다양한 발화의 방식: 조던 스콧의 『나는 강물처럼 말해요』를 중심으로

Various Ways of Utterance: Focusing on Jordan Scott’s I Talk Like a River

Jordan Scott, a Canadian poet and children’s book author, explores the sounds of language and speech through his experiences with stuttering in his earlier poetry collection Blert and the picturebook I Talk Like a River. In I Talk Like a River, a young boy who is troubled by his stutter feels the pressure of words stuck at the tip of his tongue and the weight of the gaze of his friends. Recognizing his distress, his father takes him to the riverbank. Listening to the sounds of the flowing water, the father tells him that these diverse sounds are just as natural as his own speech. He realizes that, like the sounds of nature, human speech can also be diverse. Speaking does not have to conform to a single standard. Empowered by his father’s understanding and the river’s reassurance, the boy stands before his friends, saying “I talk like a river.” This work, which portrays the difficulties of utterance, focuses on stuttering but ultimately conveys a message that applies to everyone. Language carries our thoughts, but communication is not solely dependent on language. Just as a river does not produce only one sound, our expressions are multifaceted.