re mumbling

[WIDMER Jean]

The question was also mine: " It's interesting to think about how this
inverts the controversial findings of Basil Bernstein linking elaboration
with high status speech. "
 
The observations of B. Bernstein are corroborated by convergent findings in
France, e.g. works by P. Encrevé.
 
To look for an answer, I would begin to think about following lines of
thought: both - mumbling and high style - have the function of
displaying/producing social differences in favour of an elite. Thus, the
difference between the Bernstein model and the mumbling model is to be found
in the way social differences are produced, i.e. in the logic of how to "do
status differences". 
 
P. Bourdieu's analysis of the "linguistic market" is a good theoretical
frame in order to understand both the findings of Bernstein and those in
France. The logic of the "linguistic market" is that there are linguistic
norms common to everybody in a society and that the ability to perform
according to these norms aswell as the power to define the linguistic norms
are inequaly distributed. This explains how something "acquired" (language
abilities) is a way to reproduce something inhereted (social status).
 
Now, the model of the "linguistic market" supposes that a society recognises
the legitimacy of norms which are common to everybody. This is the
"republican" imput of it. Not every society is ready to believe that all
human, even in their own society, are made out of the same stuff, at least
in the minimal sense that everybody's status could be measured along a
common norm. It is surely not the case in many "traditional societis" nor in
the Ancient regime. There, very often the elite spoke an other language than
the common people (eg. the german or russian aristocracy spoke french). 
 
Some  social transformations in the last decades surely reintroduce social
segmentations of the traditional type in contemporary societies (look at the
breakdown of the legitimacy of social welfare, at the transformations of
urban areas reintroducing closed spaces like towns for rich people, the
privatisation of the "social question", e.g. how 6000 people of the 290000
working in Atlanta for Coca Cola were fired without any public protest, etc;
the lack of rights for a common health system, the tendency to privatise
schools etc.). All these transformations have in common that they replace
common norms by norms specific to the financial capacity. In such
situations, the logic for the transformations of "capitals" in Bourdieu's
sense (not only economic capital, but also educational, social relations
etc.) into social differences have to change since they can no longer be
made apparent along a common standard. Thus not excellence is a criterion,
but the difference as power of exclusion from an in-group which warants the
status. Mumbling does this.
 
Thus I would look at how the groups using mumbling produce their social
status differences, ie. what is the implicit logic of their social
differencing. This is just an hypothesis, but if it would be verified, it
would give both a broader context for understanding this language practice
(mumbling) and show how the way we speak is a central aspect of the way we
live together in society.
 
Professeur Jean Widmer
Département sociologie et média
Université de Fribourg - Miséricorde
CH - 1700 FRIBOURG (Suisse)
 
tél. +41 (0)26 300 8382
fax                300 9727
http://www.unifr.ch/dss-fgw <http://www.unifr.ch/dss-fgw> 
http://www.unifr.ch/journalisme <http://www.unifr.ch/journalisme> 
 

-----Message d'origine-----
De: Jim Wilce [mailto:jim.wilce at NAU.EDU]
Date: mercredi, 2. février 2000 21:17
À: DISCOURS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Objet: re mumbling



Duranti describes a similar indexical connection between elite Samoan status
and unclarity. And Javanese basa (H register) is suited particularly for
oratory which is prized for "speaking a long time and saying almost
nothing," in the words of one of Siegel's co-participants in a funeral. 


Siegel, J. T. (1986). Solo and the New Order: Language and Hierarchy in an
Indonesian City. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 


And, come to think of it, mumbling just seems like an extreme end of a
continuum of features applying to rhetorical elaboration as a practice of
indirection. 


Rosaldo, M. Z. (1973). I Have Nothing to Hide: The Language of Ilongot
Oratory. Language in Society, 2(2), 193- 223. 


It's interesting to think about how this inverts the controversial findings
of Basil Bernstein linking elaboration with high status speech. 

Jim Wilce, Assistant Professor 

Anthropology Department 

Box 15200 

Northern Arizona University 

Flagstaff AZ 86011-5200 


fax 520/523-9135 

office ph. 520/523-2729 

email jim.wilce at nau.edu 

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jmw22/ (includes information on my 1998 book,
Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural
Bangladesh, ISBN 0-19-510687-3) 

http://www.nau.edu/asian