Expressivism and Humanization in Poetry: Engendering Foucault’s Extralinguistic Spirit in the Aphorisms of “The Hill We Climb”

• In Event: Toward the Extralinguistic: New Emergences With Foucault’s Unpublished Writings in Educational Research Methodologies

Abstract

Expressivism conveys the sense of a normative statement through the expression of one’s state of mind by sincerely asserting the statement (Dreier, 2009; Ferris, 2014). Aikin and Hodges (2018) mentioned that expressivism unblocks the barriers caused by the ontological status of values and morals. Moral worth is sometimes used by a group to oppress the minority, which prevents them from expressing themselves in experience and perspective (Young, 1989). Poetry as a means of expressivism has been part of education Bizzaro & Baker, 2014; Sumpter, 2016 ). Hanauer (2012) studied the implementation of poetry in his class brought up the increased motivation and performances of learners through the approach of “humanizing the learners”. Thus, Hanauer (2012) gave an aphorism to be quoted: “To be human means to make meaning of the world we live in’’. This means that humans have the right to express what they feel and experience through their senses in order to make the meaning of their lives. Beyond the language, oppressed and marginalized people who are not heard and cannot speak up about their states of mind can utilize poetry as the medium to achieve their freedom (Camangian, 2008). In the extralinguistic paradigm, Foucault (2023, p. 136) revealed that fiction and lexis are maximum in poetry as the power of decision and functions are fully under the speaking subject. `This can be interpreted that through the fiction, the speaking subject is able to enact different positions that can be related to the extralinguistic in it, to the highest level of freedom of expression. People from marginalized communities and allies may write transcendent feelings of emotions that can be felt beyond the lekton. Foucault (2023, pp. 138) added that poetry is silence that brings the extralinguistic to salience from what is not said.
Aphorisms in poetry give immense opportunities for extralinguistic to engender from within (Morson, 2003). The aphorisms of Amanda Gorman (Biden Inaugural Committee, 2021) through her poetry on Biden’s inauguration: “..We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace” typifies the essence by rhythm while “The norms and notions of what “just” is isn’t always justice” brings the rhyme to the salience. In speech act theory, the illocution cannot be seen merely through a literal lens which is to make such a memorable speech. Through extralinguistic inquiries such as the prosody analysis, addressees implicitly or explicitly learn that the aphorisms are aimed to represent the voice of marginalized groups. Thus, Gorman’s identity is apparent through its loudness, clarity, timbre, and emotion. Beyond that, her voice representing its beauty in delivery is to fight for social injustice in an elegant way. In education, poetry is a profound way to be personal (Benton, 1984; Simecek & Rumbold, 2016). Since education is built through interactions (Johnson, 1981), extralinguistic can be a direction to go beyond language. The ability of poetry to present multiple layers of implied meaning allows it to become a medium for oppressed communities to speak up in their silence. The beauty of poetry touches the heart deeper than its words.

Author

• Arisandy Johnson, Arizona State University