Talking about freedom. Figurative tropes on the Marginal Revolution blog


Abstract


The present paper looks into social engineering and social positioning on the Marginal Revolution blog (2012 to present), hosted by economists Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok at the Marginal Revolution University. The focus is on the socio-pragmatic effects (Colston 2015) for speakers of verbal irony and figurative tropes like hyperbole – which rely on contrast – metaphor and metonymy – which rely on comparison – and other, less represented tropes. As a follow-up to Cacchiani (2019), we concentrate on the discourse around the cultural keyword (Williams 2015/1976) freedom. Qualitative data analysis suggests that core to active participants make recourse to figurative tropes for a number of effects. Their goal is to control and communicate specialized knowledge, argue their opinions, align or disagree with discussants within the blogging community, and ultimately reinforce their credibility. More particularly, verbal irony and related tropes do not appear to be a feature of posts about questions that are clearly critical in economics. On the other hand, they are found in conversation starters that address smaller questions, quirks, and apparently unimportant anecdotes and events of the day, and can readily emerge in the comments, as the thread unfolds. As regards socio-pragmatic effects, when present, figurative tropes appear to serve the purposes of emotion expression and elicitation, rather than cater for the personality-related needs of the interlocutors or express downright aggression.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i22390359v58p91

Keywords: blogs; economics; figurative tropes; pragmatic effects; verbal irony

References


Attardo, S. 2007 [1993], Irony as relevant inappropriateness, in Gibbs R.W. Jr and Colston H. (eds.), Irony in Language and Thought. A Cognitive Science Reader, Lawrence Erlbaum, New York (NY), pp. 135-170.

Attardo, S. 2017, The General Theory of Verbal Humour, in Attardo S. (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humour, Routledge, London, pp. 126-142.

Bondi M. 2021. The scientific article. Variation and change in knowledge communication practice, in Hanganu-Bresch C., Zerbe M.J., Cutrufello G. and Maci S. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Scientific Communication, Routledge, London, pp. 158-169.

Cacchiani, S. 2019, Verbal Irony and other figurative tropes on the Marginal Revolution blog, in Bondi M., Cacchiani S. and Cavalieri S. (eds.), Communicating Specialized Knowledge. Old Genres and New Media, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 191-206.

Colston, H.L. 2015, Using Figurative Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Goffmann, E. 1974, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience, Harper & Row, New York (NY).

Goffmann, E. 1981, Forms of Talk, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.

Herring, S.C, Stein D. and Virtanen T. (eds.) 2013, Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin.

Jenkins H., Purushotma R., Weigel R., Clinton K. and Robison A.J. 2006, Confronting the Challenges of participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/confronting-challenges-participatory-culture (1.4.2017).

Kjellberg S. 2010, I am a blogging researcher. Motivations for blogging in a scholarly context, in “First Monday” 15 [8]. http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2962/2580 (1.4.2017).

Kuteeva, M. 2016, Research blogs, wikis and tweets, in Hyland K. and Shaw P. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of English for Academic Purposes, Routledge, London, pp. 431-443.

Lakoff G. 1987, Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Lave J. and Wenger E. 1991, Situated Learning: Legitimate and Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Mauranen, A. 2013, Hybridism, edutainment, and doubt: Science blogging finding its feet, in “Nordic Journal of English Studies” 13 [1], pp. 7-36.

MR: Marginal Revolution blog. https://marginalrevolution.com (1.7.2023).

OED: Oxford English Dictionary online, 2 ed. and later additions. www.oed.com (1-1-2017).

Petitat A. 2004, La confiance raconté, in Krasteva A. and Todorov A. (eds.), Conflits, confiance, démocratie, Nouvelle Université Bulgare, Sofia, pp. 179-194.

Puschmann C. 2013, Blogging, in Herring S.C., Stein D. and Virtanen T. (eds.), Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication, De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin, pp. 83-108.

Puschmann C. 2015, A digital mod in the ivory tower? Context collapse in scholarly communication online, in Bondi M., Cacchiani S. and Mazzi D. (eds.), Discourse In and Through the Media, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 22-45.

Puschmann C. & Mahrt M. 2012 Scholarly blogging: A new form of publishing or science journalism 2.0?, in Tokar A., Beursken M., Keuneke S., mahrt M., Peters I., Puschmann C., van Treek T. and Weller K. (eds.), Science and the Internet, Düsseldorf University Press, Düsseldorf, pp. 171-181.

Schmidt, J. 2007, Blogging practices: An analytical framework, in “Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication” 12 [4], pp. 1409-1427.

Sperber D. and Wilson D. 1986, Relevance: Communication and Cognition, Blackwell, Oxford.

Wenger E. 1998, Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Williams R. 2015/1976, Keywords. A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Oxford University Press, New York (NY).


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.