Race

1
Race

• and moving onto Gender

2
Exams

• Very good! Class average was 87.
• MC average was 83
• Pick up exams in 509 Williams.
• Final exam will be cumulative, with more than 1/3
  of material coming from the last section of the
  course

3
Syntactic features - correction

• copula deletion - no form of to be in present
  tense sentences. AAVE does use the copula for
  emphasis.
• She real nice. Shes REAL nice.
• He sick.
• habitual be used for habitual actions
• People be looking for this big explanation.
• Sometimes my ears be itchin.

4
Resources to find out more

• http//www.cal.org/ebonics/
• In particular Charles Fillmores essay on
  public reaction to the Oakland city schools
  debate reveals how prejudices about language can
  have real consequences in terms of public policy.
• http//www.umass.edu/aae/
• In particular the About AAE button has a
  helpful statement about language prejudices.

5
Review standard language ideology

• Standard language ideology says that spoken
  language should meet the standard set by the
  clearcut and unified rules of written language.
• If you believe this, you should also acknowledge
  who wins and loses in this scenario who has the
  best, most standard spoken language and
  therefore benefits the most, and vice versa?

6
Cutler article

• Study of white hip hoppers (WHHs).
• Combined interview data with analysis of
  frequency of AAVE (AAE) and HHSS (Hip Hop
  Speech Style) features in White Hip Hoppers
  speech
• Differentiates core WHHs, who are actively
  involved in hip hop culture, from peripheral
  WHHs, who mostly access hip hop culture by
  consuming music etc.

7
HHSS style, register, dialect?

• Cutler defines HHSS as a style because it is not
  triggered by context alone, whereas a register
  is. HHSS involves both context AND personal
  elements.
• Also, HHSS overlaps with features of AAVE, so
  it is not a separate dialect.

8
Language Ideology of Keepin it real

• Idea that people should present themselves for
  what they are and not front with respect to
  class, race and language use
• Idea that realness has to do with being connected
  to the street in both a physical and linguistic
  sense.
• Cutler pg. 215

9
Findings

• core WHHs used less HHSS markers, ascribing to
  the first ideology of authenticity (keepin it
  real is being who you are)
• peripheral WHHs used more HHSS markers,
  demonstrating the second ideology of authenticity
  (keepin it real is being close to the street and
  urban ghetto life

10
Authenticity

• AAE and HHSS index African American and hip hop
  culture. A linguistic index is a marker that
  points to a particular, socially recognized
  group (such as African Americans)
• BUT if WHHs overuse these features, they could
  be perceived as fronting and therefore not
  being authentic

11
What is Cutler saying?

• How do people use language to affiliate
  themselves with particular groups?
• WHHs are linguistically interesting because they
  have to balance demands of authenticity with
  indexing their affiliation with the group.
• In the hip hop world, Mainstream US English is
  non-standard and marks you as different and even
  less, and WHHs overcome this in different
  ways

12
Rap Clips

• Socializing verbal play
• history 1980s Philly rap scene
• frames Eminem rap battles (see also Cutler pg.
  222)

13
Language and Gender

• How are cultural notions of gender tied up with
  ideas about language?
• How do men and women speak or use language?

14
Gender vs. Sex

• Generally speaking, sex traits refer to the
  biological elements of maleness and femaleness,
  for example voice pitch.
• Generally speaking, gender refers to the
  culturally determined ways in which we perform
  our maleness or femaleness. Examples include
  dress language occupation, role in the family,
  etc.

15
Gendered behavior

• gendered behavior refers to behavior that has
  notably different male and female versions.
• What are some examples of gendered behavior in
  the US?

16
How is language linked to gender?

• Obligatory lexical/grammatical forms
• Cultural associations with lexical/grammatical
  forms
• Social associations between dialect forms and
  gendered identities

17
An important distinction

• objectively observable behavior gender-linked
  use of particular forms, intonation patterns,
  etc.
• VS
• language attitudes ideas about mens vs.
  womens language (e.g. the idea that women tend
  to have larger vocabularies than men).

18
Purely biological? Purely cultural?

• Language is a learned behavior.
• We begin learning language AND culture as soon as
  we are born.
• For children, peer learning is as important, and
  often more important, in the development of an
  understanding of linguistic norms. Who are a
  childs peers?
• The same linguistic behaviors mean different
  things cross-culturally.

19
Lexicon and gender

• Languages differ in how they lexicalize gender
  differences by having lexical items (words) that
  reflect sex differences
• English has a semantic gender system (Social Art,
  pg. 169)
• He-class boy, man, waiter
• She-class girl, woman, waitress
• He/she class doctor, teacher, cousin
• He/she/it class dog, horse, baby
• She/it-class ship, car

20

• French has a two-gender system where gender is
  marked by pronunciation differences between
  masculine and feminine Il est grand. He is
  big.
• Elle est grande. She is big.
• Russian often has both semantic and lexical
  differences
• drug (male friend) podruga (female friend)

21
Grammar and gender

• Languages also grammaticalize gender to
  different extents.
• Examples (see also Social Art pg. 170)
• Hungarian third person singular (ö) is not marked
  for gender.
• Spanish marks gender in plural pronouns ellas
  nosotras
• Slavic languages mark gender in singular past
  verbs
• Vin pishov (He left.) Vona poshla (She left.)

22
Noun classes and gender

• Many languages divide nouns into classes that are
  often labeled masculine feminine and
  neuter. These noun classes may not be related
  to ideas about human gender at all.
• e.g. French Russian
• la table (f) stol
  (m)
• le mur (m) stena
  (f)
• 
  dno (n)
• Other languages, like Swahili, have noun classes,
  but they are not divided along gender lines
  (Social Art. Pg. 169)

23
However.

• Consider the use of feminizing suffixes. In
  Russian and Ukrainian, the feminizing suffix ka
  is also a diminutive
• Doktor/doktorka profesor/profesorka
• In English, some people have dropped the use of
  feminine nouns such as waitress stewardess
  and actress because they are seen as
  diminishing people.

24
Non-obligatory gendered usage

• What are your cultural associations with
• puce, celery, mauve, ecru, cornflower
• Nurse
• Mechanic

25
Linguistic behaviors are not naturally gendered

• In Tannens article How to give orders like a
  man, she shows that in the US, direct orders are
  associated with male power.

26
Hierarchy and directness

• Airplane crashes in which the co-pilot pointed
  out problems using indirectness and the pilot
  didnt get the point
• BUT mitigated speech is considered an element of
  a crew that works well together.
• Secret to better communication lies in bosses
  being more attuned to indirect meanings

27
Indirectness in Japanese

• Tannen gives another example of a Japanese boss
  who gave the following order
• A place must be found, the negative brought to
  it, the picture developed. pg. 48
• The Japanese ideology of language places
  importance on protecting the face of
  subordinates by not telling them directly what to
  do.
• Meaning is referential and relational (pg. 49)

28
Gendered Linguistic Behavior

• In studies of English, women have been found to
  speak a more prestigious variety than men in most
  communities.
• Womens speech in English has been found to be
  conservative where the dialect is moving away
  from the standard, and innovative where the
  dialect is moving toward the standard.

29
Why?

• women are more invested in social advancement and
  are less invested in negative prestige
  identities, such as street tough
• Negative prestige identities (e.g. local working
  class) may be gendered as masculine, or
  feminine promiscuous
• appearances/ good behavior and politeness are
  more important for women than men

30
Language Ideology and Gender

• Tannen article
• In the US, dominant language ideology says
• Directness is assertive and is associated with
  power.
• Indirectness is submissive and is associated with
  being a subordinate.

31
Kulick Article

• What are the gender stereotypes about male and
  female speech in Gapun?
• What attributes are associated with men, and male
  speech?
• What attributes are associated with women, and
  female speech?

32
Gapun

• 2 languages spoken Taiap and Tok Pisin
• Shift from Taiap to Tok Pisin
• Why is Taiap associated with women, and with
  dangerous emotional displays?

33
Taiap and Tok Pisin

• Tok Pisin is the official language of Papua New
  Guinea
• Tok Pisin is a creole language associated with
  development projects and Christianization
• Tok Pisin is used in public oratory that is
  associated with male prominence.

• Taiap is the native language
• When women use kros speech, they speak in Taiap
• In Gapun, there is a shift away from using Taiap
  to using Tok Pisin

34
Emotion and danger

• Why are emotions dangerous in Gapun?
• If you dont express anger, it will rot in your
  stomach and cause sickness
• If you do express anger, it may enrage the
  ancestral spirits of that person or the attacked
  person may seek out a sorcerer

35
hed

• Every person has volatile free will ego,
  selfishness, maverick individualism
• Hed is associated with children, and by
  extension, women, who are seen as being angry by
  nature and lacking self control.

36
The kros

• For an example, see pg. 93
• Kros is a speech genre, that is, it is a way of
  speaking that is appropriate to a certain kind of
  interaction, what we might call a fight
• Typically shouting from inside houses, insults,
  vulgarity, accusations of wrongdoing, associated
  with women

37
Anger in the Mens house

• Men also deal with anger and disputes in their
  arena, the mens house
• Calm, encouraging men to reveal their anger, and
  cool their anger so that it will cease to make
  someone sick.
• Typically anger is exposed, but made out to be
  small, perhaps not to be anger at all, it is
  downplayed.

38
Motivations for language shift

• The new language is associated with positive
  ideals, like development and making money, and
  Christian values
• The old language is associated with the ways of
  ancestors, which are increasingly negatively
  perceived
• This community is undergoing a shift from
  speaking Taiap, to speaking Tok Pisin.

39
Theories of Gender and Language

• Social Power Model (Lakoff)
• Two Cultures Model (Maltz and Borker Tannen)

40
Social Power Model

• Associated with Robin Lakoff
• Focuses on why men and women in the US speak
  differently
• Lakoff says that mens speech is powerful
  speech, that is, men use speech typical of
  powerful people, and women use speech typical of
  powerless people.
• Women have been taught to act inferior when they
  act inferior, they feel inferior.

41
Examples of powerless speech

• hedge Well, I was sorta thinking that maybe
  that we could kind of look at that tomorrow-ish.
• deference I know that youre very busy, but I
  was hoping we could have some coffee, if you
  have the time.

42

• self-denigration This is probably a stupid idea,
  but what about if we each write one section of
  the report?
• I really dont know anything about this at all,
  but maybe people just dont want to pay more for
  a muffler.
• marks of uncertainty um rising intonation at
  the end of a statement hesitant or slow speech
  quiet voice

43
Why are women more polite?

• Studies have shown, that in general, women tend
  to be more polite across cultures.
• Politeness is offered from inferiors to superiors
• Politeness is typical of formality and distance
• In cultures where women are LESS polite than men,
  it is because politeness is associated with
  acquisition of status by men.

44
Whats wrong with the power model?

• The power model says that there is something
  wrong with the way women speak, but doesnt
  address WHY men and women speak differently.

45
Another approach

• In the Power model, men and women belong to ONE
  SPEECH COMMUNITY, where they speak more or less
  powerful varieties of the language
• In the Two Cultures model, men and women belong
  to two different, but overlapping speech
  communities

46
Interethnic Communication

• Sociolinguists like Gumperz and Tannen have
  studied communication and miscommunication
  between groups that have different norms for
  interaction.
• Example high vs. low involvement conversational
  styles (NY vs. California)
• The Bailey article on Korean store owners and
  African American customers used this approach

47
Two Cultures Model

• Argued by Deborah Tannen, and Maltz and Borker,
  among others
• Men and Women in the US are socialized into two
  different but overlapping cultural groups.
• These groups have different ideas about the
  purpose of language, as well as different
  understandings of pragmatic cues

48
The basic Two Cultures idea

• We argue that American men and women come from
  different sociolinguistic subcultures, having
  learned to do different things with words in a
  conversation, so that when they attempt to carry
  on conversations with one another, even if both
  parties are attempting to treat one another as
  equals, cultural miscommunication occurs. Maltz
  and Borker

49

• Girls and boys socialized separately in
  single-sex peer groups, esp. in formative years
• Different groups have different norms of
  interaction
• Miscommunication occurs across groups

50
The two cultures

• Girls play in small groups or pairs emphasis is
  on emotional closeness, not hierarchy. Emphasis
  on alliance formation, betrayal, loyalty.
• Boys play in large groups with a range of ages.
  Emphasis is on hierarchy, on moving up in the
  hierarchy, in stealing attention away from people
  who are threatening your place in the hierarchy.

51
Pickle Fights

• Amy Sheldons work on 3-4 year olds in pre-school
  play group of 3 children. How do they resolve
  fights over a plastic pickle?
• Boys resolved conflict by changing play themes
• Girls resolved conflict within same play theme,
  but rearranged roles to dissolve the hierarchy.