Pop quiz:
Match the sentences to the genre in which you might find them.
1. And they all lived happily ever after.
2. Press 1 for English and 2 for Spanish.
3. She has demonstrated superior critical thinking,
organization, and attention to detail.
4. So good to see you again! You look great!
5. "The sky above the port was the color of
television, tuned to a dead channel."
a. Greeting a visiting friend
b. Phone recording for a government service
c. Opening line of a dystopian novel (William
Gibson's Neuromancer)
d. College recommendation letter
e. Fairy tale closing
Not too hard, was it? In case you need help, answers are at the bottom. But
these lines would sound pretty odd if you shuffled them around between those
five contexts.
A recent language coaching class encouraged us to help our advanced learners
notice discourse. Discourse means the structure or shape of a text or
conversation. What kinds of phrases and sentences are used to open, develop,
and close it? What markers indicate its genre? A court testimony and a fairy
tale are both narratives, but you wouldn't start a court testimony with
"Once upon a time."
Languages can have diverse expectations for what makes each genre sound
"right" and natural. If I assume my second language has the same
discourse patterns as my first, what can happen?
- I might
miss cues that someone is trying to end a conversation, or feel unsure how
to do so myself. (Hanging up the phone with a Khmer speaker used to be so
awkward for me!)
- I might
persuade in a way that doesn't sound persuasive. (I read that Japanese
students are taught to sound hesitant and acknowledge other viewpoints to
reflect their humility in a large and complicated world. By contrast,
American essay writers are taught to say "My viewpoint IS the
truth." This divergence can cause confusion and discomfort in ESL
writing courses.)
- I might
communicate information that I see as organized and clear, but my audience
finds difficult to follow or process.
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| Image from ThoughtCo |
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As with several other coaching suggestions, I knew I
needed to grow here in my own language learning, so I decided to give it a try.
One area where I'd like to grow is in storytelling. What makes people want to
listen? So I chose a Buddhist folk tale in Khmer, one that I'd once watched
in class, and instead of just reading it for comprehension, I picked
it apart, trying to understand every word. Then I examined how the words
combined into sentences, paragraphs, and story.
My analysis had three stages:
1. Very literal translation
2. Somewhat literal translation
3. Non-literal translation
That way, I could compare the Khmer structure to a comparable English structure
for folk tales. It was sometimes hard to find 1-to-1 correspondences of English
and Khmer words, and even the most literal translation still loses shades of
meaning in Khmer. But these three stages will give you an indication of
potential differences between stories in the two languages. (You probably don't
want to read all of the very literal translation, so I'm just including the
beginning to give you an idea.)
1. Very literal translation:
Story Worm and Crow
Even this version still adds capitalizations
and spaces between words, neither of which exist in the original Khmer except
where I’ve used the Tab function below. Khmer spaces are wider than English
ones and work more like commas - I'm still not sure why this story uses commas
in some places instead of spaces in the original text.
Have story one say worm eating
leaf have crow one fly seek food go to notice with worm
that. Crow say “Time this have luck get worm eat” and fly go near worm. Worm
look see crow also realize say “Self, (impolite) crow this heart brutal
will stab me eat now already.” Worm ask crow say “Come seek
what?”. Crow tell go to worm back say “I come eat worm you.” Worm say “When
only crow you seek riddle me find then eat me can, if seek riddle me not find
eat me not can not.” Crow ask that “Riddle worm you way like what ask come
descend I will seek give find.” Worm ask go to crow like have continue go to
this:
1 - Like what which they call say sweet more than they
most?
2 - Like what which they call say sour
bitter/unripe more than they most?
3 - Like what which they call say stinky more than they
most?
4 - Like what which they call say fragrant more than
they most?
Whew, does your brain hurt yet? OK, let's look at the
intermediate version, where I tried to use correct grammar but stay as possible
to the Khmer discourse structure.
Somewhat literal, yet
grammatical, translation:
“The Story of Worm and
Crow”
I put in paragraph breaks, quotation marks,
question marks, and periods only where they exist in Khmer. I changed verb
tenses where appropriate and added some of the following to make it flow better:
- commas
and semicolons
- articles
[a/an/the]
- subjects
for verbs
- conjunctions
like “and” & “but”
I've marked these additions in red in the
first paragraph and left the spaces in to give you an idea.
There is one tale saying a worm was eating a leaf one crow flew looking for
food; it went and spotted with that
worm. The crow said, “This time I have luck and get the worm to eat” and flew
near the worm. The worm looked, saw the crow and recalled saying,
“This stupid brutal-hearted crow will stab me to eat now
already.” The worm asked the crow saying, “What do you come seeking?”. The crow
told to the worm back saying, “I came to eat the worm, you.” The worm said,
“Only when, Crow, you seek my
riddle and find it, then you can eat me; if you seek my riddle and do not find it, you can’t eat me.”
The crow asked saying, “What’s your riddle, worm, go
ahead and ask me and I’ll figure it out.” The worm asked the crow the
following:
1. How do they call that
which is sweet more than anything, most of all?
2. How do they call that
which is sour more than anything, most of all?
3. How do they call that
which is stinky more than anything, most of all?
4. How do they call that
which is fragrant more than anything, most of all?
When the crow had heard the worm ask all four riddles
already, he had the most joy and shouted excitedly and playfully, thinking
saying, “All four of the worm’s four riddles, I sought and found and can eat
this worm without missing out,” so the crow answered and solved the riddle in
the following way.
1. That which they call
sweet most of all, that is sugar and honey, sweeter than anything.
2. That which they call
sour most of all, that is sour lime soup, tamarind, sandan fruit soup, and
vinegar.
3. That which they call
stinky most of all, that is poop and all types of animal carcasses.
4. That which they call
fragrant most of all, that is magnolia, jasmine, and perfume.
5. Crow has solved all four
of these riddles, he told the worm.
The worm said “Crow has solved the riddles incorrectly.”
So Crow looked gloomy saying back to the worm, “Worm, if you say it’s wrong,
please tell me these riddles’ answers so I’ll know.” The worm replied to the
crow saying “I can tell you, but crow, don’t eat me once I tell you.” The crow
said “Just go ahead and tell me, I won’t eat you.” Once they had agreed
together in this way, the worm solved the riddles and told them to the crow,
like the following words:
- That which they call sweet
most of all, that is not really sugar or honey sweet, but sweet words spoken
back and forth with each other through melodious, faithful words toward each
other. This is what is called the sweetest.
- That which they call sour and
bitter most of all, that is not really sour and bitter tamarind, sandan fruit
soup, lime soup, or vinegar, but vulgar, cruel, impolite, inappropriate words
spoken back and forth with each other. This is what is called sour and bitter
beyond all else.
- That which they call
stinky, that is not really stinky poop or a stinky carcass, but a foul
reputation and name of an evildoer. This is exactly what is called “putrid even
upwind.”
- That which they call
fragrant, that is not really the fragrant scent of a flower or perfume, but a
fragrant reputation and name of an innocent person doing good, this is exactly
what is called “fragrant more than any fragrant spice.”
The crow, having listened to all these riddles, then
stopped eating the worm and went.
Small but really true,
like a sparkling diamond.
It's a lot more understandable than the first story. But
would you buy a book of stories like this to read with your kids? Me neither.
Finally, since I couldn't find a comparable English version, here's my best
shot at fitting it into English discourse patterns for folk tales. Red indicates places where I changed the wording to sound more like an English folk tale:
“The Worm and the Crow”
A worm was once eating a leaf when a crow flew overhead, hunting for food,
and spotted the worm. The crow told himself, “I’m in luck: this worm will be an easy target!” and dove toward the worm.
Looking up, the worm spotted the
crow and realized, “This rotten brutal-hearted crow is about to gobble me up!” So she asked the crow, “What do
you want?”
The crow replied, “I’m here to claim you as my dinner!”
The worm said, “OK, fine, you can eat me… but only
after you solve my riddles.”
“Go ahead, what are they? I know I’ll get them right,”
the crow responded cockily.
So she proceeded to ask the crow:
1. "What’s the sweetest
thing in
the world?
2. What’s the sourest, most
bitter thing in the world?
3. What’s the stinkiest thing
in the world?
4. What’s the most fragrant
thing in the world?"
Hearing these riddles, the crow let out a gleeful caw. He thought to himself,
“These are easy. This worm is mine for sure!” He told the worm:
1. "The sweetest things
in the world are sugar and honey.
2. The sourest, most bitter
things in the world are sour lime soup, tamarind, sour fruit
soup, and vinegar.
3. The stinkiest things in
the world are poop and all animal carcasses.
4. The most fragrant things
in the world are magnolias, jasmine flowers, and perfume.
5. I’ve solved all four of
your riddles!”
“Not so fast!” she replied. “Your answers are wrong.”
The crow looked crestfallen. “Wrong, you say? Then please tell me the
right answers so I’ll know.”
“I’ll tell you, but you can’t eat me afterward,” said
the brave
little worm.
The crow answered, “As long as you tell me, I won’t eat
you.”
Satisfied by their agreement, the worm revealed the riddles’
solutions:
1. "The sweetest thing
in the world isn’t sugar or honey, but a sweet conversation filled with musical, faithful
words. That’s what’s really the sweetest.
2. The sourest, most bitter
thing in the world isn’t a food like tamarind, sour fruit, lime, or vinegar,
but a conversation full of vulgar, cruel, impolite, and unseemly words. That’s
the sourest, most bitter thing of all.
3. The stinkiest thing in the
world isn’t poop or carcasses, but an evildoer’s foul reputation and name.
That’s what you call 'so putrid you can smell it upwind.'
4. The most fragrant thing in
the world isn’t the scent of a flower or a perfume. It’s the sweet-smelling
reputation and name of an upstanding citizen, 'more fragrant than any spice.'”
With this wisdom ringing in his ears, the crow left the worm
alone and flew off.
This story is short but
profound, like a sparkling diamond.
Here are some differences I noticed:
- In some
places, the Khmer was much shorter than the English; in other places, much
longer. We have different conventions for what needs to be spelled out and
what can be inferred.
- In Khmer,
people prefer to restate the nouns often because pronouns get really
confusing. Even pronouns like "you" often had the animal's name
in front of it.
- Sometimes
Khmer and English differ on where subjects are required for verbs.
- Here
English but not Khmer requires a subject: "This time have luck"
vs. "This time I have luck/I'm in luck"
- Here
Khmer requires a subject: "When the crow had heard the worm ask all four
riddles already, he had the most joy and shouted excitedly and
playfully." vs. "Hearing these riddles, the crow cried
out with delight."
- I spotted
differences in how Khmer uses punctuation: no exclamation points in the
original (I added six), fewer mid-sentence pauses (whether commas or
spaces), some surprises with question marks.
- Khmer
often adds the word "say" after verbs that imply it, like
"reply" or "ask."
- There
were specific phrases to begin the story and to ask and answer about
superlatives, "the ___est thing," which never used "in the world" like English might. Likewise, there was a specific phrase signalling "in the
following way," which often could be left out in the English
translation, but which I've heard in other Khmer stories.
- This
story had less action than I anticipated. I thought the crow would try to
get out of the deal and eat the worm anyway. But my tutor said she was
surprised too, and the video included a scene with him lunging and her
scurrying underground, so maybe that's not a broader pattern.
- There's
no moral at the end, just a statement praising the story's value. The worm
says the morals out loud during the story. These morals definitely
reflects Khmer values of harmonious relationships and preserving one's
reputation. English folk tales often have just one moral.
- The moral
part has a satisfying parallelism with the opposites of sour/sweet and
stinky/fragrant. But in English we'd probably have one wrong answer per
question, where the crow gives four or five for some of them.
Understanding the Khmer took some dictionary work and
some help from my tutor. But it wasn't really that hard to translate it into
English, even English that sounds kinda like a traditional folk tale. Imagine
the opposite, though. Could I take a story I know and translate it into Khmer?
Getting it to that intermediate stage, grammatical correctness, is a long way
from telling a smooth story that would captivate listeners. I hope to ask more people about what lines or phrases in the original Khmer sound great, are mainly used in folk tales, or should be imitated in my own stories. For now, my
goal is oral storytelling, which is both easier for me and more useful in my
daily life than writing. But still, getting to Story 3 in Khmer takes a
lot of familiarity with strong examples of that genre.
Realizing this gives me more sympathy for international
friends whose logic I can't always follow well. It gives me sympathy for myself
as I struggle week after week to understand Khmer sermons, or to tell
non-boring stories in Khmer. And it gives me a whole lot of respect for
bilingual Khmer friends who bridge the gap in understanding and/or translating
for non-Khmer speakers. It also motivates me to keep reading and listening.
Khmer discourse is different from English discourse, but it's not random, and
the variations aren't infinite. There are patterns to it that I can hunt for
and grow into over time. And when I do? I'll be a much better communicator...
in Khmer, anyway.
Pop quiz answers: 1. e 2. b 3. d
4. a 5. c
