Filed under: Unexpected Turbulence | Tags: body, derivative, instrument, language, orchestra, saboteur, speaking vs. writing, speech
Speaking is a very physical experience for me — so much so that I sometimes suspect I’m in a wrestling match with a mastodon.
As a result, I’ve lately been preoccupied with the ways the body lives a secret double life, as the saboteur of language as well as the great little instrument cranking out the pleasantries and phonemes.
In contrast with speaking, writing doesn’t usually give me the feeling of wrestling with a prehistoric elephant. It’s a little more like sitting beach-side with an umbrella drink.
(Shrug!) If language is derivative, it will be as the instrument that produces it.
I sometimes think of the speech/writing duel/dualism in terms of maps. If you’re carrying around two maps — one map of The Province of Speaking, one map of The Duchy of Writing — won’t you end up at a different destination depending on the map you use? How closely can those two destination points be brought together?
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Lately I’ve been having trouble listening to some podcasts because the voices or inflections or repetitive cadence or extra breaths of the narrators drive me batty. It’s kind of similar to what happens when you say one word over and over again or type it out over and over again: it loses its meaning entirely and becomes some crazy imaginary thing that you can’t believe you’ve ever seen before. I mean that in the sense that no matter how interesting or noteworthy or poetic the topic might be, once I’ve become aggravated by the voice, I don’t hear much of what they’re saying anymore.
Comment by Wilbur August 5, 2008 @ 12:17 amThat’s my take on language being sabotaged…. by speech.