Autoethnographic Examination: Obscenity As a Register Within a Workplace Speech Community

Authors

  • Adrienne Mann

Abstract

By method of autoethnographic examination and Dell Hymes’ Ethnography of Speaking, this linguistic study focuses on the development of a specific register within a speech community of a seafood-processing establishment. Workers employed a register of obscene language in this setting to create intense and multifaceted relationships, revealing a greater language ideology determined by the establishment’s setting. In association with the obscene register and language ideology, specific language tools were exposed by individual employees’ salient and personal utilization of them. The author concludes with an analysis of whether this register, language ideology, and instrumentalities, are representative of a greater hidden social consciousness and metaphor.

Author Biography

Adrienne Mann

Adrienne Mann is a fourth year undergraduate student pursuing a major in Anthropology and a minor in Indigenous Studies at the University of Victoria. Born and raised in a small and rural community, Adrienne has a passion for increasing child advocacy and social justice in remote areas across Canada. Her topics of interest include cultural appropriation and the dissection of the colonially created “Other,” examining underlying linguistic ideologies, and supporting cross-community collaborations.

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Issue

Vol. 13 (2012)

Section

Papers / Articles

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