Memes are language: Change my mind

Dr. Will Styler

Today’s Plan

• Are memes language?

• Why does that matter?

We’re going to focus on images today

• In the modern, internet-focused definition of ‘meme’

• … but these same arguments could be made for videos, phrases, etc…

Are memes linguistic?

What makes language languagey?

• There are many people who’ve talked about this!

• There’s not a consensus on exactly what makes Language language

• … but there are a number of features which most folks agree on

• If memes are language, they should fit these characteristics!

Language Characteristics

• Semanticity

• Arbitrariness of form and meaning

• Speaker knowledge of grammaticality

• Full productivity and creativity

• Social transmission

• Compositionality

• Accomplishes linguistic functions (e.g. assertions, questions, commands, expressives)

Semanticity

Elements of language have meaning

• The /-z/ suffix in ‘memes’ has a defined meaning

• “Penguin” has a defined meaning

• “I went to the park” has a defined meaning

Memes are meaningless

Memes have meaning

Arbitraryness

Arbitrariness of form and meaning

• The meaning of ⛄ is closely related to its form, it is ‘iconic’

• The meaning of /kæt/ is not related to its form

• In language, the relationship between form and meaning is arbitrary

Meme Iconicity

• Memes are often strongly iconic

  • Relying on facial expressions

  • Photos of situations

  • The meaning of ‘templates’ is based on their image

• Meanings are often grounded in specific cultural contexts

• Memes can become more abstract and less iconic over time!

Some meanings require a bit more understanding

… but memes can become more abstract

Abstraction of memes

• Many memes are iconic, but some templates and meme formats can approach arbitrariness!

• Very concrete and iconic memes can detach from their forms

Content Warning: Miscarriage

Loss

• Originally posted by the webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del

• A very serious comic about the author and his wife losing a pregnancy

Loss

• This comic was… strongly criticized

  • Didn’t fit the tone of the strip

  • The dramatic element was widely considered to be poorly done

• Vigorous parody began

• Hiding ‘Loss’ references became a meme of itself

  • ‘Is this loss?’

Sharing disguised loss memes is a meme of its own

• (and it’s not one that’s widely appreciated)

• 

Loss memes have become very abstract

• Distant from the original iconic form of Loss

So, many meme templates are mostly iconic

• Some require cultural or social knowledge

• … and some have abstracted away from iconicity completely

• This one’s questionable for memes!

Grammaticality Judgements

Humans know when language is being used ‘incorrectly’

• *Please to be attending classes in this Wednesday more to find out.

• We’ll go into a lot more nuance!

We have the same sensations about memes

We’ll focus on this later!

• So this week, be looking for ‘bad’ or ‘incorrectly made’ memes

Productivity and Creativity

Language is productive and creative

• Language can produce an infinite set of meanings

• Sub-elements of language can be recombined to produce new and different language

• Language can be used to describe anything (given time!)

Memes are productive

• Able to be adapted to new scenarios

• Templates can be combined or re-used to create new memes

• Memes can be combined to produce new memes

Memes are creative

• New memes can be created for situations

• ‘You’ve got a meme for everything’

New meme templates can always be born

• See Reddit’s /r/MemeEconomy

• … and the rest of the internet

Tiger King was released on March 20th, 2020

*

Images can go from ‘funny image’ to ‘meme template’ with repeated use

• This is referred to as ‘lexicalization’ when it happens to words

Memes can be used to describe any situation

• … and new memes can be generated to fill in any gaps

• Memes are both creative and productive

Traditional Transmission

Language is learned from others’ language use

• Our language is dictated by the language we’re exposed to

• Cultural knowledge is included

• Our language represents our social groups

Memes are transmitted traditionally

• Memes are culturally and socially specific

• Memes spread within subcultures before reaching ‘mainstream’

• We can tell facts about people from their meme choices

• Some memes need in-group knowledge to be understood

Memes from Will’s Era

Boomer memes

Memes can ‘index’ certain identities and social affiliations

Memes often need in-group knowledge

Memes have traditional transmission

• They are learned from other meme users

• They are bundled with and index sociocultural information

• Your upbringing and environment play a strong role in determining how you use and understand them

• Yup, that’s languagey!

Compositionality

Language is compositional

• Larger wholes are made up of smaller parts, each contributing part of the meaning

• ‘Unlockable’ (un+lock+able)

• “I’m never gonna give you up.”

Memes are compositional

• The captions themselves carry meaning (duh)

• Meme templates carry meaning too!

• Other stylistic elements can carry meaning

Meme template meaning

• Changing ONLY the template changes the meaning

Meme style cues have meaning in isolation too

Memes are compositional!

• They’re evaluable in terms of many components, each contributing meaning

• These meaning components are productive, and can be re-used elsewhere

Linguistic Functions

Language accomplishes functions

• We can make simple assertive sentences

  • “The duck quacked at his bae”

• We can ask questions

  • “Who posted the loss meme?”

• We can issue directives

  • “Declare a LING major.”

• We can express our feelings

  • “I’m confused by deep fried memes”

• We can change things about the world

  • “I sentence you to ten hours of community service”

Memes can make simple assertions

Memes can ask questions

Memes can issue directives

Memes can express our feelings

Memes can change things about the world

Memes can accomplish the same purposes as language!

• Boy, it sure seems like…

Memes have almost all of the characteristics of language!

• Why do we care?

Linguistics can help us understand memes!

Most subfields have meme-related questions!

• Phonology/Phonotactics

  • What form elements can co-occur? What’s not a legal combination

• Morphology

  • What are the correspondences between meme form and meaning?

  • How do memes go from funny pictures to productive chunks of meaning and form?

• Semantics

  • How do we describe the meaning of memes?

• Pragmatics

  • What effects do context and discourse have on meme meaning?

Meme Linguistics continued!

• Sociolinguistics

  • What does meme use tell us about people’s social life?

  • How are memes used to index social identity?

• Conversation and Discourse Analysis

  • What roles do memes play in advancing conversations and discourse?

• Translation theory

  • Can a meme be translated effectively into another language or culture?

  • Can memes be made into text?

• Diachronic Linguistics

  • How do memes change over time?

  • Do memes follow the same patterns as language?

Learning about memes teaches us about language, and vice versa

Wrapping up

• Memes are bits of cultural information which are spread from person to person

• They share many of the properties often attributed to conventional signed and spoken language

• Linguistic tools and methods are useful for their analysis

In summary

Acknowledgements

• Thanks to LingUA at UCSD for giving this talk an early venue

• Thanks to the Linguistically Informed Memery Crew

• Thanks to Lolcats, for getting me started

Thank you!