Language, as the other tangible objects, is essential in the study of subcultures, as it works hand in hand with the other signs, thus it mobilizes material resources to create meaning. Mendoza-Denton creatively link various practices and signs with discursive language use as resources to mark identity and maintain it through distributed memory. This memory does not have to be necessarily actual, but can be imaginative, and it can provide “a stable image upon which new elements are superimposed” (Schwartz, quoted in Mendoza-Denton 2008: 179). This memorialization is non-standardized and shared, thus evasive (not to be used against the gang) and shared (the collective memory is continuing and ever-changing).
Various forms of discourse and embodied practices are brought in the process …show more content…
His ethnography on ’ahawi is interesting, and what drew my attention is the fact that code-switching by swearing in English is a sort of clowning, but in this case it’s to boost the person’s prestige and to protect the sensibilities of the others who do not share it. It is similar in my experience, to when I use English profanity, which would not offend my friends and family, versus Arabic profanity, which would raise few eyebrows. By doing this one can shift between two semiotic domains that overlap and offer an access to actualize multiple social identities.
The poly-semiotics of a place shape the social performance to accommodate the meanings inscribed in them. A place can also be commodified and can be an identity marker between who can enter it or who cannot. Also, a place can be a playground for gender performance as in the case of feminine coffee shops versus masculine ’ahawis, where the first is a “trans-local” indexing foreignness (Peterson p. 142) where the upper and upper-middle classes
Various forms of discourse and embodied practices are brought in the process …show more content…
His ethnography on ’ahawi is interesting, and what drew my attention is the fact that code-switching by swearing in English is a sort of clowning, but in this case it’s to boost the person’s prestige and to protect the sensibilities of the others who do not share it. It is similar in my experience, to when I use English profanity, which would not offend my friends and family, versus Arabic profanity, which would raise few eyebrows. By doing this one can shift between two semiotic domains that overlap and offer an access to actualize multiple social identities.
The poly-semiotics of a place shape the social performance to accommodate the meanings inscribed in them. A place can also be commodified and can be an identity marker between who can enter it or who cannot. Also, a place can be a playground for gender performance as in the case of feminine coffee shops versus masculine ’ahawis, where the first is a “trans-local” indexing foreignness (Peterson p. 142) where the upper and upper-middle classes