Language

I have been thinking a bit deeper recently about what i'm aiming to achieve from working with football language within my design work. I've realised that my ideas in this area are in fact fusing two of my interests. Football being the obvious interest, but also language.  The construction of language has always interested me and some reading i've done recently has inspired me further. In a previous post i compared football chanting to poetry and having checked the definition of poetry i'm convinced it is.


poetry: "work in which a special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by use of a distinctive style and rhythm.


From this definition the parallels between chanting and poetry are stark. Chants are always sung with an intensity driven by passion and are always an expression of feelings or ideas. Often witty or humorous and serious in a way that poetry also is.

Mulling this over, I've realised that what i'm doing is taking an area of  language which is sometimes derided and neglected and attempting to propel it into a form where it will be appreciated or at least noticed in the way poetry and other creative language is.

In addition I have also been reading about pragmatics and structural ambiguity, which has influenced my decision when choosing the first phrases I would 'commit to print.'

"The meaning of the sentence depends on an understanding of the context and the speaker's intent."

Therefore by stripping football chants of there context, their meaning and my intent becomes hidden. This is what I find interesting. The fact that they are still valuable phrases even with the context removed.

"Pragmatic awareness is regarded as one of the most challenging aspects of language learning, and comes only through experience."

So if you have experienced these chants within their context as a football fan most likely will have, the meaning of the sentence will be clear. If you haven't you have to draw your own conclusion from the ambiguity of the words.

So to sum up I've been doing a lot of letter-pressing, which I love, i've been slightly limited in the outcome because of the facilities available to me, in terms of typeface selection and size, but im still pretty happy with the outcomes and certainly am determined to do more letterpress. Ive also been working on some more interesting football related idea's which i'll post soon, along with some of the printed posters.

31/1/2011