Abstract
This investigation utilizes interactional sociolinguistics to consider the role of principal in fictionalized improvised entertainment. We explore how improvised contexts can offer an ambiguity of principalship. The animator could in fact be the principal, offering the performer the potential to articulate cultural truths. The possibility that he/she may not be provides a freedom from responsibility for what is being said, a space that performers may exploit to animate controversial beliefs without the normal interactional repercussions.
We explore this in two sets of data, one from a production day of a Canadian television series in which the dialogue is improvised, and one from a large-scale ethnography of a community in Washington, DC, of performers of improv (a humorous theatrical performance in which characters, dialogue, and the performance structure itself are improvised). Observing footing shifts and drawing on metacommentary, we consider how improvisers show awareness of this potential, and we consider the cultural implications. Thus, while improvisation provides a unique forum for tackling difficult cultural issues, such as racism, improvisers may avoid doing so precisely because of the ambiguity of principalship. This research contributes to the current work in sociolinguistics considering the complex ways that language may be used in interaction to articulate cultural meaning.
About the authors
Margaret A. Toye is Program Coordinator of Academic Service Courses and Continuing Education at Bow Valley College's School of Health, Justice, and Human Services. Her recent research explores literacy in connection with youth being criminally involved, and factors contributing to nursing students' success. She attained her MA in Cultural Studies at Lancaster University and PhD in Linguistics at Georgetown University. Address for correspondence: Bow Valley College, 345 6 Ave SE, Calgary AB, Canada T2G 4V1, Canada 〈mtoye@bowvalleycollege.ca〉.
Anna Marie Trester is the Director of the MA program in Language and Communication (MLC) at Georgetown University in the Department of Linguistics. She received her MA in Linguistics from NYU in 2002 and PhD from Georgetown in 2008. She is passionate about finding professional applications of sociolinguistic insights. Her research interests include language and performance, language and professional self-presentation, and the integration of variationist, discourse analytic, and ethnographic approaches to language. Address for correspondence: Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, 1421 37th St NW – Poulton Hall 229, Washington, DC 20057-1051, USA 〈amt23@georgetown.edu〉.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston