and a firm, not least because analytically and pedagogically tested, conviction that the model is unique, but also uniquely valid, due both to its holistic, coherent and systematic nature and to her view that literature is ‘different’, indeed ‘special’, a notion which goes against the grain of what mainstream stylisticians (e.g. Simpson 2004) have been preaching more doggedly over time – i.e., that literature is merely another text type, needing none other than the sundry tools brought to the analysis of any register. Subsequently attention turns to the model (into which I am arguing Jakobson should be ‘slotted’) itself. As not all readers will be sufficiently familiar with the particulars of Hasan’s ‘double-articulation’ framework, this needs to be at least cursorily sketched and notions such as foregrounding, patterning of patterns, motivation, consistency and the ‘symbolic articulation of theme’ to be described in adequate detail. On the basis of this groundwork I address ‘the Mukařovský-Jakobson theory’ (Fowler 1986), delineating Jakobson’s contribution to the thesis and its relevance for SSS. I then set forth crucial correspondences between Hasan’s approach and what Jakobson theorised as the empirical linguistic evidence of his ‘poetic function’: grammatical parallelism (1960), and explore how what he calls ‘pervasive parallelism’ (1966) functions: just as Hasan maintains that significant patterning in verbal art must: as a consistent and motivated foregrounding device which symbolically articulates the theme of the literature text – despite the fact that Jakobson never came near to Hasan in showing what is linguistically involved in the foregrounding process. The second part of the chapter is dedicated to bolstering this claim. Choosing texts that confirm that the model is “[…] maximally applicable to the genre [i.e., to literature], irrespective of variations in time, sub-genre, and the critic’s response” (Hasan 1985/89: 90), I present analyses of foregrounded patternings in terms of pervasive parallelism in a 19th, 20th and a 21st century poem: Matthew Arnold’s renowned lyric, Dover Beach; Siegfried Sassoon’s cheerily execrating social poem, Does it matter? and John Whitworth’s Little, a poignant contemporary elegy that has been closely examined by Hasan herself. In reproposing her analysis, my aim is not to dispute or surpass her findings, but simply to demonstrate that they can be effectively revisited à la Jakobson. In closing, my now reinforced proposal for reconciling the two approaches is reiterated. My bid, however, remains a modest one since, both theoretically and practically, pervasive parallelism can be seen to fit into SSS; indeed, it is already there. So what it basically comes down to is a question of its recognition, and so, its legitimation, both of which I am decidedly working toward. Cited References Fowler R. (1986 ), Linguistic Criticism, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Hasan Ruqaiya (1985/ 1989) Linguistics, Language and Verbal Art. Geelong, Vic., Australia, Deakin University Press; Oxford, OUP. Hasan Ruqaiya (2007) “Private pleasure, public discourse: reflections on engaging with literature”, in D.R. Miller, Turci M. (eds), Language and Verbal Art Revisited: Linguistic Approaches to the Study of Literature. London: Equinox, 41-67. Jakobson Roman (1960) Closing statement: linguistics and poetics. In Sebeok T.A. (ed.), Style in Language 350-377. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Jakobson Roman (1966), Grammatical parallelism and its Russian facet, Language, 42 (2), 399-429. Miller Donna R. (2012), “Slotting Jakobson into the social semiotic approach to ‘verbal art’: A modest proposal”, in F. Dalziel, Gesuato S., Musacchio M.T. (eds.) A Lifetime of English Studies: Essays in Honour of Carol Taylor Torsello. Padua: Il Poligrafo, 215-226. Miller Donna R. (2013) “Another look at Social Semiotic Stylistics: Coupling Hasan’s ‘Verbal Art’ framework with ‘the Mukařovský-Jakobson theory”, in C.A.M. Gouveia, Alexandre, M.F. (eds), Languages, Metalanguages, Modalities, Cultures: Functional and socio-discoursive perspectives. Lisbon: BonD, 121-140. Simpson P. (2004) Stylistics. London: Routledge.