Comments on: Orthography and (literary) point of view http://noncompositional.com/2006/01/orthography-and-literary-point-of-view/ Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:04:39 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Russell http://noncompositional.com/2006/01/orthography-and-literary-point-of-view/comment-page-1/#comment-51 Russell Thu, 12 Jan 2006 20:28:19 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2006/01/orthography-and-literary-point-of-view/#comment-51 <p>Right, the chapters are written from their POV, but not by them. And the individual chapters/sections themselves are not special in terms of how the POV works out, what is special (or at least somewhat novel, to me) is merely their short length and the fact that they do not have titles as such, just character names as headers.</p> <p>The spelling of the words in each chapter is not dependent on how the POV character would spell them (if they are literate or not), as you say, but in the case I quoted above with worms and wyrms, I think the situation is a bit stickier. I was wondering what exactly the author was trying to accomplish. Say that a worm is not a wyrm (i.e., these are not just spelling alternatives). In that case, we know that Arya still is ignorant regarding the type of creature that lived in the mines - she thinks they are fire<em>worms</em>, when in fact they are fire<em>wyrms</em>. On the other hand, say that these are just spelling alternates - then the question is why give Arya the "o" spelling and the holy man the "y" spelling? Probably to show that one is more knowledgable than the other (probably the holy man, given the assumption that many people reading the books know about <em>worms</em> but probably not about <em>wyrms</em> - but it's the sort of knowledge not available to Arya.</p> <p>Summing up, the author faithfully represents the POV character's knowledge (of spelling and knowledge in general) when quoting them, but can give the reader extra knowledge when quoting other characters. This generally doesn't happen in straight prose. In other words, there is never anything like <em>Several rather unsavory characters lie waiting for Arya behind that door, but she didn't have a clue about it</em> (except in flashbacks). Similarly no non-POV characters' speech is represented when the POV character didn't hear it. The exception is in the spelling of other characters' speech, which can represent a wider range of spellings than the POV character has access to. And in the case where a worm is <em>not</em> a wyrm, we have some (in)significant piece of information that the reader has, which the character doesn't.</p> <p>The consequences (which, truthfully, I didn't really think too hard on) is a disparity between what the reader knows and what the character knows, even when the reader is supposed to only have access to the character's knowledge (obvious exception: the reader knows it from reading in another person's POV). I imagined that this could be exploited to a greater degree with illiterate characters, thought I suppose that doesn't make much sense - and I'm not sure what to think about a case like the wyrm one where Arya is illiterate. I was thinking of a hypothetical case where the difference between two homophonous words is crucial, and the illiterate character is aware of the distinction between the two words but is nevertheless represented as using the incorrect word (via spelling).</p> <p>There are some other possibilities just pointed out to me: the two are not, as I have assumed, pronounced the same; or, the use of <em>wyrm</em> is a dialect marker, similar to using a spelling like <em>centre</em> in the speech of a British character.</p> Right, the chapters are written from their POV, but not by them. And the individual chapters/sections themselves are not special in terms of how the POV works out, what is special (or at least somewhat novel, to me) is merely their short length and the fact that they do not have titles as such, just character names as headers.

The spelling of the words in each chapter is not dependent on how the POV character would spell them (if they are literate or not), as you say, but in the case I quoted above with worms and wyrms, I think the situation is a bit stickier. I was wondering what exactly the author was trying to accomplish. Say that a worm is not a wyrm (i.e., these are not just spelling alternatives). In that case, we know that Arya still is ignorant regarding the type of creature that lived in the mines – she thinks they are fireworms, when in fact they are firewyrms. On the other hand, say that these are just spelling alternates – then the question is why give Arya the “o” spelling and the holy man the “y” spelling? Probably to show that one is more knowledgable than the other (probably the holy man, given the assumption that many people reading the books know about worms but probably not about wyrms – but it’s the sort of knowledge not available to Arya.

Summing up, the author faithfully represents the POV character’s knowledge (of spelling and knowledge in general) when quoting them, but can give the reader extra knowledge when quoting other characters. This generally doesn’t happen in straight prose. In other words, there is never anything like Several rather unsavory characters lie waiting for Arya behind that door, but she didn’t have a clue about it (except in flashbacks). Similarly no non-POV characters’ speech is represented when the POV character didn’t hear it. The exception is in the spelling of other characters’ speech, which can represent a wider range of spellings than the POV character has access to. And in the case where a worm is not a wyrm, we have some (in)significant piece of information that the reader has, which the character doesn’t.

The consequences (which, truthfully, I didn’t really think too hard on) is a disparity between what the reader knows and what the character knows, even when the reader is supposed to only have access to the character’s knowledge (obvious exception: the reader knows it from reading in another person’s POV). I imagined that this could be exploited to a greater degree with illiterate characters, thought I suppose that doesn’t make much sense – and I’m not sure what to think about a case like the wyrm one where Arya is illiterate. I was thinking of a hypothetical case where the difference between two homophonous words is crucial, and the illiterate character is aware of the distinction between the two words but is nevertheless represented as using the incorrect word (via spelling).

There are some other possibilities just pointed out to me: the two are not, as I have assumed, pronounced the same; or, the use of wyrm is a dialect marker, similar to using a spelling like centre in the speech of a British character.

]]> By: polyglot conspiracy http://noncompositional.com/2006/01/orthography-and-literary-point-of-view/comment-page-1/#comment-50 polyglot conspiracy Wed, 04 Jan 2006 15:42:48 +0000 http://noncompositional.com/2006/01/orthography-and-literary-point-of-view/#comment-50 <p>Interesting. Could you explain more about what you mean is the relevance that the characters are <i>literate</i>? Are the chapters supposed to be <i>written</i> by the characters, or <i>spoken</i> by them? I'm unfamiliar with this kind of format - it seems to be in third person ("she asked"), not first person from the character's POV. So given that, it makes sense that the author spells things "right" even though the character might not. And if an author were to <i>spell</i> dialogue according to how the <i>character</i> would spell it rather than speak it, a whole bunch of stuff might be misspelled, mightn't it? Lots of characters, though literate, are probably bad spellers. Spelling is more likely (and more importantly, I think) to represent speech, not the characters' spelling, is what I'm trying to say.</p> Interesting. Could you explain more about what you mean is the relevance that the characters are literate? Are the chapters supposed to be written by the characters, or spoken by them? I’m unfamiliar with this kind of format – it seems to be in third person (“she asked”), not first person from the character’s POV. So given that, it makes sense that the author spells things “right” even though the character might not. And if an author were to spell dialogue according to how the character would spell it rather than speak it, a whole bunch of stuff might be misspelled, mightn’t it? Lots of characters, though literate, are probably bad spellers. Spelling is more likely (and more importantly, I think) to represent speech, not the characters’ spelling, is what I’m trying to say.

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