gender and language

[Jack Sidnell]

Penny Eckert suggests that our models of standard and vernacular are
pretty monolithic. One implication is that the social meaning of
particular variants may not be adequately captured with reference to
their position on a scale of standard to non-standard. To see this we
need to examine variants with an eye to their location in particular
historically and socially situated speech economies and repetoires
(as Eckert does in her recent book and elsewhere).

Backing up a bit. With respect to explanations for women's apparently
greater use of standard variants, one might also consider work by
Nichols (and Milroy) which links such findings to patterns of
employment and the gendered division of labor:

Nichols, Patricia (1983). Linguistic options and choices for Black
women in the rural South. In Barrie
Thorne et al. (eds.), Language, gender and society, 54-68. Cambridge,
MA: Newbury House.

Finally, with respect to the notion that there is greater linguistic
differentiation among women than among men. There may be examples
where this goes the other way around - cases in which women seem
quite constrained in their use of linguistic variants in comparison
with men. A couple of examples are:

Hill, Jane (1987). Women's speech in modern Mexicano. In Susan U.
Philips et al. (eds.) 1987, 121-60.
Philips, Susan U., et al. (1987), eds. Language, gender and sex in
comparative perspective. Cam-bridge
& New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sidnell, Jack (1999) Gender and pronominal variation in an
Indo-Guyanese creole-speaking community. Language in Society 28(3):
367-399.



>I don't disagree with the explanations that have been offered so far for
>women's greater use of standard speech. But I wouldn't go too far down
>this road without considering the many cases in which women's speech is
>not more standard than men's. Trudgill's data were unusual in the
>consistent male lead in sound change; other studies have found women to
>lead in many changes. The question of how non-standard these sound changes
>are is another problem - we've developed pretty monolithic models of
>"standard" and "vernacular". Nonetheless, the generalization that women
>use more standard erases the considerable differences among women - and
>indeed, these differences are greater than those among men. The real
>generalization is that there is greater linguistic differentiation among
>women than among men. So the question is not "do women use more standard
>language?" but "which women use more standard?" Labov and I have both
>found evidence of a crossover in a variety of variables, with women who
>function in the standard language market using more standard language than
>men in the standard market, and women who function in the vernacular
>market using more vernacular than men in the vernacular market.
>
>See:
>
>ECKERT, PENELOPE. 1990. The whole woman: Sex and gender differences in
>variation. Language Variation and Change, 1.245-67.
>
>LABOV, WILLIAM. 1991. The intersection of sex and social class in the
>course of linguistic change. Language Variation and Change, 2.205-51.
>
>The examples are phonological, but I have found the same pattern in the
>use of negative concord among adolescents.  One hypothesis that Sally
>McConnell-Ginet and I proposed is that women have to work harder to
>construct themselves as "authentic" participants in any market.
>
>ECKERT, PENELOPE and MCCONNELL-GINET, SALLY. 1995. Constructing meaning,
>constructing selves: Snapshots of language, gender and class from Belten
>High. Gender articulated: Language and the culturally constructed self,
>ed. by Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, 469-507. London: Routledge.
>
>This is not to deny that statistically, women's grammar (if not their
>phonology) is more standard than men's, and I think the explanation is
>complex. I agree that depending on the situation, nonstandard grammar can
>be associated with toughness or defiance, both of which are tolerated or
>valued more in males than females. It also is associated with lack of
>education and, once again depending on the situation, with ignorance,
>which is more face threatening to females. A nice account of this is in:
>
>DEUCHAR, MARGARET. 1989. A pragmatic account of women's use of standard
>speech. Women in Their Speech Communities, ed. by Jennifer Coates and
>Deborah Cameron, 27-32. London and New York: Longman.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>Penelope Eckert                              phone: (650)725-1564
>Professor, Department of Linguistics         fax:   (650)723-5666
>Director, Program in Feminist Studies
>Stanford University
>Stanford CA 94305-2150
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