power and solidarity

[Kathryn Woolard]

This is just to second Sue Ervin-Tripp's comment that the established view,
at least since Brown and Gilman in 1960, is that power and solidarity are
not ends of a continuum but rather distinct, competing dimensions of
linguistic and social evaluation that generate conflicting interpretations.
This is the first time I've ever heard anyone suggest the one-dimensional
view, and I was very surprised by it.  My 1989 book Double Talk gave a
brief review (p. 5, 88-94) and citation of some of the many researchers
across the relevant fields who have used the idea of 2 axes of evaluation:

"Many labels exist for these two concepts, but they are usually conceived
as two independent axes governing social relations as well as language use.
	"The first, which can be visualized as a vertical axis, has been
most often discussed as prestige, but is variously known as dominance,
power, status, instrumental movitation, or negative face (White 1980, Brown
and Gilman 1960, Milroy 1980, Weinreich 1974, Gal 1979, Dorian 1981,
Gardner and Lambert 1972, Brown and Levinson 1978). The second, the
horizontal axis, is more unanimously labeled solidarity, although it has
also been called covert prestige, social bonding, positive face, and
integrative motivation (Labov 1966, Trudgill 1972, Dorian 1981, Gardner and
Lambert 1972)"  (1989:5).

It could be that I was wrong and some of these authors _didn't_ share this
2-axis model that I  read in their work and took for my own. But even if I
misread some of them (and even if my own looser lexical choices in the
book's longer discussion allow the unanticipated alternate reading, as I
now see), the 2-axis idea was well-established by then and guided my
research in 1979-1980. (Of course, I learned a lot of my ideas from Sue, so
this is not an independent account! And Deborah T. came from the same
academic environment.)

That said, Michael Silverstein has developed a critique of Brown and Gilman
that sees the multi-dimensional, dynamic social indexicality of linguistic
forms getting ideologically flattened in the power-solidarity model, but I
won't try to replicate that.

Kit Woolard




At 9:47 AM -0700 10/25/01, Susan Ervin-Tripp wrote:
>Before representing the distinctness of power and solidarity
>dimensions as Tannen's invention, be sure to reread Roger W. Brown's
>treatment of this subject in his 1960 classic paper with Al Gilman,
>and in his book on social psychology.  Brown, who was a pioneer in the study
>of address term semantics, represented the distinctness of
>these clearly. In fact he regarded these two different dimensions as
>central to the study of social relations.
>Most writers on address terms, including my survey in 1968 (reprinted
>in 1973), subsequently preserved this distinctness.
>
>The nice point Brown made was that in linguistic
>paradigms with two alternatives, such as tu/vous, the communication
>of the four possible cells generated by the two semantic/social
>dimensions is a problem, and can lead to misunderstandings.
>In certain conditions, one of the dimensions is neutralized.
>Of course the presence of other kinds of linguistic cues for disambiguation
>has been described.
>e.g. "in the Bisayan system inferiors or friends who are older
>receive a special term
>of address uniting informality and deference." Thus Bisayan  address
>is not a two-
>choice system.
>
>I would be interested if anyone finds a Brown publication in which he
>treats power and solidarity as two ends of one dimension. If others did
>that, it's not his fault. This was an important theoretical contribution and
>should be honored.
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>Susan M. Ervin-Tripp                     tel (510) 642-5292
>Professor Emeritus                       FAX (510) 642-5293
>Psychology Department                 ervintrp at socrates.berkeley.edu
>
>University of California
>http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~ervintrp/
>  Berkeley CA 94720
>*****************************************

**************************************************
Kathryn A. Woolard 	  	kwoolard at ucsd.edu
Department of Anthropology, 0532
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093-0532

Office phone: 858/534--4639
Fax:  858/534-5946
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