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Linguistics 42: The Linguistics of the Internet

Dr. Will Styler

Today’s Plan

• Introductions

• Why do this?

• What’s Will’s problem?

• How are we doing this?

• Our roles

• Our plan

Introductions

Dr. Will Styler

Teaching Professor, Linguist, Gigantic Nerd

Lexi Ricasata

Why do this?

I watched memes develop into their modern form on the Internet

• We went from text, to ‘reaction images’ and comics, to ‘image macros’, to the modern meme

• I was an early denizen of many of the early internet meme sites

  • IRC, Something Awful, Fark, YTMND, 4Chan*, eBaumsWorld, and more

  • 4Chan wasn’t always what it is today

    • … but it always kind of was. Yikes.

I started in the LolCat Era

I was an ‘expert’ then

• Quoted in 2009 by News.com.au:

“Understanding what they’re saying and simply knowing that they exist can be considered a showing of one’s internet cultural knowledge,” says Mr. Styler, who runs the Linguistic Mystic blog.

“In the same sense that using a reference from a hot new movie can include you in a group, doing something using an ‘im in ur…’ construction is a mark of somebody who understands internet culture.”

https://amp.news.com.au/news/rise-of-the-lolcats/news-story/86a968cb6722c05b6bfd559f30445ee9

I was there when many of the templates were born

I watched Advice Animals become a thing

… and now I’m watching the world change

Sauce

• /br:::: skibiri d̪õm d̪õm d̪õbijɛsʲɛs skibiri d̪abl̩d̪m ni ni/

I think memes are a rich communicative field

• … which are just as worth of study as any others

‘Linguistics of Memes’ had a branding problem

• “Oh, I’m not into memes, but I’m really interested in TikTok audios!”

• “I want to do my project on uwu, but that’s… not a meme?”

• New phenomena arise every day that aren’t memes, but are memetic

• Where on earth do we draw the line?

What is a ‘meme’ anyways?

The Dictionary Definition

A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme Wikipedia

Key Components

• Idea or Behavior

• Viral spread

• Culturally grounded

• Carries Symbolic Meaning

• What else acts like this?

Viral Ideas, Carrying Meaning in Cultures

• Memes (duh)

• Physical Actions (e.g. planking, flossing, peace signs)

• TikTok Trends and Audios

• Aesthetics and Leitmotifs (e.g. deep frying, meaningful fonts)

Viral Ideas, Carrying Meaning in Cultures (cont.)

• Paralinguistic Stuff: Emoji use, Keysmashing, SpOnGeBoB TeXt

• Interaction patterns (e.g. “That’ll be $69.42” “Nice.”)

• Dogwhistles (words that subtly reveal affiliation with a group/ideology)

• Culturally Specific Words (e.g. ‘gg’, ‘any %’, ‘hotep’, ‘pov’)

• All of language!

All language is memetic!

• Idea or Behavior

• Viral spread

• Culturally grounded

• Carries Symbolic Meaning

The Scope of this class is Large

• You’re looking for ideas or behaviors, spread virally, within cultures, with meaning, on the internet

• … and you’ll use linguistic analysis on them

• One Handy Rule: Try to choose things that are considered ‘non-standard’ usage of language

• The world is your oyster, and anything’s a meme if you convince me

  • This means I want to see lots of interesting new stuff!

You’ll be looking at ‘Linguistic Forms’

• This is a wildly broad term

• Words, pronunciations, memes, meme templates, paralinguistic stuff

• Basically anything which carries meaning and is linguistically analyzable

What is Will’s Problem?

• (I mean, one among many)

To quote a student’s CAPE evaluation…

• “His memes are kind of old”

This is a known issue

… and all language is always changing

• ‘You never step into the same river twice’

• In fact, I’ll be making an effort to use millenial memes and language to prove this point!

• … but memes move fast!

Remember this?

This presents a problem

“How the heck can I teach a class on emerging and new language, when I don’t speak the modern dialect?”

• The answer?

• With your help!

How are we doing this class?

This class will be different from any I’ve ever taught before

• Generally, I’m telling you all how the world works

  • How language works, how computers work, how phonetics, phonology, morphology, or hearing works

• I give you information, you give it back to me on tests

  • You’ll work through problems, and try to arrive at ‘the correct answer’

That will not work here

• I know about my era of memes

• I am incredibly online

• I know how language works

• I don’t know exactly how memes work lately

• I don’t know how your parts of the internet work

• There is no ‘right answer’ that you can be tested against

  • Not like there’s a textbook for this

This is unlike any other class in the department…

• Except one

• This is kind of a Field Methods class

Field Methods

• The professor sits down with a group of students and a speaker of a language that they don’t know

• The professor teaches the students how to find out how the language works

• … and they all study the language together by talking with somebody who knows the language

I’m going to give you tools and structure

• Elements of linguistic analysis and linguistic theory

  • … with a specific mind towards concepts which I think are meaningful here

  • … and with examples in my old school understanding

• I’ll give areas for us to focus on each week

  • … and questions I think we’ll learn things from asking

You all will do the analysis and bring the data

• You’ll apply what we’re talking about to the online communication in your lives

  • We’ll be there to help, but you have the data

• You’ll take the analyses deeper

  • Your final project will go beyond what we’ve done in class

• You’ll focus on a specific area

  • Maybe a site, a community, an interest group, a kind of meme, something that’s interesting to you!

Together, we’ll learn how this language works

This makes this class very different than the norm

• I’m depending on you all as much as you’re depending on me!

• We’re on the same team!

Grading will be weird too!

https://savethevowels.org/42

This is a contract

• I am giving you the power to determine your own grade

• You are giving me and your classmates good work in return

• ‘Blowing off’ the class is a jerk move, please respect our community by putting in effort, or leave it

Our roles

My Roles

• To teach you how linguists analyze the parts of language relevant to memes

• To present you all with discussions and activities which will help us engage with the language of memes

• To create a structure for the course and ensure a safe environment for learning

• To guide you through difficulties you’ll face on the path

• To evaluate you on your effort, participation, and engagement with the problems at hand

Your IA’s Roles

• They will help guide you in your analyses and offer suggestions and feedback

• They will be a resource in between classes

• They’ll help me to evaluate your effort, participation, and engagement

• They’ll help me to maintain a safe space in our classroom, virtual and otherwise

Your Roles

• You will participate, coming to class sessions, chatting in Discord, asking questions, and engaging with the activities

• You’ll prepare for class sessions, finding and bringing memes and examples from your daily life, and completing the discussions

• You’ll interact with your group members during class and during your final project, and stay home when you’re sick.

• You’ll be kind, considerate, and build and maintain our classroom community

You should probably choose a different class if…

• You won’t be able to regularly attend class sessions

  • Podcasting is not an option for much of what we’re doing

• You’d rather not work in groups and participate in discussions

  • Don’t be deadweight for your group or in the class

• You have a deep innate desire to be an edgelord

  • Kindness should motivate you, not desire to troll or harm

• You don’t really care for memes or the internet

• You have a pun allergy

  • … some of my puns will be apollen!

Our plan

Week 1: Building Community

• What are we doing here?

• What kinds of memes are and aren’t welcome in our classroom?

• Who are we working with, and how will we do this ethically?

Speaking of community

• Start finding groups in Discord and Canvas

  • Feel free to post a ‘Seeking’ ad if you’d like to take a leadership role or advocate for an area of study, or just chat with folks and find kindred souls

  • Be kind and welcoming, damnit

• You can change groups later, that’s fine!

Week 2: Are Memes Linguistic?

• Does this stuff actually make sense as ‘language’?

• What are grammaticality judgements?

• Can memes and new language be ‘grammatical’ or ‘ungrammatical’?

Week 3: Form and Memeing

• How do we find meaningful chunks of words in language?

• How does this relate to memes and new language and behavior?

Week 4: Generalization and Mememorphology

• What meaningful ‘chunks’ exist within memes?

• How can we take advantage of these chunks of form and meaning to make new memes?

• Do linguistic ideas of productivity and creativity make sense here?

Week 5: How do new memetic ideas develop?

• How do new words and templates happen?

• How do new chunks of memes and words happen?

• How do these things evolve over time?

Week 6: Meaning and memes

• How do we think about meaning in language?

• Do linguistic understandings of meaning play a role in our understanding?

• What do these things ‘mean’ anyways?

Week 7: Project Prep and Intro to Sociolinguistics

• How does language intersect with social identity?

• Your project proposals will be due this week!

Week 8: Identity and Community

• What is a language community?

• Can we use these linguistic tools to better understand meme usage?

• How does our use of these things tell people about who we are?

Week 9: We live in a Society

• How do language and culture interact?

• How do memes and culture interact?

• Can memes be translated across cultures?

Week 10: Language on the Internet in the future!

• How does language change?

• How do these things change?

• Do memes become more abstract or concrete or both over time?

Finals Week

• You’ll submit your final projects on March 20th at Noon

Any questions?

I’m excited

• We’re rebooting this class with new ideas and approaches
  • We’re opening it up to the entire interweb!
• There will be some changes
  • And what you end up doing will shape what I end up doing
• Your enthusiasm will play a big role in making this class more than just a meme

Thank you!