Use more verbs
“Life is a
verb.” – Charlotte
Perkins Gilman
I learned to read by painstakingly pronouncing
the rambunctious adventures of two knee-socked, slightly irritating, good-as-gold,
simple-minded, very white, and really downright boring children named Dick and Jane.
But in China, the reading primers are different. The first page shows a little
boy on the shoulders of a bigger boy. “Big brother takes care of little
brother. Big brother loves little brother. Little brother loves big brother.” It’s all about the verb, the linking part, the
relationship, the connective action.
As Nisbett explains, in China it’s “not individual action but relationships between people that
seem important to convey in a child’s first encounter with the printed word.” While we tend to say “I am who I am,” our
Asian friends may more likely make reference to social roles—“I am Lori’s friend.”
We say “See Dick run;” they say “Dick loves Jane” (the Truth about Dick and
Jane, at long last).
We track the development of our 2.5
year-old daughter, Tess, by the things
that she knows. When we play, I ask her the names of objects: moon, star, fire
truck, apple, couch, shoe, Cheerio-crushed-into-carpet, and then we move
seamlessly into the category of Choking Hazards—button, quarter, marbles,
Kibbles, peppermint candy.
Studies have shown that in the U.S., children learn nouns much more rapidly than they learn verbs. (Nouns
are easier to learn—they belong to categories, they’re unambiguous). Not so in
East Asian countries where children learn verbs at a faster rate. Japanese
mothers are more likely to ask about feelings, using feeling-related words when
their children act up: “The toy is crying because you threw it.” “The wall says
ouch,” Nisbett reports. By focusing on feelings, children are taught to anticipate
reactions of other people… it’s all about the relationship, not the thing.
You can see this play out, like most
things, in sentence structure: verbs in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tend to
come either at the start or finish of sentences while in English, verbs are
usually buried in the middle.
I was
a serious student of Chinese for a few years a hundred years ago. I look now at
the notebooks jammed full of thousands of Chinese characters, written in a sure
hand, the order of those strokes impeccable, their uniformity reminiscent of
rows of tightly trained soldiers or upstanding members of a marching band.
Every character in the sentence the same distance apart, the sense created out
of the context, that soup in which they float, not out of the words themselves—meaning
made from placement, not linguistic marker.
Thirty
years ago, my friend Jack
was a faculty advisor for an undergraduate thesis, “Sixteen Waysto Avoid Saying 'No' in
Japanese" by Keiko Ueda. Jack explained
it to me recently in an email when I asked about being stood up for dinner in Tokyo:
“The gist of it is that
Japanese hesitate (less so these days) to say a clear 'no' for concerns of maintaining
good relationships (face issues) and that the more experienced or sophisticated the person, the broader
the repertoire (college students then had a few ways; their businessmen fathers
had up to sixteen ways, including 'yes.') It's not that Japanese will say 'yes' and then do ‘no’ but that one sends
signals of 'no' without saying so—at least sixteen ways. So there are set
expressions like the equivalent of ‘hmmm, that might be difficult’ which pretty
much means 'no.' If the person didn't show up for dinner he (probably), she
(less likely), they (?) may have thought that their reluctance, inability for
diplomatic reasons, etc., was already signaled. The Japanese are perfectly
capable of saying 'no.' I would be interested in learning more about a culture where
people couldn't. It's a relational thing, not a 'content' thing.”
Westerners grow up in a world of
objects while Easterners grow up in a world of relationships. We own
objects—like little Mary Ann and Junior with their roller skates or Jane with
that fancy Mercedes—but maybe it’s not the words, the nouns, the things that
matter. What if Mary Ann had helped Junior learn to roller skate, rather than
just concentrate on her own skates? Would we spend so much time fighting over
ownership—of skates, of oil, of countries—in this vast world of ours if we focused on verbs, not things?
Mary Ann is playing store. Junior is
playing store. But we’re not told that Mary Ann and Junior
are playing store together, now are
we? Would the word “with” have been too great a leap for the young reader?
Most of us think of Scrabble as a point
game laid out on a board, writes reporter Martha Ann Overland in her story about Mr. Panupol. He doesn’t. “He
thinks along an axis, where point values occupy a place in space.” The story
intrigues me: The rest of us play by
knowing the language—the meaning behind the words. But, then again, we’re not
Scrabble champions, are we? Mr. Panupol doesn’t know the meaning of any word he
uses on the Scrabble board; rather, for him it’s a spatial game, like Tess
learning the name for “button” or "choke" or “ambulance,” without knowing what that means.
See Dick run! See Jane conquer! (I couldn’t resist
this image of Dick and Jane amidst the Romans).
I can't say much more than, WOW! Thanks go to Leah at Working Solo for the head's up. I will be referencing this post in the near future, since you write about something so near and dear to my heart.
Your "focus on the verbs" advice is so astounding - well, to me. I have always tried to do so, without knowing why. I learned to read via Dick and Jane, and I now realize that I'm a noun person (by default) striving to be a verb person.
Posted by: Yvonne DiVita | 20 November 2005 at 17:46
Yvonne - many thanks for stopping by and for your nice words - I see from visiting your blog why the "Dick and Jane" connection is important! Good luck with that move toward the verbs...!
Posted by: patti digh | 21 November 2005 at 10:38
Patti, yet again you have cast forth some words to ripple the internet lake waters of thought. These are action words this time and I concur with Yvonne that this will be referenced a few times before the ripples settle, if they settle.
Thank you!
Posted by: Steve Sherlock | 21 November 2005 at 12:34
I've stumbled upon your blog while researching Pippi Longstocking for a term paper assignment. Easily distracted, I read through some of your posts and I'm completely captivated and inspired. I like to call myself a writer and a reader; I'm currently waiting on a response from the creative writing department at the University of Arkansas - with crossed fingers! Yet, I blame my busy college life for not writing nearly as much as I'd like to and why the books on my shelves have just barely been scanned. You're 37days challenge is inspiring. Thank you for your thoughts and ideas - and refilling the ink in my pen! And from redhead to another, thank you for sharing your love of Pippi. - Sam
Posted by: Samantha Bagwell | 22 November 2005 at 00:18
This is FASCINATING. I suffered through Dick and Jane books in 1st grade. I can't say they taught me to read because my mother had done that earlier, pre-kindergarten. So I found them particularly insufferable to sit through as my classmates tried to phonetically sound out those pathetic sentences. (That makes me sound like a horrible brat...and in those days? I probably was.) "Would we spend so much time fighting over ownership—of skates, of oil, of countries—in this vast world of ours if we focused on verbs, not things?" Probably not. This is going to radically change how I baby-talk with any infants I meet from now on. :)
Posted by: Marilyn | 26 November 2005 at 12:47
Welton Smith correction. Ref. Patti on 20
November 2005 at 00:08. Welton Smith actually says ..."In the best poems, every
word is a verb...." Welton Smith, in that
Interview does not say, "In the beat poems..."
Posted by: Dingane | 21 May 2006 at 15:38
dingane - thanks so much for the typo alert!
Posted by: patti digh | 21 May 2006 at 16:18
The error in the Welton Smith Interview actually appears in Modern American Poetry
site on the net. The original Interview in
Journal of Black Poetry #15, gives us what
Welton Smith in fact said.
Posted by: dingane | 21 May 2006 at 16:44