![]() 1 Political candidates’ linguistic and semiotic conduct is in fact often under laypersons’ scrutiny. Far from being the exclusive prerogative of spin doctors (and linguistic anthropological scholars), metapragmatic debates pervade the contemporary public sphere. This reflexive preoccupation with the appropriate use of language and the related use of language “to referentially objectify language use” (Errington 1998, 118) is what linguistic anthropologists-following Silverstein ( 1976, 1993)-call metapragmatics. Finally, by evoking the parodies of Trump’s allegedly diminutive hands (and implicitly small penis) that circulated during the electoral race, the font operates as an inside joke addressed at and indexical of Trump’s counterpublic.Ĭontemporary political discourse (and electoral politics in particular) in the United States and elsewhere appears saturated by explicit commentaries on and implicit allusions to how language should be used. Third, Tiny Hand works as a counter-meta-parody of the president’s political incorrectness. Second, as a replica of Trump’s handwriting, the font parodies the president’s habit of correcting journalists with handwritten marginalia, thus speaking back to his attempts at silencing the press. First, the font’s childlike shapes establish an iconic connection between Trump’s hand(writing) and his brain, which, incapable of adult reasoning, generates dangerously infantile political decisions. Modeled on Trump’s handwriting, the font “Tiny Hand” operates on multiple metapragmatic levels. Since his rise to the political stage in 2015, Donald Trump’s heterodox style of self-presentation has stirred heated metapragmatic debates within the American and international public: Was that “locker-room talk,” or abusive speech? Is his verbal irreverence an unacceptable defiance of fundamental principles of interactional ethics, or a brave attempt at reforming contemporary American speech by dismissing the epistemic inaccuracy and moral hypocrisy of political correctness? This article engages these debates by analyzing an ingenious form of typographic parody that recently appeared on digital social media. ![]()
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