Abstracts
Abstract
Research on reflexivity in communication has shown that speakers leverage a range of semiotic strategies to segment and characterize linguistic variability. My work explores how entextualization and intertextuality play key roles in dialogically managing interpretations of sociophonetic variability (cf. Schilling-Estes 1998). I examine how speakers “voice” and comment on vocalic variation by employing interrelated modes of metapragmatic typification, including eye-dialect spelling, (explicit) metapragmatic discourse, constructed dialogue (Tannen 1989), and parodic double-voicing (Bakhtin 1981; Sclafani 2009). These strategies prove indispensable to the metapragmatic framing of phono-indexicals because most phonetic features in speech become objects of metasemiotic activity by virtue of their realization in specific words and salient texts, which in turn serve as sign vehicles for vocalic variables and other “semiotic hitchhikers” (Mendoza-Denton 2011). Accordingly, our capacity to reflexively model the pragmatics of sociophonotic variables derives in large part from our ability to segment and evaluate the more metalinguistically-available structures in which these phono-indexicals occur.
The case of /aw/ monophthongization in the speech of many young black women and men in Houston, Texas supports this position. Drawing on five years of ethnographic research at a public radio station in Houston, I consider how this pronunciation feature becomes tethered indexically to contested formulations of authenticity and indigineity by virtue of its occurrence in a locally-salient idiom, COMIN’ DINE ([kʌmn dãːn] “coming down”). This idiom has become an enregistered emblem of a street-savvy “gangsta” persona in the popular music of Houston-based hip hop cultures. In this music, recontextualized across globally-circulating media, the expression of COMIN’ DINE puts sociophonetic variation on display, rendering it available for metasemiotic negotiation through “Bakhtinian voicing” (Jaffe 2009).
Résumé
Les travaux portant sur la réflexivité en communication ont montré que les locuteurs font appel à une série de stratégies sémiotiques pour segmenter et décrire la variabilité linguistique. Ma recherche consiste à explorer le rôle dominant joué par la mise en texte et l’intertextualité dans l’interprétation dialogique de la variabilité socio-phonétique (cf. Schilling-Estes 1998). Au moyen de différentes stratégies de classification méta-pragmatiques (notamment l’usage d’orthographes non standards; les formes de discours méta-pragmatiques; le dialogue construit [Tannen 1989]; l’hétéroglossie parodique [Bakhtine 1981; Sclafani 2009]), j’examine l’énonciation de variations phonétiques et le commentaire métalinguistique des locuteurs à ce sujet. Ces stratégies se révèlent indispensables au cadrage méta-pragmatique des index phonétiques, car la plupart des traits phonétiques du langage peuvent se transformer en traits méta-sémiotiques dès lors qu’ils se manifestent dans des mots et des textes : ils deviennent alors des signes de variations phonétiques ou encore tiennent lieu d’autres “autostoppeurs sémiotiques” (semiotic hitchhikers au sens de Mendoza-Denton 2011). Par conséquent, notre aptitude à modeler de manière réflexive la pragmatique des variables socio-phonétiques du langage vient en grande partie de notre capacité à segmenter et à évaluer les environnements méta-linguistiques où se manifestent ces index phonétiques.
Le cas du monophtongue /aw/ dans le discours de beaucoup de jeunes gens de race noire à Houston (Texas) confirme cette hypothèse. Sur la base d’une recherche ethnographique conduite depuis cinq ans dans une station de radio publique, j’examine comment cette prononciation caractéristique est devenue un index d’authenticité locale, voire d’autochtonie, en vertu de sa présence dans un idiome propre à cette région : COMIN’ DINE ([kʌmn dãːn] “coming down”). Cet idiome est devenu un emblème reconnu du personnage “gangsta” de la musique populaire issue des cultures hip hop de Houston. Dans cette musique, maintenant re-contextualisée à l’échelle globale grâce à la circulation des média, l’expression COMIN’ DINE exhibe la variabilité socio-phonétique et l’ouvre à une négociation méta-sémiotique à travers le jeu d’une multiplicité de voix au sens bakhtinien (Jaffe 2009).
Appendices
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