#linguistic discourse

[thefreeblog]

I think the "wife" discourse is because this has been used in a lot of BL dramas already and it is kind of is heteronormative if you think of it. There is no need to bring up wife word which is typically used for females in a all boy relationship.

Anon, this is one way of looking at it.

Let me make it clear, I DO object when a third person makes assumptions or outright asks a gay couple who is the husband or who wears the pants in the relationship. It's not anyone's business but theirs. So it does become heteronormative when someone outside of the couple does it. But when the couple use it themselves and either or both are okay with it, it's different.

For ex. The bit where Rain from LITA actually enjoys being called P'Payu's wife.

Vs Where in Bad Buddy Pran shuts it down when Pat tries to say it. And Pat corrects his mistake.

Both are fine because the couple is talking about it and coming to an agreement.

Now what we saw in The Eclipse was more of a teasing tactic by Ayan to get Akk being open about it. I myself have seen people struggling with internalised homophobia, it's not pretty. So getting some one to ease into queer language and stuff is a challenging task. It may require various tactics, and I saw it as one of that.

I would also like to comment on a different aspect of it. I am an queer Asian living in West. I have seen more of this kind of language in Asian queer couples than is White or western queer community. Hence you see this in a lot of Asian BL dramas but not Western BLs. The roots lie in the languages and cultures. A lot of Asian cultures relate care, softness, gentleness with the feminine side. And it's not in derogatory sense. Most Asians culture actually put the feminine form on pedestal and worship the female side of the nature in different types of goddesses, which you don't see in West at all. So when you say wife or a mother it automatically assumed that it is a good thing. The notion that wife word is demeaning has actually come from the West. It's very common in Asian friend groups to have a common wife or a mother, it's the person in the group who is most caring or gentle irrespective of their gender. Wife material is one common phrase used in Asian youths to identify a friend who is caring gentle etc etc.

So these are some cultural nuisances you would not understand unless and until you have been part of those cultures.

If you ask me everyone should be open to different languages and cultures and their every day things which are different from the so called standard western notions. It could be a learning curve for everyone.

[noaestheticacademic]

On the Identity of "Chat"

Like all the linguistics folks on Tumblr, I've been sent the "chat is a fourth person pronoun" post by a bunch of well-meaning people and and I've been thinking waaay too much about it. @hbmmaster made a wonderful post explaining exactly why "chat" ISN'T a fourth person pronoun, and after reading it I wanted to go a little deeper on what it might actually be doing linguistically, because it is a really interesting phenomenon. Here's a little proposal on what might be going on, with the caveat that it's not backed up by a sociolinguistic survey (which would be fun but more than I could throw together this morning).

On Pronouns

Studying linguistics has been really beneficial for me because understanding that language is constantly changing helped me to become comfortable with using they/them pronouns for myself. I've since done a decent amount of work with pronouns, and here are some basic ideas.

A basic substitution test shows that "chat" is not syntactically a pronoun: it can't be replaced with a pronoun in a sentence.

"Chat, what do we think about that?"

"He*, what do we think about that?" (* = ungrammatical, a native speaker of English would think it sounds wrong)

Linguists identify pronouns as bundles of features identifying the speaker, addressee, and/or someone outside the current discourse. So, a first person pronoun refers to the speaker, a second person pronoun refers to the addressee, and a third person pronoun refers to someone who is neither the speaker nor the addressee (but who is still known to the speaker and addressee). This configuration doesn't leave a lot of room for a "fourth" person. But the intuition people have that "chat" refers to something external to the discourse is worth exploring.

Hypothesis 1: Chat is a fourth-person pronoun.

We've knocked this one right out.

Hypothesis 2: Chat is an address term.

So what's an address term? These are words like "dude, bro, girl, sir" that we use to talk to people. In the original context where "chat" appears - streamers addressing their viewers - it is absolutely an address term. We can easily replace "chat" with any of these address terms in the example sentence above. It's clear that the speaker is referring to a specific group (viewers) who are observing and commenting on (but not fully participating in) the discourse of the stream. The distinction between OBSERVATION and PARTICIPATION is a secret tool that will come in handy later.

But when a student in a classroom says "wow chat, I hate this," is that student referring to their peers as a chat? In other words, is the student expecting any sort of participation or observation by the other students of their utterance? Could "chat" be replaced with "guys" in this instance and retain its nuance? My intuition as a zillenial (which could be way off, please drop your intuitions in the comments) is that the relationship between a streamer and chat is not exactly what the speaker in this case expects out of their peers. Which brings me to...

Hypothesis 3: chat is a stylistic index.

What's an index in linguistics? To put it very simply, it's anything that has acquired a social meaning based on the context in which it's said. In its original streaming context, it's an address term. But it can be used in contexts where there is not a chat, or even any group of people that could be abstracted into being a chat. Instead, people use this linguistic structure to explicitly mimic the style which streamers use.

And that much seems obvious, right? Of course people are mimicking streamers. It doesn't take a graduate degree to figure that out. What's interesting to me is why people choose to employ streaming language in certain scenarios. How is it different from the same sentence, minus the streamer style?

This all comes down to the indexicality, or social meaning, of streamer speak. This is where I ask you all to take over: what sorts of attitudes and qualities do you associate with that kind of person and that kind of speech? I think it has to do with (here it comes!) the PARTICIPANT/OBSERVER distinction. By framing speech as having observers, a speaker takes on the persona of someone who is observed - a self-styled celebrity. To use "chat" is to position oneself as a celebrity, and in some cases even to mock the notion of such a position. We can see a logical path from how streamers use "chat" as an address term to how it is co-opted to reference streamer culture and that celebrity/observer relationship in non-streaming mediated discourse. If we think about it that way, then it's easy to see why the "fourth person pronoun" post is so appealing. It highlights a discourse relationship that is being invoked wherein "chat" is not a group but a style.

[livinthebookshelf]

Today I decided to learn SFL and CDA because my work climate is not fun 🤕

[sadakodx]

making my own post instead of cluttering up op's: yeah theyfab isn't a slur and as someone who like, technically Falls Under The Perimeters (they/them, Assigned Y'know) i feel insane whenever i see people who do Not try to tell me "oh my god did you know theyfab is a BIG EVIL SLUR made by those BIG EVIL MA-- I MEAN WOMEN to OPPRESS YOU????????" like. i don't know if you knew this but sometimes marginalized people make fun of people with more privilege than them. if you don't consider a trans person making light fun of a cis gay person homophobia, then surely you have enough brainpower to deduce that a trans woman/a non-binary person assigned [indistinct mumbling] lightly dunking on a group of trans people far more socially accepted in lgbt spaces than they are is not equivalent to decades of transmisogyny and, in fact, is often Funny As Hell

edit: some dumbfuck left an essay worth of text on this i didnt read so if you're a man and you're reading this i hope you have a terrible day <3 OHHHH ISNT THAT SO SCARY OOOOOO [WIGGLING MY FINGERS AT YOU] I'M OPPRESSING YOU NOW MISANDRY IS REAL BECAUSE SOMEONE MADE YOU SAD ON THE INTERNET OOOOOO

[tower-of-hana]

Me: I'm mad at the D&D movie for that shit they pulled with the fake conlang but I'm scared to say so because there is a chance that I am just making up a problem in my head.

The LCS: We were just talking in our slack group about how much that D&D movie shit sucked. Just because conlangers aren't paid a living wage doesn't mean they should be treated like dogshit by companies.

Me: Oh okay so I'm not crazy.

[noosphe-re]

Phraseology wide and narrow (Granger, Sylviane & Paquot, Magali. (2008). Disentangling the phraseological web. 10.1075/z.139.07gra.)

[xxscarletxrosexx]

A Linguistic Analysis: Manga Translation (EN/JP/TWN) Comparison of Chapter 90.1 | Part 3

This is written in response to @connoisseursdecomfort's post Comparing Versions of Short Mission 11

((I realized that I should have just made this into a post because my response would be lost as a reblog. And it did... OTL

Also, this is an updated version with more insight/details))

Consider this is as a part 3 of my Linguistic Analysis posts on Spy x Family's Ch. 90.1 or Short Mission 11.

Part 1: A Linguistic Analysis of the Spelling "Ania" and "Anya"...

Part 2: "Ania" is the closest to an identity reveal

This analysis contains spoilers from Chapter 90.1 / Short Mission 11!

What's so interesting about the discourse analysis amongst Japanese, Taiwanese, and English translations is the hedging (word choices that lessen the directness of a dialogue) langauge that Loid uses. It is more clear in the Japanese ("by the way") and Taiwanese ("it came to mind") translations. Whereas, English's hedging is found in "...right?" What the three of them do share in common is that Loid's discourse is pointing to active voice by stating "your name is spelled A-N-Y-A". Apply all of these translations below:

(ENG) Your name is spelled A-N-Y-A, right?

(JP) By the way, your name is spelled A-N-Y-A.

(TW) It came to mind, your name is spelled A-N-Y-A.

It is consistent that Loid's tone is holding authority by demonstrating his knowledge on Ostanian orthography based off the transcriptions he's seen of Anya's name registered as "A-N-Y-A" which was spelled by her previous Ostanian adopted parents. So Twilight feels confident that the spelling of her name MUST be "Anya."

Another thing I wanted to add on to @connoisseursdecomfort's observation is catching loss of translation, which is so unfortunately common. English translation omits translations mainly because some expressions or dialogue that are common in a language (Japanese and Taiwanese) would be perceive differently in English-speaking countries (USA, UK, AUS, CAN, etc.). This is called cultural discount.

It's the reason why Squid Game English dub missed out on many jokes that are play on words in the Korean dub. It is also the reason why a lot of American jokes are not understood by non-English speakers OTL

But this is a general phenomenon because English native consumers would find the expression strange simply because we do not have this style reflected in our discourse. The best example is when @_mika60 translated the omitted text "Anya's heart stirred at the mention of her own name."

To an American (possibly English natives in general, but I can't really speak on behalf of British, Canadians, nor Australians beause their English may be slightly different in terms of cultural lifestyle/upbringing), this expression can be perceived as corny/purple-prosey. Because American discourse don't generally have this emotionally-charged reflective discourse. Hence, omitted. Which is unfortunate because it says so much about how Loid's spelling affected Anya's feelings. So this is a perfect example of cultural discount.

An example of loss in translation is the omission of Anya's text which explains why she can't carve out her name is due to feeling insecure about her bad handwriting. (Again, this is character analysis that English-reading consumers missed out on! Because anything written in the manga is deemed canon.) Whereas English, we completely omit that detail because English native speakers don't need that extra dialogue. The English discourse is typically straight to the point and English native consumers draw inferences from icons (images/illustrations).

Based off my explanation, this is how I see the above picture as an American consumer (using a think-aloud method):

Anya says, "I can't do it right..." and she looks frustrated as illustrated by the swirl above her head.

Her brows are furrowed which supports that she's annoyed/frustrated/angry.

Her cheeks... are they blushes? Is she embarrassed? I can't really tell.

She's also a 4 y/o or was it 5 y/o child (she lied being 6, right?) so it's obvious she probably might be annoyed because she can't draw straight lines.

Because she's an infant, I'm sure she doesn't have the strength to draw clean lines.

Based off my thought process above, do I think OR am I convinced that Anya feels insecure? No.

Can it be argued that she's insecure? Yes, absolutely.

If I were to talk to someone who posits Anya may be insecure because of his/her knowledge of children behavior and/or mannerism, then I would be convinced. However, I would arrive to this assimilation through negotiating observations and exchanging knowledge of children behavioral mannerism. However, this would become more of headcanon if it wasn't explicitly stated in the manga (keep it mind that the Japanese translation DOES explicitly state that she's insecure because of her bad handwriting, so yes, it is canon that Anya is insecure of her bad handwriting).

Anyways...

I love translation comparisons mainly because you get to experience cultural exchange if you are fortunate enough to understand or have access to a translator (*cough* @connoisseursdecomfort *cough*) who enjoys comparing multiple languages. Thank you for doing God's work @connoisseursdecomfort <3

[linguisticillustrations]

Pitch trace of the utterance "it's not that I", showing a peak on the negation not. A funky way of illustrating pitch? Pitch before Praat?

Labov, William & David Fanshel. 1977. Therapeutic discourse: psychotherapy as conversation. New York: Academic Press. [Figure 3, page 45]

A footnote explains the visualization this way: "Spectral Dynamics Real-Time Analyzer 301C with output displayed on a Tektronix 611 storage oscilloscope. The analyzer synthesizes 500 filters every 50 milliseconds over a variety of frequency ranges; the analysis can be terminated after any given number of filters and a new sweep started immediately. The pitch contour display used throughout this volume is made with a frequ ency range of 5,000 Hz. Each filter has a nominal bandwidth of 10 Hz and an effective bandwidth of 15 Hz. The sweep is terminated after the first 110 filters, so that a spectrum is generated every 11 milliseconds. The display on the oscilloscope is logarithmic and cuts off at 54 db below maximum. High-pass filtering at 12 db per octave begins at 3,000 Hz, and, in addition, the roll-off of the Nagra IV-S tape recorder - LS + FA - is used. Volume is then adjusted so that only the peaks of the wave forms are visible, thus tracing the path of the fundamental frequency without the interference of other signals"

[wowbright]

Creating a new post I can reblog every time I see one particular post cross my dash:

Merriam-Webster continues to make its abridged dictionary available for use online, free of charge. It includes more than 200,000 words from the English language (with emphasis on American English). That's A LOT of information for free. And it's something that's entirely different from before the internet existed, when you had to purchase a dictionary or physically get to a library or school in order to get access to a single definition.

The unabridged Merriam-Webster dictionary, which includes additional words, is available for a subscription fee. It has been behind a paywall for years now, which I know because I paid for it for work purposes more than 10 years ago, and because of this 2002 article from Computer World: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2587755/merriam-webster-launches-paid-subscription-site.html

(That's right, this article is more than 20 years old!)

Paper copies of good quality unabridged dictionaries cost much more than the subscription price, reaching into the hundreds to thousands of dollars--which I also know first hand, because I studied linguistics and then worked in editing, and I had to use them both for school and for work.

If you are only finding out now through a tumblr post about the paywall for the unabridged version even though you've been using merriam-webster.com for years, it's because you've never looked up a word on it that was only in the unabridged version. That's how generous Merriam-Webster has been and continues to be!

But they can't give everything away for free. Merriam-Webster has a paid version because they need to pay their staff of linguists, who constantly update and add definitions as the meanings of words change over time and new words enter the English language, as well as write articles to explain things about words. They also have to pay for things like web designers, coders, support staff, and servers.

Creating and maintaining dictionaries with up-to-date definitions takes a lot of work, and the people doing that work deserve to be fairly compensated.

If that makes you mad, then stop using it. If you want a completely free dictionary with no paid tiers that you can use from any computer or smartphone, use Wiktionary.

[metafucked]

Isogender Is not trans in denial!! Someone may be an identity that still aligns heavily with their agab! So they don't feel like part of the trans community! But they don't have to identify as cis because their identity isn't fully the same as their agab.

My sister is enby. They are afab and use they/she pronouns. As you can tell, they are still heavily fem-aligned. They feel that them being enby doesn't take away their identity as an afab but also doesn't make them a woman. They don't use this label but that's an example of why someone might.

There are lots of labels for systems who have strange experiences with being trans! This is a label some of our transfem alters are interested in. We are afab and masc-transitioning enby. So our body will not be cis to them ever either. But they were still formed in an afab body so using trans doesn't feel quite right to them. Boom! (used for reference: instagram account nocontext_inclus and lgbt-pride.fandom.com ).

I believe this flag was coined by @beyond-mogai-pride-flags and from top to bottom, the colours represent; masc, fem, mix of both, and the gradient represents a strong-to-weak attachment to gender, from top to bottom. (Source: lgbtqia.wiki and mogai.miraheze.org ).

[japhugmafia]

To be fair I feel like there's a lot of nuance that is often lost in how linguists collect data with transitive sentences. Like, I know that some Salish languages were documented with dated elicitation methods and make little remarks of how expressing both NPs in a transitive is rare in most languages (often even downright impossible; cf. dxʷləsúcid) where only A xor O can be overt in a sentence—and there's a orienting suffixes on the verb to denote whether the overt NP is a A/O. (A/O can be expressed by pronouns but are not NPs)

from Beck 1996

I do wonder whether there's a similar discussion to be had about how (dis-)similar Taiwanese AN languages are with the Paiwan discourse archetype (Chang 2006), where only a fraction of sentences in discourse actually have both A&O as full NPs.

[thefreeblog]

So the word Meiy is seen translated as darling instead of wife in the last episode of LITA.

It's alright I guess, but why do it if the character himself wants to say it despite him being a guy. The couple had a discussion over it and clearly they both get off on calling Rain wife.

There is difference when the character says it themselves and when the viewers/audience calls a guy wife/malewife based on how they look or actions they do.

I don't like the later but the 1st one comes under kinks. And if Rain wants to call himself a wife he should be allowed to.

[un-pearable]

there is a degree to which the “using dude is misgendering” thing is an issue of cultural + linguistic regional variation not active malicious intent

[defectivegembrain]

Yes words have meanings, words have meanings that naturally change over time. Some words have specific meanings that it's important to preserve for social, cultural and/or scientific reasons, but words don't get to have the same exact meanings forever just by virtue of being words. Humans have nature.

[sophieinwonderland]

It's really hard keeping track of the goalposts! They seem to be changing by the day!

This is clearly talking about the whole term, attributing the term "endogenic" to Freud and associating the whole term with the Fantasy Model.

This is the lie they started with.

When it's pointed out that Freud never said endogenic, and that endogenic was never used in relation to the fantasy model, then it's broadened to the whole "endo" prefix.

When it's pointed out how ridiculously broad this is because the prefix has a ton of uses in psychology (see again: endorphins or the endocrine system) then they immediately move the goalposts again.

I just can't either.

Keep up, that is.

Maybe if the reasons you're supposed to be offended and things you're supposed to be offended about are changing by the day, it's because they were manufactured to begin with? 🤷‍♀️

It's easy to make something out to be offensive if you just start with the premise that it already is, and then make up the reasons why afterwards.

[raffaellopalandri]

Book of the Day - A Practical Handbook of Corpus Linguistics

Today’s Book of the Day is A Practical Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, edited by Magali Paquot and Stefan Th. Gries in 2021 and published by Springer. Magali Paquot is a permanent FNRS research associate at the Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, UCLouvain. She is co‐editor in chief of the International Journal of Learner Corpus Research, a founding member of the Learner Corpus Research…