The Philology of the Vernacular

Author(s): Richard Bauman

Source: Journal of Folklore Research, Vol. 45, No. 1, Grand Theory (Jan. - Apr., 2008), pp. 29-
36
Published by: Indiana University Press
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 RichardBauman

The PhilologyoftheVernacular

Abstract: I suggestin thisessaythattheprevailingtheoretical

orienta-
tionofAmericanfolklore studymight bestbe as
identified thephilology
ofthevernacular.In thecourseoftheessay,I outlinethemajortenetsof
thisorientation,
identify and suggest
itsprincipalscholarlyinflections,
someofitspotentialimplications.

GrandTheory
versus TheoryinAmerican
Prevailing Folklore
In myview- and I suspectmostcontemporary folklorists
wouldagree
-
withme anyeffort toproclaimorconstruct a grandtheory forfolklore
isa misguided enterprise,notwithstanding theprominent roleofgrand
theory in the development of modern social thought, rhetorical
its
in the politicaleconomyof disciplinebuilding,and the social
utility
capitalthatstillsomehowaccruesto itin someprovincesofacademe.
The rhetoric and intellectual politicssurrounding claimsto grandor
hightheoryare all too susceptibleto a numberof stultifying effects:
authoritative of
regimentation inquiry, universalizinggeneralization
and a priori
abstraction thatflattenouteverything interestingabouthu-
manexistence, and banal"itfits"scholarship (here'sthetheory,here's
mycase, and it .
fits)If,though, we take the question before us to be
whether American folklorehasa grandtheory inthesenseofa prevailing
one,I wouldanswerin theaffirmative, at thesametimeacknowledging

JournalofFolklore Vol. 45, No. 1, 2008

Research,
Copyright© 2008 Departmentof Folkloreand Ethnomusicology,
Indiana University

29

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30 JournalofFolklore
Research Vol. 45, No. 1

thatAmericanfolklorestudyhas been inflectedbya range of theories,

some of themrepresentingthe reactivationof intellectualkinshipwith
long-lostcousins withwhom we share intellectualancestorsbut whose
familiesmoved awayfromour neighborhood some timeago.
Byprevailingtheory,I mean (1) a conceptualframeofreference(2)
thatguidesa general,common engagementwitha coherentintellectual
program,(3) based on a set of premisesabout societyand culture,(4)
providingan orientingframework forinquiry,and (5) derivedfromor
aligned to a demonstrableintellectualtradition.I hastento saythatthe
commongroundis notnecessarily fullyrecognizedor understoodas such
I
by all practitioners,but it is, think,demonstrablethroughreflexive,
criticalintellectualhistoriography and attunementto basic premises.
If,then, there is a prevailingtheoryin American folklore,what is
it?The best name I can come up withis thephilology ofthevernacular.
Space constraints will allow a
only stripped-down and summarychar-
acterization of the theoryin these few pages; a far more extended
consideration of many of the points I will offermay be found in a
number ofworksI have coauthored withCharles Briggs(Bauman and
Briggs2003; Briggsand Bauman 1992).

oftheVernacular
The Philology
1. What I am calling the philology the vernacular is, firstof all, text-
centered. I willelaboratefurtheron the natureoftextualitybelow,butfor
now,sufficeit to saythatthe primaryunitof analysisof all philological
approaches is the text,thatis, a crafted,bounded, internallycohesive
and coherent stretchof discourse. For the most part,folkloristshave
concentrated their attention on markedlyentextualized discursive
forms,such as narratives,songs, proverbs,riddles, and the like, but
have also tended to entextualize(thatis,renderin textualform)other
culturalforms,like "custom,""belief,"and "superstition."
2. It is relativist,
based on the understandingthattextsare expres-
sions ofand intelligiblein termsof the culturesin whichtheycirculate.
It holds, that is, that textsare culturally Some adherents-
constituted.
not all- would hold that the flip side is also true: cultureis textually
constituted. The relativistorientation of philology also establishes a
frameof referencein whichcultures- nations,peoples, tribes,and the
like- serveas the social base forthe identificationof textualcorpora,
the elucidation of theircharacteristicfeatures,and theirconventional

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RichardBauman ThePhilology
oftheVernacular 31

properties.These corpora are then ideologized as cultural heritage

and become the touchstonesof culturalnationalism.
Principles 1 and 2, then, taken together,suggesta reciprocal pro-
gram: if you want to understand a culture, examine its texts,and if
you want to comprehend a text,read it in relation to the culture to
which it givesexpression.
3. Textshave certainconventionalproperties:formal,thematic, and
pragmatic. The formalpropertiesof textshave to do withhow theyare
made, theirformalconstituentsand organizingprinciples,what it is
thatmarksthemofffromtheirdiscursivesurroundand rendersthem
internallycohesive- in a word,theirpoetics.Thematics,bycontrast,has
to do withthe referentialor propositionalcontentof texts,theirwaysof
representingthe world.The pragmaticdimension of textspertainsto
theirmodes ofpresentationand use, how theyserveas resourcesforthe
accomplishmentof social ends. Taken singlyor in combination,these
setsof propertiesserveas criteriaforthe identificationand differentia-
tionsofvariousordersof texts,thatis to say,of genres.
4. The formal,thematic,and pragmaticpropertiesof textshelp to
make them memorable, and thus shambleand durable.One of
repeatable,
the central concerns of philologyis the social and temporal circula-
tion of texts.The iterationand reiterationof textsgives them social
currencyas part of a collective repertoire.There is a temporalityto
thisprocess as well: successiveiterationsof a textconstitutea temporal
continuum of intertextually related cognate texts,a "tradition"
5. While textsmaythusbe seen to be sharedwithina cultureand to
persistthroughtime,theyare simultaneously tochange.From one
subject
vantagepoint,giventhe basic philologicalpremisethattextsare keyed
to culture- or,indeed,thattextsareculture- itfollowsthatwhenculture
changes,so toowilltextschange.Or,toapproachtheprocessfromthevan-
tagepointofthedynamicsof textualcirculation,as adumbratedin point
4,just above, no twoiterationsof a textare everexactlythe same; there
willinevitably be a dimensionof variation,an intertextual gap between
thesuccessiveiterations.As itstextschange,so does a culturechange.
Taken jointly,points 3, 4, and 5 provide the basis for a further
extension of the intellectualprogram I have identifiedas the philol-
ogy of the vernacular.At the center of this program is the dynamic
tension between textual persistence or continuity- tradition- on
the one hand, and textual change- variation or creativity-on the
other.This tension is calibrated in termsof persistenceor change in

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32 Research
JournalofFolklore Vol. 45, No. 1

the formal,thematic,and pragmaticaspects of texts.Atvarioustimes,

and in various approaches (more on thisbelow), one or another vec-
tor (traditionor change) or one or another set of textualproperties
(formal,thematic,pragmatic) maybe foregrounded,but alwaysin at
least tacitrelation to the others.
6. The nature and capacities of textsare closely tied to the com-
municativetechnology employed in their production, circulation,and
reception. For most of the historyof folkloreas a concept and a field
of inquiry,this nexus has been investigatedin termsof the human
voice as a communicativetechnologyand of the discontinuitiesand
transformationsattendant upon the advent of writing,print, and
other media. Oralityhas figuredas the touchstone of folklorefrom
the beginning,with "oral" servingas the characterizingadjective in
such compounds as "oral tradition,""oral poetry,""oral literature,"all
of which oftenstand in as equivalents of the term"folklore."
oftextualproduction,
7. There is a sociology circulation, in
and reception
any culture and historicalperiod. For most of the historyof folklore,
both as concept and as fieldof study,the sociological aspect thathas
been of primaryconcern is the socialstratification ofculture,with the
- -
central oftenthe defining focus of attentiondirected to thatstra-
tum (usually at or near the bottom) variouslytermedfolk,common,
popular, or vernacular.Likewise,the oppositional contrastof orality
and literacymayserveto identifythe social base offolklore,as in "oral
society"or in marked formssuch as "preliterate"or "nonliterate."All
of these terms,and the sociological frameworksthatunderpin them,
have complex intellectual histories,and all have been ideologized:
differentiallyvalued, contested,and mobilized in the serviceof differ-
ent interests.There is thus a politics as well as a sociology of textual
production,circulation,and reception."Vernacular"seems to me to be
the least ideologicallyencumbered of the terms,which is whyI adopt
it here; moreover,the linguisticresonances of the termarticulatewell
withthe core foci of philology.
The vernacularlya communicativemodalitycharacterizedby: (1)
communicativeresources and practices thatare acquired informally,
in communities of practice, rather than by formal instruction;(2)
communicativerelations thatare immediate,grounded in the inter-
action order and the lifeworld;and (3) horizons of distributionand
circulation thatare spatiallybounded, by localityor region. The ver-
nacular,furthermore,can onlybe understood in dynamicrelation to

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RichardBauman oftheVernacular
ThePhilology 33

the cosmopolitan;theyare opposing vectorsin a largercommunicative

field.If the vernacularpulls towardthe informal,immediate,locally-
grounded, proximal side of the field,the cosmopolitan pulls toward
the rationalized,standardized,mediated, wide-reaching,distal side.

ThreeInflections oftheVernacular
ofthePhilology
The philologyofthevernacular,as thetouchstoneofAmericanfolklore
study,has come in three principal guises, all derived fromthe same
intellectualfoundationsin the eighteenthand nineteenthcenturies,
in the ideas of such figuresas Thomas Blackwell,Robert Wood, Rob-
ert Lowth,Johann GottfriedHerder, and the BrothersGrimm. One
line, witha generallyliterarycast- thatis, oriented principallyto the
historyofliteratureand to text-historical approaches- is the Harvard-
based enterpriseof FrancisJames Child, George Lyman Kittredge,
StithThompson, Archer Taylor,and their epigones. In this line of
inquiry,persistenceis foregrounded,withchange generallycast as a
degenerativeprocessthatdistancessuccessiveiterations("versions")of
a textever furtherfromitsoriginaryform.The focus of investigation
is thematicvariation,as discovered by close intertextualcomparison;
formaland pragmaticconsiderationsfigurehardlyat all.
A second line,focusedprimarily on epic compositionand oral poet-
ics more generally,is the oral-formulaic theorymoststronglyidentified
withMilman Parry and Albert Lord (Foley 1988). Here, the weightof
emphasisis on individualcompositionalcreativity in the act of perfor-
mance, conditioned by the formal constraints of the poetic system,the
contextualconstraintsoftheperformancesituation,and thepurported
capacitiesof "oral cultures."At the same time,however,the dynamicof
creativityis counterbalanced by the traditionalizingintertextualalign-
ment of each performanceto antecedent recountingsof "the same
story."This line of inquiry,then, attends productivelyand in equal
measure to formal,thematic,and pragmaticaspects of oral poetics.
The thirdline, no less philological than the others,is the Ameri-
canist anthropological traditionof Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, Paul
Radin, and MelvilleJacobs (Bauman 2003; Briggsand Bauman 1999;
Hymes 1981). Boas gave explicit priorityto the textual documenta-
tion of NativeAmerican culturesand his program for the collection
and analysisof textualmaterialsstillshapes anthropological practice
in the United States, especially in linguistic anthropology. In the

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34 JournalofFolklore
Research Vol.45, No. 1

Americanisttradition,textsconstitutedata forthreeprincipallines of
as evidence ofhistoricalprocessessuch
culture-historical,
investigation:
as diffusion,migration,and culturecontact; cultural,as reflections -
thoughselected and refracted- ofculture;and linguistic,as extended,
natural discourse. While thematicconcerns are foregroundedin the
investigationof textsas projections of culture,there has alwaysbeen
a significantinterestin form in the Americanisttradition,and the
analysisof formin relation to functionand meaning is a prominent
concern in Americanistlinguisticanthropology.
Now,havingsuggested- but onlysuggested- some ofthedivergent
approaches to the philologyof the vernacular,it may be usefulto ac-
knowledge those sectorsof folklorethatstem fromother intellectual
lineages and followprogramsderivedfromdifferentsetsof concerns,
thoughtheymaybe convergentwiththe philologyof thevernacularin
certainrespects.Here, I would identifymost of the concerns thatare
generallycaptured under the rubricof folklife. materialculture,folk
architecture,custom,belief,superstition,festival,and the like. These
fieldsofstudyderivelargelyfromtheantiquarianfoundationsoffolklore
in the seventeenthand nineteenthcenturies,basicallyconcerned with
thewaysoflife- stillvernacular,but not textual- ofpeople castas "pre-
modern."To be sure,the philologicaland the antiquarianapproaches
are oftenheavilyintertwined,but thereare importantdifferences as well.
A fulltreatmentof these issueslies beyond the scope of thisbriefessay;
Charles Briggsand I have discussed themat length (2003).

and Conclusions
Implications
So what?How does the recognitionof the philologyof the vernacular
as theprevailingtheoryin Americanfolklorescholarshiphelp us in our
scholarlywork?First,I suggest,it providesa basis on whichto confirm
and reaffirm thatour fieldhas been guided bya coherent,productive,
and durable intellectualprogram,extendingfromthe late-eighteenth
centuryto the present.Second, it providesa big pictureagainstwhich
newdirections - structuralism,
performancestudies,ethnopoetics,inter-
textuality, what
hybridity, have you- maybe recognizedas newvantage
pointson enduringconcerns,on issues thatdon't go away,but remain
worthyofpersistentexploration.Bythesame token,recognitionofour
common foundationsprovidesa criticalvantagepointon thedivergent
intellectualintereststhatseem to divide us; indeed, it would seem to

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RichardBauman ThePhilology
oftheVernacular 35

offera critical towhathavebeen,at sometimesand in some

corrective
quarters,divisivetendencies withinthefield.In myview,itisunproduc-
tivein theextreme(I don'toftenputitthatpolitely)forfolklorists to
issuecrankyjeremiads rantsabouthowthisorthat
orself-congratulatory
approach"isnotfolklore" ordoesnotaccordwithsomepersonalvision
ofgrandtheoretical orthodoxy (Dundes 2005),whena bitofcareful,
critical
intellectualhistoriography todemonstrate
suffices thecommon
elements amongthem.Andfinally (fornow,atleast),reflexiveawareness
ofthebasicproblems thathaveengagedusand theintellectual program
thatdrawsthemtogether, mayhelpus in charting and providing a war-
rantforfuture directions
andsuggesting intellectualallianceson a more
informedbasis.For example,our long-established interestin orality
and literacyas technologies ofcommunication shouldsuggesttous an
extension ofourinvestigations intohowvernacular textsareaffected by
theadventofothercommunicative technologies,such as soundrecord-
ingor radio,a lineofinquiryin whichwe mightmakecommoncause
withmediascholars.Further, theenduringconcernin thephilology of
thevernacular withregimesof circulation and thewaysin whichthe
production oftextslooksbackupon priortextsand anticipates future
onesprovidesa suggestive warrant forourengagement withregimesof
intellectualproperty,indialoguewithliterary scholars, mediascholars,
legalscholars,and others.The philologyofthevernacular providesa
stronerleerto standon in thesepursuits.
Indiana University
Bloomington

Cited
References
Bauman,Richard
"
2003 "Text:Anthropological Aspects. In International
EncyclopediaofLinguistics,
vol. 4, ed. WilliamJ. Frawley,229-30. Oxford:OxfordUniversity Press.
Bauman,Richard, and Charles L. Briggs
2003 VoicesofModernity: LanguageIdeologies Cam-
and thePoliticsofInequality.
bridge:CambridgeUniversity Press.
Briggs,CharlesL., and RichardBauman
1992 "Genre,Intertextuality, and Social Power."JournalofLinguisticAnthropol-
ogy2:131-72.
1999 "The Foundationof All FutureResearches':Franz Boas, George Hunt,
NativeAmericanTexts,and the Constructionof Modernity."American
Quarterly 51/3:479-528.
Dundes, Alan

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36 JournalofFolkloreResearch Vol. 45, No. 1

2005 "Folkloristics Century(AFS InvitedPresidential

in theTwenty-First Plenary
Address,2004) ." JournalofAmerican 118/470:385-408.
Folklore
Foley,JohnMiles
1988 The Theoryof Oral Composition: Historyand Methodology.Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Hymes,Dell
1981 "In VainI TriedtoTellYou":EssaysinNativeAmerican Philadel-
Ethnopoetics.
phia: Universityof PennsylvaniaPress.

Richard Bauman is DistinguishedProfessorof Folkloreand Eth-

nomusicology, Communicationand Culture,and Anthropology at
Bloomington.His researchcenterson oralpoetics,
IndianaUniversity,
genre,and performance.Amonghisrecentpublicationsare Voices of
Modernity (withCharlesL. Briggs,2003) and A World
ofOthers'Words
(2004). ([email protected])

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