Reflection#5

“Language is never unitary”

Imagine ten people stand in the line and whisper continually.  First person starts to whisper to the second person behind, the second person whisper the third, the third continually whisper, and go on to the last person in the line.  A sentence which the last person in the line speaks out loud always changes a form of sentence and meaning.  People in the same country and culture, but they have a different experience.  They can define the meaning of the sentence differently.  Every language changes all the time.  People in a new generation will continuously create a new vocabulary.  I try to compare adult’s conversation to teenager’s conversation.  Adults‘conversation is longer sentence but more meaningful than the teenagers is.  The teenagers will speak short but not thoroughly understand.  In the individual group of people will set up a new kind of words or slang, knowing between people in the group and enlarge to general society, and become common words.  Moreover, the feeling of the speaker has impact to the conversation.  A speaker speaks the same sentence but shows the different mood.  The meaning of the sentence can be changed.  Thus, I agree to Bakhtin’s theory that language is never unity.  I am the one who is not English native speaker.  I really cannot show my feeling very well when I speak English, but I really know what I want to say.  My face sometimes looks angry, but I do not mean that.  I cannot naturally show exact feeling because I do not really get into the language.

reflection#4

Sublimity

What does sublimity really mean to me?  I think it depends on an individual line of thought.  People who have different experience may have different feeling.   According to the class’s presentation, I felt every clip that our classmates brought up to the presentation was sublime.  While I was watching them, they made my hair stand on end.  Lord of the Ring was the most impressible clip for me because an arm of national defense was encouraged by his superior.  He did not talk much, but his tone, his action, his speech, and his innate feeling looked very powerful.  I have used almost the same kind of army clip, but on my clip, the leader was giving the speech about proclaiming peach.  I felt they were unity.  The superior fought with his people.  He did not overlook or abandon his army.  The superior and the soldiers collaborated to fight for their peace.  Also, the clips will be sublime or not is up on an audient’s experience and an attitude which I mean what he or she does like or does not like.  Moreover, does an audient get into or understand the point of view of the part of the story?  If an audient does not know what presenters are trying to tell, he or she may not feel about sublimity in that part. 

In my opinion, personal innate feeling and emotion are the most essential elements.  The situations that concern about human’s feeling are very sensitive.  In one clip ten people may have ten points of view.

Analysis#1

 

The King Naresuan

On the YouTube, it is a movie based on Thai History, directed a film by Mom Chao Chatree Yu Kon.  This movie splits in four sections, but I would bring the second section which name is “To Proclaim Peach”.  The year 1674, Princes Maha Hrnrnamrnrcha was promoted as the king of Ayutthaya, then inherit to Mahin who pleased make it succeed to the throne reign of King Naresuan to govern the city of Phitsanulok.  In Myanmar, after the rain God died, relationship between Thailand and Myanmar became shaking.  Moreover, King Naresuan was surprisingly ambushed.  Thus, he took this opportunity to proclaim peach to and broke off diplomatic with Myanmar.

In this scene, he is proclaiming in front of troops by giving speech that Thai people should be in peach to his people and people from the other side who want to join him.  The king used Gorgias’s epideictic or praise rhetoric speech attempt to defend the enemy.  He also used a literary tradition of blame on the enemy that “the king of Hongsawadee does not stand with honesty, friendship, kingsmanship, or tradition.  He acts dishonesty attempting to bring danger up on us.  From now onwards, the kingdoms of Ayutthaya and Hongsawadee will be separated until the end of time.”  When the enemy which has been superior becomes weak, a country which has been a prisoner becomes mature.  To the point of Gorgias, the stronger is not hindered by the weak, but the weak must be ruled by the stronger.  Moreover, the stronger must lead the weaker to follow (39).  I think he tries to persuade his people to trust on him that he is going to bring freedom to them.  It seems to me that he is inviting his people to fight with him, and die with him.  According to Aristotle’s From on Rhetoric noted that “(There is persuasion) through character whenever the speech is spoken in such a way as to make the speaker worthy of credence; for we believe fair-minded people to a greater extent and more quickly (than we do other), on all subjects in general and completely so in cases there is not exact from a previous opinion that the speaker is a certain kind of person; (115).  His own characteristic its self makes people trust because his tone, his personality, and his reputation of war. 

In the scene presents the power of persuasion.  This situation has impact on the future, and it is in the line with Aristotle’s Logos of deliberative.  He proclaims peach at this moment, he can or cannot overcome the enemy.  He or she may die in the war, die a martyr, but he or she trusts and believe in him.  Moreover, the idea of sublime is important on this scene.  At one point the country had been captured, and people had no freedom.  One day, their king proclaims to get back to his own country, to be free.  This freedom and peach must exchange with many people’s lives.

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Works cited

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
W.W. Norton & Company; Second Edition. New York, 2001. Print.

Reflenction#3

Aristotle

Aristotle’s literary theory, which people in the past until now can use, is about giving public speech.  His theory can be adapted to people in the real world, and it is very general that people can follow.  His speech separates in to three parts which are Forensic; concerns with the past, Deliberative; concerns with the future, and Epideictic; concerns with the present.  I can see many movie and play use this theory to talk about flashback and flash forward, especially on speech scene.  On the other hand, Plato’s main point is about perfect good.  He wrote anything he wants to write down in his opinion.  He used of understanding of form and reason, but he was missing of fact in human life.  Aristotle’s theory deals with people feeling, so the writers should do what is made people happy and straight forward thing to make them happy, and break their way.  His poetry is separated into comedy, tragedy, and Epic.  Before I took this class, I had no idea about literary poetry.  It is very complex and hard to understand.  Only one scene in the story is meaningful.  All elements in the scene have the meaning.  The professor and all students discussed in the class about meaning of a law court scene.  I admitted my fault that I could not tell what the meaning was, but when classmates started to discuss, I started understanding.  This theory is complicate.  In addition, what sublimity is, it is depended on how people look and experiences people met. 

Reflection#2

Plato

Plato’s theory is optimistic idea.  He tried to develop the reader’s character to his idea of good.  He used dialogue between two people to communicate to the reader.   Moreover, In The Allegory of the cave, the audients who were in the cave were tough and told about the story of goodness the same thing by the shadow.  It seems like the reader is a part of the group, but just sits and listens.  It is a good idea to teach the reader thru the reading because the middle class and servant can learn the way of life.  However, Plato should include some negative parts in the reading because the reader can think over between bad and good.  The audients never go outside of the cave or read out of the book, so they do not have the new idea of life and the true story of the world.

Gorgias’s the power of speech

The Greek poetry in particular influenced recent attitude.  Classical antiquity is perhaps the most important sauce of the western tradition.  Greek poetry transmitted society’s value on major functions of giving pleasure, preserving memory of great deeds, and providing source of ethical wisdom.  Speechmaker can drag in all sort of irrelevant matters to persuade the audient.  The speech is powerful.  For example, Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen, Helen has to leave her husband because she loses to the speech.