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Publication Date
1-2018
Description
Rooted in the performative of Speech Act Theory, this interdisciplinary study crafts a new model to compare the work we do with words when we protest: across genres (chants, songs, poetry, prose), from different geographies (Turkey, U.S., West Germany, Romania, Great Britain, Guatemala, Northern Ireland) and from different languages (Turkish, Spanish, English, German, Romanian, Ki’che’, Irish Gaeilge). This model generates two new concepts: pragmatic legitimacy, when a hearer recognizes a speech act, regardless of genre, as one of protest; and convocativity, the effect of convoking hearers into distinct camps, creating degrees of solidarity or distance on the protest issue.Framed by the metaphor of a neighbourhood, the book opens by defining protest, as an expression of social, political or cultural dissent, supported by a wide range of examples, and concludes with a discussion of the McLuhan dictum of the “medium is the message” as emerging in a virtual commons.
Disciplines
English Language and Literature
Keywords
Language, Speech Act Theory, Convocativity, Pragmatic Legitimacy, Protest
Table of Contents
1. Introduction -- 2. Mapping Theory and Method in the Neighborhood of Protest -- 3. Exploring the Protest Language of Chants "Everyday I'm capulling" and "Si se puede" -- 4. Exploring the Protest Language of Songs: We Shall Overcome and 99 Luftballons/99 Red Balloons -- 5. Exploring the Protest Language of Poetry: "Cruciada Copiilor/Children's Crusade" and "Dulce et Decorum Est/It is Sweet and Good" -- 6. Exploring the Protest Language of Prose: Condemnations of the Totonicapan Massacre and The Diary of Bobby Sands -- 7. Considerations and Conversations in the Neighborhood of Protest.
Copyright date
2018
Description
Rooted in the performative of Speech Act Theory, this interdisciplinary study crafts a new model to compare the work we do with words when we protest: across genres (chants, songs, poetry, prose), from different geographies (Turkey, U.S., West Germany, Romania, Great Britain, Guatemala, Northern Ireland) and from different languages (Turkish, Spanish, English, German, Romanian, Ki’che’, Irish Gaeilge). This model generates two new concepts: pragmatic legitimacy, when a hearer recognizes a speech act, regardless of genre, as one of protest; and convocativity, the effect of convoking hearers into distinct camps, creating degrees of solidarity or distance on the protest issue.Framed by the metaphor of a neighbourhood, the book opens by defining protest, as an expression of social, political or cultural dissent, supported by a wide range of examples, and concludes with a discussion of the McLuhan dictum of the “medium is the message” as emerging in a virtual commons.
Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan