Penelope Eckert- Professor of Linguistic, Professor by Courtesy in the Department of Cultural and Social
Anthropology and Director of the Program in Feminist Studies at Stanford’s Center on Adolescence
Jocks & Burnout- Social Categories and Identity in the High School- received wide acclaim
New Ways of Analyzing Change-editor chap. Social Polarization and Choice of Linguistic Variants
Linguistic Variations as Social Practice (2000)
Ethnography study of the social motivations of linguistic change (Sociolinguitics). Two years-hanging
around common areas of the school, hallways, courtyards etc., not classrooms.
Gathered information through observation of normal activities and interaction, through participation in
independently occurring activities and interactions, and through brief encounters and long and short
discussion with groups and individuals.
Ask student to “Trace friendship from childhood to present”
Linguistic change is defined as a constant and regular process which gives rise over the short term to
regional dialects or accents, and over the long term to language families. (How Latin changed into modern
Romance language)
Adolescents lead their communities in sound change in our societies. She chose adolescent in a High
School in the Detroit area–because high schools bring together adolescents from a variety of social
backgrounds in such a way as to force them to interact with and react to each other.
Category affiliation, social network orientation, and gender have turned out to be the major and
intricately interacting, social parameters that determine participation in sound change in the
adolescent community.
Focus on social polarization between the class-based social categories, the Jocks and the Burnouts
Differentiation begins in middle school (junior high school)
The Burnouts- working class home, enrolled primarily in general and vocational courses, smoked tobacco
and pot, took chemical, drank beer and hard liquor, skipped classes, and may have had occasional run in
with the police. Counter school culture, adversarial relationship with the school
The Jocks- middle class and college bound, played sports for the school, participated in school activities,
got respectable grades and drank beer on weekends. The termed jock may be an athlete but on a broader
base it can be used for someone whose life-style embraces a broader idea associated in American culture
with sports. Cooperative relationship with the school. Share the goals of the school. Center their social
lives around the school
Jock and Burnout categories reflect opposing relations to the school, the single institution that dominates
the life of the adolescent age group. Adults do not impose their class system and ideologies on adolescent;
they provide the means by which adolescent can do it themselves
The Jock and Burnout represent opposing ways of existing within the school (they both endorse school)
The essence of the polarization between the Jocks and the Burnouts lies in the act that they are in
competition to define their life stage and to set norms of community interactions.
Symbol of Category MembershipThe Hangout---Courtyard or Locker
Smoking - Clothing – Sports
Linda Summers
Notes from Penelope Eckert - Jocks and Burnouts
Language
Vocabulary, greetings and grammatical patterns function as a relatively conscious level of difference
between the Jocks and the Burnouts. Speakers under the age of 20 appear as the phonologically most
innovative speakers in community studies
Burnouts- used more frequent and public use of obscenities and specialized vocabulary such a drug related
slang
Greeting: Burnouts “How ya doin”
Jock- “Hi”
Grammar- Burnouts speak ungrammatically Use of multiple negative is greater among Burnouts then
Jocks
In addition there are differences in patterns of pronunciation
Backing of the vowels etc. vowels in lunch (launch)
Punch (paunch)
But (bought)
Cut (caught)
Children acquire their dialects from their peers rather than their parents
Clearest indication that these linguistic features are acquired as a function of category affiliation is the fact
that while they correlate statistically with category affiliation they do not correlate with parents’
socioeconomic class
Linda Summers
Notes from Penelope Eckert - Jocks and Burnouts