1. The thing you really want to do and why you are excited about the idea of 'Language
as Talisman' - what is your field and how does it connect with the idea we are putting
forward
My primary field is literary linguistics - that is using ideas from linguistics to explore the
language of literary (and non-literary) texts. But throughout my career I've been drawn to the
idea that style is not just a matter of linguistic fact but also a matter of perception. What one
audience perceives of as 'plain' another perceives of as 'ornate'. In part this is due to changing
taste over time, which is something I am very interested in. But it is also due to the fact that a
key element of style is ideological. The beliefs that we hold about style colour the way in
which we respond to the language of texts and these ideas/assumptions are part of a broader
set of beliefs that we hold about language. Again, I am often interested in this from a
historical perspective - for example, the fact that the rise of prescriptivism in the 18th-19th
centuries constituted a significant shift in the way in which people thought about language
major repercussions for perceptions of literary style. Most recently, I've been looking at
changing uses of dialect in fiction and a key argument here is that is the rise of prescriptivism
makes possible a much richer use of literary dialect because it is only then that audiences
become finely attuned to the social meanings of language variation.
Some recent developments in dialectology have dovetailed very neatly with my interests in
style as perceptual and ideological. Key texts here are various articles by Dennis Preston on
Perceptual Dialectology and Nikolas Coupland's Style (2007).
The concept of 'enregisterment' has also been very formative for me. Agha, Asif. 2003. “The
Social Life of Cultural Value.” Language and Communication
23: 231–73.
Johnstone, Barbara, Jennifer Andrus, and Andrew E. Danielson. 2006. “Mobility,
Indexicality, and the Enregisterment of ‘Pittsburghese.’” Journal of English Linguistics
34: 77–101.
Preston, Dennis R. 2004.
I've also been very influenced by Adam Jaworski, Nikolas Coupland, Dariusz Galasiński
Metalanguage: Social and Ideological Perspectives (2004). In fact, I think a lot of my earlier
work would have been much better if I'd been able to use 'metalanguage' as they understand
it. Key quotations here:
Metalanguage, in the sense of direct or indirect quotation of previous utterances, or
commentary on language performance, style, or rhetorical function, can therefore be a
resource for strategic communication. In doing metalinguistic commentary, for
example "What I was trying to say was ...", we can influence and negotiate how an
utterance is or should have been heard, or try to modify the values attributed to it.
(Jaworski, Coupland and Galasinski, 2004, p. 3-4)
Metalinguistic representations may enter public consciousness and come to constitute
structured understandings, perhaps even 'common sense' understandings - of how
language works, what it is usually like, what certain ways of speaking connote and
imply, what they ought to be like. That is, metalanguage can work at an ideological
level, and influence people's actions and priorities in a wide range of ways, some
clearly visible and others much less so.
(Jaworski, Coupland and Galasinski, 2004, p. 3-4)
[...] it is in the interplay between usage and social evaluation that much of the social
"work" of language - including pressures towards social integrations and division, and
the policing of social boundaries generally - is done.
(Jaworski, Coupland and Galasinski, 2004, p. 3-4)
2. The 'gap' or lacunae in the literature that you think this bid could fill with some key
references as to the fields you are connecting
3. The applicability of this idea to the Connected Communities programme particularly the
concept of narrative/representations in communities (programme spec enclosed as a
reminder)