The Language of Pop Culture

Valentin Werner

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351685306
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Lingue e linguistica
• Subtopic: Linguistica

This collection brings together contributions from both leading and emerging scholars in one comprehensive volume to showcase the richness of linguistic approaches to the study of pop culture and their potential to inform linguistic theory building and analytical frameworks. The book features examples from a dynamic range of pop culture registers, including lyrics, the language of fictional TV series, comics, and musical subcultures, as a means of both providing a rigorous and robust description of these forms through the lens of linguistic study but also in outlining methodological issues involved in applying linguistic approaches. The volume also explores the didactic potential of pop culture, looking at the implementation of pop culture traditions in language learning settings. This collection offers unique insights into the interface of linguistic study and the broader paradigm of pop culture scholarship, making this an ideal resource for graduate students and researchers in applied linguistics, English language, media studies, cultural studies, and discourse analysis.

Part I

Context

1 Linguistics and Pop Culture

Setting the Scene(s)

Valentin Werner

The present volume starts from the general observation that the language of pop culture (LPC) represents an understudied subject area—both in general and in linguistics as an empirical scholarly discipline. This is highly surprising given the ubiquity and high social relevance commonly assigned to pop culture (Kaiser and Sina 2016, 180). It seems even more surprising that the study of LPC is largely ignored in English linguistics specifically, as English has become the prime LPC in today’s multilingual world. The understudied nature of LPC is shown by the facts (i) that pop registers (such as lyrics, language of fictional TV series, and language of comics and cartoons) scarcely feature among the text categories included in any of the general reference corpora of English; (ii) that the number of empirical studies explicitly devoted to LPC has been growing (see further Section II.1), but still is comparatively scarce; and (iii) that the linguistic perspective is at times combined with some kind of aesthetic evaluation. This association with ephemeral “low culture” status may be seen as the main rationale that pop culture (PC) artifacts have been neglected as an object of empirical linguistic inquiry or have even been subject to ridicule. Publications such as Crap Lyrics: A Celebration of the Very Worst Pop Lyrics of All Time … Ever (Sharp 2009) or The Grammar of Rock: Art and Artlessness in 20th Century Pop Lyrics (Theroux 2013)—both dealing with lyrics as a case in point—nicely illustrate this state of affairs.

While it would be exaggerated to claim that LPC does not have a place in applied linguistics at all, a second point of departure is provided by the fact that its didactic potential, despite early attempts heralding its power (see Section III), has largely been underexploited for the (second) language instruction of English and other languages, as tasks involving LPC are regularly relegated to “fun” activities—that is, generally speaking, those not regarding the introduction and exercise of “hard” grammatical structures situated at the end of lessons and units. However, this may also be due to a lack of adequate description of LPC, as indicated earlier, in the first place.

In essence, what unites both the descriptive and applied linguistic dimension is that the treatment of LPC is hardly recognized as a serious, and therefore academically overly worthwhile, endeavor. To address this issue, it is the overall aim of this volume to showcase the various facets of LPC “in action” and thus to bring the study of LPC closer to the mainstream of linguistic analysis. As regards the applied side, it seeks to reveal the latent didactic potential of LPC manifestations to further the instruction of English to speakers of other languages.

This introductory chapter can mainly be viewed as an attempt at contextualizing the linguistic study of LPC, both relating to linguistics as a discipline and to the study of culture more generally. To achieve this, in what follows, it will first define “pop” and discuss PC both as a globalized and linguistic phenomenon. In addition, it will present a selective overview of extant research on LPC, also outlining limitations of a linguistic approach to LPC, but eventually arguing for why the linguistic study of LPC is worthwhile and carries the potential for providing a unique contribution to the study of PC artifacts from a broader perspective. For summaries of the contents of the individual studies featured in the volume, please refer to the abstracts at the beginning of each chapter. Note further that the final commentary by Monika Bednarek contains an overall assessment of common threads and issues emerging from the contributions.

I Pop Culture as Globalized Media and Entertainment Culture

Given the pervasiveness and multifaceted nature of the phenomenon, as well as a comparatively short tradition of research (spanning around 40 years) on PC in general, it is not surprising that a multitude of definitions from various scholars (notably from a cultural studies background) exist of what can be considered “pop” and PC. While I do not claim to provide an exhaustive overview of these here, I will present a number of approaches, leading toward a working definition for the material presented in the current volume.

As already stated, no unequivocal definition is available, and striking statements such as “pop culture is fun! That is the only point where researchers and participants […] seem to agree” (translated from Hügel 2003, 1) provide a very broad, yet fitting, summary of the state of the art. In more concrete terms, PC has variously been described as “culture of ‘the people,’ ” “everyday culture,” “subculture,” “youth culture,” “mainstream culture,” “mass culture,” “culture industry” (the term famously coined by Adorno and the Frankfurt school sociologists), “commercial culture,” etc. (for details, see Hügel 2003, 23–90; cf. Lewis 1999; Firth 2001; Hecken 2009; Danesi 2015; Takacs 2015). These labels can be systematized, for instance, into the categories offered by Merskin (2008). She establishes a fourfold object-oriented scheme to arrive at a multilayered definition:

(1) A pejorative meaning referring to objects or practices deemed lesser than or inferior to elite culture, i.e., appeal to a mass audience; (2) objects or practices well liked by many people, i.e., not the small groups of elite or wealthy; (3) work designed with the intention of appealing to a great number of people, i.e., commercial culture meant to be widely consumed; and (4) things people make for themselves.

(Merskin 2008)

It is apparent that definitions (1) and (4) are somewhat conspicuous. Definition (1) establishes a hierarchical relationship and carries the notion of an inherent and latent stigma attached to PC manifestations, which has been defined as “spoiled identity” in terms of a “perceived lack of quality and a form of labeling” (Merskin 2008). It is obvious that this stigmatization is based on aesthetic evaluations and thus highly subjective. On a related note, others have argued that such definitions ex negativo are flawed, as there are no clear boundaries between “high” and “low” (and “mid”; cf. Danesi 2015, 6) art, and as aesthetic evaluations are not an issue in PC (and its study) at all, as it “makes little or no distinction between art and recreation, distraction and engagement” (Danesi 2015, 7).

A closer look at definition (4) provides the opportunity to introduce a terminological note. Throughout the book, the focus will largely lie on linguistic matters related to pop culture rather than popular culture. Even though both terms have been used interchangeably (see also the definitions and references noted earlier), I agree with observers who have considered it helpful to draw a distinction between the former and the latter (see, e.g., Nuessel 2009, 252) for descriptive purposes. This serves to take account of the fundamental difference between the culture of the people (i.e., popular culture), which is viewed as folk culture mainly emerging spontaneously “from below,” which has a long tradition in history, and which is thus associated with authenticity and production (Storey 2010, 4). By contrast, pop culture is seen as entertainment culture predominantly imposed “from above,” thus with an essentially commercial background and a focus on consumption [Storey 2010, 5; cf. Merskin’s definition (1)]. However, this does not preclude an interaction of (4) with the other definitions, which is true mainly in the sense that even though in the study of PC, people are mainly seen as passive consumers, there are “ways people ‘make do’ with what the reigning cultural industries and institutions provide” (Takacs 2015, 5), and they may appropriate elements from PC. Likewise, there may be parts or styles of popular culture influencing PC at some stages (see, e.g., Firth 2001, 94), and in some areas, it may be hard to draw a line between pop and popular as defined earlier in the first place (think of issues of categorization as to user-generated podcasts and uploads to video platforms, fan fiction, graffiti, etc.). Thus it is eventually apt to speak of a “contradictory mix of forces” (Storey 2010, 4) and to see pop and popular as poles on a continuum rather than complementary antonyms.¹

A few additional aspects come into play. The first one is very much related to Merskin’s (2008) categories (1), (2), and (3) outlined earlier—namely, a “close relationship [of PC] to the media and mass communications technologies” (Danesi 2015, 2; see also Hanson 2008). So not only objects (artifacts/products)² as such but also the various channels of distribution of PC (relating to the broader issue of mediatization) are worth considering, as they may eventually determine the form of the objects (as well as its geographical spread, which we will see next). Note in this regard that others conceive of the subject even more broadly, also including areas such as fashion, different types of transport, or pornography in their analyses (see, e.g., Strinati 1995, xvii). I mention them here for the sake of completeness, but it is obvious that these kinds of artifacts and manifestations are largely outside the scope of a linguistic approach toward PC (but see, e.g., Marko 2008; Lischinsky 2017 for explorations of language use in pornography and Staubach 2017 for a semiotic analysis of writing and visual elements on adolescent clothing).

A more relevant issue is the geographical spread of PC, implicit in Merskin’s categories (2) and (3) in particular. In this respect, notwithstanding culture-specific constraints, PC can largely be seen as a globalized phenomenon, with modern channels of distribution facilitating a spread of the manifestations worldwide (Miller 2015, 6). However, it is important to note that, when viewed on a global scale, there is a bias toward American(-ized) or Western(-ized) forms of PC (see, e.g., Storey 2010, 160–71), with English as the prime language used. A matter that is inextricably linked to the worldwide spread are the issues of “widespread fame, popularity, and commercialism” (Merskin 2008) that introduce an economic dimension into the debate of what should be considered as “pop.” While some see variables such as market share and sales numbers as non-evaluative key variables in determining “pop” (see, e.g., Merskin 2008; Duff and Zappa-Hollman 2013, 5998; cf. Werner 2012 or Kreyer 2015 for linguistic analyses with a pragmatic operationalization along these lines), others are critical of such an approach (see, e.g., Frith 2001, 102; Rosenbrock 2006, 33), as it may miss important characteristics of PC, such as potential long-term cultural impact.

A second aspect to be considered is the temporal dimension involved. Researchers have drawn attention to the fact that what can be considered PC is to a large degree determined by social circumstances and may vary across “[d]ifferent societies, different groups within societies, and societies and groups in different historical periods” (Strinati 1995, xvii). Therefore, also provided that there is no consensus on when “pop” actually started (with some observers dating it back to the 1920s, some seeing it as a post-World War II development, and yet others determining that it only emerged from the 1970s onwards; see also the “pop culture timeline” in Danesi 2015, 9–11), it is essential to at least provide information on the cultural context and the temporal scope within which individual analyses of PC operate.³

To repeat, the arguments presented in the foregoing suggest that we take conceptualizations of “pop” and PC that are as inclusive as possible, thus taking account of various attempts at definition, but that we also unmistakably need to specify the contexts where the individual analyses and the volume as a whole are situated. To this end, we will employ a working definition of PC as mainstream media and entertainment culture, taking account of its largely contemporary temporal dimension and its largely commercial and globalized nature, as well as its Western and, as it happens, English-language bias (see Walshe, this volume).

On the one hand, this does not entail that more specific aspects such as PC as “subculture” or historical developments are deliberately ignored, but rather included whenever relevant. On the other hand, it means that the contributions will have to blank out some areas and will, for instance, largely have to stay mute about PC deriving from the Asian sphere (e.g., the “K-pop” phenomenon), which may develop into a strong competitor for Western(-ized) PC in the nearer future. Here a separate research tradition has emerged, both in terms of cultural studies conceived more broadly (see, e.g., Huat 2004; Fung, Erni and Yang 2015, and the contributions in Huat and Iwabuchi 2008) and as to linguistic analyses (see, e.g., Lee 2006). Note, in addition, that the contributions of the volume will largely focus on LPC as one form of one-to-many communication (i.e., lacking an audience backchannel, but cf. Westphal, this volume), thus excluding analyses of LPC as represented in specialized domains, such as the language of gaming (see, e.g., Ensslin 2014; Domsch 2017), or in participatory (chiefly Internet-based) media such as Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook (see, e.g., Greiffenstern 2010; Crystal 2011; Barton and Lee 2013; Tagg 2015; Danesi 2016). The language of advertisements as a form of one-to-many communication with an explicit commercial purpose (see, e.g., Cook 2008) is also outside the scope of the present book, but, in principle, shares a lot of common ground with the analyses presented.

II Pop Culture as a Linguistic Phenomenon

Earlier, it was mentioned in passing that many of the PC artifacts are of a text-based nature or at least involve a textual component, both in the spoken and written mode. Thus, linguistics as the study of language seems like a natural candidate for a scholarly discipline taking a leading role in analyzing and describing PC manifestations. However, to date, this clearly is not the case, and linguistic studies on LPC are underrepresented. By contrast, academics from other areas, both conceived broadly (e.g., cultural studies, literary studies, media studies, sociology) and more narrowly (e.g., Black studies, sociology of adulthood), have embraced the investigation of PC to a much larger degree so that its study has become a core element in these research traditions (Prieto-Arranz et al. 2013, 6).

It is challenging to find a rationale for this state of affairs, and we may speculate that the strong philological roots of linguistics have led to an avoidance of PC manifestations due to their association with “moral panics” (see Miller 2015, 6–7) and a tradition of focusing either on “serious” reg...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Part I Context
• Part II Comics
• Part III Music and Lyrics
• Part IV TV and Movies
• Part V Pop Meets EFL
• Epilogue
• Contributors
• Index