(Em)bodying the linguistic landscape: affect, language and space
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Date
2024
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University of the Western Cape
Abstract
This dissertation is an exploration of the contemporary discussion of the body in Sociolinguistics. This discussion is undergirded by two important texts: Peck and Stroud’s (2015) Skinscapes and Bucholtz and Hall’s (2016) Embodied Sociolinguistics. In these two papers, the authors argue for an analytical focus in contemporary sociolinguistics, which focuses more squarely on the body. Thus, this dissertation is an exploratory effort at contributing to this discussion. This dissertation suggests that based on previous research, it is an analytical strength to incorporate affect into analysis, when focusing on the body. In a moderate response to the theoretical questions offered in preceding studies, the dissertation utilises affect in analysis to highlight that when we focus on the body in research, our understanding of its role [the body] is enhanced by incorporating affect. The dissertation highlights how the detailed understanding of how communication unfolds is dependent on an analytical focus on the body, in combination with affect. In order to do this, the study focuses on three unique ‘bodily’ case studies which occurred on the South African media landscape during 2016 – 2018. In all three case studies, embodiment is present, though to varying degrees. The study relies on a qualitative research design to investigate these three cases, utilising Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis as the core analytical toolkit. The overall argument of the dissertation is that the focus on bodies and embodiment is best paired with a focus on affect, as affect is shown to be a guiding principle in communication in these studies. A moderate argument for affect is advanced, as previous studies do indicate that a sole focus on the body is productive on its own. Engaging affect when studying embodiment then, is a suggested method for providing a more nuanced, detailed explanation of how communication unfolds.
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Keywords
Embodiment, Bodies, Affect, Virtual Linguistic Landscapes, Language, Gender and Sexuality, Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis