Speaker
Description
This paper examines mock language, a form of linguistic imitation in which speakers reproduce stylised features of other languages, such as the Mock Spanish expression ‘No problemo!’ or scribbles labelled as Chinese script. Framed as ‘non-serious’ (Hill 1993, p. 155) and frequently circulating through memes (Huang 2024), mock language is tolerated despite its (c)overt Othering, which positions a language and its speakers as subordinate. Such meanings are foregrounded by metapragmatic awareness, understood as sensitivity to how language implicitly and explicitly communicates social meaning (Silverstein 1976).
Framing memes as a distinct multimodal and metadiscursive modality, this study examines mock language through the digital medium. It asks: What linguistic and semiotic features characterise mock language in memes, and how do these features realise ideological meaning?
The empirical analysis is based on a case study of Mock German memes $(n = 51)$ across two templates: Little German Boy (Fig.1) and Flammenwerfer (Fig.2). Memes were gathered via targeted keyword searches on Tumblr and analysed as linguistic data using adapted interlinear glossing. Feature identification reveals systematic hyper-anglicisation/foreignisation and morphosyntactic reconfiguration. Drawing on theories of indexicality (Ochs 1996), language ideologies (Irvine 2000), and metapragmatics, the analysis examines how features index a caricatured ‘German-ness’ through non-positive semantic associations (Halliday 1978).
Findings support the view that memes thrive on creative imitation, ideological subversion, and provocation, which makes them particularly conducive to mock language practices (cf. Shifman et al. 2014; Holm 2021). Ongoing work extends this analysis to additional mock language forms (e.g. Chinese, Turkish), with an emphasis on metapragmatic recognition and perceptual evaluation across audiences. The study contributes to sociolinguistic and memetic scholarship by highlighting the role of memes and circulation in the reproduction and amplification of language ideologies, and by offering a replicable framework for mock language research.
REFERENCES:
Halliday, M.A.K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold, pp. 111-112.
Hill, J.H. (1993). “Hasta la vista, baby: Anglo Spanish in the American Southwest.” Critique of Anthropology, 13(2), pp. 145–176.
Holm, C.H. (2021). “What do you meme? The sociolinguistic potential of internet memes.” Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English, 7, pp. 1-18.
Huang, X., et al. (2024). “The rise of cross-language internet memes: A social semiotic analysis.” Signs and Society, 12(2), pp. 125–141.
Irvine, J.T. and Gal, S. (2000). “Language ideology and linguistic differentiation.” In Kroskrity, P.V. (ed.), Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, pp. 35–83.
Shifman, L., Levy, H. and Thelwall, M. (2014). “Internet jokes: The secret agents of globalization?” New Media & Society, 19(4), pp. 727–743.
Silverstein, M. (1976). “Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description.” In Basso, K. and Selby, H.A. (eds.), Meaning in Anthropology. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp. 11–55.