ANTHC 320.78 - 9/8/11 SIGN AND SIGN LANGUAGE: Signs have meaning attached to it.

They diffe from language because it is not spoken. Sign languages are as complex as spoken languages. GESTURES are non- verbal communication they vary from person to person as well as from language to language. The same sign can have different meanings in different cultures. DIALECT relates to regional and cultural differences within a language as well as the groups that speak those particular languages. In other words, dialects vary according to location, class, age, sex, etc. ANTHONY GIDDENS sociologist that examines the notion of HIGH MODERNITY , something that is defined by the acceleration in social knowledge, marked by the speed in communications. In High Modernity you do not need to be a big character such as Marilyn Monroe to be an icon ( Jersey Shore lady with a spoof in her hair ) . In High Modernity you have to stay the same and also reinvent yourself at the same time, like Madonna. STANDARD ENGLISH09/12/11-9/14/11 GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SPEECH Gender language studies began recently, in the early 70s. Robin Lakoff wrote Language in a Womans Place where he claims that differences in language use contribute to a womans inferior place in society. This was written right after the Womens Movement in reaction to it. Some differences pointed were related to the tone ( HRT ) or up speak, which almost sound like a question. This helps driving attention to the speaker because of the constant variation in tone. This is also found in children or when adults are speaking with children ( motherisms using a childish tone )but it is a very cultural behavior. Another difference is in the use of tag questions and these are also attributed to women because of the idea of being unsure or in doubt about something. The use of hedges is also common among women ( things like sort of , kind of, like). The use of indirect speech ( Ex: Dont you think its hot in here? meaning open the windows ). Lakoffs observations backfired in the sense that if women tried to change ( through language classes )the way they speak, they would sound mechanical or worse, they would admit that they were wrong and therefore they would solidify the male dominance position. On the other hand, in the seventies, a wave of masculine behaviors and even fashions invaded the female universe as a way to present them as equal to men, and that happened in part because of the ideologies ( cultural stereotypes ) created around things such as men are always taller than women,

she has child bearing hips ( and she may be sterile ) and etc. Therefore women tried to add masculine features to their behavior and even in fashion in order to present themselves as equals. Linguistic repertoire can be used to gain social capital. In terms of femininity and masculinity a rich man and an athletic man both are considered very masculine but they are masculine in different ways. Gendered and non- gendered pronouns and the difference it makes ( also grammatical) Dialect- relates to social boundaries such as location and also the social group someone belongs to. Register- related to social context Discourse Is the study of words and meaning that goes beyond the level of sentence. Lexicon= Vocabulary Semantic gap Semantic shift- when the meaning of a word changes Semantic degradation when a word becomes more negative overtime (Ex. Mistress once was the head female of a house as opposed to being a married mans lover// hussy= originally a short for housewife, now it has become derogatory, such as an old style prostitute?). Performance verb and performative theory you have to emphasize performance and everything it entails, since it goes to the development of identity ( Butlers view)- CH4. All these things put together make what it is called Linguistic Competence. Therefore Linguistic Competence is the hability to use and understand all which makes a language. SOCIO LINGUISTS SAY THAT WE ALSO NEED COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE BECAUSE YOU KNOW THE WORDS BUT NOT HOW TO USE THEM, SO A CONVERSATION MAY NOT MAKE SENSE. THEREFORE IT IS IMPORTANT TO GO BEYOND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE AND KNOW THE SOCIAL RULES THAT GO WITH THE USE OF LANGUAGE. Face is putting forward your best sense of self, maintaining an appearance in any kind of situation. But sometimes this has to be negotiated according to the situation. Be aware that there may be situations in which you have to de-face yourself for others not to lose their face. In other words, you take the heat for others when you think it is worth

it. Also, according to the context, you change your frame, therefore the negotiation is different. Ex: depending on who is around ( your mother for instance ) the whole situation may change.

OBAR & ATKINS made a long research in courts about what was called womens language back in the 70s. They found that lawyers, judges and expert witnesses used less of the so called womens language features. Positive politeness refers to solidarity, it does accentuate solidarity. Negative politeness refers to maximizing (accentuating) the distance between individuals. (Ex. Languages with honorifics such as Japanese and Korean ). In English it can be expressed by titles such as Dr, Miss, Professor and etc. Also, the tu/vous ( t/v) system accentuates distance. There is also the formal treatment for couples Mr and Mrs so and so. The issue of positive and negative politeness is very cultural. In some cultures you treat your parents in a more informal way and grand- parents more formally. In other cultures it is the opposite way. An interesting situation occurs in the way women are addressed either as Miss, Mrs or Ms which is due to a patrilineal society in which women are objectified. That situation also reflects in other areas such as in the fact that married people have many more benefits than single people as if they did give a larger contribution to society than single people, which is definitely not true. On the other hand, women who achieved a certain professional level before marrying may choose to keep their maiden name for professional reasons.

SLANG AND THE USE OF GENDER SLANG: Any gender reclaimed term that can be used either as a derogatory term or something considered normal in a certain group ( ex. bitch- Hey bitch get off my back - as opposed to Hey bitch, whats up? ). Carrier sentence- a neuter sentence in which you put some linguistic term in order to find if it is grammatical or not. Ex: Hey,( yo ) are you coming to the party? Looking at some terms applied to men and women we notice that the words that have to do with penis are less derogatory than those feminine words used to men or women. GENDERED AND NON GENDERED PRONOUNS: Some languages such as German use gender neuter pronouns. Ex.: zie

This is innate to the languages but some rules may apply as to determine the gender of things. Those rules vary from one language to another. However, there is social gender, what is then the relationship between grammatical and social gender? The concept remotes to the beginning of the human kind but if you are talking about grammatical gender you are talking about the gender of the noun. But when you are talking about people the pronouns have to refer to the person or thing you are talking about. In languages - like English where there is no grammatical gender, we apply gender to animated things and it is rude to refer to anyone without addressing the person by gender. When for some reason ( like a pregnant woman who still doesnt know the sex of the baby ) the sex is unknown, we use a noun to refer to that person like the baby. In some other cases people use he, she, he/she or one, the individual, each person, etc. In the case of texts people try to use those alternative forms more often, but if they actually have to use a pronoun, the options are limited because people do not want to be associated with any kind of political association and they also do not want to offend anyone. In this case, they may alternate the use of he and she. Sometimes people even use a singular they or their. Ex.: Each person should bring their books to next class. // Someone told me something about you, they told me that

10/06/11 CH 6. -In the seventies there was the dominance and the difference theory. One relates to men and women being just different by nature and the other one stresses the power structures in society that make people behave in a certain way. -The problem with these theories is that it only assumes men and women, leaving people behind. They also assume that all men and all women in the world speak the same way just because they are men or women, which is not realistic. -Then there was a big shift in the field in the 90s when people like Judith Butler brought up the issue that sex and gender are socially constructed, not as an innate thing and that identity is not innate. In other words, everything is learned, acquired and performed. This means that everything, including intent is about performance. If you think about it as connected to Goffmans concept of face, it raises questions about what and who you really are. Tanner is not a linguist, but a philosopher and she believes that complex things should not be explained in simple terms or it will diminish the topic being addressed. - Tanner says that you are not determined to anything, you dont have to act in a certain way. You can decide to choose the rules or not and then you have to deal with the consequences. Which brings us to the concept of linguistic agency.

- Linguistic Agency is very much related to the anthropological idea of agency the power that any individual has to not act within the status quo. - If you think about gender practice as something habitual, you have to ask some questions. Ex.: why do you wear red lipstick? call attention// emphasize lips// mark femininity, etc. These things can be very mechanic, you do them and dont even think about it. But these things are cultural, in the American culture it means this, but may have a different social meaning in other places. There is a general expectation that you understand the social conventions around you and linguistically this also has an implication. - Markedness = marked is someone that stands up and unmarked is something that goes unnoticed. Linguistically, it is not only what is said, but why it is said and to whom it is said. When you choose not to say something, linguistically it also has a social meaning. NEXT PAPER: WHO IS AN AUTHENTIC SPEAKER AND HOW HINT: IT BECOMES EASIER WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT AUTHENTIC SPEAKER AND HOW DO YOU KNOW? THIS 31th.THINK ABOUT WHAT LANGUAGE MIGHT HAVE TO DO DO YOU MEAN BY AN AUTHENTIC SPEAKER? DO YOU KNOW? WHO IS NOT AN IS DUE ON: OCT WITH THAT.WHAT

If I start using an Australian accent, am I being authentic? But how do you know how I speak? You presented yourself in a way that we got used to it and it is not this way. Think about Madonnas career and the way she is talked about.

10/13/11- CH2 Image- people pay for a brand, such as Apple and Blackberry. The issue of image is linguistically tied to style. Book pages 94-96- Talks about the social assumptions we make based on gender and style, such as how should a Professor look like? How should they dress? The idea of the social stereotype of who someone is has to do with creating linguistic categories or forming linguistic parameters. There is a lot of talk about sexism and things like that, but sometimes we have a semantic gap (you have the notion of something but not an exact word for it- like saudade) so we end up using expressions like male nurse and lady doctor. This also has to do with the level of comfort someone feels with a person of a particular sex doing something, especially if males move up more quickly or are better paid than females in a certain field. The point is that when we make certain linguistic assertions we reinforce the existing social stereotypes. Many

times what happens is a semantic degradation, but interestingly enough, semantic degradation usually does not occur with male related words. What is happening now is that in many cases we are starting to apply neuter words like firefighter and police officer instead of policemen and firemen, but this does not prevent people from cursing or saying derogatory things about others. We also have to understand that the same words can be used with a completely different meaning in different cultures. Ex: partner, can mean someone is gay in America, or a cop, because they work in pairs depending on the situation. Also, some heterosexual people in their 30s and 40s are using the word partner meaning a boyfriend or girlfriend in order to convey the meaning that it is a mature relationship. In the early 60s there was this idea of performative verbs. This refers to a verb in which the action is done, completed in the utterance of that term. Ex: I now pronounce you men and wife. There are also other situations, like making a promise, saying you hope something happens, or saying something that cant be take back. There are 3 types of speech acts : Locutionary act- just an utterance with a literal meaning Illocutionary act the performance within the statement Perlocutionary act what gets accomplish in saying something

Oct 17/11 Ch 8 After 1995 linguists stated to focus on gender differences in different ways. Rlessness= class associated feature (Eschlon, Macys, Sacks) the people on Sacks were the ones who used more Rs in William Labovs research. This means that in NYC rlessness is associated with labor class, but in different places it may be viewed different. Sacks employees wanted to relate somehow with their middle class clientele and therefore they used more rs brcause of that. Rlessness has its roots on the Italian-Americans of NY. However, this is more a male than female thing. This is part of what is called the Guido style, which is rougher, or more aggressive, therefore more easily associated with masculinity. We have to remember that linguistic choices have social meaning. 10/20/11 - Ch 7, 8 and 9

There is a sense of understanding of what it means to be of a certain biological gender. People are able to use the linguistics resources they have based on their habits. As social beings we do have a need of saying things in a way that differentiates us. There was a study made in 1957 by Fischer -(town school in New England ) about the use of ing and n among 6 to 10 years old school kids. He has found that in class they used more ing than on the playground because this is more proper, more standard. Also, boys used more in than the girls. There was 2 different groups of boys, one using much more in than the other group. There was the tough boys and the model boys ( teachers favorites ). Burnout a study with high school kids

Eckerd was interested in vowel shifts ( in northern cities)- it is the kind of vowels you hear in Rochester, Buffalo, Detroit, etc. She also looked at features like negative concord ( also known as double negation). Ex: I dont want none ( non- standard, therefore associated with working class). However, there is a kind of double negation that almost cancels the meaning. Ex: I cannot go to this meeting, I feel horrible but I cannot go The use of linguistic market as research we are talking about what people believe and also what features mean in relation to that system. We are talking about indexicality. What does that mean? ( pg 277). Language ideology starts with iconization ( mid 90s ) How do people outside NY view the citys dialect? R: fast, loud, obnoxious, tough, intimidatingTherefore, New Yorkers must be like that too, which is not actually true. But if you go to the perception of who people think will not help in those politeness studies, New Yorkers turn to be at the top of the list although it is not what the actual numbers show. Indexicality and language ideology it is better to think about it as a two- step process. In the early 90s, Oaks pointed out that this was really the case. There is an indirect relationship Released t is when the t is fully released Ex: My name is Pat, or my name is Patt. in American English it really doesnt mean much, except in a few situations. In the 1980s Mary Bucks? found that there was a larger usage of released ts among nerd girls than everybody else. Part of that is that they wanted to create a social distinction from their peers. Also, they were trying to display how smart they were. Since

the image of a nerd is always associated with boys, girls had to work harder in order to actually own their identity as nerds. Nerd is not equals geek. Geek is good in one particular thing and they are more socially isolated. Nerds are more For Midterm: Chapters 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 Oct 24 AAVE has many features considered non- standard, therefore they are native fluent speakers of AAVE. But if a white person speaks AAVE, it has a different social meaning. In which relates to gender, many people think that AAVE sounds more masculine because it is associated with a rustic, maybe rude working class way of speaking. Dialets NYC English is one of the most stigmatized dialects in the US. Negative Concord or double negation Linguistic bricolage parts only make sense when put together. Grammatical Mergers Rlessness - remember that there is a lot of social meaning and no good about rlessness in NY English Hyper corrected r only occurs on places where rlessness occur, because rlessness is a stigmatized feature. The trick is that people are not aware they are hyper correcting. In a Jewish Orthodox school Sarah Benar studied the released t feature and she found that male students and teachers used it more than female teachers and students. This is due to many reasons, including the fact that Jewish men learn more Talmud than men. Also, the Talmud Hebrew somehow gets carried over to English. Rob Bedesva- Studied one only person, a gay activist lawyer male who changed his speech patterns according with the situation. Although these three distinct populations apparently had nothing to do with each other, the use of the released t feature is used in the same way, in order to display intelligence. However in the UK the released t does not have the same social meaning, since it is much more salient in their regular dialect. Kira Hall from the University of Bolder, Co ( Ch 8 ) made a study about phone sex workers they were mostly white, graduate students in CT ( YALE students? ) . In her study she found that there was a guy called Andy who modulated his voice and passed

as a woman. When she said that those phone sex workers were not exactly what they appeared to be (image did not match the voice) people were surprised. But what must be taken into account is that people are buying into a particular social reality like Disneyworld - then you start to construct different linguistic identities, but are you believable in what you are doing?