Dictee

Dictee
1st ed, Tanam Press (1982)
Author Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Language English, French
Published 1982
Publisher Tanam Press
Media type softcover
Pages 179
ISBN 9780934378093

Dictee is a 1982 book, by author Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Considered to be the magnum opus of Cha, the book focuses on several women: the Korean revolutionary Yu Guan Soon, Joan of Arc, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Demeter and Persephone, Cha's mother Hyun Soon Huo, and Cha herself, who are linked by their struggles and the way that nations have affected and twisted their lives.

Publication history

The book was first published in 1982, the same year Cha was murdered, but since audiences struggled to connect to the experimental writing style, the book went out of print. In a collection of scholarly essays, Writing Self, Writing Nation (1994), Cha's work began to receive critical attention. In 1997 due to resurgence in popularity for Asian American studies and Third-wave Feminism, as well as visibility caused by the compilation of the 1992 “Writing Self Writing Nation” book of essays regarding Dictee, the book was brought back into print by Norma Alarcón and Third Woman Press.[1]

  • — (1982). Dictee (1st, pb ed.). New York: Tanam Press. ISBN 9780934378109.
  • — (1994). Dictee. Berkeley: Third Woman Press. ISBN 9780943219127.
  • — (2001). Dictee. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520231122.
  • — (2009). Dictee (2nd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520261297.

Structure

Even though Dictee is widely known as a novel, the genre is not clearly definable. Due to its polyphonic aspect, Dictee can not be classified into specific category. Dictee has an unorthodox structure, and consists of descriptions of the struggle to speak, uncaptioned photographs, tellings of the lives of saints and patriots, and mysterious letters that seem not to relate to the other material. In Dictee, Cha “borrows from avant garde techniques such as jagged cuts, jump shots, and visual exposition,” based on her experience in the video and performing arts.[2] The work “deviates from genres, themes, and styles” and fails to fit a single descriptor or label with clarity.[3] It has been described as auto-ethnography, due to its highly subjective view of heritage and the past.

Dictee is organized into nine parts, a structure that arises from the nine Greek muses. These include Clio, Calliope, Urania, Melpomene, Erato, Elitere, Thalia, Terpischore, and Polymnia.

In this work, as well as her other works, interaction of language is one of the most important themes. She visually manipulate letters and texts in her own ways. The sizes and placement of letters on the page are graphically transformed and reconstructed, which was unusual and considered as an experimental approach at that time.

Dictee consists of various languages such as French, English, Korean and even Chinese characteristics. These languages are mingled with each other without any dominant rule even in a same paragraph or on the same page. They form a kind of visual image and sound or uncertain impression. As a result, words or phrases itself do not contain any significant meaning. However, its sounds and visual variation newly construct significant meaning as itself.

Most of the phrases are compared to a babbling of enfant, which does not have any meaning but expose a desire for speaking. In these texts, the languages are used in repetitive, “broken” phrases and frequent code-switching, similar to the communication of an individual learning the languages. This way of writing causes readers to think about the arbitrary on language and writing, bringing our a question on the social requirements of good speech and correct grammar.

Reviews and criticism

Reviews for Dictee have been rather positive, with Carole Maso quoted in Spin Magazine commenting, "Dictee enlarges the notion of what a book is...because it is ephemeral, fragile, fierce, and indelible, because it is subversive, because it yearns and is luminous."[4]

References

  1. ↑ Lewallen, Constance (2001). The Dream of The Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951 -1982). University of California Press. ISBN 9780520232877. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  2. ↑ Cheng, Anne Anlin (2001). The Melancholy of Race. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195151626. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  3. ↑ Yi Kang, Hyun; Kim, Elaine H.; Lowe, Lisa; Sunn Wong, Shelley (1994). Writing Self, Writing Nation: A Collection of Essays on Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Third Women Press. ISBN 0943219116. Retrieved 10 July 2018.
  4. ↑ Bell, Madison Smartt (January 1996). "My Back Pages". SPIN. p. 92. Retrieved 25 February 2016.

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