The basics: What is language?

Like gender and animation, the term language is also not straightforward to define or even discuss. Most humans speak, hear, read or write language every day of their lives (even before birth in the case of hearing), so it is not an exaggeration to say that, once we leave early childhood, we are experts at using language. It is also a topic people tend to have lots of opinions on: things like what is ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ language, how language can be used in ‘ugly’ or ‘beautiful’ ways, or who is supposed to use certain kinds of language (for more detail see Unger, 2018). What is not clear from all these opinions is whether people actually agree on what language is.

In scholarly definitions of language there tend to be two main approaches: the more traditional version focusses on what is being communicated, and on language as a system of meaning-making, while the more progressive version focusses on who is communicating, and in what context (these two approaches are discussed in more detail in Page et al., 2022 in relation to language in social media).

When thinking about how language fits into the study of gender and animation, we can draw from both approaches. It is essential to treat language as multimodal. Unlike in a written novel, in animations meaning is made through visual and auditory aspects of texts as well as the words spoken by characters or depicted on the screen. For instance, in this clip from Brave (Andrews & Chapman, 2012), when Princess Merida is presented with suitors they are described by their fathers in glowing, heroic terms, but their appearance in some way falls short of stereotypical hegemonically masculine ideals. In fact, this trope is even playfully incorporated in the case of the last suitor, who viewers, along with Merida and her parents, initially think is a huge, muscle-bound warrior – only for the actual suitor hidden behind him to turn out to be a rather spindly, passive figure. By contrast, the other two suitors at least demonstrate their sword skills and strength, respectively:

If we were going only by the dialogue, we might guess there was something going awry in this interaction – in fact, the shout of “lies” from the crowd makes this fairly clear. But without looking at the incongruity between what is being said and what is depicted on the screen, and especially Merida’s embarrassed, exasperated expressions and body language, we would miss much of what is being communicated here.

And taking into account the more progressive approach to defining language, we can say that the identities of the characters and the situational context within the story world is also crucial here. The fathers of the suitors are trying to do something with language (get a favourable marriage match for their sons) while being someone in this interaction (fathers, heads of clans, leaders of warriors, etc.). They are therefore choosing what aspect of their sons’ identities they talk about carefully, and possibly even embellishing the truth, while using words primarily related to warfare. The language that isn‘t present can be just as interesting: the fathers do not make any mention of their sons being kind, good husbands or even good potential fathers. Meanwhile, Merida’s general lack of interest in marrying, which the viewers are already aware of at this point, adds additional meaning and is likely to add further humour to the already somewhat ridiculous situation.

This gives rise to a further important point: most animations are fictional texts (text here referring to the whole film, with all its multimodal forms of meaning-making). To a certain extent we can analyse fictional dialogue as if it were real conversation, and apply the same kinds of categories: for instance, looking at features stereotypically associated with masculine or feminine speech styles. However, it is important to remember that – just as with the visuals – the language used in the dialogue is not spontaneous or accidental, but carefully chosen by scriptwriters, actors, directors and film editors. What this means in practice is that language in animated films may be more of a reflection of beliefs about gendered language use than necessarily a reflection of actual usage in the world outside the film, though the two may sometimes coincide. Fought and Eisenhauer (2022) go further and argue that patterns of gendered language use in scripted texts not only reflect beliefs about gendered language, but also influence children’s understanding of the world as gendered, which is an important reason for us to study this topic.

A further aspect of language (and other forms of meaning-making) that is highly relevant for the study of this topic is intertextuality, or the traces of other texts we find in a text. When it comes to animations and other fictional audiovisual content, we can consider both intertextuality within the fictional story world (for example, when sequels refer back to things that happened in the first film), and references to things outside the text, including in the real world or other fictional worlds. This is often used for humorous effect, as we discuss in Unger & Sunderland (2007) in relation to the first Shrek film (Adamson & Jenson, 2011). The second film, Shrek 2 (Adamson, Asbury & Vernon, 2004) is equally rich with intertextual references, as this short clip shows:

In the first two minutes, viewers can find (among others), references to:

• The first Shrek film
• The fairytale Puss in Boots
• Alien (Scott, 1979)
• Zorro (a fictional character created by Johnston McCulley)
• The US TV Show The Price is Right, where host Bob Barker used to remind viewers to neuter their pets

Also in this clip, we can see different kinds of conversational behaviour: In the first half, the three characters engage in stereotypically masculine competitive and argumentative interactions, while the second half features supportive dialogue that arguably shows vulnerability and emotions, in other words ways of interacting that are stereotypically feminine.

In this post, I have outlined some basic aspects of language as a concept and something we can study in relation to gender and animation. Future posts will go into more detail about how to look at, for instance, conversational styles, intertextuality or multimodality.

 

References and further reading/viewing:

Unger, Johann Wolfgang (2018) Discourse on Language: Attitudes to diversity. In Jonathan Culpeper, Paul Kerswill, Ruth Wodak, Tony McEnery & Francis Katamba (Eds.), English language: Description, Variation and Context (pp. 351–61). London: Palgrave.

Unger, Johann Wolfgang, & Sunderland, Jane (2007). Gendered discourses in a contemporary animated film : Subversion and confirmation of gender stereotypes in Shrek. In Norman Fairclough, Guiseppina Cortese, & Patrizia Ardizzone (Eds.), Discourse and Contemporary Social Change (pp. 459–486). Peter Lang.