SOCIOLINGUISTICS

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND

Sociolinguistic studies have long observed that women use more forms of standard language than men, so much so that the stereotype of women’s hypercorrect language has emerged as somewhat of a universal principle in the field. By extension, sociolinguists have also recognized women’s important role in the initiation and dissemination of language change. Earlier studies identified women as the leaders of linguistic changes that that spread from above the level of public consciousness and involved new prestige forms emanating from the upper ranks of the social strata. In contrast, men were found to lead changes in vernacular forms spreading below the level of public awareness. However, recent studies have shown that women’s role in language change is more complicated. William Labov’s theory of the gender paradox asserts that while women adopt prestige forms of language proceeding from the upper ranks and from above the level of public consciousness at a higher rate than men, they also use higher frequencies of innovative vernacular forms occurring below the level of public awareness than men do (Labov 1990:213-15).

How have sociolinguists arrived at these theories about women’s central role in language change, and further, can they be applied to a historical study of the role played by women in the standardization of the English language during the early modern period? Section 1 will introduce the subject of gender and language variation, while section 2 will outline the major sociolinguistic paradigms of gender and language change. Section 3 will then consider the application of these modern sociolinguistic “universals” to specific language changes taking place during the early modern period.

FORMULATION

1.      What is the difference of language and gender

2.      What is the difference of language and culture

3.      What is the meaning of language and disadvantage

4.      What is the meaning of acting and conversing

5.      What is attitude and applications

Objective

1.      To identifying the difference the difference of language and gender

2.      To identifying the difference of language and culture

3.      To Finding the meaning of language and disadvantage

4.      To Finding is the meaning of acting and conversing

5.      To Identifying attitude and applications

Benefit

Communication styles are always a product of context, and as such, gender differences tend to be most pronounced in single-gender groups. One explanation for this, is that people accommodatetheir language towards the style of the person they are interacting with. Thus, in a mixed-gender group, gender differences tend to be less pronounced. A similarly important observation is that this accommodation is usually towards the language style, not the gender of the person . That is, a polite and empathic male will tend to be accommodated to on the basis of their being polite and empathic, rather than their being male.

However, Ochs (1992) argues that gender can be indexed directly and indirectly. Direct indexicality is the primary relationship between linguistics resources (such as lexicon, morphology, syntax, phonology, dialect and language) and gender. For example, the pronouns "he" and "she" directly indexes "male" and "female". However, there can be a secondary relationship between linguistic resources and gender where the linguistic resources can index certain acts, activities or stances which then indirectly index gender. In other words, these linguistic resources help constitute gender. Examples include the Japanese particles "wa" and "ze". The former directly index delicate intensity, which then indirectly indexes the female "voice" while the latter directly indexes coarse intensity, which then indirectly indexes the male "voice".

Women are generally believed to speak a better "language" then men do. This is a constant misconception, but scholars believe that no gender speaks a better language, but that each gender instead speaks its own unique language. This notion has sparked further research into the study of the differences between the way men and women communicate.

Communication styles are always a product of context, and as such, gender differences tend to be most pronounced in single-gender groups. One explanation for this, is that people accommodatetheir language towards the style of the person they are interacting with. Thus, in a mixed-gender group, gender differences tend to be less pronounced. A similarly important observation is that this accommodation is usually towards the language style, not the gender of the person . That is, a polite and empathic male will tend to be accommodated to on the basis of their being polite and empathic, rather than their being male.

However, Ochs (1992) argues that gender can be indexed directly and indirectly. Direct indexicality is the primary relationship between linguistics resources (such as lexicon, morphology, syntax, phonology, dialect and language) and gender. For example, the pronouns "he" and "she" directly indexes "male" and "female". However, there can be a secondary relationship between linguistic resources and gender where the linguistic resources can index certain acts, activities or stances which then indirectly index gender. In other words, these linguistic resources help constitute gender. Examples include the Japanese particles "wa" and "ze". The former directly index delicate intensity, which then indirectly indexes the female "voice" while the latter directly indexes coarse intensity, which then indirectly indexes the male "voice".

Women are generally believed to speak a better "language" then men do. This is a constant misconception, but scholars believe that no gender speaks a better language, but that each gender instead speaks its own unique language. This notion has sparked further research into the study of the differences between the way men and women communicate.

CHAPTER II

LANGUAGE AND GENDER

Gender as a Sociolinguistic Variable

In the 1960s, sociolinguists began to do research on gender and sex and its relationship to language. Specifically, these studies have mostly centered around the differences in speech behaviour of men and women at the phonological level, and the conversational styles of men and women in discourse. Studies of gender-specific variation are diverse and often contradictory, depending on such factors as researchers’ assumptions about sex and gender, the methodology, and the samples used. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet have summed up the varied positions in stating:

women’s language has been said to reflect their…conservativism, prestige consciousness, upward mobility, insecurity, deference, nurture, emotional expressivity, connectedness, sensitivity to others, solidarity. And men’s language is heard as evincing their toughness, lack of affect, competitiveness, independence, competence, hierarchy, control. (qtd. in Wodak&Benke 127)

However, despite divergent claims, gender variation has emerged as a major field of sociolinguistic study.

 Gender and Linguistic Change

An important consequence of gender differentiation in language is linguistic change. Aspects of linguistic variability are of interest to sociolinguists who attempt to chart how the language used by individuals and groups in various social situations can vary in patterned ways. Language variation serves to distinguish the speech of different social groups (social variation), as well as the speech of an individual in different contexts (stylistic variation). Over time, these variations may lead to language change, which occurs when a new linguistic form, used by a particular sub-section of a speech community, is adopted by other members of the community and accepted as the norm. Sociolinguists now recognize that not only linguistic variation between social groups, but also gender differences in speech play an important role in the promulgation of language change.

Early Assumptions

Early dialectologists were among the first to recognize that gender plays a role in language innovation. Dialectologists were often trying to record a rural dialect before it died out, and were thus aware that linguistic changes were taking place; their observations about the social origins of these changes are interesting with regards to gender. For example, in 1946 August Brun, a specialist in the Provençal dialect, observed that older members of the community over fifty spoke mainly Provençal, as did younger men, but womenunder forty-five spoke mainly French. He claimed that because younger women did not speak Provençal with their children, the dialect was disappearing (Coates 172). Brun suggested that women play a crucial role by adopting language change and using it to bring up the next generation. Gauchat’s 1905 study of the dialect of Charmey, a remote village in Switzerland, drew similar conclusions: younger members of the village were beginning to use newer phonetic variants, and further, among the younger generation, women used the newer forms more frequently. Gauchat argued that women’s innovativeness was driving the changes (“women welcome every linguistic novelty with open arms”) and that the changes were propagated by women in their role as mothers (qtd. in Coates 173). The examples from dialectology reveal that women have long been represented as initiators of linguistic change. However, contemporary sociolinguistics has shown that this is an overly simplistic scenario – some innovations are clearly associated with men rather than women.

Sociolinguistic Methodology  

The Standard Paradigm

Early sociolinguistic research was primarily concerned with social class differences, but recent studies have addressed other social variables such as ethnic group, age and gender to assess their role in language variation. However, classic quantitative studies examined the relationship between linguistic variation and social class and revealed clear social stratification in language, giving rise to the related concepts of prestige and stigma. Prestige is associated with the language used by the social group from the highest standing. Members of a given speech community will collectively acknowledge that a particular variety – the standard dialect – is more ‘correct’ than others. Stigma is conversely associated with non-standard forms, and may be overt, (e.g. ‘dropping’ initial /h/) or it may be beneath the level of public consciousness. Non-standard varieties are often referred to as the vernacular (Coates 47).

Stable Linguistic Variables

The classic pattern of social stratification in language is one in which the upper middle class (UMC) uses the highest proportion of prestige variants, and the lower working class (LWC) uses the least. Further, each social class group is revealed to use a higher proportion of prestige forms in formalspeech and a lower proportion of prestige forms in informal speech. In this type of model, social stratification is maintained, such that proportional usage of the prestige form appears in a clearly demarcated and descending order from UMC to LWC. This regular pattern is typical of a stable social variable, that is, a linguistic variable not involved in change (Coates 50).

Linguistic Variables Undergoing Change

In the case of linguistic variables undergoing change, a different pattern emerges: studies have shown that the lower middle class (LMC)uses more prestige forms in formal speech than any other group, scoring even higher than the UMC. However, in less formal styles the LMC uses less of the prestige variant. This behaviour on the part of the LMC is known as hypercorrection, and seems to result from the sensitivity of the LMC to social pressures: their insecurity, caused by their position on the borderline between the middle and working classes, is reflected in their concern with speaking ‘correctly’. When a linguistic variable is undergoing a process of change, the LMC is hypersensitive to the new prestige variant, and makes a conscious effort to use it more in formal situations (i.e. when paying more attention to speech) than any other class (Wodak&Benke 133; Coates 51).

The Sex/Prestige Pattern

In the case of gender, it has been established that in many speech communities female speakers will use a higher proportion of prestige forms than male speakers. Women tend to use fewer stigmatized forms than men, and in formal speech they are more sensitive to prestige language than men. In the case of linguistic variables in the process of change, it appears that LMC women are particularly sensitive to new prestige variants, and exhibit an even greater degree of hypercorrection than displayed by the LMC generally. This phenomenon is referred to as the “Sex/Prestige Pattern” (Coates 53-4; Wodak&Benke 133).

The Labovian Tradition

The Sex/Prestige pattern is most famously explored by William Labov in his studies of New York City and Martha’s Vineyard. In New York, Labov found that men’s pronunciation varied very little between formal and less formal speech, while women’s pronunciation varied a great deal. Female speakers displayed a greater degree of style-shifting, and moreover, women were using new advanced forms in casual speech, and thus initiating change (Coates 175). However, in Martha’s Vineyard Labov discovered a different pattern: men, not women, were initiating change. Labov examined changes in dipthongs (/aw/ as in house and /ay/ as in white were becoming raised and centralized). He concluded that there was no conscious awareness among the islanders that these sounds were shifting, since he found no variation between different styles of speech (i.e. individuals did not vary their pronunciation depending on the context). Labov found that the centralized dipthongs were used mostly by men (specifically fishermen) aged 31-45, and that the dipthongs were in fact a reversion to older and more conservative phonological forms. Labov argued that the dipthongs were used by fishermen as a sign of solidarity: use of the variants symbolized identification with the island and its values, and a rejection of the new incoming summer visitors (Coates 175).

 ‘Change from above’ vs. ‘Change from Below’

In order to resolve his findings that both men and women initiate linguistic change, Labov made the distinction between consciousand unconscious change, or what he termed ‘change from above’ and ‘change from below.’ In keeping with the Sex/Prestige pattern, he argued that women lead changes that come from above the level of social awareness, and involve the new prestige forms of higher-ranked social groups, whereas men initiate changes which spread from below the level of social awareness, and away from the accepted norms towards the vernacular.  

In Martha’s Vineyard the change in pronunciation was taking place below the level of social awareness and was led by men responding to covert pressure from their peers. Labov terms this phenomenon “covert prestige”: working-class men were adopting nonstandard variants which served as “solidarity markers” to emphasize certain group values such as “masculinity” (Wodak&Benke 135). On the other hand, women in New York were using a higher degree of prestige variants imposed from above.

Women’s greater use of prestige language has been differently explained by sociolinguists, either in terms of economic and social factors, or for reasons of status and power. Social and economic explanations look at social networks and ‘market forces’ and compare the exposure of men and women to standard speech forms. It has been suggested that working class women may be more exposed to standard speech at work and have more incentive to modify their speech than men. Alternatively, the “power and dominance approach” suggests that because women are generally granted less status and power than men, they attempt to secure or signal their social status linguistically by using prestige language forms (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 111; Wodak&Benke 135-40).

The Gender Paradox

However, as more research became available, these conclusions have proved less straightforward. Many sociolinguists argue that all social classes can be innovative, and women’s influence cannot be limited to conscious processes alone (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 111). In an influential paper (Labov 1990), Labov qualified his original argument to suggest that gender differentiation is independent of social class at the beginning of a change, but that interaction develops as social awareness of the change increases. He formulates two basic principles: 1. in linguistic change from above, women adopt prestige forms at a higher rate than men; 2. in linguistic change from below, women use higher frequencies of innovative forms than men do (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 111). These two principles show contrasting tendencies in the way men and women advance linguistic change. Labov calls it the gender paradox: “women conform more closely than men to sociolinguistic norms that are overtly prescribed, but conform less than men when they are not” (Labov 2001: 293; Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 112).

Generally speaking, these two principles suggest that women are more active in promoting linguistic change. Most research agrees that women play an important part in supralocalization, i.e., “the spread of a linguistic feature from its region of origin to neighbouring areas” (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 112). Strictly localized linguistic features tend to be preferred by males, whereas variants used by females often gain supralocal status.

 Gender and Language Change in the Early Modern Period

 Historical Sociolinguistics and Gender

Sociolinguistic research has produced strong evidence for the influential role of women in language variation and change in present-day speech communities, however, the role of women in the historical development of the English language is less clear. Recently, historical sociolinguists have sought to assess the extent to which modern sociolinguistic “universals” about gender and language change hold true in a historical context. To what degree does the “Sex/Prestige” pattern or the “Gender Paradox” apply to earlier English? Were localized forms preferred by men in the early modern period the same way they tend to be today? Also, were high-frequency variants preferred by women, and do these become supralocal? Did women promote standard speech forms earlier than men?

The Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC)

Historical studies of women’s role in language change have been conducted by TerttuNevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg, who in 1993, along with the Sociolinguistics and Language History team at the University of Helsinki, compiled an electronic collection of personal letters, the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC). The corpus covers the period between 1417-1681 and contains 6,000 letters written by nearly 800 individuals (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 9). Through data drawn from the corpus, Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg examine the supralocalization of a number of grammatical features that became part of Standard English during the period. Their study addresses the role of multiple social variables in language change, one of which is gender.

 Advantages & Disadvantages

Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg stress that this kind of historical study provides the rare advantage of being able to study the process of language change in real time (i.e. a diachronic study across time) as opposed to modern sociolinguistic studies which must analyze present-day data in apparent time, (i.e. a synchronic study of “differences in usage by successive generations of speakers”) (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 27). Nevertheless, the study does present some challenges. In attempting to assess the degree to which women instigated and spread language change, women’s different social roles must be considered. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, women’s social position and access to the public domain was often severely restricted. Most challenging to the study is women’s lack of education; the average level of female literacy, and of writing in particular, was extremely low. This inequality is clearly reflected in the corpus: women represent only 20 per cent of the total letters, and the vast majority are from the upper social ranks, the nobility, and the gentry (115). However, the CEEC data does provide the opportunity to test the theory of gender advantage in language changes that spread throughout the country during the period.

The Results

Within the study, fourteen changes are analyzed and the general pattern that emerges is one in which women are found to lead the process of linguistic change in the majority of cases. In 8 out of 14 examples, women adopt new language variants earlier than men and in 3 cases an initial male advantage switches to female advantage; however, in 3 particular cases men score ahead of women. Three changes led by women are discussed below: the generalization of the object pronoun form you in the subject function, the diffusion of the short possessive determiners my and thy, and the diffusion of the third-person singular suffix -(e)s. In contrast, one change led by men is also provided: the replacement of multiple negation with single negation.

Women Ahead of Men:

Replacement of Subject ye by you

Until the later sixteenth century, the role of the second person plural pronoun was shared by you and ye, with ye in the subject form, and you in the object form (e.g. King James Bible: “Ye have not chosen me; I have chosen you”). During the sixteenth century, the case distinction breaks down, and ye is subsumed by the object form you. Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg’s data show that the fairly rapid decline of ye is markedly and consistently promoted by women from the early sixteenth century onwards (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 118-19). However, Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg also indicate that you ‘spread from below’ the level of public consciousness as a vernacular form. The origins of the change are intriguing, as they do not fit into the Sex/Prestige theory that women self-consciously adopt of changes ‘from above’. 

My and Thy

A gender advantage also appears in the dissemination of the short possessive determiners my and thy which replace mine and thine. However, in contrast with the spread of ye, the difference between male and female usage of my and thy is less stark, which may be explained by the fact that the change progresses from the lower social ranks, which are overwhelmingly represented in the data by men, especially for the period in which this change takes place (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 119-20). Within their own group, upper-ranking women consistently spread the form as it arrived.

Third-person singular suffix -(e)s versus -(e)th

The early modern period witnesses the generalization of the third-person singular present-tense suffix -(e)s (e.g. hath vs. has). This is a long process, beginning as early as the tenth century when -s is first introduced, and ending with the most resistant forms, hath and doth in Late Modern English. The data reveals a clear gender differentiation by the sixteenth century, with women leading the change (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 122-24). Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg point out that although they are using the same sample of individuals, the change for -s is less striking than with the subject you. The reason may be the difference in the social orientation of the two processes. Unlike you which spread from the higher and middle ranks, -s spread from the lower literate ranks towards the middle and upper ranks. One of the significant characteristics of the two suffixes is that they became associated with register differences in the evolving standard language: -(e)th with formal and literate styles, and -(e)s with informal and oral language. So for example the dental fricative -th was retained in the Authorized Version of the Bible and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The rise of -s is coming both from the lower ranks, and from informal speech, however, it is interesting to observe that it is nevertheless being spread by women.

Men Ahead of Women: 

Decline of multiple negation

One instance of a change that is consistently promoted by men is the disappearance of multiple negation (e.g. “I’lnever be so lasieno more but rise by five a cloke rather than misewrighting any more” 1677, Mary Stuart) (Nevalainen 2000: 50). By 1600 the change was completed for men, but only nearing so for women. The process was socially stratified and was led by professional men, and especially social aspirers. It was also a change from above the level of social awareness. A gender difference also persisted within the upper ranks, where upper-rank men used multiple negation significantly less than upper-rank women. As Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg observe, this presents an interesting difference from current linguistic practice: in present-day speech communities where multiple negation is found, it is more sharply stratifying for women than for men, and in all social classes women use it less than men (Nevalainen&Raumolin-Brunberg 128-29). They suggest that “when multiple negation became a stable social variable in the late modern period, a switch in its gender affiliation must have taken place resulting in the Sex/Prestige pattern we know today” (129).

CHAPTER III

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Language and Culture

There are many ways in which the phenomena of language and culture are intimately related. Both phenomena are unique to humans and have therefore been the subject of a great deal of anthropological, sociological, and even memetic study. Language, of course, is determined by culture, though the extent to which this is true is now under debate. The converse is also true to some degree: culture is determined by language - or rather, by the replicators that created both, memes.

Language as Determined by Culture

Early anthropologists, following the theory that words determine thought, believed that language and its structure were entirely dependent on the cultural context in which they existed. This was a logical extension of what is termed the Standard Social Science Model, which views the human mind as an indefinitely malleable structure capable of absorbing any sort of culture without constraints from genetic or neurological factors.

In this vein, anthropologist Verne Ray conducted a study in the 1950's, giving color samples to different American Indian tribes and asking them to give the names of the colors. He concluded that the spectrum we see as "green", "yellow", etc. was an entirely arbitrary division, and each culture divided the spectrum separately. According to this hypothesis, the divisions seen between colors are a consequence of the language we learn, and do not correspond to divisions in the natural world. A similar hypothesis is upheld in the extremely popular meme of Eskimo words for snow - common stories vary from fifty to upwards of two hundred.

Extreme cultural relativism of this type has now been clearly refuted. Eskimos use at most twelve different words for snow, which is not many more than English speakers and should be expected since they exist in a cold climate. The color-relativity hypothesis has now been completely debunked by more careful, thorough, and systematic studies which show a remarkable similarity between the ways in which different cultures divide the spectrum.

Of course, there are ways in which culture really does determine language, or at least certain facets thereof. Obviously, the ancient Romans did not have words for radios, televisions, or computers because these items were simply not part of their cultural context. In the same vein, uncivilized tribes living in Europe in the time of the Romans did not have words for tribunes, praetors, or any other trapping of Roman government because Roman law was not part of their culture.

Our culture does, sometimes, restrict what we can think about efficiently in our own language. For example, some languages have only three color terms equivalent to black, white, and red; a native speaker of this language would have a difficult time expressing the concept of "purple" efficiently. Some languages are also more expressive about certain topics. For example, it is commonly acknowledged that Yiddish is a linguistic champion, with an amazing number of words referring to the simpleminded. (The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, p.260.)

Culture and Language - United by Memes

According to the memetic theorist Susan Blackmore, language developed as a result of memetic evolution and is an example of memes providing a selection pressure on genes themselves. (For more on Blackmore's theory visit The Evolution of Language.) The definition of a culture in memetic theory is an aggregate of many different meme sets or memeplexes shared by the majority of a population. Using memetic reasoning, it can be seen that language - itself created by memes and for memes - is the principal medium used for spreading memes from one person to another.

As Blackmore states in The Meme Machine, memes were born when humans began to imitate each other. According to her theory, this event preceded - indeed, had to precede - the development of language. When imitation became widespread, producing selection pressure on genes for successful imitation, memes began to exploit verbalizations for better and more frequent transmission. The end result of this complex process was language, and the anatomical alterations needed for its successful use.

Language, created by memes as a mechanism for ensuring better memetic propagation, has certainly been a success. Today, the vast majority of memes are transmitted via language, through direct speech, written communication, radio or television, and the internet. Relatively few memes are transmitted in a non-linguistic way, and those that are have very specific, localized purposes, such as artwork and photography. Even these media, though nonlinguistic in themselves, assume language and very rarely appear without some sort of linguistic commentary. This might take the form of a critical analysis of an artwork, a caption for a photograph, a voice-over for a video, etc.

Language as Part of Culture

For many people, language is not just the medium of culture but also is a part of culture. It is quite common for immigrants to a new country to retain their old customs and to speak their first language amid fellow immigrants, even if all present are comfortable in their new language. This occurs because the immigrants are eager to preserve their own heritage, which includes not only customs and traditions but also language. This is also seen in many Jewish communities, especially in older members: Yiddish is commonly spoken because it is seen as a part of Jewish culture.

Linguistic differences are also often seen as the mark of another culture, and they very commonly create divisiveness among neighboring peoples or even among different groups of the same nation. A good example of this is in Canada, where French-speaking natives of Quebec clash with the English-speaking majority. This sort of conflict is also common in areas with a great deal of tribal warfare. It is even becoming an issue in America as speakers of standard American English - mainly whites and educated minorities - observe the growing number of speakers of black English vernacular. Debates are common over whether it is proper to use "Ebonics" in schools, while its speakers continue to assert that the dialect is a fundamental part of the "black culture".

CHAPTER IV

LANGUAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

The Language Deficit Hypothesis

The traditionally negative view toward non-standard languages is well illustrated by the history of standardization of the French language. Guiraud, a French grammarian, has asserted that lower varieties of French were inherently inferior because they were concrete forms of communication; reflexive behavior beholden to vulgar and materialistic interests that did not constitute any evidence of intelligence or thought. Similarly, albeit with more compassion, Josiah Strong viewed the demise of aboriginal languages as evidence of God's choice of European languages as superior vehicles of civilization.

These views of language variation have lead to relatively sophisticated theories of cultural and verbal deprivation. The influence of some of the proponents of these theories is felt to this very day, as books such as The Bell Curve, in which a genetic basis is hypothesized to explain the 15 point difference in IQ between blacks and whites, stir heated controversy. While the issue of cognitive deficiency is beyond the scope of a course in sociolinguistics, the issue of linguistic deficiency can at least in part be tackled by the sociolinguist.

Basil Bernstein (1971) has been credited with (and discredited for) coining the terms elaborated code and restricted code (see definitions below), and although the application of these terms has been very controversial, the terms themselves have substantial merit. Fasold points out that they actually correspond very well to the L and H varieties identified in diglossia.

Labov, in an article on the logic of non-standard English (see the article in Giglioli'sLanguageandSocialContext), reviews and criticizes linguistic-deficit theories. Such theories hold that certain linguistic varieties are inherently superior and that children who are raised in environments where such varieties are lacking will acquire deficient modes of thought, resulting in deficits which will have to be corrected in order for them to be able to participate fully in society.

Labov reports that Deutsch, Jensen, Bernstein, and Bereiter have claimed that the language of Black children constitutes evidence of home environments lacking in verbal interaction with adults, abstract reasoning, fluent speech, and long range goals. The most extreme view, that of Jensen and Bereiter, holds that Black children are non-verbal, and that their language consists of "incidental 'emotional' accompaniment to action here and now.' Recall that Guiraud and Strong also attempted to characterize certain varieties of speech as lacking in the very attributes that distinguish human language from communication among monkeys and other lower forms of animal life.

The verbal behavior that Bereiter observed that lead to these conclusions consisted mostly of phrases and silence. Labov (1970) asserts that such observations should not be rejected as spurious because he has reproduced similar samples of verbal behavior, in which a Black child being interviewed says practically nothing; however, Labov considers the social situation to be the most powerful determinant of verbal behavior. The asymmetrical relationship between a White adult and a Black child is not conducive to speech by the child. He is simply obeying the "speak when spoken to" rule and saying no more than he feels he should, given the circumstances.

In order to demonstrate this point, that a child who may appear in one situation to be nonverbal may in fact be quite verbal, is demonstrated in two dialogues that involve a child by the name of Leon. In one dialog about television, Leon responds to Clarence a total of 10 times. His first response is four words long. The next seven responses are only single words, the ninth is two words, and the last barely qualifies as a response at all. This contrasts sharply with the dialog involving Clarence, Leon, and a peer. Here, Leon also responds ten times, but only two of his responses are monosyllabic. The number of words in responses are 1, 7, 11, 2, 5, 4, 5, 6, 1, and 5. Leon's response has undergone a fourfold increase to an average of 4.7 words per response as opposed to 1.2.

elaborated code - defined by Bernstein as language that is universalistic

restricted code - defined by Bernstein as particularistic and specific.

Note that this definition is reminiscent of those who would argue that certain modes of speech are lacking in basic human qualities, namely those that enable us to refer to objects displaced in time and space. Labov qualifies this distinction by noting that elaborated speech is often redundant and less logical, more style than substance, and gives an example of so-called restricted code (Larry's interview) which is replete with logic.

Larry shows many nonstandard features in his speech. He swears, does not use copulas (your spirit goin to hell), uses double negatives (you ain'tgoin to no heaven), inverts order of subject and verb (don't nobody know) and uses 'it' instead of 'there' as an existential quantifier (it ain't no heaven). Charles uses no nonstandard forms, but his speech contains fewer propositions and logical functions. He is verbose because his speech is more elaborate than it need be. This demonstrates that there is not necessarily a relationship between form of speech and function. Bernstein has confused the issue. Nonstandard speech is not universalistic only because majority culture members do not understand it, not because it is logically deficient.

This conclusion may seem self-evident, but Bereiter believes that the lack of the verb "to be" indicates badly connected words. A characteristic of Black English Vernacular (BEV) is copula deletion (They mine), but Labov notes that this deletion is a characteristic of languages as elevated in status as Russian, Hungarian, and Arabic. There is nothing illogical about those languages, an assertion with which Bereiter would no doubt agree, showing that his conclusions are based on status, not logic. This in and of itself is not bad, since we all recognize that certain varieties of English are taboo in formal social contexts. What is untenable is to insist that such forms are illogical, and thus indicative of defective thought processes. It may be hard for us to defend the sentences "Me got juice" and "In the tree" as logical responses, but if they are uttered in response to "What do you have?" and "Where is the boy?" then they are certainly logical. Labov notes that the use of "me" in no way indicates that the child is confused and thinks that the juice has him. The position of the pronoun, and not its form, is sufficient enough to indicate subject status in English.

Perhaps the most pernicious description of Black intelligence was made by Jensen, who insists that almost half of lower class Black children are mentally retarded, on the basis of intelligence tests, the results of which are predictable, given the evidence presented earlier in Labov's article. Since sociolinguistics demonstrates clearly the fact of language variation, the field may be used to refute "evidence" of genetic inferiority of Blacks such as that supplied by intelligence tests by demonstrating the inappropriateness of such instruments for measuring the intelligence of children other than those who speak standard English.

Reading - Education of speakers of Vernacular Black English (VBE) was proposed to be initiated by means of vernacular readers. This has been problematic for a number of reasons, and efforts to provide such education have largely been abandoned. These reasons are largely sociolinguistic in nature. Materials are wanting, and the vernacular is highly stigmatized. In German-speaking countries, where vernaculars are often as least as different from High German as VBE is from Standard English, all education is conducted in the H variety with success. Therefore, the reason for high rates of failure to acquire literacy among U.S. African-Americans is not psycholinguistic.

Writing - Bloomfield stated that writing is not language, but Fasold notes that in a sociolinguistic sense this is not altogether true. Writing is viewed as language by many people, and therefore has social importance. For this reason, a person who uses non-standard features in his or her written language may be described as 'not knowing English.' For a linguist, this is inaccurate, but the statement makes sense socially.

Labov lists a whole host of problems found in writing. These problems are more daunting for a speaker of a stigmatized variety whose language diverges structurally and stylistically from the standard:

Structural Problems

stigmatized language features (double negative, '-s' deletion)

hypercorrection ('sacks of golds')

unconventional spelling ('i went home')

restricted code (failure to identify the antecedent of a pronoun, for example)

punctuation errors

Stylistic Problems

logical form (e.g., using a hypothetical syllogism correctly)

transitions (making a paragraph relate to the previous paragraph)

coherence (the property of unity in written text that stems from links among the ideas)

cohesion (the property of unity in written text that stems from surface elements)

exposition (providing necessary background information)

Data from Farr Whiteman (1981), summarized below, shows the problem involved in teaching writing to populations with substantially different morphology. In African-American English, referred to as (VBE) in Fasold, the morpheme '-s' is dropped frequently. This is evident in the writing of the African-American students. The data from Maryland show that in speaking, African-Americans drop verbal '-s' more than Whites in speech: in African-American writing samples, '-s' is dropped 80% of the time, whereas in White writing samples, '-s' is dropped around 20% of the time. Both African-Americans and Whites drop plural '-s' in speaking less often than they drop verbal '-s,' but African-Americans still drop plural '-s' more than Whites. These results are not surprising. '-s' deletion is a well-documented feature of VBE, and plural marking is more functional than verbal marking.

The intriguing results of this study are to be found in comparing writing with speaking. First of all, as expected, African-American students delete both kinds of '-s' less in writing. They have learned that the form is stigmatized and that they must supply it. The White students delete both kinds of '-s' more than in speaking! Farr Whiteman provides convincing evidence that this is due to an 'acquisition effect.' White children, even though they speak the standard, are learning a new code, writing, and small details get left out of their writing as they concentrate on acquiring the code. Once this period of acquisition is over, their use of written '-s' increases dramatically, while the African-American children still delete '-s' at a rate similar to the rate of deletion at the outset of their acquisition of written English. To explain this phenomenon, it is important to return to the initial data, and note that although African-American children deleted less frequently in writing than in speaking, they still deleted more frequently than their White counterparts. Why is this so and why doesn't the rate of deletion decrease rapidly over time, as in the case of the White students? The answer is quite simple. The African-Americans continue to delete '-s-' in speaking.

The important point to be made here is that '-s-' deletion is influenced by linguistic, acquisitional and dialectological factors. We have no reason to assume that acquisition is different among African-Americans and Whites, but we have ample reason to assume that dialect differences explain the discrepancy.

Speaking - Forcing a child to learn standard dialect is a controversial area. The child's identity may be at issue, and Fasold reports that the consensus is not to correct speaking. This situation is similar to that of German-speaking countries, where children do indeed learn to express themselves in a standard fashion at school merely by example.

Testing - National aptitude and achievement tests are normed. Anyone who speaks an 'abnormal dialect' is at risk of being measured inaccurately. In the area of achievement, this is perhaps a justifiable practice, since acquisition of the written standard is expected of all. Fasold is not convinced that developing the ability to perform properly on these tests is useful. Nor is he convinced that schools even teach standard skills in any organized manner, which means that achievement is really not being measured at all, since there are no clear dialect objectives taught in school. It is when these tests are used to determine the inherent intellectual ability of a speaker of dialect that the results are suspect. (By the way, no attempt was made in TheBellCurve, the recently published controversial tome on race and intelligence, to account for language differences among Whites and African-Americans. The authors readily recognize this lapse.)

Lectal bias - Dialect differences discriminate against the non-standard speaker in a number of ways.

non-standard forms- The child is often presented with a choice between non-standard and standard forms. If he or she choose the non-standard form, the answer is incorrect.

"if it's wrong it's right" - The speaker of dialect may develop the strategy that since what he or she feels intuitively is right is actually wrong, then in order to be right, the wrong form should be chosen.

Many standardized tests currently in use do in fact require students to choose between dialect and standard. Notably, the GED test is one such instrument.

A solution is to measure a child's ability to code semantically the basic categories of language:

action, state, possession, location, instrumentality, beneficiary

Studies show that developmentally normal children from different races perform the same on measures of these kinds of categories.

CHAPTER V

ACTING AND CONVERSING

Discourse analysis is the study of language structure either in written text or conversation.

Text linguistics - the study of written discourse; two basic units of analysis are coherence and cohesion

coherence - the property of unity in written text that stems from links among the underlying ideas and from the logical organization and development of ideas

cohesion - the property of unity in written text that stems from surface elements, and especially from the fact that some words depend for their interpretation upon material in preceding or following text. Example:

Be assured of this: most people do not want to fight; however, they will do so when provoked.

'This' refers to information that follows. 'They' refers back to 'most people.' 'Do so' refers back to 'fight.' These elements tighten the relationships among the clauses in this sentence.

Interactive discourse - the study of conversational structure is the other focus of discourse analysis

Ethnomethodology - the sociological study of the rules and rituals underlying social interactions; Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) identify five structural features of turn taking:

Simplest systematics turn-taking (Sacks, Schegloff, Jefferson 1974)

Speaker change occurs; one person stops and another begins right away (no gap)

One person talks at a time (no overlap)

Two people may talk briefly at the same time (overlap)

Transitions with no gap and no overlap are common

Turns may be allocated by speaker or next speaker

Turn Construction

units of construction are words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs

projectablecompletion of each unit is known to speaker

transition-relevance place is determined by completion of unit

Turn Allocation

"Current speaker selects next." If the current speaker has been selected and will select the next speaker, he or she, and only he or she has the right and obligation to speak.

"Next speaker may self-select." If the first rule is not in operation, the next speaker may, but does not have to self-select, at the next transition-relevance place. The first person to self-select gets to do so, and turn exchange occurs at that moment.

"Current speaker may continue." If the second rule is in operation, and noone self-selects, the speaker may, but does not have to continue.

These rules are ordered. Overlapping occurs at transition-relevance places. If rule two is in operation, overlap becomes more likely. Sequences of turns seems to be topic-governed

lapse - If rule three is in place, and a projectable completion occurs without another speaker self-selecting, the resulting gap is too long, a lapse occurs, and the talk becomes discontinuous. A lapse may indicate the end of a speech event.

gap - the time that passes between the projectable completion and the initiation of the next turn (i.e., the turnexchange) is the gap. A gap becomes too long after one second.

pause - If rule two is in operation, and the speaker pauses without someone else self-selecting, the speaker can turn the gap into a pause by continuing the utterance.

Simultaneous talk events characterize high-involvement style.

Overlap - Simple overlap may be simply the result of misprojection of completion.

Interruption -There are lexical and intonational devices for interrupting a speaker.

Auditory back-channel - Low volume expressions of support for the speaker.

Tannen (1983), using interactional sociolinguistics, identifies three causes of overlap:

cooperative sentence-building - The listener engages in what he or she perceives to be cooperative sentence building, when the other does not seek help.

requesting and giving verification - One of the participants requests verification during the other's turn.

choral repetition - This occurs when a listener anticipates and says what the other says.

Pacing aspects of high-involvement (Tannen, 1983)

faster rate of speech

faster turn-taking

avoidance of interturn pauses (gaps)

cooperative overlapping

participatory listenership

Linguistic Pragmatics - the study of language from the point of view of the user’s intentions

Hymes (1972) analyzes conversations by devising three units of analysis: the speech event, the speech act, and the conversational move

Speech event - situations comprised of speech acts. A conversation is a speech event, which may be comprised of turns and someone's telling of a joke. An example of a speech event is a prayer that is comprised of an address (to a god), an invocation, and a closure. Another example is the unit of apology and acceptance. While we may not have a name for this event, we recognize in our culture that both speech acts are typically part of this event.

Speech act - an apology is an example. The speech act derives its meaning from the social context and can have many grammatical forms. We might define it provisionally as a socially recognized unit of communication of which speech events are comprised. (We will see later that acts derive from rules of conversation. Speech acts are defined as utterances comprised of 4 syntactic elements (first-person subject, explicit performative verb in the present indicative affirmative, second-person object, dependent clause expressing a proposition.), constitute action and are neither true nor false.)

Conversational move - the minimal unit of speech analysis proposed by Hymes. Speech acts are comprised of one or more moves. Jokes often require the participation of the person to whom the joke is being told.

performatives - a class of sentences for which truth conditions are irrelevant; the uttering of a performative sentence constitutes an action in and of itself; such sentences are not so much said as done

Ausin defines five categories of performatives:

veridictive - an example is the handing down of a verdict: "I hereby find you innocent of the charges."

exercitive - the exercising of rights, powers, or influence: "You are under arrest."

commissive - promising or undertaking: "I promise"

behabitive - apologizing, congratulating: "I applaud you."

expositive - argumentative or expositional verbs, e.g., "I state that..."

explicitperformative utterance (EPU) - an utterance which resists Gricean analysis, since truth of the utterance cannot be evaluated; the EPU, in its fullest manifestation has four structural features (Austin 1962):

1. first-person subject (agent)

2. explicit, present affirmative indicative active performative (verb)

3. individual to whom performative is directed (benefactive)

4. phrase or clause expressing propositional content of the performative (theme)

The communicative context is important in determining whether utterances that have the form described above are actually performative. In the following example, the apparently performative utterance is not a performative. The teacher is not promising.

Student: What is it that you always do in class after we have had a test?

Teacher: I promise you that I will have it done soon.

Felicity Conditions (Austin 1962) - Certain sociocultural conditions must be met in order for a performative to work properly. If one makes a bet, and the other does not concur, no bet is actually made. If one passes sentence and is not a judge, then there actually is no sentence. Such breakdowns in performatives are called infelicities. Performatives must meet six conditions or order to be felicitous:

If conditions A or B are violated, the speech act cannot be said to have occurred. The following conditions are especially important for ceremonial (per Fraser) speech acts (also known as standardized or conventional, as defined by Bach and Harnish), which include utterances in such rites as christening, marrying, bequeathing, sentencing, and knighting, and which require officially recognized participants and situations to occur.

A.1 The speech act must be recognized by society.

If you yell, "I divorce you," to your spouse, you have committed a violation of this condition. In our society noone recognizes this as a speech act.

A.2 The speech act must be performed by the right person in the right situation. Fasold notes that these violations are restricted to ceremonial acts.

If an atheist says, "I pray to God she is not hurt," she has committed a violation of this condition.

If one says, "I am sorry for what I did to you yesterday," and nothing happened yesterday, he has committed a violation of this condition.

If a judge says at a party, "I hereby sentence you to another course in sociolinguistics," the situation is incorrect (not to mention the sentence itself is cruel and unusual punishment, and thus unconstitutional).

B.1 The speech act must be performed correctly.

If one says, "I apologize to you that you are such a total idiot," the speech act is not performed correctly, since the theme must be introduced by 'for' and involve a transgression committed by the speaker.

B.2 The speech act must be performed completely.

If the judge says, "I sentence you," the act is not complete.

If conditions G .1 or G .2 are violated, the speech act still may be said to occur, but infelicitously so. These conditions are more important to vernacular or non-conventional speech acts, those acts not associated with ceremony or rites.

G .1 The performer of the speech act must be sincere in performing.

If one says, "Alright! If that's what you want to hear, I apologize to you for ruining your stupid party," one has made manifest his or her insincerity. Naturally, insincerity need not be so obvious.

G .2 The performer of the speech act must act subsequently in a manner consistent with the speech act.

If one makes a bet and loses, one must pay up, since that is a condition of the bet.

Actions Associated with Utterances - Searle identifies three actions or forces of utterances:

locutionary force - the mere act of saying something and meaning it

perlocutionary force - the effect of what one says (convincing, for example)

illocutionary force - the act that is executed by speaking; speech act

Indirect Speech Acts - Many performatives do not have the features of an EPU.

You'd better see a doctor. (Advice) I was a real jerk last night. (Apology)

I want you to have this clock. (Bequest) I did not take your necklace. (Denial)

Please take your shoes off my desk. (Request)

You're under arrest! (Inform)

Any of the above utterances may be performatives if the conditions are met. Since they are indirect, Gricean conversational maxims must be invoked to guide interpretation (be informative, truthful, relevant, and concise).

A given speech act may have many forms. Here is an example similar to the one given in Fasold:

I hereby request that you shut the door.

You wouldn't want to shut the door, would you?

Could you shut the door?

The door isn't open, is it?

The door's open, isn't it?

Gee, don't you think it's awfully cold in here?

What a draft!

Well, there goes next month's heating bill!

Do we have to have the door open?

Why did you leave the door open?

Who left the door open?

How many times do I have to tell you to shut the door?

Hey! Do you think we can afford to heat the great outdoors?

Get the door!

Please shut the door.

I'm freezing!

Brrrr!

CHAPTER VI

ATTITUDES & APPLICATIONS

Although the potentially deleterious effects of sexist language have been well-documented, less is known about the variables that affect sexist language. We have classified some of these variables as "person characteristics," attributes of the user of the language (e.g., age, gender). We have classified other variables as "contextual characteristics," attributes of the situation in which or for which the language is being used (e.g., occupation, work environment, social institutions). Studies that have addressed these characteristics fall into two additional categories: those that have examined sexist language use as the dependent variable and those that have examined attitude toward sexist language as the dependent variable. Because there are so few studies in each category, we have used the information provided by both types of investigations in the present study.

Age

Cronin and Jreisat (1995) found that ninth grade students were significantly more likely to use nonsexist (inclusive) language than were seniors. On the other hand, Rubin and Greene (1991) found that participants who were 30-45 years old were more supportive of sexist language reform than were 18-25 year olds. Similarly, Nilsen (1984) found that older job candidates were more likely to use gender-neutral language in a job application than were younger applicants. Thus, while age appears to be an important factor in explaining use of nonsexist language and attitudes toward changing sexist language, the direction of the relationship remains unclear. Cohort also appears to be a confounding variable (Rubin & Greene, 1991) because issues of the times surrounding an age group (and, therefore, affecting their attitudes and/or language usage) may be more relevant than their age per se.

Gender

Studies of gender and the use of sexist/nonsexist language have also yielded mixed results. Cronin and Jreisat (1995) reported that high school females were significantly more likely to use nonsexist language than were high school males. In a study of college students, women chose nonsexist pronouns more frequently than did men (Jacobson &Insko, 1985). Rubin and Greene (1991) found college an,d post-college women to be significantly more concerned about gender-biased language than men. Indeed, Matheson and Kristiansen (1987) reported that men considered sexism less relevant to language usage than women.

On the other hand, McMinn, Troyer, Hannum, and Foster (1991) found no gender differences in college students' use of sexist language. Richmond and Dyba (1982) found a significant gender effect among K-12 teachers that accounted for only 1% of the variance in the use of sexist language. They concluded that this difference was not socially meaningful. Using an instrument designed by Henley and Dragun (1983), Harrigan and Lucic (1988) found no gender difference relative to interest in sexist language or the desire to change sexist language. Rubin and Greene (1991) found that men and women agreed that the English language contained elements of sexism.

Context

Context involves the characteristics of situations in which or for which language choices are made. In the context of occupational titles, McMinn et al. (1991) found that college students used both masculine and feminine pronouns in describing a college professor but reverted to gender-biased pronouns in describing a business executive (masculine) and a nurse (feminine). In another study related to occupations, Matheson and Kristiansen (1987) reported that greater occupational stereotyping correlated with gender-biased pronoun use. It should be noted that the correlation was only .19; however, McMinn, Lindsay, Hannum, and Troyer (1990) also found that occupational stereotyping affected the use of sexist language.

Many of the college students we have studied (Parks &Roberton, 1998) were only partially-supportive of inclusive language; that is, they were willing to change some words or expressions but not others. Context seemed to govern their attitudes. For example, these students were generally positive toward changing job titles to reflect women's and men's equality

CHAPTER VII

CONCLUSION

        Gender is not a fixed category, rather it is dynamic and is negotiated according to the event/activity/ context, thus males and females negotiate a continuum of femininity and masculinity which is determined by its linguistic marking and the role they have in a particular activity.

        Gender difference can never be an adequate explanatory end point for our analyses, because it is a social construction that needs studying in and of itself. Thus, in order to develop a politically productive approach which moves beyond an essentialist framework, we must ‘bracket’ or suspend our belief in the idea that gender is a dualistic category that exists prior to and outside talk, and explore the uncountable ways in which gender, and gender difference, are constructed, oriented to and used in language. In addition, researchers must pay more attention to other social variables which could be affecting their data, rather than automatically attributing every difference between male and female speech to gender differences.

CHAPTER VIII

REFERENCE

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