How is English used in popular culture media? How is popular culture English influencing everyday English?

1. Pop Culture English
Phil Benson
Linguistics and Modern Languages

2. Popular culture English
popular culture
the language of pop songs
creative language
revisit this lecture at…
http://www.ied.edu.hk/ele/pls/

3. Popular culture
the culture of everyday life
how we give meaning to everyday activities

4. Yum cha – eating with meaning

5. Mediated popular culture
the culture of everyday life as it is represented in
and circulated by mass media
‘traditional media’
pop music, television, films, magazines,
newspapers, popular fiction, advertising and
branding
‘new media’
blogs, reviews, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest,
Facebook, Twitter, MSN, SMS….

6. Yum cha in the media
Chialin’s blog
Yumcha Restaurants
OpenRice – dim sum search
Cha siu bao…

7. Popular culture English
Popular culture: circulation of images,
sounds and language
How is English used in different popular
culture media?
How does popular culture influence
everyday English?

8. Born this way
Born this way – MV
(song starts at 3:00)
“…as Lady Gaga would
say…”
Guardian Books Podcast. interview with Andrew
Solomon, author of Far from the tree
I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way
Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

9. What has Lady Gaga contributed to
the English language?
Lady…
…Gaga
little monsters
mother monster
Twitter queen
Gaga monstraparva
Madonna - wannabe
Justin Bieber - belieber

10. What is pop culture English like?
basic vocabulary and grammar
repetitive
spoken / colloquial
creative / playful
formulaic

11. The language of pop songs
Study of top 50 English song lyrics (13,161)
• Basic: At the level of simplest graded EFL readers
• Repetitive: Each word repeated average 3 times per song
• Colloquial: 10 words make up 25% of the total:
the, to, a, and; I, me, my, you; gonna, love
Questions and imperatives are frequent (25%)
Conversational (I and you)
• Creative/playful: No
• Formulaic: Frequent repetition of short phrases
Murphey, Tim (1992). The discourse of pop songs. TESOL Quarterly, 26 (4), 770-4

12. I will survive…
At first I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
Without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
Thinking how you did me wrong
And I grew strong
And I learned how to get along
And so you're back
From outer space
I just walked in to find you here
With that sad look upon your face
I should have changed that stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I've have known for just one second
You'd be back to bother me
Go on now go
Walk out the door
Just turn around now
'Cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one who tried to
break me with goodbye
Did you think I'd crumble?
Did you think I'd lay down and die?
Oh no, not I
I will survive
Oh, as long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
And I'll survive
I will survive, hey hey
Gloria Gaynor

13. I will survive…
At first I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
Without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
Thinking how you did me wrong
And I grew strong
And I learned how to get along
But now you're back
From outer space
I just walked in to find you here
With that sad look upon your face
I should have changed that stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I had known for just one second
You'd be back to bother me
Go on now go
Walk out the door
Just turn around now
'Cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one who tried to
hurt me with goodbye
Did you think I'd crumble?
Did you think I'd lay down and die?
Oh no, not I
I will survive
Oh, as long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
And I'll survive
I will survive, I will survive

14. I will survive…
At first I was afraid
I was petrified
Kept thinking I could never live
Without you by my side
But then I spent so many nights
Thinking how you did me wrong
And I grew strong
And I learned how to get along
And so you're back
From outer space
I just walked in to find you here
With that sad look upon your face
I should have changed that stupid lock
I should have made you leave your key
If I've have known for just one second
You'd be back to bother me
Go on now go
Walk out the door
Just turn around now
'Cause you're not welcome anymore
Weren't you the one who tried to
break me with goodbye
Did you think I'd crumble?
Did you think I'd lay down and die?
Oh no, not I
I will survive
Oh, as long as I know how to love
I know I'll stay alive
I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
And I'll survive
I will survive, hey hey

15. Who are we?
• 94% of songs have unspecified ‘I’
• 86% have unspecified ‘you’
• I, me, my = 10%; you = 5% of total words
• 94% have no specific time
• 80% have no specific place
• ‘I Will Survive’: I, me, my = 15%, you = 7%
Murphey, Tim (1992). The discourse of pop songs. TESOL Quarterly, 26 (4), 770-4

16. Who are pop songs talking to?
• ‘I’ speaking to ‘you’ (person in the song)
Did you think I'd lay down and die? (‘I will survive’)
• ‘I’ speaking to ‘you’, the audience
You may say I’m a dreamer… (‘Imagine’ – John Lennon)
• ‘I’ telling ‘you’, the audience, a story about ‘me’
I did it my way… (‘My way’ – Frank Sinatra)
• ‘I’ telling ‘you’, the audience, a story about ‘them’
Desmond has a barrow in the market place, Molly is the singer in a
band (‘Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da – The Beatles)

17. New words
word meaning origin
amazeballs
babylag
floordrobe
go postal
MSN-ing

18. New words
word meaning origin
amazeballs an expression of enthusiastic approval blogging
babylag a feeling of being very tired and sometimes
confused because of the lack of sleep caused by
looking after a very young baby
marketing
floordrobe a pile of clothes left on the floor of a room ??
go postal become extremely angry film
MSN-ing sending messages through an Instant Messenger internet

19. New words
word meaning origin
mummy porn
omnishambles
sick
thx
tiger mother

20. New words
word meaning origin
mummy porn a genre of erotic fiction designed to appeal to
women
journalism
omnishambles something that is very badly organised and is
ineffective in every possible way
television
sick impressive, especially because of being
fashionable or attractive
street sports
thx thank you TXT MSG
tiger mother a very strict mother who makes her children work
particularly hard and restricts their free time so
that they continually achieve the highest grades
parenting literature

21. Memes* – word and image
facepalm
facepalm compilation
vocal fry
vocal fry epidemic
*meme = an idea that spreads very
quickly via the Internet

22. ‘Brand’ new words

23. Word play

24. The linguistics of pop culture English
word formation examples
compound nouns amazeballs, tiger mother, vocal fry
compound verbs go postal
item substitution babylag (<- jetlag), mummy porn (<- soft/hard porn)
bridezilla (<- Godzilla), cyberbully (<- cyberspace)
blending floordrobe, newphoria, froyolicious
morphological
derivation
omnishambles
conversion MSN-ing (noun to verb), facepalm (compound + noun to verb)
respelling thx
semantic change sick

25. Language play

26. *$ English
Read: How Starbucks shamed you into speaking its language
Watch: The Starbucks Rap

27. Q & A

28. Pop Culture English
revisit this lecture at…
http://www.ied.edu.hk/ele/pls/
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