Anthropological Linguistics and Sociolinguistics Commons^™

Taking as a starting point advertisements I saw in cafes and food trucks, this presentation examines how advertising and popular media participates in, and profits from, the construction of a Mock urban language. I explore the constructions of a mock urban French that sounds hip at first but echoes colonial advertisements that positions subjects as not fully literate. Oasis juice's anthropomorphized Verlan-speaking fruit, "Onsfan la Poire", recalls the mock pidgin of the older ad slogan "y a  bon ...Banania". In the language of these ads images ranging from savage illiteracy to dopey gang members” are ascribed to what Inoue termed …