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Emergent normativity

Jan Blommaert Tilburg University. Emergent normativity. New communicative environments offer ‘free spaces’: no established rules Yet we see instant creation of codes, norms, stable patterns Raise questions of ‘global’, ‘local’, ‘authentic’ Two directions: Super-vernacularization

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Emergent normativity

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  1. Jan Blommaert Tilburg University Emergentnormativity

  2. New communicative environments offer ‘free spaces’: no established rules • Yet we see instant creation of codes, norms, stable patterns • Raise questions of ‘global’, ‘local’, ‘authentic’ • Two directions: • Super-vernacularization • Deglobalization The point

  3. Globalization creates supergroups • Through new communication technologies • Long-distance online networks • New large-scale communities • Communities develop new vernaculars • Based on existing resources: English, standard literacy • Cf pidginization, creolization • But superfast, literate and NORMATIVE Super-vernacularization

  4. Late 1990s: emergence of mobile phone + chat systems as everyday commodity Large constituencies engage in new forms of communication Speed + (initially) cost + keyboard structure (mobile phones) Emergence of global ‘code’ based on English and orthography SMS and chat code

  5. @ • 2 • 4 • 8 • B • C • U • Thx • Msg • Tmrw/2mrw • At • To, too • For • Eight-ate-ait • Be • See • you • Thanks • Message • tomorrow

  6. Nth • Sth • Grz • Bck • Btr • wry • Fwd • ,  etc • Nothing • Something • Greetings • Back • Better • worry • forward

  7. Conventional morphosyntax • B4 (‘before’) • Ur (‘your’) • Mayb (‘maybe’) • The famous 8 • L8 (‘late’) • W8 (‘wait’) • W8 (‘weight’) • I 8 (‘I ate’)

  8. Lookin fwd 2 c u @ urs @ 4  • NORMATIVE: • Looking fwd 2 s u @ urs @ 4  • NOT anything goes • But strictly norm-governed • Defines genres, styles, topics, identities (like any sociolinguistic variety) A newglobalvernacular

  9. Supervernaculars brought into strictly local economy of meaning Blending of resources: global code + local ‘accent’ Global becomes hermetic/local group code Co-existing with supervernacular proper Dialects of the supervernacular Deglobalization

  10. 8 = ‘acht’ (‘eight’) • W8 = ‘wacht’ (‘wait’) • W817= ‘wacht eens even’ (w-acht een-zeven, ‘wait-one-seven’) = ‘wait a moment’ • Kganete = ‘ik ga eten’ (‘I go to eat’); Kweni = ‘ik weet niet’ (‘I don’t know’); kw1 = ‘ik ween’ (I’m crying’) • Colloquial variety projected onto sms/chat code • Affordances of code deployed for strictly local/regional writing Dutch colloquialization

  11. Lavli! Til tumorou ten! • Lovely! Til tomorrow then! • Sii juu! (see you! Cu!) • Häv ö seif flait tu joor nyy houm, Phaia! :-* • Have a safe flight to your new home, Piia! :-* • Häpi bööffei!  • Happy birthday  Finnishheterography

  12. Global English blended with (a) Finnish accent and (b) Finnish orthographic norms Outcome: in-group code, ‘localized’ within a globalized Finnish community A dialect of a supervernacular

  13. Same phenomenon in ALL forms of sociolinguistic globalization Global supervernaculars blended with local ‘accent’, leading to dialects of supervernacular Broadening up

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  15. Super-vernaculars create and sustain super-speech communities • Indexical orders shared even if common linguistic orders are distorted • Global orders: SMS/chat codes, English, literacy conventions: resources offering multiple AFFORDANCES • Local orders can be blended with them: one particular affordance of the supervernacular is deglobalization Speech communities?

  16. The potential to localize global resources expands the scope of ‘authenticity’ E.g. HipHop: global template of HipHop enables new discourses & semiotizations of authenticity Global stuff makes it globally recognizable as HipHop; local stuff makes it locally significant Speech communities organized around indexicals of authenticity (not locality) Authenticity as the ultimate norm? ‘authentic’ speech communities?

  17. In open, non-predefined spaces, norms and conventions are created rapidly and spread effectively, forming new vernaculars Reason: communication requires recognizability of code as basis for understanding Emergent normativity = emergent culture within a superdiverse context Focused on authenticity Conclusion: micropolitics

  18. J.blommaert@uvt.nl The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2010

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