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Affect in sociolinguistic style

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2021

Teresa Pratt Open the ORCID record for Teresa Pratt [Opens in a new window]
Teresa Pratt*
Affiliation:
San Francisco State University, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Teresa Pratt San Francisco State University Humanities Building 1600 Holloway Ave San Francisco, CA 94132, USA tpratt@sfsu.edu
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Abstract

This article argues for a focus on affect in sociolinguistic style. I integrate recent scholarship on affective practice (Wetherell 2015) and the circulation of affective value (Ahmed 2004b) in order to situate the linguistic and bodily semiotics of affect as components of stylistic practice. At a Bay Area public arts high school, ideologically distinct affects of chill or high-energy are co-constructed across signs and subjects. I analyze a group of cisgender young men's use of creaky voice quality, speech rate, and bodily hexis in enacting and circulating these affective values. Crucially, affect co-constructs students’ positioning within the high school political economy (as college-bound or not, artistically driven or not), highlighting the ideological motivations of stylistic practice. Building on recent scholarship, I propose that a more thorough consideration of affect can deepen our understanding of meaning-making as it occurs in everyday interaction in institutional settings. (Affect, political economy, embodiment, bricolage, voice quality, speech rate, high school)

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Language in Society , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , February 2023 , pp. 1 - 26
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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