AAA double session: Mediating Private and (Counter)Public Discourse: Genre, Addressivity, and the Semiotics of (not) Belonging

[Lauren Zentz]

Myself and my colleague Chris Taylor (Rice U) are organizing a double
session, co-sponsored by SLA and CAE for this November's AAA meetings.  We
have 2 slots still available.  Please see our 500 word panel abstract
below.  If you feel that you have a paper that might fit, please contact me.

Apologies for cross-posting,
  Lauren Zentz

-- 
Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics
Department of English
University of Houston

Faculty Liaison, CAE Graduate Student Committee



The talks in this panel examine how the dichotomizing labels *public* and *
private* function as "shifters" (Silverstein 1976) or "duplex signs"
(Jakobson 1957) which construe social-semiotic relations in terms of
relative intimacy and openness, through various fields of discourse that
include political oratory, legal contracts, hip hop music, and "gossip"
(Besnier 2009, Gal 2002, Gal and Woolard 1995).



For example, Gal and Woolard (1995:135) argue that in everyday encounters,
as well as in anthropological investigation, formulations of "the public"
and "the private" warrant examination as "folk notions" or ideologies
concerned with "groupness, interest, and communication." Crucially, these
dichotomizing ideologies hinge on and emerge through contextually-situated
formulations of the public/private distinction, often employed in
linguistically-oriented  research on the politics of "addressivity" (Agha
2011, Bakhtin 1986, Bell 2007, Noy 2009). Specifically, work along these
lines has focused on genres whose addressive structures hybridize the
ideologically public and private, challenging a dichotomizing logic by
drawing attention to “the play of meaning along the ambiguous
boundary…between types of talk defined as ‘public’ and those defined as
‘private.’” (Hill 1995:197)



The case studies we discuss illustrate how such "leaky boundaries" (Hill
1995) between modes of generic addressivity can be strategically
manipulated for managing impressions of multi-faceted selves (e.g. Hill
1995, 2005, Johnstone 1998, 1999). As we shall argue, the private/public
dynamic exploits "recursive" (Gal 2002) relations between modes of semiosis
through which "the public" may exist in stereotypically "private"
interactions (and vice versa, e.g. a whisper at a party or the “family”
room in a private residence).


To throw light on the logic undergirding these categorical tensions, we
leverage Gal’s (2002) work on generic boundaries and fractal recursivity in
the public/private distinction. Specifically, we examine genres including
political speeches, "local news," and "free radio" (Urla 1995) that mediate
publics, counterpublics, and senses of (not) belonging through ritualized
structures of addressivity. Conceptualized here as relational tactics that
include linguistic strategies for social address and cultural arrangements
for the targeted-dissemination of discourse, these tactics and arrangements
direct messages in speech implicitly and explicitly at an imagined,
projected grouping of people (i.e. “a public"), united by mutual interests
or shared experiences.


With an aim to elucidate the complex interconnections between the so-called
public and private spheres, this panel examines how semiotic "structures of
addressivity" (Noy 2009) mobilize *publicized* and/or *privatized *types of
communication, working in tandem to imagine and engage publics and
counterpublics.  Drawing on fieldwork carried out in various locales, the
talks in this panel aim to  illuminate the political implications of
addressivity, insofar as genericized modes of address shape
collectively-held ideas concerning not only what types of talk "count" as
public or private, but also which social actors "count" as legitimate
constituents of a public .



Collectively, we examine the inclusionary and exclusionary effects of
addressive strategies for imagining publics, with an eye to understanding
how social actors position self and other ideologically as participants (or
non-participants) in activities that sustain senses of
public-as-imagined-community, in contrast with formulations of "the
private" as intimate, familiar, and socially-exclusive.