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Self-Promotion As Semiotic Behavior the Mediation of Personhood in Light of Finnish Online Dating Advertisements

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Self-Promotion As Semiotic Behavior the Mediation of Personhood in Light of Finnish Online Dating Advertisements Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies University of Helsinki SELF-PROMOTION AS SEMIOTIC BEHAVIOR THE MEDIATION OF PERSONHOOD IN LIGHT OF FINNISH ONLINE DATING ADVERTISEMENTS Tomi Visakko ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Helsinki, for public examination in Auditorium XII, University main building, on 11 September 2015, at high noon. Helsinki 2015 Supervisors: Professor Jyrki Kalliokoski (University of Helsinki) Professor Anne Mäntynen (University of Jyväskylä) Pre-examiners: Professor Paul Kockelman (Yale University) Docent Urho Määttä (University of Tampere) Opponent: Docent Urho Määttä (University of Tampere) Cover: Olli Romppanen Photo: Henri Manuel (before 1905) ISBN 978-951-51-1398-6 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-1399-3 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2015 ABSTRACT This study examines the mediation and evaluation of personhood in light of Finnish online dating advertisements. The specific focus is on the performance and interpretation of what has been called “self-promotion,” or the idealization of the self in relation to others. The theoretical aim of the study is to piece together an approach that locates online dating advertisements within the field of human semiotic behavior and social life. The study operates with concepts originating from linguistics, discourse studies, and anthropology. They are connected by the overarching frameworks of semiotic anthropology (e.g. Agha 2007; Silverstein 2003; Urban 2001) and Kockelman’s (2013) pragmatism-based semiotic theory of interaction, infrastructure, and ontology. These frameworks are presented in chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 3 elaborates the research design. The online dating advertisement genre is approached as a cultural instrument of personhood and intersubjective interaction that sifts social reality into “desirable” or “ideal” and “undesirable” or “non-ideal” in multiple ways. In order to instigate social relations with “desirable” and “ideal” others, writers inhabit a “promotional” persona. That is, they exert both practical and theoretical agency in controlled performances of their identity, for which they will be held accountable later in subsequent encounters, insofar as such encounters are ever actualized. Three sets of data are examined in the study: 1) The primary data consists of 111 Finnish-language online dating advertisements that were collected from two different online dating services in 2007 (Deitti.net, Match.com). 2) A questionnaire was held for a group of 27 university students in order to elicit actual examples of interpretations based on three different kinds of advertisement texts. 3) The third set of data consists of cultural metadiscourses that are about online dating advertisements as a type of interaction. It includes (i) three online dating guidebooks, (ii) a variety of Internet discussions, newspaper articles, and other writings, and (iii) a segment of a television program. Such metadiscourses illuminate the kinds of “backstage” interpretive practices that usually do not become public in actual advertisement performances. The mediation of personhood is examined from four empirical perspectives. Chapter 4 focuses on the kinds of “characteristics” that different kinds of sign patterns project on interactants. The chapter discusses the general difference between “describable,” “performable,” and “proposable” characteristics and their different interactional dynamics. It then takes a look at the more specific textual patterns that advertisement texts consist of: theoretical and reflective representations, lists and taxonomies, narratives, fictive personae, and patterns of discourse habitually 3 linked to individuals (e.g., pseudonyms and mottos). Moreover, three entire texts will be analyzed in light of the questionnaire responses in order to examine differences in reported interpretations of such textual patterns. Chapter 5 takes on the question of evaluative stancetaking and its role in self- promotion by looking at common types of stances and such metapragmatic cues that indicate the writers’ understandings of their stancetaking. The chapter focuses on matters of polarity (“positive” versus “negative”) and on the naturalization and poeticization of evaluative stances. Chapter 6 deals with addressivity. It examines how the patterns discussed in chapters 4 and 5 are mapped onto frames of participation, i.e., how writers select for addressees and attempt to control the ensuing interaction. Chapter 7 looks at the metadiscourse data from the standpoint of explicit opinions, ideological positions, and normative models concerning the production and interpretation of online dating advertisements. Finally, chapter 8 concludes the study by discussing the findings and their implications. By comparing the actual discursive practices in the advertisement data and the metadiscourses about online dating advertisements as a type of discourse the study shows, first of all, that in stereotypic models of “self- promotion” specific kinds of evaluative stances are often the most salient feature, whereas many actually occurring phenomena are entirely overlooked. Such biased stereotypes may in part be a reason for the fact that evaluative stancetaking seems to be a somewhat marked or even problematic act in online dating advertisements. The study also illuminates the non- narrative organization of personhood, selfhood, and biography, since taxonomic and hierarchical structures of theoretical representations are one of the most salient textual patterns in the data. Moreover, the study draws attention to the importance of the indexical patterning of text-artifacts and their performative dimensions. Textual patterning at all layers, from “macrostructures” to orthography, becomes interpreted as signs of personhood contributing, for instance, to particular “views of subjectivity,” a level of meaning often overlooked in studies of online communication. Although such interpretations may be indeterminate and fragmented, sometimes even in opposite and contradictory ways, they can be fruitfully analyzed in terms of orientations to different signs or different semiotic ontologies (or interpretive models). More generally, the study stresses the importance of reflexive models and ideologies of interaction. For instance, the nature of online dating advertisements as an intersubjective encounter can be understood in almost entirely opposite ways (e.g., as “distant” versus “intimate,” “authentic” versus “inauthentic,” or “reliable” versus “unreliable”) in light of different ontologies. Keywords: semiotic mediation, personhood, selfhood, identity, practical and theoretical agency, self-promotion, online dating advertisements, evaluation, stance, biography, genre. 4 ABSTRAKTI Tämä tutkimus käsittelee sitä, miten henkilöyttä (personhood) välitetään ja arvotetaan suomenkielisissä verkon kontakti-ilmoituksissa. Tarkempi fokus on ”itsepromootioksi” (self-promotion) kutsutussa ilmiössä eli siinä, miten itseä idealisoidaan suhteessa toisiin ja miten tällaisia performansseja tulkitaan. Tutkimuksen teoreettisena tavoitteena on koostaa semioottiseen antropologiaan nojaava lähestymistapa, joka sijoittaa kontakti-ilmoitukset kokonaisvaltaisesti osaksi ihmisten semioottisen käyttäytymisen kenttää (esim. Agha 2007; Kockelman 2013; Silverstein 2003; Urban 2001). Tutkimuksen teoreettiset lähtökohdat esitellään luvuissa 1 ja 2. Luvussa 3 esitellään yksityiskohtaisemmin työn tutkimusasetelma ja näkökulma tutkimuskohteeseen. Kontakti-ilmoitusgenreä lähestytään henkilönä olemisen ja intersubjektiivisen vuorovaikutuksen kulttuurisena instrumenttina, joka monin eri tavoin siivilöi sosiaalista todellisuutta ”toivottuun” tai ”ihanteelliseen” ja ”ei-toivottuun” tai ”epäihanteelliseen”. Tutkimuksessa käytetään kolmea eri aineistoa: 1) Pääaineisto koostuu 111 suomenkielisestä kontakti-ilmoituksesta, jotka on kerätty kahdesta eri verkkopalvelusta vuonna 2007 (Deitti.net, Match.com). 2) Lisäksi hyödynnetään kyselytutkimusta, jonka vastaajina toimi 27 yliopisto- opiskelijaa. Kyselyn tarkoituksena on tarjota esimerkkejä kolmen erilaisen ilmoituksen todellisista tulkinnoista. 3) Kolmas aineisto koostuu sellaisesta kulttuurisesta metadiskurssista, jossa käsitellään kontakti-ilmoituksia vuorovaikutuksen tyyppinä. Aineisto sisältää i) kolme kontakti-ilmoituksia käsittelevää opaskirjaa, ii) joukon Internet-keskusteluja, lehtiartikkeleita ja muita kirjoituksia sekä iii) otteen televisio-ohjelmasta. Tällaiset ”kulissien takaiset” metadiskurssit valaisevat sellaisia tulkinnallisia käytänteitä, jotka eivät useinkaan tule ilmi varsinaisten performanssien aikana. Tutkimuskohdetta lähestytään neljästä empiirisestä näkökulmasta. Luku 4 keskittyy sellaisiin ”ominaisuuksiin”, joita ilmoitusten erilaiset merkkirakenteet voivat projisoida osallistujille. Luvussa pohditaan yleistä eroa ”kuvailtavien”, ”esitettävien” ja ”ehdotettavien” ominaisuuksien välillä ja erityisesti niiden erilaista vuorovaikutuksellista dynamiikkaa. Tämän jälkeen analysoidaan tarkemmin näiden konkreettisia tekstuaalisia ilmentymiä aineistossa: mm. teoreettisia ja reflektiivisiä representaatioita, listoja ja taksonomioita, narratiiveja, fiktiivisiä persoonia sekä sellaisia kielenaineksia, jotka ovat vakiintuneet yksilön ominaisuuksiksi (esim. pseudonyymeja ja mottoja). Lisäksi kolmea kokonaista tekstiä analysoidaan kyselyvastausten valossa. Tarkoituksena on selvittää, millaisia eroja em. tekstuaalisten rakenteiden tulkinnassa esiintyy. Luku 5 ottaa tarkasteluun evaluoivan
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