Love you in Throat Gristle: Subvocal Speech and Tainted Proprioception in the Work of William S. Burroughs

Berkay Üstün

Makale detayları

Love you in Throat Gristle: Subvocal Speech and Tainted Proprioception in the Work of William S. Burroughs

Yazarlar:

Berkay Üstün

Yayıncı:

Gaziantep University

Ana Başlıklar:

Sanat ve Edebiyat

Dergi:

Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi Vol.22 Issue 2, pp.478-494

Belge Tipi:

Makale

Yayın Tarihi:

4/2023

Belge Dili:

İngilizce

Document ID (Org No.):

2001288795

pISSN:

1303-0094

Anahtar kelimeler:

Özet:

 The notion of subvocal speech looms over the American writer William S. Burroughs work and its defining feature is an involuntary continuity. Burroughs borrows the concept from the behaviorist psychologist John B. Watsons attempts between the 1920s and 30s to come up with an image of thinking which foregrounds speech and its laryngeal correlates. Yet, while adopting this picture, Burroughs brings a much more pragmatic and experimental slant to subvocal speech, waging battle against a heteronomy lived as an impossibility of silence. Trying out a mimetic intervention that appropriates this elusive language conduct and the discourse of its description, he positions his formal experiments cut-ups as a medium of registration and acceleration that tries to disable the compulsory character of subvocal speech by taking it to its most extreme conclusions. When these experiments seem to reproduce instead of removing the heteronomy associated with subvocal speech, he explores other approaches, with the organic and evolutionary implications providing material for new directions in narrative, and the polyvalent status of the human throat coming under a detailed focus. Accordingly, Burroughs work opens out to a series of organological inquiries the richness of which finds philosophical and anthropological resonances. While philosophers like Deleuze and Guattari find inspiration in Burroughs for a concept of the body without organs, phenomenology also turns out to have a lot to contribute to a renewed understanding of subvocal speech. In sum, this paper aims to demonstrate that subvocal speech as an originally behaviorist notion has a much more layered character than is visible at first glance, enlisting at once the modes of cut-up, routine, and evolutionary speculation aside from straightforward critique.

 The notion of subvocal speech looms over the American writer William S. Burroughs work and its defining feature is an involuntary continuity. Burroughs borrows the concept from the behaviorist psychologist John B. Watsons attempts between the 1920s and 30s to come up with an image of thinking which foregrounds speech and its laryngeal correlates. Yet, while adopting this picture, Burroughs brings a much more pragmatic and experimental slant to subvocal speech, waging battle against a heteronomy lived as an impossibility of silence. Trying out a mimetic intervention that appropriates this elusive language conduct and the discourse of its description, he positions his formal experiments cut-ups as a medium of registration and acceleration that tries to disable the compulsory character of subvocal speech by taking it to its most extreme conclusions. When these experiments seem to reproduce instead of removing the heteronomy associated with subvocal speech, he explores other approaches, with the organic and evolutionary implications providing material for new directions in narrative, and the polyvalent status of the human throat coming under a detailed focus. Accordingly, Burroughs work opens out to a series of organological inquiries the richness of which finds philosophical and anthropological resonances. While philosophers like Deleuze and Guattari find inspiration in Burroughs for a concept of the body without organs, phenomenology also turns out to have a lot to contribute to a renewed understanding of subvocal speech. In sum, this paper aims to demonstrate that subvocal speech as an originally behaviorist notion has a much more layered character than is visible at first glance, enlisting at once the modes of cut-up, routine, and evolutionary speculation aside from straightforward critique.

 The notion of subvocal speech looms over the American writer William S. Burroughs work and its defining feature is an involuntary continuity. Burroughs borrows the concept from the behaviorist psychologist John B. Watsons attempts between the 1920s and 30s to come up with an image of thinking which foregrounds speech and its laryngeal correlates. Yet, while adopting this picture, Burroughs brings a much more pragmatic and experimental slant to subvocal speech, waging battle against a heteronomy lived as an impossibility of silence. Trying out a mimetic intervention that appropriates this elusive language conduct and the discourse of its description, he positions his formal experiments cut-ups as a medium of registration and acceleration that tries to disable the compulsory character of subvocal speech by taking it to its most extreme conclusions. When these experiments seem to reproduce instead of removing the heteronomy associated with subvocal speech, he explores other approaches, with the organic and evolutionary implications providing material for new directions in narrative, and the polyvalent status of the human throat coming under a detailed focus. Accordingly, Burroughs work opens out to a series of organological inquiries the richness of which finds philosophical and anthropological resonances. While philosophers like Deleuze and Guattari find inspiration in Burroughs for a concept of the body without organs, phenomenology also turns out to have a lot to contribute to a renewed understanding of subvocal speech. In sum, this paper aims to demonstrate that subvocal speech as an originally behaviorist notion has a much more layered character than is visible at first glance, enlisting at once the modes of cut-up, routine, and evolutionary speculation aside from straightforward critique.

 Amerikalı yazar William S. Burroughsun yapıtını baştan başa kateden sesaltı konuşma kavramı istemsiz bir biteviyelik ile tanımlanır. Burroughs kavramı davranışçı psikolog John B. Watsonın 1920 ve 1930larda yaptığı ve düşünmeyi konuşma ve gırtlaktaki tezahürleri üzerinden açıklama gayretindeki çalışmalarından ödünç alır. Bu vizyonu benimser gibi olsa da yazar sessizliğin imkansızlığına dayanan bir tâbi olma haline vurgu yaparak sesaltı konuşma kavramına daha pragmatik ve deneysel bir yaklaşım getirir. Burroughs bu tarif edilmesi zor dil pratiğini ve ona dair söylemi mimetik bir müdahalenin nesnesi kılar ve kesme dahil biçimsel deneylerini sesaltı konuşmanın kayıtları haline getirir; amaç sesaltı konuşmayı ivmelendirip en aşırı sonuçlarına vardırarak zorlantılı niteliğini etkisiz kılmaktır. Bu deneyler tâbi olma halini ortadan kaldırmak yerine yeniden üretir gibi olunca, Burroughs başka yaklaşımların imkanını sorgular: Bu sefer organizma ve evrim anlatı malzemesi olacak ve insan gırtlağı türlü işlevleriyle Burroughsun söyleminin merkezine yerleşecektir. Böylece Burroughsun yapıtı felsefi ve antropolojik yankıları olan zengin bir dizi organolojik soruşturmaya açılacaktır. Örneğin, Deleuze ve Guattari gibi felsefeciler Burroughsun eserinde organsız beden kavramı için bir kaynak ve esin buluyorken, fenomenolojinin de sesaltı konuşma kavramına taze bir kavrayış getirebileceği görülecektir. Özetle, bu makale kökeninde davranışçı bir kavram olan sesaltı konuşma kavramının Burroughsun eserinde çok katmanlı bir yapısı olduğunu ve eleştirel bir söylemin yanı sıra kesme, routine gibi biçimsel deneyleri ve evrime yönelik spekülasyonu da harekete geçirdiğini gösterir.

Makale detayları

Love you in Throat Gristle: Subvocal Speech and Tainted Proprioception in the Work of William S. Burroughs

Yazarlar:

Berkay Üstün

Yayıncı:

Gaziantep University

Ana Başlıklar:

Sanat ve Edebiyat

Dergi:

Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi Vol.22 Issue 2, pp.478-494

Belge Tipi:

Makale

Yayın Tarihi:

4/2023

Belge Dili:

İngilizce

Document ID (Org No.):

2001288795

pISSN:

1303-0094

inner speech

subvocal speech

addiction

use

conditioningİç konuşma

sesaltı konuşma

bağımlılık

kullanım

koşullanma

Sayı

Makale detayları

Yazarlar: Berkay Üstün

Yayıncı: Gaziantep University

Ana Başlıklar: Sanat ve Edebiyat

Dergi: Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi Vol.22 Issue 2, pp.478-494

Belge Tipi: Makale

Yayın Tarihi: 4/2023

Belge Dili: İngilizce

Document ID (Org No.): 2001288795

pISSN: 1303-0094

Sayı

Yazarlar:

Berkay Üstün

Yayıncı:

Gaziantep University

Ana Başlıklar:

Sanat ve Edebiyat

Dergi:

Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi Vol.22 Issue 2, pp.478-494

Belge Tipi:

Makale

Yayın Tarihi:

4/2023

Belge Dili:

İngilizce

Document ID (Org No.):

2001288795

pISSN:

1303-0094