inquiry about flirtatious language

[Erez M Levon]

Given Larry's and Catie's messages about speaker intention and listener
uptake, it called to mind that it may be useful to encase a discussion of
flirting within a framework of Jakobson-ian (football) semiotics, where an
analysis examines the expressive, conative and/or referential functions of
any message. Or, since the Jakobson paradigm gets a little unwieldy at
times, Silverstein's analysis of indexical presupposition and entailments.

erez



At 11:12 AM 2/6/04, you wrote:
>Just to add to this, Alan Radley wrote a chapter on the phenomenology of
>flirting in Coupland & Gwyn's 2003 edited collection called "Discourse,
>the Body, and Identity", published by Palgrave Macmillan. Radley
>discussed the tensions between the ends and means of flirting and also
>dealt with multiple notions of "play" which I imagine crossover with
>Larry's mention of "as if".
>
>Here's a brief review of that chapter from The Linguist List on October
>12, 2003. Vol-14-2750.
>
>"Using a phenomenological approach to how flirting is embodied, Radley
>begins his chapter by arguing that flirting reflects a social valuation
>of play, both as a lack of serious commitment in the act of flirtation
>and in the sense that flirtation implies a refusal to hold meaning
>static in a more general way. Drawing on Goffmans (1951) discussion of
>categorical and expressive symbols, Radley argues that discourse and the
>body are not really separable when it comes to flirting because flirting
>creates a space in which the possible meaning of delight overlays a more
>mundane meaning that is simultaneously experienced by a body. In
>addition, the experience of flirting seems to require the
>acknowledgement of the Other. Radley concludes that flirtation occurs
>through simultaneous denotation and performance allowing the emergence
>of non-discursive symbols that may, but do not have to, become
>conventionalized."
>
>To add to that original review, I think Radley meant that
>"conventionalization" would only occur if acts of flirting were
>"recognized" as such by the Other. And, in my view, in a deeper sense of
>intersubjectivity that goes beyond behaviors like flirting to more basic
>processes of recognition of difference in interaction, "intention" takes
>on social value only if it is "recognized" as such.
>
>Catie
>
>Catie Berkenfield
>Ph.D. Candidate
>Department of Linguistics
>University of New Mexico
>
>>Just a codicil on this: I don't think it's safe to infer that the
>>flirter is ready to follow through on the flirtation if the flirtee
>>gives him/her the appropriate uptake. It may be claimed that the
>>flirter presents him/herself as having that intention, but flirting
>>is often an end rather than a means. (The 'sexual intention' may
>>well be part of the expression of interest, but again, there's often
>>an "acts-as-if" pretense here.)
>>
>>larry
>
>
>----------
>
>         Erez Levon
>         NYU Linguistics 719 Broadway Fourth Floor NY NY 10003
>         vox: 212 992 8767               fax: 212 995 4707
>         email: EML246 at nyu.edu   web: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~eml246/
>
>         The limits of my language are the limits of my world. - Wittgenstein
>
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