paired with “To Speak is to Blunder”

Inviting students to move from close reading to guiding ideas in the essay as a whole, this activity could be used as either an in-class discussion or as an extended writing prompt.

Introduction

ET & JS: Given the complexity and elusiveness of “To Speak is to Blunder” – an essay that refuses to give you all the details you might seek and reinforces contradictions by withholding resolution – much of our discussions about how to teach this essay returned to the question of different points of access. Where do we find openings to leverage for understanding? Many of the openings emerge from the conceptual oppositions that run throughout her piece.

One of the main tensions in the essay is that between public and private languages. While Li explicitly maps this onto the dynamics of native and adopted languages, we also traced this tension in her own writing as she introduces different registers, blending personal narrative (even confessional) with a more philosophical meditation. Often, Li tapers her insight toward a more categorical statement, as if making an offering at the end of her paragraphs or sections. It might be helpful to think of these more impersonal statements as “aphorisms.” These declarative statements suggest something like a general truth while emerging from the intimacy of her memories, dreams, revelations, and disclosures. Just as Li demonstrates a habit of borrowing the received wisdom of other writers, this turn to “aphorism” suggests language that circulates in a more public register than the privacy of her experiences. In this sense, we could say the aphoristic statements translate across the threshold of private and public.

When working with students on this essay, these aphorisms are one way to encounter this translation in the experience of reading and they also become points of departure for analyzing some of the overarching questions raised in Li’s essay.

Guide

Warm Up: What is an Aphorism?

Since this might be the first time students think about “aphorisms,” ask students to come up with some either in groups or in private.  These do not have to be related to Li’s text or the framework of the class.  Write on the board a simple definition of aphorisms like: “An aphorism is a short memorable statement used to impart wisdom or give a lesson.”  Some ideas could be: 1) Ask them to give each other aphorisms on how to succeed in life or in college, 2) Ask them to share aphorisms on how best to communicate with others, 3) Ask them to share aphorisms about how to excel at their favorite hobby. This “Warm-Up” could take many forms.  We just suggest that you take time to introduce the concept a bit more before diving into a close reading.

Close Read: Parallel and Opposing

Li has a tendency to close some paragraphs with parallel sentences that hold onto opposing ideas that make a broader claim to how she sees language. Take one of the sentences below which appear at the ends of Li’s paragraphs. Start by discussing what it might say to you on its own (annotate, free-write, or discuss with a peer).

Where and how does the sentence show a parallel structure? 

What are the oppositions revealed and what do they mean to you? 

Then, return to the paragraph from which the sentence is drawn (and perhaps the one before and/or after it) and now work up what you think Li might mean with this sentence based on the surrounding context. Notice how this adds on to your own sense of the line, building or departing from the understanding you had on your own.

• An artist is not of much importance to any nation’s interest (paragraph 4)
• One’s grief belongs to oneself; one’s tragedy, to others (para 6)
• What one goes toward is less definitive than that from which one turns away (para 12)
• No one thinks of suicide as a courageous endeavor to kill time (para 14)
• We can kill time, but language kills us (para 16)
• One does not always want to be subject to self-interrogation imposed by a cliché (para 17)
• Memories, left untranslated, can be disowned; memories untranslatable can become someone else’s story (para 20)
• Fluency in the public language, like fluency in a second language, can be achieved with enough practice (para 22)
• A private language, however, defies any confinement. Death alone can take it away (para 28)
• To speak when one cannot is to blunder (para 39)
• The solace is with the language I chose. The grief, to have spoken at all (para 44)

Write: Translating Aphorisms

Working with the aphoristic sentence you selected, how do you connect it to some of the larger questions of the essay?

What is lost when adopting a new language? 

How can one reasonably resist being appropriated by social expectations? Is something like “authenticity” possible?

What is a “private language”? How does this disrupt the assumptions around native and adopted languages?

In addition to considering the ideas Li is trying to convey as you connect your focus sentence with the broader issues of the essay, what do you think about how she accomplishes this? Why does this pivot to this aphoristic moment? What is the effect? How is this more public language working to express her more private ideas?

In this sense, you are trying to answer the question of how Li’s essay performs the tension between public and private, a core idea introduced even in the title of her piece, when “to speak is to blunder.”