LIN200H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Prestige Group
LIN200 Lecture 12
Nov 30th 2017
-Language and Social Justice
-identifying and combatting unfair social structures
-social justice: identifying and combatting unfair social structures
-how is language used to construct and perpetuate unfair social structures?
-gendered language
-i.e. actress
-poised is a gendered term, used to describe women far more often than men
-other examples: shrill,
-racialized language
-articulate: used to describe african americans who speak something other than
african american vernacular
-thug often used to describe black criminals
-stigma
-stigmatized variants of a sociolinguistic variable
-when A>A~B>B, one of these might be stigmatized, and one might carry prestige
-often the new one gets stigma, because it’s new, but not always
-the stigmatized variant will be the one spoken by the oppressed group
-stigma/prestige split because of the social status of the group who uses it
-the group that is at the intersection of all of the different prestige identities (i.e. in the
US, white upper class educated male, 40s-60s), that group is going to have the single
most prestigious way of speaking
-people of this social group, when they go to school, are taught their own dialect, so
there is less work they have to do to learn the standard dialect
-it takes high prestige person needs less time, is not affected by the quality of the school,
of the teachers, of the home life
-they come out of the school system pretty well off
-now imagine you’r in the lowest prestige group, you speak about as far from standard
as you could possibly speak
-you have a bigger hurdle, you have farther to go before you can learn the standard
-if you you have to learn it in the same time, you’re going to have to work harder
-in addition, since you’re in a low prestige group, you have more hurdles to overcome: if
you’re poor, you might have to work, if you’re a black woman, you will have social
pressures against you learning
-you have more to overcome, and also additional problems thrown at you
-this is one of the ways in which the idea of a standard language, which takes a
prestigious the way prestigious groups speak and forcing everyone to speak that way
mean that people in lower prestige groups are going to suffer
-this stand extends to beyond school—if you don’t speak standard english, you’re less
likely to get a job
-thus, the lower prestige people are going to come out with lower paying jobs, and the
cycle continues
-this income gap is going to be perpetuated from generation to generation
-this is one of the ways in which language can be used to discriminate
-the people who get high prestige social situations are the very ones who get to decide
who joins them
-language is not the only way that this happens, but it is a high factor
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Articulate: used to describe african americans who speak something other than american vernacular. Poised is a gendered term, used to describe women far more often than men. Social justice: identifying and combatting unfair social structures. When a>a~b>b, one of these might be stigmatized, and one might carry prestige. Often the new one gets stigma, because it"s new, but not always. The stigmatized variant will be the one spoken by the oppressed group. Stigma/prestige split because of the social status of the group who uses it. The group that is at the intersection of all of the different prestige identities (i. e. in the. Us, white upper class educated male, 40s-60s), that group is going to have the single most prestigious way of speaking. People of this social group, when they go to school, are taught their own dialect, so there is less work they have to do to learn the standard dialect.
