Susan Hitch
Linguist and Broadcaster
As an academic, Susan has written on Alfred the Great’s ninth century programme of translating important books from Latin into Anglo-Saxon English, and on women’s writing in the Renaissance. But her curiosity about languages and how language itself works goes back further in her own life, to a childhood in Japan, Cuba, Greece and Germany, travelling between places and between language; later she lived in Algeria, Brazil and Poland.

Language is the means by which we place ourselves in a time and culture, whether we’re learning – as children, or migrants, or travellers – or speaking a language which is already our own. Our language gives us an identity which usually feels as natural to us as the breath we use to speak it. And yet we can also use it to ask questions about who we are, to reconsider, remake and relearn. That has been the focus of Susan’s work as an academic: King Alfred using newly translated books to build national identity, the literate Protestant women of Seventeenth Century England recognising the power of writing and using it distinctively. Questions of language and identity are not only historical and academic: Susan continually meets these questions in the human rights-based work of the Sigrid Rausing Trust of which she is a trustee.

I chose this piece of text as the basis for a code. A code to act as a vessel for the 10-12 movements we developed in week 2. 

These are the rules I have made up    ( I don’t like making up my own rules – I preferred the song where the rules were just given to you and you had to get on with it – now there are too many choices – too many opportunities for me to stray from the task -  but just to contradict myself it is actually a fantastic task for me – cause it shows me exactly how I let myself off the hook in the creative process … )          to date:

Rules

Each syllable has a movement attached to it ( A-N).  Rrepeated syllables have rrepeated movement. Punctuation has a seperate language. ” A” in the text is my A movement ( Finding what A was has been perhaps the most time consuming aspect of this process – its repeated 5 times and rhythmically it needed to be short – but not clipped – more functional like the A itself – simple – but not so simple that its repetition in 5 quick successions makes it dull… – in the end I went for a more functional version of something which starts the code off – movement A as a link between the two very different sections)   and everytime there is a T ( there are 5) I have to be distracted momentarily………..

These are the rules I made up - fairly simple – you might think – but getting this code enacted in my body has been challenging. 

First habit I reverted to was - I just roughly did the code – I forgot a full stop here – sometimes did a movement per syllable other times did just an arbitrary section of a word – little misdemeanours as far as the code I’d set myself – but they started to magnify as the work continued – trip me up  – the rhythm was off as a result.  So, during a weekend breathing time – I re grouped  – got specific with my rules – and a solid structure started to show itself. 

But that was not my only problem….the movements themselves started acting up.  Because my code ( I think all the codes being used do this actually )  lays the ‘moves’ very closely together – the specific quality of each moment gets tested – Is it too like the one that has just been or the one that follows it?….Alot of questioning of the moves themselves started to occupy my time  – I spent ALOT of time with this  – too much – I started dropping moves – moving moves to different places in the code – and again the thing began to unravel before my eyes. Habit number 2 showed itself  – excessive questioning of everything leading to paralysis…..I think I could have got where I needed to go if I had just stuck with my original moves and worked them………..although we shall never really know………….

Then other things ; my natural tendency as far as rhythm and flow were being interrupted by the code - with the song we could always play the cd and get the definitve rhythmical version to check we were not sitting back into comfortable rhythmical patterns   – but with the words as code there is so much more play/ or old habits in this area – you can elongate a word here speed up there – but I have had a close eye on rhythm today and the more I work with this text the more I see an inherent rhythm in Joyce’s choice of consonants, the structure of the syllables and the way he uses the punctuation  – I just need to key into it.  There is for me a long period of just getting the moves into your body before real play can happen – I don’t know why its taking me so long – Maybe

because I’ve explored a new type of movement vocabulary? because the rhythms are new to me? cause there is no narrative through line – but a series of heavily intentioned moments which are hard to make fleeting when the code requires it……….

When I have got this structure in my body I want to add another line of text to demonstrate the structure more clearly – I think more repetition of the structure is needed for it to be really recognised.  I also want to add more rules – more layers to add to the contradictory flavour that is emerging. I want to find where I can use the most perfect amount of effort to serve the moves – not too much  – not too little.  I want to ensure that surprise is ever present – that each moment is absolutely essential and has a direct communicative power – that there is a liveness to all…….ok I am going to stop dreaming/ rambling now.