“Cali”

Nationality: US
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 10 April 2018
Primary Language: English

Context:

Isabella Estrada is studying history at the University of Southern California. She is graduating this year and is in the process of applying to/hearing back from law schools. This was clearly on her mind as the first piece of folklore she gave me dealt with law school applications. She was born and raised in Torrance, California.

Transcript:

Isabella: So, uh, as a native from Southern California, we’re pretty much hip to all the California…uh, terms, terminology, anyway. It was always a joke growing up that you could tell a foreigner based on whether or not they said “Cali” to refer to California because no Californian would ever refer to our state as “Cali.”

Interpretation:

Firstly, Isabella shows pride in being from California. This is something many people do with their state, but it especially makes sense in California, a state with so many non-natives, including myself, for example. She expressed a vague superiority in knowing how to talk about her state, and how to spot out those who don’t belong. Many communities do this. For example, I once referred to a New York restaurant as “The Talkhouse,” only to be laughed at by New Yorkers who told me, “we just call it ‘Talkhouse.'” Simple uses of language can often draw attention to a visitor or immigrant.

Haunted Dorm at USC

Nationality: US
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 10 April 2018
Primary Language: English

Context:

Isabella Estrada is studying history at the University of Southern California. She is graduating this year and is in the process of applying to/hearing back from law schools. This was clearly on her mind as the first piece of folklore she gave me dealt with law school applications. She was born and raised in Torrance, California.

Transcript:

Isabella: Okay, so freshman year, I lived on campus in Pardee Tower and there was an old ghost story that the seventh floor was haunted because some girl…I think two years prior to when I lived there, she died in her room, and her roommate was gone for the weekend, her roommate didn’t find her body until she came back the following Monday. And she was just dead.

Interpretation:

This piece is interesting because the event was historical–thus not fitting into the categories of legend, myth or tale. What is folklore is the belief that the floor of the building is now haunted. Bella could give no specifics on the haunting–for instance, she could not even say for certain if the deceased student wanders the halls or something to that effect. I have often noticed people mentioning that a building, a room, etc. is haunted but they know no more information beyond that.

 

Law School SubReddit Terminology

Nationality: US
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 10 April 2018
Primary Language: English

Context:

Isabella Estrada is studying history at the University of Southern California. She is graduating this year and is in the process of applying to/hearing back from law schools. This was clearly on her mind as the first piece of folklore she gave me dealt with law school applications. She was born and raised in Torrance, California.

Transcript:

Isabella: So, there is a subreddit on the website Reddit that’s called law school admissions, and it’s just essentially a forum where people who are applying to law schools get together and complain and discuss admissions and scholarships and the like, and so, with like any other subreddit, there’s like a specific language that we use, and to indicate, or like another form of congratulations that people use when someone says they got into a law school is “go get some ice cream.” So it like, it serves in place of congratulations. And it’s just like a congratulatory phrase.

There’s also, instead of, if you get rejected, instead of saying you got rejected, you say you got “dinged.”

Interpretation:

Reddit is infamous for its specialized language. Even “subreddit” requires an understanding of the website–meaning a category within the website. Internet culture has created its own language in many cases, and these two examples show how visitors to the page use these euphemisms to deal with serious decisions that impact their future. The point of the subreddit is to find support amongst others who are going through the nerve wracking application process, so these silly phrases could help to temporarily lessen the hurt of getting rejected, and likewise celebrate those who are admitted, but not overly so as to hurt the feelings of those being rejected.

Morgan’s Steep

Nationality: US
Age: 23
Occupation: Student
Residence: Sewanee, Tennessee
Performance Date: 21 April 2018
Primary Language: English

Context:

Will Lord is my brother. I visited him at his University recently. He attends the University of the South, also known as Sewanee. Given its regal name, one would assume that the school is rich in tradition and folklore. One would be correct. The school was established in 1857. Given its small student body, many feel compelled to join fraternities and societies which each have their own collection of folklore. The school itself is full of legends. While walking around campus, I recorded him talking about famous locations, legends, etc.

Transcript:

Owen: Is this Morgan’s Steep?

Will: Yeah Morgan’s Steep was named after the Confederate General who rode his horse off the bluff in order to protect and hide the military documents he was carrying from the Union Army that was on his tail, never actually happened though, that was just the legend for a while.

Interpretation: 

Here, the legend of a Confederate soldier riding his horse off a cliff is so famous that the lookout point is named after him. There was even a rock that read “Morgan’s Steep.” Will pointed out that this was a mere legend, which to him meant that it was not true. But as a legend implies in the folklore realm, many might defend its validity.

La LLorona

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 10 April 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Context:

Sophia Lopez is a Senior studying Screenwriting at USC. I was sitting with friends when she approached the table and began speaking to one of my friends that she knew. When I asked her if I could record folklore, she needed no definition–she launched straight into the story of La Llorona.

Transcript:

Sophia: My name’s Sophia. Andddd. Okay, so when I was little, I didn’t ever like to go to bed on time, like I was really kind of like a cool kid, and my Nanny would like, she would get really frustrated with me because I, um, wouldn’t ever be in bed on time, and, uh, my family’s Mexican, so they tell a lot of Mexican folklore, well they did when I was little. And so anyways there’s this woman called La Llorona, you know about her?

Owen: We learned about her in class.

Sophia: Yeah, okay, so basically, when I was little, and a bad kid, they told me a story about this woman La Llorona who her husband. Well, there are two versions. One her husband left her and she killed all her kids by drowning them in the river, and that was one version they said. But the other version is that there’s a terrible mudslide and all of her like eight children died and so at night…you know the La Llorona, like it translates to the Weeping Woman, so at night she wanders the streets looking for kids who are out past their bedtime because she wants to take them as their own and either like out of habit she’ll drown them in the river too, or she’ll take them with her to Hell. So that was my, once they told me that I really wanted to go to sleep on time. She can’t see kids who are already asleep.

Interpretation:

When we spoke about La Llorona in our USC Forms of Folklore class, several versions were given from the class. Fittingly, Sophia had two versions handy. The most common trend I have noticed in this legend is that its purpose is to keep children inside the house at night or to get them to go to bed.