Linguistic practice on contemporary Jordanian radio: publics and participation

Contemporary studies of media Arabic often pass over issues of media form and the broader relevance of language use. The present thesis addresses these issues directly by examining the language used in Jordanian non-government radio programmes. It examines recordings and transcriptions of a range of programme genres – primarily, morning talk shows and “service programmes” (barāmiž ḳadamātiyya), and Islamic advice programmes, both of which feature significant audience input via call-ins. The data are examined through an interpretive form of discourse analysis, drawing on linguistic anthropological theory that analyses language as a form of performance, through comparison of radio programmes as ‘units of interaction.’ This is supported by sociolinguistic data obtained from the recordings, including phoneme frequency analysis, in addition to the author’s experience of 6 months of fieldwork in Jordan in 2014-15. The analysis focuses on four major themes: (1) the influence of media context, specifically the sonic exclusivity and temporal evanescence of radio, on language use, as well as the impact of digital media; (2) the indexicality of certain locally salient sociolinguistic variables, and the use to which they are put in radio talk; (3) the role of language in constructing the identity, or persona, of broadcasters; and (4) the role of language in constructing and validating authoritative discourse, in particular that of Islamic texts and scripture in religious programming. Through its analysis of these themes, using selected recording excerpts as demonstrative case studies, this thesis shows that specific strategies of Arabic use in the radio setting crucially affect both the publics – the addressed audiences – of radio talk, as well as the frameworks of participation in this talk – how and to what extent broadcasters and members of the public can participate in mediated discourse. The results demonstrate the unique value of an interpretive study of linguistic performance for highlighting broader social issues, including the inclusion and exclusion of particular segments of the society through linguistic strategies – Jordanians versus non-Jordanians, Ammanis versus non-Ammanis, and pious Muslims versus non-believers; and the use of language to reassert, or occasionally challenge, dominant ideologies and discourses, such as those of gender, nationalism, and religion. This study thus contributes an examination of contemporary Jordanian non-government radio language in its social and political context – something which has not been attempted before, and which provides important insights regarding both the nature of contemporary Arabic media language and its broader social and cultural import

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

Negotiating ludic normativity in Facebook meme pages

Title: Negotiating ludic normativity in Facebook meme pages Author: Ondřej Procházka Affiliation: Department of Culture Studies, Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences This thesis explores the capacity of Internet memes to inflect social realities in the communities organized around them on social media, particularly Facebook. Memes are not mere playful ‘jokes’ or ‘parodies’ spreading virally on the Internet in countless variations, they are also powerful tools for political investment aimed to sway public attention and opinions. Memes have been increasingly documented as a vital component in the unprecedented spread and ‘normalization’ of hateful sentiments and ideologies characterized by ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ politics appealing to emotions rather than ‘facts’ in the digital mainstream. Based on author’s more than five-year observation of communities around Countryball memes, this work argues that much of the socio-cultural and communicative dynamics involving memes can be understood in terms of ludic play. The object of the study – Countryballs memes – are simple meme-comics featuring ball-shaped creatures in colors denoting nation-states while satirically reinventing international ‘drama’ through the prism of socio-cultural and linguistic stereotypes. Having become a household name among memes, Countryballs offer communicative resources to playfully engage not only with wider socio-political issues, but also to with the linguistic, semiotic and ideological boundaries of our communicative norms shaped by the affordances of social media. The present work demonstrates how play can be used as a useful concept for understanding not only how matters of public attention are packed, framed and transmitted in the digital culture via (Countryball) memes, but more importantly how such matters are in fact interpreted by those who engage with them. More specifically, it shows how play enables alternative modes of expression and meaning making with different normative patterns and preferences which stand outside ‘standard’, ‘rational’ or ‘civil’ expectations. And it is precisely ludic play that fosters different types of communication and sociality which are often done ‘just for fun’, however serious or offensive their effects may be. To identify these effects and their implications in the contemporary digital age, the thesis employs a discourse-analytical methodology informed by current advances in digital ethnography and sociolinguistics. It focuses on negotiations among participants in memetic communities about what counts as ‘appropriate’, ‘acceptable’ or ‘correct’ in their socio-communicative behavior. Together in four case studies, the present work provides a comprehensive account of how participants articulate, police, break and re-construct ludic normativity in connection with recent socio-political issues and digital culture at large. This includes the role of memes in the newly emerging forms of communication, in the rise of populism and nationalism, algorithmic manipulation and exploitation, curating digital content and more. The concept of play is continually revisited throughout the discussion against the developments in the scholarship on Internet memes and their ludic genealogy. In doing so, the thesis also revisits some of the traditional concepts such as the notion of ‘community’ and ‘communicative competence’ to arrive at more precise accounts of the concrete processes of globalization and digitalization in our societies and their effects

Learning words and learning sounds : Advances in language development

Phonological development is sometimes seen as a process of learning sounds, or forming phonological categories, and then combining sounds to build words, with the evidence taken largely from studies demonstrating ‘perceptual narrowing’ in infant speech perception over the first year of life. In contrast, studies of early word production have long provided evidence that holistic word learning may precede the formation of phonological categories. In that account, children begin by matching their existing vocal patterns to adult words, with knowledge of the phonological system emerging from the network of related word forms. Here I review evidence from production and then consider how the implicit and explicit learning mechanisms assumed by the complementary memory systems model might be understood as reconciling the two approaches

The Call of the Wild Geese: An Ethnography of Diasporic Irish Language Revitalization in Southern and Eastern Ontario

This research examines the ideological and social dynamics that govern the use of the Irish language by a network of speakers and learners in Southern and Eastern Ontario. In what follows, I investigate the invocation of powerful historical discourses and symbolic references that has resulted in the creation of a vibrant network dedicated to reviving Irish in a diasporic setting through immersion. Using Irish at language immersion events is informed by diverse factors – levels of participant fluency, the prevalence of language-specific acquisition and socialization strategies, as well as by the need of attendees to talk about their stories and identities. While the institutional goals of using Irish wherever possible is relatively straightforward, this research explores the complicated ideological landscape that informs the language choices that individuals make in their negotiation of these events in order to highlight factors that complicate the goal of language revitalization by a community in diaspora