Tag: (E) bogan

(2020) English (Australia) – Cultural key words

Rowen, Roslyn (2020). The “Aussie” bogan: an occasioned semantics analysis. In Bert Peeters, Kerry Mullan, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 2. Meaning and culture (pp. 57-84). Singapore: Springer.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9975-7_4

Abstract:

This chapter explores the meaning and social use of the word bogan in Australian English. Although bogan is arguably a term that is currently trending in use and has been parodied in television series such as Bogan Pride and Upper Middle Bogan, it has so far been examined predominantly by sociologists, media scholars and social commentators, with little to no semantic research to date into bogan as a personal descriptor in colloquial Australian English. This study contributes to filling this gap by providing a foundation based on which the
meaning(s) of the term and its current widespread use in social interactions can be understood. In the process, it demonstrates that bogan is more than a term that asserts middle class hegemony, a label it has been repeatedly branded with; rather, it has a strong semantic core to which its meaning across various Australian discourses can be traced back. The chapter draws on interactional pragmatics to analyse the interactional achievement of locally situated meanings of bogan in conversational data. I will then provide comment on the role of NSM in dealing with participants’ interactionally specific meaning(s) of bogan. Data on usage comes from a corpus of naturally occurring examples of use of bogan in social interaction.

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(2017) English (Australia) – Cultural key words: BOGAN

Rowen, Roslyn (2017). Bogan as a keyword of contemporary Australia: Sociality and national discourse in Australian English. In Carsten Levisen & Sophia Waters (Eds.), Cultural keywords in discourse (pp. 55-82). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/pbns.277.03row

This chapter studies the word bogan as a cultural key word of contemporary Australian public discourse. The word bogan is specific to Australian English, with its closest counterpart in other Englishes being chav in British English and white trash or redneck in American English. Through a semantic analysis of the word, this chapter demonstrates that the social category of “bogans” remains a negative concept, denoting a certain group of people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who are car-loving, prone to violence and have a certain bogan outlook on life. However, the chapter also shows that in contemporary Australian discourse this originally negative concept can be transformed into a way of self-identification, and as a way of positively embracing Australian nationalism. This analysis is supported by studies in the ethnopragmatics and historical pragmatics of Australian English, which show a general tendency to value the “shared ordinariness” of people and to discursively “heroise” the little man, and the semi-criminal person. Applying the NSM approach to linguistic and cultural analysis, this chapter provides new analyses of the meaning of bogan, and cultural scripts related to the concept. It also opens up the study of the emergence of new cultural key words, and on the semantic and discursive diversity within Anglo Englishes.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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(2012) English (Australia) – Negative personal descriptors, jocular speech act verbs

Rowen, Roslyn (2012). “Shit bloke! You’re always geeing me up like that”: A lexical semantic analysis of negative personal descriptors and “jocular” speech-act verbs in informal Australian English. BA (Hons) thesis, Griffith University.

This thesis explores the meaning and social functions of eight negative personal descriptors (asshole, crumb, shit bloke, wanker, wuss, nark, shit-stirrer, bogan) and four “jocular” speech act verbs (joke, tease, stir (up), gee up) in the colloquial Australian English spoken in Brisbane and surrounding areas. Data on usage comes from a corpus of recordings of informal interaction in natural settings. The method of semantic analysis is reductive paraphrase, using the semantic primes of the Natural Semantic Metalanguage approach.

There has been little lexical-semantic research on colloquial “social” terms in contemporary Australian English and this study contributes to filling this gap. In addition, there is a cultural angle. It is widely held that culture fosters new schools of thought and as such that language can be seen as a vessel for conveying the social realities and beliefs of a particular culture, including the mainstream “Anglo Australian” culture. Not all linguists agree, however, arguing, for example, that Australian English does not have a unique or distinct culture. Examining specifically Australian English words, especially colloquial ones, and how they are used in social interaction, can shed light on this issue. The thesis argues that the meanings and uses of these words correlate with cultural values and attitudes that are specific to Australian English.


Research carried out in consultation with or under the supervision of one or more experienced NSM practitioners

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