Channels, Fall 2017

Channels • 2017 • Volume 2 • Number 1 Page 15 dramatic effect. Nofal notes this use of hyperbaton (inversion of word order for dramatic effect) as well as an “employment of loose syntax” modeled more after spoken language than what would be considered typical for written English. Likewise, other atypical forms, such as passive constructions, discontinuity, and archaic language, permeate poetic texts. Kiparsky (1973) largely echoes Nofal’s work and suggests a limited range of permissibility in use. Using transformational grammar, the deepest syntactical structures can be reduced to their constituent structures. Nofal suggests that syntactic parallelism runs throughout poetic language with varying degrees of strict usage. Though the extent to which inversion is allowed changes throughout time, it has remained consistent as a feature, particularly as a means of foregrounding. To consider a simple example, compare the following two phrases: “I have loved you” and “You, have I loved.” The emphasis is altered greatly. Von Auw Berry (2002), however, notes that there are multiple different methods for grammatical analysis in poetry. Having addressed that, for this study’s purposes, syntactic deviance is largely irrelevant except as it relates to foregrounding. Building on the work of others, this study proposes a joint examination of readers’ linguistic awareness, which will implicitly touch upon the degree to which modern poets intentionally subvert the use of these features as well as whether or not amateur readers display preference as predicted by the literature review. Methodology This study will seek to answer the following questions related to the reading and writing of poetry: 1. To what extent do college students with limited exposure to poetry prefer works because of linguistic features, such as rhyme or broad semantic range? 2. If they do show preference based on linguistic features, are amateur readers aware of their own linguistic preferences? 3. Do amateur readers recognize that modern poetry subverts natural linguistic preferences? For the purpose of answering these questions, a few methods of input were chosen, namely data collection, surveys, and interviews. The first method utilized a collection of ten poems (see Appendix 1), ranging from Longfellow’s “Loss and Gain ,” to Kimiko Hahn’s “The Dream of a Black Lacquer Box.” These works were chosen because they are representative of a variety of genre and forms. The poems were then placed in Dalvean’s poetry assessment tool and assigned a score with supposed professionalism noted by a high score and simplicity being indicated by a low or negative score. As a caveat, note that the scoring system is through an imagist lens, so a poem like Longfellow’s “Loss and Gain,” which leans heavily on semantically-broad language, scores much lower than Spender’s “The Truly Great,” (see Appendix 1) which is reliant on semantically-tight elemental language. Based on the work of Musz & Thompson-