Papers by Miri Bar-Ziv Levy
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Regularization is a process of linguistic reduction through the elimination of variants. Regulari... more Regularization is a process of linguistic reduction through the elimination of variants. Regularization processes occur naturally during language acquisition and learning. In social situations where learners comprise a large portion of the language community, regularization can lead to linguistic change. This was the case during the development of Modern Hebrew. Therefore, regularization processes are essential to a fundamental question about the crystallization of Modern Hebrew: to what extent its grammar continues the grammar of the previous layers of Hebrew and to what extent it features novel characteristics of its own. This paper focuses on the crystallization of counterfactual conditionals in Modern Hebrew. It shows that this process involved no new linguistic phenomena but only a culling of the large inventory of variants. These variants that coexisted during the revival period were all inherited from the preceding stages of Hebrew. A regularization process, which occurred mainly in the Mandate period, eliminated some variants, such as the positive meaning of ʾilmale and the qatal (regular pasttense) form in the main clause (the consequence). The variants that survived the regularization process underwent differentiation, becoming associated with distinct registers or meanings.
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This article examines whether the dialogue in the first two full-length Hebrew narrative films re... more This article examines whether the dialogue in the first two full-length Hebrew narrative films reflects spoken Hebrew of the time. The first part examines phenomena that, according to written testimonies in grammar books and prescriptivist writings, were typical of spoken Hebrew during the British Mandate period. It shows that these phenomena were not represented in the films from the 1930s, whereas in later films there is a significant rise in their frequency. The second part examines phenomena that are not typical of spoken speech today but are represented in the dialogue of the films from the 1930s. In later films they become very rare or vanish altogether. An analysis of the findings shows that the film-makers did not regard it as the function of cinematic dialogue to authentically reflect spoken speech, but rather adopted the normative approach to Hebrew, which strongly preferred high-register Hebrew over authentic usage.
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The paper presents the contribution of women of the first wave of immigration (=Aliyah) to the re... more The paper presents the contribution of women of the first wave of immigration (=Aliyah) to the revival of Hebrew speech, and reveals their achievements during the period of immigration (1882-1903), and up until the Language War (1913). Our focus on women sheds new light on everyday community life and on less familiar aspects of the revival more generally. We examine the revival of Hebrew speech in Rishon LeZion; track the first two generations of the emergent speech community; and focus on women’s contribution to the revival as mothers, nursery school teachers, and language activists. The need for a re-assessment of the first women speakers’ contribution to the revival follows from consideration of the historical significance of the ongoing exclusion of women from Hebrew, as part of the traditional Jewish gendered division. The secularization of Hebrew marked the beginning of women’s access to Hebrew high culture and undermined the traditional gender division. In Rishon LeZion Hebrew speech facilitated women’s access to the public domain, and there is significant overlap between the women active in the revival and the women who led the suffragist struggle 20 years later.
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David Grossman’s book "Someone to Run With" features a colorful, fascinating and dynamic plot whi... more David Grossman’s book "Someone to Run With" features a colorful, fascinating and dynamic plot while enabling a meaningful gaze into the inner world of the leading characters. The transition to the cinematic medium preserved the colorfulness as well as a strong sense of authenticity. This paper examines the representation of the spoken language in "Someone to Run With": Which phenomena of the spoken language are represented in the book as well as in the film that was produced following it, how different are they in respect to the two artistic media and how can the differences be explained.
In the book spoken language is presented by means of a written medium, whereas in the film by means of a spoken medium. In both genres different phenomena of spoken language are represented – in phonetics, morphology, syntax and discourse – and in both of them the language has a major role in shaping the characters and the situation. This difference significantly affects the representation of the spoken language in both works.
In the film there is a sense of urgency, expressed through non-verbal means unique to the cinematic medium, as well as through phonetic means of reduction of vowels and consonants. By contrast, in the book the representation of the phonetic component is significantly lower due to the difficulty to represent it in writing. Despite the scant representation of the phonetic phenomena in the book, it is clear that Grossman is aware of the phonetic component, using it to emphasize certain features of characters or situations. In literature in order to represent the phonetic element the author's awareness – and explicit effort – is required, because of the transition from the spoken medium to the written medium. In the cinema, which is an oral medium, the actors naturally produce phonetic aspects of the spoken language, and an actual awareness of the phonetic component is not required in order to represent it.
Another difference in the representation of the spoken language which contrasts the written and the spoken medium is reflected in the realm of discourse. In the book cut-off is usually marked by expressions such as "no matter" or "not important", while in the film in most cases these phenomena are not marked verbally. This difference exists because in the written medium it is necessary to mark the language as spoken language, while in the spoken medium there is much less need for it.
In the book a wider range of non-standard linguistic morphological and syntactical phenomena are represented, from both sides of the spectrum: super-standard on the one hand and sub-standard on the other. The wider representation may be attributed to several factors: first, the writer's ability to plan and edit is much greater in writing prose than in making a movie; second, a literary text is longer than a cinematic text; third, the traditional conservatism of films compared to literature; and finally, the linguistic dimension is the major tool in literature whereas in the cinema there are additional, non-verbal means of designing the characters and the situations.
This study shows that both in the book and in the film spoken language has a major role. However, both media use different aspects of the spoken language – phonetics, morphology, syntax and discourse – to fashion the images and features of characters and situations.
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"Here in the Holy Land one must speak Hebrew only:"
The Revival of Hebrew as a Spoken Language as... more "Here in the Holy Land one must speak Hebrew only:"
The Revival of Hebrew as a Spoken Language as Reflected in Films on the First Aliya
This paper presents the development of the cinematic representation of Hebrew speech during the first Aliya in three Israeli feature films, revealing two processes which this representation underwent from the beginning of Israeli cinema (1932) to the present (2011): (a) The weakening of the monolingual ideology which rejected foreign languages as an obstacle to the revival of Hebrew speech; (b) The weakening of the normative approach which strongly prefers the "correct" use of the language over the existing usage. The cinematic dialogues are very dissimilar in terms of their linguistic characteristics, indicating that they do not constitute first Aliya natural speech, but rather representations thereof. Representations naturally reflect choice. Choices made by filmmakers are influenced by the period in which they live, contemporaneous norms, their world views, personal tastes, and target audience.
The development of the cinematic representation of Hebrew speech reflects broader social and cultural processes. The norm of representing Hebrew-exclusive speech is subject to the monolingual ideology and to "Negation of the Diaspora" and the reinvention of the Jew in general. As Hebrew had come to be the everyday spoken language in Israel, the Monolingual ideology lost much of its power, along with the linguistic norm which it dictated. The new freedom from the norms of formal, literary, "correct" language is associated with Hebrew becoming the dominant spoken language among Jews and the transition from the generation of the pioneers to the generation of the Sabras (Israeli-born). For the Sabras, speaking Hebrew is natural, and they have no need or desire to represent Hebrew speech as it presumably ought to be. The weakening of the normative approach is also associated with the shift of focus in Israeli society from the collective to the individual and from nation building to personal life.
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The Cinematic Representation of Hebrew Speech in the 1930s
As a starting point to a broader stu... more The Cinematic Representation of Hebrew Speech in the 1930s
As a starting point to a broader study on the development of the representation of Hebrew speech in Israeli cinema, this paper examines the way Hebrew speech is represented in the first two full-length Israeli feature films, produced in 1932, one of them a silent film and the other with synchronized sound. Modern Hebrew, which had been revernacularized only a few decades before, was still far from linguistic stability at that time, though it was already a spoken language, with notable differences from Classical Hebrew. Cinema was a new medium which, unlike written media, could represent spontaneous spoken Hebrew in recorded sound. One would expect that the new Hebrew-language films would provide a reliable representation of the new Hebrew speech; yet this expectation is not borne out, as this paper shows. In fact, the language presented in these films was influenced to a large extent by the normative approach which strongly preferred the "correct" use of the language over the existing usage. Though cinema was not a national institute, filmmakers, struggling to produce their films without a local cinematic infrastructure, seem to have had strong affinity with the Zionist project and believed in the significance of Hebrew as the national language. Their films apparently played a didactic role of demonstrating how Hebrew ought to be spoken ideally, rather than reflecting contemporaneous Hebrew speech.
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Book Reviews by Miri Bar-Ziv Levy
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Abstracts by Miri Bar-Ziv Levy
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Papers by Miri Bar-Ziv Levy
In the book spoken language is presented by means of a written medium, whereas in the film by means of a spoken medium. In both genres different phenomena of spoken language are represented – in phonetics, morphology, syntax and discourse – and in both of them the language has a major role in shaping the characters and the situation. This difference significantly affects the representation of the spoken language in both works.
In the film there is a sense of urgency, expressed through non-verbal means unique to the cinematic medium, as well as through phonetic means of reduction of vowels and consonants. By contrast, in the book the representation of the phonetic component is significantly lower due to the difficulty to represent it in writing. Despite the scant representation of the phonetic phenomena in the book, it is clear that Grossman is aware of the phonetic component, using it to emphasize certain features of characters or situations. In literature in order to represent the phonetic element the author's awareness – and explicit effort – is required, because of the transition from the spoken medium to the written medium. In the cinema, which is an oral medium, the actors naturally produce phonetic aspects of the spoken language, and an actual awareness of the phonetic component is not required in order to represent it.
Another difference in the representation of the spoken language which contrasts the written and the spoken medium is reflected in the realm of discourse. In the book cut-off is usually marked by expressions such as "no matter" or "not important", while in the film in most cases these phenomena are not marked verbally. This difference exists because in the written medium it is necessary to mark the language as spoken language, while in the spoken medium there is much less need for it.
In the book a wider range of non-standard linguistic morphological and syntactical phenomena are represented, from both sides of the spectrum: super-standard on the one hand and sub-standard on the other. The wider representation may be attributed to several factors: first, the writer's ability to plan and edit is much greater in writing prose than in making a movie; second, a literary text is longer than a cinematic text; third, the traditional conservatism of films compared to literature; and finally, the linguistic dimension is the major tool in literature whereas in the cinema there are additional, non-verbal means of designing the characters and the situations.
This study shows that both in the book and in the film spoken language has a major role. However, both media use different aspects of the spoken language – phonetics, morphology, syntax and discourse – to fashion the images and features of characters and situations.
The Revival of Hebrew as a Spoken Language as Reflected in Films on the First Aliya
This paper presents the development of the cinematic representation of Hebrew speech during the first Aliya in three Israeli feature films, revealing two processes which this representation underwent from the beginning of Israeli cinema (1932) to the present (2011): (a) The weakening of the monolingual ideology which rejected foreign languages as an obstacle to the revival of Hebrew speech; (b) The weakening of the normative approach which strongly prefers the "correct" use of the language over the existing usage. The cinematic dialogues are very dissimilar in terms of their linguistic characteristics, indicating that they do not constitute first Aliya natural speech, but rather representations thereof. Representations naturally reflect choice. Choices made by filmmakers are influenced by the period in which they live, contemporaneous norms, their world views, personal tastes, and target audience.
The development of the cinematic representation of Hebrew speech reflects broader social and cultural processes. The norm of representing Hebrew-exclusive speech is subject to the monolingual ideology and to "Negation of the Diaspora" and the reinvention of the Jew in general. As Hebrew had come to be the everyday spoken language in Israel, the Monolingual ideology lost much of its power, along with the linguistic norm which it dictated. The new freedom from the norms of formal, literary, "correct" language is associated with Hebrew becoming the dominant spoken language among Jews and the transition from the generation of the pioneers to the generation of the Sabras (Israeli-born). For the Sabras, speaking Hebrew is natural, and they have no need or desire to represent Hebrew speech as it presumably ought to be. The weakening of the normative approach is also associated with the shift of focus in Israeli society from the collective to the individual and from nation building to personal life.
As a starting point to a broader study on the development of the representation of Hebrew speech in Israeli cinema, this paper examines the way Hebrew speech is represented in the first two full-length Israeli feature films, produced in 1932, one of them a silent film and the other with synchronized sound. Modern Hebrew, which had been revernacularized only a few decades before, was still far from linguistic stability at that time, though it was already a spoken language, with notable differences from Classical Hebrew. Cinema was a new medium which, unlike written media, could represent spontaneous spoken Hebrew in recorded sound. One would expect that the new Hebrew-language films would provide a reliable representation of the new Hebrew speech; yet this expectation is not borne out, as this paper shows. In fact, the language presented in these films was influenced to a large extent by the normative approach which strongly preferred the "correct" use of the language over the existing usage. Though cinema was not a national institute, filmmakers, struggling to produce their films without a local cinematic infrastructure, seem to have had strong affinity with the Zionist project and believed in the significance of Hebrew as the national language. Their films apparently played a didactic role of demonstrating how Hebrew ought to be spoken ideally, rather than reflecting contemporaneous Hebrew speech.
Book Reviews by Miri Bar-Ziv Levy
Abstracts by Miri Bar-Ziv Levy
In the book spoken language is presented by means of a written medium, whereas in the film by means of a spoken medium. In both genres different phenomena of spoken language are represented – in phonetics, morphology, syntax and discourse – and in both of them the language has a major role in shaping the characters and the situation. This difference significantly affects the representation of the spoken language in both works.
In the film there is a sense of urgency, expressed through non-verbal means unique to the cinematic medium, as well as through phonetic means of reduction of vowels and consonants. By contrast, in the book the representation of the phonetic component is significantly lower due to the difficulty to represent it in writing. Despite the scant representation of the phonetic phenomena in the book, it is clear that Grossman is aware of the phonetic component, using it to emphasize certain features of characters or situations. In literature in order to represent the phonetic element the author's awareness – and explicit effort – is required, because of the transition from the spoken medium to the written medium. In the cinema, which is an oral medium, the actors naturally produce phonetic aspects of the spoken language, and an actual awareness of the phonetic component is not required in order to represent it.
Another difference in the representation of the spoken language which contrasts the written and the spoken medium is reflected in the realm of discourse. In the book cut-off is usually marked by expressions such as "no matter" or "not important", while in the film in most cases these phenomena are not marked verbally. This difference exists because in the written medium it is necessary to mark the language as spoken language, while in the spoken medium there is much less need for it.
In the book a wider range of non-standard linguistic morphological and syntactical phenomena are represented, from both sides of the spectrum: super-standard on the one hand and sub-standard on the other. The wider representation may be attributed to several factors: first, the writer's ability to plan and edit is much greater in writing prose than in making a movie; second, a literary text is longer than a cinematic text; third, the traditional conservatism of films compared to literature; and finally, the linguistic dimension is the major tool in literature whereas in the cinema there are additional, non-verbal means of designing the characters and the situations.
This study shows that both in the book and in the film spoken language has a major role. However, both media use different aspects of the spoken language – phonetics, morphology, syntax and discourse – to fashion the images and features of characters and situations.
The Revival of Hebrew as a Spoken Language as Reflected in Films on the First Aliya
This paper presents the development of the cinematic representation of Hebrew speech during the first Aliya in three Israeli feature films, revealing two processes which this representation underwent from the beginning of Israeli cinema (1932) to the present (2011): (a) The weakening of the monolingual ideology which rejected foreign languages as an obstacle to the revival of Hebrew speech; (b) The weakening of the normative approach which strongly prefers the "correct" use of the language over the existing usage. The cinematic dialogues are very dissimilar in terms of their linguistic characteristics, indicating that they do not constitute first Aliya natural speech, but rather representations thereof. Representations naturally reflect choice. Choices made by filmmakers are influenced by the period in which they live, contemporaneous norms, their world views, personal tastes, and target audience.
The development of the cinematic representation of Hebrew speech reflects broader social and cultural processes. The norm of representing Hebrew-exclusive speech is subject to the monolingual ideology and to "Negation of the Diaspora" and the reinvention of the Jew in general. As Hebrew had come to be the everyday spoken language in Israel, the Monolingual ideology lost much of its power, along with the linguistic norm which it dictated. The new freedom from the norms of formal, literary, "correct" language is associated with Hebrew becoming the dominant spoken language among Jews and the transition from the generation of the pioneers to the generation of the Sabras (Israeli-born). For the Sabras, speaking Hebrew is natural, and they have no need or desire to represent Hebrew speech as it presumably ought to be. The weakening of the normative approach is also associated with the shift of focus in Israeli society from the collective to the individual and from nation building to personal life.
As a starting point to a broader study on the development of the representation of Hebrew speech in Israeli cinema, this paper examines the way Hebrew speech is represented in the first two full-length Israeli feature films, produced in 1932, one of them a silent film and the other with synchronized sound. Modern Hebrew, which had been revernacularized only a few decades before, was still far from linguistic stability at that time, though it was already a spoken language, with notable differences from Classical Hebrew. Cinema was a new medium which, unlike written media, could represent spontaneous spoken Hebrew in recorded sound. One would expect that the new Hebrew-language films would provide a reliable representation of the new Hebrew speech; yet this expectation is not borne out, as this paper shows. In fact, the language presented in these films was influenced to a large extent by the normative approach which strongly preferred the "correct" use of the language over the existing usage. Though cinema was not a national institute, filmmakers, struggling to produce their films without a local cinematic infrastructure, seem to have had strong affinity with the Zionist project and believed in the significance of Hebrew as the national language. Their films apparently played a didactic role of demonstrating how Hebrew ought to be spoken ideally, rather than reflecting contemporaneous Hebrew speech.