I found Corinne’s workshop to be strangely one of the more useful ones for my own work, perhaps because we are both working with such distinctly written media. The definitions that Thetela and Porter put forth for intertextuality itself I found particularly useful, especially Porter’s concept that intertextuality consists of both tierability and presupposition. Iterability of course takes us right back to Johnstone and Becker—the way a text becomes a second text by virtue of its repetition. And then there is presupposition, which to me brings back some of the ideas of an intertext anticipating other texts. Presupposition reminds us that the text is always speaking to other texts, responding to other texts, and positioning itself relative to other texts. I find this concept very useful in my own research. I was also more than a little interested in Thetela’s discussion of relational processes arising out of intertextual relationships, as I think this is something that is going on in my own data quite a bit.
One of the things I found most interesting about Corinne’s workshop was the use or lack of use of quotes. I found it fascinating to follow the trajectory of the quotes that were put forth in the original article and the ways in which they resurfaced in subsequent discussions of the same material. (I thought Corinne made a great choice in doing her model analysis on the first article and letting us navigate our way through the subsequent ones.) The discussion of when something gets quoted, even to the extent that “nonissue” was not put in quotes in a headline, I thought was a very fruitful one, and brings back many of the ideas that both Sclafani and Tannen put forth about double-voiced discourse.
I was interested as well in the way Thetela discussed the stance creation in her text, and I thought this would be a very useful area for Corinne. Obviously the ways these texts are quoted or not quoted create certain alliances between the text and the reader, encouraging the reader to side or not to side with a particular point of view. This is very prevalent in a discussion such as the one Corinne is reading, and obviously, each piece we looked at took this stance creation to a different degree.
The one part of Corinne’s workshop I would’ve liked to see more of were any sort of opposing viewpoints. Particularly with regard to what I mention above about stance creation on the part of the audience, it would be interesting to see how similar quotes are used to encourage people to take a different stance than the one originally presented by the SF Chronicle.
Showing posts with label Intertextuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Intertextuality. Show all posts
Friday, April 16, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Reported!: Scalafani
Probably I should’ve recognized that I would one day become a sociolinguist the morning I found myself in a heated argument with my Algebra II teacher over the Ebonics controversy. She was the authority, I was a fourteen-year-old freshman, and yet I had pretty strong opinions on the legitimacy of a language variety and its use in an educational setting—most of them stemming from my own academic success as a speaker of standard American English (SAE) and my years of being termed “articulate” (a term I only much later realized framed my African American peers as poorly-spoken).
While Scalafani unravels a number of pieces of the debate over Ebonics, beginning with the word itself and the way it was framed in headlines (c.f. “The Ebonic Plague” and its homophony with “bubonic plage”), there are two features I want to look at more closely. One is the level at which Scalafani unravels individual words used in the articles, looking at their semantic relationships with other parts of the text, as in my example of the frame created by referring to me as an “articulate” (black) student. This, I believe, will be a useful site for me, as much of the process of WK is a process of responding to and anticipating future text based on often very short stretches of discourse. Looking at the ways words presuppose the use of other words, or examining the frames evoked by the choice NOT to use other words strikes me as a fruitful area for my own research.
A second piece which I found interesting in Scalafani’s article was one which whe dies not explicate herself but rather which emerges from her own writing, and that is the evoking of the prior text of “Frost/Nixon” by her shortening of the 3rd article headline to “Ebonics/Nixon.” The shortened headline does not actually encapsulate the comparison between the Ebonics and SAE (however skewed) that appears in the text of the article and with which Scalafani enages, but rather laminates an additional layer of interpretation—“Ebonics” in this textual frame takes the place of “Frost,” the reporter who trounced Nixon in getting him to admit to the wiretapping and illegal activities surrounding the Watergate scandal. By shortening the article to “Ebonics/Nixon,” Scalafani activates this prior text and much in the same way Nixon detractors celebrated Frost for his victory over the reclusive president, invites the reader to similarly side with and celebrate Ebonics.
While Scalafani unravels a number of pieces of the debate over Ebonics, beginning with the word itself and the way it was framed in headlines (c.f. “The Ebonic Plague” and its homophony with “bubonic plage”), there are two features I want to look at more closely. One is the level at which Scalafani unravels individual words used in the articles, looking at their semantic relationships with other parts of the text, as in my example of the frame created by referring to me as an “articulate” (black) student. This, I believe, will be a useful site for me, as much of the process of WK is a process of responding to and anticipating future text based on often very short stretches of discourse. Looking at the ways words presuppose the use of other words, or examining the frames evoked by the choice NOT to use other words strikes me as a fruitful area for my own research.
A second piece which I found interesting in Scalafani’s article was one which whe dies not explicate herself but rather which emerges from her own writing, and that is the evoking of the prior text of “Frost/Nixon” by her shortening of the 3rd article headline to “Ebonics/Nixon.” The shortened headline does not actually encapsulate the comparison between the Ebonics and SAE (however skewed) that appears in the text of the article and with which Scalafani enages, but rather laminates an additional layer of interpretation—“Ebonics” in this textual frame takes the place of “Frost,” the reporter who trounced Nixon in getting him to admit to the wiretapping and illegal activities surrounding the Watergate scandal. By shortening the article to “Ebonics/Nixon,” Scalafani activates this prior text and much in the same way Nixon detractors celebrated Frost for his victory over the reclusive president, invites the reader to similarly side with and celebrate Ebonics.
Body as Prior Text: Talbot
What strikes me most about the Talbot reading is the existence of gossip as a solidarity-creating feature, much in the vein of Tovares’ work on television gossip. Gossip inevitably creates a third party against whom some other set of parties are aligned and delineated—the gossipers become one group by virtue of their alignment in opposition to the one gossiped about. Tovares explores this in terms of how women discuss the women on the TV show Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire, in which the show itself allows the women, or a woman and her husband to align in opposition to the way the show presents itself and the women on the show. In the ads, however, first the “gossip” must be constructed, by use of features such as inclusive we and the response to “unasked” questions in the testimonials. These language features provide a site of “gossip” and thus create alignment in the group of women toward whom the ad is focused.
With regard to my own research, it is apparent as I’ve mentioned previously, that the women involved in these fic-writing communities create solidarity through their uses of language. Talbot’s work here gives me a good jumping-off point for looking at the ways in which the texts of the fic communities create “gossipees” to encourage alignment between the people who are doing the gossiping. The community of fic writers are in their own way a synthetic sisterhood, although perhaps a slightly more “real” sisterhood than the consumers of the lipstick ads in that they are able to communicate directly with each other and even meet up outside the internet. Nevertheless, the creation of community via these types of positioning moves I think will be a useful angle by which to explore the process of WK.
With regard to my own research, it is apparent as I’ve mentioned previously, that the women involved in these fic-writing communities create solidarity through their uses of language. Talbot’s work here gives me a good jumping-off point for looking at the ways in which the texts of the fic communities create “gossipees” to encourage alignment between the people who are doing the gossiping. The community of fic writers are in their own way a synthetic sisterhood, although perhaps a slightly more “real” sisterhood than the consumers of the lipstick ads in that they are able to communicate directly with each other and even meet up outside the internet. Nevertheless, the creation of community via these types of positioning moves I think will be a useful angle by which to explore the process of WK.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Breaking Frames and Prior Text: Norrick
Norrick’s work reminds me a great deal of the things that Becker discusses in his exploration of repetition. In his article, Becker explores the way in which humor can arise because of access to a shared prior text, for example, the prior text of the “how many x-es does it take to do y?” joke frame. Without access to that frame, the joke is largely lost, and a statement like, “How many Ph.D.’s does it take to find a wireless button” loses much of its punch.
At the same time, Norrick marries some of the concepts introduced by Bauman and Bauman & Briggs on Performativity with the work on repetition, in looking at the ways repetition is used to create frame breaks which allow for the punchline of the joke to emerge. However, Norrick makes an important distinction between jokes and parodic allusion. While both are performative speech events a la Bauman and Briggs, Norrick points to the idea that the joke is performative in an intrusive way—their use of intertextual reference is brief and used to challenge the audience to achieve the goal of the punchline, while the allusion that creates parody invites the audience to align with the speaker, drawing them together to joke at the expense of a third party.
It is this last element that I think may be useful to my own work—the work of WK and identifying WK is to align a number of speakers against the WK-participant, once the speech event has been entextualized as a WK event. Comparing the ways these alignments function will likely be a very useful tool to me as I go forward examining how WK functions within the discourse of the internet communities I’m studying.
At the same time, Norrick marries some of the concepts introduced by Bauman and Bauman & Briggs on Performativity with the work on repetition, in looking at the ways repetition is used to create frame breaks which allow for the punchline of the joke to emerge. However, Norrick makes an important distinction between jokes and parodic allusion. While both are performative speech events a la Bauman and Briggs, Norrick points to the idea that the joke is performative in an intrusive way—their use of intertextual reference is brief and used to challenge the audience to achieve the goal of the punchline, while the allusion that creates parody invites the audience to align with the speaker, drawing them together to joke at the expense of a third party.
It is this last element that I think may be useful to my own work—the work of WK and identifying WK is to align a number of speakers against the WK-participant, once the speech event has been entextualized as a WK event. Comparing the ways these alignments function will likely be a very useful tool to me as I go forward examining how WK functions within the discourse of the internet communities I’m studying.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Intertextuality and Performance: Bauman Ch. 1 and 5
Performativity has always been an interest of mine, so reading these works on performance and intertexuality is very interesting. I am most intrigued again by the ways in which meaning arises from the gaps—from the ways that these texts intersect one another. For example, in the “Spotted Pup” story, it is the way in which the text genres of tall tale, personal experience narrative, and practical joke all come together that ultimately make the story itself a success, and reflect well on Ed Bell’s narrative style.
Bauman’s description of performance as a mode of communication where not only the topic is being communicated but also that the speaker him or herself is drawing attention to the fact that s/he is “on display” seems a useful distinction to me.
This calls back the acknowledgement not only of speaker-hearer participation frame a la Goffman, but also an additional layer—the breaking of the “fourth wall,” to borrow a term from theater. In performance, the audience is acknowledged not only as a hearer participant in the participation framework, but also an audience in the sense of theatre, one for whom the speech itself is designed to produce some noticeable effect. Ed Bell signifies this to his audience through metalinguistic cues, prompting them to challenge him, or acknowledging their probable skepticism of the tall tale or practical joke about which he is speaking. Cues like this tell us a great deal about the performative aspects of any given (discourse) text. I think this may be a useful line of inquiry in my own research, as there is a certain element to which any given speech act in an internet community is being performed for, by the standards of, and with cognizance of the community in which it is written.
Bauman’s description of performance as a mode of communication where not only the topic is being communicated but also that the speaker him or herself is drawing attention to the fact that s/he is “on display” seems a useful distinction to me.
This calls back the acknowledgement not only of speaker-hearer participation frame a la Goffman, but also an additional layer—the breaking of the “fourth wall,” to borrow a term from theater. In performance, the audience is acknowledged not only as a hearer participant in the participation framework, but also an audience in the sense of theatre, one for whom the speech itself is designed to produce some noticeable effect. Ed Bell signifies this to his audience through metalinguistic cues, prompting them to challenge him, or acknowledging their probable skepticism of the tall tale or practical joke about which he is speaking. Cues like this tell us a great deal about the performative aspects of any given (discourse) text. I think this may be a useful line of inquiry in my own research, as there is a certain element to which any given speech act in an internet community is being performed for, by the standards of, and with cognizance of the community in which it is written.
En-, Decon-, Recon- Bauman & Briggs
How do we pinpoint a text as being emblematic of a text type or as performing a particular function in relationship to other texts? Bauman and Briggs unravel the process by which a text becomes first recognized as a text type through the process of entextualization, which acknowledges not only the form and function of a text but also its full context. That recognized text may then be taken out of its original context, or decontextualized, and then reinstated as a different text type, or recontextualized.
It seems to me that repetition often serves these functions; for example, in the Sloan data, it seems evident that decontexutalization and recontextualization are happening a great deal. For example, in the conversation that Tannen (2006) recounts about the package not being taken to the post office, it is evident that first the conversation, in the context of a wife leaving a husband and leaving a package that the mailman may or may not pick up, is entextualized as a question about a household chore and whether or not the husband will be willing to perform the chore if necessary. However, it is when the same discussion arises out of its original context that it becomes re-created as a different conversation entirely—a conversation about whether or not the husband will support the wife in the instance that her job becomes more stressful. As the same bit of text (the question about the box) is repeated, it goes through the stages that Bauman and Briggs identify, which ultimately allow it to function on the different planes that Tannen identifies.
In my own case, I think white-knighting has a great deal to do with the process of decontextualization and recontextualization. One of the hallmarks of WK is that it cannot be identified alone. Unlike flaming, where the content of the statement is enough to cause it to be entextualized as an instance of flaming, WK must be situated in response to another text in order to be recognized as WK. Exactly how it is decontextualized and recontextualized is unclear to me at this point, but I feel that this line of inquiry will allow me to uncover some of the ways this particular feature functions in the discourse of the communities I wish to study.
It seems to me that repetition often serves these functions; for example, in the Sloan data, it seems evident that decontexutalization and recontextualization are happening a great deal. For example, in the conversation that Tannen (2006) recounts about the package not being taken to the post office, it is evident that first the conversation, in the context of a wife leaving a husband and leaving a package that the mailman may or may not pick up, is entextualized as a question about a household chore and whether or not the husband will be willing to perform the chore if necessary. However, it is when the same discussion arises out of its original context that it becomes re-created as a different conversation entirely—a conversation about whether or not the husband will support the wife in the instance that her job becomes more stressful. As the same bit of text (the question about the box) is repeated, it goes through the stages that Bauman and Briggs identify, which ultimately allow it to function on the different planes that Tannen identifies.
In my own case, I think white-knighting has a great deal to do with the process of decontextualization and recontextualization. One of the hallmarks of WK is that it cannot be identified alone. Unlike flaming, where the content of the statement is enough to cause it to be entextualized as an instance of flaming, WK must be situated in response to another text in order to be recognized as WK. Exactly how it is decontextualized and recontextualized is unclear to me at this point, but I feel that this line of inquiry will allow me to uncover some of the ways this particular feature functions in the discourse of the communities I wish to study.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Repeating, Reframing, Rekeying -- Tannen 2006 and 2010
I was fortunate to actually hear the plenary address at the 2010 LSA meeting and therefore be introduced to the 2010 reading verbally; however, there are always differences between a spoken and written version of the same text (if there weren't, we'd have much less to study), and it is useful to be able to examine them both.
Tannen's framework is perhaps one of the more useful for my own work in that it seems apparent that the process of white-knighting is one of re-keying. In the 2006 article, she focuses in on an extended discussion of a text which is repeated, reframed, and rekeyed over the course of several discussions. The discussion moves from a simple discussion about whether or not a husband is willing to take a box to the post office to a more general discussion of whether or not the husband will be supportive in the instance that the wife's job becomes extremely stressful upon the inauguration of a new president. This pattern is readily recognizable in a number of interpersonal arguments of this nature, but the framework of tracing the way the conversation comes up again repeatedly (repetition), is marked as both argument and humor (rekeying), and is changed from a discussion about one thing to a discussion about another (reframing) gives useful insight into how we can better unpack the complicated layers of discourse that are present in such interaction.
Most useful to me from the 2010 talk is perhaps this issue of the taking on of voices, as Natalie does in the bath. As she permits herself to take on both her mother's and her own voice, through her doll, she separates herself from herself, and is able to comment on her own actions through her mock disapproval of her own behavior. The taking on of voices is something which happens quite a bit in the context of white-knighting; sometimes from the interactants themselves, and sometimes from "sockpuppets" who are pretending to be anyone from the characters from the original novels or the characters from the fic that is being discussed. Looking at the way this taking on of voices enables the commenters to provide an additional layer of commentary will, I believe, prove fruitful in my own analysis of the ways white-knighting is constructed.
Tannen's framework is perhaps one of the more useful for my own work in that it seems apparent that the process of white-knighting is one of re-keying. In the 2006 article, she focuses in on an extended discussion of a text which is repeated, reframed, and rekeyed over the course of several discussions. The discussion moves from a simple discussion about whether or not a husband is willing to take a box to the post office to a more general discussion of whether or not the husband will be supportive in the instance that the wife's job becomes extremely stressful upon the inauguration of a new president. This pattern is readily recognizable in a number of interpersonal arguments of this nature, but the framework of tracing the way the conversation comes up again repeatedly (repetition), is marked as both argument and humor (rekeying), and is changed from a discussion about one thing to a discussion about another (reframing) gives useful insight into how we can better unpack the complicated layers of discourse that are present in such interaction.
Most useful to me from the 2010 talk is perhaps this issue of the taking on of voices, as Natalie does in the bath. As she permits herself to take on both her mother's and her own voice, through her doll, she separates herself from herself, and is able to comment on her own actions through her mock disapproval of her own behavior. The taking on of voices is something which happens quite a bit in the context of white-knighting; sometimes from the interactants themselves, and sometimes from "sockpuppets" who are pretending to be anyone from the characters from the original novels or the characters from the fic that is being discussed. Looking at the way this taking on of voices enables the commenters to provide an additional layer of commentary will, I believe, prove fruitful in my own analysis of the ways white-knighting is constructed.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Lost in Translation: Becker 1994
Becker looks at a very particular and very literal kind of prior text in his article, "Repetition and Otherness:" an actual translation of a passage in Classical Malay. He notes the ways in which prior texts define a community and are used by a community, particularly as tropes from which to build other texts, for example, the "how many x does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" This one rang as particularly salient for me--as a graduate student, I spend a great deal of time with other graduate students and newly-minted Ph.D.s, and as a result whenever it takes more than one of us to accomplish some menial task, like putting together a new coffee table, someone inevitably says something along the lines of, "How many Ph.D.s does it take/how many years of graduate education does it take to do x?" In invoking the joke, we're of course tying in not only to the prior text of the "how many" joke, but also in to the humor of the incongruity of whatever (seemingly) simple task we're trying to perform and the supposed expertise that arises from having such advanced educations.
I found most intriguing in Becker's work the idea of the "untranslatable" tropes which rely on these sorts of common prior texts. Even though presumably one could translate a joke such as this one into another language, without the prior text of the joke's history, much of its humor is lost. Instead of drawing on a bank of similar jokes in the listeners' collective memories, it is only an isolated statement, which may have some intrinsic humor by way of incongruities such as the one I mentioned above, but which loses a significant portion of its humor in the absence of the ability to draw on the prior texts of what other versions of the joke have preceded this particular telling.
One thing I also found intriguing was the idea of prior text being invoked by the way in which a text is presented visually. For the Malay speakers, the text under discussion is presented in Arabic, which creates an intertextual tie to the Islamic holy texts which the Malay speakers would have encountered. Although sociolinguists focus a great deal on form in terms of things like syntactic structure, adjacency pairs and the like, we miss a great deal of things which can be communicated by other issues of form, such as prosody and the actual form of in which written text is presented. Sometimes we look at this in terms of some visual representations, and some slxs have looked at, for example, the way the form of a transcript affects the way we think of it (I'm thinking of Bucholtz's article on the politics of transcription here), but I find that on the whole, we could do more in looking at the actual presentation of text to the "reader" (or hearer) of that text.
Becker's article also reminds me of Agha's work on naming, and the way the "baptisimal event" of name-giving invokes the prior texts (my lamination of this term onto Agha's work) of all who have had that name before. Extending the notion of prior text and repetition onto this part of Agha's analysis might yield interesting results.
I found most intriguing in Becker's work the idea of the "untranslatable" tropes which rely on these sorts of common prior texts. Even though presumably one could translate a joke such as this one into another language, without the prior text of the joke's history, much of its humor is lost. Instead of drawing on a bank of similar jokes in the listeners' collective memories, it is only an isolated statement, which may have some intrinsic humor by way of incongruities such as the one I mentioned above, but which loses a significant portion of its humor in the absence of the ability to draw on the prior texts of what other versions of the joke have preceded this particular telling.
One thing I also found intriguing was the idea of prior text being invoked by the way in which a text is presented visually. For the Malay speakers, the text under discussion is presented in Arabic, which creates an intertextual tie to the Islamic holy texts which the Malay speakers would have encountered. Although sociolinguists focus a great deal on form in terms of things like syntactic structure, adjacency pairs and the like, we miss a great deal of things which can be communicated by other issues of form, such as prosody and the actual form of in which written text is presented. Sometimes we look at this in terms of some visual representations, and some slxs have looked at, for example, the way the form of a transcript affects the way we think of it (I'm thinking of Bucholtz's article on the politics of transcription here), but I find that on the whole, we could do more in looking at the actual presentation of text to the "reader" (or hearer) of that text.
Becker's article also reminds me of Agha's work on naming, and the way the "baptisimal event" of name-giving invokes the prior texts (my lamination of this term onto Agha's work) of all who have had that name before. Extending the notion of prior text and repetition onto this part of Agha's analysis might yield interesting results.
Snatches of Other Texts: Fairclough 1992
"Intertextuality is basically the property texts have of being full of snatches of other texts, which may be explicitly demarcated or merged in, and which the text may assimilate, contract, ironically echo, and so forth. [Emphasis mine]"
Fairclough's definition of ITXTY is a very interesting one, because I think it explains a great deal of his approach to text and register and discourse and a number of other things which he describes. Most important in his article, I believe, is his vision of texts and discourse as being more parole than lange. I've always been drawn to the term "languaging," because it to me encompasses a lot of what language is--less something static which we can understand through rules and structure (although I'm sure many formal theoretical linguists would disagree with me on that one) but rather something which is shaped on the fly by the ways in which it interacts with other parts of language.
On the note of formal linguistics, however, it was interesting to note that Fairclough appropriated the language of formalism in describing loci of discourse in using the term "complementary distribution," for example, the "school" discourse and register is defined in part by the fact that it is in complementary distribution with the locations which are "non-school," such as home. The question then arises if these loci of discourse exist without the loci that they are defined in contrast to: can we understand "school" discourse without having home discourse and neighborhood discourse to describe it against?
It seems that a lot of meaning arises out of these sorts of juxtapositions--school discourse becomes school discourse precisely because of the discourses that it is not. As we attend to the "snatches" of text which are present in another text, it seems evident that it is not only the presence of these snatches but also in the way they are defined by what they are in contrast to which provide a great deal of their meaning. This, I think, is an important part of intertextuality itself--the ways in which the texts interact with one another and create meaning through their contrasts (or lack thereof).
Fairclough's definition of ITXTY is a very interesting one, because I think it explains a great deal of his approach to text and register and discourse and a number of other things which he describes. Most important in his article, I believe, is his vision of texts and discourse as being more parole than lange. I've always been drawn to the term "languaging," because it to me encompasses a lot of what language is--less something static which we can understand through rules and structure (although I'm sure many formal theoretical linguists would disagree with me on that one) but rather something which is shaped on the fly by the ways in which it interacts with other parts of language.
On the note of formal linguistics, however, it was interesting to note that Fairclough appropriated the language of formalism in describing loci of discourse in using the term "complementary distribution," for example, the "school" discourse and register is defined in part by the fact that it is in complementary distribution with the locations which are "non-school," such as home. The question then arises if these loci of discourse exist without the loci that they are defined in contrast to: can we understand "school" discourse without having home discourse and neighborhood discourse to describe it against?
It seems that a lot of meaning arises out of these sorts of juxtapositions--school discourse becomes school discourse precisely because of the discourses that it is not. As we attend to the "snatches" of text which are present in another text, it seems evident that it is not only the presence of these snatches but also in the way they are defined by what they are in contrast to which provide a great deal of their meaning. This, I think, is an important part of intertextuality itself--the ways in which the texts interact with one another and create meaning through their contrasts (or lack thereof).
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