The concentration booth and the handshaking lane: ideologies of the phatic

IF 1.1 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS
Shunsuke Nozawa
{"title":"The concentration booth and the handshaking lane: ideologies of the phatic","authors":"Shunsuke Nozawa","doi":"10.1515/ijsl-2022-0083","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Scholars of language and culture have effectively used the language ideology concept to critique the referentialist assumption in the post-Enlightenment conceptualization of language and society. Continuing with this critical project, this article attempts a further reorientation of our analytic metalanguage to explore the ideology of the phatic, the way in which salient emphasis is placed on problems regarding communicative channels of contact. The article identifies this ideology in the increasingly visible role played by phatic labor and its concrete manifestations in scenes of service and affective labor in contemporary Japan. Two separate instances are analyzed to reveal their common engagement with channels of contact as a metapragmatic concern. First, I analyze one Japanese restaurant chain’s attempt to design and control the material zone of contact in dining experience, as indicative of the larger tendency in the contemporary economy to standardize consumer desire at the level of the phatic. Second, I look to the culture of celebrity, especially popular idols, and examine the institutionalization of fan-idol contact that has become a hegemonic marketing strategy. These cases witness rituals of public encounter that either work to hybridize human speech acts with nonhuman speech-actants inhabiting the material environment of contact, or to regulate forms of interaction deemed detrimental to the channel of affect through monitoring, interruption, and other forms of phatic policing. I use this analysis to draw attention to the necessity of taking the phatic function seriously in the scholarly exploration of language ideology. While scholars in various fields have frequently spoken of the centrality of communicative labor in postindustrial societies, the analytic focus on ideologization of the phatic offers a more precise theoretical and empirical framework for examining how communication is fetishized as the central site of political and economic intervention.","PeriodicalId":52428,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of the Sociology of Language","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2022-0083","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract Scholars of language and culture have effectively used the language ideology concept to critique the referentialist assumption in the post-Enlightenment conceptualization of language and society. Continuing with this critical project, this article attempts a further reorientation of our analytic metalanguage to explore the ideology of the phatic, the way in which salient emphasis is placed on problems regarding communicative channels of contact. The article identifies this ideology in the increasingly visible role played by phatic labor and its concrete manifestations in scenes of service and affective labor in contemporary Japan. Two separate instances are analyzed to reveal their common engagement with channels of contact as a metapragmatic concern. First, I analyze one Japanese restaurant chain’s attempt to design and control the material zone of contact in dining experience, as indicative of the larger tendency in the contemporary economy to standardize consumer desire at the level of the phatic. Second, I look to the culture of celebrity, especially popular idols, and examine the institutionalization of fan-idol contact that has become a hegemonic marketing strategy. These cases witness rituals of public encounter that either work to hybridize human speech acts with nonhuman speech-actants inhabiting the material environment of contact, or to regulate forms of interaction deemed detrimental to the channel of affect through monitoring, interruption, and other forms of phatic policing. I use this analysis to draw attention to the necessity of taking the phatic function seriously in the scholarly exploration of language ideology. While scholars in various fields have frequently spoken of the centrality of communicative labor in postindustrial societies, the analytic focus on ideologization of the phatic offers a more precise theoretical and empirical framework for examining how communication is fetishized as the central site of political and economic intervention.
集中营和握手通道:相声的意识形态
摘要 研究语言和文化的学者们有效地利用了语言意识形态概念,对启蒙运动后语言和社会概念化中的指涉主义假设进行了批判。本文继续这一批判项目,试图进一步调整我们的分析性金属语言的方向,以探讨语篇的意识形态,即突出强调有关交流接触渠道问题的方式。这种意识形态体现在当代日本日益明显的语音劳动及其在服务和情感劳动场景中的具体表现。文章分析了两个不同的实例,以揭示它们作为一种形而上学关注点与接触渠道的共同联系。首先,我分析了一家日本连锁餐厅试图设计和控制用餐体验中的物质接触区,这表明了当代经济中更大的趋势,即在语义层面上将消费者的欲望标准化。其次,我将目光投向了名人文化,尤其是大众偶像,并考察了粉丝与偶像接触的制度化,这已成为一种霸权营销策略。这些案例见证了公众相遇的仪式,这些仪式要么将人类的言语行为与居住在接触的物质环境中的非人类言语行为者混合在一起,要么通过监控、打断和其他形式的言语管理来规范被认为不利于情感渠道的互动形式。我通过这一分析提请大家注意,在对语言意识形态进行学术探讨时,有必要认真对待语音功能。虽然不同领域的学者经常谈论后工业社会中交流劳动的中心地位,但对语言意识形态化的分析为研究交流如何被迷信为政治和经济干预的中心场所提供了更精确的理论和实证框架。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
International Journal of the Sociology of Language Arts and Humanities-Language and Linguistics
CiteScore
2.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
66
期刊介绍: The International Journal of the Sociology of Language (IJSL) is dedicated to the development of the sociology of language as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches – theoretical and empirical – supplement and complement each other, contributing thereby to the growth of language-related knowledge, applications, values and sensitivities. Five of the journal''s annual issues are topically focused, all of the articles in such issues being commissioned in advance, after acceptance of proposals. One annual issue is reserved for single articles on the sociology of language. Selected issues throughout the year also feature a contribution on small languages and small language communities.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信