Upload
scott-f-kiesling
View
577
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
Lecture given June 14, 2010 at the Edinburgh Summer School of Sociolinguistics
Citation preview
Indexical cycles?
Scott F. Kiesling
Renewed interest in meaning
• From ethnography to correlation and back (“third wave” variationist studies)
• Recent influences from linguistic anthropology and semiotics
• Appreciation of interaction, ethnography, metapragmatics/language ideologies
Meaning from two directions
Compositional meaning from the micro ‘real-time’ contextualisations and “fractional congruence” of utterances (Agha 2007)
Effects of metapragmatic discourse and ideologies on meaning and use of variants
Indexical cycle
The repurposing of variationist meanings, as such meanings become more visible in metapragmatic discourse, to the point that they then shift their meanings and become conventionalized for a new low-order indexicality.
For example: Stance →Identity →Stance
Examples
1.Louisiana
2.‘Dude’
3.Conventionalisation of indirection
4.High rising tone
5.Pittsburgh (aw)
Example 1: Lousiana
DuBois and Horvath (1999)
(ptk): non-aspiration of voiceless stops
(th), (dh): replacement of /θ/ and /ð/ with dental stops
(nas): heavy nasalisation
(ai): the monophthongisation of /ai/
Nasalisation by age & gender
(th),(dh) by age & gender
Cajun variants are recycled
Previously linked to a stigmatised Cajun identity that has become valuable, at least for men
‘Dude’ in American English
In mainstream AmE, ‘dude’ has had several cycles:
Referring: clothes
Referring: sharp-dressed (or overly dressed) man (but note incipient gender indexicality)
‘Dude’ in American English
In-group address term
Generalized address term indexing ‘cool solidarity’ stance and masculinity
Loss of masculine indexicality and use as simply a stance index
Similar to ‘man’
Conventionalisation of IndirectionArgument elaborated in Kiesling (2010)
‘Indirect’ strategies of different kinds (including the Gricean sort) are used repeatedly and become conventionalized
Stance (politeness) in English: Student identification of “Can you pass...” as direct
High rising tone (?)
McLemore (1990) See also Guy, Horvath, Vonwiller (1985)
Question →discourse function →gender → discourse function
Iconic aspects (diagrammatic icon)
Pittsburgh (aw)
Monophthongisation of (aw) in Pittsburgh is highly enregistered (recognisable in metapragmatic discourse)
But only for some, reflecting an orientation to metapragmatic status
Pittsburgh (aw)
Pittsburgh (aw)
Predictions for future trajectory:
Complete loss or relic status
Revitalization (as in Cajun): Already visible as ‘hip’ in some cases
Cycling will require a stance – irony?
Indexical cycles
Each example is different in specifics, but follow a general pattern
‘Sedimentation’ of old meanings, which fade but are related to the new meanings and give them their ‘topography’
Silverstein: spiral path
Relation to indexical order
Cycling reflects a constant renewing or indexicality and shift: n, n+1, n+1+1→m, m+1, etc.
In orders, indexicality is (relatively) constant, while the metapragmatics shift
In cycles, the value or indexicality shifts
Process that builds the indexical field
Other names for the term
indexical cycle
indexical cycles
indexical cycling
indexical recycling
indexical sedimentation
indexical effluvia
other suggestions??
Questions/comments
Many thanks to Barbara Johnstone and Michael Silverstein for important conversations about these topics, and to the members of the Social Meaning in Language (SMiLe) group at Pitt.