Entextualization, mediatization and authentication: orthographic choice in media transcripts

Abstract

This article examines the way that sociolinguistic authority and authenticity are constituted in media-based entextualization practices, focusing specifically on patterns of orthographic choice made in transcriptions on the companion websites of two large-scale, professional media productions about linguistic variation: the BBC Voices project in the U.K. and the American PBS series ‘Do You Speak American?’ Building on previous research that shows that nonstandard orthographies in transcripts stigmatize the speakers represented, the analysis examines the pattern of nonstandard orthographic depictions in these transcripts. The results show that while both expert and ‘ordinary’ speakers are depicted with nonstandard spellings, media subjects identified as dialect speakers are more often represented as being highly aligned with the nonstandard spellings used to record their speech. These nonstandard spellings contribute to their depiction as authentic speakers, but undermine their access to sources of sociolinguistic authority, including using unmarked, ‘standard’ language and maintaining control over self-representations. These specific processes of media entextualization are linked to the contrast between expert/academic and lay knowledge and the ‘authentic’ voices that motivate these broadcasts and act as a media ‘hook’. As this contrast is reproduced in oral, textual, and visual representations, it reinforces the divide between the authentic and the authoritative speaker.