LSP: Ch 5, language & gender
Lab 1; Harvey; Ochs
24 September 2008
Aspects of gender-marked
language
• Unmarked and marked terms (waiterwaitress-waitstaff)
• Asymmetrical references
• Are McCain and Obama and Biden’s clothes
described? Their hair style discussed? What
gets satirized?
• Sexism in discourse
First, the lab
• 3-page 12 point times roman, double space,
• analysis of language use in political humor/satire
• Use newspaper, magazine, website, tv or radio
(transcribe a clip you are using as illustration)
• Look for examples: 3-part phrases? Asymmetrical
discourse? Twisted idioms? Unusual repetitions?
Metaphors? Euphemisms?
• Online office hours – I will be available Sunday
afternoon, 1-2, with Yahoo Instant Messenger if
needed
Grading rubric
• Title
•
Identifies main focus
• Abstract sentence
•
Orients reader to how paper should be read
Background
•
Identifies site/show for data,date,situation
Rationale for aspect being discussed
•
Definition of aspect and associated terms
Discussion of aspect
•
Makes a main point clearly
Good choice of examples to sustain point
•
Develops persuasive argument
•
Good organization of points
• Good word choice
• Good editing (few if any typos, glitches)
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Differences in how men and
women talk
•
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Amount of talk
Turn construction/interruptions
Back channel support
Hedges and modals for mitigation
Types of topics
Upspeak [juror issues]
Dominance vs difference
Glossing the text of Harvey’s
article
What is language telling us about culture in the simplified
table? Who goes in and out of the community? Who has
opportunities? Who speaks in public meetings? Who has
cultural capital?
men
women
SpanQuech balanced biling
52%
24%
PreferQuech almost biling
24%
25%
Quech with passive Span
8%
14%
Quechua monolingual
5%
50%
Do you agree with Milroy &
Nichols?
• “people tend to speak most like those with
whom they speak most frequently and interact
within a variety of different social roles”
• “ it is not gender that determines the use of
standard forms but rather the nature of the
relationships in which men and women are
involved”
• Networks at work
A different line of thought
from Harvey
• She cites the use of AAVE as a way to resist
AngloEngl in that it becomes a way to signal
affiliation with a totally different set of values.
• Being monolingual Q speaker ‘implies insider
status, legitimacy, access to regenerative
powers of the animate landscape…also carries
with it a sense of disadvantage and
discrimination’
• Louisiana Creole
• Texas drawl and marketing patterns
What about silence? ‘Women’
Characters in festivals
Does silence in this study indicate indigenous or gender
issues?
Any comments on these? (Did you think this was really just
about Peru?)
• Hairspray
Before Night Falls
• Big Momma’s House Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Tootsie
Norbit
• From Yahoo: Mrs. Bush also said that she thinks Palin is
being treated unfairly because she is a woman. That,
the first lady says, is to be expected.
• Discuss the “is to be expected” part, please….
5 questions from the Ochs
article
• What are your resources for building your
various identities?
• What kinds of acts can you perform?
• What kinds of epistemic and affective
stances may you take?
• What is an epistemic stance, anyway?
• Or an affective stance?
For example, Ochs says
• She constructs herself as a professional
academic by hypothesizing, claiming,
instructing and assessing, and displaying
stances such as objectivity and intellectual
flexibility
• Could she construct herself as something
else? How?
Moving toward social
constructionism
• How do you construct being a ‘good’
student/wife/husband/parent/worker/
professional?
• How good are you at this? When do you
start learning how to do it?
• Dinnertime conversations
• Bedtime stories
• Talking to vs talking at vs talking over