Metaphors for Language in the Work of Herta Müller
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FROM INJURY TO SILENCE: METAPHORS FOR LANGUAGE IN THE WORK OF HERTA MÜLLER Pavlo Shopin Clare College University of Cambridge June 2017 This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2 ABSTRACT Pavlo Shopin From Injury to Silence: Metaphors for Language in the Work of Herta Müller Herta Müller represents physical suffering and repression in her works, often reflecting on the regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and her constant interest in language and reflexivity towards writing have led her to develop sophisticated metaphors that she uses to illuminate language and its functioning under such subjugation. With reference to her fiction and non-fiction, I demonstrate how she uses concrete ideas to understand linguistic phenomena. She evokes injury, destruction, force, life, space, touch, silence, and other bodily experiences to make sense of language in the condition of suffering from social oppression. Drawing on conceptual metaphor theory within the framework of cognitive literary studies, I argue that Müller both relies on and estranges the ways in which people speak and think about language. Language is imagined differently depending on the circumstances and in close relationship with various sensory experiences. The complexity of the relationship between language and thought problematises the process of metaphor building and makes it difficult to identify its key aspects across different contexts and sensory modalities. Müller’s tropes are easy to experience, but difficult to analyse. The idea of language does not exist as a stable concept and is regularly reimagined in her texts; but its meaning is not arbitrary and depends on bodily experience. While Müller evokes such experience to understand language in the condition of suffering, she can also use linguistic concepts to elucidate more abstract ideas. Language can be regarded as an abstract or concrete phenomenon depending on the relevant bodily, linguistic, and cultural contexts. This project contributes to the study of Müller’s poetics as well as to the literary critical interpretation of embodied cognition, and develops the use of conceptual metaphor theory for literary analysis. It also seeks to develop understanding of the role of bodily experience in the metaphorical conceptualisation of language. 3 PREFACE This dissertation is the result of my own work and includes nothing which is the outcome of work done in collaboration except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. It is not substantially the same as any that I have submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for a degree or diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. I further state that no substantial part of my dissertation has already been submitted, or, is being concurrently submitted for any such degree, diploma or other qualification at the University of Cambridge or any other University or similar institution except as declared in the Preface and specified in the text. The text does not exceed the prescribed word limit of 80,000 words. An earlier version of Chapter One has been published as ‘Metaphorical Conceptualization of Injurious and Injured Language in Herta Müller’ in the Modern Language Review. An extended version of Chapter Two has been accepted for publication and will appear as ‘Metaphorical Conceptualization of Destructive and Destructible Language in the Work of Herta Müller’ in the Monatshefte für deutschsprachige Literatur und Kultur. A version of Chapter Three has been accepted for publication as ‘Language as a Force for Good in the Work of Herta Müller’ and will appear in the German Life and Letters. In the last section of Chapter Four, I draw on the ideas first developed while reading for M.Phil. at the University of Cambridge and subsequently published as ‘Unpacking the Suitcases: Autofiction and Metaphor in Herta Müller’s Atemschaukel’ in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies. A shorter version of Chapter Seven has been accepted for publication as ‘The Trope of Silence in the Work of Herta Müller’ and will appear in the Oxford German Studies. A part of the Conclusion has been published as ‘Is Language as We Know It Still Relevant for the Digital Age?’ on the openDemocracy media platform (see Bibliography). 4 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 INTRODUCTION 9 Motivation, Research Questions, and Contribution 10 Theoretical Background 13 Limitations 21 Metaphors for Language 23 Outline 29 1 INJURIOUS AND INJURED LANGUAGE 33 1.1 Injurious Speech 36 1.2 Adding Injury to Insult 38 1.3 Cuts and Stab Wounds 39 1.4 Literature and Pain 41 1.5 Injury and Death 43 1.6 Injured and Vulnerable Language 45 1.7 Conclusion 47 2 DESTRUCTIVE AND DESTRUCTIBLE LANGUAGE 49 2.1 Destruction as a Frame 50 2.2 Destructive Language 51 2.3 Subject and Object 53 2.4 Destructible Language 58 2.5 Voice, Sound, and Silence 61 2.6 Destruction as a Creative Principle 64 2.7 Conclusion 66 3 FORCEFUL LANGUAGE 68 3.1 Poetry 70 3.2 Writing 74 3.3 Speech 76 5 3.4 Conclusion 78 4 LIFE-SAVING LANGUAGE 79 4.1 Life 79 4.2 Protection 82 4.3 Therapy and Medicine 84 4.4 Nourishment 89 4.5 Breath 94 4.6 Conclusion 103 5 TACTILE LANGUAGE 104 5.1 Voice, Multisensory Perception, and Metaphor 104 5.2 Literature Review 109 5.3 Tactile Metaphors for Voice 110 5.4 Conclusion 115 6 SPATIAL LANGUAGE 116 6.1 Voice and Verticality 117 6.2 Voice and Figure-Ground Organisation 126 6.3 Voice and Motion 126 6.4 Voice and Container Image Schema 129 6.5 Conclusion 134 7 SILENT LANGUAGE 136 7.1 The Trope of Silence 136 7.2 Personifying Inanimate Entities 139 7.2.1 Materials 139 7.2.2 Physical Objects and Body Parts 141 7.2.3 Language 143 7.3 Metonymy and Metaphor: Actions and States as Silence 148 7.4 Conclusion 150 8 THE MEANING OF SILENCE 152 8.1 Silence and the Senses: Vision, Touch, and Smell 152 8.2 Eating and Speaking 155 8.3 Somatic Experience and Force 160 6 8.4 Space, Motion, and Container 164 8.5 Physical Objects, Manipulation, and Destruction 169 8.6 Life and Death 172 8.7 Conclusion 174 CONCLUSION: THE MEANING OF LANGUAGE 175 BIBLIOGRAPHY 186 Primary Works 186 Other Works 190 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I express my deep gratitude to my supervisor Sarah Colvin for her encouragement, guidance, and insightful ideas. She has helped me cultivate the passion for language and thought. I also thank the Cambridge Commonwealth, European & International Trust for funding my work. I should like to thank David Midgley for his help and advice before the start of my PhD project. I am thankful to Andrew Webber and Michael Minden for their feedback after the first year of my research. I am grateful to Rebecca Braun, Karin Bauer, Robert Vilain, Terence James Reed, Hans Adler, and Phoebe Braithwaite for the editorial review of my work. I wish to thank Hugues Azérad for his intellectual inspiration and support. I am thankful to Lars Bülow for giving insights into the empirical potential of the project. I also thank Timothy Snyder and Robert Burton for their generous comments on the essay that served as the key part for the Conclusion. I thank Simone Schnall for discussing my project and recommending the relevant literature in the field of psychology. I thank Susanna Hill, Amanda Ashford, Michael P. Sullivan, William G. Parsons, Keith Schumann, Michael Dermot O’Brien, and others who helped me proofread the text at various stages. Many of the ideas in this dissertation, but also peace of mind, happiness, and wellbeing, came to me while playing squash and tennis in Cambridge. I am grateful to my game partners, among them Saskia Molekamp, Jake Ladlow, James Tennant, Anastasiya Sybirna, Lan Nguyen, Juliet Griffin, and Séverine Mollard, for making it possible. Analysing metaphors is like unpicking pomegranates, and I thank Vasja Urbancic, João Abreu, Zoe Angeli, Simon Bate, Genevieve Burley, Nora Heinzelmann, Benjamin Richier, Artur Fernandes, Judith Weber, Yvonne Zivkovic, Daniela Peris, Christoph Pretzer, and my friends in Cambridge for keeping me well stocked on both the former and the latter. I thank my family for their love and care. 8 INTRODUCTION Herta Müller writes about suffering caused by social oppression, often depicting the dictatorial regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Her literary works are marked by her first-person narrative perspective and a principled confrontation with totalitarianism and illiberalism. She is deeply interested in language and regularly uses metaphors to illuminate its functioning in the conditions of suffering and subjugation. Doris Mironescu argues that Müller’s interest in language stems from her early experiences ‘marked by the encounter between German and Romanian words and meanings’. According to Mironescu, Müller, learning a new language, could see the world differently and deconstruct ‘the most basic assumptions about words’.1 Katrin Kohl also recognises that Müller is acutely aware of her own use of language: considering her poetological writing, Kohl observes that ‘Müller eschews systematic theory, aesthetic philosophizing, and narratological jargon. […] She regards poetics not as a stable system but as an ongoing process that is responsive to life and work.’2 While Müller is highly interested in language, then, she does not have a systematic theory of it in her writing. Lyn Marven attributes this lack of system to the effects of trauma: she argues that trauma unites the body, language, and narrative, and leads to their fragmentation. Marven posits that ‘[t]raumatic events evident in Müller’s texts are caused by, and rooted in, physical experience: torture and interrogation, threat of violence, and, ultimately, death.’3 These events preclude structural coherence.