'Ritin' Fowklower Daun 'Rong: Folklorists' Failures in Phonology

No CLEARER PRIEST-HOLY TEXT RELATIONSHIP exists in modern academe than that which obtains between the folklorist and the text. A text, in the parlance of the folklorist, represents the basic source, the pure stream, the inviolable document of the oral tradition. It comes from the lips of a speaker or singer and is set down with word to word exactness by a collector (Dorson 1964:1). This desire for accuracy is justifiable in spirit, but it has resulted in what may be serious distortions of texts. The problem is that linguistic accuracy is sought, but linguistic sophistication is not used in the quest. Such admonitions as Dorson's provide not the least bit of information about how the folklorist is to deal with levels of linguistic facts. This paper examines the professional folklorist's representation of linguistic facts below the level of the word, that is, representations of pronunciation details. Consideration of such details is at the very bottom of more complex notions such as word and grammar and must be dealt with before a comprehensive set of procedures may be outlined for the spelling of folk texts. Folklorists and linguists agree on at least one matter-the oral text will always be poorly represented by the written one. Even a Dolbyized, 36mm production of a folk event is not the event. Writing is a poor, secondary system when compared to speech. No tone or quality of voice can be represented; no helpful and delightful accompanying body language is seen; and no dramatic or embarrassing pauses or rapid tempo can be provided. This criticism of the spelling of folk texts will not focus, then, on the inability of writing to do the job of speech, though the folklorist's apparent hope that it can may be much of the cause of all this discussion. It is important to note, as well, that I will not distinguish among field transcripts, transcripts made from tapes, or any other subsequent written representations. It will become obvious that my major concern is with texts that are most widely circulated, though I believe the principles eventually derived apply to the written record of any verbal folklore. All of the articles from theJournal of American Folklore (JAF) for the 1970s were examined. Only those articles that contained folklorists' representations