Crafting an essay From Common Language to Personal Expression

CRAFTING AN ESSAY FROM COMMON LANGUAGE TO PERSONAL EXPRESSION - SHORTES T, MODEL 1:

1. Language - the collective asset of society.
- Language exists in the memory, in the recollections of every individual, serving as the common, unifying standards of society in utilizing language to ensure its optimal communicative effectiveness within the community at a specific period.
- Language standards form a system that society has chosen and solidified over an extended period of linguistic activity.
- Common language is considered a model system within variations, acknowledged and used by everyone in communication.

2. Speech - an individual's unique product
- Individual speech is the product of each person when applying the common language to create text (spoken or written) for communication.
- It bears a personal imprint, the creative result of an individual, a place to experiment in establishing new factors.
- These new factors are reinforced over time, contributing to the development of the common language.

3. Expression methods of the common language
It comprises:
- Common elements:
+ Vowels (a, e, i, ...) and tones (rising, falling, flat)
+ Sounds resulting from the combination of vowels and tones according to certain principles (people, mountains, rivers, ...)
+ Fixed words (land, water, ...) and expressions (spicy like chili, tall like a mountain, ...)
- Rules for constructing sentence types: simple, complex, compound sentences, etc.
- Methods of semantic shift of words.
- General rules and methods regarding phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, style, etc.

4. Expressions of individual speech
It comprises:
- Individual voice.
- Personal vocabulary.
- Transformation, creativity in using familiar, common language.
- Creation of new words.
- Flexible, inventive application of common methods.

5. Interplay between common language and individual speech
- This is a two-way relationship.
- The society's common language is the foundation for the formation and absorption of individual speech. Without a common language, individual speech cannot exist and thrive.
- Individual speech brings about transformations, novel nuances to the society's common language. Without personal language, the evolution of social language would be impossible.

B. ANSWERING QUESTIONS, EXERCISES

1. In the poem 'Weeping for Duong Khue,' Nguyen Khuyen writes: Bác Dòng thôi đã thôi rồi Nộc mây man mác ngậm ngùi lòng ta. What meaning does the word 'thôi' convey in this context?

- The two verses above contain words familiar to readers. However, the word 'thôi' in the first line is used with a metaphorical meaning.
- Original meaning of 'thôi': to stop, end, cease a certain activity. Example: We have stopped doing that job.
- In Nguyen Khuyen's poem, 'thôi' is used with the meaning of cessation, ending life.
- This usage is a unique creation of Nguyen Khuyen, contributing to expressing variations in the author's emotions and feelings in an artistic text. It carries the author's personal touch.
2. Comments on the arrangement of words in the following two lines:
Xien ngang mat dat reu tung dam, Dam toac chan may da may hon.
(Ho Xuan Huong, Self-Love) - The arrangement of words in these two lines reflects the unique creativity of female poet Xuan Huong:
+ The author changes the order of noun phrases: the central noun in each phrase is reversed before the prepositional phrase. 'Mây đá' is changed to 'Đá mấy hòn.' 'Rêu từng đám' is changed to 'Rêu từng đám.'
+ Changing the order of sentence components: The predicate comes before the subject (Usual arrangement: Rêu từng đám xien ngang mặt đất - Đá mấy hòn đâm toạc chân mây).
- These artistic techniques contribute to depicting the vitality, the awakening of the nature scene. It is not an external scene but a portrayal of the emotions, expressing breakthroughs from the suppressed consciousness, a resistance to rise above fate, bringing a certain flavor to the verses describing nature in medieval poetry.