An essay on Writing
In this essay I’ll try my best to show, in a very basic and objective way, how important language can be and how absurdly present it is in every waking moment of our lives. This can and, factually, has to be depicted as the most important basic resource we have to work with, despite of what you do for school or a living. Many more examples than the ones mentioned here could have been done, but for the sake of keeping this original and short we will make due with what is presented.
It is my recommendation that you check the books and movies mentioned here by yourself, because there was not enough written down to make these works justice, which only a good study session can. Hopefully this can be of some use for people who are seeking to improve their writing or, putting in a simple manner, learn something new. Also, it’s worth mentioning that you don’t have to know any of these books or movies, directors and authors in order to understand it.
The first thing we will study is how present language is and what does it mean for us as a species, conveyed blatantly. After a good foundation for the importance of language is set, we will dive deeper into a few examples that can help concretize this idea. Finally, setting ground for what can go beyond the essay itself.
In Basic Writings, Heidegger talks about how Language speaks for itself. The person trying to communicate is going to do that through a very thoughtful and almost strategic way of structuring his phrases and information, so the language is perfectly depicted as a way to deliver the wanted message. “Language speaks solely and solitarily with itself”. Speaking, according to the author, is the utmost basic thing that separates us from the other beings. We can speak, which occurs in complexity only in human form, therefore it is the essence of human nature. “…the essence of men consists in language.”.
On The way to language analyzes in its beginning by viewing the works of Alexander von Humboldt. “Humboldt represents language as a particular ‘labor of spirit’.” The way language works is towards itself, being language to language in a sense that it represents how we pursue, over the years, our intelligence. Language as not being a form in itself, but rather a reproductive system, where you use it as means to speech, from any variation of its origin to present time.
The way that Heidegger structures his explanation is by going step by step, showing his reader that the meaning of language itself has many lairs, from something superfluous to substantial, from mundane to specific. This structure is as follows: Dasein (essence), language, speech, saying (to say is to show), owning (conducts things), propriation (propriating); in that order. “What bestirs in the showing of saying is owning.”.
When you teach a language, however, it extrapolates the barriers of that particular idiom, it crosses over, mixing together with the culture that it’s connected to. To learn and to master a language, is to learn and to master a culture and what it holds.
Also, according to Heidegger, silence can be an effective way of speech. With that we are allowed to proceed and make a parallel with filmmaking. There is a director that uses silence in a distinctive powerful way, which is Martin Scorsese. If you ever watched any of his films, you were able to notice how he delivers silence in order to bring emotion to the scene, be that redemption, anticipation, tension, what have you. In his movies you can see properly how silence can be used as a language.
Another director(s) that uses it perfectly, especially when we analyze the technique called eyeline matching and reverse angle, shot and reverse shot, is the “Coen Brothers”. A good example of that is by the end of the movie No country for old men. There are these transitions made to show the viewer sheer silence, which tells us a lot by not saying anything. There are many directors who use that technique simply for dialogue, but the Coen Brothers do that for, amongst other things, a reaction of lines delivered during a conversation.
Coming back to teaching and learning a language, the mere format that these studies take is a counterpoint in itself whereas you have the purely conceptual ideas merged with the technical ones. The study of speech should be taken as an example to this statement. To use language as speech is to use sounds, phonetics, a “conjecture” of sound waves that the person before us can make sense of. We can see that is a very old idea, given the latin origin of the word “I say” is dico, which means “I show through words”. Its phonetics are similar in German as well, where we have “die Sage” (the saying) and “Zeigen” (showing).
As Aaron Sorkin, a very good modern screenplay writer, says: dialogue is the heart and soul of your story. “Dialogue is not like music. TO me, dialogue IS music.”. He also speaks about every story being a “behind the scenes”, where either in a movie or a book you are able to see or create something that “isn’t in the store’s window.”.
When you’re writing an essay or an story, you should always worry about the message you’re trying to deliver to your audience. Non different, when you’re reading a book or watching a movie, you should be able to understand what it is about. When you learn to be a better communicator, you also learn how to interpret more easily several different topics.
For this argument to take place on books again, I will take use of one of my favorite authors. Stephen King wrote in this book called “On writing: a memoir of the craft” a wonderful work that also narrates, in a clear and hypnotizing way, from his upbringing to later years as a writer; how one practices and masters this art. It is a short book, so it’s a must if you want to be a better writer yourself. Another good (and short) book for that is “The Elements of Style”, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.
When you’re writing, be that with any language; from your native language to mathematics, from a language you don’t know to a person who is silent, communication is everything, to us humans at least. It is vital, because it is the sole thing we have to vastly differentiate us from any other animal. We can contribute our own experiences to futures generations, this way each one comes out a little smarter than the last. Of course, that happens only with a small percentage, but it still enough for changes to happen.
That being said, even with good learning skills and methods, we always have two predominant forces that goes against each other in this scenario. Firstly, there are those who will do essentially everything to educate, to show, to live by example and with that keep society moving forward. We can see this particular case with Blaise Pascal and his influence in the French revolution (from 1789 to 1799). The same goes for Immanuel Kant (German, 1724–1804) and Denis Diderot (French, like Pascal, 1713–1784) and many others.
In the short film Entretien sur Pascal, directed by Éric Rohmer, we have a discussion between Brice Parain (atheist) and Dominique Dubarle (devoted christian), both philosophers, talking about Pascal and his ideas in reality and the church. The bias is noticeable on both sides, yet it’s discussed with mutual respect for the topic and one another. This is complex communication, one that needs a lot of information.
Secondly, we can go to a simpler and more current example. Nowadays, taking America as our meaning of interpretation, we have a deeply divided country politically speaking. Both sides have their extremists, both do rights and wrongs. However the bias from each side makes it inconceivable for one side to see reason in the other. The more far left or right the person is, the more impossible is this correlation. This is simple communication, one that doesn’t need much information to sustain itself.
Either way, if you go for the ontology or the skeptical side, the more factual information you have, stronger will be your argument’s foundation. With this premise taken care of, the way of language can be painted as one sees fit. Despite the fact that language and culture are complex concepts to grasp, they are superfluous if we don’t give them a concrete ground to stand on.
The same rules apply for writing, be that for fiction or not. The pillars of your world, be that created or real, have to be well contextualized, follow a coherent path, explore the best way to its objective. Otherwise, meaning that if you don’t have it, your idea won’t be understood. In conclusion, no matter what you’re trying to convey, if it’s not understood, ironically or not, the fault is all yours.
