Past Event: Friday Lunch Talk: Authenticity and the representation of linguistic diversity in the media (Monika Bednarek; University of Sydney)

Talk Abstract: In the linguistic study of the ‘narrative mass media’ (Queen 2015), the question of authenticity/accuracy has played a key role. Indeed, much linguistic research focuses on investigating the extent to which ‘telecinematic discourse’ (Piazza et al 2011) is similar or different to unscripted spoken language, i.e. in how far it is an authentic, naturalistic, or realistic representation of speech. Other studies have investigated the authenticity/accuracy of ‘non-standard’ language varieties (e.g. regional and social dialects). Overviews of these types of linguistic studies are given in Bednarek (2018), with a general consensus that language use in mainstream movies/television series only selectively represents unscripted language. In addition, linguists have investigated linguistic diversity in film and television with respect to multilingualism, for example how languages are represented and made comprehensible, and the narrative purposes to which they are leveraged (e.g. Bleichenbacher 2008, Locher 2017, Mitchell 2020). In this talk, I will be revisiting both authenticity and linguistic diversity. I argue that their analysis is more complex than it might seem at first glance and worthy of approaching from different perspectives and with respect to multiple dimensions. In so doing, I draw on some recent research on representations of traditional Australian Indigenous languages and Aboriginal English(es) in a corpus of television dialogue transcribed from 16 different Australian television series (2012-2021).