The
4th European Feminist Research Conference
Body, gender, Subjectivity. Crossing Borders of Disciplines and Institutions
Lotte
Nyboe (ph.d. student)
Department
of Gender Studies
University of Southern Denmark – Odense University
Campusvej 55
DK-5230 Odense M
Denmark
Email: l.nyboe@litcul.sdu.dk
Abstract
Cyborg-discourse:
the incorporation of the female body in language
Today, the computer is accentuated in media studies with the development of still more advanced computer-mediated communication-systems, emphasising the communication and social interaction between two or more actors. The paper will discuss computer mediated communiation (CMC) as "cyborg-discourse" with an analysis of the American bulletin board Electric Minds and, specifically, the room Wild Women of the Playground as illustration. The term cyborg-discourse is coined as a reference to both the product of the media, computer-mediated communication (CMC), and the literary genre cyberpunk which in fictional form puts focus on co-constructions of humans and technology. Metatheoretically, the term refers to the theoretical potential of the cyborg as a post-human figure with a special focus on the significance, ascribed to it in the work of Donna Haraway. The cyborg of Donna Haraway mediates between the human and the non-human, discourse and materiality, and functions as a metaphor for the notion of material-semiotic actors’, human and non-human, co-construction of the world - with a certain inspiration also from Bruno Latour’s actor network-theory. Haraway’s cyborg-theory gives prominence to material-semiotic actors such as literature, language, context, gender, etc., which represent some of the core elements in my cybercultural field of study. Moreover, my theoretical approach includes ethnomethodology, but I add the dimension of the material-semiotic of the cyborg-theory, which is necessary because I want to analyse both human and non-human subjects and objects. Considering language as another actor, emphasising agency as well as materiality, I study CMC and the metaphorical room, cyberspace, without regarding them as identical as it is sometimes done. Cyberspace is not only context for the interaction it is also just another actor in the on-going co-construction of the world.
Cyborg-discourse: the incorporation of the
female body in language
Do wild women sing? (Haparks - Playground. 349.87)
1. Introduction
This paper is an empirical enquiry
into the interrelationsship between CMC, the imaginary, gender, and the body in
the context of the virtual speech community Wild Women of the Playground (henceforth WWP). For the purpose
of studying and describing the new cyborgian discourses of online communities
such as WWP, I have coined the term cyborg-discourse.
It is influenced by, on the one hand, Haraway’s concepts of the cyborg, as
posthuman figuration, and cyborg-writing
and, on the other, Gary Lee Downey, Joseph Dumit and Sara Williams (1995)
concept of cyborg-anthropology. In cyborg-writing, cyborg-anthropology as well as in my study of cyborg-discourse, the
cyborg is centred as the subject and object for analysis, and hence both the white
Cartesian Subject and human-based sciences such as anthropology and linguistics
are challenged. The theoretical program of the study is influenced by the
linguistic traditions speech act theory,
ethnomethodology, and ethnography of communication, but whereas these
traditions centre the human as subject and object for investigation, I here
emphasize the role of both the human and non-human in the construction of
discourse. The analysis is based on empirical data coming mainly from WWP, part
of the American bulletin board Electric
Minds, and activity spanning from 18 June 1999, the opening of the room,
till 23 May 2000 which includes 2032 posts in total. The communication is
predominantly text-based but also sound, pictures/images, and hyperlinks are
used which contribute to a very creative form of expression. In WWP the writing
cyborgs are primarily women as the room specifically is defined a place for women and hence female
identity-constructions are emphasized. Identity is constructed in discourses
such as a) the actor’s narrations about what it is like to be a women in flesh
and blood, b) the joint discussions about female identities, c) the community
which arises around the theme of women, and d) the imaginary and playful
positioning of themselves as strong, female subjects. I focus language use and
the incorporation of the body into language. I claim that CMC is not
dismenbodied but embodied, rather, the body plays a significant role in the
construction of identity and discourse.
2. Disembodiment
The term cyborg-discourse implies a
resistance towards the disembodiment of both information and speaking subjects
which is prevalent in the postmodernist paradigm and which I will discuss in
the following. Amongst postmodernists such as Marilouise and Arthur Kroker
(1987) and Marshall McLuhan (1951) the body is out of fashion, and technology and discourse replace the old-fashioned, material, and fragile body
with simulated senses. Technologically produced body-parts are employed as
prostheses either substituting missing body-parts or enhancing bodily functions
and senses while discourse, in the role as communication-technology, functions
as simulacrum for the material body (Balsamo, 1996). The physical body thus
disappears in the haze of hyperrealism, while the simulacrum of the body
appears realer than the real. Both the Krokers and McLuhan favour the body as a
linguistic and discursive construction while the materiality of the body is
paid little, if any, attention. This disproportion can be traced back to Michel
Foucault (1978) who places the material body second to the semiotic structures
which it produces. According to Foucault, we understand the body and bodily
functions through culturally produced apparatuses,
that is, political and social discursive practices which constructs the body as
object. He emphasizes the apparatuses as systems of power which control the
body, however, in his genealogical project, he ignores the significance of
gender in these exercises of power. This is problematic from the point of view
that gender is, as Balsamo (1996:21) argues, “an organized, institutionalised
system of differences that constitutes the individual body and renders it
meaningful”. Foucault treats gender not as yet another apparatus with intrinsic social and political structures but as a
natural fact. The obsolete materiality in postmodernism has deep implications
for gender and the gendered body, and without any material anchoring there is a
serious danger that gender will be reduced to airy rhetoric (Balsamo, 1996).
It is not
only the body that looses its material anchoring in postmodernism. In McLuhan’s
communication-theory, information suffers the same fate, as information and
linguistic acts are objectified as isolate units cut off from contextual
phenomena such as time and place. The actor behind the utterance is ignored as
well. Kathrine N. Hayles (1999) criticizes the postmodernist negligence of the
materiality of body and information. According to Hayles (1999:49), ”[I]nformation, like humanity,
cannot exist apart from the embodiment that brings it into being as a material
entity in the world; and embodiment is always instantiated, local, and
specific”. Inspired by the American physicist
McCulloch and his model of a neuron, Hayles argues that information is
constituted by embodied, physical processes. Information is signals which, like
atoms, are physical. Language (or information) is therefore not only semiotic
it is material-semiotic.
3.
Language as a material-semiotic actor
The materiality of language manifest
itself in at least two ways. Firstly, I will emphasize the materiality of the
medium, i.e. the physical processes which contribute to the construction of a
platform for social activity. This platform is often referred to as cyberspace – a term which was coined by
William Gibson (1984) in his novel Neuromancer.
It has since become a common metaphor for the place we enter when we
communicate with the computer as medium. Cyberspace is a room for social
interaction, but cyberspace and CMC should not be equated as cyberspace and
single cyber-spatial rooms exist not only through interaction. I believe that
cyber-spatial rooms such as exist in a material sense with or without
interaction, and I therefore reject the argument posed by, amongst others, Roseanne
Allequere Stone (1991) that cyberspace exists solely though interaction. On the
contrary I will, inspired by Hayles, emphasize the physical processes of the
medium. Through social activity the social structures which characterize
specific rooms and places are generated which, again, influence discursive
processes and social activity. It is therefore plausible that new forms of
social structures/communities generate new forms of discourse which moreover
makes it possible to explore and understand alternative aspects of identity. As
John Shotter (1983:9)
expresses it in Conversational Realities:
“[T]o talk in new ways, is to ’construct’ new forms of social relation, and, to
construct new forms of social relation (or self-other relationships) is to
construct new ways of being (of person-world relations) for ourselves”.
The second form of materiality I emphasize concerns the body. The social interaction of WWP is closely linked to an imaginary rationality (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) which, again, is a condition for the incorporation of the body in language. The social life of WWP is created through dialogical and conversational depictions of ”self”, ones ”body”, ones “gender”, ”the world”, ”society”, ”things”, ”people” and ”events” but depends, at the same time, on other actor’s ability of interpreting the utterance in question. The body is incorporated in metaphorical networks along with other phenomena such as time, place, movement, gender, bodily senses, etc. (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). The body is realized through interaction and linguistic representations and in the discovery and recognition of it by other actors. In WWP the female body is the object of discussion, and in the actors discussions of, amongst other things, menstruation, pregnancy, and birth the body gets life and becomes significant. At the same time, the body constitutes an important part of the actor’s gesticulation and in WWP the actors sigh, laugh, give each other hugs, etc. The gesticulation is often supported by pictorial images and sound-files, for instance, ”grrrr” occur as both text and sound-file. Furthermore, sounds are often constructed through the composition of letters, for instance, ”ssshhhhhh” and ”muahahaha….“ eller ”neener neener neener“.
CMC is therefore far from
disembodied. It is not
just a tool for communication and a semiotic system for cultural and social
perception, it is a material-semiotic
actor, participating in the construction of discourse, context, and
identity-constructing processes. The notion, material-semiotic actor, is
borrowed from Haraway (1991, 1992) who includes language as just another actor
in the co-construction between humans and
non-humans. Haraway is not a linguist, but her view on language is valuable
for the discussion of CMC due to her incorporation of language in human and
non-human networks. Her description of Katie King’s poems is very useful which
she describes as ”sites of literary production where language also is an actor,
bodies as objects of knowledge are material-semiotic generative nodes”. Their
boundaries, as she continues, “materialize in social interaction among human
and non-humans, including the machines and other instruments that mediate
exchanges at crucial interfaces and that function as delegates for other
actors’ functions and purposes” (Haraway, 1992:298). I suggest we, likewise,
understand WWP as a literary site where language interacts with other human and
non-human actors in the construction of communication, space, and phatic communion (Malinowski, 1999). Single speech acts include
both text, sound, and image, however, the act must also be considered in the
light of the theme discussed, the context for the interaction, other actors,
and the social structures which are developed in interaction.
The material-semiotic quality of both
language and context is contained in the term cyborg-discourse. Although part of the significance of the cyborg
is metaphorical the material is equally important. Haraway’s cyborgs r’ us: we
are cyborgs technically when we fuse with technological artifacts. That is, for
instance, a man with a pacemakers or a woman on the pill. Mostly, we are,
however, cyborgs in a metaphorical sense when we, for instance, surf on the
internet, drive a car, or call our banc account. In the second sense of the
term, we interact with technology but it does not take over a function in our
body as the pacemaker although we are still strongly connected to it. At the
same time, the cyborg
figuration indicates instability of identity which is significant my empirical
data. The speaking subjects of my research have neither any specific genders
given the anonymity of the internet which makes, for instance, gender-bending
possible. One can only presume
masculinity and femininity which can, of course, be problemtic in discussions
of gendered identities. Nor have the speaking subjects of my research any given
humanness. Daily we communicate and interact with machines when we, for
instance, receive messages from our mail-programs, call our bank-accounts, or
chat with a bot on a chat-site. The speaking subjects of this field of
research, here also referred to by the term ”actor”, call attention to the fact
that much of our current communication is far from human-centered, but must be
localised within or between systems and networks transgressing human-based
communication-spheres. The cyborg-metaphor negotiates the traditional
boundaries of Humanist and post-humanist discourses of both language, body, and
the human which makes it valuable for
the discussion of the new cyborgian discourses in online communities and
networks.
4.
The Virtual Speech Community
Electric
Minds is a
conferencing system that enables people around the world to carry out public
conversations and exchange private electronic mail. E-Minds was originally
developed by Howard Rheingold who has also founded the famous virtual community
called The Well (the Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link). E-Minds was sold to Webb
Interactive Services, Inc., in 1997, and Rheingold now runs a community called brainstorms which has clear reminiscences to both E-Minds
and The Well, but whereas you have to be invited by Rheingold to participate in
Brainstorms or pay to become a member
in The Well, E-Minds is open and free for all. In 1996/1997, while E-Minds was
still run by Rheingold, the members were overwhelmingly men in their 20s and
30s who worked with computer/internet in one form or the other. When Rheingold
sold E-Minds the number of members went down, but the decline turned and at the
same time the demography of E-Minds changed. Today, 60 percent of the members
are men and 40 percent women, ranging from 30 to somewhere in the 50s, coming
from all walks of life.
E-Minds
is divided into a thirteen rooms,
amongst others, Playground, Commons, Electric People, and Barnraising which,
again, are divided into a app. 350 topics
or locations in total. Playground includes eighty topics, for instance, When I Was a Kid, Snarfing, Truth or Dare,
and Wild Women on the Playground, and
it represents one of the biggest rooms in E-Minds. The discussions of the
different topics are not equally lively and both single topics and entire rooms
can be inactive for shorter or longer periods of time. The term community should therefore be used
cautiously as the social structures arise in interaction amongst specific
actors and contextual circumstances, for instance, who is there and which topic
is discussed. E-Minds does not, however, pre-exist as community - it is the
name of the Bulletin Board, a name and a place to which the so called e-minders identify but communal feeling
arise amongst single participants around certain topics such as the theme of
women and their bodies in WWP. WWP is a location within which community can be
established depending on, especially, the actors, but also shared values, norms, and ideas, and sympathy, empathy and trust.
Moreover, the frequency of interaction is of great importance and the more
frequently the actors interact the more salient and plausible the establishment
of community becomes. John Paolillo (1999) argues in his study of virtual
speech communities that there is a direct connection between social networks
the frequency of interaction. He uses Milroy and Milroy’s (1992) concept of
strong and weak networks developed in their famous Belfast-study of regional
dialects, class, and gender. The Milroys provide a model for studying the
interrelationsship between language and community ties which has become
influential in sociolinguistics and ethnography of speaking. In WWP there is a
strong communal feeling, especially amongst the members who interact on a
regular basis, but also due to the intimate and personal topics discussed, and
I will therefore support Paolillo’s argument.
I define a virtual speech community
as a group of actors who A) interact socially through a common language, B)
share certain values, norms and ideas, and C) are part of the same context for
a certain duration and of a certain frequency. These criteria are fulfilled in
WWP, however, far from all sites which are based on communication and
interaction live up to these norms. On many sites, the communal feeling which
might arise between two or more actors can be difficult to identify as much of
the communication in, say, a regular chat-site happen behind closed doors so to speak i.e. one actor
distribute a private message to another actor which cannot be seen by others.
In WWP and in E-Minds as such past discussions are maintained by the system and
one can always go back and read previous posts. This gives the room a history.
Furthermore, the conversations of E-Minds becomes persistent, as opposed to
ephemeral, which one does not experience in, for instance, IRC (Internet Relay
Chat). The persistent text and persistent objects of this world make E-Minds
and communities alike important and real
as the conversations are saved as communal history. The criteria which I have
defined in the beginning of this section are crucial for the development of a
community, however, I focus especially on language and its role in the
development of a virtual speech community. The term speech community stems from John Gumperz and Dell Hymes (1972) – the two famous
ethnographers of communication. According to Gumperz and Hymes, a speech
community is a group of people sharing rules for the conduct and interpretation
of speech, and sharing the norms and rules for the interpretation of at least
one linguistic variety. The shared knowledge depends on the communication
network and the intensity of contact. WWP qualifies as a speech community in Gumperz and Hymes’ definition of the term as
there exist both rules and norms for the interpretation and interaction in the
room. Furthermore, jargons (or linguistic
varieties) which are developed by actors who interact frequently are used
which makes WWP a significant network made of words.
5. Wild Women of
the Playground
WWP was launched the18th of June
1999 with the words: ”We, the wild women of the playground, need a place to
call our own. We claim this spot as our common ground. Nici and I (Haparks,
red.) invite all you other women to join us here. What will we do? Who knows” (Playground.349.0). As inappropriate/d
others (Haraway, 1992) in the broader context of E-Minds, WWP is developed
from a need for “us gurls to just
hang and be ourselves” (Playground.349.24).
In here the topic is women and
women’s issues such as the female body and bodily experiences and questions
concerning identity. Men are allowed but only as long as they stick to the
topic women - the actors define the
room a women’s place and expel the, in this context, inappropriate i.e. men who
disturbs the discussion of women. At a point in the conversation where one or
two (defined) men take part who turns the conversation away from the
main-topic, Lafou kicks the men out
of the room. This can be seen in the following passage which also illustrate
the sense of place which
characterizes WWP: ”Okay, all youse guys with guy things OUT OUT OUT!!! This is
for the ladies. In a minute we’re gonna start talking blood, babies and size
comparisons and this is strictly verboten in front of testosteroned types so
OUT!” (sic!) (Playground.349.27). WWP is defined as a place or room
which the actors can enter and
therefore also can be kicked out from,
however, the ways in which the actors keep party-poopers out of the room is not
by shutting the door but by discussing for instance birth. As Haparks remarks a
couple of posts ahead: ”I think those of us with children should relate to
those of you without children our birth experiences in GREAT DETAIL. That
should keep the men out” (Playground.349.29).
One of the men who often visits WWP is Maddog who is one of E-Minds’ hosts. He
is very active and generally liked due to his creative conduct and community
spirit. Maddog’s presence in WWP is accepted as he does not interfere with the
implicit rules of WWP, but there are others who does not meet the same
acceptance. Rainbowjim is host in the counterpart to WWP called WILD MEN OF THE PLAYGROUND (WMP), which
was launched with the words: ”NO GIRLS ALLOWED IN DIS TOPIC!!!!!!” (sic!) (Playground.1). The capital letters are notable and
gives the room a slightly aggressive atmosphere. WWP and WMP compete in number
of posts, as Haparks notices: ”Jim, cluelessly thinks that he is keeping us
from posting in the Wild Men topic! HAHAAHAHAHAHA… Doesn’t he realize there is
a race on? Doesn’t he know we won’t be using our precious time to post there?” (Playground.349.682).
In contrast to Maddog
who obeys the rules of WWP and asks for permission to post in WWP, Rainbowjim
attempts in a more corporeal manner to permeate the topic. This can be seen in
the following example where he simply writes: “writing my name in this topic
using my penis hehehehe” (Playground.349.698). Shaana responds in the following post: “I
noticed it’s small writing” (Playground.349.699),
and Faerysprite adds “not very legible, either…” (Playground.349.700). In his post Rainbowjim implicitly rejects
WWP as a women’s room. Shaana and Faerysprite respond to his utterance immediately
using the same metaphorical network as Rainbowjim himself centrering his penis
which becomes a symbol of masculinity. Their responses concern the size of his
imaginary penis which is reflected in the size of his writing and its failing
legibility. As a response to Shaana and Faerysprite he writes: ”well thats
because it was somebody else directing the writing HAHA…” (sic!) (Playground.349.701).
Here he insinuates that it is a woman who has directed writing (i.e. the
”penis”), and it is therefore the woman’s lack of strength, and not his, which
has caused the legible writing. At the same time he positions himself as a
heterosexual, masculine subject through the imaginary ”somebody else” (i.e. a
woman) and the imaginary sexual intercourse which is woven into the imagery.
Maddog responds to Rainbowjim’s aggressive behavior and in the following post
he writes: ”do we know him?” (Playground.349.702). Maddog thus
distances himself to Rainbowjim’s aggressive behavior and says indirectly that
it distinguishes itself radically from the norm of the room which is the reason
why he cannot be one they know i.e. one of them. Maddog clearly identifies with
a we (as in do we know him?) and the community of WWP. The most active members
of WWP also writes in other rooms and Maddog sympathy with Shaana and
FaerySprite is therefore not limited to WWP, his reaction towards Rainbowjim’s
behavior concerns E-Minds netiqette
generally.
As I mentioned in the beginning of
the paper, the social interaction and the linguistic expressions of WWP must be
understood in relation to the imaginary
which plays a significant role in the construction of WWP as both geographical
and social room and in the incorporation of the body in language. Shotter
(1993) presents, in his social constructionist language-theory, the imaginary
as the pivotal point for people’s social interaction. After all, as Harré (in
Shotter, 1993:1) expresses it ”[T]he primary human reality is persons in
conversations”. He offers an account of language which is communicational and
conversational wherein he centres people’s responsive understanding of each
other and capability of interpreting figurative language. The imaginary objects such as “self”,
“body”, “people”, “society”, etc. play, as Shotter (1993:80) argues, important
roles both in “maintaining the multiple, partial structurings of daily life,
and in maintaining its openness for further articulations”. As he continues,
“any attempt to complete them as real
objects destroys their nature, and can lead to an enclosed (mechanical) from of
social life”. He distinguishes between two categories – the imaginary and the
imagined which are part of what he calls the partial real. The partial real embraces the dualism of realism and
fiction.
I want
to suggest that the organized settings people create between themselves give
rise both to felt tendencies that cannot be wholly grasped in mental
representations, but that these tendencies can nonetheless be thought about as
imaginary entities. They have a degree of real existence due to their
’subsistence’ in people’s social practices, and to that extent are able (like
fictitious entities) to exert a real influence
upon the structure of people’s activities (Shotter, 1993:80)
The imaginary plays an important role for the
conversations of WWP as we saw in the above example with Rainbowjim’s imaginary
penis. I have chosen a passage which further illustrates the importance of the
imaginary. The passage is about naughty behavior in WWP and begins with a
reference made by Maddog to an earlier post written by Lafou (Playground.349.164) where she writes ”[D]ancing buck naked in the
kitchen with a beer in the one hand and a bowl of raw chocolate chip cookie
dough in the other”. Cookie dough is
the imaginary object for the discussion:
183 of 1923 Playground.349.183 double take (maddog, 6/27/99 11:21:11 PM)
did <lafou> just run by wearing only dough...
184 of 1923 Playground.349.184 ....oh , mmmmmaaaaaannnnn...here we go again........ (haparks, 6/27/99 11:45:52 PM)
OK! ALL GURLS FRONT AND CENTER!
I'M PERFORMING A SPOT DOUGH CHECK!! I WANT TO SEE CLOTHING! AND NOT THE TYPE MADE OUT OF RAW CHOCOLATE
CHIP COOKIE DOUGH!
191 of 1923 Playground.349.191 (maddog, 6/28/99 8:30:41 AM)
192 of 1923 Playground.349.192 lining up for inspection ... (vita, 6/28/99 8:36:49 AM)
*clothes hastily put on, the buttons are all out of synch, only one foot
has a sock, the jeans are inside out, and there's a small glob of cookie dough
behind my left ear*
I would never *reaching up behind ear and eating the evidence* never
dishonor this topic in such a *slurrrp* fashion.
*Landing on my ass as I slip on <maddog>'s "Sound of Silence" file*
193 of 1923 Playground.349.193 .....(sigh)....vita...... (haparks, 6/28/99 8:39:12 AM)
.....we need to talk.....
...I may have to revoke your "gurl" privileges....
194 of 1923 Playground.349.194 wild grrrrl! (vita, 6/28/99 8:43:12 AM)
How does "naked' and "cookie dough" get me tossed out of
the Wild Women topic? I would think
I'd get tossed out for saying something like, "I have to sign off now
because if
dinner's not on the table when hubby gets home he might be miffed at
me."
195 of 1923 Playground.349.195 no...no...you misunderstand completely.... (haparks, 6/28/99 8:52:03 AM)
.... you may be wild...but you seem to be putting on a show for the
guys....we don't care to cater to them
here, do we? I mean, I could change the
topic name to Nudes R Us, but it's not quite what I had in mind. Well, Ok.
Look, we will compromise. You just make sure that the cookie dough
covers all the interesting bits, ok? I
don't want any peep shows in here.....
196 of 1923 Playground.349.196 andrea force (vita, 6/28/99 8:54:11 AM)
No problemo. *fashioning pastry pasties even as I type this*
In the sequence Haparks, hostess in WWP, tells Vita
off. Vita describes how she hastily puts on her clothes and tries to hide her
misdeed. In the same post she slips on Maddog’s sound of silence file.[1]
Later, she covers, on Hapark’s request, the interesting bits ”fashioning pastry
pasties even as I type this”. The sequence illustrates the interplay between
language and the imaginary in the construction
of a short narration or act. Another imaginary object
is family and the community of WWP
and
other places in E-Minds are often described in terms
of family, as when Boromax asks Crunchychips ”how does it feel to have a whole
gaggle of virtual parents, merill?” (Playground.349.360).
She has broken her leg
and the actors nurturing of her is compared with parents nurturing of a child.
She is one of the youngest members of E-Minds with her 17 years of age and the
parent-metaphor is therefore not inappropriate. In the discussion-room, My Life Today, the family-metaphor also
occurs when Map Girl as a passing remark writes that most of her family has
passed away. Vita expresses her sympathy and that she hopes Map Girl considers them family. Map Girl responds: ”Of
course you guys are like family! I
couldn't imagine not having you.....and this place to come to and share with
each other” (Commons.11.5715).
Vita responds to Map Girls post with a smiley – ” :-) ”. The sequence ends with
an image created by Wildturkey who humorously supports Vita and Map Girl’s
conversation. Wildturkey uses E-Minds’ logo replacing minds with cousins (Commons.11.5717):
Wildturkey’s logo indicates equality and gender-neutrality because of
the word cousins while, at the same
time, cousins are not so closely related as siblings are and hence some
distance is maintained despite the use of the intimate metaphor. Community is
thus created through linguistic and textual images, but also through the actors
structured, context-specific, playful behavior. An imaginary rational is
crucial to the construction of social communion but is also a precondition for
and a component of the incorporation of the body in language.
6. Conclusion
The term
cyborg-discourse refers to the link between computer-mediated communication
(CMC) and materiality which manifest itself in different ways. I have focused
on two aspects of this anchoring: CMC as an embodied phenomena due to both the
materiality of the medium and the physicality of the speaking cyborg, and the
incorporation of body in discourse. With WWP as an example, I have discussed
the ways in which the body is incorporated into language - the imaginary penis
is a powerful example of the incorporation of the body into language – and how
the actors position themselves through discourse. CMC is not a disembodied
phenomena – it is material-semiotic combining the physical and the material in
new forms of cyborgian discourse. Answering the question, which I let Haparks
pose in the beginning of this paper; do wild women sing, I’d say, well, yes indeed. They sing in beautiful and powerful
ways, however, they use not only their voices, they sing using their entire
bodies.
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