NOISE 2: EXPLORING NOISE AND NOISE, INGAY AND INGAY

NOISE 2: EXPLORING NOISE AND NOISE, INGAY AND INGAY

Robin Daniel Z. Rivera

12 April 2002

Sociology 297

Fr. Pablito M. Tagura

The first paper in this series discussed the various definitions of noise and issues related to these definitions. This second paper will apply two philosophical projects using the issues raised previously. These are 1)Walter Ong’s discussion of orality and literacy, and 2) the counter-narrative to the prevailing use of the word noise. Another goal is to explore and articulate a number of popular attitudes and perceptions that the writer has met along the way in the study of noise. One such dominant attitude that has continuously bothered this writer is that noise is unwanted and destructive, and carries with it a automatically negative connotation. While the previous paper revealed certain passive contexts such as in physical science, empirical knowledge in this field is still used as a weapon to cast noise as a generally destructive entity. This paper will search for other reasons and arguments for issues and contexts such as these.

In this paper, the italicized noise and ingay refer to the specific words, and the un-italicized “noise” refers to the concept or phenomenon.

ETYMOLOGY - ORALITY VERSUS LITERACY

The words used for noise in the English and Filipino languages reveals certain differences within, and between each cultures’ mind set about the phenomenon. The first project that comes to mind is Walter Ong's(1) work on Orality and Literacy. This attempts to distinguish between cultures that are primarily aural versus those that are primarily textual. While a culture might shift from one type to another, Ong  manages to "freeze" each type so that the characteristics might be fully laid out and observed. This presents a potential clue to the context of the terms used to refer to noise. Both the English and Filipino languages have an extensive repertoire of words for noise. But each language has a different proportion of designative versus descriptive terms. This raises the question of the origin of words, and the orientation of the language. 

Onomatopoeia and Orality

The most noticeable things about various dictionary entries for either noise or ingay in contemporary Filipino dictionaries (either English-Filipino and Filipino-Filipino) is that one can be besieged by an avalanche of onomatopoeic terms. This is clearly not the case in all-English dictionaries. Gaboy(2) lists, among others, the following onomatopoeic terms for noise

Noise - n. - ingay, kaingayan, ngasngas, ngawngaw, kiyaw-kiyaw, ngakngak, pambubuliglig, bulahaw, pambubulabog, pangngingimbal, lagislis, laginit, ingit, hugong, ugong, lagunlon, dalagdal, dalugdog, kalantong, kalantog, pagkupkop, uko (ingay ng kalapati)

The wealth of such onomatopoeic terms for noises suggests that Filipino is a language still biased towards sound and orality. That these words are based on a spoken imitation of a specific sound makes it easy tosuspect it springs from an oral culture.

Oral cultures are held to operate using mnemonic patterns, and parallel closely the occurrence of phenomena in the "human life world". Onomatopoeia operationalizes  this by creating words based on the vocal imitation of actual sounds. This uncanny connection fulfills most of the characteristics of orality set down by Ong. For example, onomatopoeic words refer closely to the "human life world" because of their imitative nature. Then, it enhances memorability because it is, in a sense, redundant of the original phenomenon. Finally, onomatopoeia is also expressive and situational, as opposed to analytical and abstract. All of these strengthen the argument that onomatopoeia is a characteristic of a primarily oral culture. 

Transition: Some Strange Ironies

Another noticeable thing about the onomatopoeic terms for noise is that they seem to posses a remarkably high level of descriptive precision because of their mimetic nature. But precision is tricky, it  may apply to one word but not to a language in general. For example, because of the lack of an exact equivalent word, ugong can only be described in English a low frequency droning sound. A question arises when one wonders if ugong and ingay actually share the same conceptual definition. The closest English equivalent of ugong would be either rumble or hum. But rumble and hum, at least in English dictionaries, are not necessarily synonymous with noise. English definitions for noise tend to be  more conceptual than descriptive. So although some Filipino words may have more descriptively precise words in its arsenal for certain types of sounds than in English, the English culture may seem to have more precision in articulating the dimensions of abstract concepts such as noise. This leads to the clash between contexts of noise. 

Designative Terms and Literacy

As is the case of the dominant English term noise, the generic Filipino word ingay can be hypothesized to emerge from a more literate, abstract, and designative language framework. The word has no derivative sonic equivalent in the human life world. And they can be argued to emerge from the designative, textual, and abstract nature of the present day English language. Such abstraction leads to a number of contexts. The previous paper presented four contexts within noise was defined, these were 1)physical science, 2)communication, 3) environmental policy and 4) art aesthetics. Does ingay exist in these contexts, or does it have others? 

CONTEXT - WORD

Aural - descriptive: ngasngas, ngawngaw, kiyaw-kiyaw, ngakngak, pambubulabog, lagislis, laginit, ingit, hugong, ugong, lagunlon, dalagdal, dalugdog, kalantong, kalantog, uko (ingay ng kalapati)

Aural - designative: ingay, tunog, lingal, linggal

Disorder: gulo, panggugulo, iskandalo, komosyon

Interference: istorbo sa tunog ng radyo

Aggression: pagkupkop

Based on contemporary dictionary entries, the above context categories emerge. One may observe that since some of the these sources are trans-language dictionaries, the entries contain synonyms rather than “definitive statements”. Interestingly, the above terms include a fair number of non-aural related terms, like the category of Physical/Social Disorder. While English dictionaries may refer to the disorder caused by the sound of noise, it seems that in this case, noise and disorder are one. Where does this seemingly abstract relationship of sound and disorder come from? Charles Niggs(3) early twentieth century dictionary entries gives us an even more perplexing set of categories. 

WORD - DEFINITION

Noise - n - gulo, ingay, tunog

Ingay - n. - noise, carousal, revelry, romping, scuffle, racket

Gulo - n. - perplexity, confusion, disturbance, turmoil, tangle, chaos, chayos, discord, dissention, din, revolution, sedition, scrape, agitation, shindy, discomposure, disquietude, disquietness, entanglement, ado, pother

- a.- reverse- intricate, tangled, confused, chaotic

Tunog

- n. - sound, noise, report, clank, clang, ring, resonance.

First, Nigs defines noise by laying down three Filipino synonyms, ingay, gulo, and tunog. But are these three synonyms referring to noise the word, or to noise the phenomenon? Translating ingay back to English finds three categories of contexts, 1) the abstract concept of noise, 2) aurally intense social interaction, and 3) extreme and random natural or  man-made sound. Gulo, on the other hand,  cites all sorts of negative, offensive, undesirable, and unnatural social and physical conditions. Finally, tunog curiously includes not only the general concept of sound, but the seemingly specific noise, as well as a few onomatopoeic terms for what seems like the heck of it. This tangled web of synonyms confirm that in Filipino, as in English, ingay has its own inventory of abstract conceptual contexts. The existence of such contexts suggest that ingay, like noise emerges from a literal, designative mindset. 

It would be interesting to create an etymological timeline for terms related to noise because this would reveal the development of the words and concepts associated with noise/noise. What  can be concluded for now is that Filipino, having developed both a wealth of concepts and words for noise/noise, has  passed/is passing through periods of both orality and literacy.

THE HEGEMONY OF THE NEGATIVE, AND THE POSITIVE COUNTER-NARRATIVE

One of the most bothersome contextual variables of both noise and noise, is value. In spite of Western science’s relative neutrality, the bluntness of the Western environmentalist's definition of noise as " unwanted sound" sweepingly discredits the phenomenon and renders both the word and the concept indelibly negative. Most definitions point to noise as a phenomenon that is extreme in various ways such as bandwidth, loudness, interference, and order. Unlike silence, which is on the opposite end of the sound spectrum, noise and noise represent the undesirable extreme that results in damage, overload, chaos, and loss of communication. 

At one point, it seemed that the musical Avant-Garde movement took up the challenge to articulate the counter-narrative to tonal music by reminding people that noise is not always necessarily undesirable, just one of a myriad of sounds available to both musicians and listeners. The use of mechanical, and mechanical-sounding noises resulted in several decades of serious re-examination  of tonality. The emergence of Popular music, be it Rock, Pop or Dance styles provided an important critical mass to the idea that noise could actually be desirable. Lately, professional entertainment (e.g. professional sports) have given rise to noise not just as a product of performers, but as a vital feedback mechanism for the audience . These media-based,  contemporary forms have come to consider noise as an important canon. But while these positive operationalizations of noise may have become the norm in these specific contexts, what is surprising is that both noise and noise have not seem to have freed themselves from its negative connotation. 

It is tempting to reach into the bag of Marxist power-relation analysis to find the roots of the  negative concept of noise. The environmental lobby in the West is a powerful political entity that has changed the course of technology and infrastructure for about half a century.  As mentioned earlier, the bluntness of their attitude dooms noise as unwanted. This attitude is such a “matter of facet” that  there can be said to be a lack of genuine discourse about the value and application of noise. To make matters worse, as radical as environmental lobbyists are perceived, they are strangely aligned with conservative politics, and even critical theorists in denouncing even popular music, popular culture, and the noise that is so much a part of it. It is a strange situation when despite the seemingly hegemonic dominance of Western popular culture, it is in the West where the noise is still the subject of the most vigorous political control, regulation, and continuous assault. This  begs the question: which is the “real” grand and counter-narrative?

Popular art, after all, is viewed more as an industrial paradigm that is short on subjectivity  and long on objective formulas. This puts it well within the realm of the industrial revolution, which is widely held to have corrupted nature by controlling and eventually overwhelming it. But popular art is dynamic in the sense that while there are canonic formulas that have remained throughout the 20th century, it may also be characterized by unceasing change. So while environmentalist’s effort are largely to restore nature to pre- or early- industrial levels, popular art has constantly tried to reinvent itself and the environment around it. This makes incumbent popular art forces a mild but fully articulated form of counter-narrative because, however late, it still positions itself as a challenge to the past. Each new formulation of popular music, for example, represents the next higher level of spectacle, brightness, loudness, and noisiness. The incremental increase in loudness and noise levels for popular music performances and recordings may not seem apparent on a year-to-year basis. But when one compares the disparity between popular music of today with that just ten years ago, one will immediately notice a big difference. It should therefore be no surprise that each new generation of centrist politics would resist the challenge brought about by incumbent popular art and culture. 

Given this scenario, it should not also be surprising how noise/noise, despite its apparent application and affirmation by popular art, remains a concept and a word dogged by negative connotations. Will noise, or noise ever be able to shake its negative persona? If things continue as they do, the answer might be no, that is, in the West. The Philippines is another matter altogether. 

Referring again to dictionary entries, there does not seem to be an important distinction between noise as a force of nature versus noise as a result of technology in the Filipino language. This is unlike the West where nature and machine are engaged in constant battle, with man presiding over the proceedings. Noise  is never defined as something di-kanaisnais or nakakasama. Its value is never really questioned or challenged. And from the looks of things at present, it is not something people are not too keen on controlling. One possible reason for this situation brings us back to Ong. He states that oral cultures are “participatory rather than objectively distanced”. We can take this to mean that because people are participants in noise, it makes little sense to control noise unless one wants to control or deny himself. Participation in noise is quite different from either inflicting it on others, at or having others inflict it on you. The question of the noise as a meta- or counter- narrative in Filipino becomes moot therefore, because of the absence of control, infliction, and conflict. 

AFTERWORD

The exploration in this paper is by no means complete or even definitive. The use of dictionary entries is one source. But it has, however limited, already revealed some fundamental clues. It has suggested that orality and literacy may not only occur sequentially, but can overlap or happen simultaneously in a culture. Another discovery is that identifying  meta- and counter- narrative players, concepts and politics is not always as simple as it seems. Simple polarity is not always an accurate structure to use in such cases. There is even the odd chance that the meta- counter- narrative polarity does not even exist at all in some situations. These perplexing and intriguing discoveries are substance that will hopefully lead to a more comprehensive theory and concept of noise and noise, as well as ingay and inlay. 

FOOTNOTES

(1) Based on the report on Walter Ong’s “Orality and Literacy: Technologizing the Word” by Jennifer Marie C. Sunga, 8 February 2002. 

(2) Gaboy, Luciano Linsangan. Gabby’s Practical English-Filipino Dictionary. Quezon City: Milmar Soyuz Trading. 1999.

(3) Nigg, Charles. A Tagalog English and English Tagalog Dictionary. Manila: Imp.De Fajardo Y Comp., 1904.