Installment #4 in the Zippy “Speechless” series (#3 is here):
We’ve moved from (at least partially) expressive and sound-symbolic utterances to “nonsense” formulas (and picked up a Stooge along the way): material that is pronounced like ordinary English but isn’t in itself meaningful — though it does have a function in a cultural routine (in this case, as part of a counting-out rhyme).
May 9, 2010 at 10:15 am |
[…] series on “speechlessness” (in some very extended sense) — #4 in the series was here — continues with spoken or written representations of non-language […]