Marcel Danesi discusses with me the semiotics of teen talk in a moment of major transition, as we are moving more and more from face-to-face conversations and print culture to a digital world. Drawing on Giambattista Vico, he starts by identifying teenage speech as a veritable dialect meant to distinguish itself from the adult world as well as consolidate identities within peer groups. We then move to the digital communications that dominate teenage conversations today in texts, Instagram, and TikTok, and explore how the brevity, rapidity and universality that characterize these media may affect belonging and also meaning. At the same time, Marcel indicates the rich emotional texture emojis can weave into these verbal-visual exchanges, both in intimate and professional messages. Now professor emeritus of University of Toronto's Department of Anthropology, Marcel ignited my own interest in Vico when he was my Italian linguistics professor in undergrad (!). Among the numerous books he has written on youth culture and semiotics, I want to signal, Cool: the Signs and Meanings of Adolescence, The Semiotics of the Emoji, and Geeks, Goths, and Gangstas and Understanding Nonverbal Communication.
Marcel recommends... Understanding Media (1964) by Marschall McLuhan and La scienza nuova (1744) by Giambattista Vico.
