Pub Date : 2021-05-01DOI: 10.1177/0963947020983202
A. Gibbons, S. Whiteley
This article examines direct address, or ‘breaking the fourth wall’, in the BBC TV series Fleabag. It applies Text World Theory to telecinematic discourse for the first time and, in doing so, contributes to developing cognitive approaches in the field of telecinematic stylistics. Text World Theory, originally a cognitive linguistic discourse processing framework, is used to examine how multimodal cues contribute to the creation of imagined worlds. We examine three examples of direct address in Fleabag, featuring actor gaze alongside use of the second-person you or actor gaze alone. Our analysis highlights the need to account for the different deictic referents of you, with the pronoun able to refer intra- and extradiegetically. We also explore viewers’ ontological positioning because ‘breaking the fourth wall’ in telecinematic discourse evokes an addressee who is not spatiotemporally co-present with the text-world character. We therefore propose the concept of the split text-world, which assists in accounting for the deictic pull that viewers may feel during direct address and its experiential impact. Our analysis suggests that telecinematic direct address is necessarily world-forming but can ontologically position the viewer differently in different narrative contexts. While some instances of direct address in Fleabag position the viewer as Fleabag’s narratee and confidant, there is increasing play with direct address in the show’s second series and a destabilisation of this narratee role, achieved through the suggestion that Fleabag’s addressee may be more psychologically interior than they first appear.
{"title":"Do worlds have (fourth) walls? A Text World Theory approach to direct address in Fleabag","authors":"A. Gibbons, S. Whiteley","doi":"10.1177/0963947020983202","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947020983202","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines direct address, or ‘breaking the fourth wall’, in the BBC TV series Fleabag. It applies Text World Theory to telecinematic discourse for the first time and, in doing so, contributes to developing cognitive approaches in the field of telecinematic stylistics. Text World Theory, originally a cognitive linguistic discourse processing framework, is used to examine how multimodal cues contribute to the creation of imagined worlds. We examine three examples of direct address in Fleabag, featuring actor gaze alongside use of the second-person you or actor gaze alone. Our analysis highlights the need to account for the different deictic referents of you, with the pronoun able to refer intra- and extradiegetically. We also explore viewers’ ontological positioning because ‘breaking the fourth wall’ in telecinematic discourse evokes an addressee who is not spatiotemporally co-present with the text-world character. We therefore propose the concept of the split text-world, which assists in accounting for the deictic pull that viewers may feel during direct address and its experiential impact. Our analysis suggests that telecinematic direct address is necessarily world-forming but can ontologically position the viewer differently in different narrative contexts. While some instances of direct address in Fleabag position the viewer as Fleabag’s narratee and confidant, there is increasing play with direct address in the show’s second series and a destabilisation of this narratee role, achieved through the suggestion that Fleabag’s addressee may be more psychologically interior than they first appear.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"105 - 126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0963947020983202","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48898830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-30DOI: 10.1177/09639470211015833
C. James
{"title":"Book Review: Poetry and Language: The Linguistics of Verse","authors":"C. James","doi":"10.1177/09639470211015833","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470211015833","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"200 - 203"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09639470211015833","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46451189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-30DOI: 10.1177/09639470211015851
K. Wales
‘six word stories’ (stories told in six words), young adult fiction such as Twilight, literary classics such as Shakespearian plays, TV series like How I Met Your Mother, and other narratives such as the Marvel Universe, amongst others. This shows that the framework is adaptable to any narrative and is not exclusive to literature: it is up to the reader to connect those narratives through their ‘mental archives’. Therefore, Mason’s main objective with this book is indeed achieved.
{"title":"Book Review: What’s Your Pronoun? Beyond He & She","authors":"K. Wales","doi":"10.1177/09639470211015851","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470211015851","url":null,"abstract":"‘six word stories’ (stories told in six words), young adult fiction such as Twilight, literary classics such as Shakespearian plays, TV series like How I Met Your Mother, and other narratives such as the Marvel Universe, amongst others. This shows that the framework is adaptable to any narrative and is not exclusive to literature: it is up to the reader to connect those narratives through their ‘mental archives’. Therefore, Mason’s main objective with this book is indeed achieved.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"206 - 209"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09639470211015851","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49611145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-30DOI: 10.1177/09639470211015849
Kimberley Pager-McClymont
Beardsley MC (1958) Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Beardsley MC (1970) The Possibility of Criticism. Michigan: Wayne State University Press. Lakoff G and Johnson M (1980) Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff G and TurnerM (1989)More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Paterson D (2018) The Poem: Lyric, Sign, Metre. London: Faber and Faber.
{"title":"Book Review: Intertextuality in Practice","authors":"Kimberley Pager-McClymont","doi":"10.1177/09639470211015849","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470211015849","url":null,"abstract":"Beardsley MC (1958) Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Beardsley MC (1970) The Possibility of Criticism. Michigan: Wayne State University Press. Lakoff G and Johnson M (1980) Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff G and TurnerM (1989)More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Paterson D (2018) The Poem: Lyric, Sign, Metre. London: Faber and Faber.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"203 - 206"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09639470211015849","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43414272","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-23DOI: 10.1177/09639470211009734
Naomi Adam
Framed by cognitive-poetic and possible worlds theories, this article explores two 21st century novels by the British postmodernist author Ian McEwan. Building upon Ryan’s (1991) seminal conceptualisation of the theory in relation to literature and using the novels as case studies, possible worlds theory is used to explain the unique and destabilising stylistic effects at play in the texts, which result in a ‘duplicitous point of view’ and consequent disorientation for the reader. With reference to the stylistically deviant texts of McEwan, it is argued that revisions to current theoretical frameworks are warranted. Most significantly, the concepts of suppositious text-possible worlds and (total) frame readjustment are introduced. Further to this, neuropsychiatric research is applied to the novels, highlighting the potential for interdisciplinary overlap in the study of narrative focalisation. It is concluded that the duplicity integral to both novels’ themes and texture is effected through artful use of hypothetical focalisation and suppositious text-possible worlds.
{"title":"‘Your duplicitous point of view’: Delayed revelations of hypothetical focalisation in Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Sweet Tooth","authors":"Naomi Adam","doi":"10.1177/09639470211009734","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470211009734","url":null,"abstract":"Framed by cognitive-poetic and possible worlds theories, this article explores two 21st century novels by the British postmodernist author Ian McEwan. Building upon Ryan’s (1991) seminal conceptualisation of the theory in relation to literature and using the novels as case studies, possible worlds theory is used to explain the unique and destabilising stylistic effects at play in the texts, which result in a ‘duplicitous point of view’ and consequent disorientation for the reader. With reference to the stylistically deviant texts of McEwan, it is argued that revisions to current theoretical frameworks are warranted. Most significantly, the concepts of suppositious text-possible worlds and (total) frame readjustment are introduced. Further to this, neuropsychiatric research is applied to the novels, highlighting the potential for interdisciplinary overlap in the study of narrative focalisation. It is concluded that the duplicity integral to both novels’ themes and texture is effected through artful use of hypothetical focalisation and suppositious text-possible worlds.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"174 - 199"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09639470211009734","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45488249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-18DOI: 10.1177/09639470211009672
D. Kellogg, Somaye Aghajani Kalkhoran
The late linguist M.A.K. Halliday described the last paragraph of Darwin’s Origin of Species, with its description of a tangled bank, as one of the most remarkable paragraphs in the whole of literature. Yet it appears marred by an obvious grammatical mistake. In this article, we seek to show that the apparent mistake is actually the vestige of a now extinct form of paragraph in which the structure we now reserve for a single sentence could be extended over a whole paragraph or even many paragraphs. We first zoom out to show that the final sentence makes sense in the context of the paragraph as a whole, and then zoom out again to show that the modern paragraph itself is still a work in progress. Finally, we use a comparison between English and Farsi to try to show that all such grammatical choices mediate between humans and their environment. This relationship too is a work in progress in which the grammar of a language has an important role to play.
{"title":"‘And that’: Halliday’s logogenesis, sociogenesis, and phylogenesis in Darwin’s tangled bank","authors":"D. Kellogg, Somaye Aghajani Kalkhoran","doi":"10.1177/09639470211009672","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470211009672","url":null,"abstract":"The late linguist M.A.K. Halliday described the last paragraph of Darwin’s Origin of Species, with its description of a tangled bank, as one of the most remarkable paragraphs in the whole of literature. Yet it appears marred by an obvious grammatical mistake. In this article, we seek to show that the apparent mistake is actually the vestige of a now extinct form of paragraph in which the structure we now reserve for a single sentence could be extended over a whole paragraph or even many paragraphs. We first zoom out to show that the final sentence makes sense in the context of the paragraph as a whole, and then zoom out again to show that the modern paragraph itself is still a work in progress. Finally, we use a comparison between English and Farsi to try to show that all such grammatical choices mediate between humans and their environment. This relationship too is a work in progress in which the grammar of a language has an important role to play.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"213 - 228"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/09639470211009672","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43302664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-18DOI: 10.1177/09639470211009748
Ella Wydrzynska
This article furthers the somewhat underdeveloped area of research regarding the consideration of complex theoretical concepts such as postmodernism and metafiction in relation to children’s literature by concentrating on a stunningly complex—although by no means rare—experimental text aimed at 8–12 year-olds. Using The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch as example, I examine how children’s literature can use such strategies to engage a child-reader and make them a tangible part of the construction of the novel. Drawing on elements of Text World Theory, diegetic narrative levels and the concept of the internal author, this study primarily explores the role of the interactive, visibly inventing, postmodern narrator, and, by extension, the dramatization of the reader as a part of the story. Framed against an academic background in which children’s literature was deemed unworthy of study or outright dismissed, this article illustrates why children’s literature is not only worthy of rigorous academic study in its own right but also that it often readily displays enough literary, linguistic, and narratological complexities to rival even the most sophisticated literature for adult readers.
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Pub Date : 2021-03-22DOI: 10.1177/0963947021999182
Mihailo Antović
This article extends the author’s theory of multilevel grounding in meaning generation from its original application to music to the domains of visual cognition and poetry. Based on the notions of ground from the philosophy of language and conceptual blending from cognitive linguistics, the approach views semiosis in works of art as a series of successive mappings couched in a set of six hierarchical, recursive levels of constraint or grounding boxes: (1) perceptual, parsing the stimulus into formal gestalten; (2) cross-modal, motivating schematic correspondences between the stimulus so structured and the listener’s embodied experience; (3) affective, ascribing to this embodied appreciation dynamic sensations, as in the distinction between tense and lax parts of the perceptual flow; (4) conceptual, drawing analogies between such schematic and affective appreciation and elementary experiential imagery, resulting in outlines of narratives; (5) culturally rich, checking such a narrative outline against the recipient’s cultural knowledge; and (6) individual, adding to the levels above idiosyncratic recollections from the participant’s personal experience. The goal of the analysis is to show that the interpretation of constructs from different semiotic modes (music, vision and language) may rely on the same grounding levels as it ultimately depends on the same perceptual, embodied and contextual circumstances. Specifically, the article uses the system to analyse the possible reception of a section from the romance for violin and orchestra ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams, the painting ‘The Last Supper’ by Leonardo da Vinci and the poem ‘No Man Is an Island’ by John Donne.
{"title":"Multilevel grounded semantics across cognitive modalities: Music, vision, poetry","authors":"Mihailo Antović","doi":"10.1177/0963947021999182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947021999182","url":null,"abstract":"This article extends the author’s theory of multilevel grounding in meaning generation from its original application to music to the domains of visual cognition and poetry. Based on the notions of ground from the philosophy of language and conceptual blending from cognitive linguistics, the approach views semiosis in works of art as a series of successive mappings couched in a set of six hierarchical, recursive levels of constraint or grounding boxes: (1) perceptual, parsing the stimulus into formal gestalten; (2) cross-modal, motivating schematic correspondences between the stimulus so structured and the listener’s embodied experience; (3) affective, ascribing to this embodied appreciation dynamic sensations, as in the distinction between tense and lax parts of the perceptual flow; (4) conceptual, drawing analogies between such schematic and affective appreciation and elementary experiential imagery, resulting in outlines of narratives; (5) culturally rich, checking such a narrative outline against the recipient’s cultural knowledge; and (6) individual, adding to the levels above idiosyncratic recollections from the participant’s personal experience. The goal of the analysis is to show that the interpretation of constructs from different semiotic modes (music, vision and language) may rely on the same grounding levels as it ultimately depends on the same perceptual, embodied and contextual circumstances. Specifically, the article uses the system to analyse the possible reception of a section from the romance for violin and orchestra ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams, the painting ‘The Last Supper’ by Leonardo da Vinci and the poem ‘No Man Is an Island’ by John Donne.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"147 - 173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0963947021999182","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46678567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-03-12DOI: 10.1177/0963947020983108
Guy Cook
The article discusses the morality of W. B. Yeats’ sonnet Leda and the Swan in the context of a widening gap between the sexual mores of earlier times and our own, and whether the poem remains a suitable choice for the teaching of stylistics. I begin by examining stylistics treatments of the poem, and its political, social and artistic context, then move on to consider charges of misogyny against the poem for eroticising and failing to condemn the rape it depicts. To assess these charges I examine other literary uses of the Leda myth both before and after Yeats, including earlier poems which romanticise the rape, and later ones which vilify it. I also consider the implications of my discussion for the teaching of other canonical poems on similar themes. The last part of the paper discusses more generally the place of morality in literature and literature teaching, including stylistics: whether teachers and analysts should promote a moral world view and moral behaviour through their choice of texts and comments on them, or whether there are other valid criteria for selecting and describing a text such as Leda and the Swan. To elucidate current views, I draw parallels with the moral didacticism of the highly influential literary critic F. R. Leavis in the mid twentieth century, and ask whether aspects of his patrician view have undergone a surreptitious revival in some contemporary pedagogy and criticism at the beginning of the twenty first.
本文讨论了叶芝十四行诗《Leda and The Swan》的道德观，以及这首诗是否仍然是文体学教学的合适选择。我首先研究了这首诗的文体学处理方式，以及它的政治、社会和艺术背景，然后考虑了对这首诗进行色情创作和未能谴责强奸的厌女指控。为了评估这些指控，我考察了叶芝前后莱达神话的其他文学用途，包括早期将强奸浪漫化的诗歌和后来诋毁强奸的诗歌。我还考虑了我的讨论对其他类似主题的经典诗歌教学的影响。文章的最后一部分更广泛地讨论了道德在文学和文学教学中的地位，包括文体学：教师和分析人员是否应该通过对文本的选择和评论来促进道德世界观和道德行为，或者是否有其他有效的标准来选择和描述文本，如《莱达》和《天鹅》。为了阐明当前的观点，我将其与20世纪中期极具影响力的文学评论家F.R.Leavis的道德说教相提并论，并询问他的贵族观点是否在21世纪初的一些当代教育学和批评中悄然复兴。
{"title":"#Ledatoo: The morality of Leda and the Swan in teaching stylistics","authors":"Guy Cook","doi":"10.1177/0963947020983108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947020983108","url":null,"abstract":"The article discusses the morality of W. B. Yeats’ sonnet Leda and the Swan in the context of a widening gap between the sexual mores of earlier times and our own, and whether the poem remains a suitable choice for the teaching of stylistics. I begin by examining stylistics treatments of the poem, and its political, social and artistic context, then move on to consider charges of misogyny against the poem for eroticising and failing to condemn the rape it depicts. To assess these charges I examine other literary uses of the Leda myth both before and after Yeats, including earlier poems which romanticise the rape, and later ones which vilify it. I also consider the implications of my discussion for the teaching of other canonical poems on similar themes. The last part of the paper discusses more generally the place of morality in literature and literature teaching, including stylistics: whether teachers and analysts should promote a moral world view and moral behaviour through their choice of texts and comments on them, or whether there are other valid criteria for selecting and describing a text such as Leda and the Swan. To elucidate current views, I draw parallels with the moral didacticism of the highly influential literary critic F. R. Leavis in the mid twentieth century, and ask whether aspects of his patrician view have undergone a surreptitious revival in some contemporary pedagogy and criticism at the beginning of the twenty first.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"127 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2021-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0963947020983108","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47381125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-27DOI: 10.1177/0963947020971997
D. Allington, Beatriz L Buarque, Daniel Barker Flores
Conspiracy fantasy or – to use the more common but less accurately descriptive term – ‘conspiracy theory’ is an enduring genre of discourse historically associated with authoritarian political movements. This article presents a literature review of research on conspiracy fantasy as well as two empirical studies of YouTube videos by three leading conspiracy fantasists. Two of these fantasists have been linked to the far right, while one maintains connections to figures on the far right and the far left. The first study employs content analysis of the 10 most popular videos uploaded by each of the three, and the second employs corpus analysis of keywords in comments posted on all videos uploaded by the three fantasists. Jewish-related entities such as Israel, Zionists and the Rothschild family are found to be among the entities most frequently accused of conspiracy in the videos. Conspiracy accusations against other Western nations (especially the United States and the United Kingdom), as well as their leaders and their media, were also common. Jewish-related lexical items such as ‘Zionist’, ‘Zionists’, ‘Rothschild’ and ‘Jews’ are found to be mentioned with disproportionate frequency in user comments. These findings would appear to reflect the conspiracy fantasy genre’s continuing proximity to its roots in the European antisemitic tradition and add weight to existing findings suggesting that the active YouTube audience responds to latently antisemitic content with more explicitly antisemitic comments.
{"title":"Antisemitic conspiracy fantasy in the age of digital media: Three ‘conspiracy theorists’ and their YouTube audiences","authors":"D. Allington, Beatriz L Buarque, Daniel Barker Flores","doi":"10.1177/0963947020971997","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947020971997","url":null,"abstract":"Conspiracy fantasy or – to use the more common but less accurately descriptive term – ‘conspiracy theory’ is an enduring genre of discourse historically associated with authoritarian political movements. This article presents a literature review of research on conspiracy fantasy as well as two empirical studies of YouTube videos by three leading conspiracy fantasists. Two of these fantasists have been linked to the far right, while one maintains connections to figures on the far right and the far left. The first study employs content analysis of the 10 most popular videos uploaded by each of the three, and the second employs corpus analysis of keywords in comments posted on all videos uploaded by the three fantasists. Jewish-related entities such as Israel, Zionists and the Rothschild family are found to be among the entities most frequently accused of conspiracy in the videos. Conspiracy accusations against other Western nations (especially the United States and the United Kingdom), as well as their leaders and their media, were also common. Jewish-related lexical items such as ‘Zionist’, ‘Zionists’, ‘Rothschild’ and ‘Jews’ are found to be mentioned with disproportionate frequency in user comments. These findings would appear to reflect the conspiracy fantasy genre’s continuing proximity to its roots in the European antisemitic tradition and add weight to existing findings suggesting that the active YouTube audience responds to latently antisemitic content with more explicitly antisemitic comments.","PeriodicalId":45849,"journal":{"name":"Language and Literature","volume":"30 1","pages":"78 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2020-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0963947020971997","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45013138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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