MODULE 3

E.L 102 - LANGUAGE, CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Culture, Language and Verbal Art

Module Overview In this module, you will be learning about the importance of art in culture and language.
It discusses the role of art in the society and the engagement of interaction between
audience and performance.
Modules Objectives and Define art;
Outcomes Appraise the importance of art in culture and language; and
Analyzes quote from popular writer, “Mahatma Gandhi”.
Lessons in the module Lesson 1: Verbal art as literature and social rituals
Lesson 2: Engagement and interaction between audience and performers.
Lesson 3: Literary and cultural values of verbal art.
Time Frame 4 Weeks
Introduction Hello my dear students! Welcome to module 3!
Congratulations! You may now begin to learn and explore the module 3 of this
course. Learning art is not too hard to study, yet its everywhere. Like the way you
express your feelings to others or any idea/topic/ subject that you want to tell. An art is
ability that everyone has. If you have it, then endure it! no one can ever take it to you.
Just read and understand the discussions about culture, language, and verbal art.
Learn their interconnectedness and importance to each other.
Keep Learning and Enjoy Learning!!!

ACTIVITY
Task 1: Mind Map
Directions: Based in your experience or your own perception, give one word that
define the given word below.

ART

Task 2: Show Your Examples!

Directions: Many ways that you can show your style of art like drawing or painting, for you
what are your ways of showing or expressing your skills in art. Cite at least five (5) ways.

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 Analysis
Checkpoint!
How will you able to discover your skills in art? Is it helpful to you to
continue this kind of skills? why or why not?
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Abstraction
Read, Think, and Understand
Culture, language, and verbal art
 What is art?
 The role of art in society
 The functions of art Verbal art as literature and social rituals
 Engagement and interaction between audience and performers
 Literary and cultural values of verbal art
 Conclusion

INTRODUCTION
Every society is unique; It is distinguished from the rest of other societies in terms
of: race, social behavior, social rituals, language, and art.
Art: The most prominent pillar upon which society stands.
Most societies past and present have used art to give meaningful expression to
almost every part of their culture, including ideas about religion, kinship, and
ethnic identity.

Art…
…. It enhances daily experiences.
…. It is linked to quality of life.
…. It touches everyone.
…. It is all around us.

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 Some “Truths” About Art…
1. There is no agreed-upon definition of art.
2. Art does not necessarily have to be beautiful.
3. Art can be created for any number of reasons.

What is Art?
Art is very difficult to define.
The reflection of art it is the understanding of culturally different meanings.
Anthropology defined its discipline through the investigation of meanings.
It refers to the manifestations of human creativity through which people express
themselves in dance, music, song, painting, sculpture, pottery, cloth, storytelling,
verse, prose, drama, and comedy.
Art is the creative use of the human imagination to aesthetically interpret, express,
and engage life, modifying experienced reality in the process.
According to Franz Boas (1929): art is an essential part of all cultures.
Art: “Another type of language”, one without words, expresses ideas and forms and
serves to maintain and develop its culture.
Words can be a limitation.
The pictorial language in many ways expresses content more meaningfully than
speech or writing does, especially when content is not concrete.

The Meaning of the Word Art…

Ability The human capacity to make things of beauty and things that stir us.

Process The different forms of art such as drawing, painting, sculpting,

architecture, and photography

Product The completed work

Art Should ….
1. The artistic process should be creative, playful, and enjoyable and need not be
concerned with the practicality or usefulness of the object being produced.
2. From the perspective of the consumer, art should produce an emotional response.
3. Art should be transformational.
4. Art should communicate information by being representational.
5. Art implies that the artist has developed a certain level of technical skill not shared
equally by all people in a society.
6. Art should make a symbolic statement about what is being portrayed.
In other words, art should communicate information
a) by being technically skilled.
b) by being transformational.
c) by being creative.
d) by being representational.

How art is performed in society?

Many ways where people can perform art in the society, it is by:
Painting

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 Tattooing
Sculpture
Music & dance
Sport
Filmography
Utility

The Purpose or Functions of Art

o PERSONAL FUNCTION: The artist tries to express his or her personal
feelings through the artwork.
o SOCIAL FUNCTION: Art that conveys a sense of family, community, or
civilization. Cultural.
o SPIRITUAL FUNCTION: An artist may create a work to support the
Religious or Spiritual beliefs of a culture.
o PHYSICAL FUNCTION: Functional Art: objects use in everyday life— such
as architecture, jewelry, pottery, furniture, etc.
o EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION: Art that has been used throughout time as a
way to pass on historical facts. Teaches about cultures.

Types of Art
 Verbal arts – Folklore
 Music – Verbal and Nonverbal
 Pictorial Arts – Painting and Sculpture

Verbal Arts
 Stories within a culture reflecting a history, gender relationships, proper or
improper behavior, or religious beliefs.
 Examples: Narratives, dramas, poetry, incantations, proverbs, compliments,
and insults.
 Myth - A myth provides rationale for religious beliefs and practices. Creation
myths
 Legend - Stories told as true
Common elements
– No known author
– Multiple versions
– Detail
– Insight to society
 Tale. Common elements
– Secular
– Nonhistorical
– Entertainment
– May be moralistic.
Motif – Story situation
 Poetry and Epics – poetry allows for inappropriate subjects to be talked
about –

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 Epics - Long oral narratives, sometimes in poetry or rhythmic prose,
recounting the glorious events in the life of a real or legendary person.
 Music.
-Verbal and nonverbal.
-Abstract emotion.
-Define
 Indigenous terms
 Musical lingo
 Melody, rhythm, form
-Components
 Repetition
 Tonality

Functions of Music
Social function
– Entertainment
– Work
– Oral tradition
Pictorial Art
Various mediums
– Drawing, painting, sketching, etc…
– Walls, rock, fibers, wood, animal hide, plants, clay, etc…
Symbolic expression

How does Art Impact Communities?

 Increasing social capital and community cohesion:
“Art is a process that involves professional artists and community members
in a collaborative creative process resulting in collective experience and
public expression”
 It provides a way for communities to express themselves;
 It enables artists, to engage in creative activity with communities;
 Art has a beneficial impact on the economy: Economic impacts are perhaps the
most widely touted benefits of the arts;
 Arts attract visitors (art as ‘export’ industry);
 Arts attract residents and businesses;
 Arts attract investments;
 Art is good for individuals:
 The arts improve individual health;
 The arts improve psychological well- being;
 The arts improve skills, cultural capital and creativity;

Verbal Art
What is verbal art?
 A.k.a. oral literature: exists in different genres;
 Verbal art: a text- centered & performance- centered approach;
 These genres are performed in all cultures & specific contexts;
 Myths, legends, folktales, ballads, proverbs, riddles, and jokes;

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 What does PERFORMANCE mean in verbal art?
Dual senses:
Artistic action (doing of folklore) ----- Art form
Artistic event (performance situation) -------(performer, audience,
setting)
Performance assumes the responsibility to an audience for a display of communicative
competence— the knowledge and ability to speak in socially appropriate ways.

Verbal art as literature and social rituals

 Every culture has its own unique literary expression.
 Literature can be defined more broadly to include songs, speeches, stories and
invocations.
 Carter (2001): Literature is as old as human language, …. The first literature in any
culture is oral. The classical Greek epics, the Asian narratives… the earliest version
of the Bible…were all communicated orally, and passed on from generation to
generation- with variations, additions, omissions and embellishments until they were
set down in written form in versions which have come down to us. (p. 3)

Oral Traditions
 Oral Traditions: the first way people had of communicating knowledge and beliefs
from one generation to the next.
 Oral traditions have provided cultural continuity in ancient communities through the
sharing of stories, songs, history, personal experiences, and social commentary;

Orature
 The literature of aboriginal societies was based in oral traditions best described as
“orature.”
 Individuals who were eloquent and had a strong command of the language were
highly respected in native communities.
 They were often storytellers.
 Oral traditions were intricate and full of meaning.
 Aboriginal orators were highly respected, and words had a great deal of power.
 Orators used wit, metaphor, irony, emotion, imagery and eloquence to enrich their
orature.

What characterized Oral Traditions in those

remote times?
The Recording of History
 The Aboriginal tradition in the recording of history is an oral one, involving
legends, stories, and accounts handed down through the generations in oral form.
 In the Aboriginal tradition, the purpose of repeating oral accounts from the past is
broader than the role of written history in western societies.

Oral Accounts
 Oral accounts of the past include a good deal of subjective experience.

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  They are not simply a detached recounting of factual events but, rather, are facts
enmeshed in the stories of a lifetime.
 They are also likely to be rooted in particular locations, making reference to particular
families and communities.

Characterized History
 These histories are characterized by how a people see themselves, how they define
their identity in relation to their environment, and how they express their uniqueness
as a people.

Immediacy
 Unlike western tradition, which creates a sense of distance in time between the
listener or reader and the events being described, the tendency of Aboriginal
perspectives is to create a sense of immediacy.
 This is done by encouraging listeners to imagine that they are participating in the
past event being recounted.

Validation
 The purpose of the accounts may be to educate the listener, to communicate aspects
of culture, to socialize people into a cultural tradition, or to validate the claims of a
particular family to authority and prestige.

Drawing your own conclusions

 Those who hear the oral accounts draw their own conclusions from what they have
heard, and they do so in the particular context (time, place and situation) of the telling
of the story.
 Thus, the meaning to be drawn from an oral account depends on who is telling it, the
circumstances in which the account is told, and the interpretation the listener gives to
what has been heard.

Storytellers
 There were many storytellers in Aboriginal communities.
 Children hear ancient legends and tales and learn the history of their communities by
talking with their elders.
 In particular, storytelling was a vital ingredient in teaching young children and
youths. Stories were often used to discipline.

A storyteller is…
 A good storyteller could transport listeners to a particular territory.
 A storyteller could evoke the lessons of ancestors long passed away.
 A storyteller could shape the opinions of people reminding them of past actions and
historical events.
 In any oral tradition, spoken words had the power to capture the imagination and
transform reality.

Verbal art: literary characteristics

 Verbal literature: A kind of history about the past situations;
 Verbal literature: A medium for transmitting historical knowledge;
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  An inseparable part of history: It has a timeless quality; It reflects truths of all time of
a particular historic moment.
 Verbal art shares common ground with modern fictions because both are meant for
teaching and entertaining through the medium of artistic language;
 The poetic patterning of verbal art entails two transformational dimensions:

Syntagmatic (horizontal) Interpersonal/ or producer- receiver

relations
Paradigmatic (vertical) Historical and cultural events

 Engagement & interaction between audience

and performers

 Verbal art deals with historic events and cultural contexts.

 A sense of reality of those events that can validate the continuity of traditions and history, the
relationship of the two, and the way they serve as literary tools that help manipulate the
images of the past.

Expressive
Feature

The Poetic
character of the
Cultural Stylistic Feature
verbal art
Semantics

Formal
Principle/Organic
unity

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 Expressive features The changing of abstract ideas into literary form
Stylistic features Essential ingredients of discourse analysis/ or the artistic use of
language
Formal principle/ The interconnection of events and the revelations of characters
organic unity
Cultural semantics Contextual- centered poetic meanings

Ben- Amos: A society usually classifies verbal

communication into three ways:
1: Identifying and interpreting literary forms or genres within a wider ethnographic
system (cognitive);
2: Performing them in a particular social context (pragmatic);
3: Formulating the oral art using poetic languages that are peculiar to them
(expressive).
 Thus, verbal art becomes coherent and valid if stylistic, thematic, and contextual aspects
are taken into account.

COGNITIVE

Verbal
PRAGMATIC
communication

EXPRESSIVE

 Ben- Amos (1977): “Concerning the features of verbal art, there are three basic elements
…., namely cognitive, pragmatic and expressive, is of capital importance.”
 Ben-Amos (1977): The cognitive features consist of names, …, and commentary by
which a society labels, categorizes, and interprets its forms of folklore within a wider
system of discourse. There are expressive features the styles, the contents and structures
which characterize each genre and the… pragmatic features are the constituents of the
situational contexts of each folklore performance. (p. 2)
 Pragmatic level: Functional differences are observable between the various oral forms of
the verbal art; clearly be seen when they are performed in the specific cultural and social
environment.
 The (satirical/ humorous poem): told for entertainment when people are
free from work;
 (proverb): occasions of argument, in times of seeking sound judgements,
commenting on unfairness, criticizing or correcting erroneous views;
(the trickster tale/ fable story): narrated in the context of unfolding deception, villainy and
social corruption;
 (work song): sung to reinforce belonging together, solidarity and friendship;
 The (love lyric): sung to provoke romantic love feelings;
 The (heroic tale): narrated in the context of promoting a sense of patriotism
and a strong national feeling.

Application
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TASK 1. fill in the blank
Direction: Read and understand the sentences below, fill in the blank the correct answer.

_________________________1. It is the most prominent pillar upon which society stands.

_______________________2. It shares common ground with modern fictions because both are meant
for teaching and entertaining through the medium of artistic language.
_______________________3. A long oral narrative, sometimes in poetry or rhythmic prose,
recounting the glorious events in the life of a real or legendary person.
_______________________4. It is an art that conveys a sense of family, community, or civilization.
Cultural.
_______________________5. It is a vital ingredient in teaching young children and youths.
_____________________6. It formulates the oral art using poetic languages that are peculiar to them.
_____________________7. It is the act of identifying and interpreting literary forms or genres within
a wider ethnographic system.
_____________________8. It is sung to provoke romantic love feelings.
_____________________9. It deals with historic events and cultural contexts.
_____________________10. It is the understanding of culturally different meanings.

TASK 2: Discuss
Discuss the following:

1. How culture, language and verbal arts connected to each other? Explain.
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2. How can you express your feelings through art? Explain.

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Closure
Congratulations! You have accomplished the lesson 1-3 of Module 3. Just keep it
up and continue learning!

Module Assessment
Express your Creativity!
In a one whole sheet of paper, analyze the given quote from the popular writer Mahatma Gandhi, then make a
reaction paper on what you have understand about the quote. You will be graded by the rubric given at the back.

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 “All true art must help the soul to realize its inner self.”
-Mahatma Gandhi

Remember!
 To follow the basic template of writing a reaction paper:
1. Introduction
2. Body
3. Conclusion
 To include the connections of the quote to language and culture towards art.
 To indicate sources if you get answers from the internet or books.
 To accomplish this assessment.

“There are two distinct languages. There is the verbal, which separates people…
and there is the visual that is understood by everybody.”

Thomas Kinkade

References
https://www.slideshare.net/BoutkhilGuemide1/culture-language-and-verbal-art

https://www.azquotes.com/author/5308-Mahatma_Gandhi/tag/art

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