re mumbling

[WIDMER Jean]

I agree with your remark, D. Smith. I was using the re-interpretation of
Bernstein's work in Bourdieu's terms (Bourdieu, P., Boltanski, L. 1975 "Le
fétichisme de la langue" Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, n°4, p.
2-33, a discussion of Bernstein and Labov), where the way one speaks is both
tied to one's social origin as an habitus (Bernstein) and to the way it is
categorised by others as belonging to that social status. 

The next step is to observe that groups may produce speaking styles in order
to achieve a valued social distinction : the speaking style identifies group
membership and proposes it as a valuated difference in the judgment of
others. Why the difference should be a valuated difference has to do with
the other features of one's social position. I don't know about linguistic
examples of Bourdieu for that point, but his analysis of the changing
preference for types of sports, where higher people change their preferences
as soon as their usual sport get prefered by lower class people, would be an
example.

Bourdieu used that kind of analysis both to show how people coming from
lower status could be identified by others as such although they were using
high style speaking, because some feature of their original habitus is still
observable by members, - and how e.g. politicians of high social status may
speak "popular" still displaying their higher origin.

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/journalisme


-----Message d'origine-----
De: desmith [mailto:dsmith at OISE.UTORONTO.CA]
Date: vendredi, 4. février 2000 02:51
À: DISCOURS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Objet: Re: re mumbling


Though I agree in general with Widmer's comments on the relation between
mumbling and high style, her account of Bernstein isn't quite right.
Linking elaborated and restricted codes to class isn't quite the same thing
as tying a differentiating and exclusive speech pattern to an elite, or any
other exclusive group.  In Bernstein, the distinction is linked to the
potentiality for school achievement and hence to the attainment of status,
rather than marking membership in an exclusive group.

At 01:05 PM 2/3/2000 +0100, you wrote:
>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 
>