Blog post 5 of 12

The main difference that she points out between the rhetoric of a poet and that of a president is their audiences' expectations.  She clearly states that the success behind figures such as George Bernard Shaw and Shakespeare is, largely, due their abilities to portray and take on different voices in their writings.  It is what a literary audience expects. They wish to see themselves represented in what they read or see being performed, so it makes sense they would tend to gravitate towards stories and characters that act, talk and sound like them.


On the other hand, Smith says that "from our politicians, we still look for ideological heroism (...).  We consider pragmatists to be weak.  We call men of balance naive fools" (191).  This means that our expectations from a politician, as electors or a similar positions, is that he or she have a single, unequivocal voice.  Having a plurality of voices is considered a sign of weakness, not only of language, but also of ideals and values. And who wants that from the people who are supposed to be making important decisions in our behalf?


According to Smith though, multi-voiced individuals do have a place in politics (192).  She says that it will be a long, hard process, that will end up in the dissociation between the politic and his multiple voices.  This will give him or her the ability to see issues from multiple perspectives, and this capability will, according to her, produce positive results.  She does not hesitate to say that the presence of more and more politicians to fit her description relies heavily in how Obama's administration turns out.

Blog post 4 of 12

1) Zadie Smith begins her speech by stating that English is not her first language.  She then goes on to explain how she learned it while she was in college.  Her motivation, she confesses, is that she thought English was "the voice of lettered people" (179).  Do you agree with this statement? Is a person only truly "lettered" if he or she expresses his or her ideas in the English language? How important is language in defining if one is considered lettered or not?

2) "There is no quicker way to insult an expat Scotsman than to tell him that he has lost his accent" (180). With this phrase, Smith exemplifies the reluctance of some British people to admit they engage in "voice adaptation", calling it even the original scene.  But what is the real importance of maintaining these idiosyncratic elements? How much of a role does tradition in language play in this fast-paced world? Wouldn't adapt language to the general norm make communication easier?

3)  From pages 180 to 182 there is a large analysis of the character of Eliza Doolittle from George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion.  Smith concludes that, by the end of the play, Eliza is stuck in an awkward position, between not only levels of language, but also social classes.  What was then, according to both Smith and Shaw, the morale of the story?

4) Smith then goes on and mentions Barack Obama and his novel, the "many-voiced" Another Country.  She says that it exemplifies Obama's ability to not speak for his people, but speak them.  Why would she point out this difference? And why is it important that Obama, as a president, has it?

5)  Later on in her speech, Smith mentions Shakespeares plays.  She considers they give the author the ability to "speak simultaneous truths" (190).  Can there really exist simultaneous, non-contradictory truths? And if so, what role does language play when delivering them?

6)  Smith ends her speech by focusing on her previous arguments from more of a political perspective.  How does she think (or expect) Obama's gift to speak in many different voices will translate into politics? Does she believe it will have a positive or a negative impact? And what role can it play on a bigger scale?

Blog post 3 of 12

What I really think about the writing space that twitter affords is that it is limited. I am sure we can argue that every single type of writing space is limited in its own way, but Twitter in particular is known because of this fact.  The 140-character limit is the main feature of this site, forcing people to find clever ways to summarize everything it is they want to communicate into short texts.  But since the point of using Twitter is just to send small, precise updates of our actions, daily life and surroundings, I don't think these restrictions play such a big role.  I mean, there are instances when one has to use more than one tweet to write the message he or she wants to send, but these situations are the exception, not the rule.  This is why I believe that, if we keep in mind that Twitter is a microblogging site, the limitations make sense.

Blog post 2 of 12

I'm not sure why so many people wear texts on their clothing and on their skin.  Perhaps they feel that such portable writing serves to connect to others. I know it does in my case, at least. When you wear shirts or sweaters with something written on them, you are making a statement. You are saying, with very few words, who you are, what you like, what you don't.  If someone recognizes or shares what you like, it's an instant feeling of connection to another person, no matter how short that connection might be.  And that just makes you feel like part of something bigger than yourself.

Blog post 1 of 12

The argument Robert Hass is making is that poetry, like other forms of writing, is limited by the language in which it's written, and that sometimes it's important that we are aware of this situation.
Hass is making the point that poets normally try to convey through words experiences of another nature (visual, auditory, emotional).  The limits of the written word force poets to equate two elements that might have no obvious link at first, therefore forcing the reader to make new connections and relations in his or her mind.  By explaining scientifically why the tree does what it does, Hass goes to show that if poets were used to presenting facts in that manner, they would not have been able to cause the desired effect on the reader.  Instead, by saying "the tree danced" the poet creates a vivid, clear image in the reader's mind.

Dance with me, dancer. Oh, I will.  This line represents the relation between the poet and the reader.  This is the poet telling the reader to join him in his journey, to suspend disbelief and to take rhetoric moves for what they are: ways of using written words to communicate through images.  Oh, I will is a willing reader that has accepted the poet's challenge and joins him in this literary dance floor.

Quiz 4

1. Truth value is the defining characteristic of a proposition.  It is this intrinsic quality that allows us, as recipients of the information expressed on a sentence, to make a judgment on the validity of the information we have received.

2. It is not necessary that a visual claim be linguistically explicable.  This is what happens in advertisements all the time.  The claim of the producers or directors of an ad is basically universal: buy our product because it is the best of its field.  To express this, they rarely use what we would call traditional logic. They mostly appeal to the viewers’ emotional side, by linking their products or services to images that produce a positive effect on the audience’s psyche.  For example, in Peru there is a television ad for flue medicine that consists of showing babies dressed up with animal costumes.  Though extremely cute indeed, it is appealing to our emotions and not to our logic to sell us the product.

3.  Going off on what I explained on the previous paragraph, it is a well-known fact that visual productions play on the audiences’ emotions.  Instead of having to read a say whole paragraph, visual productions have the ability to convey the same dramatic effect in a single 15-second clip.  Furthermore, and just like in literal productions, there are some clichéd forms and constructions.  But unlike their literal counterparts, these are not limited by the barrier of language, which makes them even more universal.

First thoughts - rhetorical moves

I keep thinking about my project 3, and I'm pretty sure my next rhetorical move will be to add or work on the metaphors I already have.  Making up metaphors is not an easy task, so I'll probably go back, read them over and decide whether they really convey what I want to say.