Stylizing stylization: The case of Aigia Fuxia

Abstract

This paper examiues lauguage stylizatiou iu Aigia Fuxia ('The FuchsiaGoat'), a highly popular Greek Cypriot sitcom, where the (Imagiued) liuguistic and socio-cultural 'self of a dialect-speaking community is subjected to extreme and aberrant stylizatiou. The overarchiug filmic aud geueric trademark o/Aigia Fuxia is its cousisteut piupoiutiug of its iutertextual relations to well-established Cypriot comedie media genres, in which the language aud the lifestyle of the 'rural' part of the speech community is performed followiug specific geueric aud linguistic couveutious. Aigia Fuxia dismautles these couveutious through the artful deploymeut of a medley of couteut, geueric, aud filmic choices aud, crucially, through extreme dialect stylizatiou, ultimately a 'de-autheuticiziug' move, especially as it goes haud-iu-haud with other liuguistic choices, which are dissouaut both iu terms of geure aud iu terms of the series' baseliue stylized dialect register. Iu this paper we show that such bricolage geuerates rich iuterpretive poteutial: from a filmic perspective, the use of techuiques which may befuddle viewer expectatious regardiug the geure cunuiugly piupoiut the processes whereby geueric aud uarrative couveutious are coustructed; from a socioliuguistic perspective, the extreme stylizatiou of the Cypriot Greek dialect may be seeu as performative destabiliziug of domiuaut folk liuguistic coustructs about staudard lauguage aud dialect iu a coutext of dialect leveliug aud emergeut diglossia resolutiou.

Skewed Sociolinguistic Awareness of a Native Non-standard Dialect: Evidence from the Cypriot Greek Writing of Greek Cypriot Students

“…Such linguistic behavior was also observed by others (Coupland, 2001, 2007; Eckert, 2001; Tsiplakou, 2011; Tsiplakou and Ioannidou, 2012). This basilectal and hyperdialectal use rendered students’ scripts register-inappropriate.…”

“…Students’ choice of text style was an instrument which allowed them to construct the identity that they perceived the task to be requesting. This is a conclusion that other researchers have also drawn (Tsiplakou and Ioannidou, 2012). The scripts provide evidence that students’ perceptions were considerably skewed in that, although they were asked to write in the mesolectal register, basilect, and hyperdialect were used extensively.…”

“…These conscious choices may be demonstrative of a desire to downplay the divergences between their own language and that of Greeks. This phenomenon has also been noted and discussed by Tsiplakou and Ioannidou (2012).…”

“…We note that this recent expansion of CG is primarily associated with oral production. The emergence of CG in traditionally SMG domains has naturally granted the dialect more visibility and legitimization (Tsiplakou and Ioannidou, 2012). …”

Diglossia in Cyprus: Constructing A Questionnaire to Measure Russian-Speaking Immigrants’ Attitudes towards Learning Common Greek as L2 and Perceived Level of Exposure and Attitudes towards Cypriot Greek

“…L. Taxitari's translation of Asterix aux jeux Olympiques in Gosciny, 1968Gosciny, /2007) and even on t-shirts and stickers (e.g. Ermina Emmanouel Art, n.d.‫﮲‬ Romeotees, n.d.), thus legitimizing the public usage of CG and removing it from the strictly private sphere where the LV typically belongs (Tsiplakou & Ioannidou, 2012). Within the complex Cyprus political setting, the issue of diglossia remains a deeply political, emotionally charged, and ethnocentric issue (Ioannidou, 2012;Papapavlou, 2010;Papapavlou & Mavromati, 2015;Yiakoumetti, 2006).…”