The Semiotics of Osama bin Laden’s Death and The Internet Age

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It was incredible, and slightly surreal, to see not only just how fast news spread that Osama bin Laden had been killed in an attack by U.S forces, but also how fast people began analyzing what his death meant for the country as a whole, for the President’s term in office, and for the people who had lost family members during September 11th. The president’s address on the subject was streaming over the internet just minutes after the formal announcement; people had gathered not only in front of the White House, but also in communities elsewhere in the country to celebrate before the President had even delivered his speech; others had begun criticizing the revelers’ actions as uncouth, no matter how bad the man who had been killed, as soon as the news and response had popped up. By the time most people woke up the next day, they had heard what happened, either through their own investigations or because someone had called or texted them.

As fast as news was traveling to them, people were analyzing it for meaning, and in doing so, putting theories out on the internet about every conceivable topic related to Osama bin Laden’s death. His death came to stand for so many different things in so many different topics, and the technology that produced that also produced a very specific response, one that could only be imagined in the age of the internet.

One of the first things that people began discussing was the impact this would have on the 2012 Presidential election. At the time of this writing, there are almost 57,000 articles devoted to commenting, predicting, or satirizing the effect that Osama’s death might have on Obama’s chances in the next election, as reported on Google, all within the last 36 hours. Things like this are already old news on the internet:

In the wake of the never-ending financial crisis and the wars inherited from President Bush that had, for the previous part of Obama’s presidency, hung like an albatross around his neck, it was immediately recognized just what an accomplishment this was, finding Bin Laden. The task was pretty much a punchline to most of us. So, when the news came in, a wave of praise rose up for Obama, cartoons like that one, and the one here: http://www.collegehumor.com/picture/6498012/csi-obama The humor—and for those of us who have sided with Obama despite falling poll numbers, a slight sense of unflatteringly smug satisfaction (although that might just be me)—comes from the fact that this momentous thing happened during a time where birthers and now people who doubt Obama’s academic credentials are trying to discredit him left and right, all the while doing one of the things that people doubted would ever happen, under him or anyone else.

However, some people who may or may not have had a problem with Obama before criticized the ecstatic attribution of Osama’s discovery and death to Obama.
I’d say the real people to thank are the guys at the CIA who managed to figure out where Bin Laden was hiding. If all that was needed was some tough Navy Seals to jump in and kill him, he’d have been dead before September of 2001 was over. Finding him is the important part, and the CIA managed to pull that off. And really, organizing such a major investigation as that requires some careful management, so as the chief executive Obama did have a fairly important role to play besides “hey yeah you guys should go find him’. (AV Club, “Weekend Box Office: Osama is Dead! (And Some People Bought Tickets to See Furious Five)”)
Already reactions and counter-reactions have sprung up, and not just the pundits or the news anchors was weighing in to disseminate and comment upon the information, but everyone with an internet connection. Facebook newsfeeds were filled with status updates and notes about Osama’s death. The sentiments may not be all that different than what has been expressed about presidents in the past, but the method of expression is unique to the internet age.

To bring this back to a point of the reading we’ve done in the past semester, Tim Wu discusses in Chapter 21 just how the internet, being a fractured and democratic form of information technology, allows everyone not only to have an equal say, but to have a pretty equal chance of getting it out so that anyone else with an internet connection can hear them. “It cannot be denied that the Internet has ushered in a time of unprecedented diversity an ease of communication and commerce, a broadly available way of reaching millions of people. And each of those millions of networked parties can in turn claim the role of what was once called, with appropriate distinction, a ‘broadcaster’” (317). The internet provides whole new realms for discussion, where the inappropriate is de rigueur, and where someone’s immediate reaction can become a sensation that lives on, for future readers to discover and comment upon, in ways that cannot be achieved in a television, or book, or speech-dominated society. Everyone’s internet presence is available for everyone to see almost immediately, and things of note from people who were otherwise unnoticeable happen every minute. At the same time, reactions, reactions to reactions, and numerous different analyses crop up and take off for a myriad of different discussions and interpretations of what something means that also disseminate into the common knowledge. Events mean more things to more people, sometimes many things to the same people, as they do here, rather than the monolithic interpretation that would have come along with a single outlet.

Moreover, as I alluded to before, the myriad of outlets and “broadcasters” means that there are a myriad of interpretations of the situations at hand, all of which—if not quite considered equal in validity—are at least considered and discussed. Shortly before the broadcast of President Obama’s speech, Brian Williams was interviewing a member of President Bush’s cabinet, and for his opening question, he asked one of the questions that I had seen many other people, ordinary citizens, pose on the internet: what do you think this means for President Bush (and, in an underlying statement, the people who sided with him both during his presidency when their judgment was criticized and afterwards as a criticism of Obama)? On this train of thought, people began predicting the Democrats’ chances for a victory over the Republicans in the 2012 Presidential Election, talking about what Donald Trump’s direct criticism of Obama now meant in terms of his public image, and reviving attacks against the Birthers, each of which had a bunch of different counter-responses. At the same time, people were discussing what the revelers in front of the White House (and elsewhere) meant about the American lust for revenge, and still others were discussing what this meant for our relations with Pakistan, or the sense of closure this actually did or didn’t bring to the families of victims claimed by 9/11.

The Piercian model that Chandler discusses seems to fit so seamlessly here: the influx of opinions and the multifaceted nature of the interpretation to which they give rise fits the tripartite model which opens up the interpretation of any symbol to diachrony. Osama bin Laden’s death is a symbol, not yet an icon and probably never an index, where it stands for any and all of these things and more simultaneously, and with the expectation that those associations will change as sentiments do, or as new details come to light over time. Pierce’s commitment to diachrony allows us to think about bin Laden’s death in all of the multifaceted aspects that it represents for us as broadcasters in the internet age. As I said before: in a place where anybody has as much say and as much ability to be heard as the next person, any symbol is pretty much guaranteed to have a huge number of “official” interpretations, and the diachronic model allows us to think most accurately about the semiotics of bin Laden’s death in the internet age and beyond.

The New Monopoly: Apple vs. Microsoft

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By Caitlin Clevenger, caclevenger@vassar.edu

“Apple is a schizophrenic company: a self-professed revolutionary closely allied with both of the greatest forces of information, the entertainment conglomerates and the telecommunications industry”, writes Tim Wu in The Master Switch (273).

Of Microsoft, he writes, “Even if Windows was never as advanced or well designed as Apple’s operating system, it enjoyed one insuperable advantage: it worked on any computer, supported just about every type of software, and could interface with any printer, modem, or whatever other hardware one could design” (279).

The Microsoft-Apple feud has become a major staple of American culture. More so than your choice of Verizon over AT&T, your choice of cable television over satellite, or even your choice of Pepsi over Coke, your choice of Mac over PC classifies you and tells the world something about your personality.

This is now:

This is then:

Apple started as a revolutionary company- this was not just a marketing strategy. In 1983, IBM (running a Microsoft OS) and Commodore owned the lion’s share of the market, and the Apple II had just 8%. But in 1984, it created the Macintosh and ran this ad during the Super Bowl.

It was the first major computer with a desktop interface- the icons and mouse we’ve come to know and love. Apple had sacrificed open-source programming and open architecture for user-friendliness. This has been its policy ever since. But what this has meant for Apple has been vertical integration. No one but Apple can make a Mac OS compatible computer, and there are severe limitations on how much you can alter the code on any Apple product. This is why there are no Mac viruses, and also why there are companies who make a profit off of “jailbreaking” iPhones.

It’s also why by the 1990’s, Apple products were failing. I would go into my elementary school computer class, filled with Macintoshes, and groan in frustration when I couldn’t right-click, or bring in the PC game that had come with my cereal box.

In 1997, Macintoshes accounted for just 3% of all computers sold, and PC’s accounted for the other 97%. Apple was close to failing when, at a conference, Steve Jobs revealed a groundbreaking partnership.

Had Apple failed, Microsoft would have held a monopoly and likely been broken up by antitrust laws. By adding an infusion of capital to Apple, Microsoft saved its own majority status. Apple, in order to save its company, stopped fighting Microsoft, but instead welcomed it.

PCs still account for the majority share in personal computers, but Apple owns the market in MP3 players (75% in 2008, versus Microsoft’s 3%). Apple has almost triple Microsoft’s share in the Smartphone market. Macs have a huge share among young consumers, too, so much so that Vassar students with PCs stand out and in effect become rebels. It seems as if Microsoft and Apple, as the only remaining players in the computer game, have entered into a cycle in which they will inevitably reverse roles. Is Apple’s 25 year marketing strategy as a rebel company expiring?

Connectivity and the YouTube Community

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By Jessie Kastenbaum (jekastenbaum@vassar.edu)

As technology progresses, the world becomes more connected and communication improves dramatically.  Wu’s The Master Switch follows the progression of communication technology starting with the telephone, going to the radio, then to film, and so on.  With each new device, people become more connected to each other and are able to communicate in different ways.  The telephone allows two people to hear each other across distances.  The radio allows people to hear multiple types of media, from talk shows to music to presidential speeches from remote locations.  With film, viewers can see and hear stories come to life.  Wu mentions “the power of an open technology like radio broadcasting to inspire hope for mankind by creating a virtual community” (39).  The first thing that springs to my mind when I think of a “virtual community” is the Internet, and YouTube in particular.

Through the Internet, we can share information and ideas with anyone else in the world who also has access to the Internet.  This map, which shows the global connections via Facebook, illustrates just how connected the world is via the Internet:

This connectivity is extremely apparent on YouTube where an enormous community of video bloggers, or vloggers, has sprung up.  Many people think of YouTube as just a site for video clips of adorable kittens and of people running into stop signs.  However, there is so much user-generated content that goes unnoticed by the greater public.  Audiences interact with vloggers through comments and making video responses.  In addition to interaction between vloggers and their audiences, there is a great deal of interaction among vloggers.  Most of the vloggers I watch are members of the same YouTube community, called Nerdfighteria.  Nerdfighteria began when two brothers, John and Hank Green (the “vlogbrothers” on YouTube), began a vlogging project in which they would communicate without text for an entire year.  They built up an audience around their vlogs and call themselves and their audience “nerdfighters” (because we fight for nerds and fight to decrease world suck, which is exactly what it sounds like).  Here is one of John’s vlogs (which actually talks about community a bit):

Many of the vloggers of Nerdfighteria are friends through YouTube and through this community.  The community has brought people together from around the globe, showing the connective power of the Internet and YouTube.  One of the best examples of the YouTube community is the “collab channel.”  A collab channel is a YouTube channel run by multiple people; typically, each person posts a video one day a week.  For example, on the channel FiveAwesomeGirls each of five girls posts one video on a specific day of the week.  Kristina posts on Mondays, Lauren on Tuesdays, Kayley on Wednesdays, and so on.  The five girls do not live near each other and did not know each other personally before they began their collab channel, but have become close friends through the YouTube community.

Something I have noticed about video bloggers is that they tend to use similar techniques.  For example, they usually use a lot of jump cuts, something that is frowned upon in movies.  Why do vloggers use jump cuts?  It could be because they simply can’t remember everything they have to say to do the vlog in one take, or it could be that it makes the video more visually interesting.  After all, most vloggers are just talking to a camera, so they need to do something to hold their viewers’ attention.  Furthermore, most popular vloggers use a lot of hand gestures.  Again, this could be to make their videos more interesting or it could be to help get their points across.  Here is a video from one of my favorite vloggers, Charlie McDonnell (“charlieissocoollike” on YouTube):

What do you notice about John and Charlie’s videos?  Why are they interesting (or why aren’t they interesting)?

Wu mentions the “mix of both entrepreneurial and humanitarian motives” that “drives the opening up of a media” (36).  YouTube is primarily humanitarian—vlogging is generally not an economically sound job (although you can earn money from running ads on your videos).  Most vloggers make videos because they genuinely love doing so and have a message they want to share with the world.

There are so many different communities on the Internet—the YouTube community is just the one with which I am most familiar.  Furthermore, the Internet is just the next step in connectivity.  According to Wu, “what we call invention, while not easy, is simply what happens once a technology’s development reaches the point where the next step becomes available to many people” (19).  Connectivity and communication will thus continue to increase as technology improves.  There is an exceptional amount of global connectivity due to the Internet, but can we improve on it?  What will be the next step?  Can the world become even more connected than it currently is?  Can we continue to build our global community?

Representing Representation: Wunang and Lawyers as Mediators of Social Encounter in Anakalangese and American Culture

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by Gretchen Long (grlong@vassar.edu)

In Signs of Recognition, one of Keane’s main points is that all communicative efforts in social encounters are liable to misinterpretation, resulting in a “hazardous” outcome for the unfortunate speaker. He writes that scenes of encounter “iconically represent social action as a form of dialogue between a pair of speakers” (139): in other words, a situational exchange of speech becomes a complete icon of a larger conflict, so that any discrepancy in the deliverance of linguistic cues and meanings threatens to render the issue at hand beyond resolution. Since all that is known to both parties is that which is expressed in the presence of both parties (i.e. a scene of encounter), “nothing is known except that which has been presented formally… within the… frame of the event.” (156) Therefore, that which is presented becomes the only source of knowledge for negotiation, so presenting things “correctly” becomes very important.

Keane outlines the roles in everyday speech in the beginning of Chapter Six: the animator “voices the words;” the author “determines what words are… said;” and “the words are attributed” to the principal “who is held responsible for them.” (Goffman 1979 in Keane 1997:139) Balancing all three roles may be difficult as one may have clear intentions but lack oratorical charisma, or possess a strong speaking voice but have difficulty forming thoughts into coherent phrases. The difficulty of balancing these three roles is a potential cause of misfires in speech acts. Another source of hazard is in-group “debates over procedure” (148) in which members of a party bicker amongst themselves over correct protocol, further inhibiting the party’s ability to clearly articulate its intents.

As such linguistic errors would be hazardous (in the sense of invoking social embarrassment and stalling the negotiation’s progress,) one way that actors can ensure the efficacy of a social encounter is to employ mediators they know will correctly communicate the necessary information. The Anakalangese accomplish this by appointing wunang to act as mediators between two opposing parties (in events such as bridal negotiations); similarly, other cultures appoint specialists like lawyers to act out similar roles in similar events requiring compromise. Both the wunang and the lawyers take on the role of author and animator, as they are skilled in articulating and composing their principals’ intents in the formal discourse of the situation (the wunang employing structured formal speech and the lawyer using law jargon). There is safety in the explicit nature of formality, and employing a specialist to present one’s case in such terms lessens the likelihood of hazardous speech acts while working towards a negotiation.

Lawyers and wunang also use their expertise “to restrain the excesses and tempers of their principals” (154), preventing their clients from saying something that will ruin the state of their negotiations. How many times have we seen a character in a book or movie lose their case because they wanted to “act as their own lawyer?” The same consequences befall any principal not well-versed in the terms of the conflict. Keane writes that people are often prompted to defend themselves because “the public forum… places… pressure on people’s pride and reputation… [and] gives so many people a say in what transpires” (149), but by electing a representative (“one who represents” the sentiments of another party) to act as a mediator between potentially combative forces in a forum, the principals ensure correct and safe conduct throughout the discussion.

Lawyers can represent anyone (and we actually use the phrase “represent”) just as wunang can stand in for men and women of any class. Likewise, there are not specialized lawyers for men, women, or age groups—any lawyer can represent anyone. Lawyers tend to use deictic, demonstrative speech (“My client says that he left at six o’ clock”), while the wunang actually personifies the person they are referring to by “adopting the ‘voice'” of an individual they are representing (i.e. by using “female speaker kin terms” in formal address [163]). Nonetheless, both forms of speech are still highly presentational in that they emphasize the intentions of the principals in formalized, structured discourse.

One major difference is that there are actually two wunang per Anakalangese party (the “sitting” wunang and the “traveling” wunang) while there is only one lawyer per side (they communicate information to the principals and the larger court, fulfilling the roles of both types of wunang.) A lawyer still engages in their own form of motion, moving between the judge, witness, and jury, and conferring with all. The more public the principals’ intentions are made through the mediator (wunang/lawyer), the more likely it is that negotiations will go smoothly.

To highlight a few crucial differences between wunang and lawyers, I direct you towards the following clip— I recommend watching first minute or so, then skipping to 3:50 and watching to the end (unless you just really like Legally Blonde, which is also fine):

While acknowledging that this is a highly dramatized clip, for all of the wunang’s idiosyncratic alterations in couplet-choice to match the context of their principals’ debate (161), no Anakalangese speaker could ever do what Elle Woods just did. I do not mean that wunang would be incapable of making such a dramatic performance, but that committing such infractions against the formal structure of negotiations would be hazardous to the point of an ancestral intervention resulting in bad luck or an actual fatality. For the Anakalangese, going against an ancestral structure literally endangers the natural order of things, whereas (Western) lawyers going against the grain are often viewed as martyrs, heroes, or geniuses. Even as a principal, Mrs. Windham makes what would be a startling choice to the Anakalangese by choosing Elle to represent her; she chooses a personal favorite over her appointed representative, and values Elle’s creativity over the former lawyer’s formal technique.

Elle’s informal speech actually threatens the breakdown of the scene of encounter, but “formality… may open up possibilities as much as foreclose them.” (144) While methodically and formulaically approaching a case ensures a scrutinizing objectivity, if Elle hadn’t deviated from the formal approach of question-and-answer to deliver an anecdote about her sorority days, the witness never would have been prompted to confess the murder. Nonetheless, Elle’s individualistic approach is largely a Western ideal. Keane warns how “the necessary delegation of voice” to the wunang “threatens to become full detachment” (170) if the wunang is too free with their interpretations, which would fully separate them from the principals’ intents. Thus, if any Anakalangese wunang stepped forward like Elle in a social encounter, the current negotiations would be in danger of immediate termination, and social or spiritual punishments would be brought upon the affronting wunang for such “bald speech” (164) (see 164 for an example).

This is not to say that the Anakalangese dismiss all personal talent in this sphere. When Elle announces her desire to take the case, Mrs. Windham’s former lawyer snaps, “She’s a law student— she can’t defend you.” Practicing law requires specific credentials, whereas “the knowledge just comes” to wunang. (155) Personal skill is valued as not just anyone can become a wunang, but at the same time the specialists’ skill is expected to accentuate ancestral values (and thus, value formal structure) as opposed to developing a new form of negotiation.

* What are some other similarities and differences between Western and Anakalangese legal structures?

* How does the materiality of language play a part in wunangs’ affects? How does a different ideology of language affect Western lawyers’ presentations?

* What are some other examples of delegation of voice?

Dinner Time: Formality in Rituals

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by Katrina Newman (kanewman@vassar.edu)

“Mental hygiene” films were shown to kids in schools all across America in the ’40s and ’50s with the intention of instructing them in sanctioned behavior and the proper roles of the nuclear family. I’ve always found these kinds of videos to be quite entertaining and kind of funny, and was reminded of the one about eating with your family when I read about feasting in Signs of Recognition.

Among the Anakalangese nobility  generosity (boraku) as well as wealth is required of them, and feasting is one of the ways that males use to display their rank, power and wealth (5-7, 58).  A failure to live up to traditional standards is something causes Anakalangese to lament about the good old days (58). In ’50s America, formality of eating was reintroduced to thousands, maybe millions of people, modeled by a “typical” nuclear white middle class family, by this video:

Formality, defined as the representation of roles and/or hierarchy, is embodied in speech events and rites/rituals (8) and social exchanges are facilitated by working within this “ritual frame” (Keane 5).

“You can be yourself. Just be sure it’s your best self.” And what constitutes their best selves? Pleasantness and relaxation are the key qualities emphasized in this propaganda video. Ritualized, traditional order is also facilitated through ritual speech, and what the family can talk about is restricted to “pleasant, unemotional conversation.” One is not to monopolize the conversation or discuss unpleasant topics! No arguing, don’t insult your brothers and remember to compliment mom on the cooking. The people don’t have personal names but are addressed as mother, father, sister, brother and junior, emphasising the “stereotypical performance roles” in the formality. By engaging in formality, participants are able to interactively define themselves and each other (7) thus creating self-awareness of their roles and their family hierarchy. The  seating arrangements, who serves and the order of serving and saying grace are all embodied parts of the representation. Whether they are really happy or not is irrelevant; all that matters is acting as though they are happy by performing pleasantness. “Even the simple norms of everyday propriety, among the least dramatic elements of any cultural account, may serve” the interests of domination, (6) and in ’50’s America that certainly included dinner time.

I couldn’t find any equivalent modern videos; any videos on family eating were on how to eat healthy and make meals more quickly. I would conjecture that it means the importance of enforcing family hierarchies through eating rituals has largely disappeared in popular culture. To bring authority, sources of power and legitimate agency together requires persistent effort (9) and most people seem to have difficulty “finding the time” to eat together as a family. Do you think that more people would manage to find time for formalized family dinners if they thought their family dynamic and personal happiness were dependent on it? Why do you think the importance of performativity of roles has decreased since the post-War era? Even though it is less visible now in media, what kinds of formalities in the video do you think are still performed in American households?

Alphabet Species

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by Luke Leavitt (luleavitt@vassar.edu)

Hey Guys!

Alphabet Species is a conceptual art project borne from my father’s collaborations with other artists, including myself. Here is the homepage for Alphabet Species (one of many other projects you should feel to scope out at dagostinostudio.com)

http://www.dagostinostudio.com/daviddagostino/alphabet/alphabet.html

read the statement, then click on 4 Intermedia Diagrams, read that statement, then click on Oz-Oz-Opiads — this is the best example of the project (in fact it is the only fully complete diagram).

When reading Hank’s Chapter on Text and Textuality from his book Intertext I was struck by the overlap between Hank’s interrogations and my father’s, although the two come from different perspectives (linguistic-anthropology and conceptual Fluxus art, respectively). Specifically, both projects raise the question of text, broadly defined as some sort of communication. What is text? How do we know where it begins and ends? Like a lot of art, I think it is fair to say that Alphabet Species seeks to raise questions in a creative way, rather than provide some sort of answer to these sorts of questions. So what does it make you think, in relation to what Hanks has to say in his chapter?

Here are some ponderings of mine. Hanks says that “text can be taken (heuristically) to designate any configuration of signs that is coherently interpretable by some community of users” (165). So first off, is Oz-Oz-Opiads a text by this definition? What role does interpretation play in making Oz-Oz-Opiads a text or not?

Hanks also says that at first glance, textuality is the “quality of coherence or connectivity that characterizes text” (166). Do you recognize any sort of coherency in Oz-Oz-Opiads that might give it textuality? Or is it simply a “text without textuality” (168)? — perhaps a text-work in a genre that inherently lacks cohesion?

Part of the ambiguity in defining text is that interpretation may vary considerably, but is an important factor in “concretizing” a text (ala Ingarden) in a social context. How does Oz-Oz-Opiads bring to the surface (or not) the role of social setting and interpretation in its creation? Interesting to note is that Oz-Oz-Opiads internalizes “reception into the production process itself… dialogizing authorship” (180).

Finally, Hanks says that “even though any strip of text can be multiply interpreted (through alternative centerings) [which might be one interpreted goal of Oz-Oz-Opiads], the range of possibilities is never open-ended in the real social world. Rather, it is partly inscribed in textual form, and partly contested by actors (which may be more or less than individuals).” How might Oz-Oz-Opiads confirm or challenge this? Could the diagram potentially go on forever or not? And what is its central “text” anyways? Is it the original visual poem? What exactly am I interpreting when I create both the Visual Poem Sound Composition and the Composition Manuscript? I am simply interpreting an interpretant (ala Peirce), or am I somehow interpreting some sort of semi-distinct, semi-unitary “text” or “piece of art” that exists nebulously under the title, Oz-Oz-Opiads?

Pingu and Fictional Languages

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by Alden Rose

With words being a sort of white noise to the images that surround us, studying a television show with no explicit verbal context was interesting. Television shows have become soaked in visual imagery that gives the viewer layers of information to sort through, often hard to separate from basic elements like character relationship or narrative. Pingu is a Swiss claymation television show that first aired in 1986 and came out with some new episodes in 2004 (but definitely not as good). The show is about a community of penguins that’s pretty much it, but they do not speak a recognizable language.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGPhXrc78Jg&feature=related

They lack words in their communication, but what is retained? Levinson talks about deixis as “the ways in which language encodes or grammaticalizes features of the context of utterance or speech event, and thus also concerns ways in which the interpretation of utterances depends on the analysis of that context of utterance.” In other words, there are many different elements that contribute to the meaning of speech acts, context being one of the most important. He talks about the context specificity of pronouns, demonstratives and tense, but for Pingu where there aren’t any words, so we have to work with a partial deixis.

In this clip, Pingu and his friend start playing hopscotch. You actually see them playing the game, a cooperative event. Even without words their speech acts provide tone, inflection, and temper. You can see that they are successfully engaging in a conversation, even though the content remains unknown.

Next, an adult penguin rides in and interrupts their game, using a more aggressive and authoritative voice. As he cleans their game up, Pingu’s speech becomes rapid and agitated, implying annoyance and even defiance.

Many productions draw on preexisting social contexts to define a character’s roles, with a great deal based in a culture and language. The relationships between these anthropomorphized penguins emerge as we pick up visual and auditory clues, such as the adult yelling at Pingu. Like the hidden indexical components (Hanks 159) in Hanks’ Don Chabo exchange, all speech acts are extremely relational. Some viewers may find it offensive that Pingu has in a sense talked-back to the man (though we only know this because of his tone and gestural usage), while others may find it acceptable and even humorous.

The adult’s next few actions come off as odd, as he draws a red box ontop of their game, and puts up a sign with a “P” on it (parking maybe) and a sign with a penguin and a ball with an X on it. He has just designated this as his parking spot, but the viewer only comes to this conclusion after his actions are completed. Without words, other aspects of linguistic communication are amplified

It is interesting that someone has put captions in Swedish for the show.  The Swedish captions, though not understood by us, give more verbal encoding than is originally implied by the show’s ambiguous language. Youtube had been a goldmine of redefining the meaning of speech acts in another language by using captions. Such as .

This type of open-language is also used in many role-playing computer games, such as The Sims.

These types of undefined languages can draw from all aspects of language; specific accents or a certain cultural vocal pattern can be used. But without words, these languages really do become universal, allowing you to interpret deixis personally. As Pearson (the woman interviewed in the previous clip) finds, “I can make up whatever I want about it.”

Pingu and The Sims draw an international audience, aided by their peculiar languages, but appeal to the creativity provided by this open indexicality. The viewer is given much less information, so the majority of the context is left for them to decide. “It is the minute details of linguistic structure that coordinate this awareness and make it known with a delicacy unparalleled by any other mode of expression.” (Hanks 165) You can pick up on the relational meaning of these indexicals because of structure of language and how much our interpretation relies on the referential content provided outside of word meaning and usage.

Performances and Utterances: Humor in Music Videos

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by Sarah Evans (saevans@vassar.edu)

I know that the relationship between music and semiotics has come up before in this course, but since we’re moving into studying performativity and speech acts in class, and I love taking things just a little bit too literally, I really wanted to talk about musical performances, especially with regards to music videos.  Music videos are a strange type of performance. especially since they aren’t always clearly a performance: a general template for the band-made video is that it’s a short film built around a band’s performance, but the band isn’t really performing, it’s lip-syncing to the perfectly mixed and mastered version of the song that’s on their record.  Fan made videos, usually hobbled by a lack of funds, tend to be either flash-made, or, most commonly, a series of photos of a band or the lyrics of a single with a single playing in the background.  However, some videos make it obvious (sometimes ludicrously so) that not only are they performances, but they also change the meaning of the songs by placing them in contexts that are contraindicated by the music, in effect creating completely new meanings and utterances based upon the interplay between the infelicitous statement and a counter-intuitive context, capitalizing on what Grice dubs the conversational implicative.

Although Grice calls his idea “conversational implicature”, I’m going to stretch the idea past language and into music.  I’m talking a very specific type of music video, one which takes the stance that what you’re watching is not only not real, but not even a staged performance, and it tends to do so by subverting the felicity of their actual statements within the song.  Perhaps the best way to phrase it is thus: musical performances tend to occupy a nebulous space–there is generally no assurance that the singer is voicing his own thoughts or not unless the song directly indicates that that is so–but it can generally be assumed that a performance, especially within the context of a music video is just that–a performance, where the words being spoken do not directly perform any work on behalf of the speaker because they are inherently infelicitous, to apply Austin’s definition.  Lyrics sung during a song are generally considered, like poetry and fiction, to be the words of a narrator who is not the singer, so that when the speaker is singing them, he cannot be held to anything that he sings because he is speaking on behalf of something else.  It’s comparable, but by no means identical to Hanks’ example of Jack’s hypothetical infelicitous statement, “I promise that you [Natalia] will be home by 6:00”, which Jack cannot felicitously say unless the onus is on him to furnish Natalia with the means to be home by 6:00.  Any promises, injunctions, requests, or other personal statements within a song’s lyrics are not actually being enacted by the singer; the singer is just singing.

However, this is just an Austinian interpretation, and, moreover, one that only really takes lyrics into account.  In terms of music videos, especially ones that derive humor from the contradiction of the song being used in a specific way in the video, the focus tends to be on factors like the composition of the video, its personnel, its concept, and so on and so forth, as well as the context in which all of this is happening.  The song is taken as a piece of fictitious entertainment, so the singer’s rendition and how it meshes with the rest of the video within the context in which the video exists is what produces humor.  Grice’s theory of conversational implicature, specifically the idea of implicature, is at work here: “Grice’s theory assumes that speakers routinely make utterances that are infelicitous, at the level of what they actually say” (Hanks 101).  In terms of songs, it seems safe to say that, in light of Grice’s theory, it is both assumed and not problematic that a song’s lyrics as they are sung is infelicitous because the content (regardless of its connection to the performance of such) and context are logical.

This is where the blatant ludicrousness of certain performances in videos comes in: the song’s lyrics are logical, the context is logical, and what is being said is ridiculousness.  Just consider the video for the song “Dance Yrself Clean”.

Now, the Muppets are not hipster party animals, or if they are, then that’s clearly an aspect of them that I glossed over during my infatuation with them sometime in elementary school.  On just a basic level, this music video is funny because the Muppets are doing things that would never be associated with them outside the realm of parody; even if all of the parts of the video with all of them performing were excised and there was no music in the background, the images would still be funny (or at least trying to be funny) simply because watching puppets who are ingrained in our cultural consciousness as being family friendly, a little corny, and definitely safe for kids are put in situations that conform to a completely different stereotype, one which was, before it became primarily a source of ridicule for the very people for whom it used to apply, associated with adults and the underground.  Even in the video, the passers-by laugh when the puppets do something that they would consider to be out of character.

In fact, the video would also work if it were just the puppets and the song, or just the song and the concept: the former has the same incongruities, whereas the latter syncs up pretty perfectly with the content of the song.  What’s peculiar about this video is watching the performance–there is no speech or song more infelicitous in its delivery than this one with Kermit the frog sing it.  It’s the exact same version of the song that appears on the album, not a cover, and Kermit is not singing it in his voice, he’s lip-syncing with James Murphy’s voice.  For anyone who has heard Kermit’s voice actor, there is no way that he could be mistaken for singing this song, so it becomes plain that he’s singing for someone else.  Taking a step back: the video is not only funny because it has muppets doing inappropriate things, it’s also funny and strange because one’s first instinct is to associate Kermit with the song and the lyrics because he’s singing it, but he’s no more beholden to them than Murphy would be if he were performing in the video instead.  It’s blatantly artificial.

The logical conclusion of this line of thought, of building a music video that is predicated upon exposing the infelicity of performance that videos are, is the video for “Strictly Game”.

Where “Dance Yrself Clean” was funny because it exploited the incongruity of the performance, “Strictly Game” is funny because it conforms to the tropes of a specific type of fan-made music video.  It has that as the most recognizable part of its context.  At the very beginning, it actually looks completely like one of those videos (the same static images, the same font, even the same wipes from photo to photo), as though that was what the band wanted to do.  However, what appears to be static at the beginning grows gradually and more obviously into a series of videos, almost as though the images are coming to life.  Watching it a second time, I looked for indications that every “photo” was actually a staged video of the band, and it was.  The video was funny and intriguing because it was so perfectly integrated with the concept of it looking like a fan-made product, but the way that it played with the form called attention to the fact that it was made by the band, even if the song and the band-in-the-video were not in any way synced so that there was an obvious disconnect between the band and the performance.

To bring this back to Grice, “Strictly Game” looks like a fan-made video, which connotes that the person who made it has no involvement with the band but enjoys their music.  It also, in that vein, emphasizes that while there is a connection between the people in the video and the people singing, it is not the connection that those people are in the act of singing that song to an audience.  Altogether, it is an example of implicature: the audience (or, in this case, the YouTube commenter population and myself) assumed one relationship, a completely infelicitous relationship as sundered in content and delivery as Kermit singing LCD Soundsystem, but by the end of the video, we understood that the band was actually directly involved in presenting this, and while it is in no way identical in meaning with the song itself, the video presents a performance unique to that video which actually suggests an infelicitous, but still communicative and performative utterance of parodic humor in the same way as “Dance Yrself Clean”–by capitalizing on both the understanding that what’s being presented is a performance, a rendition, and playing with that idea as it applies to music videos.

Do our hands help us talk?

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by Jenna Kronenberg (jekronenberg@vassar.edu)

Talking about the evolution of spoken language has made me question the reasons behind our others means of communication, namely hand gestures. For those who are able to speak, we tend to use our hands to supplement our speech. I want to talk a little about something I learned last semester; a chapter in the book The First Word by Christine Kenneally caught my attention and it is something that I’ve been thinking a lot about through our class.

If you have ever watched me speak in class, you may notice that I talk with my hands a LOT. I used to think it was just me, and a family/cultural thing (Eastern European Jews have the stereotype of talking with their hands way too often). But watching people talk all over campus, I’ve realized that everyone uses their hands when they talk.

Kenneally writes, “If you have human language, you have gestures (Kenneally 123).” What does this mean exactly? Imagine yourself talking about your room. You may mention what’s on your walls, where your bed and desk are situated. You may describe how messy it is.

It’s quite likely that you used your hands as you spoke. Gesturing is spontaneous, and individual to each that has used it. But think about it. Where you mentally calculating your hand movements as you spoke? (Now that I’ve mentioned it, it’s going to be really difficult to not be cognizant of it. Sorry.)

Gesturing may be important for human communication, but what is fascinating is that different species of apes have been observed using their hands to communicate as well. In 2004, Mike Tomasello observed that primates have gestures that are learned, flexible, and under voluntary control. His research team divided primate gestures into two categories: attention getters and intention movements.

Attention getters (It is important to note that as Tomasello presented this information he slapped the podium with his hand) call attention to the ape making the gesture. An ape may jump up and down and flap his arms until a second ape pays attention, and then realizes that the first ape wants to be groomed. Intention movements are the beginnings of actual movements, like if one raises an arm before they attack.

How have these gestures evolved in humans? Well, think about how we gesture daily. We may wave at a friend across the quad to get their attention, signaling we want to speak to them. We may raise our first to signal potential violence.

An example of intentional hand gestures (Kind of long, skip around as you please):

Human gestures come in a variety of ways that Kenneally highlights in her book. There is here-and-now pointing, action gestures, abstract pointing, and metaphorical gestures that make symbolic references to people, events, space, motion, and action. I would like to focus a bit on this last category since it deals with abstract symbols that we use our bodies to indicate.

Gestures tend to amplify meaning given by the speaker. For example, someone may move his or her fingers in a spiral while saying “I ran upstairs.” This gesture helps us find more meaning in what the speaker is saying (he or she ran up a spiral staircase).

It would appear that gestures are also some sort of device we use to retrieve lexical memory. How many times have you been speaking and draw a blank on a word (having that feeling of it being on “the tip of your tongue”)? Do you use your hands to try to get out the word? I mean, really. Does that make any sense? The word is not in thin air; you cannot grab it with your hands. But it seems to work. In a paper by Robert Krauss at Columbia University, he and his team suggest that memory is encoded in different representational formats. They believe that our hand gestures reflect “spacio-dynamic features of concepts, and that they participate in lexical retrieval by a process of cross-modal priming” (Krauss 2).

Some (sort of) involuntary hand movements while talking:

What does this mean to you? Do you find that when participating in a rehearsed speech, you use your hands quite often to keep you on track? Does moving your hands in a certain way conjure up different words, depending on how you’ve stored them in your memory (from past experiences, note-taking, etc)?

The study of human gestures is still quite new, and there are many questions about how it has evolved; whether alongside spoken language, or before/after. What I’m curious about is: how does it affect our everyday communication? Not only is gesturing used by the speaker, it affects how the listener processes that language too. Hand gestures are an integral part of our language, and can be used to represent many different concepts and emotions the speaker is trying to convey.

Sources:

Kenneally, Christine. The First Word. New York: Viking Penguin, 2007

Krauss, R.M. (1998). Whydo we gesture when we speak?59.

Current Directions in Psychological Science 7, 54-59