{"id":90,"date":"2016-07-04T23:55:43","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T06:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/?p=90"},"modified":"2016-07-04T23:55:43","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T06:55:43","slug":"assignment-26-participatory-role-in-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/2016\/07\/04\/assignment-26-participatory-role-in-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Assignment 2:6 – Participatory Role in Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

1) In his article, \u201cGodzilla vs. Post-Colonial,\u201d King discusses Robinson\u2019s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, \u201cthe patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.\u201d More than this, Robinson, he says \u201cdevelops what we might want to call an oral syntax that defeats reader\u2019s efforts to read the stories silently<\/em> to themselves, a syntax that encourages readers to read aloud\u201d and in so doing, \u201crecreating at once the storyteller and the performance<\/em>\u201d (186). Read \u201cCoyote Makes a Deal with King of England\u201d, in Living by Stories<\/em>. Read it silently, read it out loud, read it to a friend, and have a friend read it to you. See if you can discover how this oral syntax works to shape meaning for the story by shaping your reading and listening of the story.<\/em> Write a blog about this reading\/listening experience that provides references to the story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"coyote\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

King nails it in his article \u201cGodzilla vs. Post-Colonial\u201d when he highlights the strategic usage of oral syntax prevalent in Robinson\u2019s story \u201cCoyote Makes A Deal with the King of England.\u201d With his repetition of words and phrases, along with abrupt deviations in plots and thoughts, one can hardly keep up with the flow of the story \u2026 Unless it is verbally read aloud. This is Robinson\u2019s weapon that swiftly combats silence, and instead, naturally encourages the reader to share the story with another person. You see, the goal is to bring the story alive<\/a>, to shorten the distance between the storyteller and the listener, and Robinson successfully does so by writing in a way that has the reader pause in the appropriate places, emphasize tones at certain endings, and even act out storylines with gestures, like when the black and white law book is \u201cabout this long and about this wide\u201d (Robinson 84).<\/p>\n

Repetition<\/a> is an undeniably obvious factor in Robinson\u2019s piece, and he certainly plays it to his advantage when creating a rhythmic tune to the sentences and overall structure. For example:<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 God sent the Angel to Coyote. <\/strong>
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sent the Angel.
\n<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Do you know what the Angel was?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you know?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Angel, God\u2019s Angel, you know.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They sent that to Coyote.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And Angel flew and get to Coyote <\/strong>(Robinson 66).<\/p>\n

The words \u201cGod,\u201d \u201cAngel,\u201d \u201cCoyote\u201d and \u201csent\u201d are particularly emphasized through constant reinforcement, and thus become instilled in the reader\u2019s mind. This oral syntax technique allows us to pick up the specific details and themes that the author wishes us to note.<\/p>\n

I admit, when I first read the story in silence, I found myself disconnected to the characters. Why? Because I was so fixated on (subconsciously) correcting the sentences and flow of words just so the story would grammatically make more sense. I was changing fragmented sentences into complete sentences that followed the western \u201capproved\u201d linguistics and syntax, and completely missed the whole point of the story. I grabbed my 6-year-old niece, and read to her from the beginning. I immediately felt the story change: sentences that began with \u201cand\u201d and \u201cbut\u201d felt natural off the tip of my tongue, academic \u201cerrors\u201d became less of the focus, and as I was wailing my hands in the air and altering my tone here and there with the words, my center of attention was on the meaning <\/em>behind the words. Later that night when I had my mother read the story to me, I found that the story was specifically written to give a sense of warmth, intimacy, comfort even. It is written in a way that allows the listener to feel fully immersed and embraced into <\/em>the story, like a participant, rather than a bystander.<\/p>\n

Through this experience, I realized we have all been conditioned to believe that a certain framework of thinking is forever the sole measure of accuracy, excellence, and superiority. I appreciate what Robinson has done here: his usage of oral syntax can be seen as a way of rebelling and challenging the status quo of modern academia as well as colonial narratives. The structure he has created wholly deconstructs the typical narrative voice we are constantly exposed to in western academic writing, and instead, we learn to search deeper beyond what is seen to the naked eye.<\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

Buvala, K. Sean. “The Three Essential Skills of the Storyteller.”\u00a0Storyteller.net,\u00a0<\/em>1999. Web. 3 July 2016.<\/p>\n

Coyotes.\u00a0<\/em>Desert USA. Web. 3 July 2016. Digital Image.<\/p>\n

Frost, Shelley. “The Importance of Repetition When Reading.”\u00a0Our Everyday Life,\u00a0<\/em>2016. Web. 3 July 2016.<\/p>\n

King, Thomas. \u201cGodzilla vs. Post-Colonial.\u201d\u00a0Unhomely States: Theorizing English-Canadian Postcolonialism<\/i>. Mississauga, ON: Broadview, 2004. 183- 190.<\/p>\n

Robinson, Harry. \u201cCoyote Makes a Deal with the King Of England.\u201d\u00a0Living by Stories: a Journey of Landscape and Memory.\u00a0<\/i>Ed.\u00a0<\/i>Wendy Wickwire. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2005. 64-85.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1) In his article, \u201cGodzilla vs. Post-Colonial,\u201d King discusses Robinson\u2019s collection of stories. King explains that while the stories are written in English, \u201cthe patterns, metaphors, structures as well as the themes and characters come primarily from oral literature.\u201d More than this, Robinson, he says \u201cdevelops what we might want to call an oral syntax […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19486,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[941788],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engl-470"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19486"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/sandrawu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}