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Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 8:1 (2017) ► pp.1–25

Sociolinguistic representations of the military in Greek comedy films

Laughing at the army

 | University of Western Macedonia, Greece
 | University of Western Macedonia, Greece
This paper aims to explore cinematic representations of the military in peacetime, and more importantly, from a socio-cultural setting in which mandatory military service is highly devalued. Focusing on three Greek popular comedy films, we examined humorous depictions of the military. By adopting the ‘identities in interaction’ model of Bucholtz and Hall, our analysis suggested that the use of the formal vs. the informal military sociolect indexed the contrasting identities of film officers vs. soldiers as well as their diverging views about the military. On the other hand, the use of the informal military sociolect by soldiers established an affinity among them, helping them to jointly construct the army in their talk as unjust, corrupted and ineffective for the Turkish ‘threat’.
Keywords: Greek army, military service, sociolinguistics of cinema, military sociolect, identities in interaction
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The context of the study: The Greek military service
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Framework of analysis
    • 3.2Textual material
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Military service in the time of military junta
    • 4.2The army as unjust
    • 4.3Military service as a waste of time
  • 5.Discussion and concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References


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Published online: 25 April 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.8.1.01sta
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