Title: Finishing Gender
1Finishing Gender
- and our next topic Multilingualism
2Fat Talk
- Presentation by TA Amy Land on
- Fat talk what girls and their parents say about
dieting by Mimi Nichter - fat talk is an adjacency pair typical of the
speech of adolescent girls also used by women - Topics what is fat talk? fat talk and
collusion fat talk as womens talk
3Social power vs. 2 cultures
- Two cultures different but overlapping speech
communities
- Social Power
- One speech community, with men setting the
standard
4Two cultures says
- Childhood socialization translates into
differences in the way that adult men and women
speak with each other, and differences in how
they interpret the same linguistic behaviors. - Therefore, when men and women talk to each other,
it is a form of cross-cultural miscommunication.
Men and womens goals for conversation may be
very different due to different worldviews
5according to 2 cultures
- Women tend to use questions to maintain
conversation, show interest and respect for the
speakers story - Men tend to see questions as requests for
information, or even as challenges to their
authority to speak.
6according to 2 cultures
- Women share experiences to promote solidarity and
intimacy. - Men discuss problems in order to solve them.
-
7Male/female worldviews in Two cultures model
- Female Emphasis on social harmony, equality,
concern for feelings of others, de-emphasis of
self and selfs accomplishments emphasis on
collaboration - Male Emphasis on social hierarchy, personal
position within hierarchy, emphasis on
individual, independence
8Behavior and worldview
- Men have more strategies for dominating
conversation - Interrupt frequently
- Often dont acknowledge or link their statement
to a previous statement from an interlocutor - Make many declarations of fact
- Often dispute claims of their interlocutor
- Women do the shitwork of conversation
- ask a lot of questions
- use the pronouns you and we frequently
- If women are interrupted, they tend to stop
speaking - Say yes, right and uhuh frequently
9Social Power vs. Two Cultures differing
analysis of key features
- Positive Minimal Responses (PMRs)
- mmhm, yeah, right, uhuh
- In the US, men use far fewer than women on
average - Social power says
- Men withhold PMRs as a way of showing their
power - Women offer a lot of PMRs to puff up the person
they are talking to - Two cultures says
- For men, PMRs signal agreement
- For women, PMRs signal Im listening
- How does this lead to miscommunication?
10- Questions
- Social Power model argues that the less powerful
ask questions the more powerful answer questions - Two cultures says that men and women see
different reasons to ask questions - Men see questions as requests for information
- Women see questions as a way of maintaining
smooth conversational flow (men will just
introduce a new topic to keep a conversation
going)
11- Aggressiveness (e.g. disagreement)
- Social power says that men are displaying their
power by cutting down women - Two cultures says that men are taught to organize
conversations through oppositions. Women view
opposition as negative and a personal attack.
12The new model Performance
- Performance theory focuses on community standards
for judging the genderedness of linguistic
behavior in a given instance. - Gets away from men do this women do that BUT
acknowledges that there are power differentials
in society that may be performed as part of
performing gender identity.
13Example Cameron article
- performing gender identity
- Online reading focused on how young, heterosexual
men performed their gender identity in all-male
conversations - Recall that the conversation focused on other
men, their actions, and their dress. In this
context, performance of male, heterosexual
identity focused on referring to other men as
gay - Clearly, in another context, linguistic
performance of male, heterosexual identity would
not depend on the same use of features.
14Multilingualism
- Reading for this week is online Spitulnik, and
Zentella articles
15Monolingualism
- Individual monolingualism refers to a persons
status as knowing only one language - Societal monolingualism refers to linguistic
homogeneity within a population, where there are
speakers of only one language.
16The Multilingual Norm
- In America, the dominant language ideology is
that monolingualism is the norm - However, throughout the world, more people are
multilingual than monolingual
17Multilingual Nations
- societal multilingualism, where more than one
language is spoken in a society, is not the same
as individual multilingualism, where a person
speaks/understands more than one language. - Bilingualism is a common form of multilingualism,
in which two languages are known, whether on the
individual or societal level.
18Fun Fact
- The US is a multilingual nation
- The 2000 census categorized all the responses
about languages spoken at home into 380 language
categories, including 120 Native American
languages.
19Legal Equality?
- Many countries in the world have official
multilingualism as part of their constitution. - Legal equality is not the same as there being no
linguistic stereotypes. And official
multilingualism doesnt imply that all of the
languages are legally equal. - linguistic stereotypes ideas about what a
language is good for and what its speakers are
like
20- A multilingual nation can mean almost anything
- a country with two official languages
- a country with many imported languages like the
US - a country like India, with hundreds of indigenous
languages spoken
21- Use of languages that are not known by the whole
populace can create a linguistic barrier that
prevents individuals or populations from
participation in education, govt, economic
advancement. - In Estonia, nationalists are trying to create
linguistic barriers for non-Estonian speakers.
Why?
22Language Planning
- Language planning includes all government
activities having to do with language (including
revitalization, standardization, schooling, laws,
and picking a national language).
23(No Transcript)
24Multilingual National Policy
- Why might you need to legislate language use in
the media in a multilingual nation? - Spitulnik gives the example of Zambia. In Zambia,
state policy of pluralism says that 7 languages
(Bemba, Kaonde, Lozi, Lunda, Luvale, Nyanja, and
Tonga) represent the 73 tribes of Zambia.
English is also used as a neutral national
language.
25Ideologies of language use
- Language ideologies are ways of thinking about
language what language means, what role it
plays in society. - Ideas about language can influence whether it is
considered suitable for differerent uses, like
radio broadcasting, newspaper printing, public
speaking, joking among friends, etc. -
26Policy vs. language value
- English
- Bemba, Nyanja
- Bemba, Nyanja, Lozi, Tonga
- Kaonde, Lunda, Luvale
- Other languages and dialects
- The big four languages (Bemba, Nyanja, Tonga
and Lozi) have much more time than the smaller
Northwestern languages
27Lingua Franca
- Bemba and Nyanja are urban lingua francas in
Zambia. A lingua franca is a language that is
spoken by most people in an area as a first or
second language and therefore can be used to
communicate across many languages.
28Linguistic division of labor
- A linguistic division of labor happens when
language attitudes say that certain languages are
more suitable for certain uses, such as types of
radio programming (Spitulnik, pg. 174) - What kind of programming is associated with
different languages (what is each language
considered good for)? - International news? Local/national news? Hip
urban programming?
29- Is this different from the US?
- What language attitudes govern which languages or
dialects we hear in different kinds of television
or radio programming?
30Multilingualism/Bilingualism
- Multilingualism and Empire
31Back to faff
- Have you been using it?
- Have you heard it used?
- What factors influenced whether or not you used
the word? What factors have influenced whether
it could be successfully introduced?
32- linguistic inferiority principle - The speech of
a socially subordinate group will always be
interpreted as inadequate by comparison with the
socially dominant group.
33Language and Empires
- Different empires have had different approaches
to managing language in conquered territories - Over time, these language policies affected
language change, language shift, and the relative
status of colonial vs. indigenous languages.
34Colonial powers
- Can cultivate a local elite and offer advantages
to learning the colonial language - Can piggyback on an established elite by
valorizing one language/dialect over others - Can try to force the entire population to shift
languages, e.g. by passing language laws and
restricting access to education, publishing,
media or through reeducation - Can encourage bilingualism and/or language shift
actively or passively
35Powerful Language
- standard language adopted, prescriptive norm
- literary language the language used in writing
(Latin) - hegemonic language variety/language to which
others are compared, and which is expected to be
used, even though if this is not done
prescriptively. e.g. American English (not
British) is hegemonic in the U.S., but a certain
dialect of American English is also hegemonic.
36more powerful language
- official language legal language. English only
movements want to make English the official
language of the U.S. - administrative language language used by a
country for internal business. English is the
administrative language of the United States.
37Historical Example Inca Empire
- In the Andes, the Incas promoted Southern
Peruvian Quechua as an administrative/contact
language, but encouraged peoples to maintain
their linguistic diversity - After the Spanish arrived, they encouraged all
indigenous peoples to learn Southern Peruvian
Quechua. Learning Spanish was emphasized as an
important part of converting to Christianity.
38Language Standardization in the Roman Empire
- How did Rome get conquered peoples to speak
Latin? - Soldiers settled in new territories
- Poor urban-dwellers moved to territories
- Within a generation of a territory being
conquered, almost all of its inhabitants spoke
Latin (incorporating local language)
39Language policy
- The burden of learning language is on the people.
- The state is not responsible for the language
acquisition of its subjects.- if you do not
learn Latin on your own, you cannot conduct
business or attend assemblies- in the ancient
world it was common to know several languages and
dialects, even for illiterate people
40Multilingualism and society
41Bilingual communities
- In bilingual (or multilingual) communities,
speakers develop strategies for use of their
languages - May restrict each language to particular
contexts, participants, or topics. - Can be stable, or unstable
42Diglossia
- Diglossia in a situation where two languages
are used, each language is systematically
employed in certain domains - high variety prestige language (public
language) in a diglossic situation. - low variety non-prestige (home language)
language in a diglossic context
43High vs. Low Language
- High Language Low Language
- Public Private
- Prestige Non-prestige
- school, government home, bar
- literary tradition often
unwritten - signals high status signals intimacy
44Example Paraguay
- Spanish and Guarani
- Spanish is official language used in formal
situations and associated with urban life - Guarani is national language strongly
associated with national pride, but also with
ruralness and lack of sophistication.
45Example Swiss German
- High language is High German
- used in schools, govt
- Low language is Swiss German
- until recently not written
- Swiss German is used in ads for products like
cheese - High German in ads for cars and technology.
46Lingua Franca
- A language that is used interacting with speakers
of different codes (languages). All the
participants are expected to know the lingua
franca, but it may be (and often is) no ones
first language.
47Language policy
- Tanzania Swahili is the lingua franca and is
used in education to encourage widespread
literacy - Kenya English is the lingua franca and is used
in education to select a small part of the
population to go on and become educated
48Language Ideologies in Zakarpattia
- Area of Ukraine that borders on Poland, Slovakia,
Hungary and Romania - Large populations of Romanians, Hungarians and
Ukrainians - Lingua franca is Russian
49Shifting ideologies
- Speakers of one Ukrainian dialect go to a
mechanic who speaks another dialect and who has
some Romanian customers. They speak Russian - After the Romanians leave, Ukrainians speaking
different dialects talk about how annoying it is
that Romanians dont learn Ukrainian
50- When the Ukrainian dialect speaking customer
returns home, she talks about the Romanians, and
then comments on how funny the mechanics
Ukrainian is. - Depending on context, different language
ideologies dictate different types of collusion
in those ideologies, such as language choice and
expression of group identity.
51Situational language choice
- In each interaction or situation, a bilingual has
a choice of languages - context, participant, topic and goal influence
these decisions
52Code switching
- When bilingual speakers converse, they frequently
integrate linguistic material from obth of their
languages within the same discourse segment. - Borrowing borrowing involves adapting words to
fit the language you are speaking, including
sounds and grammar
53Examples
- code switch
- Lets go, lets go. Poshli!
- borrowing
- Ja ljublju koka-kolu.
- (I like Coca-Cola)
54Conversational code-switching
- Code-switching is often used for pragmatic
effects. - Examples include emphasis, emotional coloring,
shifting between topics, shifting from narration
to commentary, separating quoted speech from your
speech
55Example Codeswitching in Spanglish (Zentella
article)
- To get attention, enhanced speech marking
- For emphasis repeating the same sentence twice
in two different languages - Signal boundaries between your speech and quoted
speech - Shifting topics or addressing a different person
- Involvement or expression of emotion
56- Young Spanglish speakers in a New York
neighborhood belong to a speech community. - The meaning of codeswitching is part of a set of
social norms - At the same time these codeswitching practices
are easing the language shift in the community
from Spanish to English.
57Code mixing
- Code mixing is a linguistic process that
incorporates material from a second language into
a base language, adding morphological markers of
the base to introduced elements. - In other words, you take a word from another
language, but treat it like it is from your
language.
58Examples
- code switching
- Lets go. Poshli!
- code mixing
- Well, I guess wed better be poshli-ing
- Nado pisat grenty (You have to write grants).
59Social function of code-mixing
- code mixing can be used to create a sense of
community among a small group of bilinguals (e.g.
Russian academics) - in a diglossic situation, use of some words from
the High language incorporated into your speech
can mark you as higher status, more intellectual,
or less traditional
60Bilingualism good or bad?
- Many bilinguals in the US evaluate their language
poorly. Use of code-switching is perceived as
indicating that you dont know either language
well. - In fact, code-switching requires a high level of
competence in both languages, as well as an
understanding of cultural rules surrounding
switching and its meaning.