Indexing ‘Chav’ on Social Media
Transmodal Performances of Working-Class Subcultures
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Beschreibung
“This marvelous book offers a fresh perspective on class formations in the 21st century. Originally a derogatory epithet for a British underclass, the term Chav was to become the moniker for a gradiently inhabitable social identity, performable and negotiable through the behaviors that make Chav personae identifiable, and eventually to undergo ever-changing forms of reanalysis and regrouping in the lives of British citizens. By carefully tracing these developments through the last two decades, this book shows that any attempt to reify class formations—by criteria of disposable income, and the like—fails utterly to account for the manner in which class identities are created and transformed through the discursive interactions in which they live.”
—Asif Agha, University of Pennsylvania, USA
The book sets out to examine the concept of 'chav', providing a review of its origins, its characterological figures, the process of enregisterment whereby it has come to be recognized in public discourse, and the traits associated with it in traditional media representations. The author then discusses the 'chav' label in light of recent re-appropriations in social network activity (particularly through the video-sharing app TikTok) and subsequent commentary in the public sphere. She traces the evolution of the term from its use during the first decade of the twenty-first century to make sense of class, status and cultural capital, to its resurgence and the ways in which it is still associated with appearance in gendered and classed ways. She then draws on recent developments in linguistic anthropology and embodied sociocultural linguistics to argue that social media users draw on communicative resources to perform identities that are both situated in specific contexts of discourse and dynamically changing, challenging the idea that geo-sociocultural varieties and mannerisms are the sole way of indexing membership of a community. This volume contends that equating 'chav' with 'underclass' in the most recent uses of the concept on social networks may not be the whole story, and the book will be of interest to sociocultural linguistics and identity researchers, as well as readers in anthropology, sociology, British studies, cultural studies, identity studies, digital humanities, and sociolinguistics.Emilia Di Martino is an associate professor at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Naples, Italy. She is interested in a wide variety of topics, mostly focusing on the nexus between identity, language, and power. She has presented at many local and international conferences, and has published extensively, including the book Celebrity Accents and Public Identity Construction: Analyzing Geordie Stylizations (2019).
The book sets out to examine the concept of 'chav', providing a review of its origins, its characterological figures, the process of enregisterment whereby it has come to be recognized in public discourse, and the traits associated with it in traditional media representations. The author then discusses the 'chav' label in light of recent re-appropriations in social network activity (particularly through the video-sharing app TikTok) and subsequent commentary in the public sphere. She traces the evolution of the term from its use during the first decade of the twenty-first century to make sense of class, status and cultural capital, to its resurgence and the ways in which it is still associated with appearance in gendered and classed ways. She then draws on recent developments in linguistic anthropology and embodied sociocultural linguistics to argue that social media users draw on communicative resources to perform identities that are both situated in specific contexts of discourse and dynamically changing, challenging the idea that geo-sociocultural varieties and mannerisms are the sole way of indexing membership of a community. This volume contends that equating 'chav' with 'underclass' in the most recent uses of the concept on social networks may not be the whole story, and the book will be of interest to sociocultural linguistics and identity researchers, as well as readers in anthropology, sociology, British studies, cultural studies, identity studies, digital humanities, and sociolinguistics.
Analyses local phenomena that have turned into global phenomena with the advent of social media Offers an entry point to embodied sociocultural linguistics, linguistic anthropology and identity studies Argues that people draw on collective communicative resources to perform identities
Autor*in
Emilia Di Martino
Themen in »Indexing ‘Chav’ on Social Media«
sociocultural linguistics discourse studies indexicality TikTok transmodal stylization mediatization working class Chav youth culture identity studies
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“It is rare that a book manages to serve as a masterclass in theory AND as an in-depth study, but Emilia Di Martino’s Indexing ‘chav’ on social media does both. … With its thorough engagement with sociolinguistic literature, budding scholars struggling with difficult theoretical arguments in the field will benefit greatly from their clean use here to analyse concrete examples.” (Wesley C. Robertson, Language in Society, Vol. 52 (4), 2023)
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“This marvelous book offers a fresh perspective on class formations in the 21st century. Originally a derogatory epithet for a British underclass, the term Chav was to become the moniker for a gradiently inhabitable social identity, performable and negotiable through the behaviors that make Chav personae identifiable, and eventually to undergo ever-changing forms of reanalysis and regrouping in the lives of British citizens. By carefully tracing these developments through the last two decades, this book shows that any attempt to reify class formations—by criteria of disposable income, and the like—fails utterly to account for the manner in which class identities are created and transformed through the discursive interactions in which they live.” (Asif Agha, University of Pennsylvania, USA)
“Present-day cultural forms challenge the social scientist for they arise, develop, prosper, dwindle, and fade away at a speed that is at odds with the usual pace of scientific investigation and academic writing; the word and the concept of ‘chav’ designate one of these phenomena, which are meteoric yet involve millions of people, their words, and their representations, intertwining in complex ways with previous and ensuing stylistic trends. Emilia Di Martino successfully faced the challenge of the academic study of ‘chav' and provided a sophisticate account of this fleeting yet global tendency.” (Massimo Leone, Università di Torino, Italy)
“Just when it seemed that everything had been said about the Chav, along comes this book to offer new insights. The author investigates the concept of Chav, tracing its origins from the early 21st Century through to a detailed analysis of current usage in Tik Tok Chav Check videos. Thought-provoking in its argument that Chav has been re-appropriated, and may hold the potential for positive re-evaluation insome contexts, the book is certain to open up new academic discussions of the Chav phenomenon.” (Susan Fox, Universität Bern, Switzerland)
“Indexing CHAV offers readers a much-needed—and tremendously smart and fun—model for linguistic ethnographic research in the online-offline nexus. DiMartino zeros in on one word, “CHAV,” and exposes a world of social history, social media, and human creativity. Her exploration refreshingly adds to an understanding of language rooted in context, history, and the way people make meaning in new ways, in new media, differently, every day.” (Betsy R. Rymes University of Pennsylvania)
“Emilia Di Martino’s Indexing ‘chav’ on Social Media: Transmodal Performances of Working-class Subcultures is the first comprehensive inquiry of how the ‘chav’ as a concept and figure has developed over the last two decades. Impressive in scope, this in-depth analysis provides a highly nuanced reading of ‘chav’ which challenges most established research on this notion.” (Elias le Grand, Stockholm University)
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