ARTICLES : Ecology and the Language of the Novel

Abstract

While not arguing that literary criticism should be a social science, there is an argument to be made that the writing and reading of literature, and the novel in particular, are social acts. Societies, cultures and relationships are shaped, expressed and interpreted in language which is used to communicate with others. Looked at sociologically, anthropologically, linguistically or critically, this is what novels do. Novels are not merely abstract grammar rules or theories; they are instances of how we use language in the real world– and the writing and reading of novels are real-world acts – for communicative purposes as we create ideational meanings, interpersonal relationships and texts. In any actual communication, meaning is not just in the sender or the receiver of a message; it is in the relationships between all the participants in the process. For the novel, this network of participants is comprised of the writers, narrators, characters, readers, critics and students who study the novels. In this view, writers and readers are real people, not hyperreal concoctions or theoretical abstractions. We at present lack a body of research that talks to others in ways that help us to expand our knowledge of specific texts as communicative networks. It is suggested that one way we can approach this task is through a better understanding of ethnography and ethnomethodology as literary actions. To do any meaningful ethnography, we need to see the texts we study as ecosystems as well as understand that language is also an ecosystem, as are all the particular instances of it in each novel or communicative context. When we see and hear texts, we experience them as human creations, but to do these things we need to actually see and hear them on their own terms, not through the blinkers of Theory. We can do this best when we participate in the communication from inside the situation in an ethical way that respects the language of the other participants. It also requires us to provide “thick” data in our ethnography which comes from the participants in the text and a way of analyzing that data that is commensurate with the actual language we find in the texts.