Speak Out: I said, do you speak-a my language?
Andrew Tuplin
She just smiled and handed me a vegemite sandwich.
I’ve always enjoyed that song by those men from down under (where beer flows and men chunder). I mean, I don’t pretend to know what it’s all about, the language of the song is technically English, but the vernacular is decidedly foreign. I can understand the more utilitarian words and I can make out some semblance of meaning based on context, but the real meat of the song, the vegemite of its sandwich, if you will, is lost on me.
I had a similar feeling while reading some of my assigned reading last week, Stalky and Co. by Rudyard Kipling. My difficulty in understanding the text disturbed me.
What’s the big deal? This is university; you can’t expect all Harry Potter all the time.
Well, gentle reader, the big deal is that I didn’t find the book in the adult fiction section of the Vancouver Public Library, I had to descend to the very bottom floor, to the children’s floor. Stalky and Co. is children’s literature.
Well . . . maybe the issue is you.
Now, if I am hearing your inner monologue correctly, it appears that you are starting to suspect that the problem might be me and my limited intellectual capacity. This may very well be true, however, before you throw that stone you hold in your hand, gentle reader, consider this: I pass by you in the hallways and sit beside you in the lecture halls. I talk to you and sometimes I overhear you discussing Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz (she’s like 50 and gross. He traded her for ScarJo, who is like the hottest 20-year-old ever). From what I can deduce, your houses appear to be made of some kind of superheated silica. You really shouldn’t throw that stone.
No, you are no dummy. You are Time Magazine’s person of the year, after all. No one is suggesting that you are a dummy, but if we are on equal grounds (and I believe we are), we may share a similar issue: we are university students who may struggle with literature commonly read by youth less than 100 years ago.
Kipling, in the book, provides some information that may shed some light on the problem. Education has changed. In Kipling’s educational world, boys were called to stand up, read passages of Latin poetry and translate on the spot. And they were expected to get it right.
Translating Latin poetry on sight — this sounds nothing like my junior high education. No, my teachers did not presume to expect so much of me. They would read out loud our modern Latin passages (Shakespeare) and they would supply the definitions to all those foreign-sounding words (Shakespeare is very difficult. I don’t expect you to understand all of it). We sat back comfortably in our desks without having to fear failure or humiliation. Actually we didn’t have to do much of anything. Our part was to dress up and perform modernised mini-dramas loosely based on certain parts of the text (think Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet). We were given marks mostly based on effort and participation, but also on our own creative interpretations. Shakespeare’s ideas sat salient in the back seat. It may sound like Shakespeare was dumbed down for us, but I think the teachers would tell you more correctly that he was “made accessible.” A much nicer thing to say, I think, and less offensive.
But now, as I struggle through a children’s story about schoolboys, a story which has been enjoyed by mere boys not long ago, I’m not so certain about the merits of my accessible education. I feel dumbed down. Perhaps it’s the effect of an education system that expected too little of me and was too afraid to let me fail. Whatever the case, I have cause to believe that the situation is about to get worse.
A friend who teaches grade 9 English told me that every year a new batch of students must be taught that it is not appropriate to hand in assignments containing MSN-speak and some of them do it anyway. (WTF?) Our language is changing quickly — too quickly. I struggle with children’s lit from 100 years ago and the generation that comes next will be even less equipped to understand. I wonder what kinds of texts they will need translated for and spoon-fed to them. The nature of communication is changing. As English (quickly) devolves, our connection to the knowledge of the past, our poetry and stories, is weakening. Our common language written in phones and MSN windows is beginning to resemble more closely the kinds of crude scribblings formerly found in caves. (OMG!)
Can you hear, can you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.