Language and Identity

Identity We all have multiple identities. This is revealed through language use. Agency: the amount of control one has over how s/he presents her/himself to the world Agentive: parts of our identity we have control over (punk, jock) Non-agentive: race, gender (traditionally, but that is changing)

Identity and Ideology “Because the dominant ideology of a culture encodes only some behaviors as natural, and powerful, not all identities are created equal.” Symbolic capital: prestige based on way one presents her/himself; those who conform generally have more symbolic capital What are practices that our society designates as “good or prestigious? Symbolic violence: the consequences for those who don’t or aren’t able to conform

Dialect and Identity Certain pronunciations or grammatical constructions can mark an individual’s class or geographic origin Isoglosses: an idealized geographic boundary between the use of one linguistic variable or feature and another (not actual territorial boundaries; just variations in speech) Ideolect: the language of the individual “It is only through perception by others, in an oppositional relationship, that group identities can be formed. Like language itself, identity needs an audience to make it meaningful” (176).

Code-switching: when one has access to more than one linguistic system and moves between them in an effort to promote solidarity or distance with her/his interlocuter

Naming Different cultures represent relationships through their naming practices Women and children taking the man’s surname Confirmation names (Catholic), bestowing of Hebrew name (Judaism) Icelandic surnames end in “dottir” or “son” (Jon Einarsson  Gunnar Jonsson and Anna Jonsdottir) Asymmetry/Asymmetrical: refers to speakers’ rights to talk in a certain situation or the power differential determined by use of titles (“your majesty,” “aunt/uncle”) This (formal/informal modes of address) can be used to manipulate social distance

Social Relations and Grammatical Form (namely, pronouns) Pronouns can encode relationships Deciding to use formal or informal pronouns: How well you know the person How in/formal the environment is Whether you want to show solidarity with or distance from the person Invoking “we” can give speaker more authority Invoking “us” and “them” can create solidarity and/or boundaries. Do you consider yourself as part of a social group that fits into our society’s us/them schema? Does this influence your behavior?

Vocative: special form used in the context of “calling” someone or something (entity) Generally added through some sort of suffix or prefix or slight change or pronunciation In English, we don’t have this, but we have the particle “O” (as in, “O Romeo Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo”)

Theories of Style Shifting William Labov: There are no single-style speakers Style (from formal to informal) correlates to the amount of attention paid to speech Formal context = more than minimal attention paid to speech Vernacular = unguarded use of speech Department Store Study: SaksMacy’sKlein’s Prestige variety = post-vocalic ‘r’

Audience Design: Alan Bell argued attention paid to speech is not enough to explain style-shifting. Instead, he argued, speakers take into account their audience and alter their speech accordingly. Accommodation: designing speech toward perceived expectations of audience. In addition, might be a device used by speaker to make her/himself understood

Limits on audience design theory, pointed out by Schilling- Estes Speaker design theory: language changes according to how speaker wants to be perceived, may not relate to needs of audience. 1.Style shifts according to attention paid to language 2.Style shifts according to perception of audience 3.Style shifts according to how speaker wants to portray self

Code-switching v. Crossing Crossing: speakers of one group sometimes use speech patterns of another group in an attempt to identify with them Different that code-switching in that code-switching involves two linguistic systems “owned” by that speaker

Labov’s 3 Linguistic Variables Indicator: speech variation that is obvious to those external to a group Marker: language variation that is subject to style-shifting because it has been evaluated socially (in-group) Stereotype: language use associated with a group is so well known and has attracted such negative attention that it’s consciously avoided my in-group speakers “Out-group awareness very much determines that status of a form as indicator, marker or stereotype.” It is through difference that realization of local identity through language becomes available to speakers.