A Critical Social Semiotic Study of the Word Chav in British Written Public Discourse, 2004-8
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A CRITICAL SOCIAL SEMIOTIC STUDY OF THE WORD CHAV IN BRITISH WRITTEN PUBLIC DISCOURSE, 2004-8 by JOE BENNETT A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of PhD in English. Department of English School of EDACS University of Birmingham March 2011 AHRC award no. 2007/134908 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis explores the use of the word chav in written discourse in Britain published between 2004 and 2008. Taking a critical social semiotic approach, it discusses how chav as a semiotic resource contributes to particular ways of using language to represent the world – Discourses – and to particular ways of using language to act on the world – Genres – suggesting that, though the word is far from homogenous in its use, it is consistently used to identify the public differences of Britain as a class society in terms of personal dispositions and choices, and in taking an ironic, stereotyped stance towards such differences. It is suggested that these tendencies can be viewed as ideological, as contributing to social domination and inequality. Chav is also found to be subject to a great deal of metalinguistic discussion, some of which serves to critique the above tendencies, but much of which does not. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the help the following: my supervisor Dr. Carmen Rosa Caldas-Coulthard for her enthusiastic support and invaluable advice throughout; the AHRC for funding my study (2007/134908); my fellow research students and various members of staff at the University of Birmingham; students on the courses I have taught at Birmingham, Aston and York, all of whom have endured some exposure to this research; the innumerable people I have talked to about chav over the past four years, especially those who haven’t laughed; various television producers, whose collective gratuitous use of chav has, many evenings, reminded me that I have work to do; friends and family, many of whom have contributed to my collection of texts; Kate Bennett, for always being willing to discuss anything, and for inspiring many of the ideas of this thesis. Contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Aims 1.2 Guiding hypotheses 1.3 Structure of the thesis 1.4 History of chav 1.4.1 Romani origins and Parlyaree slang 1.4.2 Regional meanings 1.4.3 National spread 1.4.4 2004 – ‘Year of the chav’ 1.4.5 False etymologies 1.4.6 Summary 2 Theoretical background 26 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Social semiotics 2.2.1 Semiotic resources 2.2.2 Discourse, ideology and social practice – critical discourse analysis 2.2.3 The Discourse level 2.2.3.1 Discourse 2.2.3.2 Genre 2.2.3.3 Discourse level – summary 2.2.4 The word as a ‘semiotic point of entry’ 2.2.5 Verbal hygiene 2.3 Identification 2.4 Class and classification 2.5 Contemporary class Discourses 2.5.1 Lifestyle 2.5.2 Underclass 2.6 Summary 3 Chav and dictionaries 79 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Authority and novelty in dictionaries 3.3 Definitions of chav 3.3.1 The OED definition 3.3.2 The Collins definition 3.3.3 The Partridge slang definition 3.3.4 The Brewers Phrase and Fable definition 3.3.5 Summary 3.4 Genre chain – The OED, The Language Report and the press 3.4.1 The Language Report 3.4.2 The press release 3.4.3 The newspaper articles 3.4.3.1 Definitions 3.4.3.2 Buzzwords 3.4.3.3 An honour for chavs 3.4.3.4 Critique 3.4.4 Summary 3.5 Summary 4. Critiques of chav 103 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Verbal hygiene 4.3 The criticisms 4.3.1 Offensiveness 4.3.2 Symptomatic 4.3.3 Instrumental 4.3.4 Representational 4.3.5 Reocentricity 4.4 Proposals for change 4.5 Summary 5. Chav humour books 123 5.1 Introduction 5.2 ‘Impulse-buy humour books’ 5.3 Analysis 5.3.1 The titles 5.3.2 The blurbs 5.3.2.1 Appearance and attitudes 5.3.2.2 Chav point of view 5.3.2.3 Bathos 5.3.3 The covers 5.3.3.1 Modality 5.3.3.1.1 Colour saturation and modulation 5.3.3.1.2 Contextualisation 5.3.3.1.3 Representation 5.3.3.2 Analytical representation 5.3.3.3 Connotation 5.3.3.3.1 Clothes and behaviours 5.3.3.3.2 Burberry 5.3.3.3.3 Fonts 5.3.3.4 Interpersonal representation 5.3.3.5 Summary of cover analysis 5.3.4 The texts 5.3.4.1 The social semiotics of chav 5.3.4.1.1 Appearances 5.3.4.1.2 Names 5.3.4.1.3 Language 5.3.4.2 The predictability of chavs 5.3.4.3 The articulation of a chav point of view 5.3.4.3.1 Modality and evaluation 5.3.4.3.2 Procedural discourse 5.3.4.3.3 Point of view and irony 5.3.4.4 Distinction between normal people and chavs 5.3.4.4.1 The normative stance 5.3.4.4.2 Readers as spotters 5.3.4.4.3 Lifestyle relativism 5.3.4.5 Chav and politics 5.3.4.5.1 The Underclass Discourse 5.3.4.5.2 Issues of public concern 5.3.4.5.3 Class 5.3.4.5.4 Lifestyle 5.4 Summary 6 Chav in newspapers 180 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Methods and data 6.3 Newspaper discourse at the Discourse level 6.3.1 Genre 6.3.2 Readership 6.3.3 Political stance 6.4 Analysis 6.4.1 Feature articles 6.4.1.1 The Sun – ‘Proud to be a Chav’ 6.4.1.2 The Chav Rich List 6.4.1.3 Chav-spotting 6.4.1.4 Summary 6.4.2 Personal columns and opinion pieces 6.4.2.1 Personal columns 6.4.2.2 Opinion pieces 6.4.2.2.1 Underclass 6.4.2.2.2 Metalinguistic commentary 6.4.2.3 Summary 6.4.3 Celebrity news 6.4.4 Cultural review 6.4.4.1 Television documentaries 6.4.4.2 Fictional characters 6.4.4.3 A style 6.4.4.4 6.4.5 Other news genres 6.4.5.1 Reports on reports 6.4.5.2 Fashion and business news 6.4.5.3 Crime news 6.5 Summary 7 Conclusion 250 7.1 The significance of chav in terms of Discourse 7.1.1 Class identification 7.1.1.1 Underclass 7.1.1.2 Lifestyle 7.1.1.3 Class and taste 7.2 The significance of chav in terms of Genre 7.2.1 Stereotyping and administrative allocation 7.2.2 Irony 7.3 Verbal hygiene 7.4 Theoretical reflections 7.4.1 Irony 7.4.2 Critique 7.4.3 Semiotics and observation 7.4.4 My own work 7.5 Final comments Figures Figure 5.1. The Little Book of Chavs front and back cover 126 Tables Table 4.1. Texts discussed in Chapter Four 104 Table 6.1 Newspaper articles including chav , 2004-2009 181 Table 6.2 Social class of British Newspaper Readerships 184 A critical social semiotic study of the word chav in British written public discourse, 2004-8 1 Introduction The word chav entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2004 defined as ‘a young person of a type characterized by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of designer-style clothes (esp. sportswear); usually with connotations of a low social status’, and announced as Oxford University Press’s first ever word of the year (Dent, 2004). It was named as one of the ‘words of the noughties’ by the BBC (BBC, 2010a). It has given rise to ‘humour’ books such as The Little Book of Chavs , The Little Book of Chavspeak , The Little Book of Chav Jokes, The Chav Guide to Life (Bok, 2004a; 2004b; 2006a, 2006b) and Chav! A User’s Guide to Britain’s New Ruling Class (Wallace and Spanner, 2004), and a popular series of teenage novels, Diary of a Chav (Dent, 2007a; 2007b; 2007c). And, as well as being heavily used and debated in the British press, the word has been prominent in academic debate in cultural, media and social studies, where it has been both criticised as a term that contributes to class inequality (e.g. Moran, 2006; Hayward and Yar, 2006) and adopted as a label for a youth ‘subculture’ (e.g. McCulloch et al., 2006). In this thesis, I take a Critical Social Semiotic (Caldas-Coulthard and van Leeuwen, 2003) approach to chav as it is used in a number of Genres of public written discourse. In relation to previous research in which the word is discussed, I both narrow and widen the focus of discussion of chav . I narrow the focus of discussion of chav by concentrating on actual instances of the word in use in public discourse.