Betsy Rymes Language, Language education, Teens, Uncategorized, Urban Dictionary

Is that a Word? Urban Dictionary as a Site for Citizen Sociolinguistics

Thank you to RCCola for posting a comment about Urban Dictionary! (See previous entry, How Citizen Sociolinguists Work: Pow!). UrbanDictionary.com can be a crucial first stop for a Citizen Sociolinguist. Despite being filled with smarmy filth, Urban Dictionary helps the sociolinguistically curious access crucial meanings behind many words—even seemingly mature words.

Urban Dictionary also gives us a new way of thinking about what words mean—and even what counts as a word. As mentioned previously on this site, people often judge their own language by what some imagined, composite Authority on Language might say about it. We may hear that internalized voice of the Standardization Big Brother asking: Is that even a word!?

From a Citizen Sociolinguistics perspective, the best way to find out about word meaning is not to ask, “Is that a word?” (which might pointlessly lead one to a traditional dictionary) but to figure out how people use the item in question and what impression it makes. Here’s where Urban Dictionary can be a handy first stop. Let’s think this through by puzzling over arguably one of the most annoying words in the English language: Irregardless.

Now, the first (most popular) entry on Urban Dictionary says irregardless is…

Used by people who ignorantly mean to say regardless. According to webster, it is a word, but since the prefix “ir” and the suffx “less” both mean “not or with” they cancel each other out, so what you end up with is regard. When you use this to try to say you don’t care about something, you end up saying that you do. Of course everyone knows what you mean to say and only a pompous,rude asshole will correct you.

Despite gratuitous profanity typical of Urban Dictionary, this entry seems to capture a crucial social meaning of “irregardless”—its association with being pompous in an ignorant way. So, Urban Dictionary provides a useful first step toward understanding a word-like item’s social value. A second step might be to see how this aligns with our own and others’ experience. Regarding irregardless, this Urban Dictionary entry aligns nicely with a more G-rated version of the same sentiment, voiced by Bert, a 16-year-old high school student:

 I feel like people say “irregardless” to sound like they know what they are talking about. Go on Facebook arguments and you’ll see it: “ Irregardless” [said with funny pompous voice]. People use it to try to sound smart. “Irregardless” [pompous voice again]. They are trying to sound smart.

For most humans, whether some spoken item officially counts as a word is only the tip of the conversational iceberg. As these comments illustrate, a host of other questions seem more critical:

  • What type of impression am I trying to make when I use this word?
  • Do my conversation partners know about it?
  • Do they have some awareness of how I am using this word?
  • Do I have any awareness of how I am using this word?

While Urban Dictionary may provide wide-ranging answers of variable quality, it makes a good a first stop on the Citizen Sociolinguistic exploration of a word’s social value.

What are your criteria for a word? Does its existence on Urban Dictionary make it so? How do you use Urban Dictionary? Post your comments here!

 

Betsy Rymes High school, Instagram, Language, Language education, Teens

How Citizen Sociolinguists Work: Pow!

Today I spent the morning at a local high school in conversations with teens—participants in a collaborative research project I am working on with Mr. Z, a uniquely mellow and gifted High School English Teacher. For now, Mr. Z and I are tapping into the linguistic and Internet knowhow of his 11th grade students, our crack team of Citizen Sociolinguists. As is typical, after only 10 minutes of talking they had taught me—and each other—a few new words and a few new ways of exploring language.

Let me give you a taste of our method–and share with you our discovery of the word weg. We were all just back from Winter break, having made many new language discoveries during our travels or while hosting holiday visitors. Most of us hadn’t traveled much farther than various remote corners of Philadelphia. Jack, however, had ventured south to visit family in Virginia Beach, where he noticed another 16-year-old using a word, which for now we will call “pow.” Jack couldn’t remember the actual word, but he was using “pow” as a placeholder.

What? How could he remember the word, but not what the actual word was? He remembered what it did—which was just about everything. As Jack explained, someone who is really amazing can be “pow” or something really bad can be “pow.” You can say things like, “Those shoes, man. Pow.” This could mean that your shoes are very cool. Or horrible.

By now, the other boys listening were getting really distracted by the word “pow.” One of them kept making a slow motion punching gesture. Another kept saying “pow?” quizzically.

Jack insisted the word was not “pow.” He was just using “pow” until he could remember the actual word.

Jack promised he would find it, and began searching through his phone. After a minute or less, he came up with the word: “weg”!

How did he do that? The others were quick to point out that “weg” sounds nothing like “pow.” How do you find a word you do not remember and that means both “awesome” and “lame”? How do you look that up?

You can’t look in a dictionary: What would you look up? “Pow”?

You can’t do a Google search, though I suppose you could try asking a question like:  “What word would a teenager in Virginia Beach use to say something is either great or awful?”

You can’t ask the Professor sitting there. She has no idea—and the above Google search did not work.

So, how did Jack find the word “weg”?

He used one of the crucial tools of the Citizen Sociolinguist: Social media! He looked up his Virginia Beach friend’s Instagram and scanned the comments. Weg!

Do you have other ideas about what “weg” means? What methods do you use to look up words you don’t know the spelling of, or even what they sound like, and only (sort of) how they function? Post your comments here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Betsy Rymes Konglish, Language, multilingualism

The Konglish Accent Tag as Citizen Sociolinguistics

In my last entry, I made the assertion that, given the opportunity, people speak up about what they know about the language they use. And now, thanks to the Internet, we can bear witness to that speaking up—and learn something important about language from these Citizen Sociolinguists.

Take Kelly and her YouTube performance of her own “English” and “Konglish” ways of speaking. Here she performs the Accent Tag inventory—a list of words to pronounce (caramel, aluminum, mayonnaise…) and lexical prompts (“How do you address a group of people?”) that was developed by Serious Dialectologists decades ago, but has since been taken over by Internet People. Please take a look by clicking on this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWOVL2bUKMI

While the list of words and lexical prompts could take about 60 seconds to recite, Kelly’s video lasts longer than eight minutes because, as a Citizen Sociolinguist, she takes time to contextualize her performance. She mentions that she grew up in North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia, that she was raised by Korean-speaking parents, and that at the age of 10, “when kids develop that whole language thing,” she went to Korea to live. Then, she moved back to Southern California as a teen. Because of her varied experiences with language, she performs the Accent Tag both in her “American” accent, and as a “Konglish” speaker.

One look at this video illuminates at least five critical and liberating points:

  • A speaker does not necessarily orient to one standard pronunciation, but selects between many possibilities.
  • The more experiences one has in different contexts, the more choices one has available—Korean? Texan? Californian?
  • How one pronounces or selects words can be an aesthetic choice—While Kelly does not (yet) use “Ya’ll” when she addresses a group of people, she has observed Texans say “Hey, how y’all doing,” and says she’d “like to pick up on that.”
  • How one pronounces or selects words can be a social choice—“People always picked on me,” she says, when she spoke English in Korea. And so she spoke differently there.
  • Speakers have awareness of what they want to sound like and why they say things in certain ways.

This video also yields one ominous observation: Despite these liberating aspects of Kelly’s performance, a sense of a judgment looms; A Standardizing Big Brother lurking somewhere, wanting to say someone sounds way off, really weird, FOBy, or jumbled up (all words Kelly uses to describe her own fluid language use).

As Kelly’s video exemplifies, under the imagined gaze of Standardizing Big Brother, sometimes people on line speak apologetically about their own language—voicing comments they have heard from other people. Other times, people speak out about more nuanced features of their own language. Usually, the same person does a little bit of both. Have you performed an accent tag video? Have you found one you appreciate? What did you think of Kelly’s?  Post your comments and findings here!

Betsy Rymes Language, Language awareness, language ideology

Citizen Sociolinguistics: What is it?

Citizen Sociolinguistics: What is it?

People often understand the way they speak by what other people tell them about it. Even the most eloquent speakers may hear those censorious voices behind their own: That is not proper. That sounds non-native. That’s not a word.

Why should this be? Why would we let others define the way we speak when we are the ones closest to our own communication? When, often, what other people tell us about our own language is no more informed than our own intuitions? And, when what other people tell us is less informed about the fabric of our own living?   Why do we let other people tell us how to talk when we are the ones trying to communicate?

For some reason we want standardized depictions of our own communicative ventures. Of course, this might seem logical—we need a shared language, after all. And yet, often these standardized depictions are limited in scope, vision, or utility. These standardized versions don’t seem to capture what really matters—they’re “not what I really meant.” So, when given the opportunity, people speak up about what they know, uniquely, about the language they use.

I call such speaking up about one’s own language, Citizen Sociolinguistics. And that is what this blog is about. In this blog, I explore what people say when they speak about language from a perspective of someone who knows their own context, who uses language there, and who cares about communicating.

Because, while censorious voices lurk behind each individual’s unique voice–“That’s not proper” or “That’s not a word” or “That sounds non-native”– people speaking out loud usually have inner retorts: “I do not want to sound proper right now.” “I like the unique flavor of my own “non-native” diction.” “It’s a word now—because I’m using it!”

Today, in large part because of the medium of the Internet, we can bear witness to those inner retorts. Paradoxically, the Internet does not limit us to standardized versions of communication; Rather, it provides a medium to talk back to those inner censorious standardizers.

While, as we shall see, sometimes people broadcast internalized censoriousness, (“I know I sound funny”) people also broadcast pride in their own sense of who they are and have taken to the Internet to spread the knowledge of their own unique voice (“People say I sound funny, but let me show you something…”).

In general, the Internet provides a medium for everyday perspectives on language and communication and this blog will be a place to explore those understandings. So, what are your experiences as a citizen sociolinguist? Have you experienced inner (or outer!) censoriousness? Share your experiences and speak out here! I invite your comments.