Chapter 10 - Gender and Variation

final exam

gender

a social category that is built by individuals and negotiated in a group

agency

people can actively shape and negotiate their social identity, including gender

Gender "exclusive" features of a language

only used by speakers of one gender

gender "preferential" features of language

preferred by speakers of one gender relative to other genders' preferences, but can still be used by anyone (preference is socially/culturally determined)

indexing

the identification between two things

direct indexing (in relation to gender)

a word indexes gender directly when it has a semantic feature like male or female as part of its meaning

what is the sentence "my brother cut herself" a violation of in reference to direct indexing?

conventional implicature

conventional implicature

an inference that arises from the meaning of a word; trying to cancel a conventional implicature often sounds bizarre

indirect indexing (in reference to gender)

a word indexes gender indirectly when gender is not actually a part of the meaning of the word. Only some part of gender but something linked with a specific gender is a part of the meaning of the word

what is a common example of indirect inferencing

er versus ix/ess (with er associated with males and ix/ess associated with females)

Two approaches to studying gender and language

reflexive view and constitutive view

reflexive view of gender and language

believes that a person's gender may affect the way they speak in terms of likelihood/absolute choice of variants. has the implication that we can make generalizations showing that a social category is directly reflected in a person's language

what principle is the reflexive view operating off of?

deterministic

what is the result of determinism in the reflexive view of gender and language?

there is very little space for viewing the speaker as an agent who can make their own decisions

constitutive view of gender and language

language can be a tool to help define a person's gender identity (ex- lowering pitch might be associated with strength, so men may choose to use a lower pitch because they want to protect the identity of having strength)

Labov's first principle of gender and variation

for a stable variable, women use the standard variant more than men

what were two speculations on why women are more likely to use a standard variant more than men for a stable variant (principle 1)?

-Trudgill believed that women pay more attention to markers of style
-Eckert believed that women usually make greater use of symbolic resources to establish in-groups and out-groups

Labov's principle 1a for gender and variation

when an incoming variant has greater overt prestige (viewed more positively) than an older variant, women will use the new variant more than men

Labov's principle II of gender and variation

when there is a change in progress, an an incoming variant has greater covert prestige (change from below) than the older variant), women will use the new variant more than men.