A New Digital Method for a New Literary Problem: A Proposed Methodology for Briding the "Generalist" - "Specialist" Divide in the Study of World Literature

This paper is situated within the debate between
“specialist” and “generalist” methods of analysis
in the study of world literature. It is argued
that a systemic linguistic discourse analysis
of appropriately encoded text passages can
provide a methodology which can be utilised
to interrogate the national and international
demarcations of comparative literary analysis.
A case study consisting of a textual analysis
of the dialogical relationship between patient
and therapist in a “factional”, i.e. works of
fiction, which draw upon historical fact. Irish
and English novel is provided. The benefits of
the results yielded to current understandings
of national literature and definitions of world
literature are discussed.
In 1827, the German poet, Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe, declared to his young disciple Johann
Peter Eckermann that “National literature is
now a rather unmeaning term; the epoch of
world literature is at hand, and everyone must
strive to hasten its approach” (Eckermann, cited
in [Damrosch, 2003b, p. 1]). History informs
us however that Goethe was premature in
his heralding of a new age of “postnational”
literature, as up until recently all literatures
tended to have been studied along national
lines [Dimock, 2006, pp. 2-5]. Yet in more
recent decades, nations and, by extension,
“national” literatures have become increasingly
under threat in their sovereignty over all
elements of human life due to the homogenising
and heterogenising effects of globalisation.
Globalisation is defined by Malcolm Waters
as being “a social process in which the
constraints of geography on social and cultural
arrangements recede and in which people
become increasingly aware that they are
receding” [Waters, 1995, p. 3]. It is not
surprising therefore, that in an age where
national boundaries, both physical and mental,
are become increasingly insignificant and
blurred, we find a renewed interest in Goethe’s
concept of
Weltliteratur
.
As with all things new, the emerging
discipline of world literature has evoked
fear and reservations among literary scholars.
According to David Damrosch, the possibility
of recognizing the ongoing, vital presence of
the national within the life of world literature
poses enormous problems for the study of world
literature [Damrosch, 2003a, p. 514]. Thus the
field tends to be divided into “specialists”, those
who are concerned with national literatures,
and “generalists”, those who are interested in
studying global patterns. But instead of this
either/or method, Damrosch maintains that
what is need is a method that can mediate
between broad and often reductive overviews
and intensive, but often atomistic close readings
[p. 519]. As Franco Moretti argues, “we must
find a way to combine the individual who reads
a single work with great collective efforts and
vision” [Sutherland, 2006, Monday 9 January,
2006]. This paper argues that a combination
of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Digital
Humanities offers one way whereby this may be
achieved.
The complexities involved in the interpreting
of “literary language” for electronic media
have perhaps posited the greatest deterrent for
literary scholars in embracing digital humanities
to date. The pioneering work of scholars such as
Willard McCarty and Jerome McGann (among

2
others) unfortunately remain the exception
among their peers in the field of literary studies.
The majority within the discipline retain the
fear that computer based analysis of texts can
only reveal “broad sweeping patterns” within
literary works. Interestingly, this fear echoes the
reservations that are held about the theoretical
methods deployed by “generalists” in the study
of world literature. Contrary to both these
fears, this paper will argue that computer-based
literary research can be utilized to provide both a
means of analysis for the specificities of national
literatures, while also serving as a tool for
carrying out comparative textual analysis at an
international scale. We wish to present to the
following methodology to the community.
1. Case Study: The Patient-
Therapist Relationship in
Literature
This project will consist of an analysis of
a passage of dialogue between patient and
therapist in Sebastian Barry’s
The Secret
Scripture
(2008) and Pat Barker’s
Regeneration
(1995). For the purpose of this study, we have
chosen a novel by an Irish writer and an English
writer respectively. Given that this methodology
is in its infancy, it is presumed best to begin
with two texts written in the same language
and which originate from countries of similar
cultural systems.
The Secret Scripture
is set in
present day Ireland but the narrative is made up
of a double narrative; the personal recollections
of Roseanne Clear, who was incarcerated in
a mental institution during the mid twentieth
century, and the account by the psychiatrist, Dr.
Greene, of his own investigation into Roseanne’s
admittance into the hospital.
Regeneration
is
based on the real-life experiences of British army
officers being treated for shell shock during
World War I at Craiglockhart War Hospital in
Edinburgh. Its narrative relays the treatment
of soldiers suffering mental break down. It is
shaped predominately around the discussions
which the psychiatrist, Dr. Rivers, has with a
number of patients within the asylum in which
he works. Both novels are centered around
events which have caused psychological distress
to the individual characters, but which have also
caused what is known as ‘cultural trauma’
1
to the
nations in which they are set.
2. Methodology
Our method of analysis is based on Systemic
functional linguistics (SFL) which is a model
of grammar that was developed by Michael
Halliday in the 1960s [Halliday, 1976, Halliday,
2004]. It is part of a broad social semiotic
approach to language called systemic linguistics.
The term
systemic
refers to the view of language
as “a network of systems, or interrelated
sets of options for making meaning”. The
term
functional
indicates that the approach
is concerned with meaning, as opposed to
formal grammar, which focuses on word
classes such as nouns and verbs, typically
without reference beyond the individual clause.
Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a
theory of language centred around the notion
of language function. SFL places the function
of language as central (what language does,
and how it does it), in preference to more
structural approaches, which place the elements
of language and their combinations as central.
Specifically, it begins with a social context,
and looks at how language both acts upon,
and is constrained by, this social context. In
the model, and methodology, particular aspects
of a given social context (such as the topics
discussed, the language users and the medium
of communication) define the meanings likely
to be expressed and the language likely to be
used to express those meanings. Since language
is viewed as semiotic potential, the description
of language is a description of choice. Systemic
linguists examine the choices language users can
make in a given setting to realise a particular
linguistic product (the available choices depend
on aspects of the context in which the language is
being used). By examining the different choices
for the discourse between characters in similar
social contexts in different texts, we believe that
it may be possible to identify, or describe, the
features associated with national literatures that
address the problem described here.
Our approach is essentially a discourse analysis
rather than textual analysis, although it relies
on encoded text for comparative analysis.
Specifically, we draw on existing SFL models
of sociolinguistic and cognitive approaches to
doctor-patient discourse [Todd and Fisher,
1993, Togher, 2001]. These models (i) analyse
the patterns of talk that are produced by the