Wallala leiallala (1922)

Uiu

Tralali tralala

Aia ai ai aaia i i (1930)

Muuuuuuude now (ca 1935)

And what language is that? Can we accept these phrases as representative of phonetic activity? And what phonetic system of pronunciation marks each of these texts as indicative of english (1922), spanish 1930), and english (1935)?

The above are instances of a forced babble rather than a phonetically indicative communique. Respectively these excerpts can be found in T.S. Eliot's Waste Land (lines 277-278), Vincente Huidobro Altazor (Canto IV), and Samuel Beckett's Saneis I.

The concern here is to treat how the phonetic context in these fragments are graphic rather than a functional phonetic effect. The systematic use of phonetics is to be found in E.E. Cummings and those compositions for flute which audiblize respiration during pitch production.

the application of phonetics by Eliot, Huidobro, and beckett despite the appearance of spontaneity are equivalent to grabbing for an easy rhyme. Despite the absence of a phonetically based method to create a phonetic display each uses a logical method to effect their quasi-phonetic diction:

1922-Figured alteration

1930-Substitution of phoneme for a graphic equivalent

1935-Numeric serialization (repetition)

Huidobro comes the closest to a phonetic resolution whereas Eliot and Beckett have used the structural devices common to style, meter or repetition.

To further establish the fragment from the Waste Land is more graphic than sonora, make the following reductions:

EIA= 3

LA= 2

AL= -2

The result will be:

W...3...2...2 L...3

W..-2...2...2 L...3...2...2

The horizontal, vertical and diagonal symmetry become quite evident such that the overall form of these verses reduces to:

A-B'

B''-A

This is not to overlook the subtle aspects in the A for (eial) in which there is the superimposition of eia...1, eiÆal, and finally eiaÆlaÆla. These mirrored images and symmetries are as though in an adept metrical play that turns the iambic into the anapest or the submersion of the spondee into the dactyl. Eliot found a binary form and variations to give the lyrical effect of the bell tolling:

Weialala leia

Wallala leiallala

***

Uiu

Tralali tralala

Aia ai ai aaia i i

Once again using numerical substitutions:

iu=4 ui=-4

ia=5 ai=-5

Trala= II

la= 1

li= 2

The structure here is more complex that is less regular as in Eliot which only confirms Eliot used an exact metric like technique. The complexity in the Huidobro's pattern owes also to the mixing of semantic content and graphic alternation (the treatment of meaning and sound limits the symmetry , creating a complexity , irregularity). In the diphthongs there are puns upon "there is" hay and "I took flight" hui. The structure of this passage reveals:

U...4 -4....4

II..2 II....1

A...5 5...5..A....5...i

Within the juxtaposition of the spoken ui which equals the written hui (in spanish the h in hui is silent) we find ui (I take flight) encases the fragment selected. Even at a more simplistic level you and I in english what stares at us in the face, along with the fact that Altazor grew out of french and the climate of a Joyce influence.

The above can be further simplified:

A

B' B''

C C''

The A component sets out I take flight along with u/i punning whereas, C is punning as in A with a silent h (hay=ai). In C the semantic meaning is there is but even more simplistically ai in spanish is the emphatic expression of a sigh. Between

A & C there is a complex pun between the you in flight away and I that is there. This pun is carried out by the lyrical incarnation of B which is the bird of lyricism in flight away and yet immediately present as the lyrical personification. These verse stack conceptual terms of Going vs. Being and the symbolic voicing of the two using the persona of a bird's cry shows a structure with sonora material but is still functioning according to meaning rather than sonora modality; the idea of the bird's song is here as an abstractions:

Uiu Tralali tralala...etc.

muuuuuuude now

The simplest to consider structurally? Unlike Eliot or Huidobro Beckett's motif is more linear and easily contoured, except the motif is not in english but in a fluid non-english vowel, highly constrictive and continental. The substitution here would be:

u=1

....1(7)...de now

mude (tired) is stretched out seven times, doubled by the graphic effect of the double point upon each u, the impression of sputtering goes on as does that motor and the ratio (2::1) The expanse of the number and knowledge, The elongation of tired is a well defined rhythmic ploy of a long beat with slight hesitation in the short beat now, that is a big trochee , is staring us in the face. The elongation in the series reproduces the vibration of the sphincter as the protagonist in his moto goes through the ratio, combined. The prolonged tired thought within, this mixture of the immediate tired of a ride through a bumpy road in which the terrain of thought joggled mude reproducing

muuuuuude.

Each of the 3 fragments selected used a phonetic effect to illustrate an activity and an observable aleatory noise bell, bird, and motor. These fragments are similar in their intent to describe imitate or recreate something in the atmosphere. yet the treatment of emphatic content or the immediate-distinctive traits that make recognizable and meaningful sonora terms is not found in these Joycean experiments. The study of phonetics in poetry is one of sound and meaning as in breaths, percussive strokes, and respire.

The consideration of respiration's functional qualities would be best served within the example of an illiterate person. Such a model is useful as it avoids graphic and syntax in phonetics. The illiterate is a perfect example to find a sonora model which is able to communicate without impairment. Whereas the sue of cases like aphasia or child speech treat the generative aspect of phonetics through impairment or acquisition of the inventory of phonema. Instead of using the girl without a tongue that spoke well enough , I have thought to find a subject which exemplifies an intelligible and positive phonetic activity. The vocalizations verbal or non-verbal that are of interest here appear as song , radio, and a resolve to bring notated aspiration into contemporary poetics.

The phonetic act opens with the desire to communicate. It is under emphatic need or functional necessity speech is supported by respiration and the release of vocal energy is shaped.

Babble has no place within a phonetic expression. The use of babble is like a bad accent in another language that forces one to turn away from babble or live mute in a society unable to functionally communicate. Respiration and the percussive accentuation punctuate and contribute to intelligible statements. The melodious contribute to intelligible statements. The melodious intelligible and vocalized intervention in poetics means to seek respiratory and phonetic values instead of babble.

These are the provisions which help to solidify the search for a phonetic model which is empirical but not only dependent on the observation of phonetic data. Our concern is the conversion of sound into meaning as intersensorial and physiological functions which incorporate memorial or associative aspects of mundane (habitual) or emphatic (psychic) sources. Sound and meaning are no more to be found in a reviewing of what one says or means just as phonetic evaluation is not merely a matter of formant speech traits without respirations (pressurization) equally vital to phonetic content.

The qualification of respiratory values in speech proceeds from three conditions: interspersion of a vital function with episodic communications needs (speech, instruction, emphasis ), exhalation axis respiration , (support mechanism of speech and phonetic gesture like laughter), and inhalation axis of repetition (as related with pause and synchronism of vital process and communication). The acoustical evaluation of these facets of respiration is according to the concentration of energy within each of the respiratory tracts.

More generally the respiratory function of the phonetic act exists prior to the utterance as an automatic selection of those tracts to be used in conjunction with the formant (articulation) members. This process occurs at highly discrete level which are underlined by memorial and neurological functions. Yet, when these thoughtless (semi-automatic) performances are considered within literary communication one becomes aware of the sensorial functions which go into speech, emphasis, and instruction. The study of the mechanics of respiration in phonetic activity fosters experimentation in literary arts and the study of speech/intersensorial impairment.

Respiration radiates its own proper sonora act and contrasts with the verbal onomatopoeia. The difference between respiration and onomatopoeia as phonetic signifiers owes to the sensorial member upon which they depend. Respiratory gestures are rhythmic and derive from tactile sense while the onomatopoeia depends upon audition and the ability to mimic what was heard. The study of phonetics need further associate sensory mode with the formant-articulatory components of voiced and unvoiced speech.

Much of what has been said owes to the consideration from a verbal child turned musician, more exactly a flutist. The analogy between the verbal child and the flutist is valuable as it offers both the voiced and non verbal emissions as worthy of a phonetic study. If one listened closely to Cinq Incantations by Andre Jolivet one could see a melody developed on respiratory traits rather than a melody of pitch and intevallic development. The systematic treatment of respiration by Jolivet in these flute solos can be seen as how respiration can be used to dephonolize or rephonolize , that is timbricly neutralized or enhanced. These incantations abound with strict breathing notations like roule, role sifflant, as a great respiration. There are also requirements in the notation which lead to taking on unconventional respiratory postures to achieve a more metallic or deep brass horn sound. The lineal development of these practices is an exercise in ever sharpening (intensification) of pitch, what an arabist might call agudización.

The use of these contractive and bellowing attacks on pitch are used to create static (ecstatic)cadences associated with death, war, birth, lost of a leader, or agrarian need. Musically, Jolivet found an emotive way to transform the respiration and the melodic instrument into a percussive and aspired ritual tool. Jolivet's accomplishment is how he used formant aspects of respiration as the basis for an aesthetic application. Jolivet encourages us to go on with a mechanical (functional) study of respiration as the applications available are too great to overlook, but can be made expressive without the use of functional and mechanical understanding.

Some of the most distinctive aspects of respiration include nasalization, sifflant, and silence. Silence having to do with inhalation and the use of pause as a rhetorical device and according to the channeling of the vital signs and the communication function. The association of pause and respiration can be found the greek rhetorical terms:

abrutio (elipsis)

apocope

aposiopesis

homoioteleuton

suspiratio

temesis

How sweetly these terms find their illustration in the escenic works of Monteverdi or the Bach Passion Cantatas.

Our concern are those exhalation based elements of respiration , as well as those tracts which are used either for the inhale or the exhale.

Perhaps it would be of use to recall those binaries Jakobson derived for the study of the french vowel.

I. Presence or absence of nasality

Two voices Beckett and Borges, each with a static voicing which still needs a set of conventions on how to read them aloud or in recital.

This method hopes to provide the basis for others to find, a voicing for Beckett and Borges. What voices to give Beckett and Borges? One cannot be content with the intonation suggested by metaphor and poetic tone, such a reading tends toward melodrama. Nonetheless, the need for a phonetic method would be governed by: amiability, the horse, the hound, and the dogged boy-voice as they appear in these authors, while their bilingualism intensifies the need for a phonetic resolution of how to render Beckett and Borges.

Common speech is always attempting to make itself clear enough. The speech mechanism overcomes physiological defects as in the "girl without the tongue" or the application of a vibrator to amplify the voice of a strained vocal chord. In song the requirement of clarity of expression shifts from the imperative of textual intelligibility to melodic definition. In song we can identify the emotion along with the release of vocal energy and respiration. Percussive emphasis (accents) and pauses (silences) serve as the fundamentals in the phonetic act of song, speech, and written verse.