Ana's Presentation

Notes on Ana’s Presentation (from readings and ppt)

Metalinguistic study has always been a rather fascinating topic for me, and so I was quite sorry to have missed this presentation in person. I think the ways in which people create solidarity or distance by talking about the ways they talk is fascinating—I always think back to the first time I saw the “I’m not having any Southern Babies” monologue in American Tongues.

I am also particularly interested in the ways in which Ana is relying on much of the same framework as I am in looking at the issues of en-, decon- and recontexualization of the instance of metalinguistic commentary. I have personally found this to be a good area of intertextuality for my own work, as the process a text moves through as it moves from one of these to the next is frequently highly visible.

I was particularly interested in Coupland and Jaworoski’s discussion of language as innocent, in the idea that it is somehow removed from the social process and ideologies in which it is embedded. One thing I think keeps being broken down in this course is the idea of language as being separate from the social situations from which it arises. It is used to create identities and to shape them, and to move ideas from one sphere into another. If language were “innocent,” the rekeying that Tannen talks about would be impossible; there would be no social connection for that language to be able to move from a discussion about the return of a box to a discussion about spousal support in hardship.

Although language ideologies do not manifest themselves in my own research and there is not much in the way of metalinguistic commentary, I think the ways in which Ana is engaging with the same framework as I am to uncover the sites of her explorations forms a useful juxtaposition to my own work

Never Say the Same Thing Twice: Johnstone 1994

Probably what struck me the most about Johnstone's article was this notion that we repeat verbatim to say something different, but when we want to say the same thing, we make changes. I had never really thought about it before, but it's beyond correct. Reading Johnstone, I recalled something I read in an in-flight magazine about repetition: it was an article on 11 tips for good management strategies, the first of which was repetition. The suggestion was that managers and subordinates repeat what their manager or subordinate said to them as a way of not only acknowledging what was said, but also as a way of projecting, "I'm going to act on this and hold you to what you said." I was struck by the way the repetition itself adds this layer of meaning, a la Johnstone's discussion here.

This, I think is an interesting part of intertextuality, and probably the one I am most fascinated by. Although one can focus on the ways in which the texts themselves interact and therefore produce meaning, I feel like it is the "gap" between two texts, even two identical texts, which ultimately gives a great deal of insight into the ways in which the text is to be interpreted. In the case of direct repetition, there seems to be the anticipated question of, "Why is this being repeated?" whose answer provides the meaning given by the repetition: It is being repeated to show solidarity, as a request for clarification, sometimes even as a face threat to the person to whom it is being repeated. This to me is what Dr. Tannen is referring to as "abduction" the way meaning is created "on the side" of the texts; not by anything that can be directly deduced from their content but from the way in which they interact.

In the case of internet exchanges, I think a lot of these sorts of abductive ideas surface as people respond not only to what another said, but also to what she didn't say, and to the meaning she might be creating by not saying other kinds of things. I find Johnstone's article, for that reason, to be helpful in my own framework of discussion, as the discussions on which I will focus my own research are by their natures abductive rather than deductive or inductive--the choice to quote directly vs. to paraphrase is a salient one, and after reading Johnstone, I realize it is perhaps a more salient one than I might have originally realized.

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.

Making the Polyvocal Polyvocal: Tovares 2006 2007

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Tovares’ research was that like the Tannen 2010, the focus texts themselves received an additional layer of polyvocality through their representation by the researcher who wrote about them. The evaluative nature of not only the topics being discussed but also the researcher added another layer of intertext to the already polyvocalic blending of the television with the speech and evaluation of the family members. For instance, when Alla adds her own interpretation of the words, “I love you,” as repeated by a husband to his wife, her own prosody and expression mark her own stance toward the data and invite us to interpret not only the intertextual nature of the conversation as we are meant to as students, but also to be drawn into the whimsy of the nature of the conversation itself—that a husband is gently joshing his wife. Although some of the whimsy is created by the excerpt itself (by the use of the words “barefoot and pregnant” to describe what the wife stands in opposition to compared to the movie on television), more is laminated by the addition of the researcher’s voice.

The ways in which intertexutal ties allow the blending of the public and the private are something that I believe will be very useful to me in my own research. Bulletin board/forum posting is inherently both a public and a private act—it simulates private “backstage” conversation, in that frequently it can seem as though a post is only in response to a single other interlocutor, or a small group of interlocutors. Yet the message board or forum is usually open to thousands, if not millions, and thus the speech that exists there is very much “frontstage” speech, even as it masquerades as a private conversation.
This also ties back to Bakhtin and his notions of a third-party who is the recipient of some of the text, or toward whom the focus text is constructed (similar to Bell’s notion of the referee). The texts themselves take on new meaning when they are repeated for a new audience; at times, it seems it is the repetition of a line like “I love you,” and the knowledge that it is a repetition which makes it possible to recognize the playfulness of the statement. In turning a comment directed to a movie character and instead directing it towards his wife, the husband creates a moment where the wife is positioned humorously in contrast to the television wife.
In unpacking the ways that gossip and television allows the bridge between public and private to be made, Tovares provides insight not immediately apparent in Bakhtin’s exploration of dialogicality. In Tovares’ work, dialogicality has a purpose distinct from characterization or merely informing the character, but rather also plays a large role in the ways people make meanings out of the mundane everyday inputs of life. Given that the internet is a public sphere where much privacy is assumed, it seems only natural that I could use the same or a similar approach to discuss some of the ways this same gap is bridged in my own texts.

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.