Response to Baron's Final Chapter

I find it easy to agree with Baron on many of her points especially those that concern the interaction between people and their new media devices. I agree firmly with Baron that new media devices do not necessarily cause people to become lonely or distracted by themselves, but that technology must be understood within a larger cultural context. Baron shows how there is evidence that Americans (in general) have been showing a trend towards personal isolationism for longer than computers and cell phones have been around. Furthermore, I am inclined to believe Baron's assertions that new media technologies are so "new" that as a society we do not yet know how to live with them responsibly. I believe that in many cases the novelty of new media technologies will wear off as Baron suggests, but at the same time, new media companies will continue to "innovate" in order to keep things fresh. I find it quite odd that technologically text-messaging is more primitive than voice-to-voice communication, yet as a medium it has been marketed as the newest innovation and has become quite popular.

I'm extremely interested in the cognitive and power aspects of new media technologies, but I don't necessarily agree that the social and personal consequences of new media technologies are as prevalent as they could be. I think that there is a certain amount of narcicissm that is emphasized by new media technologies, but mostly this is practiced by younger individuals who tend to be more narcicistic anyway. I don't think cell phones or email makes us more lonely or more detached but it does give people an excuse to avoid social situations that they are already uncomfortable with. I don't even believe that there is a change in the manners people display when using cell phones or other devices. People that interrupt you with a cell phone call, or cut off a conversation with a real person in order to chat with someone electronically obviously doesn't seem to think what they are doing is rude. I think it is our responsibility as a society, however, to ensure that addiction to new media devices is limited, especially when it is geared towards children.

I think it is important to recognize the cognitive aspect of this technology, and while it may allow us to achieve things that we could not do before or achieve things faster, we must examine how these technologies affect our entire lives. In this way I think it is important to look at issues of power and control when it comes to these devices. Who is on the other end? Do we really want our employers to be able to contact us at all times so that we live in a system of total work? I think that the blur between personal and business when it comes to new media technologies is troubling. It's also important to realize that the companies who are making these new products are purposefully trying to find something that will hook us on their product so that they can make more money. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this system, we need to be aware of our own inclinations when it comes to new media technologies.

Basically new media technologies themselves are not destroying our culture or causing us to be more isolated or fragmented socially, but they are constantly changing and therefore we have to also constantly examine their roles in our lives and how best to utilize them.

A couple observations from the Football game

While I was preoccupied at the time, mostly by heart-rending despair after yesterday's football game, I thought of a few interesting examples of new media usage that happened to me during the game.

I often question the importance of new-media technology, and personally I'm not the biggest fan of the technology -- especially cell phones, but there are times when I wonder how I would ever accomplish things without them.

I was working at a concession stand earlier in the morning and I was supposed to meet my parents and my sister at their friends' tailgate party. Since I did not go with them I had no idea where the tailgate was located, until my sister texted me with the location: "between 11 and 15." It seemed natural at the time, but how long would it have taken me to find them if I had not been able to receive such a simple text-message or even a mobile phone call? My sister or my parents would have had to come and get me and then walk back over to the tailgate. I guess convenience is something we often take for granted when approaching the negatives of certain new media technologies.

The second instance was while I was in the stands and noticed that one of my friends had not made it to the game. I decided to call him (a ridiculously stupid idea as the game had started so everyone was yelling for the defense). I reached him, but obviously I couldn't hear him at all, so my friend just "texted" him instead. I was almost embarrased that I hadn't thought of the same thing before I attempted to make an impractical call. Texting just isn't really part of my normal communicative routine, so it's usually a second option for me.

The last thing that happened was kind of funny. I always complain to my parents and their friends that nobody outside of the student section stand up or yells during the game so that the majority of our fans just resort to "golf-clapping" when something good happens. To prove me wrong I got a text from my mom during overtime that said "We re cheering!!" I laughed because she was obviously texting instead of cheering, but it was funny to receive a message so spontaneously from someone who doesn't really text that much.

Project Idea

The main purpose of my project is to examine how specific instances of slang arise and how individual communities of practice can affect this process. I am interested in the subtle differences in slang that arise between groups of friends and people who generally live together. I am focusing specifically on male dormitories because of ease of access for me as a researcher. I want to see how certain slang phrases or words gain and lose popularity, and examine the origins of specific slang as it is used within the dorm community.
In order to achieve this goal, I will be interviewing residents from two male residence halls on campus in close proximity to each other (O’Neill Hall and Keough Hall) to see what sort of slang they recognize as “theirs.” I will see if there are differences based on floor, or hall location, or by dorm and if there are any common phrases between both groups. I will also ask about slang that is used for particular instances such as slang related only to eating, or dating, etc.
This project on slang fits the overall class topic because it shows how communities create identity through language interaction. Also the creation of slang often involves a conscious use of word-play to create humor or rapport. This combination of personal creativity and group adoption is what really interests me.
Sources that I am looking at include articles that we have read on language as social identity. I am still in the process of looking for specific articles on slang. I am thinking about looking at the article by Mary Bucholtz from last year about superstandard English.

Any comments on how I could streamline this topic would great? I'm very interested in the interaction between personal creativity and group cohesion.

Analysis of an Article from Manilla

Using Fairclough's methods I decided to analyze a news article from The Manilla Times to see how similar the style of reporting is to the news that we are exposed to here. The article entitled "Problems With Tainted Milk May Persist" by Sammy Martin reports on the impact in the Phillipines that the Chinese milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine has had.

http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/oct/08/yehey/top_stories/20081008top4.html

The article is mostly concerned with the procedures that are followed by the Phillipine's Bureau of Food and Drugs, claiming that they are not stringent enough to protect the country from incidents such as the industrially tainted milk. It goes on to explain how punishment will be handled for stores that are found to be breaking the ban on melamine-tainted Chinese import goods.

Breaking down this article with Fairclough's terms:

The text as it is a newspaper article would be considered a written non-spoken text.

Fairclough's idea of representation is seen in the information that is either included or excluded from the article. This article does not favorably represent the Chinese because it includes mentions of sickness caused in China while excluding information regarding any cases of illness that have been specifically reported in the Phillipines:
"Melamine, an industrial chemical that can cause kidney failure in humans, was blamed for causing the death of at least four infants in China and making ill more than 50,000 other children." This phrase excludes the location of the 50,000...it could be 50,000 worldwide or in China...
Another example includes a phrase that seems a bit out of place when read in the article as it mentions previous problems with Chinese products:
"Previously, Chinese-made candies were found to contain formaldehyde and Chinese-made toys were also found to have high lead content." This article mostly focuses on the problems that have come out of importing Chinese goods.

Obviously since there are restrictions to the size and scope of newspaper articles there are many presuppositions that this article makes. The first presupposition that this article makes is that China is primarily to blame for what is referred to as "The melamine scare," however it is not the Bureau of Food and Drugs is also blamed and the presupposition is that the government does not do enough to protect the general public. It also presupposes that the audience already knows a bit about the "melamine scare" because it only offers a few tidbits of information about the "scientific" nature of melamine. Some obvious presuppositions are that melamine and unregulated food are considered bad, and that regulation by the governement in this area is necessary.

An interesting difference that I noted in this article that might differ from news in the US is the presence of some items that would most likely be excluded in our print media. This article specifically notes two stores that were known to sell the tainted milk and gives their exact or near exact locations within Manilla. In our media the news might specifically name the stores but I doubt they would give a general address to the place.

The foregrounded element of this article is Bureau of Food and Drugs and its practices, while the sellers in the Phillipines and the Chinese milk manufacturers are backgrounded a bit. The mentioning of "civilians" is noticeably absent in this article. There are no opinions from the common person as is frequent in our news media. There are quotes from representatives in the government, however.

Events and Actions are both used in this article but actions seem more prevalent. A lot of the actors in the actions are nominalizations, however. The "melamine scare" is nominalized and most notably the term "the bureau" is used instead of putting blame on any individual supervisors within the Bureau of Food and Drugs.

I found it difficult to discuss a lot of these things without overlapping a lot, but hopefully the main idea of this article was conveyed well enough. Fairclough's ideas make for an interesting analysis, and I didn't really notice that many differences in this article from our own newspapers. Perhaps one major difference was that government officials actually offered quotes about how they were wrong about something (I feel like this is rare in our media ;) ):

"'Melamine is used for making plastics, we didn’t expect it to be part of ingredients of food products,' Cirunay [chief of the Product Services Division of the Bureau of Food and Drugs" said."

Political Speech

The English language, according to Orwell, is used to hide meaning or to prevent actual thought. This is especially true in political language where euphemisms are thrown about endlessly to conjure up prerendered political images of either fear or patriotism.

As I was looking through the different presidential campaign websites (including the third-party sites) I picked an example that I could analzye further using Orwell's criteria for bad English. My choice does not reflect any political leaning, so don't read too much into this analysis politically.

The speech I chose was given by John McCain on Sept. 24 in Freeland, Michigan.
"Remarks by John McCain in Michigan"
http://http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/Speeches/f1c65918-422e-48d3-9e37-50120a9bb5c5.htm

1) The first rule to break involves the use of tired cliches and metaphors. Political speech in general is riddled with this type of language. Here are a few examples from this speech:
a) "the perfect economic storm." - the phrase "perfect storm" has been used so much that it has lost all meaning. Furthermore, it is an attempt to create fear through political imagery.
b) " black hole of bad debt," - while not terribly overused, this phrase in context is not very meaningful. Money paid to the governments is going to go somewhere; it will not disapear into oblivion as the phrase suggests. This phrase creates fear again by implying that taxpayer money will simply vanish.
c) "History will be our judge," - I can't tell you how many times I have heard phrase. This is also phrased as a threat, suggesting that we take action responsibly for future generations.

2)Operators or verbal false limbs allow for the quick substitution of pre-made phrases for more exact, descriptive words.
a) "directly contributed to..."
b) "We are talking about..."
There were actually very few examples in this speech, because the tone of the speech was action. Passive phrases do not really help this cause. The above two examples, however, seem like filler.

3) Pretentious diction is often used to strengthen an argument by injecting it with intellectual clout. I find in the "new" style of American politics that tends to reach out the "common" person, that prenentious words are limited. Here are a few examples anyway:
a) "transparency"
b) "unprecedented" : probably on the top ten list of most used political words. In fact it was used three times in this short speech alone!
c) "outrageous"
d) "dimensions" : according to Orwell, probably used to give the phrase a "scientific" authority.

4) Meaningless words act as filler within political speeches and often times they are part of the above mentioned cliches.
a) "could rebuild the crumbling infrastructure in every town, county, and state in this country." The word crumbling here is meaningless because it doesn't specifically describe the problem that the infrastructure faces. It is an "invisible" disaster.
b) "there must be greater accountability included in the bill." 'Accountability' is another often used political word that at the very least is ambiguous. Who exactly is being held accountable? What are the consequences?

This was a short speech, so there were limited examples of Orwell's rules, but enough existed to illustrate Orwell's point about political speech. Whether or not you agree with Orwell's conclusions about the decay of the English language, it is interesting to actively pursue the peculiarities of political rhetoric.

Humor and You

Reading about speech play made me realize how often we take for granted the absurdities that arise when we try to communicate with each other. The idea that a single utterance can have hundreds or perhaps even thousands of meanings simply boggles my mind. When you stop and think about it, however, every thing we say involves some mental grasping and some imagination. Since language is a symbolic system, we can't help but give different meanings to things, and often this is where speech play comes to play (so to speak).

Obviously humor is central to the idea of speech play, and much like the meanings of words, humor itself can be interpreted differently. There are the things that are intentionally funny and then there are the times when we say or hear something that was never meant to be funny. Comedy is fascinating because of the issue of aspect. What is funny to one person is not funny to everyone because the symbolic meaning of the joke could have no context in one person's life. I watched a lot of comics this week in preparation for this post (and also because I tend to that in my spare time anyway) and I figured I would post a couple of things and analyze them a bit.

The first video I looked at was from Jim Gaffigan, one of my favorite comedians:

His humor is based around the idea of taboo. By taboo I don't mean that his jokes are necessarily dirty, or about "classically" taboo subjects, but his humor comes from saying things we just wouldn't normally say. By pointing out the absurdity of using one phrase to symbolically suggest one thing instead of another, he gets the audience to understand the sometimes arbitrary rules of meaning in our language. A good example of this is from the very beginning of the video: "If you eat a whole pizza you say, 'Wow. You were hungry." If you eat a whole cake people are like, 'You got a problem.'"

My second example of humor is one that shows how important personal aspect is to meaning. If you were at the game on Saturday standing near a Wolverine fan (God help them), you probably noticed that this next event probably didn't make them smile (I'm sure the score didn't help either).


This wasn't the exact pun that Officer Tim McCarthy used this week (I believe it was something like "When it is wet outside it is important for the driver to remain dry"), but few things can get a Notre Dame student section going like a good/horrible pun about safe driving. If thousands of raucous, inebriated students shushing each other to hear a public service announcement about the perils of alcohol isn't funny, I don't know what is. And that is why personal aspect is so vital to meaning, and imperative when approaching everything from a conversation to a simple knock knock joke.

Embedding

This certainly has been an eventful week, and everytime I think I'm starting to understand this blogging thing something strange happens. Like posting to my original blog instead of this one and then losing it all (again). So a bit belated, but here are the posts I've composed about speech play and humor in general.

For anyone that is interested here is a video on Youtube about how to embed Youtube videos on your blog. The only difference is that the "embed" box is on the right instead of on the bottom like in the video. Hope this helps.

Speech Events in Football

Watching football on tv, for someone with a slight to medium grasp of the English language, can sometimes be a painful experience. Commentators are usually a combination of verbose "old-school" journalists and barely literate ex-players who have taken one too many shots to the head. Needless to say the favorite code used by commentators (as Hymes describes it) are cliches. "Football speak" is full of them. It is literally impossible to watch a televised football game without hearing a multitude of horrible similies and metaphors. It's almost as if the speakers do not recognize the linguistic context of the situation. We as the audience are in a position of power because we do not just hear the commentators like we would if the game were only broadcast on radio, but rather we see the action first hand and are able to judge the commentators based on how well they tell us about what we are already watching. It sounds kind of ridiculous. Football commentary is, therefore, primarily referential, but I can't help but feeling that the commentators are really trying to build rapport with the audience, creating some sort of false phatic communion.