GI’s professional world image through creolised texts (as exemplified in English)

Abstract

The paper analyses GI’s professional world image. The primary focus is on the axiosphere as manifested in the US military community’s sublanguage. The study centers on the grapheme-iconic modalities through which social stereotypes are expressed within creolised texts. The study’s central objective is to substantiate the hypothesis that the nonconformity inherent in the distinctive substandard linguistic phenomena of the military sublanguage constitutes a form of socially sanctioned, legitimised dissent. This research is aimed at empirically discovering social stereotypes embedded in the vernacular of informal communicative practices. The scholastic novelty of the study resides in the author’s interpretative analysis and categorisation of the social stereotypes encoded in polycode texts. The findings reveal that the informal register of the military sublanguage encapsulates not only the value orientations intrinsic to the institution but also delineates the contentious facets of military service. These facets frequently lurk in obscurity, misaligned with the overarching official narrative. Six thematic categories have been discerned, elucidating the veracities of military life, prototypical characterisations, societal challenges faced by service members, the cultural rift between military personnel and civilians (military-civilian gap), entrenched gender stereotypes, and various elements of the “camouflaged” societal framework. This research offers an inaugural attempt to decode the GI professional world through the lens of stereotypes, drawing upon an array of specialised creolised texts.