U nit 2. From folklore studies to anthropology

U NIT 2. FROM FOLKLORE STUDIES TO ANTHROPOLOGY

I. Enrich your vocabulary.

amateur, n., adj.	любитель, любительский
approach, n.	подход
belles-lettres, n.	беллетристика
complementary, adj.	взаимодополняющий
contemporary, adj.	современный
peasant, n., adj.	крестьянин, крестьянский
potter, n.	гончар
riddle, n.	загадка
rusticity, n.	сельская жизнь
urban, adj.	городской

 

II. Match the words and their definitions. Consult the glossary if necessary

1) archaeology   2) community   3) colloquial   4) ethnography   5) folk   6) forward-looking   7) linguistics   8) orality   9) pilgrimage   10) verbal	a) a journey, especially a long one, made to some sacred place as an act of religious devotion
	b) the science of language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, etc.
	c) planning for or anticipating possible future events, conditions, etc.
	d) expressed in spoken words
	e) the scientific study of historic or prehistoric peoples and their cultures by analysis of their artifacts, inscriptions, monuments, and other such remains, especially those that have been excavated.
	f) a social, religious, occupational, or other group sharing common characteristics or interests and perceived or perceiving itself as distinct in some respect from the larger society within which it exists
	g) people as the carriers of culture, especially as representing the composite of social mores, customs, forms of behaviour, etc., in a society
	h) characteristic of or appropriate to ordinary or familiar conversation rather than formal speech or writing
	i) a branch of anthropology dealing with the scientific description of individual cultures.
	j) the personality traits characteristic of the oral phase of development.

III. Match the words with the ones with the similar meanings.

1) associate	a) modern
2) colloquial	b) city
3) contemporary	c) appear
4) entire	d) progressive
5) forward-looking	e) relate
6) obligatory	f) whole
7) occur	g) scope
8) preeminent	h) informal
9) range	i) compulsory
10) urban	j) superior

 

IV. Match the words with the ones with the opposite meanings.

1) accomplishment	a) illiteracy
2) amateur	b) narrow
3) broaden	c) failure
4) colloquial	d) optional
5) forward-looking	e) rustic
6) literacy	f) written
7) obligatory	g) regressive
8) oral	h) inside
9) outside	i) formal
10) urban	j) professional

READING

I.  Read the text and pick out information a) of primary importance and b) new to you.

POLISH FOLKLORE STUDIES AT THE END

OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Contemporary Polish folklore studies scarcely resemble their original form of almost 200 years ago. Amateur collector-enthusiasts have been replaced by experienced scholars (mainly scholars of language and literature) who are supported by universities and other scholarly institutions. Besides old and strong academic centres, such as Warsaw, Wroclaw, or Cracow, there are also new ones where folklore studies have become a university discipline (e. g., in Lublin, Silesia, Lodz, and Opole).

Above all, the scope of the discipline and the concept of “folklore” have changed so that its research methods have become quite different. Finally, two trends have appeared in postwar Polish studies of folklore – they tend either to broaden or to narrow the subject of research. The first trend involves the philological approach to folklore as a verbal art (synonymous with the concepts of oral literature or traditional folk literature as opposed to the so-called new folk literature, i. e. peasant writing, amateur writing, or the so-called peasant movement in belles-lettres). Until the 1980s, in most countries, including those of the former Soviet bloc, this approach was represented by folklorists educated in linguistics and the history or theory of literature. The other trend was the anthropological approach to folklore studies. It began to grow in popularity at about the same time as the philological school. While both had a “textocentric” approach, focused on the analysis of verbal acts, the anthropological school tended to broaden the scope of inquiry to include non-verbal phenomena connected to the activities of the peasant social group. This school wanted to see the entire range of peasant activity as “lore”. This approach had earlier been ascribed to Anglo-Saxon folklorists for whom “folklore” was synonymous with “folklife”. The broadest, colloquial meaning of the term “folklore” – as a synonym of rusticity popularized by the mass media – remained outside the sphere of scholarly study.

The change in Polish folklore studies was also connected with a broadening of the term “folk”, which, in traditional Polish studies of folklore, was associated only with peasants. This broadening of the field of research was accomplished by the first journal for the study of Polish folklore – Literatura Ludowa – which was originally published from 1957 to 1968 and resumed publication in 1972. The journal editors proposed to investigate not only the folklore of rural environments, but also that of various groups of townspeople, both traditional and modern. The scope of study also included borderline topics such as the relationships between verbal text and nonverbal forms of expression. i. e., the social forms of a text “life” and functions. The journal continues its forward-looking approach today, reflecting the transformations of Polish society. In this journal, topics such as orality, once regarded as an obligatory feature of folklore, have more and more often been replaced by literacy. Forms of expression are frequently authorial (not anonymous), although they are still governed by traditional roles. The broad field of research includes community folklore (e. g., of children, students, or prisoners), and occupational folklore (e. g., of potters or sailors). Today, these kinds of folklore occur on the level of symbolic culture or of life in a technological society, rather than on the level of social institutions and organizations. Traditional folklore with its forms of psycho-social expression (traditional folklore vs. literary genre studies or literary forms of folklore), has been replaced by new forms of textual activity that are viable in modern times: e. g. urban legends, sensational stories, various forms of humour, different kinds of epigrams, as well as children’s books of wise sayings, albums, votive books, and graffiti.

Considering the specific endeavours and scholarly accomplishments of contemporary Polish folklore that is philologically or anthropologically oriented, we can follow Sulima and point out four main approaches. The first approach has developed out of historical-philological studies. It deals with the systematization of folklore, the history of folklore studies, and literary-folklore comparative studies. It has been developing in Poland since the second half of the nineteenth century. The preeminent achievement of this approach is the comparative studies conducted by Julian Krzyzanowski, who is recognized as the father of modern Polish folkloristics.

The so-called “Warsaw school” now consists mainly of Krzyzanowski’s disciples. The second approach, represented primarily by the “Opole school” associated with Dorota Simonides, is connected with the study of folklore as a kind of social diagnosis and originates from anthropological assumptions. It also focuses on collecting regional materials and editing texts, on issues of cultural borderlands, on small local communities, on orality and literacy in the context of mass culture, and on folklorism. Its activities have done much to popularize folklore.

The third approach treats folklore as part of culture and studies it from the viewpoint of the theory of culture: it emphasizes problems in the historical semantics of culture and recognizes that historical, sociological, and philological procedures and sources are complementary in nature. This approach is inspired by cultural anthropology. It is associated with the “Wroclaw school” created by Czesław Hemas with the journal Literatura Ludowa which he edits. The “Wroclaw school” exerts a strong influence on other Polish academic centres.

The fourth approach is devoted exclusively to the oral character of folklore. It considers problems of language stereotypes, the poetics of the oral text, and the linguistic image of the world. This approach is represented by the “Lublin school”, created by Jerzy Bartminski, and it focuses on ethnolinguistics. Since 1989, this centre has published the periodical Etnolingwistyka which has been a forum for the exchange of scholarly ideas.

The present day study of Polish folklore is still seeking an identity. Is it a branch of ethnography, of the theory of literature, or of the theory of culture? Its interdisciplinary character is emphasized more and more often in relation to its research techniques.

Shifting the focus from the “archaeology” of folklore to contemporary forms of its existence is related to the notion of the “diagnostic study of folklore”, that is, to Sulima’s idea about a new outlook on contemporary culture viewed in terms of orality and secondary orality. Investigation of such folklore-creating situations as strikes, pilgrimages, parliamentary elections, propaganda campaigns, social-political scandals, sports events, fashion, tourism, or advertising, promises new interpretative possibilities for a folklorist. As in the case of comparative studies, such possibilities may also reveal universal mental structures and common patterns of living in the modern world, where, despite powerful unification processes, there are still many ethno-cultural differences.

This presentation of the Polish study of folklore is merely an outline of the discipline. Its broad scope and complexity can be grasped only by looking at individual research and at the achievements of Polish folklorists, who are open to scholarly communication with both Eastern and Western Europe, as well as with folklorists worldwide. Finally, it should be emphasized that Polish folklore studies have always been free from ideological distortions. Although they constitute a part of Slavic studies, they have their own distinct features and unique material, as well as their own theoretical and methodological character.

(adapted and abridged from A. Brzozowska-Krajka Polish Folklore Studies at the End of the Twentieth Century)

 

III. Answer the questions.

1. What old and strong academic centres of folklore studies can you name?

2. What two trends have appeared in postwar Polish studies of folklore?

3. Who regarded “folklore” as a synonym of “folklife”?

4. What was the title of the first journal for the study of Polish folklore? When was it published?

5. What new forms of textual activity have replaced traditional folklore?

6. Who is recognized as the father of modern Polish folkloristics?

7. What approach to folklore studies does “Warsaw school” follow?

8. What approach is connected with the study of folklore as a kind of social diagnosis and originates from anthropological assumptions? What does it focus on?

9. What school treats studies folklore from the viewpoint of the theory of culture?

10. What approach is devoted exclusively to the oral character of folklore? What does it focus on?

 

VOCABULARY FOCUS

RESEARCH IN FOLKLORE

If folklore as a discipline focuses on tradition only, it “contradicts its own raison d’etre ”. If the initial assumption of folklore research is based on the disappearance of its subject matter, there is no way to prevent the science from following the same road. If the attempt to save tradition from oblivion remains the only function of the folklorist, he returns to the role of the antiquarian from which he tried so hard to escape. In that case, it is in the interest of folklore scholarship that we change the definition of the subject to allow broader and more dynamic research in the field.

The same applies to the notion of oral transmission; an insistence on the “purity” of all folklore texts can be destructive in terms of folklore scholarship. Because of the advent of modern means of communication, folklorists who insist upon this criterion actually saw off the branch they are sitting on. They inevitably concentrate upon isolated forms and ignore the real social and literary interchange between cultures and artistic media and channels of communication. In reality, oral texts cross into the domain of written literature and the plastic and musical arts; conversely, the oral circulation of songs and tales has been affected by print. This has long been recognized, and yet it has been a source of constant frustration for folklorists who searched for materials uncontaminated by print or broadcast.

The notion of folklore as a process may provide a way out of this dilemma. Accordingly, it is not the life history of the text that determines its folkloristic quality but its present mode of existence. On the one hand, a popular melody, a current joke, or a political anecdote that has been incorporated into the artistic process in small group situations is folklore, no matter how long it has existed in that context. On the other hand, a song, a tale, or a riddle that is performed on television or appears in print ceases to be folklore because there is a change in its communicative context.

This definition may break away from some scholarly traditions, but at the same time it may point to possible new directions. A major factor that prevented folklore studies from becoming a full-fledged discipline in the academic community has been the tendency toward thing-collecting projects. The tripodal scheme of folklore research as collecting, classifying, and analyzing emphasizes this very point. This procedure developed as a nineteenth-century positivistic reaction to some of the more speculative ideas about folklore that prevailed at that time. Since then, however, the battle for empiricism has been won twice over.

Folklore scholarship – which developed since the rejection of unilinear cultural evolutionism and the solar and psychoanalytical universal symbolism – has had its own built-in limitations and misconceptions. These resulted in part from the focus on facts. Because of the literary and philological starting point of folklore studies, the empirical fact was an object, a text of a tale, song, or proverb, or even an isolated word. This approach limited the research possibilities in folklore and narrowed the range of generalizations that could be induced from the available data.

It might have been suitable for Krappe’s notion of folklore as an historical science that purported to reconstruct the spiritual history of man, but it completely incapacitated the development of any other thesis about the nature of folklore in society. Consequently, when social sciences such as anthropology, sociology, and psychology came of age, they incorporated folklore into their studies only as a reflection and projection of other phenomena. Folklore was “a mirror of culture” but not a dynamic factor in it, a projection of basic personality, but not personality in action. Once viewed as a process, however, folklore does not have to be a marginal projection or reflection; it can be considered a sphere of interaction in its own right.

(adapted and abridged from D. Ben-Amos Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context)

 

II. Summarise the text.

III. Read the text and define its main idea. Translate the text in writing.

 

TO ANTHROPOLOGY

The title which I have chosen may suggest a distinction between the study of folklore and anthropological studies. Such distinctions are fairly common today but to the extent that anthropology is the study of culture these distinctions were not made so rigidly in the early days of our science.

In 1854–1855, Klemm used the word Kultur to include “customs, information, and skills, domestic and public life in peace and war, religion, science and art” and, as Bascom has said, folklorists “need not be reminded of the similarities” between this definition and the one for folklore given by Thorns nine years earlier, in which he referred to “the manners, customs, observances, superstitions, ballads, proverbs, etc., of the olden time”. Tylor was apparently the first to introduce the word culture in Klemm’s meaning into the English language. This was in 1865, and six years later it was decided to form a “Folk-Lore Society” in this city. This alternation between the two words seems not to reflect any precedence of one term over the other. It is noteworthy, however, that one of the major distinctions to be made later between folklore and culture had already been foreshadowed, for only Thorns’ definition carries reference to a derivation from an “olden time”.

Some years ago I spoke of an active, anthropological school of folklore which owed its main emphases to the work of Franz Boas. In part this paper will furnish an elaborated account of the views of this “American Anthropological School” since I suppose it may be said that I am one of its members. The suggestion at the end of the paper concerning the folk as marginal groups should not be attributed however to this school since it is one made here, I believe, for the first time.

The anthropological school referred to by Maria Leach under that entry in the Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Legend differs markedly from the American school. Leach refers to an early group of folklorists some of whom, like Tylor, were also anthropologists. Others she names are Lang, McCulloch, Laurence Gomme, van der Leyen and Frazer, all of whom believed that in the folktale were preserved certain remnants of the past. The anthropological side of this argument rested on the belief, as Maria Leach puts it, that men “pass through the same stages of development and consequently that they embody the details of their development in essentially the same stories”. It was thus thought that aspects of European tales and practices could be traced back to sources in primitive life.

(adapted and abridged from M.W. Smith The Importance of Folklore Studies to Anthropology)

 

IV.  Use your English.

U NIT 2. FROM FOLKLORE STUDIES TO ANTHROPOLOGY

I. Enrich your vocabulary.

amateur, n., adj.	любитель, любительский
approach, n.	подход
belles-lettres, n.	беллетристика
complementary, adj.	взаимодополняющий
contemporary, adj.	современный
peasant, n., adj.	крестьянин, крестьянский
potter, n.	гончар
riddle, n.	загадка
rusticity, n.	сельская жизнь
urban, adj.	городской