counterpublic in Dockray 2010


attack against the separation of life and desire, against sexism in Interindividual relationships, against the reduction of life to the payment of a salary.

105

Counterpublics

The stronger modification of ... analysis — one in which
he has shown little interest, though it is clearly of major
signifi­cance in the critical analysis of gender and sexuality — is that some
publics are defined by their tension with a larger public. Their
par­ticipants are marked off from persons or citizens in general.
Dis­cussion within such a public is understood to contravene the rules
obtaining in the world at large, being structured by alternative dis­
positions or protocols, making different assumptions about what
can be said or what goes without saying. This kind of public is, in
effect, a counterpublic: it maintains at some level, conscious or
not, an awareness of its subordinate status. The sexual cultures of
gay men or of lesbians would be one kind of example, but so would
camp discourse or the media of women's culture. A counterpublic
in this sense is usually related to a subculture, but there are
impor­tant differences between these concepts. A counterpublic, against
the background of the public sphere, enables a horizon of opinion
and exchange] its exchanges remain distinct from authority and
can have a critical relation to power; its extent is in principle
indef­inite, because it is not based on a precise demography but
medi­ated by print, theater, diffuse networks of talk, commerce, and ...

106

The term slang, which is less broad than language variety is described
by ... as a label that is frequently used to denote
certain informal or faddish usages of nearly anyone in the speech commu­nity.
However, slang, while subject to rapid change, is widespread and
familiar to a large number of speakers, unlike Polari. The terms jargon
and argot perhaps signify more what Polari stands for. as they are asso­
ciated with group membership and are

 

Display 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 ALL characters around the word.