Event: Language in Context Seminar
Date: 4 October, 2019
Time: 15:10-16:30
Venue: TBA
Speaker: Lauren Hall-Lew and Graeme Trousdale (University of Edinburgh)
Title of talk: Breksit or Bregzit : When political ideology drives language ideology
Abstract: Brexit was coined for the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership in the EU. We analyze
variation in the pronunciation of Brexit ([bɹɛksɪt] vs. [bɹɛgzɪt]) to explore how that contrast has
been ideologically linked to political meanings. We find that neither a production study nor a
Matched Guise study support the same indexical relations that are prevalent in Twitter
metacommentary. Variation in Brexit does not appear to correlate with any social factors in
production and only in limited ways in perception. The social meanings indexed on Twitter are
highly varied, and any ‘kernel of similarity’ (Podesva 2008) seems to be an indexing of the
(political) Other, rather than a specific political stance. In contrast to variables that become
politicised via non-political indexicalities (Hall-Lew et al., 2010; 2012; 2017), variation in Brexit
appears to be ideologised from the indexical potential of phonetic markedness in combination
with a divisive political issue.