[silence] The Grand/petite narrative of Bharat , Part-III (contd.)

[Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay]

Silence fiction 
The Meta/petite narrative of Bharat (Contd. Posting-6) 
(Summarized and  translated  version of a Bangla pseudo-novel, published in Kalodhvani, 13:1, October, 2005)
Canto-III
BHARAT¡¦S DIARY (contd.)

ƒÞ	  Linguistics is a meta-speaking on speaking¡Xmeta-symbolic order on the symbolic order. At the moment of speaking, I do not need to know the constitutive algorithmic principles of Meta-symbolic order that was inserted into our super-ego as Language-managers/-judges/-polices. Silence is an ¡§other¡¨ in this meta-symbolic order. I want to reject this order of control. I am tired of speaking game. 
[Mitra got the clue for his diagnosis from this word ¡§reject¡¨] 
ƒÞ	My institute gives me a work to do: Computational Linguistics. Computer would speak as if s/he is a human being. Linguistic data must be fitted according the dictums of available software algorithm. Whatever may be the human linguistic order of things (may be it is an n-nary system or it may follow some procedural or non-algorithmic rule instead of constitutive rule), it must follow the available binary program. In addition, when the program is ¡§fully¡¨ executed, computer pretends as if s/he is a market (wo) man: s/he can repeat/translate stereotypical sentences etc. Could anyone prove the following equation: speaking subject= f (binary machine) or vise versa? Perceiving body as a machine is a violence. 
ƒÞ	Thanks to John Cage, I got a silent zone for my future academic performances. I am coining a term ¡§silenceme¡¨ (like phoneme, morpheme, lexeme¡K)¡Xnothing can be called as silence, but there is silence¡Kour chosen silence¡Khowever, there is no absolute transcendental silence. Nevertheless, who will hear this in the disciplinary technology of meta-symbolic order? 
ƒÞ	When, in Linguistics, intonation pattern of speech is attested by machine (not by using trained ears of the musician, who can make notation of music as well as speech) by surveying a sample population in a lab-state, a crucial variable of that particular community is totally ignored. That is their cultural audio-exposure to the, as Cage called it, ¡§unintended sounds¡¨ or non-discursive sonority (that is, the noises, music, and rhythm of the habitat or the non-discursive sounds in which the particular population inhabits). It is not possible to gauge the intonation pattern of particular speech community without noticing this context-specificity of unintended sounds/non-discursive sonority. 
ƒÞ	Now, non-coercive dialogue without any manipulation is totally impossible. What can I do? Academic interactions are also impossible at the age of ¡§specialists¡¨.  It is better time for me as I ¡¥m reading poems on silence by Indian subaltern scholars of the middle ages: Kabir (15 C) and Dadu (17 C). Apart from Sartre, Wittgenstein, Derrida, I am now also going through some indigenous works on silence. 
ƒÞ	I still remember the first line of the song sung by a Baul in a local train, ¡§When silence would swallow non-silence¡K¡¨ 
[Mitra noted Bharat¡¦s reading list; he was referring to S.N. Ganguly¡¦s ¡§Culture, Communication and Silence¡¨ (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, XXIX: 2. 1968), Shefali Moitra¡¦s ¡§Feminist thought, Androcentrism, Communication and Objectivity (2002) and Kalidas Bhattacharya-Shefali Moitra correspondences on silence] 
            
                                                    (to be concluded) 
DEBAPRASAD BANDYOPADHYAY 
http://linguistlist.org/people/personal/get-personal-page2.cfm?PersonID=2503

Can anyone suggest any remedy for Bharat, taking cue from John?
regards,
Debaprasad         
   


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.mail.virginia.edu/pipermail/silence/attachments/20060921/e2769795/attachment.html