Stylization and the Boundaries of Genre: A Case Study of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Cala Zubair Georgetown University Stylization is characterized as multi-voiced utterances in which the speaker challenges the set of discourses voiced by means of conscious use of style (Coupland, 2001). Utilizing Agha’s (2005, 2007) theory of enregisterment, I explain how stylization serves as a metacommunicative means of shifting genres. More specifically, I consider how stylization is the mechanism through which The Daily Show with Jon Stewart stretches the boundaries of political news broadcasting. Analyzing several discursive and phonological features of Stewart’s speech, I argue that their stylized quality is the primary way the show provides humorous, evaluative commentary on the news it reports as well as stretching the generic boundaries of news broadcasting. I move on to discuss the stylization of extralinguistic features through which The Daily Show exhibits incongruencies with mainstream news broadcasting, contributing to the show’s stylized affect. I conclude by emphasizing how stylization of political news offers a model case study to examine the fluidity of social meaning as it is altered or transformed.

THE DAILY SHOW Shortly after The Daily Show received its 7th consecutive Emmy win for best show in the variety, music, or comedy series category, host Jon Stewart began his nightly broadcast with remarks spoofing the oddity of show’s categorization [The Daily Show, September 22, 2009 (00:56-03:12 min)]: This was our uh.. seventh consecutive Emmy for.. uh..uh a show in variety, comedy uh, music, language, and uh children’s programming, so…[audience laughs] uh we’re delighted.… I’m really uh happy and proud to work here and to be here wi-with-with all the people that-that that I work with and thank you for supporting us and watching us and uh allowing us to create a situation that has not been replicated in our uh “so-called” genre and uh and-and so thank you. During his congratulatory remarks thanking staff and viewers, Stewart highlights the Emmy’s problematic categorization of his show under the variety, music, or comedy series genre, a category that he reframes as “variety, comedy, music, language, and uh children’s programming.” Miscaptioning the Emmy’s classification of his show, Stewart draws attention to this group’s relative smorgasbord of entertainment shows, of which none resemble his: “a situation that has not been replicated in our uh ‘so-called’ genre.” His comments beg the question: why might The Daily Show be considered so unique both to the Emmy’s catalog of

eVox. January 2011. Vol. 5, 1-15. Washington, DC: Georgetown University. © 2011 by Cala Zubair.

eVox: Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse, & Society, Volume 5 (2011) variety, music, and comedy series as well as to other genres the show characteristically resembles, without too much of a family resemblance. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, airing live Monday through Thursday on Comedy Central, is necessarily different from other Emmy nominated variety shows, musicals, or comedies such as The Late Show with David Letterman and Saturday Night Live (SNL). The show does not rely on interviews or guest spots with famous Hollywood actors and celebrities as the central pivot for other comedy segments (David Letterman and other late night shows). The show’s main gimmick is not celebrity hosted skits sandwiched between musical performances (SNL and similar celebrity skit shows). While the show features interviews with famous politicians, authors, and celebrities, guest spots are relegated to short segments at the end of the show. The show’s use of performative skits and musical numbers are merely a companion to its commentary. The Daily Show’s modus operandi is news broadcasting, largely political in topic, and inclusive of the host’s pithy remarks. Thus, the show may be more closely compared to news commentary shows such as The O’Reilly Factor (despite the rivalry of the hosts and political polarity between the two shows) and other political commentary shows1 on CNN, CSNBC, and the like. The Daily Show is in large part a news crew’s commentary on current and political events. Yet, the show’s comedic stylizing of more serious-toned news broadcasts makes it unique in this genre as well. While The Daily Show models itself after a news show from its opening credits, to its stage set and anchor desk, to on-screen graphics and co-anchors which aid in the presentation of each topic, noticeable incongruencies remain between its manner of reporting and that of other news shows. Jon Stewart has several co-anchors. Unlike other political new shows, he cuts to them giving fake off-site reports (e.g.,, on-site reports with a backdrop claiming live on-site coverage; Figure 1 below). Co-anchors showcase official titles (Senior Political Analyst: Figure 1) fashioned after reporters on political networks but suspect for informed viewers who recognize the co-anchors as celebrity comedians. Such a comedic background is evident as Stewart and others accompany their news reports with props and skits (Figure 2 below), often performing nonspecific impersonations and acts incorporating high profile political figures (George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, in Figure 3 below).

Figure 1. Fake ‘off-site’ reporting

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Real Time with Bill Maher was also nominated in the Emmy’s category of variety, music, or comedy series. Because this show is a roundtable discussion with a range of current events experts and The Daily Show is more akin to a news broadcast, I did not include a comparison of the two.

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Stylization and the Boundaries of Genre: A Case Study of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Figure 2. Props and Skit.

Figure 3. Stewart’s George W. Bush impression. The show’s manner of annotating news stories is also atypical. Stewart’s commentary contains lexical items from registers non-stereotypical of news casting (i.e., expletives and sexually explicit slang terms). His show contains a live studio audience whom he directly addresses during his broadcasts, along with talking to the politicians present in aired clips. Much of his discourse is peppered with hyperbolized linguistic features (e.g., extreme loud and soft volumes, variation in pitch) accompanying each ‘performance’. Focusing on the hyperbolized discourse features of Jon Stewart’s comedic stylization, I argue that these acts are the primary way the show creates a unique blend of comedy, commentary, and political news broadcasting. Demonstrating how stylization is a key factor in shifting the boundaries of genres, I focus on genre’s importance as a linguistic tool where a more rigorous understanding of it promises to aid scholars struggling to capture the fluidity of social meaning. GENRE, ENREGISTERMENT, AND STYLIZATION Genres are a widely used and recognized means to categorize texts according to various defining features and perceived similarities. They are central to language research in a number of areas, including the intersection of speaker style and social categories (Eckert & Rickford, 2001; Eckert & McConnell-Ginet, 2003), the study of poetics and intertextuality (Bauman 1977; Bauman & Briggs, 1990; Briggs & Bauman, 1992), research on register and language variety (Ferguson, 3

eVox: Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse, & Society, Volume 5 (2011) 1983; Biber & Finegan, 1989a, 1994), and a traditional means of classifying sociolinguistic interviews (i.e.,, Labov’s soapbox and narrative categories). However, genre as a tool for linguistic evaluation is yet to be comprehensibly theorized (Macaulay, 2001). While genre’s roots in linguistic study are situated in literary theory (i.e., Bakhtin, 1986), genre’s current role in linguistics has typically taken an unsatisfactory “formalist” or “functionalist” approach (Bucholtz, 1993). In Hymes’ S.P.E.A.K.I.N.G. Grid (1972)2, genre is classified through its formal characteristics alone, holding a problematic, non-hierarchical relationship with other social variables (e.g., setting, participants) (Chandler, 1997). In Swales’ (1990) theory of genre analysis, genre is classified based on its functional role in communicative events where analytical techniques fail to account for the possibility of categorical shifts. The shortcomings of formal and functional approaches (i.e., a lack of means to describe genre and its fluidity) are well documented in the literature. David Buckingham emphasizes the challenging fluidity and variation inherent in genre, emphasizing that genre “is in a constant process of negotiation and change” (Buckingham, 1993:137). Abercrombie suggests that because “the boundaries between genres are [ever] shifting and becoming more permeable,” they may often allude the researcher (Abercrombie, 1996:45). Richard Bauman emphasizes the “leaky” nature of genres where a sign often resides at the periphery of generic limits (Bauman, 1992). While one solution to this basic obstacle is suggested by Briggs and Bauman’s (1992) theory of intertextuality, that genre analysis should begin within the situated discourse where genres are viewed as categories emerging from prior and subsequent texts, their fundamental approach requires more rigorous theorizing. Indeed, the problem of the fluidity and arduous classification is not unique to the field of genre analysis. It plagues scholars of language and social meaning on many levels, leaving researchers wondering how to account for the grouping of social signs into meaningful clusters (genres) when these clusters readily shift in meaning and violate boundaries at least as much as they adhere to them? Asif Agha’s recent work on language and social meaning (2005, 2007) provides the much needed theoretical tools for understanding and tracking categories of meaning as they are formed and re-formed. Agha terms the process enregisterment whereby “diverse behavioral signs (linguistic, non-linguistic, or both) are functionally reanalyzed as cultural models” that index common sociocultural stereotypes (Agha 2007:55). Enregisterment is a grouping of signs or texts based on a perceived congruency that index a common meaning, which performs a similar function, or inspires the same response from viewers. Rather than viewing the fluidity of enregistered meaning as problematic, however, Agha’s theory offers a roadmap for genre analysts by utilizing the tools of metalanguage. Metalanguage, or metalinguistic acts, are “meaningful behaviors that typify the attributes of language, its users, and the activities 2

Hymes’ S.P.E.A.K.I.N.G. Grid (1972) offers a mnemonic device to identify analytical components of a linguistic interaction and proposed as a part of his Ethnography of Communication framework, which emphasized a new, methodological approach to language as different ways of speaking rather than abstracted grammatical norms. Scene-setting physical setting/psychological scene Participants speaker/hearer, addressor/addressee or audience Ends purposes, goals Act sequence message form, structure and content Key tone, manner, spirit of encounter Instrumentalities channel (e.g., verbal/nonverbal, spoken/written) Norms of interaction rules governing when, how and how often speech occurs Genre recognizable stylistic structure and mode: ‘conversation’, ‘lecture’

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Stylization and the Boundaries of Genre: A Case Study of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart accomplished through its use” (Agha, 2007:17). Metalinguistic acts comment on the type of speech (or sign) being used and signal to the listener how that usage of language is to be interpreted. These can be explicit comments or implicit cues. A news anchor might perform an explicit metalinguistic act when opening his broadcast with “this is the CBS evening news with Dan Rather.” Viewers now know what types of speech to expect from the speaker and from the content of the show. Implicit metalinguistic acts are the way certain lexical and phonological features implicitly signal the listener that they are talking to a certain type of person in a certain type of speaking event. Genres are composed of metalinguistic activity in the way texts of a genre call for the deployment of specific registers and linguistic features which by their very use comment on the employed genre. Stylization is one such metalinguistic activity where through hyperbolized use of stereotypical features speech interprets a genre at the same time it performs an evaluative function. Adapted from Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1986) description of double-voicing, stylization is a focus on a language affect brought about by a speaker’s conscious use of style to challenge the set of discourses she or he voices. Coupland (2001) elaborates on stylization in a dialect study of radio talk where he pinpoints specific hyperbolic features that draw attention to the speaker’s conscious deployment of stylized versions of registers expected in particular genres. While Coupland (2001) focuses on phonological variables, stylization can work through any number of simultaneously used discourse or extralinguistic features. In The Daily Show, elements of stylization include the violation of expected political news registers through hyperbolized volume and pitch, ‘out-of place’ lexical items, emphatic stress through vowel lengthening, gesture, gaze, and others. All of these features embody incongruencies with stereotypical news broadcasting, creating the humorous commentary the show is acclaimed for. In sections 3 and 4, I analyze linguistic and extralinguistic features of the show’s style with an eye toward the way their stylized elements re-interpret the enregistered genre of news casting. STEWART’S STYLIZED COMMENTARY Through stylization of several co-occurring speech features The Daily Show achieves atypicalness in relation to other political and current events news shows. Stewart’s speech pairs loud and soft volumes with swooping pitches and squeaky falsettos, his lengthened vowels draw emphasis to evaluative moments in the discourse, and his mocking commentary is peppered with lexical items from non-stereotypical news casting registers. Unparalleled in any other type of news broadcast, this stylization blurs the boundaries between political news and a comedy or variety show. The following clip aired on July 28th, 2008, in response to congressional hearings regarding the U.S. military’s “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” policy on homosexuality (transcription conventions listed in the appendix): (1) ‘Don’t ask/Don’t tell Part I’ [The Daily Show, July 28, 2008 (01:29-3:06 min)] JS: 1 Currently the military operates under Clinton’s “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” policy 2 Cau(hh)se oddly enough, they can’t handle the truth… 3 (audience laughter) 4 So with the military-settle down (laughter) 5 With the military desperate for troops, 6 the uh house armed services personnel subcommittee 5

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waded headlong into the “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” debate and if you’ve forgotten just what the policy against gays in the military sounds like, 9 ↑enjoy. 10 (Sgt. Mjr. Brian Jones makes a statement that gay members of the military would behave in sexually inappropriate ways when in close combat proximity with other military men) 11 (JS stares at the camera (2 s)) 12 (With furrowed brow, looks down and scribbles with his pen on paper) 13 (JS looking at camera) If night time patrol gives you a hard on, (laughter) 14 I think you’ve got bigger problems than being gay. (laughter) 15 Next up Elaine Donnelly, the leader of the center for military readiness. 16 And even her blouse is mocking her anti-gay stance 17 (Donnelly is wearing a v-neck sweater) ED: (speaking in clip Stewart airs) 18 I’d like to talk about what would happen if you actually repealed this law. 19 The result would be devastating because the military doesn’t do things half way. JS: (interrupts clip here to add commentary) 20 THE MILITARY WOULD GO ALL GAY! (laughter) 21 COMPLETELY GAY! 22 THEY WOULD MAKE IT BE MANDATORY, 23 YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE GAY! 24 ONLY GAY IN THE MILITARY! 25 The whole thing would be upside down: 26 (singing) I don’t know but I been told… 27 The Indigo Girls album just went gold Commenting on Sgt. Mjr. Brian Jones’ remarks about how homosexuals would behave inappropriately when in close proximity to other male members of the military, Stewart sums up by saying that night patrol would give homosexuals a “hard on” (line 13). His use of the word hard on to refer to an erection is sexually explicit slang and far exceeds what we would expect Dan Rather to report on the CBS political evening news. Though Sgt. Jones refers to sexual behavior and perhaps invites commentary referencing sexual activity, Stewart’s sexual slang breaks traditional news registers choosing the slang term (hard on) over a more nuanced euphemism (arousal) . Elaine Donnelly’s comments give Stewart no such prompting to bring in sexual slang. She never refers to inappropriate sexual acts. Instead, her complaint about allowing homosexuals to openly enlist in the military is more along the lines of “if one, then many”. Yet, Stewart discusses her dress as a way to bring sexuality into play. Her v-neck sweater resembles female genitals, thus mocking a “gay stance” (line 16). Matched up with the sexual slang Stewart uses in line 13, this sexual innuendo is a way for Stewart to both mock the speakers’ anti-gay stance at the same time he pushes the boundaries of news casting registers. Later in this segment, Stewart airs a clip of Elaine Donnelly commenting on arrivals and departures from the Minneapolis airport. Her remarks are an analogy where the way individuals

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Stylization and the Boundaries of Genre: A Case Study of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart move freely to and from an airport is juxtaposed with the way non-homosexuals will be unable to escape (the homosexuals) should the military change its “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” policy: (2) ‘Don’t ask/Don’t tell Part II’ [The Daily Show, July 28, 2008 (03:07-04:29 min)] JS: 1 Mrs. Donnelly described how gay lifestyle 2 had already destroy:ed 3 the sanctity of our civilian lives… ED: (speaking in clip) 4 It would be absolutely devastating to morale. 5 They would have no recourse. 6 Because people can’t leave7 in a Minneapolis airport 8 You can come and go. JS: (interrupts clip) 9 (Stewart stares at camera as audience laughs (4 s)) 10 Are you baiting me? 11 Because I am that immature. 12 An’ if you don’t believe that I’m that immature… 13 Come and go. Stewart comments that by using the word come, a very common verb of motion, Mrs. Donnelly is baiting him. He assures her that he is immature enough to take the bait and reframe her use of come as the slang term meaning orgasm. Stewart goes out of his way to bring sexual slang into his commentary, even when seemingly tangential to his criticism. Such register violations offer strong, comedic commentary and challenge the more reserved language of the news media. Returning to Elaine Donnelly’s remarks in excerpt 1 about why the military’s homosexual policy should remain unchanged, we see other elements of Stewart’s speech stylization. In lines 19-23, Stewart’s exaggerated volume is his primary way of countering Mrs. Donnelly. By using a hyperbolic degree of volume, shouting to the audience a continuation of the implications of Mrs. Donnelly’s remarks, he keys viewers in to his assessment of her point as ridiculous. Semantically, he picks up on her concerns at the blasphemy of an all homosexual military, but his boisterous volume offers a condemning evaluation. While some news commentators do raise their voice in an expression of disgust or disbelief (e.g., Bill O’Reilly), Stewart’s words are crucially in agreement with Mrs. Donnelly. His stylized volume is the means through which he argues it would not be the case that the military would become overwhelmingly homosexual. Stewart concludes his refutation of Mrs. Donnelly in lines 25-26, inserting a jingle mimicking a well known military tune. However, he changes the words to reflect his version of how a stereotypically gay subject might behave as a military man. His preface of the jingle, imagining just how “upside down” a homosexual military would be (line 24) makes the following song more ironic when instead of creating a near doomsday scenario, Stewart sings a light jingle featuring a pop music group stereotypically associated with a homosexual fan base. The incongruity between the premise of Mrs. Donnelly’s apprehensions (an all gay military) with Stewart’s airy tune further emphasizes that once realized, Donnelly’s fears are not so terrible.

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eVox: Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse, & Society, Volume 5 (2011) In this clip, we can also note other uncommon discourse features. Stewart directly addresses his audience in line 4, telling them to settle down. During several moments throughout the report, viewers hear the audience laughing in reaction to his comments, typifying the show as a comedy act. His direct address of the audience, his use of slang sexual terms, and his pithy refrains pervaded with audience laughter creates an atmosphere very different from other political news broadcasts. Through the stylization of several co-occurring discourse features Stewart both provides skeptical commentary of the news he reports as well as changing the typical enregistered category of (political) news broadcasting. He adds stylized, comedic elements that shift these recognizable boundaries. Stewart’s observation that his show is “unreplicated”, both within and outside of his “so-called genre” is very accurate. We can see this point further in Stewart’s stylized performances. In the following clip, airing on November 9th, 2006, Jon Stewart is enacting a skit in which he plays the role of a U.S. soldier who is in agreement with Donald Rumsfeld (the 13th and 21st Secretary of Defense) regarding his opinion that the Iraqi war is worth the high price Americans have had to pay, both monetarily and in the lives of their soldiers. His dialogue is in response to a segment that aired just prior to the skit where Donald Rumsfeld voiced his opinion on the war. Jon Stewart begins the skit as below. (3) ‘Donald Rumsfeld Skit’ [The Daily Show, November 9, 2006 (03:31-04:21 min)] JS: 1 Ya know what, Donny, meet me at camera three. 2 (camera switches) 3 (audience laughter) 4 (Jon Stewart pulls out two ‘and bags’ and an army helmet from below his desk) 5 (audience laughter) 6 (shouting) PE-PERMISSION TO SPEAK FREELY, SIR. 7 Donald, let me apologize for these average, stupid people, 8 the 60-70 percenters who don’t get how well this war is going. 9 It’s too complex. 10 (audience laughter) 11 I mean ↑what kinda person↑ looks at the casualties, the chaos, the cost, 12 Your managerial inflexibility, 13 And DOESN’T think ‘stay the course?’ 14 A F*** (bleeped out)in’ idiot, that’s who. 15 (audience laughter) 16 You tried to explain it to us, 17 You tried, 18 (whispering) but we’re such tiny brains. We can identify several features of Jon Stewart’s speech which differs from norms of neutralized, non-expressive news speech. First, Stewart uses expressive phonetic features such as high pitch and accompanying use of falsetto in (line 11: what kinda person). He uses extremes of volume such as increased volume in (line 6: Pe-permission to speak freely, SIR) and decreased volume in (line 18: but we’re such tiny brains). He violates expected news registers (line 7: stupid), particularly through expletive usage (line 14: FUCK). Stewart’s speech contrasts

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Stylization and the Boundaries of Genre: A Case Study of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart markedly with the formal contextual norms of news broadcasts, and is both a device for humor and a means of stylization. Considering speech stylization’s role in socially commenting on the news Stewart reports, we can analyze linguistic features that contribute to double-voicing during his performance. In this skit, Stewart’s role is a soldier who supports the war. We see his switch in character from Jon Stewart, sassy news anchor in (line 1), when he refers to Donald Rumsfeld as Donny, to soldier in (lines 4-6) where Stewart puts on a helmet, grabs some sandbags and refers to Donald Rumsfeld as SIR. Initiated by the word SIR, Stewart shifts frames to embody the role of a soldier, generating viewer’s expectations that he will show respect for Mr. Rumsfeld and support of the Iraqi war. Instead his use of stylized linguistic features, accompanying his ironic words, signals the opposite interpretation. Through stylization Stewart indicates his lack of support for Mr. Rumsfeld and the war, incorporating social commentary as he reports and comments on the news. As mentioned above, he increases volume when he refers to the FUCKIN’ idiots who don’t support the war (line 14). He increases volume on the word DOESN’T in (line 13) when asking who doesn’t support the war? He is using exaggerated or stylized features at salient evaluative moments triggering listeners to understand by his hyperbolized speech that he is against the war. Other indications that the words Stewart voices are not meant to be taken at face value occur when he lists the reasons the war is supposedly going well. Rather than positive reasons, he lists negative facts about the war, casualties, chaos, and cost (line 11), where the repeating /k/ sound adds harmonic unity which juxtaposes and particularly highlights the final item on the list, Mr. Rumsfeld’s managerial inflexibility (line 12). Clearly, someone in support of the war, sharing Mr. Rumsfeld’s view, would not associate him or the war with negative traits. Though Stewart’s performance offers particularly dense examples of stylization, instances of the manipulation of expressive pitch, volume, intonation, and lexical items to produce an evaluative function occur throughout the show in varying length and elaboration. Cashing in on these comedic effects, Stewart creates a type of social commentary that puts The Daily Show somewhere beyond the genre of political news broadcast. EXTRALINGUISTIC FEATURES OF STYLIZATION The above listed elements of stylized speech are complimented throughout the show by extralinguistic features (on-screen graphics, gesture, gaze, and the use of visual aids) that produce social commentary on political and current news topics and bend stereotypes of news casting. As Jon Stewart begins his report on Donald Rumsfeld, certain characteristics resemble a news show, while others mark an atypical news broadcast (this excerpt also aired on November 9th, 2006 just before excerpt 3).

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eVox: Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse, & Society, Volume 5 (2011) Figures 4-9. Jon Stewart reports on Donald Rumsfeld leaving The White House. [The Daily Show, November 9, 2006 (02:14-02:52 min)]

Figure 4. Graphics to caption story. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

(graphics on screen: a picture of Donald Rumsfeld captioned with Pentagoner) IT’S RUMMY’S BIG DAY. LET’S HEAR IT FOR THE MAN HIMSELF. (clip of Donald Rumsfeld announcing his intention to leave the Department of Defense) (camera on JS with smile on face. Figure 5 below) (audience laughter) (JS rolls his eyes. Figure 6 below) You’re welcome. (JS makes hand gesture, smile on face. Figure 7 below) BUT THAT’S NOT THE RUMSFELD

(audience applause) THAT’S NOT THE RUMSFELD WE HAVE COME TO KNOW

kn:ow (hand gesture)

Figure 5. Ironic half-smile.

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and…

Stylization and the Boundaries of Genre: A Case Study of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Figure 6. Eye roll.

Figure 7. Hand gesture/smile. Here Stewart reports that Mr. Rumsfeld is leaving the White House. Several superficial features resemble a news show. Viewers watch a single man dressed in a suit and tie, sitting behind a desk reporting to the camera from a “news” set (Figure 8). In front of Stewart, we see a pen and paper (Figure 9), presumably with notes about the news, and graphics appear on screen captioning the story being reported (Figure 4).

Figure 8. News set.

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eVox: Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse, & Society, Volume 5 (2011)

Figure 9. Pen and paper. But again, incongruent features occur that add evaluative elements to the news story. The graphics beside Stewart use the word Pentagoner (line 1; Figure 4), a pun on the place name where Donald Rumsfeld works (Pentagon) through combination with the verb gone. This humorous play, signaling Mr. Rumsfeld’s decision to leave the Department of Defense, showcases a suppressed joy. Rather than construing the event more neutrally as many political news broadcasts do, or allowing opinions mainly from political ‘experts’ where opposing sides are represented, this graphic exhibits a prejudiced humor that coincides with the skit performed in excerpt 2. Stewart also uses accompanying hyperbolic gestures and facial expressions at salient moments of evaluation to draw added attention to stylized language use. Stewart’s gesture in (line 12) accompanies the statement the Rumsfeld we have come to know and…know (line 11). Stewart alters the well known phrase know and love, removing the word love and hesitating to replace it, settling on a lexical item previously uttered, know (line 12). The hand gesture used in (line 12) emphasizes the evaluative absence of the word love. Additionally, we witness Stewart’s large, sardonic smile (line 4) and eye rolling in (line 7) as his first (non verbal) reaction to Donald Rumsfeld’s retirement. Such expressions clearly indicate some level of disregard for Mr. Rumsfeld even before Stewart’s speech expresses this. His smile again adds to his teasing words in (line 8). Additionally, viewers hear audience laughter (line 6) and applause (line 10), which bolster Stewart’s stylized means of evaluating Donald Rumsfeld and interpret his commentary for at home viewers. Returning briefly to excerpt 2, gesturing occurs prior to the Donald Rumsfeld skit where Stewart raises his hand and swipes it quickly over his head with an accompanying whoosh sound affect (Figure 10).

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Stylization and the Boundaries of Genre: A Case Study of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Figure 10. Whoosh sound. He uses this gesture to reinforce that Americans do understand war issues despite Mr. Rumsfeld’s contrary claim. Stewart achieves this point, later enacted in the Donald Rumsfeld skit (excerpt 2), through gesturing. The Donald Rumsfeld skit is moreover an extended stint of gesturing and role playing, both evaluative and an oddity compared with news casting norms. In fact, throughout the show, Stewart plays on other normative elements of news broadcasts. He often shuffles his pen and paper hyperbolically, or in a stylized fashion. This draws attention to his notes as typical news props which are nonetheless obsolete for a broadcast where Stewart reads from a teleprompter. He makes it a point to draw attention to the fact that his co-anchors are not off-site despite the background and bottom captioning indicating this to be the case. He draws attention to the camera as he moves positions rather than erasing its presence. Thus, accompanying language, we find stylized extralinguistic elements that add to the stylization of news casting. In this way, viewers know that The Daily Show differs from other news shows. Such stylization creates a humorous affect and additionally provides instances of social commentary whereby viewers are made to think about the news reported on and become conscious of features of typical new shows by witnessing them played out in an exaggerated manner. CONCLUSION The Daily Show’s venue provides an excellent case study for how the boundaries of genres are shifted and changed. Using Agha’s (2005, 2007) theory of enregisterment with careful attention to metalinguistic acts, I have demonstrated how genre can become a usable linguistic tool, both in categorizing speech forms and in understanding how they meaningfully vary. Recognizing stylization as a critical means of shifting the boundaries of the news genre, The Daily Show’s stylized linguistic and extralinguistic features were seen to create incongruencies among signs usually associated with genres of political broadcasting. The show defies stereotypical news casting norms by providing a unique means of comedic commenting. Analyzing such cases of genre shifting promises to aid scholars struggling to capture the fluidity of social meaning.

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eVox: Georgetown Working Papers in Language, Discourse, & Society, Volume 5 (2011) References Abercrombie, Nicholas. 1996. Television and Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Agha, Asif. 2003. The Social Life of Cultural Value. Language and Communication 23/24: 231273. Agha, Asif. 2005. Discourse Across Speech events: Intertextuality and Interdiscursivity in Social Life. Special issue of the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15(1). Agha, Asif. 2007. Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1986. In Caryl Emerson & Michael Holquist (eds.), Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: The University of Texas Press. Bauman, Richard. 1977. Verbal Art as Performance. American Anthropologist 77(2): 290-311. Bauman, Richard. 1992. Contextualization, tradition, and the dialogue of genres: Icelandic legends of the kraftskald. In Alessandro Duranti & Charles Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon, 125-145. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bauman, Richard. 2001. The ethnography of genre in a Mexican market: Form, function, variation. In Penelope Eckert & John Rickford (eds.), Style and sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bauman, Richard & Charles Briggs. 1990. Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 59-88. Biber, Douglas & Edward Finegan. 1989a. Drift and evolution of English style: A history of three genres. Language 65: 487-517. Biber, Douglas & Edward Finegan. 1994. Sociolinguistic perspective on register. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Briggs, Charles & Richard Bauman. 1992. Genre, intertexuality, and social power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2(2): 131-172. Bucholtz, Mary. 1993. The mixed discourse genre as recourse for participants. Proceedings of the nineteenth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 40-51. Buckingham, David. 1993. Sorting out TV: Categorization and genre. Children talking television: The making of television literacy, 135-55. London: Falmer Press. Chandler, Daniel. 1997. An Introduction to genre theory. Retrieved from: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html. Coupland, Nikolas. 2001. Dialect stylization in radio talk. Language in Society 30: 345-375. Eckert, Penelope & John R. Rickford. 2001. Style and sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eckert, Penelope & Sally McConnell-Ginet. 2003. Language and gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferguson, Charles. 1983. Sports announcer talk: Syntactic aspects of register variation. Language in Society 12: 153-172. Hymes, Dell. 1972. On communicative competence. In J. Pride & Janet Holmes (eds.), Sociolinguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Kress, Gunther. 1988. Communication and culture. Maryborough: Australian Print Group. Macaulay, Ronald. 2001. The question of genre. In Penelope Eckert & John R. Rickford (eds.), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miller, Carolyn. 1984. Genre as social action. Quarterly Journal of Speech 70: 151-167. Scollon, Ron & Suzie Scollon. 2001. Intercultural Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Stam, Robert. 2000. Film Theory. Oxford: Blackwell. 14

Stylization and the Boundaries of Genre: A Case Study of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Swales, John. 1990. Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Figures and Excerpts Comedy Central. (2009). [Full episodes of The Daily Show]. Available at: http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes. Comedy Central. (2008). [Video clip of The Daily Show]. Clip from July 28, 2008 episode. Retrieved from: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-28-2008/don-t-ask--dont-tell-hearing. Comedy Central. (2006). [Video clip of The Daily Show]. Clip from November 9, 2006 episode. Retrieved from: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=114706&title=pentagoner. Appendix Transcription Conventions 10 point font CAPS

.. (X s) ↑ : ! Bold

Low Volume (relative to surrounding discourse) High Volume (relative to surrounding discourse) Pause Pause length in seconds High Pitch Lengthening Emphasis Items to note

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