Today’s Pearls Before Swine, in a long series:
Once again, Pig takes an expression (boots on the ground) literally.
Today’s Zippy, with its customary bizarre associations of ideas:
And then there’s Peg’s Diner, in Whitinsville MA.
Various 50th anniversaries have come up this year, and now we are impelled into the midst of the Christmas Shopping Season; today is Black Friday, with sales everywhere.
Today’s Zippy:
Plenty of random associations. And in the background, the Red Apple Rest in Tuexedo NY.
Two items for (U.S.) Thanksgiving: once more on Thanksgivuk(k)ah, and the entertaining tryptophantastic.
The website says:
Take Cold-EEZE® whenever you start to feel cold symptoms. Our unique zinc gluconate formula releases zinc ions to fight your cold virus.
Cold-EEZE® lozenges have been clinically proven to shorten the duration of the common cold by almost half. View the clinical studies…
So, “clinically proven”. Let’s be very generous and assume that there are some actual clinical tests (pitting treated patients vs. untreated ones) here. But then the commercials shift from general claims to a specific one, with a company spokesman saying:
I guarantee Cold-EEZE will shorten your cold or your money back.
A money-back claim that could never be cashed in: how could anyone know that their particular cold would have been longer if they hadn’t taken Cold-EEZE? It’s a conflict between (possibly valid) generalizations and specific predictions about single events.
(Not much about language.)
From several sources on the net, this elaborate edible penguin composition:
A more complex version of the “penguin food you can make at home” in the second section of this posting from 2011.
Linguistics 63N. The language of comics
Tu Th 4:15-5:30 in 540-103
Elizabeth Closs Traugott and Arnold Zwicky
traugott@stanford.edu, zwicky@stanford.edu
Course description
Humans have a remarkable ability—to shape events and ideas in others’ minds through language. How do we understand each other and messages we receive? This seminar will explore language as represented in cartoons and comics such as Bizarro, Dilbert and Zits, how we interpret it, and why we find comics funny. In particular we will explore and analyze language play, genderspeak and teenspeak; peeving about usage; new and spreading usages. We will discuss the “grammar of comics”: how words and pictures can combine to create meanings that neither could create separately; conventions of the genre, as they concern the representation of language in speech balloons and captions; lettering choices; obscenicons, etc. Another major topic will be the narrative structure of the comics: the way events are represented as unfolding in time; and the representation of point of view. (3 units; grading basis: letter grade)
Learning goals
– Develop skills in articulating how communication works
– Develop skills in visual literacy and in analyzing cross-modal representations
– Apply the methods of research and inquiry from social science to the study of human behavior in social, communicative situations; particularly important for this seminar are contextualization, hypothesis testing, modeling, and critical analysis
– Learn what makes a question about human communication tractable and significant, and therefore worth investigating
Assignments
This is a seminar, so participation is vital.
i) Groups of you will be asked to make short presentations in class sessions focusing on the topic(s) of the preceding class.
ii) Weekly short writing assignments due at the beginning of class on Tuesdays. These will involve commenting on comics that you have found and preparing for the seminar paper.
iii) A seminar paper; initial thoughts due on Tu of week 4, proposal due on Tu of week 6, topic to be presented to the whole seminar in week 9 or 10, written version due Tu March 18th.
Prerequisites
None
Required book
Dubinsky, Stanley and Chris Holcomb. Understanding Language through Humor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011 (paper). {Cited as D&H in the syllabus.}
Recommended book
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins, 1993 (paper). {Cited as McC in the syllabus}
Linguistics 63N. The language of comics. Schedule
The topic will be finalized week 5 and a proposal will be due Tu of week 6.