Your opinions on this would be useful:
The creative potential of language is undeniable, but the
concordances to a corpus remind us forcibly that in most
of our utterances we are creatures of habit, immensely
predictable, rehearsing the same old platitudes and the
same old clichés in almost everything we say. If it were
not so, language would become unworkable. Humankind
cannot bear very much creativity.
(Hanks 1996: 85)
Thanks
Clichés
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
-
Norm Ryder
- Posts: 118
- Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2003 9:10 pm
- Location: Canberra, Australia
Cliches
Hi metal56 and all
Guess it depends on what you want to convey: are you looking for a Ford or a Ferrari!
Norm.
Guess it depends on what you want to convey: are you looking for a Ford or a Ferrari!
Norm.
-
Duncan Powrie
- Posts: 525
- Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2004 3:33 pm
Hiya metal!
Have you read the exchanges between Prodromou, and Carter and McCarthy; and then Carter and Cook (all drawn from the ELT Journal, and reprinted in Seidlhofer's Controversies in Applied Linguistics (OUP))?
Cook makes some good points about cliche vs creativity in response to a rather meandering initial paper by Carter (and Cook's paper in turn elicits a thankfully more concise reply from Carter), namely, what do we expect learners to say and be able to say (he is not in favour of encouraging copying what native speakers say word-for word). Seidlhofer's introductory comments/contextualizations are excellent, by the way.
(There are also quotes re. "Widdowson vs. Sinclair 1991", but only from Widdowson's side, as permission could unfortunately not be obtained to reprint Sinclair's paper. Beaugrande's comments in this regard are therefore well worth reading, at: www.beaugrande.bizland.com/WiddowSincS.htm, and e.g. www.beaugrande.bizland.com/henry.htm. You may not be able to find these pages using your current search engine; I found them via MSN Japan searches, using the terms "henry widdowson" and "widdowson vs sinclair" repectively. I could copy and send them onto you or here, possibly
).
These "controversies" in themselves may not help one to decide on which side of the fence one sits, especially if one has not read much (more forceful/polemical, less "negotiated/considered=considerATE stuff) about Corpus Linguistics beforehand (not saying you haven't, metal!
), but they are kind of required reading, and should be able to find a new and wider audience in this new format.
Generally, this whole debate kind of reminds me of Bruce Lee's criticisms of classical martial arts, and more specically, the Japanese concept of Shu, Ha, Ri. I sometimes wonder how far he would've gotten without Wing Chun and the other pre-existing martial arts to help him on his way - perhaps his "genius" simply lay in having the courage to pursue his "own", more "real" path (as Lee himself said, "A punch is just a punch, a kick just a kick")...anyway, with languages, one can't simply appeal to efficiency, and there in fact seems to be a contrary desire to be fancy (trying out your language skills won't get you into as much trouble as literally fighting would, especially if you used the "mess" of classical fighting forms, as Lee saw them, for fighting!), even when there are fancy forms already to use for verbal repartee!
That is, native speakers and sensible students of English don't walk around saying "raining cats and dogs" when there are other more basic - or potentially more colorful/less cliched - ways to say the same thing; we all aspire to be witty rather than wor(l)d-weary, even if we don't always have time to think up something that would kick metaphorical ass better (like I maybe didn't just then when I said "kicks ass"
). That being said, "raining cats and dogs" was doubtless once a hilarious and very individual contribution to some conversation somewhere, that somehow caught on (for some strange reason), especially amoungst foreign learners (good job, whichever idiot taught them this idiom! But then, I guess it will always be hard to know exactly what phrases will show learners the creative meaning potential of the language).
Lee's other philosophical basis - Krishnamurti - kind of irritates me (as does Widdowson, increasingly - does this guy have anything left to say?!
).
Have you read the exchanges between Prodromou, and Carter and McCarthy; and then Carter and Cook (all drawn from the ELT Journal, and reprinted in Seidlhofer's Controversies in Applied Linguistics (OUP))?
Cook makes some good points about cliche vs creativity in response to a rather meandering initial paper by Carter (and Cook's paper in turn elicits a thankfully more concise reply from Carter), namely, what do we expect learners to say and be able to say (he is not in favour of encouraging copying what native speakers say word-for word). Seidlhofer's introductory comments/contextualizations are excellent, by the way.
(There are also quotes re. "Widdowson vs. Sinclair 1991", but only from Widdowson's side, as permission could unfortunately not be obtained to reprint Sinclair's paper. Beaugrande's comments in this regard are therefore well worth reading, at: www.beaugrande.bizland.com/WiddowSincS.htm, and e.g. www.beaugrande.bizland.com/henry.htm. You may not be able to find these pages using your current search engine; I found them via MSN Japan searches, using the terms "henry widdowson" and "widdowson vs sinclair" repectively. I could copy and send them onto you or here, possibly
).These "controversies" in themselves may not help one to decide on which side of the fence one sits, especially if one has not read much (more forceful/polemical, less "negotiated/considered=considerATE stuff) about Corpus Linguistics beforehand (not saying you haven't, metal!
), but they are kind of required reading, and should be able to find a new and wider audience in this new format.Generally, this whole debate kind of reminds me of Bruce Lee's criticisms of classical martial arts, and more specically, the Japanese concept of Shu, Ha, Ri. I sometimes wonder how far he would've gotten without Wing Chun and the other pre-existing martial arts to help him on his way - perhaps his "genius" simply lay in having the courage to pursue his "own", more "real" path (as Lee himself said, "A punch is just a punch, a kick just a kick")...anyway, with languages, one can't simply appeal to efficiency, and there in fact seems to be a contrary desire to be fancy (trying out your language skills won't get you into as much trouble as literally fighting would, especially if you used the "mess" of classical fighting forms, as Lee saw them, for fighting!), even when there are fancy forms already to use for verbal repartee!
That is, native speakers and sensible students of English don't walk around saying "raining cats and dogs" when there are other more basic - or potentially more colorful/less cliched - ways to say the same thing; we all aspire to be witty rather than wor(l)d-weary, even if we don't always have time to think up something that would kick metaphorical ass better (like I maybe didn't just then when I said "kicks ass"
). That being said, "raining cats and dogs" was doubtless once a hilarious and very individual contribution to some conversation somewhere, that somehow caught on (for some strange reason), especially amoungst foreign learners (good job, whichever idiot taught them this idiom! But then, I guess it will always be hard to know exactly what phrases will show learners the creative meaning potential of the language).Lee's other philosophical basis - Krishnamurti - kind of irritates me (as does Widdowson, increasingly - does this guy have anything left to say?!
).
Last edited by Duncan Powrie on Fri Mar 12, 2004 10:29 am, edited 2 times in total.
-
Duncan Powrie
- Posts: 525
- Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2004 3:33 pm
Heh that's funny, lolwhites! At least, it's funny if other readers (and presumably you) all agree that your joke is itself cliched (I said, getting all serious).
Me, I'm not sure that it is cliched, even though I found your joke funny (wierd, huh?). To me, "...like the plague" still has a lot of "oomph", and it would take e.g. a big outbreak of plagueypoos for it to lose its (subconsciously?) amusing appeal! Maybe the idea of "avoiding" also has an inherant, story-like/visual appeal that helps maintain a high level of interest receptively...
There often seems to be a "prescriptive" element in judging what is cliched (and no two dictionaries of cliches ever have quite the same entries), so I guess "one man's meat is another man's poison"
. Heading off into proverb-land there, which some may not like...
Oh, I am also really interested in "platitudes" ("plaguey" isn't one, but "meat...poison" seems to be) that help wrap topics up non-confrontationally (although they could be construed as being patronizing), and therefore continue to give functional value to a phrase even if it is cliched. But it is obviously sometimes also necessary, valuable even, to "thrash things out" even if it might lead to argument...
Just a few thoughts there, sorry, let's get back to "Humankind cannot bear very much creativity"! I find it interesting that this guy Hanks seems to imply that corpora don't also contain (m)any instances of creativity!!
Hmm you can't create something from nothing (unless you are an almost god-like genius)...
Me, I'm not sure that it is cliched, even though I found your joke funny (wierd, huh?). To me, "...like the plague" still has a lot of "oomph", and it would take e.g. a big outbreak of plagueypoos for it to lose its (subconsciously?) amusing appeal! Maybe the idea of "avoiding" also has an inherant, story-like/visual appeal that helps maintain a high level of interest receptively...
There often seems to be a "prescriptive" element in judging what is cliched (and no two dictionaries of cliches ever have quite the same entries), so I guess "one man's meat is another man's poison"
. Heading off into proverb-land there, which some may not like...Oh, I am also really interested in "platitudes" ("plaguey" isn't one, but "meat...poison" seems to be) that help wrap topics up non-confrontationally (although they could be construed as being patronizing), and therefore continue to give functional value to a phrase even if it is cliched. But it is obviously sometimes also necessary, valuable even, to "thrash things out" even if it might lead to argument...
Just a few thoughts there, sorry, let's get back to "Humankind cannot bear very much creativity"! I find it interesting that this guy Hanks seems to imply that corpora don't also contain (m)any instances of creativity!!
Hmm you can't create something from nothing (unless you are an almost god-like genius)...