nforth – Linguistic Anthropology in Action

Description: Indexicality is important in understanding language and culture because it can show where linguistic forms “point to” aspects of social and cultural contexts without functioning in a referential way. It is a way of creating meaning without being explicit. A person’s accent, way of speaking or use of a word or phrase can index them to belong to a certain social group or culture, therefore creating other assumptions about different aspects of their life. Indexicality can create, reinforce and challenge social relations, identities and values. It can shape a person’s opinions about another or a group, in a way acting as a form of framing. There is first-order and second-order indexicality which work as a framework to show the speaker’s stance or how they feel about a topic or situation (first order) and/or indicate something about the larger social group they claim to belong to (second order). Ultimately, indexicality shows us that words and phrases have power that goes beyond just a description or an identification.

Application: “PeriodT”, just a word. A word used to add emphasis, to create meaning, to show strong emotion. A purposely misspelled variation of the word “period”. And that’s on PERIODT. The word stems from Black Twitter online communities and is most frequently used on this platform but is also used in offline settings as well. City Girls is an American female rap duo from Florida. They released an album in 2018, calling it “PERIOD” .

City Girls Album

“PeriodT” became their signature, which they used to show their wisdom and make their point heard and respected, showing it is needed as black women. They used the word to show that women, especially black women need more emphasis to make their point and stance apparent to their audience. People also add a capital “T” to the end of other words to create variants that add more emphasis than their original form. An example of this is “blockedT” on social media. However, as simple as this seems, this words indexical properties also carry many assumptions and stereotypes about the people who say this word. Some stereotypes include calling the people that say it, “from the ghetto”, “dumb b*tch”, “annoying” etc. People also assume the race and sexuality of the person who speaks it. “PeriodT” is most commonly associated with black women and gay or drag culture.

This word, “periodT”, has spread a lot since its first appearance in 2009. In the past two years we have seen it in pop culture and have even seen some people we respect the most using it. In September 2018, our former first lady, Michelle Obama, uttered “periodT” in her “When We All Vote” campaign.

Michelle Obama at her “When We All Vote” Campaign

She may have been channeling City Girls or she may have just repeated it because a member of the audience uttered it, but no matter the reason she used it in her campaign indexing her stance on the problem and the social group she is claiming to belong to.

When analyzing Michelle Obama’s utterance of the word “periodT” at her campaign, we can look at it using both the first-order and second-order indexicality framework. The first-order indexicality framework indexes her stance, showing how passionate she is about the problem. Her campaign, “When We All Vote”, is something she feels very strongly about. With the current president we have, Donald Trump, and all the negative things he has done to our country and the negative reputation he has built for himself and the country together, this campaign is extremely important. In September 2018 as Michelle Obama preached the importance of everyone voting she ended with, “voting is the only way to ensure that your concerns matter… periodT”. She believes that everyone needs to be heard in order for the changes they want to be made and the way to do that is through voting. To add emphasis and importance to her statement she pauses and ends with the word “periodT”. By doing this she makes her audience aware of how important a topic it is to her and how important it should be to the audience as well. She makes her statement seem final and as if there is no other alternative or place for question when she uses “periodT” to emphasize her voice. Image result for periodt

By looking at her utterance through a second-order indexicality framework we can see that she is indexing her belonging to a particular social group. In this case, Michelle Obama’s utterance of the word “periodT” indexes her to identify as a black woman. By doing this she is implicitly saying that she is a black woman and is appealing the minority populations, indexing that their vote is the vote that is important and the vote that is needed. Her utterance not only emphasizes that voting is important in order to make every voice heard but she is also saying the voices that need to be heard are that of minorities and underrepresented populations.

Indexicality is a useful resource in analyzing specific utterances of words and phrases and the meanings they create in the context they are used. In this particular instance we are able to understand a campaign through the eyes of a black woman and see her stance and the audience she wanted to address. We use indexicality unconsciously to assess situations and understand the deeper meanings behind what people say.

And that is it .