Thursday, August 03, 2006

Command of Language.

Well, how do you judge a person's skill at language? Take English for example.
English arguably has two basic elements, grammar and vocabulary.

A person new to English would write something like this:
"It was a hot day. The sun was out."

Nothing wrong, isn't it? Except it won't get you anywhere in the world of language.
Perfect grammar. That is the first, and most important step.
But perfect grammar's not enough.

Here's Level 2:
"It was a sweltering day, and the afternoon sun shone bright in the sky."

This time, more advanced vocabulary is added into the picture. Now we have a better sentence, which communicates the idea of a 'hot day' much more clearer.
Where does it go from here?

Level 3:
"The day baked under a sweltering sun, radiant with its bright afternoon rays."

Here there is effort to group and combine adjectives and nouns where they are not usually used, but still keeping their usage applicable and accurate. (thats the best way I can explain it)

And this is the highest level, Level 4:
"Noontime baked under sweltering sun at levels near unbearable."

Here, there is a complete elimination of unneccessary words, such as 'a' in 'a sweltering sun'. The structure of the whole sentence is changed, the split created by the comma completely removed. Each word now holds meaning and information that give the sentence its power. For example, instead of saying 'day' and 'afternoon' seperately within the same sentence, a simple 'noontime' is used, and this alone communicates all that is needed to know about the time of day, in order to form a picture in the reader's mind.

Infused within a simple sentence are all the conventions of English, maximum use of simple vocabulary, integration of unusual yet accurate grammar & vocabulary, yet completely broken rules of conventional sentence structure. The author is toying with grammar itself, while still being linguistically accepted. And that is the highest level of evolution the command of a language can reach, and the level at which poets can string words together.

Few authors of entire novels have the experience, time and knowledge to completely rearrange conventional text, and make it even more readable, interesting and polished, even when writing in such altered sentence structures.

Now, a sentence from an actual short story, which has wonderful use of grammar in it:

"Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come."

In this case, a stranger, this guy called Nuttel wants to meet the aunt, who is upstairs and coming down soon, while her sacarstic 15 year old neice is already sitting opposite him.

Wonderful sentence. Here you find a long but satisfying, well-linked and yet contrasting grammar and actions. And what is the only word that can be considered 'chim'? Endeavour. That's all!

A lesser author, a pathetic wannabe with thesaurus in hand, would write something like this in an essay (in this case, of course written by me):
"Beads of pearlescent sweat glistened on his bushy brow as he carefully contemplated words to say. He greatly wanted to duly impress the young adolescent girl before him, yet he did not wish to draw any unpleasant comparisons between her and her aunt, that might result in severe misintepretation and spoil their already awkward relationship."

Rubbish.

Yes, the above sentence can be considered good, concise English, but see, it uses very basic structures, merely using adjectives to mask their rudimentary grammar and achieve required depth of meaning, which any fool can do. I can rewrite it as this:

He sweat as he thought about what to say. He wanted to talk kindly to the young girl in front of him, but was afraid of saying anything that might be hurtful to her or her aunt.

Structure goes something like, Peter felt bored while doing homework. Noun followed by an adjective and a verb.
Second sentence, Peter wanted to play, but he had homework to do.
Simple synthesis and conjunction of conflicting actions.
Nothing special.

Whereas in the original story excerpt, the author has managed to completely rearrange the structure, see:

"Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come."

"Peter wanted to do something that would ease his boredom while not making him feel guilty about not doing his homework."

In a simple sentence with standard vocabulary, the author manages to communicate action, contrast and emotion accurately, rather than what someone with poor command of grammar can do, even at his best efforts.

I see people like that all the time in school, especially in polytechnic, where you have people who think they can speak good English, just because many other persons more adept at Chinese only can manage broken English. They, with all their big mind-boggling dictionary-check-inducing tirade of adjectives, don't know nuts about what it really means to fully command this wonderful language.

Keep this in mind. Outstanding English is not about how chim your words can get, but how much you understand its grammar. A dictionary can be on hand anytime you wish, but knowledge of structure can only be individually developed and honed by practice. Thats what makes it so special.

Note: I do not have any experience in proper linguistic studies, and the above are purely personal observations, communicated with words already familiar to me, that I best felt illustrated my points. They may not be the correct technical terms. They don't try to be. They just have something to say and want to say it.

jOhn thought at 8:45 AM