What's in a T-shirt? Semantic distance towards a global language

Bettina Wolf

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Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, http://www.uni...

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Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, http://www.uni-jena.de/ (Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Übung: Writing - Liguistics-based, language: English, abstract: As Goldt observes, texts on clothes have become a mass phenomenon. Especially among young people, it is popular to wear a t-shirt which is imprinted with a slogan. Most t-shirts sold and worn in Germany are not imprinted in German, but in English. This essay will attend to the question in how far this situation has an impact on the message character of t-shirt slogans. To prove that the relation of German t-shirt wearers to the messages on their chests is marked by a 'semantic distance', we will first discuss the general textual and communicative characteristics of texts on t-shirts. Then we will analyse the propositional strategies which are used and ask for their function. The last part of the essay will deal with the role of English as the global language of popular culture. It will be shown that the relation of Germans to this global language weakens the expressive impact of t-shirt slogans. The essay will focus on fashionable slogans that are worn voluntarily and possibly with a certain intention. No attention will be paid to t-shirts displaying band names, brands, or slogans with an advertising function. The main data were collected in fashionable chain stores in Jena in June 2006 (Colosseum, H&M, New Yorker, and Pimkie). Occasionally, 'found' slogans have been included.