Celebration of Knowledge 1 Flashcards
(19 cards)
Language as a non-neutral medium
-Duranti
-Language is never neutral, relations of power are expressed in and through language
-There is no “view from nowhere”
How to overcome linguistic biases
-Reflexivity (metalanguage): language can talk about itself
-Language socialization throughout the lifespan
-Devising new linguistic practices (devices)
ex. Latinx, queer
5 levels of organization - language ideologies
-Group or individual interests
-Multiplicity of ideologies
-Awareness of speeches
-Mediating functions of ideologies
-Identity construction
5 linguistic facts of life
-Lippi-Green
-All spoken language changes over time
-All spoken languages are equal in linguistic terms
-Grammaticality and communicative effectiveness are distinct and independent issues
-Written language and spoken language are historically, structurally, and functionally fundamentally different
-Variation is intrinsic to all spoken language at any level
Linguistic Grammaticality
-What is actually heard and understood clearly in the communicative contexts
-Different from socially constructed grammaticality: English usage that is deemed “correct” based on social standards
ex. Non-linguists would say “Nah, we straight” is ungrammatical, linguists would say it is grammatical because grammaticality for linguists relates to what is actually understood and heard in the local context.
Even in contexts where it wouldn’t necessarily be understood (job interview) it’d still be grammatical because it’s able to be understood.
Slang
-Bucholtz
-Slang can operate as a set of language ideologies or social meanings assigned to language and its users, often in ways that reveal power structures
-Can be used to construct other levels of identity like age, race, subculture, and interactional role
-Linguistic anthropologists study slang in practice, not just the lexical meanings of slang (difference between practice and ideology)
-Used to establish own identities and distinguish themselves from other groups they’re not a part of
Chung
-Ways to push back against hegemonic understandings
-Satire: artfully playful parody serving as a moral cultural critique
-Other strategies: policing, eradication, containment, resignification, recontextualization
Linguistic Profiling
-Baugh
-Determining someone’s race/class/education/age/gender/sexuality solely based on the sound of their voice
-To prove linguistic profiling legally & experimentally, scripts need to be the same and there can’t be any other racially identifiable language (names, descriptions, etc.)
10 tenets of HHL
- HHNL in the US is rooted in AAL and communicative practices
- HHNL is just one of the many language varieties used by African Americans
- HHNL is widely spoken across the country and is adapted and transformed by various racial and ethnic groups inside and outside of the US
- HHNL is a language with its own grammar, lexicon, and phonology as well as a unique communicative style and discursive modes
- HHNL is best viewed as the synergistic combination of speech. music, and literature. HHNL is simultaneously the spoken, poetic, lyrical, and musical expression of the HHN.
- HHNL includes ideologies about language and language use
- HHNL is the central focus of identification for those seeking recognition and ratification as Hip Hop heads
- HHNL exhibits regional variation, even within regions, HHNL exhibits individual variation based on experiences
- The fundamental aspect of HHNL is that it’s central to the lifeworlds of the members of the HHN and is suitable and functional for all of their communicative needs
- HHNL is inextricably linked with the sociopolitical circumstances that engulf the HHN. Hip Hop continues to articulate the shifting terms of black marginality in the US and language shifts to reflect and constitute those terms.
-HHNL has been tied to the linguistic systems and cultural modes of discourse that both derive from and reinvent the African American Oral Tradition
Language Ideologies
-Kroskrity
-Sets of beliefs about language articulated by users as a rationalization or justification of perceived language structure and use
-Iconization: when members take an aspect of a language and view it as a pictorial guide to the nature of a group of speakers
-Fractal recursivity: when an opposition is projected onto some other level (people may think of a language as inferior based on beliefs from another source even if they share a linguistic background of those they’re judging)
-Erasure: selective ignoring of often unruly forms of variation that don’t fit the models of speakers and/or linguists
Cisheteropatriarchy
-An ideological system that naturalizes normative views of what it means to “look” and “act” like a “straight” man and marginalizes women, femininity, and all gender non-conforming bodies that challenge the gender binary
-While youth frequently unsettle the dominance of whiteness, they also just as frequently exploit stereotypical forms of blackness (cisheteropatriarchy) that further marginalize already marginalized gendered and sexualized bodies
White Public Space
-Hill
-Set of contexts that are the most important sites of the practices of racializing hegemony, in which whites are invisibly normal, and in which racialized populations are visibly marginal and the objects of monitoring ranging from individual judgement to official English legislation
-Mock Spanish
Dehumanizing Metaphors
-Santana
-Analyzed metaphors specifically because:
-Metaphor is ubiquitous in everyday communication
-Metaphor is not merely a figurative linguistic expression, it’s a conceptual framework
-Everyday metaphor embodies the world-view of those who unthinkingly use metaphor
-Unpacking the linguistic ideological power of metaphors to establish, sustain, reinforce, and sometimes challenge oppressive power relations
Styleshifting
-Rickford: we assess who we talk to and that changes how we speak
-Labov: there are both informal/formal contexts of speech, we change our language practice depending on the contexts we’re in
Exceptionalizing discourse
-A form of racism that allow for and even celebrates the achievements of individual persons of color, but only because those individuals are generally seen as different from a less appealing black or brown rule
-Longstanding black folk theory of “articulateness”
-“Articulateness” > standard English > whiteness
-“Articulate” relates to other adjectives that index certain discourses
ex. Cases of Kamala Harris & Hilary Clinton - adjectives like “sassy” and “level-headed” index other discourses about them being female
Indexicality
-Direct indexicality: the production of nonreferential meanings of “indexes” that are understood and acknowledged by speakers
-Indirect indexicality: unlike the positive direct indexes, they’re never acknowledged by speakers
-Dual indexicality - reaping the benefits of a stereotype of a certain group by indexing that stereotype in language
-Triple indexicality - used not only to benefit the borrower and negatively and negatively on the borrowee, but creates a link between the two groups
ex. Jane Hill proposes that Mock Spanish is racist because of its “dual indexicality”. She explains that when a person uses Mock Spanish, they are consciously communicating a set of direct indexes, and also subconsciously communicating a set of indirect indexes.
Direct Indexicality: conveying the speaker has desirable qualities such as a good sense of humor, an easy-going personality, playfulness and regional authenticity
Indirect Indexicality: implying the Spanish-speakers have undesirable qualities such as being grossly sexual, corrupt, lazy or having disorders of language
Ontological commitments of linguistic anthropology
-Language is a code for representing experience
-Language is a form of social organization
-Language is a system of differentiation
5 Contextual Styles
-Casual speech
-The interview situation (careful speech)
-Reading style
-Word lists
-Minimal pairs
