Colloquium - Norma Mendoza-Denton (U. of Arizona) "Sociophonetic Calibrations of English and Spanish in California Youth Subcultures on Youtube"

Recent work in language variation has examined the role of mass media (Stuart-Smith 2006, inter alia), but little attention has been paid to the role of new media (pace Schiffelein and Jones 2009), specifically to what might be termed "call-response" formats (CRFs) such as YouTube, where material posted serves as a call that merits responses either in video format or as commentary on the original posting. The CRF provides a unique combination of data that allows for the simultaneous investigation of language and metalanguage, displaying both language use and ideology-laden commentary on the specifics of use, shedding light on processes of iconicity and enregisterment. We analyze  a corpus of forty YouTube video postings, video battles, and their associated responses representing the California gangs Norteños and Sureños (Mendoza-Denton 2008). A multi-layered methodological approach utilizing phonetic analysis, discourse analysis, and social-indexical analysis is used to analyze the content and structure of language in the videos and texts in the CRF frame. Drawing on prior discussions of localism and politics of territory in the constitution of subaltern California dialects, we analyze how stylistic variation and dimensions of proficiency (as judged by respondents to YouTube videos) in Spanish acquire a symbolic, localistic dimension for new media users. Gang-related videos (a sort of video-tagging) most often utilize streams of images overlain on top of rap music, avoiding the representation of specific individuals. Images of California, representation of area codes, and the territorializing devices around language are specifically discussed. Despite pervasive and native English-Spanish code-switching in the rap lyrics and commentary, videos utilized by Norteños make use of mock Spanish and exaggerated Spanish accents to portray Sureños as rural, backwards, effeminate, uneducated and illegal immigrants. Sociophonetic features examined include creaky voice, and variation in both Spanish and English /r/ (ranging from Spanish trill, Spanish tap, English flap and English retroflex, all alternating in the same speaker). Variation patterns in language, indexing personae (Eckert 2000, Zhang 2004, Chun 2006, Podesva 2004, Mendoza-Denton 2008), are considered in combination with ideologies of space and place to theorize the nestedness of localized variants and ideologies in our understandings of the performance of place as an integral part of linguistic performativity.