In our conversation data from working class adolescents in Hong Kong
(collected both in and out of youth centres, with our field workers hanging
out with adolescents), a lot of taboo words, slangs, sex-related words,
which are sanctioned by mainstream adults, are creatively and artfully used
by adolescents in their verbal play and teasing rituals. We are still doing
our analysis but will be presenting some work-in-progress in the upcoming
Sociolinguistics Symposium in London 2 weeks from now (March 26-29).
What we find most interesting is that the use of taboo language seems to be
a reflection of the assertion of agency by adolescents, who take pleasure
and pride in breaking / experimenting with / expanding and enriching the
language use rules/norms of the mainstream adult world, and create a new
play space in which they excell and gain peer recognition for their many
artful ways of subverting mainstream adult language use norms. Their
language play consists of not only use of taboo language but also
"inappropriate" (from the adult's perspective) but new and creative uses of
langauge. It's new language uses being made/tried out every day by these
adolescents. It's their game, their chosen activity, their chosen play
space created by themselves in which adult rules and norms are constantly
being contested and creatively subverted.
Angel
(Angel Lin, Dept of English, City Unversity of Hong Kong; e-mail:
enangel who-is-at cityu.edu.hk)
At 12:10 PM 3/7/98 -0800, you wrote:
>At 6:16 PM 3/6/98, SERPELL wrote:
>
>>
>>The bit that got to me in Diane's message dated Feb 28 (slow to catch up,
>>aren't I?) was the "slipperyness" and potential for in-group controversy
>>of affectionate, ingroup usage of terms that entered the lexicon as terms of
>>abuse for the group by outsiders. ...
><snip>
>>As a long-time advocate of respect for indigenous usage in the field of
>>education, I find this issue very challenging. Irony, as we have often noted
>>in this medium, is a very delicate genre. Perhaps, the best guidance we can
>>offer is to suppress its usage when cross-cultural communication is at
stake ?
>>
>>
>>Robert
>
>Thanks for the thoughts Robert,
>Ah. Tact. This is an important point, I think; when is it "appropriate"
>perhaps, to deploy "contestable" terms. For myself, and certainly I'm one
>of those who agree that "the limits of my language are the limits of my
>world" (Wittgenstein), I think
>
>the inherent political quality of language needs to be foregrounded;
>language which "offends" changes;
>
>in a way, what is offensive is often reflective of some intolerance; thus
>accepting, *critically*, the complexities of our "slurs" and "deorgatory"
>terms, may signal an important step to changing the way we think about the
>effects of affect, perhaps, the relation between expression and the choices
>of words;
>
>rather than suppressing these issues, cruss-cultural exchanges offer
>opportunities for critical and refelctive consideration of the impact of
>words.
>what i mean to say is suppressing the slurs suppresses the ideology, and
>supposes that one ought to choose the opportunitieis to deploy constestable
>terms on the basis of indieinous languages as being relative/site-specific,
>yes?
>
>perhaps slurs & slangs aren't indigenous languages...?
>diane
>
>
> "Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." Ani Difranco
>*********************************************
>diane celia hodges
> faculty of education, centre for the study of curriculum and
>instruction,
> university of british columbia
> vancouver, bc canada
>
>snailmail: 3519 Hull Street
> Vancouver, BC, Canada V5N 4R8
>
>
>
>
>
>