ANT253H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Saks Fifth Avenue, Robin Lakoff, James W. Pennebaker
Jan. 23, 2017
ANT253 Lecture #3
- Written language and literacy (how writing and traditions of writing impact on society)
Methodology
- WILLIAM LABOV: regarded as the founder of contemporary sociolinguistic methodology, with
his classic study of the social implications of pronunciation differences
o Made tape recordings of conversations of NYC residents of different ethnic and social
backgrounds
o Looked at the /r/ pronunciation (bird, car, beer)
o /r/-less was seen as more prestigious in the past = British English
o After WW1, prestige declined highest use of it was in young people 8-19
o People from a lower class who wanted to achieve a higher status attached greater prestige
to the /r/
o Chose subjects (in order of prestige) at Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s and S. Klein
▪ Rates of pronunciation of /r/ were highest in Saks, less in Macy’s and lowest in
S. Klein
▪ CONCLUSION: workers identified with the prestige of their employer and
customers and that this identification influenced their pronunciation habits
Pronunciation and social mobility
- Speaking a certain way tells you what you want to belong to
- When you speak it isn’t just a form of communication: it is a social, cognitive imprint of who you
are
Interviews and Fieldwork
- ETHNOGRAPHY
- FIELDWORK
- JOHN FISCHER: used simple interviewing techniques (interviewed a group of elementary school
children, noticing that they often alternated between pronunciations of “–ing”, so that it
sometimes sounded like “-in’”; concluded that it was related to gender, social class, personality,
and mood)
- Speakers of a language are sensitive both to the context in which it is used and to the perceptions
associated with such use (conscious vs. unconscious)
- INTERVIEWS: chosen subjects are called “informants”, either random population or selected
subgroup called SAMPLES
Language Use
Communicative Competence
- Developed by Dell Hymes
- Sociolinguistic findings have led to many new notions including communicative competence
- COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE: idea that it takes knowledge of how conversations and
dialogues unfold to communicate in the language and that this kind of competence is developed
in tandem with the knowledge of grammar pronunciation and vocabulary
- LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE or LINGUISTIC PERFORMANCE (same as Sassures langue and
parole)
- Knowing how to use language is as systematic as knowing the rules of the grammar of the
language being employed
- PRAGMATICS: study of how people spoke in everyday situations; the ways in which people talk
not only taps into a system of implicit social rules and rituals but also shapes and changes the
formal language itself
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- ERVING GOFFMAN: saw research into pragmatic aspects of language as a key to understanding
what he called the social framing of identity, whereby language is used to fit a situation
deliberately to the advantage of the speaker
- ROBIN LAKOFF: argued that speakers will even refrain from saying what they mean in some
situations in the service of the higher goal of preserving group solidarity
- DISCOURSE: the unconscious use of a specific type of language that is designed to bind people
or groups together in terms of shared values, worldviews, beliefs and so on
o Key words that frequently appear in conversations
- MIKHAEL BAKHTIN: argued that discourse styles are shaped by cultural presuppositions and a
shared sense of solidarity during interactions
Identity in Conversations
- JAMES PENNEBAKER: studied the link between language and personality
o Ex// Barack Obama is the “lowest I-word user” of all modern day presidents = shows
confidence and self-assurance
- IDIOLECT
Gender
- The use of grammatical gender in certain words
o Ex// Chairman, Postman, Fireman
- English language is predisposed its users to view certain social roles as gender terms
o Ex// “I now pronounce you man and wife”
- ALPHER: studied Iroquois language and found that the feminine gender was the default one
o Matrilineal society
- Old English: “wer” = adult man, “wif” = adult woman; “waepman”=adult male person,
“wifman”=adult woman person wifmane became “wife” and “woman” and “wer” just became
man
o Seemed to render woman invisible
o Slowly “man”/gendered language is changing = chairperson, first year vs. freshman
Markedness
- MARKEDNESS: the feature of language that encodes sexual gender differences in terms of
grammatical differences
o Ex in English// “a boy, a girl”= it is marked vs. “an egg, an apple” = unmarked
- Identify certain forms in language as more common or neutral and others as more distinctive or
“marked”
- Can result in social implications
o Ex in Italian// masculine plural of nouns are the unmarked ones, referring to any person,
male or female, whereas feminine plural form is marked, referring only to females
▪ Gli amici = all friends, male and female vs. le amiche = female friends cue
that males dominated society (however it is changing)
o Ex in English// Mrs. and Miss. Indicating marital status vs. Mr.
Mr. and Mrs.
- Children realize early on that the language they are learning is more than a means to learn objects
and people
- Children become increasingly aware that language is a means for interacting purposefully with
others
- \in most cultures, children learn to speak to older people or people in positions of authority with
specific titles (Mr. and Mrs.), but know that it would be strange to refer to their friends this way
- they learn that language is not only a naming tool, but a social tool (which is the primary goal of
socio-linguistics)
- Study of discourse has also generated implications for studying language in social context
find more resources at oneclass.com
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