Chomsky's Generative Grammar

Generative grammar provides a set of guidelines to follow in order to produce grammatically correct sentences within a certain language. Generative grammar as a concept was introduced in the book: Syntactic Structures (1957) by American linguist and intellectual, Noam Chomsky.

This grammatical approach greatly differs from the structuralist view that preceded it, as it did not simply try to characterise and define the elements of a particular language and how they interrelate. It also is concerned with considering the theory of universal grammar; that is that a human is born with an instinctive capability mind to use and understand language.

Generative grammar is heavily focused on trying to answer three key language issues. The first of these being concerned with what constitutes the knowledge of language. Structuralist grammar does not explore or attempt to explain a possible answer to this question. This is because its main focus is purely to describe language rules at a specific point of time (called synchronic linguistics) thus; this issue is irrelevant from this point of view. According to generative grammar, what constitutes the knowledge of language is dependent on the state of mind of the individual language user. This theory claims that humans have possess a natural ability to acquire language, given they are exposed to the right experiences. Humans are not only able to know and use their mother tongue but can also be able to learn other human languages. This sets humans apart from other species such as apes and birds, which are restricted to one communication system. According to generative grammar, people are believed to be able to obtain language through simply utilising inbuilt learning mechanisms that exist as part of the human brain. This section of the mind is thought to be a distinct language faculty. These ideas later prompted further research in the 1950s which lead to linguistics being studied in relation to cognitive science; the analysis of the mind and its processes. 

The second question that generative grammar attempts to resolve is how humans initially acquire knowledge of language. Approximately 30 years ago, the majority of linguistics believed that language was a habitual system that simply acquired through “overlearning”. This method is similar to how a rat in a cage would eventually understand how to obtain a square of cheese by running on a wheel. Children were believed to learn language through the process of trial and error, using the language they hear from the people around them. This view defines humans as being physiologically primitive as intelligence was believed to be learnt. B.F Skinner was a linguistic that shared this view and expressed it in his book: Verbal Behaviour (1957). Chomsky asserted the opposite opinion and presented “Plato’s problem”; that is, “the poverty of the stimulus”. This means that the language that a child hears around them is not enough for them to obtain the knowledge they do eventually gain. Firstly, in everyday speech, people often do not speak in complete sentences for instance, they change what they are talking about and are interrupted. Chomsky found that children are also able to apply complex structure-dependent rules without having to be taught. An example of this is “I wonder who the men expected to see them” versus “The men expected to see them”. In the first case, it is not clear whom the pronoun, ‘them’ is but it would automatically be assumed that it refers to the men. In the second case however, ‘them’ is interpreted as clearly not the men but a separate group of people. By just using the language that surrounds them, a child would not be able to know how to interpret this clause differently. This issue is called “binding theory” where rules such as these are known without the speaker being exposed to the experience needed to distinguish the separate cases.  

The issue of how knowledge of language is put into use is the third and final key question that can be justified using generative grammar. Previous linguists had believed that knowledge and ability in language was synonymous however, Chomsky asserted that they are two very separate ideas. It is possible for two people to have the same knowledge of their language but differ in regards to their ability to practically implement their knowledge. Likewise, a person can improve their ability, for example, by taking public speaking lessons while their knowledge level stays the same. This distinction between knowledge and ability can be made clear when interpreting language in certain circumstances. For the sentence: “his wife loves her husband”. Here, it is rather difficult to determine whom exactly “his” and “her” are referring to. Rather than it being about a relationship between a married couple, it could also be understood as a man’s wife loving “her”, being some other woman’s husband. As we lack contextual information, our ability to comprehend the meaning of the sentence is hindered. This however does not mean that our knowledge of the language has either increased or decreased due to the scenario. Our inclination towards one of these meanings through having to assume however is not exactly a failure of ability. We do not lack a skill to choose the right meaning. We are able to associate the sentence with both meanings but, the one we decide on interpreting it as is dictated by our language knowledge. 

In conclusion, Noam Chomsky’s generative grammar provides a set of guidelines to follow in order to produce grammatically correct sentences within a certain language. This grammatical approach greatly differs from the structuralist view that preceded it, as it did not simply try to characterise and define the elements of a particular language and how they interrelate. It also is concerned with considering the theory of universal grammar; that is that a human is born with an instinctive capability mind to use and understand language.

References

Chomsky, N. (2015), Syntactic Structures, Martino Fine Books

Skinner, B.F. (2014), Verbal Behaviour, Echo Point Books & Media

The Simplification of English Grammar Over the Course of Its History

The grammatical system of the English language has dramatically changed and simplified throughout history. Few Old English grammatical constructions have survived in Present Day English.

There are “two sub-fields [of grammar]: morphology and syntax” (Collins,P. & Hollo, C. (2010), p.3), morphology being the form of words and syntax being sentence formation. Many conventions from each of the English language periods have been reshaped throughout time in response to certain historical and cultural factors. A great amount of these grammatical features have been obsoleted, simplifying the language. 

Grammar during the Old English period was very different to what it became in the later language periods. A strikingly different grammatical norm in Old English was that the auxiliary “do” was not used in questions or ‘negative sentences’. While today, we must say, “Why do you go?” in Old English”, they would say, “Why go ye?” When we would have to say, “I do not go”, Old English speakers would say, “I not go”. The grammatical system was more complicated, especially because Old English was a synthetic language, meaning the syntactical relationships between words were established by adding case endings or ‘inflexions’ (suffixes and prefixes). Unlike today, word order unimportant. A sentence like “the man killed the beast” could be phrased as “the beast killed the man” and still retain the same meaning as long as the words were given the correct case ending to mark the ‘man’ and ‘beast’ as either the subject or the object. This system used what is called “synthesis" (Leith, D. (1997), p.96).

The case ending to use for an old English noun was not fixed for each word but depended on its role within the sentence. Firstly, it must be one of the four case types: nominative (the subject), accusative (the direct object), genitive (possessive nouns marked with ’s or s’) or dative (indirect object). The inflection would also change depending on number (whether it was singular or plural), what gender the word is (masculine, feminine or neuter) and if it is strong or weak. Based on these factors, Old English nouns can be separated into 5 main groups called declensions: “(1) General Masculine Declension, (2) General Feminine Declension, (3) General Neuter Declension, (4) The –an Declension [ending with ‘n’], (5) Irregular Declensions.” (Smith, J. (1999), p.66)

Pronoun forms depend on number, case and also whether they are first, second or third person. The form of the determiners and adjectives within a sentence is modified to match the gender, case and number of the noun. Verbs were either strong or weak. Strong verbs incorporated an “inherited system from Germanic that was frequently characterised by vowel alternations within the root, known as Abault” (Fennell, B. (2001), p.68) in order to mark their tense. For example, ‘swim’ becomes ‘swam’. A weak verb adds an ending such as “-ed” in order to change tenses such as the word “watch” which becomes “watched”. During the Old English Period, the majority of verbs were weak however; there was a larger number of strong verbs in use than there is in the preceding language periods. 

Grammar during the Middle English period altered dramatically from Old English. It became an ‘analytical language’ rather than a ‘synthetic language’, meaning that word order began to be used to determine relationships between words in a sentence rather than using inflexions. There was an “establishment of fixed patterns of word order” (Crystal, D. (1995), p.44) with a strong inclination towards the SVO (subject, verb, object) order that already had shown signs of increasing prominence in the Old English Period.  A large number of inflections were obsoleted and grammar underwent the process of “regularisation…[meaning]…the gradual erosion of inflectional complexity.” (Culpeper, J. (2005), p.68)

Grammatical gender disappeared in favour of natural gender for example, in old English, ‘woman’ was a masculine term but it became feminine to match its ‘biological’ referent. The case system for nouns was reduced to two cases: nonpossessive and possessive instead of the four cases used in Old English. The five declensions that nouns had once been separated into were abandoned.  Almost every noun was categorised as part of the “older strong masculine declension" (Pyles, T. (1964), p.169). Plural nouns including ‘pound’, ‘pair’, ‘fathom’ and ‘score’ without being pluralised with the suffix: s or ’s appeared often. (Millward, C.M. (1989)). Adjectives were no longer separated into strong and weak declensions. In addition, the difference between adverbs and adjectives disappeared. This is because the –e suffix that was added to adverbs to make them adjectives in Old English was dropped by the end of the Middle English Period. 

In order to make up for lost inflections from Old English, prepositional use increased significantly.  New prepositions were also introduced by compounding existing and borrowed forms. An example of this is the Middle English phrase “to the shippes, [which uses]…a preposition and the common plural ending…[whereas in Old English there would be]…a dative ending on both the words for the and ship”. (Crystal, D. (1995), p.44) Verbs underwent the most modification in Middle English. More weak verbs were obsoleted rather than strong verbs however, since there were many more weak verbs to begin with and new words being borrowed from other languages entered as weak verbs, they remained the most abundant category. Although a large amount of inflexions were lost, the “system of tenses was built up by means of [newly introduced]…primary auxiliaries (be,have and later do) and the modal auxiliaries (shall, should, will, etc.)” (Barber, C. (2009), p.171) In Old English, only past and present tenses were applied to verbs. With these new words, the future tense was established in this period. 

During the Early Modern English period, grammar continued to change and simplify. Nouns still had two cases being possessive and non possessive. Nouns were most often pluralised by ending the word with –(e)s.There were a limited number of words that were an exempt from this rule such as the irregular plurals women, men, oxen, children, sheep, mice and feet. Some irregular constructions like shoon (shoes) and eyen (eyes) were reformed to fit with this rule (T. Nevalainen, (2006), p. 74). In Early Modern English, -s became the only case ending. The Old English inflectional system marked whether the word is a genitive singular, genitive plural or a common-case plural. In Early Modern English however, there was no way to tell them apart for example, Emperor’s, Emperors’and Emperors would all appear as Emperors. 

Few plurals in Early Modern English that were uninflected continued to be used for example, “all his waipon (“all his weapons)” (B. Fennell, (2001), p. 142). Some could be made using the –n suffix such as housen and shoen but these had obsoleted throughout the period. Intensifying adverbs with the suffix –ly increased for example, it could be added to words such as devilish and dreadful. “Pleonastic [a mid-16th century phenomena where one would “use more words than are necessary to convey meaning (e.g., see with one’s eyes), either as a fault of style or for emphasis”(Oxford University Press, (2014)) forms as oftenly and soonly” (Nevalainen, T. (2006), p. 74) had come into use but did not survive to the present day English period. 

The use of do as an auxiliary to form questions, negative statements and declarative sentences was introduced during this period. Do can be regularly found performing these functions in Early English texts, including Shakespeare’s works. “Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?" (Shakespeare, W. (1992), Act 2 Scene 1, Line 242). However, there are still many cases where statements perform these functions without a do support. “How came he mad?” (Shakespeare, W. (1985), Act 5 Scene 1, Line 132). Both forms coexisted as “two syntactic systems to choose from" (Hope, J. (2003), p. 138).

Personal pronouns were greatly simplified. The second person pronouns ye/you/your and thou/thee/thine were still used (Freeborn, D. (1998), p. 317). They were eventually all reduced to just you. During the Old English period, thou was for addressing a singular person. Ye was used when addressing many people. Thouand ye marked the subject while thee and you were for the object. In Middle English, the distinction between addressing singular and multiple people disappeared. You/ye was a polite way of addressing a singular and thou/thee was more colloquial. In early modern English, this distinction between subject and object also vanished. Ye became restricted to formal use such as in legal and religious documents. The use of thouwas also reduced.

In the Present Day English period, grammar became far more prescriptive, meaning there were specific rules that the user must abide by in order to have ‘good’ English. Guides containing these rules such as “The King’s English (1919)” were written and distributed after the Early Modern English period (Knowles, G. (1997), p. 152). Grammatical structures now are far more basic then they were in the previous English language periods. Nouns are now proper (being names of people and places) or common. They can also be count (which are countable for example, pies “I’d like two pies”) or mass nouns (which you must measure rather than count for example, piein “I’d like some pie”). Adjectives, due to their inflectional loss can not be identified by themselves for example, round can refer to “ a round of golf (noun), They round the corner (verb), a round object (adjective), He came round to see us (adverb), They sat round the table (preposition).”(Quirk, R. (1972), p. 231) In the majority of cases, adjectives are only ever inflected in order to be comparative such as with “big, bigger and biggest”. 

The –ly suffix that was introduced in Early Modern English is now regularly used. In regards to clause structure, the Subject, verb, object order continues to be the most common. Writers of modern texts however have the freedom to vary from this pattern for stylistic or semantic effect. Many grammatical patterns that began to arise in the Early Modern English period are now regularised. This includes the second person pronouns ye/you/your and thee/thou being reduced to only you/your. The uses of the auxiliarydo also are now fixed for four purposes: in negative sentences (for example, ‘He did not eat the rice.’), in interrogative sentences (for example ‘Did he eat the rice?’), for “code usage” so a lexical verb is not repeated (for example, ‘ He ate the rice and so did they.’) and for emphatic statements (for example, ‘He did eat the rice!’). 

In Present Day English, the –est and –eth suffixes have vanished. –Est can only be used now as an intensifier for example, making the word new, newest. It can no longer form words like makest that appear in Early Modern texts: “…makest waste in niggarding”(W, Shakespeare, sonnet1 line 12). The –eth suffix forming words like droppeth disappeared. (Baugh, A. (2002), p. 241) A new suffix that is now a regulated grammatical feature is the be-ing construction or the progressive form of verbs. For example, “What do read my Lord? (Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 190) would today be replaced by “What are you reading?” (Beal, J. (2004), p. 78). Today, the lack of the progressive –ingsuffix suggests the question is of a habitual nature for instance, what do you read? would mean what kind of books do you usually read. In order refer to the simple present happening for instance, what are you reading at this very moment? the –ing suffix is necessary whereas before, it was not. 

Therefore, the grammatical system of the English language has dramatically changed and simplified over the course of history. Very few grammatical constructions from the Old English period have survived in Present Day English. Many conventions from each of the English language periods have been reshaped throughout time in response to certain historical and cultural factors. A great amount of these grammatical features have been obsoleted all together, simplifying the language from its original form.

References

Books

Barber, C. (2009), The English Language: A Historical Introduction: Second Edition, Cambridge University Press

Baugh, A, (2002), A History of the English Language: 5thEdition, Upper Saddle River, NJ

Beal, J. (2004), English in Modern Times, Arnold: a member of the Hodder Headline Group, London

Brutt-Griffler, J. (2002), World English: A Study of its Development, Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Collins, P. & Hollo, C. (2010),English Grammar: An Introduction, Palgrave Macmillan

Crystal, D. (1995), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge University Press

Culpeper, J. (2005), History of English: Second edition, Routledge London and New York

Fennell, B, (2001), A History of English: A Sociolinguist Approach, Blackwell Publisher Ltd. 

Freeborn, D. (1998), From Old English to Standard English: Second Edition, Macmillan Press Ltd.

Gorlach, M. (1997), The Linguistic History of English, Macmillan Press Ltd.

Graddol, D. & Leith, D. & Swann, J. (1996), English: History, Diversity and Change, Routledge London and New York

Gruber, L. (2000), Essays on Old, Middle, Modern English and Old Icelandic, The Edwin Mellen Press Ltd.

Horobin, S. & Smith, J. (2002), An Introduction to Middle English, Oxford University Press

Hope, J. (2003), Shakespeare’s Grammar, The Arden Shakespeare

Kastovsky, D. (1994), Studies in Early Modern English, Walter de Gruyter & Co.

Knowles, G. (1997), A Cultural History of the English Language, St Martin’s Press Inc. 

Leith, D. (1997), A Social History of English: Second Edition, Routledge London and New York

Millward, C. (1988), A Biography of the English Language, The Dryden Press, Saunders College Publishing

Nevalainen, T. (2006), An Introduction to Early Modern English, Oxford University Press

Onions, C. (1971), Modern English Syntax, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London

Pyles, T. (1971), The Origins and Development of the English Language, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. 

Quirk, R. (1972), A Grammar of Contemporary English, Longman Group Ltd.

Shakespeare, W. edited by Edwards, P. (1985), Hamlet: Prince of Denmark, Cambridge University Press

Shakespeare, W. edited by Fyne-Clinton, M. & Mills, P. (1992), The Taming of the Shrew, Cambridge University Press

Smith, J. (1999), Essentials of Early English, Routledge London and New York

Strang, B. (1970), A History of English, Methuen & Co. Ltd.

Websites

Oxford University Press, (2014) Pleonasm, <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/american_english/pleonasm?q=pleonastic#pleonasm__6>, accessed October 21, 2014

Man or Machine: Which Has a Better Memory? Making Moments Permanent Using Cinematic Apparatus

The wondrous variety of technological apparatus from the birth of cinema itself has always presented an opportunity to share stories, occasions and events with others. However, films for a long time were very much like the precious memories stored in the brains of humans; they possessed a physical form that was subject to damage and destruction.

Photographs were once like this too; after taking the picture, the hardcopy print is remarkable in the sense that it captures a single moment that has been frozen and caught as an image but, they were not preserved as these too could fade, tear and be lost forever. Today, this problem of impermanence is much less of an issue. Thanks to continuous improvements in technology, films as well as many other forms of data can be digitalised. Once it finds its way onto the internet, is saved in a storage system such as the Cloud or is even sent as an email attachment, it can be incredibly hard and even next to impossible to delete a specific piece of data from existence. In a digital form, to an extent, it retains its quality and is definitely free from ageing and natural exposure present in the physical world. Due to this, regardless of what a film is made for or about, it can function as an archive or perhaps an inorganic memory for a mass audience. Alexander Sokurov in his 2002 historical drama film, Russian Ark provides people of the present and also of the future to come with the opportunity to see first-hand what occurred in 300 year old history of Russia's Winter Palace. Remarkably, this experience occurs all in under two hours! Matt Reaves in his 2008 American found footage monster horror film, Cloverfield emphasises the importance of film technology and its great power to capture essential moments in history, even when used unprofessionally on an amateur level.

Films can capture events from the world 'accurately' but are always to an extent shaped by the personal bias and taste of the filmmaker. According to Rosenstone, the history film and the historical film are completely separate genres. The history film is a "dramatic motion picture that focuses on verifiable people, events and movements set in the past" while the historical film "can refer to any important film that has been made in the past." He uses an interesting example of the Orwell's Citizen Kane which can easily fit into both categories as it is historically significant and it represents a person who was the Rupert Murdoch of their time (Rosenstone,R. (2015)). Russian Arc does this too as the man dressed in black who we follow through the palace is representative of The Marquis de Custine, a French aristocrat and writer who had written a travel book recording his feelings and opinions as he experienced being in Russia. He regarded them as a half-European an uncivilised country with many reasons to be shamed and scorned by the rest of the world. Kennan in his writing about the Custine and his book highlighted that many influential European's saw Custine's visit as an opportunity to gain insight into Russia's affairs however he noted that "they must have been frightened by the results of their efforts; for the picture came out in colours obviously more lucid and dangerous than anything they had intended."(Kennan, G. (1971)) This film does not however completely focus on Custine's attitude and views as while watching the film, we are also provided with the voice of a Russian man who is implied to be a ghost. We do not see him but, his differing knowledge and cultural context allows him to question, debate and discuss what we see on screen with the Custine. If we were only to see the palace with the man in black's commentary, our understanding and appreciation for each scene space would be dramatically different. Perhaps the Russian man is the voice of Alexander Sokurov himself as he reflects on his own country's history and the negative attitudes of visiting foreigners. 

So how exactly does this production function as a crystallised memory is it of the past of the present in which it was made? While Russian Arc appears to capture a 300 year old history in less than one hour, it is a representation containing materials and visuals based on the director's preferences, opinions and ideas of what were the most important, iconic, interesting or just aesthetically pleasing segments of the period. The fact that it does not literally provide a portal for the viewers to see the true moments as they occurred in history is essential to note when categorically assessing it as a historical source. However, though it does not provide primary information, it is an excellent secondary source and in many ways a true memory. While it is tainted with practices of selection and emphasis, it is still very significant as a text which contributes to understanding the period as it provides a fresh perspective that can not only be read but dramatised on location. This gives the viewing experience an intimate and almost tour group feeling. Even though it does not 'remember' the entire 300 year history of the palace, the film itself as a personal reflection of the past and the world it creates will be remembered and preserved for audiences to access for the coming in many years to come. 

Now, when it comes to what is better, does the human eye or the camera lens triumph? In both films Russian Arc and Cloverfield, the audience watches and experiences it seemingly as an unbroken and uninterrupted long take without any cuts. Rombes discusses the human experience of the long take as not physically possible because of our natural need to blink our eyes. Even if there are no cuts in the film, blinking acts as an edit or a cut and every time we do, we miss a number of frames. He concludes that "There is no long take for the viewer, only fragments of a long take interrupted by the act of blinking, just as sleeping interrupts or pauses our conscious absorption and processing of real-time reality". Thus, just as humans cannot watch and experience a moment as a constant stream like a camera can, we also cannot even watch a long take truly as a long take (Rombes, N. (2009)). In Cloverfield, the use of the ever watching camera completely differs from the unobserved, inconspicuous and almost levitating appearance of lens in Russian Arc. Instead, it looks completely unprofessional, spontaneous and rough as it uses a "found footage" camera style. Instead of attempting to become the surrogate eyes for the audience by removing all traces of the technological apparatus, this camera technique makes the apparatus, equipment and the fact it is being filmed very apparent in order to create a sense of realism. Sometimes realism becomes hyper real and in turn, obviously a creation when it is filmed utilising the latest special effects and camera techniques. A film with a similar narrative to Cloverfield that is shot in this way was War of the Worlds (2005), starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. While it was indeed immersive and emotionally gripping, it lost any chance of being perceived as 'real' due to its style alone. The fact that Cloverfield looks like anyone could have shot it and that it uses very familiar and easily accessible equipment that has probably been used by many of the audience members themselves. This close proximity to the apparatus that was used forges a connection to the narrative itself and increases the film’s chance to induce fear as it seems very 'close to home.' 

While the narrative focuses on a terrifying and extraordinary monster disaster, it also expresses the value of all technological apparatus that has filming abilities. The film starts by showing a fragment of a video recording of Rob and Beth when they were a couple. In the later party scene, Rob asks the camera man Hud, if he had replaced the tape before filming because there was a tape inside that he made and wanted. When Hud doesn’t know, he dismisses it as unimportant but it clearly was when we find out he and Beth are separated but both retain feelings for one another. While nothing extraordinary happens, the casual and natural nature of the scene makes it a special memory of their loving relationship. Even after breaking up, having and preserving it as a film in a way kept it alive. When the catastrophe becomes apparent and the Hud continues to film what is happening, Rob asks him if he was still filming and he responds by saying “people are going to want to know how it all went down.” When Rob tells him he could just tell people Hud insists that that would not “work” and that what was happening needed to be seen by others. Regardless of whether he had any camera experience, by filming what was going on, he was able to record and preserve those moments for people of the future to watch. Due to the extraordinary nature of the circumstances, it needs to be seen not only to be believed but also to be remembered. Even when the group is attacked directly, such as in the train tunnel scene, Hus continues to hold up the camera and does his best to show as much as he can. He definitely cannot see everything, the monster is not fully shown until the very end but this is ultimately very good as it is more realistic. According to Pomerance, “Occasional jiggling of the camera can also aid in suggesting a situation which is so overwhelming as to disengage the cameraman from secure footing, a “real world”, not fiction…” (Murray, P. (2013)) In this sense the unstable shooting looks as if it has been caused by the catastrophic circumstances that surround the person filming.

The importance of the camera itself is clearly emphasised in the end of the film after the cameraman has died. Rob and Beth are hiding from the beast and alone with the video camera. Without much thought, they film themselves stating their names, a summary of what was happening and their current thoughts and feelings. Beth, who is in a strong state of terror, tells Rob that she doesn't know what to say. Robs tells her to just tell it “who you are”. Here, they use the camera not just a documenting device but to leave part of themselves behind for someone else to find. When they drop the camera when the creature comes, it still continues to film what happens for the next few moments. This may signify that cameras will always be watching even without a human attendee and possibly that the technology that watches people will outlive them and continue to keep valuable data that can eventually be viewed by others. At the beginning of the film, it is indicated that this tape goes to the government and becomes important evidence of this unique tragedy. What began as a home film became a work of international importance. In this sense, just like how citizen journalism footage taken in the middle of riots or wars can become very important primary sources, as can anything that is filmed.

In conclusion, Alexander Sokurov's Russian Arc and Matt Reaves' Cloverfield both effectively exemplify how the technological apparatus in the film industry has the ability to function as an inorganic memory. It can aid memory collection and, thanks to the growing digitalisation of data, can preserve it for years and millions of audience members to come. Due to the unblinking eye of the camera, cinematic apparatus surpasses the ability of the human eye. It has the power to capture and represent the unexplainable, the impossible and the incommunicable when using spoken or written words or writing. They say a picture is worth a thousand words; one second in a film contains at least twenty image frames.

References

Pomerance, Murray, The Eyes Have It: Cinema and the Reality Effect, Iii-Vii. Rutgers University Press, 2013. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy!.library,usyd.edu.au/stablej.cttt5hhx0n

Nicolas Rombes, “The Ideology of the Long Take”, in Cinema in the Digital Age (London: Wallflower Press, 2009), 148-153

George F. Kennan, The Marquis De Custine and His Russia in 1839 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971)

Robert A. Rosenstone, “Reflections on What the Filmmaker Historian Does (to History)”, in Film, History and Memory, ed. Fearghal McGarry et al. (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 183-197

Rastegar, Kamran, Surviving Images: Cinema, War, and Cultural Memory in the Middle East (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015)