LURA 2020

How to Do Things with Memes

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 22:34:31 +0000

How to Do Things with Memes Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 16:34

The memes shared by Star Wars prequel fans in a very nerdy corner of the internet may help us understand how memes create community.

By: Carolyn Olmsted
Course: Language and Digital Media (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof Kira Hall
LURA 2020

In 1962, J.L. Austin changed the face of pragmatic linguistic analysis with his famous work How to Do Things with Words. Claiming that language does not simply describe the world but also changes it, Austin established the theory of speech acts. My project, developed for Prof. Hall’s course “Language and Digital Media,” builds on Austin’s research by investigating internet memes as a kind of speech act, or “how to do things with memes.” I explain how memes work through three concepts taken from the field of computer-mediated discourse: redistribution, recontextualization, and remediation.

Redistribution involves sending a message or form of media unaltered to someone else. This process can be seen in many processes predating memes, such as chain emails. An example of a chain email can be seen below:

(Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeed.com/hgrant/the-18-best-chain-e-mails-you-got-in-2004)

Recontextualization is seen in memes where the original quote or reference is unchanged. However, when the quote is shared in different contexts, the meaning can be changed. One example of a frequently recontextualized Star Wars quote is seen below:

Remediation can involve mixing references to multiple works of media, mixing references to media and everyday non-digital life, or complex “remixes” that change two media pieces into a novel form. This last form is characterized by specialized knowledge and use of meme templates. Meme templates are images with blank slots for users to fill in with their own text or images; they are extremely recontextualizable and widely circulated. If a viewer does not understand the template or the reference in the meme, they will not understand the joke. Below is a meme template with a remediation based on the Star Wars prequels:

(Retrieved from https://twitter.com/missingegirl/status/1123647491025428480)

(Retrieved from https://mobile.twitter.com/jbcasacop/status/1194400246865883137)

In order to see these concepts in action, I chose to look closely at an online-based community: Star Wars prequel fans, mainly in the r/prequelmemes community on the social media website Reddit. These fans focus mainly on Episodes I, II, and III of the Star Wars franchise. The majority of prequel memes are based on quotes from the films. The meme I chose to focus on is one I call the “General Kenobi” meme.

The “General Kenobi” meme is taken from a scene from Star Wars: Episode III, seen below:

In this scene, Obi-Wan Kenobi, the bearded man, greets his adversary, General Grievous, the robot-looking alien. He says “Hello there!” and Grievous responds “General Kenobi!”. The scene is one of the most popular memes in the community; whenever someone says “Hello there!”, there will be many responses of “General Kenobi!”

I chose to analyze this meme as an adjacency pair, a concept taken from conversation analysis. This is a type of turn-taking in which two speakers produce two utterances in succession. The first utterance, or first-pair part, elicits an utterance in response, or a second-pair part. Second-pair parts can be either preferred or dispreferred, meaning that the second speaker will either respond with the desired type of answer, which is preferred, or the unwanted type, which is dispreferred. Although the “General Kenobi” meme is a non-normative adjacency pair, it works in the same way.

When one prequel fan greets another with “Hello there!”, the preferred response is “General Kenobi!” If the preferred response is given, the second fan is considered a member of the community, but if the dispreferred response (i.e. any other response) is given, they are considered to be part of the outgroup. These processes are known as adequation and distinction (Bucholtz & Hall 2004, 2005). Adequation involves building community through sameness, and distinction involves building community through difference.

Adequation and distinction can be seen in some related examples I collected of conversations from the dating app Tinder.

(Retrieved from: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrequelMemes/comments/f22l2b/wasnt_quite_what_was_planned_but_we_got_there_in/)

In this example, Brooke is counted as a member of the community because she gives the preferred response, after some initial uncertainty. This is an example of adequation.

(Retrieved from: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrequelMemes/comments/8u50ud/she_cant_do_that_shoot_heror_something/)

In this example, Isabella gives a dispreferred response. The messenger then created the meme seen above to the r/prequelmemes community as a joke. The community is therefore defined as being different from Isabella because they understand the reference. This is an example of distinction.

My paper includes many other memes and analyses not seen here, using concepts such as formulaic jokes (Hall 2019), stancetaking (Bucholtz, Skapoulli, Barnwell, & Lee 2011), and dual indexicality (Hill 1995). Through these analyses, it can clearly be seen that meme creation and circulation creates and builds online communities. Although memes have not yet been fully studied in terms of these contributions to community-building, the examples analyzed in my paper provide a rich resource for understanding how memetic redistribution, recontextualization, and remediation may serve to create community.

Off

Traditional

White

Trump’s Use of Conversational Implicature and Plausible Deniability

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 22:11:02 +0000

Trump’s Use of Conversational Implicature and Plausible Deniability Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 16:11

How do today’s politicians skew the truth in political discourse?

By: Abbey Ehrhard
Course: Language & Politics (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof. Adam Hodges
LURA 2020

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0h_CZXlFcI]

Truth in political discourse is important as we deal with complex global issues, such as the COVID-19 virus, possible war with Iran, and the global warming crisis. Navigating between truths and untruths is particularly mystifying when the narrative is frequently skewed, a principle issue we face today. Understanding political discourse requires understanding the use of plausible deniability and conversational implicature. This is because politicians frequently make use of these discursive moves to skew the narrative.

In my research project, developed for Prof. Adam Hodges course on Language & Politics, I created a video essay (embedded below) that examined the discursive techniques of plausible deniability and conversational implicature used by our president, which are enforced by mafia-like structures of silencing. These discursive methods are not new, and Donald Trump is not the first politician to use plausible deniability. However, Trump’s use of plausible deniability was particularly interesting to study because I uncovered many inconsistencies between his campaign promises and current statements. The underlying aim was not to expose Trump, but rather to demonstrate the process by which we can hold politicians accountable by unraveling the narrative the speaker has created through competing claims.

Plausible deniability works to “shirk responsibility for things we have previously said or done. Politicians are well known for using language games that allow them to variously communicate or deny controversial claims” (Hodges, p. 45). Conversational implicature is the act of implying what is said, while also not explicitly stating it. This allows room for a “reactive reversal” (Mendoza-Denton) if the public does not respond well to what is implied; a public relations statement (or tweet) can go out shirking responsibility for the remark. Since what is implied is not explicitly stated, this leaves the public in a gray area of sorts. For example, the president can promise to have Mexico pay for his wall yet the American taxpayers are left footing the now $11 billion dollar bill (NPR). To create my video essay, I watched and listened to debates, interviews, and speeches, comparing sound bites and claims Donald Trump has made throughout his time in office. I approached the discourse as a normal voter seeking information. Through this lens, I found my key examples of plausible deniability and conversational implicature. My research on Trump’s use of omerta and mafia-like structures further elaborates on the way Trump gets away with claiming plausible deniability.

One of the key takeaways from my research was that campaign promises have been skewed to fit or change Trump’s narrative. This “skewing” is achieved through conversational implicature. For example, Trump can run his 2016 campaign on the promise to have Mexico build and pay for the wall, but later insist to the American public as president that he didn’t say that. Subsequently, Trump skews his statement by stating: “Obviously...I never meant they’re going to write out a check. I said they’re going to pay for it. They are. They are paying for it with the...USMCA [United States Mexico Canada Agreement].” The implication in his original statements was that Mexico will directly pay for it, not the US taxpayers. But later, he denies this implication by implying something new--namely, that the US will somehow recoup the $11 billion it has paid for the wall through the new trade deal with Mexico. Another key finding from my research was that Trump’s deniability is strengthened by the support he receives from allies, such as politicians who vouch for his credibility and collaborate to restate his ever-changing claims.

The topic of plausible deniability within politics is extremely relevant to non-linguists as it can help voters pick apart what is true and what is not in a time when thousands of different stories all on the same subject circulate. As George Washington once stated, “Truth will ultimately prevail where pain is taken to bring it to light.”

For more discussion on this topic see the video essay here.

Off

Traditional

White

Of Presidents and “Obama Face”: Politics and Meme-ers

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 20:32:06 +0000

Of Presidents and “Obama Face”: Politics and Meme-ers Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 14:32

How do we participate in the evolving world of memes, especially when taking up a position as an elected official?

By: Maya Stephens
Course: Language and Digital Media (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof. Kira Hall
LURA 2020

With the internet being as vast and far reaching as it is now, we as a society have only just begun to realize the effect that it may have on important processes such as gaining support for political campaigning and related initiatives. With a simple hashtag, it is possible to gain followers for a cause worldwide in a span of minutes. In fact, we have witnessed this phenomenon frequently via digital media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. As I was reflecting on this in Dr. Kira Hall’s Fall 2019 seminar Language and Digital Media, I focused in on memes for my final project.

When I was still developing this final project, I received a lot of feedback that caused me to evaluate just what kind of research I would be looking at. Mini topics such as cringe culture, meme literacy, and positions of power popped up everywhere. At the end of these consultations, I knew that what I was researching is not something to take lightly, especially when the internet is now an integral part of education, transferring information, and participating in the modern world.

My broader essay addresses the power of internet culture when put into the context of United States politics: specifically, the power of political memes and memes used by political figures today. Within my essay, I address themes such as “proper” memetic participation and creation, allowances for elected officials, and the potential effects that come with using memes to connect with an audience while in a position of power. For the purpose of this research, I consulted texts such as author Gretchen McCulloch’s (2019) book Because Internet and similar readings. Once I decided which US politicians I would be selecting, I went to work to understand how memes and modern US politics collide.

Of the three major political figures I selected for my study, Barack Obama showed a strong understanding of appropriate practices associated with meme creation and circulation. When he produced memes and participated in meme content, Obama was able to successfully connect with youth and the common people of the United States. One example is the Obama meme I examined, seen in Figure 1, in which he copies the traditional text meme format to congratulate and poke fun at his ex-Vice President Joe Biden. Obama’s reputation as a youthful, cool politician persists even today, in part, I suggest, because of his fluency in memetic culture. His meme literacy indexes that he is young and part of the common people, therefore enabling him to find common ground with both groups of people. Memes are typically associated with youth, but they can also be associated with the common man. That is, when we think of who might be meme-ing, the first thing that comes to mind is not a person of high status or a person in a position of power. This is what digital media theorists mean when they discuss the internet as facilitating “participatory democracy.”

Figure 1: A picture of a tweet in which Obama is wishing fellow politician Joe Biden a happy birthday.

Retired politician Hillary Clinton is not a new face to the meme scene. What I discovered with Clinton is that the perceived amount of what digital users call “cringe” factors into whether a meme is considered successful or not. That said, there are many factors that contribute to the success of a meme like I mentioned earlier with Obama. Clinton was unable to follow the rules of meme-ing and suffered for it briefly in her 2016 campaign for the U.S. presidency (see Figure 2); however, she was able to redeem herself once she parted from her practice of using memes to gain voters for her personal gain, as seen in the more successful meme reproduced in Figure 3.

Figure 2: One of the many memes that circulated in the aftermath of Clinton’s “Pokémon GO to the polls” statement. The picture depicts Clinton wearing the iconic cap of the Pokémon anime’s main character.

Figure 3: Politician Hillary Clinton responds to comments on her decision to not participate in the next election. The gif features a character from the cult classic “Mean Girls” movie saying, “Why are you so obsessed with me?”

What I learned from President Trump is that there is a limit to how easy-going a politician can be, even when following proper meme protocol. In his case, the contents of the meme he created (see Figure 4) stepped over an invisible boundary that should not be crossed when participating in meme culture. There was a less-than-joking intent associated with the meme he employed for personal use on his Twitter account, which resulted in said tweet being deleted, a rare case for something like a meme.

Figure 4: A picture from Donald Trump’s twitter account. The image depicts the text: “LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH!” Underneath the text, there is a gif from the music video for the song “Photograph” by the American band Nickelback. An image of fellow politician Joe Biden standing next to his son Hunter Biden, and two unnamed men with one having the label Ukraine gas executive in place of a name.

Going into this project, I did not expect to be walking out with the conclusion that memes could in fact be used as a political tool, let alone that memes could backfire when put to use in a way that does not resonate with their audience. Someone with the ability to carefully produce memes while also subtly influencing the opinions of the public would hold an advantage over their peers. Although my research was only on a small scale, I would like to see what else I could uncover if given the opportunity to pursue this subject further. Nevertheless, I genuinely enjoyed writing my paper, and I hope to see more scholars get involved in the analysis of digital media discourse in the near future.

Off

Traditional

White

Vine Is Dead, But …

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 20:22:47 +0000

Vine Is Dead, But … Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 14:22

Vine is dead, but... it lives on through digital users.

By Paige Tapia
Course: Language and Digital Media (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof. Kira Hall
LURA 2020

[video:https://vimeo.com/452038645]

My junior year at the 91��Ƭ��AV began with committing to new roommates and living in a 3-bedroom apartment for the first time. One roommate I had known since my first year at CU because I had lived with her twin sister. The other I had only just met, and I was soon introduced to her quirky and outgoing nature. It did not take long for us to learn that we all had something in common, the love of Vines.

We found ourselves quoting our favorite Vines on a daily basis, but only with each other. We often heard others quoting Vines, but never as much as we did. It was almost like a ritual for us to find times to watch Vines together, if only to laugh while quoting the short phrases exactly. What was more interesting were the various reactions we received from others who interacted with us. We had some who loved our enthusiasm, quickly jumping in to join us without a second thought, while others laughed awkwardly out of confusion. Those who interacted with us regularly, such as significant others or close friends, would often say, “Really? More Vines?” But they also often stuck around and occasionally joined in.

The Vine short-form video platform was shut down only one year prior to our moving in together in Fall 2018. But for us, it was as if Vines had never gone away because we kept them alive in our own way. YouTube made it easy for us to watch these short clips at any time of the day. We were not alone in our love of Vines; otherwise, montage videos with over twenty Vine clips would not exist.

In the Spring of 2019, I was able to join Prof. Hall’s class titled “Language and Digital Media,” a class never offered at CU Boulder before. I had not taken a linguistics class before, but this class piqued my interest because the thought of analyzing a subject that I am already studying at CU (in a different way) sounded exciting. I was introduced to terms I was somewhat familiar with and some that were completely new to me, such as remixing and remediation, processes that I demonstrate in my video essay. Many digital users understand popular trends and how to gain an audience by making viral content. But this course helped me name and understand the concepts flowing through the digital world. My project was focused on Vines not only due to the fact that I enjoy them, but also because the lessons I learned in this course helped me see why Vines are so quotable, and even nostalgic.

My argument is that the nostalgia expressed for the Vine platform is formed due to the easy citationality and recontextualization of the short-form videos. This connects with how the affordances of Vine create long-term attachments. Specifically, I explored how Vine is living on through a number of other multimodal platforms, such as YouTube or Snapchat. This exploration taught me a lot about my own personal connection to Vines, and how my use of Vine quotes helped to establish a sense of community with my friends. I have also learned that I am not alone. For example, a video posted to YouTube shows scenes from a Vine party in which everyone dressed up as their favorite Vine. A person at the party took the time to record some of their friends doing impressions of the Vines they came dressed as. It is this type of community-building through Vines that inspired my project on the remixing and remediation of digital content.

Off

Traditional

White

Finding Communities with Emojis

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 20:03:06 +0000

Finding Communities with Emojis Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 14:03

What happens when standard emojis no longer suffice?

By: Gin Quesada Lara
Course: Language and Digital Media (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof. Kira Hall
LURA 2020

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYeJBTEgKjs&feature=youtu.be]

This video essay, which I developed for Prof. Hall’s course on “Language and Digital Media,” draws from recent work in linguistic anthropology and digital media studies to analyze the role played by customizable emojis on Discord, a text and voice chatting platform used mainly by gamers. Through the affordance of customizable emojis, Discord encourages its users to build a community within their servers. Many of the emojis that are common to find in these groups include remediations of a particular video game, television show, or other media. Such recontextualizations can generally only be understood if participants share the same background information—that is, if they share a matching communicative repertoire (Rymes 2012).

While standard emojis suffice for many digital users, Discord users go beyond the norm by creating unique ways of expressing their participation in a different kind of internet culture (McCulloch 2019). In the video essay, I explore how the customizable emojis afforded by Discord promote feelings of comfort and belonging by allowing for fuller self-expression. The study focuses on contributions made by four friends on a server within the platform devoted to everyday discussion. In one way, the creation and circulation of emojis enable this group of friends to put their inside jokes into visual form, so that they can always have access to them. Most significantly, these original emojis enable this friendship network, many of whom are nonbinary or transgender, to construct a foundation of something close to a family, a safe space for people who might feel like outsiders in other environments

Off

Traditional

White

“You Are What You Speak?”

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 19:08:58 +0000

“You Are What You Speak?” Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 13:08

Learning a language is more than memorizing vocabulary and grammar. It can also change how you think.

By: Sabrina Cohen
Course: Language and Thought (Ling 7800)
Advisor: Prof. Bhuvana Narasimhan
LURA 2020

When I was learning Spanish, the use of subjunctive verbs to convey modality captivated me. In linguistics, “modality” refers to the speaker’s attitude towards the proposition he/she is conveying. In Spanish, verbs can be in the indicative mood—what we mostly use in English, which reflects what we believe to correspond to reality—or in the subjunctive mood, which is used to express hopes, emotions, and whatever is not really happening in the world. By using the subjunctive, the Spanish speaker emphasizes the fact that he/she does not believe in the reality of what is being conveyed, a grammatical nuance that is rare in English in this context. When Spanish speakers talk about their beliefs, they use contrasts between the indicative and the subjunctive for affirmative and negative statements, respectively, whereas English speakers use the indicative in both cases. For example, for affirmative sentences, the equivalent of saying “I think that is (indicative) true” in Spanish is Creo que es (indicative) verdad. For negative sentences, the equivalent of saying “I don’t think that is (indicative) true” in Spanish is No creo que sea (subjunctive) verdad.

In my LING 7800 class last semester with Prof. Narasimhan, we discussed the effect of language on thought, even when language is not being used, a concept called “linguistic relativity.” The idea is that every language has different patterns of linking form and meaning. Therefore, speakers of different languages may think differently because speakers need to attend to language-specific lexical and grammatical distinctions present in their languages. For example, in English, “blue” is considered one color, but in Russian, “light blue” and “dark blue” correspond to different color words. Studies have been carried out to see if Russian speakers are able to more quickly distinguish between light blue and dark blue than English speakers, since the former have to habitually pay attention to this distinction in their day-to-day conversations. We also discussed the effects of linguistic relativity in bilinguals and how bilingual speakers’ thought compares to that of monolingual speakers of their languages.

I wondered if the themes in linguistic relativity could be extended to the Spanish subjunctive/indicative contrast. Would having to make this distinction cause Spanish speakers to better remember false beliefs than English speakers? Would Spanish-English bilinguals better remember false beliefs if they had more experience speaking Spanish compared to English?

To investigate this question, I developed a proposal for a series of experiments with Spanish-English bilinguals, English monolinguals, and Spanish monolinguals. I designed an experimental procedure, a way to assess relative proficiency in Spanish and English in bilingual speakers, and outlined possible quantitative patterns in the data if my hypothesis was (in)valid or partly supported. In the experiments, each group of participants would be shown a series of images. In each image, there would be a boy and a girl. The boy would make a statement (e.g., I think it’s going to rain today) and the girl would either deny or affirm this statement (e.g., I (don’t) think that’s true). After seeing the images, the participants would participate in a memory task in which they would have to recall what the girl said.

My prediction was that having to make the subjunctive/indicative contrast would allow Spanish monolinguals to be able to remember whether beliefs were affirmative or negative much better than English monolinguals. Further, I hypothesized that, in my Spanish-English bilingual group, the more years of experience speaking Spanish the participants had compared to speaking English, the better they would remember whether sentences were affirmative or negative in Spanish compared to English.

If this experiment were to be carried out, I would be really intrigued to see if English and Spanish monolinguals and bilinguals perform differently in a nonlinguistic task assessing memory for affirmative or negative beliefs. If so, this hints at a possible linguistic relativity effect, although the role of other factors (e.g., culture or geography) cannot be ruled out. Linguistic relativity, a seemingly small principle (“language affects thought”), could have far-reaching implications. The next time you consider learning a new language, keep in mind that it is not just a matter of learning new words: you could also impact the way you perceive the world.

Off

Traditional

White

What the Duck??

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 18:57:38 +0000

What the Duck?? Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 12:57

We’ve all been there, when autocorrect changes what we were trying to say entirely. But how do you fix it?

By: Annabel Needham and Caitlin Schwarz
Course: Language and Digital Media (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof. Kira Hall
LURA 2020

Our paper, which we wrote for Prof. Kira Hall’s “Language and Digital Media” class, looked into the different ways people correct themselves in text messages. Language is a collaborative medium, and therefore mutual comprehensibility is vital for a successful conversation. This means that, during a conversation, we must occasionally fix a word or a sound that comes out wrong; this is known by conversation analysts as “self-repair.” Additionally, self-repair is defined as happening before the end of one’s conversational turn (i.e., before another speaker responds). The reason we engage in self-repair is to ensure that everyone in a conversation receives all the information that we intended to convey.

In our paper, we argued that text message corrections are a written equivalent to self-repair in speech, and thus serve several functions, including mutual comprehensibility. When utilizing self-repair in both written and spoken language, people adapt corrections to fit the social context and perceived severity of the miscommunication. From analyzing our data, we found five types of repair following written mistakes. Our paper focuses on three of these: standard correction, no correction, and other-initiated correction. We argued that people participate in text message self-repair through the use of asterisks in a way that approximates principles of face-to-face self-repair. This is exemplified by the exchange below, which we analyzed in our essay.

This exchange highlights the role played by self-repair in establishing mutual comprehensibility. It demonstrates two different types of text message self-repair, one with an asterisk and one without, and the reactions they cause. The first correction, initiated by Speaker 1 (left text), is a model example of a standard correction because the mistyped “aging” was corrected to “Again” in the succeeding text with an asterisk. The second correction, which is also a standard correction, occurs after Speaker 2 (right text) types “Play cool” instead of “Okay cool” and subsequently corrects herself without an asterisk (“Okay”). However, this instance of self-repair is not understood, causing confusion for both parties. Speaker 2 misjudged the incomprehensibility of her typo and didn’t realize that the omission of an asterisk would lead to her correction being interpreted as an independent turn. That is, Speaker 1 interpreted “Okay” as a reply to “Um yup” instead of as a self-repair, leading to conversational breakdown (“Am I dumb or ???”). Earlier, Speaker 1’s mistake was corrected within the conversational turn, which made the correction clear.

The concept of turn-taking helps explain why the second correction in the above example caused such a rift in intersubjectivity. The utterance was perceived as completed by Speaker 1 but not by Speaker 2, and thus the correction was not interpreted as self-repair by Speaker 1. Luckily, because language is collaborative, the two participants were able to work together to figure out what went wrong in their discussion, and mutual comprehension was restored.

After analyzing a large amount of data like this one, we concluded that text-message self-repair is a dynamic, developed aspect of text-based communication that generally approximates principles of face-to-face self-repair. By using asterisks, adding commentary to a mistake, or forgoing correction altogether even when a mistake is present, people adapt their self-repair to fit the social context and perceived severity of the miscommunication in order to ensure mutual comprehensibility.

The use of the symbol * for repair purposes is unique to online discourse, and its origin is extraordinarily difficult to trace. This new morpheme, however, provides further evidence that language is ever evolving. With the rise of the internet came a new medium that supports creative adaptations of already-existing language features. In this case, we see the creative digital adaptation of an important aspect of spoken communication, self-repair. This uniquely human tendency to use language in creative ways, seen even in the way texters correct their text messages, is a primary driver of language evolution.

Off

Traditional

White

Who, Meme?

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 18:44:30 +0000

Who, Meme? Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 12:44

The success of an original meme depends on how it performs identity.

By: Mae Cosgrove
Course: Language and Digital Media (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof. Kira Hall
LURA 2020

Today, original memes are not only easy to create, but also shared among people within their various communities of practice as a means of identity performance. I was interested to see how this was executed and the factors that were involved in successful memes. I examined a collection of memes created by CU Boulder Rowers and shared within a GroupMe chat. Through this study, I found that by associating oneself with an in-group through unspoken indexicality, a meme is more likely to be successful and create group social bonding, thus perpetuating the participatory culture of memes.

According to Gretchen McCulloch (2019), author of Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language, internet culture yields memes as participatory media, meaning that they have become an integral part of our means of digital communication. The sharing and recontextualization of original memes is a compulsory practice for those involved in the chat, set forth by unspoken social rules and media ideologies of the group chat. As these memes are shared, they become a part of the viewers’ communicative repertoires, meaning that the meme becomes something like a lexical item, a vocabulary word that can then be recontextualized, remediated, and used or understood in different situations. This contributes to the act of “remixing,” which is a crucial practice of successful memes according to Knobel and Lankshear (2007).

Additionally, Crispin Thurlow and Adam Jaworski (2011) discuss the idea of stancetaking, which “entails the various ways people position themselves with respect to the things other people say or do.” We often see this in the exchange of memes as a form of communication. The meme will communicate the position held by the sender and therefore place them into whatever social category is deemed appropriate by that person’s social affiliates. This may be explicit (overt) or implicit (covert). Thurlow and Jaworski view stancetaking as an evaluation of whether something may be desirable or undesirable. In other words, we use stancetaking as a way to index “good” or “bad” qualities about ourselves and others. Elitist stancetaking, in particular, is when a claim of distinction and superiority is made. So now, it is not only a vague position that is being posited, but also an assertion that someone or something possesses qualities that are inherently better or best. Stancetaking occurs within all social interactions, and elitist stancetaking over digital discourse is an inevitable byproduct, as memes become a more prominent means of communication.

In my study, I found that identity performance relies more on how something is memed rather than what is memed, which is to say that those features which are indexed (implied) carry more weight than those that are overtly stated. It was found that the action of overtly presenting oneself through a meme is indexical of an attention seeker, reminiscent of giving themselves a pat on the back (as see in Figure 1). However, if done covertly and cleverly enough, meme-ing oneself as a demonstration of team unity and social bonding can yield positive responses (as seen in Figure 2). This can be seen through the disparity of “likes” between Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1 Figure 2

The element of remediation is an important aspect of layering humor within meme culture, along with the overt/covertness of the presentation of self within the memes. Those which were remediated from well-known pop culture references proved to be more successful than mere random images. The references that are remediated into successful memes must have multiple usages and be able to be reapplied to new contexts, as seen in Figure 2. Knobel and Lankshear (2007) associate rich intertextuality with the success of popular internet memes, stating that the “layering of cross-references appears to help the fecundity of a meme by encouraging subsequent photoshoppers to make their own engaging cross-cultural references that add layers of meaning for ‘those in the know’ to an already humorous contribution.”

Off

Traditional

White

Who? They and Them

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 18:35:25 +0000

Who? They and Them Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 08/21/2020 - 12:35

The popularity of the singular usage of the pronouns “they/them” has become increasingly prevalent in today’s society, what does this mean?

By: Evi Judge
Course: Language in US Society (Ling 1000)
Advisor: Prof. Chase Raymond
TA: Olivia Hirschey Marrese
LURA 2020

Pronouns, or the words we use to replace nouns and noun phrases in everyday speech, have become a controversial topic in recent years. Namely, the debate over whether or not to accept “they/them” as a gender-neutral singular referent. A referent is a word that refers back to a person, object, or idea. In the case of “they/them,” the pronoun refers to a person, and the current question is whether or not the pronoun should be used for a singular person or only kept in reference for multiple people. The issue is one of linguistic grammaticality—the way everyday people speak —versus prescriptive grammaticality—the way people should use language.

It appears that the linguistically grammatical form of the pronouns has won: In September 2019, Merriam-Webster declared that “they/them” would once again serve as a singular pronoun (Trammell, 2019). Once again? “They/them” has been popular throughout the centuries in its singular form. Dating back to the 17th century, the singular form of the pronoun is not a new concept (Balhorn 2016, pp. 82). In politics, healthcare, and society as a whole, the pronoun “they” has become more and more ubiquitous—its prevalence should not be a surprise to anyone going forward.

From college campuses to political debates, “they/them” has made an appearance. Some colleges such as the University of Michigan and the 91��Ƭ��AV have provided students with the option of declaring what pronouns they would like to go by (Bever, 2019). One UM student asked to be referred to as “his majesty”—this was a gross misuse of the college’s intention. By ridiculing pronouns, a person ridicules an entire population. Mockery of pronoun choice is not limited to college campuses: in one 2019 presidential debate, candidates emerged on stage announcing their pronouns. Senator Kamala Harris stated that her pronouns are “she, her, and hers”—in response, CNN host, Chris Cuomo, joked that his pronouns were the same as Senator Harris’s (Wegmann, 2019). Cuomo later issued a public apology via Twitter. The fact that Cuomo issued a public apology for joking about “they/them” marks a turning point in current society’s attitude towards gender identity.

The current usage of these pronouns has not come without its fair share of confusion of how to proceed in the medical field. Medicine, historically, has been more concerned with binary sex and lesser so gender identity. The concern with biological sex results from different sexes requiring different treatments. Nevertheless, if medical professionals neglect to acknowledge a patient’s choice of identity, patient-doctor mistrust may impede treatment. Awareness of this potential mistrust has prompted hospitals to encourage doctors to open a dialogue with their patients, and additionally, some electronic health records now have the option to store both the patient’s sex assigned at birth and preferred gender identity (Arndt, 2018). As society progresses, the field of medicine must also adapt to remain inclusive of all of its patients.

Language is a tool that people use to represent themselves. Progressive shifts in language help us to accept the so-called “subgroups” in society. As of the current day, pronouns are a muddy topic for politics and healthcare alike, but as people work towards a more inclusive society, these questions should subside. The usage of the singular form of “they/them” is not just a question of prescriptive grammar—rather, it is a question of societal acknowledgement of a group of people.

Off

Traditional

White

The Game of Presidents: How We Understand Politics Through Sports Metaphors

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 04:25:37 +0000

The Game of Presidents: How We Understand Politics Through Sports Metaphors Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/20/2020 - 22:25

Sports metaphors help politicians appeal to everyday people.

By: Hannah Hawkins & Taylor Salazar
Course: Language & Politics (Ling 3800)
Advisor: Prof. Adam Hodges
LURA 2020

There are millions of people in the world that do not follow politics. However, with the use of sports metaphors, it becomes easier to comprehend the topics and issues being discussed in politics. For those people, connecting something that is less understood -- politics -- with something that is more understood -- sports -- makes the ideas easier to grasp.

Following Lakoff and Johnson (1980), Santa Ana (1999) explains that “a metaphor is a conceptual mapping from one semantic source domain to a different semantic target domain. The source domains are often those things humans can easily think about and the parts of our physical world which are handy and familiar. The target domains are most frequently conceptual ones, hidden from our senses or otherwise unknown to us” (p. 194). Thus, conceptually mapping sports into the realm of politics creates powerful metaphors that allow for the comprehension of complex political topics in terms of more familiar sports topics.

Expressing ideas in terms of sports is so routine in the highest levels of government that even those who do not follow sports are familiar with the language of sports. Drawing from the domain of sports is a very powerful strategy that politicians use, as sports of any kind are largely followed around the world. This allows a politician to appeal to the general public in an attempt to make them seem like the everyday average person. This ultimately can help politicians and political parties gain a greater follower and voter base. They are not only appealing to the people who understand politics but also the people who understand sports and how they work. In our research, developed for Prof. Hodges course Language & Politics, we pulled from presidential speeches and news articles to analyze the metaphors and their functions from the sports president himself: Barack Obama.

Take, for example, this quote from NPR's “Morning Edition” interview between Barack Obama and Steve Inskeep:

"Or, if you want to stick to baseball, that a lot of what you want to do is to advance the ball on human rights, advance the ball on national security, advance the ball on energy independence, to put the ball in play," he said (Inskeep, 2014).

When Obama speaks about national security, human rights, and energy independence, he uses baseball (and football) as a metaphor. Since the target domain is the domain we try to understand through the use of the source domain, then we can say the target domain is the politics surrounding foreign affairs and international relations while the source domain is the sport of baseball (and football).

President Obama frequently used sports metaphors to explain the foreign policy and international relations going on at the time. Even at the end of his Presidency, he “handed off” the presidency to (then) recently Elected President Trump through the use of track and field terms to create one last metaphor:

“I have said before, I think of this job as being a relay runner—you take the baton, you run your best race, and hopefully, by the time you hand it off you’re a little further ahead, you’ve made a little progress. And I can say that we’ve done that, and I want to make sure that handoff is well-executed, because ultimately we’re all on the same team.” (Roberts, 2016)

Obama utilizes the track terms (“relay runner,” “baton,” “race,” and “handoff”) to refer to different aspects of the presidency and the new presidency that had just begun in 2016. It is implied that the “relay runner” is Obama himself, though the term also serves to include past “relay runners” (that is, past presidents).The “baton,” or the presidency, is then handed off, as is implied through the function of a track relay race, to a new “relay runner” (president) which was Trump at that time. This use of track terms adds positivity to the outlook of all future presidencies and the realm of politics; it helps the audience to understand that the citizens of the nation have the power in unity to continue to improve and make progress, as one does in a race, towards a better society and a better nation.

While former President Obama was known to use the most sports metaphors throughout our nation’s history of 45 presidents, plenty more have also used sports metaphors in the political realm. There was George W. Bush before Obama who, though not as diverse in his use of terms from different sports, often used baseball metaphors when speaking about Supreme Court judges as “baseball umpires” who call the “pitches”. Before him was Reagan, who was described by Matt Latimer, former speechwriter for President Bush, as a “sports announcer” (Curtis, 2015), and before Reagan there was Nixon and Roosevelt and so forth. It is also to be noted that it is not just U.S. presidents who often use sports metaphors in reference to political topics, but politicians from other countries such as Canada, who often use Hockey terms, and even Australian politicians, who use boxing terms.

It seems that the use of sports terms in politics has occurred since the start of popular sports such as baseball, football, basketball, track, boxing, hockey, etc., and will continue to be used by politicians. Not only do metaphors help the general public understand politics but they attribute a quality of patriotism and unity among the citizens of their nation. Sports metaphors give people the sense of being part of a team of players within the political realm; a sense of agency in their political system, possibly as the coaches of the “National team”; and a positive image of the political system as a game they can easily grasp and control.

Opening photo credit: http://theathletewithinyou.com/sports-metaphors-language-of-business/

Off

Traditional

White