SLSL Intro "It Had to Do with Language"

[arthur bryant]

Thank you. Will take another look at that one today. 

Read on one level, the work appears to disavow the
connection between linguistics (and the human sciences
in general) and politics. This is, after all, the
standard line among American academics. However, above
and beyond his brilliance, Chomsky is also a clever
kind of fellow. The reality is that Language And
Responsibility is the product of an alienated white
American intellectual assuming the posture of
contradiction for maximum rhetorical effect. As a
controlling strategy for the work, it is akin to the
high art of Signification in the Black Tradition and
serves to exemplify, in the field of linguistics,
writer-critic Harris's point that "the greater the
degree of alienation, the more likely is the white
intellectual to identify with and even assume the
perspective and modality of blacks" (personal
communication). Functioning like the trickster and
signifier in the Black Tradition, Chomsky employs the
rhetorical strategy of figuring and configuring,
saying one thing but meaning and doing another. It is
Signification of the highest order. This rhetorical
posture allows him to demystify science and academic
scholarship, to demonstrate the power of social and
political action over empty rhetorical platitudes, and
to throw down, rhetorically "trope-a-doping" critics,
rivals, and various sundry detractors.

Smitherman, _talkin that talk_


PS 	2 cents cannot tip the scales of passionate
neutrality. Those reading tendencies between the lines
are forever obliged, owing to ambiguities of reality
or irreality, character or narrative, intentional or
unintentional, to erase some of the lines first. Of
simple and slow tales, we may learn something about
the irresolvable problems created by ambiguities in
fast and fiery fictions like Gravity's Rainbow or Pale
Fire. 










--- Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Do see as well here ...
> 
> Berube, Michael.  Marginal Forces/Cultural Centers:
>    Tolson, Pynchon, and the Politics of the Canon
>    Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1992.
> 
> Discusses the strange case of the canonized white
> male
> author who's done about as much as anyone can do to
> remain marginal vis a vis the uncanonized black
> author
> who wanted nothing more than canonization ...
> 
> --- arthur bryant <bryantarthur at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >  
> > Liberating and positive. But for black authors,
> many
> > that influenced Pynchon, it wasn't always actually
> > OK.
> > 
> > In the contention over which parts of Afro
> Americana
> > should be emphasized, many, like the poet Langston
> > Hughes, wanted to stress more earthy mediums
> > like jazz, the blues, and black dialect. In
> > opposition, the black bourgeoisie wanted to
> > celebrate black culture, but in a genteel
> manner....
> 
> 
> 
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