Comment #3

This is the link to a comment I made on Cindy Outeiro's blog http://cao230.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/week-2-research-blog_29.html?showComment=1349953115845

Warning- This Blog Post Contains The C-Bomb! Week 11 Blog Post

In Nicola Daley's (2003) research paper, titled 'Expletives as solidarity signals in FTA's on the factory floor', she discusses the use of the word 'fuck' as a multi use expression. She describes the different uses as being in 'threatening speech acts, direct complaints and refusals, and its contrasting function in the act of whingeing', and also how it identifies certain community membership within the workplace. I have a similar type of experience, a few years ago, I was working closely with a colleague- we were the only two employees at this business. We became good friends, both inside and outside work, and our greeting for each other somehow became 'hey cuntus'. Yes, from 'hey cunt', which is still a taboo word for a lot of people, we made a little nickname for each other that was endearing, not offensive! However, if you were to greet a stranger with 'hey cunt', it's safe to say they would be incredibly offended! In the article 'Forbidden words: taboo and the censoring of language', profanity is explained as a positive reinforcer in friendships; 'insult can be offered, and taken, as a compliment or a familiar voucher of friendship' (Allan & Burridge, 2006), which is exactly what our greeting was- to anyone else, possibly offensive, to us, not offensive at all! Additionally, the 'community of practice' framework described by Daly could help explain this- we both belonged to a team, and it was quite small- this enabled close friendship bonds to form, therefore we coexisted within that community framework. Certain practices, such as our greeting, became accepted between us. However I think that even if I was to greet another close friend without them being aware of the context, they would possibly be offended. This theoretical approach looks at behaviors and how these indicate 'belonging-ness' to a particular group. Out of the three features of this approach, 'mutual engagement, a joint negotiated enterprise, and a shared repertoire of negotiable resources accumulated over time', I think mutual engagement and a shared repertoire of negotiable resources accumulated over time are most evident in this example. References Allan, K & Burridge, K 2006, 'Forbidden words: taboo and the censoring of language', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Daly, N 2003, 'Expletives as solidarity signals in FTA's on the factory floor', Journal of Pragmatics, vol 36, p945-964.

Comment #2

This is the link to a comment I posted on Brooke Avery's blog. http://bea091.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/wk11-blog-swearing-tradies.html?showComment=1349946484354

Dramaturgy

‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts’

(William Shakespeare, 1599) In his book, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1971), Erving Goffman describes everyday interactions as a ‘performance’, involving actors, or people, in which they put on an act. He describes two extremes, sincere and cynical. A sincere act occurs when a performer is fully convinced into believing his or her own act- ‘the reality staged is the real reality’ (Goffman, 1971). A cynical act occurs when the performer has ‘no belief in his own act and no ultimate concerns with the beliefs of his audience’ (Goffman, 1971), this cynicism may be spiteful, for example, pretending to be nice to someone you dislike, or in the best interest of the other actors in the ‘scene’, for example, pretending to like that hideous jumper your great aunt knitted for you so you don’t hurt her feelings! In a face to face interaction, it is a lot easier to judge if someone is being sincere or cynical, by looking at body language or other cues. Goffman discusses front and back stage performances. Front stage means the area where the actor ‘formally performs and adheres to conventions that have meaning to the audience’ (1971). Back stage is where performers are present but audience is not, and the performers can step out of character without disrupting the performance (Leporc, 2011). An interesting journal article I found discussed undercover detectives in a dramaturgical framework. I found it funny, because the author, Bruce Jacobs, states his interest in the topic came about from a few ‘minor brushes with the law over drug use’ (1992). Busted! He describes four areas of deception related to dramaturgy- rehearsal (of the deal), which took place in the back stage; manipulating appearance, which was a back stage preparation for a front stage performance; verbal diversion, where the agent would distract the dealer from the centrality of the drug deal by talking about a non-related topic, also a front stage performance; and finally, physical diversion, which is also front stage, and involves body language manipulation, for example, the detective pretending to look around anxiously as a drug buyer might do. This would of course be a cynical performance, but Jacobs talked of ‘light’ and ‘deep’ cover detectives- those in deep cover were so immersed in the job that they sometimes changed their whole life to go deep undercover, and I have to wonder if they would start to believe their own performance? References Goffman, E 1971, ‘Performances’, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Harmondsworth, Penguin, pp28-82 Jacobs, B 1992, ‘Undercover Deception: Reconsidering Presentations of Self’, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, vol. 21, pp 200-225. Leporc, A 2011, ‘Interpretation of Erving Goffman’s Dramaturgical Theory in Relation to the ‘Online Stage’ and Facebook’, accessed 28/9/12, http://antoineleporc.com/interpretation-erving-goffman’s-dramaturgical-theory-relation-“online-stage”-facebook/

Comment #1

This comment was on Karishma's blog post for week 9 http://bhandarykarishma.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/bloody-australian-culture.html?showComment=1348827268655

Why The Bloody Hell Were They Offended? (Week 9)

This weeks reading was ‘Australian cultural scripts- bloody revisited’, by Anna Wierzbicka, and it concerned the use of the word ‘bloody’ in Australian speech discourse. Bloody as an adjective has been a part of Australian speech for a long time, since the 1890’s in fact, when weekly magazine of the time, The Bulletin labelled it ‘the great Australian adjective’ (Ludowyk, 2002). But why the bloody hell do some people find it offensive? You can be sure I don’t mean any bloody Aussie when I say that! But the English do find it offensive. So offensive, in fact, that in 2001 they banned an Australian tourism ad featuring Lara Bingle, that asked the question- ‘So where the bloody hell are you?’ (Hong, 2008). The $180 million campaign was swiftly banned in the UK because ‘bloody hell’ was deemed an offensive term. But in Australia, it’s not an offensive term. It wasn’t meant to offend anyone by being used in the tourism ad, least of all the English! ‘Bloody’ is used as a sort of intensifier of what is being said, for example, ‘I just kicked my bloody toe!’. Wierzbicka (2002) identifies two meanings to the word ‘bloody’, depending on if they are used adjectively or adverbially. The Australian National Dictionary (2008) describes the difference as being the adjectival use associated with with negative feelings, while the adverbial use is not necessarily associated with bad feelings. While ‘bloody’ may be considered to be impolite in other countries, in Australia it is a part of Australian culture and speech discourse. Therefore, it should be viewed as one of the common and casual phrases used in everyday life (Hong, 2008). References Australian National Dictionary, 2008, http://australiannationaldictionary.com.au/index.php Hong, M, 2008, ‘Bloody hell and (im)politeness in Australian English’, Griffith Working Papers in Pragmatics and Intercultural Communication, vol. 1, no.1, pp 33-39 Ludowyk, F 2002, ‘The Anatomy of Swearing’, accessed 14/9/12, http://andc.anu.edu.au/ozwords/April%202001/Swearing.html Wierzbicka, A 2002, ‘Australian cultural scripts- bloody revisited’, Journal of Pragmatics, v34, pp1167-1209

Australian cultural scripts: 'bloody' revisited, Ann Guballa and Rachael Roby, Thursday 3.30pm tutorial.

Australian cultural scripts: 'bloody' revisited, Ann Guballa and Rachael Roby, Thursday 3.30pm tutorial. from rachael_roby