gender and language

[Candy Goodwin]

WAY TO GO JACK! I alwasy thought Patricia Nichols had a great
argument, countering "linguistic insecurity" etc. I always have all
my students read her (besides it's Gullah, which I know about).

>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

--
--
Candy Goodwin
      Anthropology
      UCLA
      Los Angeles CA 90095-1553
              mgoodwin at anthro.ucla.edu
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