This study aims to further investigate the language spoken by teenagers as a source of change and innovation on the one hand and as a repository of heightened emotions on the other. Given its volatility and the desire of its users to be understood mainly by group members, it is quite difficult to pin down the ongoing changes and new forms that are constantly being adopted. In this regard, the few specialized corpora available, the COLT (http://korpus.uib.no/icame/colt/) being the most typical, are either too old to register contemporary uses, or rather limited in the kind of situations portrayed. For these reasons, talking media may represent an advantageous source, as they “put standard and vernacular ways of speaking on display, contextualize them and imbue them with the socio-cultural values that we associate with standardness and vernacularity – very differently across different genres and contexts, and differently over time” (Mortensen, Coupland and Thøgersen 2017: 36). The influential role of media in moulding sociolinguistic change has by now been universally recognized: they may raise awareness, re-adjust attitudes, values, and socio-cultural norms, for example promoting standardization or de-standardization (Bednarek 2018). This contribution relies on a corpus-assisted methodology (Partington, Duguid and Taylor 2013) and extends the research in Bruti 2021, by comparing and contrasting the data already obtained (from a self-compiled corpus of American contemporary teen drama) with fresh data from comparable texts, one featuring British English (Skins 2007-2013) and the other offering a snapshot of a previous decade (Dawson’s Creek 1998-2003). The purpose is therefore to ascertain whether the markers of teen language identified in a previous study, e.g., wanna/gonna, totally and the lexical items fuck, shit and dude, can be considered characteristic elements of contemporary American teen talk as represented in drama series or if they also surface in British English and in previous decades.
Discussing traces of innovation and emotion in teen talk in TV series
Bruti, Silvia
2023-01-01
Abstract
This study aims to further investigate the language spoken by teenagers as a source of change and innovation on the one hand and as a repository of heightened emotions on the other. Given its volatility and the desire of its users to be understood mainly by group members, it is quite difficult to pin down the ongoing changes and new forms that are constantly being adopted. In this regard, the few specialized corpora available, the COLT (http://korpus.uib.no/icame/colt/) being the most typical, are either too old to register contemporary uses, or rather limited in the kind of situations portrayed. For these reasons, talking media may represent an advantageous source, as they “put standard and vernacular ways of speaking on display, contextualize them and imbue them with the socio-cultural values that we associate with standardness and vernacularity – very differently across different genres and contexts, and differently over time” (Mortensen, Coupland and Thøgersen 2017: 36). The influential role of media in moulding sociolinguistic change has by now been universally recognized: they may raise awareness, re-adjust attitudes, values, and socio-cultural norms, for example promoting standardization or de-standardization (Bednarek 2018). This contribution relies on a corpus-assisted methodology (Partington, Duguid and Taylor 2013) and extends the research in Bruti 2021, by comparing and contrasting the data already obtained (from a self-compiled corpus of American contemporary teen drama) with fresh data from comparable texts, one featuring British English (Skins 2007-2013) and the other offering a snapshot of a previous decade (Dawson’s Creek 1998-2003). The purpose is therefore to ascertain whether the markers of teen language identified in a previous study, e.g., wanna/gonna, totally and the lexical items fuck, shit and dude, can be considered characteristic elements of contemporary American teen talk as represented in drama series or if they also surface in British English and in previous decades.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
