Linguistic varieties in style: Humorous representations in Greek mass culture texts

Archakis, Αrgiris; Tsakona, Villy; Tsami, Vasia

doi:10.1016/j.dcm.2014.01.001

Cited by 26 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The protagonists of the film are Lightning McQueen, a red race car which symbolises power and dynamism, and tow truck Mater, who is a na€ ıve villager and who always gets in trouble. From the stylistic analysis of the film , it was shown that, contrary to Lightning McQueen, who was a speaker of standard Modern Greek, Mater employed a Northern rural accent of Greek (in the original English version, he used a Southern North American English accent), which was stigmatised, connoting peasantness, lack of education and innocence, echoing similar representations of Greek Northern rural accent in other Greek media as well (Archakis, Lampropoulou, Tsakona, & Tsami, 2014;Kourdis, 2004). Specifically, Greek Northern rural accent was mediated through two major phonological phenomena, namely the shift of the stressless vowels /o/ and /e/ to /u/ and /i/, respectively (e.g.…”

Section: Sample Texts and Encoded Meaningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young children talk about their popular cartoon and TV heroes' speech styles: media reception and language attitudes

2015

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Considering the role of popular cultural texts in shaping sociolinguistic reality, it makes sense to explore how children actually receive those texts and what conceptualisations of sociolinguistic diversity they form through those texts. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine Greek young children's views on sociolinguistic diversity in popular cartoons and TV series. Drawing upon a framework of media reception, we explored how attention to the ways children at age six interpret mediated representations of sociolinguistic difference might provide a methodological addition to tools used for investigating language attitudes and ideologies. From the analysis of children's interviews, it was found that they can easily distinguish between different dimensions of sociolinguistic difference, showing an enhanced sociolinguistic awareness. On the other hand, their reading positions seemed to be in acceptance with the meanings conveyed in the texts. Moreover, our findings suggest that children tended to make hegemonic readings of popular cultural texts, premising many of their evaluations on the ways in which sociolinguistic diversity was represented in the text (e.g. plot, characterisation). The implications of these findings for the role of popular culture in the shaping of children's language attitudes are discussed.

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Section: Sample Texts and Encoded Meaningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Young children talk about their popular cartoon and TV heroes' speech styles: media reception and language attitudes

2015

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“…In the text above, it mimics Trump's harsh manner of speech and the contrast between high and low styles of public speech mocks typical features of presidential discourse and undermines the seriousness of the situation. The incongruity of stylistic resources produces stylistic/register humour (Archakis et al 2014(Archakis et al , 2015; see also Attardo 1994 in Section 4.1) and the president is characterised as communicatively incompetent (Archakis et al 2015) which, in turn, marks the criticism of Trump's extravagant behaviour in public.…”

Section: Borrowed Words: Allusions Fake Voices and Word Playmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humour and intertextuality in online spoof news

Shilikhina

2020

EJHR

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The paper discusses spoof news as a parody of the traditional genre of news and the role of intertextual references in the creation of the intended humorous or satirical effect. The study is based on the texts published by various online sources specialising in the production and spreading of spoof news. On the surface, the main aim of such non-bona fide pieces of news is not to misinform the readers, but rather to entertain them. However, along with entertainment, these texts also convey serious social implications. They implicitly undermine social norms and values and existing stereotypes about social roles and patterns of behaviour. The non-bona fide mode of such news can be signalled by a variety of intertextual references, e.g., fictional quotations, allusions to well-known texts, events or realia. The aim of the study is to demonstrate how these intertextual references create satirical effect and convey social criticism.

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“…However, the advertised products (mobile telephone applications) are represented as completely incompatible with the physical space in which the plot is set. Throughout the advertisement, the merging of geographical style with the styles of computing and mobile technology constitutes a central vehicle of stylistic humour and is represented as incongruous (see also Archakis et al 2014;Tsami et al 2014).…”

Section: Analysing Stylistic Humour In Mass Culture Textsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metapragmatic stereotypes and humour: interpreting and perceiving linguistic homogeneity in mass culture texts

Tsami

2020

EJHR

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The present study concentrates on the potential of mass culture texts to impose specific metapragmatic stereotypes (Agha 2007) through humour on the wider audience. Metapragmatic stereotypes constitute speakers’ internal models of how language should or should not be used; such models guide speakers’ own language use and enable them to make evaluations about their own language behaviour or that of others. In this context, I explore the dominant metapragmatic stereotypes for humorous mass culture texts’ interpretation and perception. To this end, I analyse a humorous Greek TV advertisement of a telecommunications company. Drawing upon Coupland’s (2007) conceptualization of style and the General Theory of Verbal Humour (Attardo 2001), I intend to show that humour reflects, sustains, and reproduces the dominant metapragmatic stereotypes of linguistic homogenization and monolingualism (Blommaert & Rampton 2011). Then, I explore how the audience perceives the representation of stylistic choices in mass culture texts and more specifically in the analysed advertisement. My informants were 96 students of the last two grades of elementary school. The recipients’ responses show that their metapragmatic stereotypes are aligned with the dominant ones: they approach stylistic choices as strictly-defined systems used in specific social contexts and they expect the alignment of TV fictional characters with linguistic homogeneity. My findings suggest that humour stigmatises specific styles as well as that the audience perceives the respective (and reinforced through humour) metapragmatic stereotypes as guidelines for “correct” stylistic use. Furthermore, it seems that through humour such stereotypes usually go unnoticed in mass culture texts and may even become naturalised, as they are framed in a “trivial” and “non-serious” manner.

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Linguistic varieties in style: Humorous representations in Greek mass culture texts

Cited by 26 publications

References 22 publications

Young children talk about their popular cartoon and TV heroes' speech styles: media reception and language attitudes

Young children talk about their popular cartoon and TV heroes' speech styles: media reception and language attitudes

Humour and intertextuality in online spoof news

Metapragmatic stereotypes and humour: interpreting and perceiving linguistic homogeneity in mass culture texts

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