“Is your font racist?” Metapragmatic online discourses on the use of typographic mimicry and its appropriateness

Abstract

Typographic mimicry is the wrapping of writing in a "foreign dress," i.e. the use of typefaces in which one's script (e.g. Latin) is made to visually resemble a different script (e.g. Chinese) with the goal of evoking associations with a "foreign" culture. First, this paper addresses the formal aspects of this practice, specifically the choice of visual features to be mimicked. The core part then focuses on typographic mimicry as a social practice and includes a discussion of both the typographic knowledge that different actorsboth lay and expert producers and recipientsmust apply to establish and recognise the associated cultural indexicality and the typographic ideologies (i.e. beliefs and attitudes) these actors hold. The central question being investigated is how typographic mimicry is discursively negotiated. An exemplary metapragmatic discourse analysis of online reactions to a food ad and comments to two articles covering the topic catered at readers with different knowledge backgrounds highlights that typographic mimicry is not a "neutral" practice. It shows that central aspects being debated are the (re)appropriation of cultural stereotypes by users both outside and within the respective cultures and the related question of whether using typographic mimicry is generally (in)appropriate (or even racist).

Self-Orientalism Repackaged: Wong Wing Fried Rice

“…In other respects, the typeface is assimilatory. The sinicization of English type is also a Western attempt to de-sinicize East-Asian diaspora, whereby they are coerced into a proclivity for English and orientalist interpretations of Chinese and Chinese typography (Meletis, 2021). This longstanding relationship with prejudice, bigotry, and intolerance has come to characterize the typeface -"Wonton" cannot escape its racist dimensions (Seals & Ellsworth, 2022).…”

Presupposing Authenticity Through Typographic Traits in Commercial Signs

“…In our case, typographic traits attributed to specific societies or cultures may grapho-visually represent more or less stereotypical presuppositions of authenticity, implicitly shared by both the issuer and the recipient. In the study of typographic traits used in commercial brands and signs, 'typographic mimicry' describes a phenomenon in which the typographic features of graphic elements of a written text (in most cases the letters of the Latin alphabet) are embellished and modified to emulate aesthetic forms of other different writing systems, scripts or languages already represented by Latin characters, associated with more or less stereotypical ideas of local or national cultures (Coulmas, 2003;2014;Meletis, 2021;Sutherland, 2015;Shaw, 2009).…”