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Chapter 1
THE PROBLEM AND ITS SCOPE
Rationale of the Study
Literature as the foundation of life plays an important role in the society. People learned
to analyse the concept through reading some literary pieces in order to determine the meaning of
the message, in connection to reality that is present in a certain work. It plays an emphasis as
many topics from human tragedies to take of the challenges in life (The official website of
abdura files.com).
There is something unitary and therefore universal in literature, something that crosses
the boundaries of culture and resists expression in words. People are born; people will die. All
can speak a language, share certain needs, emotions, and ideals. That these phenomena come to
focus in individuals does not make them less universal. In fact for Augustine the
most individual voice, that which speaks within you, is the most universal voice, the voice of
Christ, of Truth—of the Parmatman, however people designate it. In short, the universal is
always particular, the particular always universal (The official website of madisonmorrison).
The Summer Solstice is a short story written by Filipino National Artist for Literature,
Nick Joaquin. In “The Summer Solstice", the story may seem overly dramatic, the situation
unreal, but Joaquin writes in the romantic tradition of a most colourful period of Philippine
history. The story represents the opposite way of life of the Filipinos and their culture in the
Philippines as well as the presentation of pagan rituals and Christian rites, superstitious and
religious beliefs. The old and the new culture were argued to be more of a fission rather than a
fusion and its characteristics catches one’s attention mentally and emotionally (The official
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website of wikipedia). In addition to being regarded as one of Nick Joaquin’s most acclaimed
literary works, the tale is considered to be controversial. The story narrates a ritual performed by
a woman to evoke the gods to grant the blessing of fertility by dancing around a Balete tree that
was already a century old. Joaquin later turned the story into a play entitled Tatarin: A Witches’
Sabbath in Three Acts, on which a film adaptation has been based.
Nick Joaquin is a poet, fictionist, essayist, biographer, playwright, and a National Artist
(The official website of pinoylit.webmanila.com). He was honoured for journalism, literature,
Creative Communication Arts and Ramon Magsaysay Awardees (1996). The award is annually
given to Asian individuals and organization for achieving excellence in their respective fields
(The official website of imdb.com). Nick Joaquin’s short story speaks powerfully to the readers.
It determines and makes significant events in reality. His works employs real life situations
which contains such qualities and use symbolic social and cultural values. He has contributed
something to the development of the English language through his works. He had preserved the
culture of the Filipino through the use of a foreign tongue. To Joaquin, he does not resurrect the
past as what are found in his stories, but to prove that the past is indispensable to our cultural
survival and identity as a nation; the past is the bridge to the present.
Short story introduces a brief narrative that narrates a chain of events. It may require the
readers to use their imaginative skills in reading. The short story entertains the reader more than
other genre since it establishes a unified mood to relate an incident involving a few characters
often in a single setting. It is one of the literary genres which has a multifaceted stream of
functions. Short story is an instrument of social influence. What is important is its content; which
is not to be taken as merely synonymous with formal ideology, generalized themes and the
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explicitly stated ideas of a writer, rather, it is the shaping of life itself into literary form which is
a way of feeling, thinking and seeing life that the creative artist depicts.
To analyse this short story is to give conformity between the reader’s recognition of
reality and the writer’s interpretation of it. It is also an imaginative recreation and re-construction
of life and presents human life in two levels – the world of objective reality made of human
action and experiences, and the world of subjective reality dealing with human apprehension and
comprehension. Both of these worlds are realms of facts, are connected and are mutually
interdependent, yet they are not the same. Like any other fiction, such as the novel, both are
fictional narrative of make-believed world, where the literary characters seen almost real and the
situations are likewise similar to real life conditions and surroundings. However, the short story
differs from each other on the length and complexity.
Thus, the study of life’s realities intentionally conducts to be a help in interpreting and
analyzing the real meaning or message of the story specifically Nick Joaquin’s work.
Theoretical Background of the Study
This study assumes that Nick Joaquin’s short story The Summer Solstice reflects the
universal mimesis of human experiences. To support the study, the following theories are
employed: linguistics, formalistic and mimesis.
Linguistic theory. The goal of this Linguistic Theory is to answer such question as
“What is language?” This theory is different from many other theoretical frameworks. Most of
the relevant ideas that emerge from linguistic theory can conveniently be expressed to different
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distinctions. It pays close attention to natural language data. This basic Linguistic
theory features: generative studies on the syntax, semantics, phonology and the lexicon of natural
language. It is grounded in traditional grammar and can be seen as having evolved out of
traditional grammar (The official website of dingo.sbs.arizona.edu.com).
The study of acoustic, visual, and articulatory properties in the production and perception
of speech and non-speech sounds is called phonetics. The study of language meaning, on the
other hand, deals with how languages encode relations between entities, properties, and other
aspects of the world to convey, process, and assign meaning, as well as to manage and resolve
ambiguity. While the study of semantics typically concerns itself with truth conditions,
pragmatics deals with how context influences meanings. But Saussure perceived a linguistic unit
to be a ‘double entity’, meaning that it is compose of two parts. He viewed the linguistic unit as a
combination of concept or meaning and sound image (The official website of wikipedia.com).
Thus, semantic bootstrapping is partly part of this theory. It refers to a process in which
children use expectations about how semantic information will be mapped into syntax in order to
discover syntactic features. For instance, a child may use the expectation that the "doer" of an
action should be the grammatical subject to identify how subjects are marked in her language.
The theory of semantic bootstrapping was developed by Steven Pinker based on a suggestion by
Jane Grimshaw (The official website of en.wikipedia.com).
Formalistic theory. Objective theory is the main branch of all the approaches under it.
One of these approaches being used was formalistic theory which refers to critical approaches
that analyze, interpret, or evaluate a text to understand the short story because it relates literary
texts to a larger structure, which may be a particular genre, a range of intertextual connections, a
model of a universal narrative structure, or a system of recurrent patterns or motifs. Structuralism
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argues that there must be a structure in every text, which explains why it is easier for experienced
readers than for non-experienced readers to interpret a text.
The short story or any literary work is known to be as object with significant and internal
purpose. It means that every written or printed material has its own corresponding value to the
reader, may it be about religion or moral values. The focus of the story is the text itself, the text
would be examined in order to identify the lexical items.
The origins of structuralism connect with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure on linguistic
along with the linguistics of the Pragueand Moscow schools. In brief, de Saussure's structural
linguistics propounded three related concepts. First, De Saussure argued for a distinction
between langue (an idealized abstraction of language) and parole (language as actually used in
daily life). He argued that the "sign" was composed of a signified, an abstract concept or idea,
and a "signifier", the perceived sound/visual image. Second, because different languages have
different words to describe the same objects or concepts, there is no intrinsic reason why a
specific sign is used to express a given signifier. It is thus "arbitrary". Third, signs thus gain their
meaning from their relationships and contrasts with other signs. As he wrote, "in language, there
are only differences without positive terms (The official website of Wikipedia.com).
Short story is a fictional work which depicts one character's inner conflict or conflict with
others. It usually has one thematic focus. Short stories usually produce in the reader an emotional
and intellectual response (The official website of Britannica.com). The short story is often
concerned with a single effect conveyed in only one or a few significant episodes or scenes. The
form encourages character that involves in action and dramatic encounter, economy of setting,
and the overall message of the story or its significance to human experience. A short story is
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often judged by its ability to provide a “complete” or satisfying treatment of its characters and
subject.
“ The Linguistic Notion-Function in Carla M. Pacis’ Red Velvet Sofa”, the author
mentioned that based on the structuralistic view of Ferdinand de Saussure, the analysis of a
certain literary piece should focus not only on the use of a language but also on underlying
system of language when there are terms, there are values (Pacis quoted in Sangutan 12).
Short story has its own structural terminologies also known as elements like the
characters, setting, theme and so on. Other literary genres also have their own grammatical terms
and patterns. However, short story tends to follow the arrangement or sequence of events in
order to let the readers know the flow of the content of the story. It needs deep analysis in order
to get its hidden meaning and its significance as to reality is concerned.
In this study, select short story was examined objectively through finding its lexical items
that is limited only to characterization and setting, the signifier-signified relationship, and the
realities of life that can be deduced from the given signifier-signified relationship.
The units of meaning in lexical semantics are lexical items or units which a speaker can
continually add throughout his life by learning new words and their meanings. Lexical item is a
single word, a part of a grammaticalized lexis, and not lexicalized grammar. Lexical items can be
generally understood to convey a single meaning, much as a lexeme, but are not limited to a
single word but as well as a chain of words.
Lexical items are like semes which are "natural units" translating between languages, or
in learning a new language. It is sometimes said that language consists of what we called lexis.
Many lexical items are either a part of a whole word or part of a word, whereas many other
lexical items consist of parts of one or more words or of multiple words in their entirety.
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The following are definitions and examples: word/s is/are the smallest element that may
be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content, with literal or practical meaning (e.g
stout). Parts of words examples are; -s in trees, -er in worker non- in nondescript and –est in
loudest. Phrasal verbs are commonly applied to two or three distinct but related constructions in
English: a verb and a particle and/or a preposition co-occur forming a single semantic unit. This
semantic unit cannot be understood based upon the meanings of the individual parts in isolation,
but rather it can be taken as a whole. In other words, the meaning is non-compositional and thus
unpredictable. Phrasal verbs that include a preposition are known as prepositional verbs and
phrasal verbs that include a particle are also known as particle verbs. Additional alternative terms
for phrasal verb are compound verb, verb-adverb combination, verb-particle construction, twopart word/verb, and three-part word/verb (depending on the number of particles), and multi-word
verb.
Collocations are partly or fully fixed expressions that become established through
repeated context-dependent use. Such terms as 'crystal clear', 'middle management', 'nuclear
family', and 'cosmetic surgery' are examples of collocated pairs of words. Compound word is
made up of two or more other words that form a new word (e.g sidewalk). Polywords examples
are: by the way and inside out. Collocations can be in a syntactic relation (such as verb–object:
'make' and 'decision'), lexical relation (e.g gantonymy), or they can be in no linguistically defined
relation. Knowledge of collocations is vital for the competent use of a language. A
grammatically correct sentence will stand out as awkward if collocational preferences are
violated institutionalized utterances.
Idiomatic expression gives an expression that cannot be understood from the meaning of
its own. Simply it covers the literal meaning of words and it pertains into something that makes it
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up and combination of words that have a figurative meaning and it basically works interpreted in
a figurative sense (e.g “Sky brightening silver light”). Sayings are words or phrase that particular
people use in particular situations (e.g “There is always sunrise before sunset”). Year means a
period of time containing 365(366 days) and that consists of twelve months in a year.
Apparently, calendar exhibits to have counts of year which means years are counted in cycles
with no particular cycle specified as the first cycle (e.g 1850). Lexical abbreviation is a shortened
version of written word or phrase used to replace original word and to save space. It has no
pronunciation of its own, and it can only be pronounced by pronouncing the free form which it
abbreviates (e.g St.) derived from the original word ‘Saint’.
Sentence frames provide a frame of a complete sentence for students while sentence
starters are, as the name implies, a starter for students who must complete the sentence. Signal
words are those words and phrases that give clue to the reader or listener about the purpose of the
message. Each of these ideas will be explored in more detail in the sections that follow. Sentence
frames provide an opportunity for students to use key vocabulary while providing a structure that
may be higher than what they could produce on their own. For example, if students are to
compare two ocean creatures, they might say something like "Whales have lungs, but fish have
gills.” These are the classification of lexical items.
The writer also used some elements of the short story as basis to identify the lexical items
in the said story.
Character is one of the examples of elements. It is determined by the individual or
character in the story that appears to be a mixture of his or her interest, desire, emotion, and
moral principle. Characters in the short story may tend to change due to an opposing force in
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their environment. Good may turn into bad or vice versa. Upon studying the factors that lead to
the characters to change, it can identify the in depth reason why they are easily influenced.
Setting also plays a significant role in the short story. It determines the social condition of
the people. How people manage to deal with everyday challenges in life that lead them to
become someone they wanted to be or someone they did not expect to be.
Therefore in order to understand the text, it narrowed into how and what the words of a
language denote.
Mimetic theory. This theory is the basic theoretical principle in the creation of art. The
word is Greek and means “imitation”. This was also called as “Imitative Theory”, meaning it
holds the art as an imitation of something. Mimesis is said to be a representation rather than
copying. Plato and Aristotle spoke of mimesis as the re-presentation of nature. According to
Plato, all artistic creation is a form of imitation: that which really exists (in the “world of ideas”)
is a type created by God; the concrete things man perceives in his existence are shadowy
representations of this ideal type. Therefore, reality is in the mind of a person; it is the idea or
form that is really true and real, and what can be touched and seen is a copy from what is real.
However, Aristotle disagreed with Plato. Reality for him is what human can actually sees and
touches in the real world. What is not real is the idea in the mind of a person. The author is just
an author and a creator of what is concrete.
Since art is representation, imitation and mirroring, literature is one of it. In literature,
specifically short story, symbols can always be gleaned. These symbols are the representations
that represent something in reality. This is known as signifier-signified relationship.
The signifier is the pointing finger, the word, and the sound-image. It is in the
representation of the signifier that meaning is created. The signified is the concept, the meaning,
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and the thing indicated by the signifier. It need not be a 'real object' but is some referent to which
the signifier refers. For example the word “blood”, when someone would interpret it literally, it
could be the red liquid that circulates in the arteries and veins of humans and other living
creatures, carrying oxygen to and carbon dioxide from the tissues of the body which is the
signifier referred, but if one interpreted blood as a life and violence, these terms are the signified.
Signifier and signified could come together in one. A signifier without signified has no meaning,
and the signified changes with person and context. In this point, mimetic criticism seeks to know
how signifier-signified relationship helps one to relate literature into real life situation.
Therefore, linguistic, objective and mimetic theories are important in understanding short
story or even other literary genres. This would really help a lot in discovering the relevance of
hidden meaning and answering the questions being raised in the statement of the problem.
Statement of the Problem
This study analyses the universal mimesis of human experiences in Nick Joaquin's The
Summer Solstice.
Specifically, it answers the following questions:
1. What lexical items can be exhibited in the elements of the story:
1.1 character and
1.2 setting?
2. What signifier-signified relationship can be revealed through the lexical items?
3. What universal mimesis of human experiences can be deduced from the signifier-signified
relationship?
4. Based on the findings, what output can be designed?
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Significance of the Study
This study is beneficial to the following:
Students. This study helps the students in linguistic and literature in honing their critical
thinking, deepening their understanding and appreciating the importance of having knowledge in
analysing the content of the short stories.
Literature Teachers. It helps the teacher to be more effective in sharing the information
to the students in an efficient manner. This study will also guide the teachers to have good and
new ideas to enhance their performance in the field of teaching that they can contribute to their
students to make them more knowledgeable and productive.
Future Researchers. This study will help them to strive for more comprehension and
resourceful research in order to achieve more significance study in the world of literature and
language.
Scope and Limitations of the Study
The study analyzes the structure and content of Nick Joaquin's, The Summer Solstice.
This is limited on the characters and setting. From the signifier-signified relationship, it looked
into the themes that collectively deduced as a universal mimesis of life's realities.
Research Methodology
Method Used. Method seems to be important in making research. Hence it gives the
opportunity to finish the research without consuming too much time. However, it requires
researchers to follow what are the procedures that were being established to successfully provide
the best output. The method used in this study is content or discourse analysis. It focuses on how
certain word function in the text, and it also involves the elements of meaning or the significance
of what was described. The object of discourse analysis is to analyse written, spoken,
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conversation, and communicative event. Contrary to much of traditional linguistics, discourse
analysis not only analyses beyond the sentence boundary, but also prefers to analyse the
naturally occurring language, and not just invented examples.
Sources of Data. Data are gathered from different published and unpublished books
related to the topic that are being used in the study. Internet is very useful in compiling the
sources which provides the information that is very essential in the research and topic
discussions.
Data -gathering Procedure. This study involves three phases:
Phase One: Determining the Lexical Items
In finding the lexical item in each element, the researchers will analyse thoroughly the
story, and carefully select the vocabulary that will best fit in each element. The table below will
show the details and at the same time the extraction of the classification of lexical items and the
semantic bootstrapping theory applied since it is the key to understand one general principle.
Table 1 Lexical Items
Characterization
Lexical Item
Types of lexical item
Characters
Setting
In presenting the structure of the elements under Characters, the researchers focus only
on the main characters of the story. The researchers are going to assert the main characters by
first, providing the description of their physical appearance and what they think, feel, and dream.
The second one is based on how other people say or react to them. The third one is on how the
author gives them descriptions.
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Setting can be identified through the time and location in which the story takes place. It
answers the question, “When and where did the story happen?" and it needs to consider the
several aspects of a story's setting to examine how setting contributes to a story. These are place,
time, weather conditions, and social conditions. The table on the previous page will show the
details.
Phase Two: This phase involves the thorough examination and analysis of the wordimages in the short story. These word images are the symbols, and these symbols are related to
life realities to get the meaning of the message that the writer wants to convey. This is called the
signifier-signified relationship.
Table 2 Signifier-Signified Relationship
ELEMENTS
CLASSIFICATION
LEXICAL ITEMS
OF
SIGNIFIER
SIGNIFIED
(LEXICAL ITEMS)
CHARACTERIZATION
SETTING
In the signifier-signified relationship, the researchers analyzed its structure based on the
given analysis of the different elements aforementioned in the above discussions. Based on the
elements, it gave a thorough analysis on how it is being structured in the selection given,
signifier as the word image and the signified as the one being symbolized by the word image of
the signifier. A sample table above will show how it is being structured.
Phase Three: This phase involves the interpretation of data from the analysis of
signifier-signified relationship; the realizations were collectively gathered to explain the
prevalent life’s realities.
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Table 3 The Universal Mimesis of Human Experiences
ELEMENTS
SIGNIFIER
CLASSIFICATION
SIGNIFIED
UNIVERSAL
OF THE LEXICAL
MIMESIS
ITEMS
HUMAN
OF
EXPERIENCES
Characters
Setting
As a result of the given data mentioned above, life's realities can be deduced. It is by
relating the significant part of the story that is now filtered into different elements to relate it into
the real life situation. From the given elements and signifier-signified relationship, the
researchers now relate its importance as to human nature is concern, if how it depicts realities.
Interpretation of the gathered data now makes sense.
Definition of Terms
These terminologies will help the readers to understand the in depth meaning of each
important words that are being used in the study. This will also broaden the vocabulary of the
readers when it comes to language and literature terms.
Characterization. This refers to the general description of the characters, her physical
attributes, her manner, and her way of thinking. It also refers to the information the author gives
the reader about the characters themselves. Characterization gives life to the characters in the
story because sometimes the descriptions are prevalent to the people in reality. Someone might
relate how the character functions in the story.
Classification of lexical items. This refers to common types of lexical item namely:
words, parts of words, phrasal verbs, compound words, polywords, collocations, institutionalized
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utterances, idiomatic expressions/idioms, sayings, year, lexical abbreviations, and sentence
frames and heads.
Compound word. It is made up two words that is being joined together to form a new
word.
Human Experience. This refers to the challenges in life each person face in order to
survive. The observing, encountering, or undergoing of things generally occur in the course of
time people lived in this world. It may be good or bad experience, but as long as you surpass all
the trials and struggles in life, it will make you a better and a successful one.
Idiomatic expression. The said expression understood as to mean something quite
different from what individual words of the phrase would imply. Alternatively, it can be said that
the phrase is interpreted in a figurative sense.
Lexical abbreviation. It refers to a short way of writing a word or phrase, using only
letters/ alphabet and possibly full stops. It is a shortened version of written word or phrase used
to replace original word and to save space.
Lexical Item. This refers to a term or a sequence of words that acts as a unit of meaning,
including words, phrases, phrasal verbs and proverbs a single word, a part of a word, or a chain
of words that forms the basic elements of a language's lexicon. Lexical items can be generally
understood to convey a single meaning, much as a lexeme but are not limited to single words.
Lexical items are "natural units" translating between languages, or in learning a new language.
Setting. This refers to the historical moment in time and geographical location in which a
story takes places, and helps initiate the mood of a story. Setting has been referred to as story
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world or milieu to include a context (especially society) beyond the immediate surroundings of
the story. Elements of setting may include culture, historical period, geography, and hour.
Signifier-Signified Relationship. Signifier is the literal image of the thing being
specified. It is a symbol that is representing something. Signified is the meaning or concept that
the signifier signified. In short, it is the hidden meaning of the text. Signifier-signified
relationships are the words that contained a denotative and connotative meaning.
Universal Mimesis. This refers to the event that is actually happening in reality. The fact
about life is no one can change what is meant. Still there are some occurring changes about
human nature. It is the realization of human to understand that there are things that really happen
beyond our control. Indeed, everything happens for a reason, either good or bad.