32.1301, Review: Swedish; Sociolinguistics: Beers Fägersten (2020)
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Subject: 32.1301, Review: Swedish; Sociolinguistics: Beers Fägersten (2020)
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Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2021 18:25:19
From: Villy Tsakona [villytsa at otenet.gr]
Subject: Language Play in Contemporary Swedish Comic Strips
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-1985.html
AUTHOR: Kristy Beers Fägersten
TITLE: Language Play in Contemporary Swedish Comic Strips
SERIES TITLE: Language Play and Creativity
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2020
REVIEWER: Villy Tsakona, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
SUMMARY
Being popular culture texts addressed to wide audiences, comic strips (and
similar genres) have more often than not used colloquial, informal language
varieties in their panels. This has been one of the main reasons why they have
been negatively evaluated as ‘inappropriate’ for children and, in general, as
‘less significant’ genres suitable only for ‘illiterate’ or ‘semi-literate’
readers (see among others Ben Rafael & Ben Raphael 2012: 142, Gibson 2012).
Kristy Beers Fägersten’s study adopts a totally different perspective by
suggesting that comic strips, which represent informal interactions and
everyday activities, constitute useful and insightful material bringing to the
surface important sociolinguistic phenomena and trends in language use that
usually go unnoticed by those who quickly dismiss such texts as ‘trivial’ and
‘unimportant’ (see also Meesters 2012). The author specifically proposes that
(at least contemporary) comic strips may shed light on speakers’
sociolinguistic practices and, by extension, trends in language change. In
this context, she investigates language play and humor in a large corpus of
Swedish comic strips so as to demonstrate how and why the analysis of such
phenomena could provide valuable insights concerning sociolinguistic phenomena
such as dialectal and spelling variation, language contact and respective
stereotypes and language ideologies, loan translations, code-mixing, and
code-switching.
In Chapter (1) titled “Language play as humor in comic strips”, the author
outlines the goals of the study and introduces the main theoretical/analytical
concepts which will be used throughout the book. She briefly presents some
main definitions of play and language play and discusses specific aspects of
(language) play, such as its deviation from ordinariness and distortion of
(linguistic or other) rules, its entertaining function, its potential to
create intimacy or conflict as well as to draw speakers’ attention to language
per se. Inevitably, the discussion moves to the relationship among language
play, linguistic creativity, and humor. Beers Fägersten claims that
“[l]anguage play and creativity trade on deliberate linguistic manipulation”
(p. 5), which often results in multiple interpretations of the same utterance,
namely in what humor scholars describe as two overlapping but incongruous
semantic scripts (see among others Raskin 1985). In this sense, language play
is explored “as a source of humor in contemporary Swedish comic strips” (p.
7). The author also underlines the significance of framing for detecting and
comprehending humor in this genre. Comic strips are more often than not
perceived as potentially humorous texts: readers more or less expect them to
be humorous and look for humorous incongruities “within the texts, within the
images, or between the text(s) and image(s)” (p. 9; see also Tsakona 2009).
The discussion in Chapter (1) is rounded up with an overview of the Chapters
to follow.
In Chapter (2) titled “Vällkamm to Sviden”, Beers Fägersten provides an
extensive description of the dataset analyzed for the purposes of the study.
She begins by pointing out the self-aware and simultaneously self-deprecating
quality of the comic strips examined: they often employ widely known
stereotypes about Sweden and Swedes to create humor. Then, she moves on to
their generic features: the comic strips under scrutiny are open-ended
narrative episodes with recurrent characters represented in their everyday
activities and interactions, and have all been published in daily Swedish
newspapers. Being “serial narratives firmly rooted in reality” (p. 24) and
focusing on “banal interaction” (p. 25), the comic strips in question become a
suitable locus not only for language play and humor, but also for depicting
current sociolinguistic trends in the Swedish linguo-cultural community. As
the author argues, less importance is attached by their creators to the
images, which are often static and exhibit minimal differences from one panel
to the other. Swedish comic strip creators tend to represent “the prolonged
moment, which definitely establishes text as their most significant element”
(p. 34). This distinguishes their work from works in other comics traditions
which capitalize on physical action and changes in the setting (e.g. the
American one).
Chapter (3), “Schwädn hupp jöördi hoo”, is dedicated to the playful
exploitation of dialectal varieties of Swedish in the comic strips to create a
humorous effect. Two kinds of dialectal humor are identified by the author in
the data analyzed: dialect mixing and dialect mimicry. The former pertains to
switches between Swedish and other languages (extensively discussed in
Chapters 4-7), while the latter involves the representation of regional
varieties and other sociolects of Sweden. So, comic strip creators appear to
play with various Swedish dialects evoking and reproducing relevant
stereotypes and targeting not only their speakers but, most importantly, those
who attempt to imitate the dialects. The latter are ridiculed because their
knowledge of dialects seems to be limited to the respective stereotypes. In
order to represent dialectal speakers or imitators, comic strip creators
exploit non-standard, unconventional spelling, thus rendering the differences
between standard Swedish and colloquial or dialectal Swedish literally
visible. Such playful practices reveal creators’ “irreverence with regards to
linguistic systems and language usage” (p. 44). Such humor presupposes
readers’ familiarity with dialectal particularities and stereotypes to be
understood.
Chapter (4) “Gracias de nada!” concentrates on the use of code-switching in
comic strips. Swedish is mixed with languages Swedes are more or less exposed
to, such as Arabic, Norwegian, Danish, Italian, German, and Spanish.
Considering such humor to be a kind of dialectal humor (see above), the author
argues that it has a denigrating effect at the expense of non-Swedish
languages, cultures, and populations. Furthermore, she convincingly
demonstrates that denigration also takes place at the expense of
code-switching characters, who are depicted as ‘incompetent’ speakers of
languages other than Swedish. Through using non-standard utterances and
spelling, comic strip creators play with languages, while presupposing that
their readers are more ‘competent’ than their characters, and hence the former
are able to detect and interpret the latter’s unconventional uses as such. The
author points to two significant side-effects of such language play: first,
that “it is both implied and explicitly stated that these languages are
simplistic or unintelligible […], thereby positioning Swedish as the superior
language, and Sweden as the superior nation” (p. 71); and second, that “it
takes a high degree of competence to perform incompetence”, hence through
code-mixing and unconventional styles comic strip creators portray themselves
not as “deficient” but instead as “multicompetent” language users (p. 89).
The only language not discussed in Chapter (4) is English. Due to its
popularity among Swedish people and its status as “Sweden’s non-official
second language” (p. 12), three Chapters, starting with Chapter (5) titled “In
English, please”, are dedicated to language play involving English and
Swedish. Given that Swedes are reported to be more or less proficient in
English, comic strip creators engage in Swedish-English code-switching quite
frequently. Two major trends are identified by the author. First, playful
switches to English are employed to highlight characters’ linguistic skills;
in such cases, characters use formulaic phrases or idioms, originating in
popular culture texts and often appearing in the punchline of the comic
strips. Secondly, switches to English are employed to portray characters as
‘incompetent’ speakers speaking a Swedish, non-standard variety of English.
Unconventional spellings and non-idiomatic utterances thus appear in the comic
strips and such language play ends up constituting a form of Swedish
self-deprecating humor. Consequently, language play in comic strips becomes a
means for representing Swedes as ‘competent’ or ‘incompetent’ speakers of
English.
Extending the discussion on code-switches to English, the author focuses on
swear words in comic strips in Chapter 6 titled “Are you completely @#☠
fucking crazy?”. Even though, in general, swear words are not expected to
appear in mainstream media and are often censored, it seems that English swear
words are tolerated in comic strips published in Swedish newspapers. English
swear words are employed as a kind of language play resulting in diverse
incongruities and reproducing stereotypes at the expense of Anglophone
cultures (especially the US-American one) as excessively engaging in swearing.
Among other things, English swear words allude to background knowledge shared
by the members of the audience and construct the represented interactions as
casual. Beers Fägersten observes that, although in Anglophone countries the
use of swear words may often be perceived as offensive and inappropriate
(especially in public contexts), in Sweden it is allowed and in fact
interpreted as humorous. It therefore seems that among Swedes such terms have
undergone “semantic bleaching” (p. 154) and carry less negative meanings and
associations than among native speakers of English.
In the final Chapter (7) “Face the facts”, the author first summarizes the
findings of Chapters (2-6) and then, quite unconventionally and unexpectedly,
continues with further analyses of the data. This time, she explores language
play in interactions between Swedes and non-Swedes where English is used as a
lingua franca. Comic strip characters are sometimes represented in places
outside Sweden trying to communicate with locals in English. In such cases,
diverse varieties of English are juxtaposed and hence readers are expected to
be ‘competent’ users of English to grasp the meanings of language play and
humor. Last but not least, Beers Fägersten discusses Anglicisms as a source of
language play. It seems that language contact between Swedish and English has
resulted --to a significant extent-- in loan translations or calques, which
could be perceived as “a form of covert code-switching” (p. 182). Such loan
translations constitute non-idiomatic uses of Swedish, which require readers’
familiarity with English idioms. If readers cannot translate the Swedish
non-idiomatic uses back to English, language play and humor are lost for them.
EVALUATION
“A sociolinguistic study on Swedish comic strips? So what?” Such questions may
pop up in prospective readers’ minds when they bump into this book. In my
view, the fact that the study is limited to Swedish data significantly
strengthens its coherence and should definitely not be considered to be a
disadvantage. Beers Fägersten’s theoretical discussions and argumentation are
compelling and could turn out be most inspiring for further research in the
areas of sociolinguistics, pragmatics, comics studies, humor research,
critical semiotics, etc.
The study explores an interesting dataset of comic strips and its
presentation, and analyses are carefully written so as to be understood by
readers who may not be familiar with Swedish language and culture at all. In
addition, the author makes a most original exploitation of the data: she uses
a large number of comic strips not only to illustrate theoretical points
emerging from their linguistic analysis, but also to contextualize the
material under scrutiny. In other words, comic strips are also employed as
useful resources to speak about Swedish culture and as meta-comments on the
use of language play therein.
As already mentioned, the book explores various sociolinguistic phenomena
concerning language use and play in Sweden, such as dialectal and spelling
variation, language contact and respective stereotypes and language
ideologies, loan translations, code-mixing, and code-switching. All these seem
to be exploited by comic strip creators to produce a humorous effect. Even
though in her analyses Beers Fägersten adequately shows the interplay between
sociolinguistic phenomena and language play, at some points a more in-depth
and critical discussion of certain ideological presuppositions in comic strips
would be welcome. For instance, even within the humorous frame of comic
strips, Germans are identified with Nazis (pp. 74-75), Italians are indirectly
represented as speaking in an incoherent manner (pp. 71-73), Spaniards are
portrayed as slow and professionally incompetent (pp. 86-87), or Swedes are
ridiculed for not speaking standard English (Chapters 5 and 7). It has been
suggested in the relevant literature that humor may function as a distraction
or as a way to disguise and downplay racist or other stereotypes, which may go
unnoticed by readers who just laugh with it and do not adopt a critical stance
towards it (see Archakis et al. 2018 and references therein).
A final note concerns the structure of the book: the conclusions of the book
and the analysis included in Chapter (7) might rather have appeared in
separate chapters. Thus, the author could have elaborated on her findings
(including those emerging in Chapter 7) in view of previous research.
Beers Fägersten’s study on language play in Swedish comic strips is highly
recommended for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, comics
studies, humor research, and critical semiotics, among other research areas.
It is a pleasant, easy to read, original book with insightful observations and
analyses, which underline the significance of investigating language variation
and change in contexts where we normally do not look for them.
REFERENCES
Archakis, Argiris, Sofia Lampropoulou & Villy Tsakona. 2018. “I’m not racist
but I expect linguistic assimilation”: The concealing power of humor in an
anti-racist campaign. Discourse, Context and Media 23. 53-61.
Ben-Rafael, Miriam & Eliezer Ben-Rafael. 2012. Plurilingualism in francophone
comics. In Frank Bramlett (ed.), Linguistics and the study of comics, 142-162.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gibson, Mel. 2012. Cultural Studies: British girls’ comics, readers and
memories. In Matthew J. Smith & Randy Duncan (eds.), Critical approaches to
comics: Theories and methods, 267-279. New York: Routledge.
Meesters, Gert. 2012. To and fro Dutch Dutch: Diachronic language variation in
Flemish comics. In Frank Bramlett (ed.), Linguistics and the study of comics,
163-182. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Raskin, Victor. 1985. Semantic mechanisms of humor (Studies in Linguistics and
Philosophy 24). Dordrecht: D. Reidel.
Tsakona, Villy. 2009. Language and image interaction in cartoons: Towards a
multimodal theory of humor. Journal of Pragmatics 41(6). 1171-1188.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Villy Tsakona is Assistant Professor of Social and Educational Approaches to
Language in the Department of Early Childhood Education, National and
Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. She has published articles on humor
research, narrative, political, and media discourse analysis as well as on
critical literacy theories and applications. She has recently co-edited The
Dynamics of Interactional Humor with Jan Chovanec (Benjamins 2018) and
authored Recontextualizing Humor: Rethinking the Analysis and Teaching of
Humor (De Gruyter Mouton 2020). Personal webpage:
http://www.concept-pl.us/villy.tsakona
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