http://www.diva-portal.org Postprint This is the accepted version of a paper presented at The first Conference of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics. Citation for the original published paper: Airey, J., Berge, M. (2014) That's Funny!: The humorous effect of misappropriating disciplinary-specific semiotic resources. In: (pp. 50-51). N.B. When citing this work, cite the original published paper. Permanent link to this version: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-233139
That s Funny! The humorous effect of misappropriating disciplinary-specific semiotic resources John Airey Maria Berge Department of Physics and Astronomy Uppsala University, Sweden School of Languages and Literature Linnæus University, Sweden Department of Science and Mathematics Education Umeå University, Sweden
Overview Interested in disciplinary boundaries The way that professional vision (Goodwin,1994) steers how we view the world around us Wanted to do something more lighthearted Used a bogus piece of music a physics joke Shown this to different groups of academics
Overview Becoming a disciplinary insider Research on humour The concept of disciplinary affordance The study Findings Tentative conclusions
Becoming a disciplinary insider Becoming a member of a discipline has been described in a number of ways:
Becoming a disciplinary insider Developing professional vision Goodwin (1994) All vision is perspectival and lodged within endogenous communities of practice. An archaeologist and a farmer see quite different phenomena in the same patch of dirt.
Becoming a disciplinary insider Becoming fluent in a disciplinary discourse e.g. Airey & Linder (2009), Airey (2009), Northedge (2002) University lecturers often do not fully appreciate [ ] the sociocultural groundings of meaning. Their thoughts are so deeply rooted in specialist discourse that they are unaware that meanings they take for granted are simply not construable from outside the discourse. Northedge (2002:256)
Becoming a disciplinary insider Developing disciplinary literacy e.g. Airey (2011, 2013), Geisler (1994) Disciplinary language can [ ] afford and sustain both expert and naïve representations: the expert representation available to insiders to the academic professions and the naïve representation available to those outside Geisler (1994:xi-xii)
Research into humour Humour is important in academia e.g see Mulkay & Gilbert (1982) Even has its own ISI rated journal: Humor: The International Journal of Humor Research Those with the least power often use the least humour. Martin et al. (2006) Men have been found to use more humour than women in science settings Hasse (2002)
Research into humour What counts as funny differs from group to group, from person to person, and from situation to situation. Humor is conditional and depends on the context, the timing, the audience, and the cultural setting. (Billig, 2005) Telling the right joke at the right time requires considerable cultural knowledge, and humor is often used to identify fellow members of a community through their appreciation (or not) of a joke (Cohen, 1999). Can see that humour may also be used to signify disciplinary belonging
A physics joke When physicists have kids
A musical joke
Inside jokes
Becoming a disciplinary insider Interested in insider jokes using disciplinary-specific semiotic resources
Becoming a disciplinary insider Disciplinary affordance Definition: The potential of a given semiotic resource to provide access to disciplinary knowledge Fredlund et al. (2012:658) Insider jokes often function through the misappropration of specialist semiotic resources by subverting their disciplinary affordance.
The study Three focus groups: Physicists Musicians Academics not connected to physics or music (social scientists)
The study All groups were shown the same music/physics disciplinary hybrid and asked the same question: What do you see in this picture? When discussion was exhausted direct questions were asked about selected sections of the picture. Finally, the group was asked to speculate on the intentions of the author of the picture.
More random walks in science. Weber (1982:98)
S: This looks like you go backwards so to speak, you go one, two, three, four, five and then you start again, but I m not really sure M: Downward movements--it s something that you can see in graphic notation such as those arrows that go down P: It looks to me like when it s going from one energy level to another in you know in an atom
S: Five M omega mmh M: That s normal to see in sheet music P: That s a five mega-ohm resistor
Lyrics S1 What does it say? O come with me, to watch the first Radon, When the stars Argon, As the day Krypton, And if the morn be cloudy, You won t Xenon. Sounds like physics. M1: You get the feeling there is some sort of physics joke behind this noble gas text. P1: Well to be honest I haven t paid much attention to the text! P2: Radon, argon, krypton, they are, yeah they are probably in a particular place in the atomic table. P1: Well it rhymes so that s clever.
Graphic notation M1: It s very similar to graphic notation with arrows that go downwards -- it falls and then comes up again at different stages.
Musicians Humour M1: It would be interesting to see how you could use your elbow to make that zur pumpe sound
Musicians Humour M1: It would be interesting to see how you could use your elbow to make that zur pumpe sound M2: I wonder what a Cyanogen band would sound like? M3. Flat.
Science and art M1: It s interesting because it mirrors the interest for natural sciences in art
Who was this made for? S: I think this is something made to confuse outsiders. I think it s nonsense, but maybe there is some message in it. Perhaps it s a really clever way to summarise a whole PhD or something, but I don t think so. M: I think this was made for a narrow circle of people who are physicists but who also have an interest in the music written in the fifties! The physicists were sure this was made for them!
Who was this made for? S1: They re just messing about so people can t understand (Laughs) S2:Yes it s irritating to not understand what it is M1: As I said I associate this with the music of the fifties M2: A very clear association I d say! P1: Everything we can recognize--i don t think there s anything there we can t recognize. P2: No, either it s a physics symbol or it s a mathematical symbol.
Results Social scientists knew that they were outsiders Musicians saw clear links to their discipline and to the movement to combine natural science and art but they also realised it was a physics joke. The physicists saw directly that this was a joke. They recognized instantly a number of misappropriated disciplinary semiotic resources. But this limited them from interrogating the picture further.
Conclusions Both physicists and musicians felt included by the picture. Each could play to their strengths The social scientists felt irritated and excluded.
Conclusions Disciplines develop very different professional vision. Musicians and physicists used their professional vision together with the semiotic resource to position themselves as expert disciplinary insiders. Social scientists could not pull off this semiotic work (Gee 2004). They had no option but to position themselves as outsiders.
My personal conclusion Oh, if only it were that simple!
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