Michael Cavallaro
Paper # 3
Professor Sanchez
Doctoral Seminar
11/29/07
The Synthesis of Code Switching and Stylistic Variation
As bilingual speakers in bilingual communities make use of code switching to create and recreate
their identity and optimize their interpersonal relationships, the monolingual speaker also uses stylistic
variation in the same manner. Therefore, it can be qualitatively demonstrated that an expansion of the
Markedness Model to include the Rational Choice model from fields such as sociology, socioeconomics,
and political science can be used in explaining the stylistic variation that African American Drag Queens
utilize while performing. In other words, synthesize code-switching and stylistic variation into one theory.
Code Switching
In 1972, the phenomenon of code switching was first documented by Myers-Scotton who was
doing fieldwork in African American communities paying little attention to what was occurring. It was
assumed that the alternating of languages was preset, prescribed by certain people speaking to particular
speakers. However, it was found that the use of different codes in interaction was far from random and
haphazard, but occurred for varying reasons:
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Providing for the maintenance and negotiation of social identities
Alternating codes establishing meaning
Switching codes may be marked or unmarked
Alternating of codes permits an exploratory component, uncovering uncertain relationships among
speaker (Mesthrie et al. p171)
Stylistic Variation
According to Natalie Schilling-Estes (2002), “Stylistic variation, intra-speaker variation, lies at the
intersection of the individual and the communal; that is, individuals internalize broad-based community
language patterns that are then shaped and re-shaped by individuals in everyday conversational interaction
(p. 375). This definition embodies very succinctly the notion of stylistic variation, for style and its use in
contrasting alternating styles carries with it social meaning.
Stylistic variation consists of varying types of variation. For example, dialects, which are features
associated with particular speakers, vary with respect to who uses them and for what purpose. For instance,
according to Natalie Schilling-Estes (2002) a speaker may show higher usage levels for a feature like rlessness (e.g. [fam] “farm”), associated with traditional Southern American speech when talking with an
older Southerner who uses this feature than when talking with a speaker who does not (p.375). A second
variation, register, which encompasses a particular situation of use, is exemplified by a speaker showing
higher usage levels for a pronunciation feature such as (e.g. [in’] rather than [ing]) in words like walking
and swimming. The former pronunciation feature corresponding to informal, while the latter corresponding
to increased formality. Finally, Natalie Schilling-Estes (2002) describes genres as varieties of language
that are highly routinized and ritualized, frequently associated with performances. For instance, a preacher
may switch into a “sermon” genre when in front of an audience of churchgoers.
Both code switching and stylistic variation are used to convey marked and unmarked utterances;
therefore, given an analysis of AADQ’s speech, they may be combined into one theory. In efforts to
demonstrate the effective synthesis of code switching and stylistic variation, the abbreviation (CSSV),
code-switching stylistic variation, is used throughout the remainder of the analysis.
The basic tenets of the Markedness model that are used in this analysis are as follows:
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A sociopragmatic model, utterance interpretation and social meaning, implicatures in speaker
choices
Speakers/hearers interpret linguistic choices as marked or unmarked, according to (RO sets)
Speakers have multiple identities, (RO set) indicating the given identity, whether established or
actively being negotiated by code choice
Speakers are rational agents or actors in two respects, their behavior is purposive and optimizing
in their objective (Myers-Scotton, 1998; Myers-Scotton & Bolonyai, 2001)
Filter 1 (F1): External constraints
Elster (1989) states, “External constraints are those that consist of all physical, economic,
legal, and psychological constraints that an individual encounters” (p.14). According to MyersScotton 1998) these are situational factors that include gender, ethnicity, and age. The
individual, as a result of these external constraints, has at their disposal a specific set of linguistic
features from which to choose. Inclusive among these features are: languages that a speaker may
have proficiency in, dialects, registers, and genres. Each feature refers to a code or style
interchangeably, indexing the rights and obligations sets borrowed here from Myers-Scotton
(1993), who states that (RO sets) are the set of linguistic variables that index the particular code
and are associated with a given group’s identity, situational context, or speech event (p.84).
The second component of (F1) consists of what Myers-Scotton suggests as micro-aspects
of conversational structure. These micro-aspects include discourse strategies such as turn-taking,
overlaps, minimal responses, and culture-specific views about what the appropriate use of
language is in a given type of interaction (p.207). In other words, what gives validity to the
Rational Choice model is therefore the combination of these societal factors in conjunction with
the micro-aspects, permitting the individual to utilize or manipulate (RO sets) in, for instance,
performances of drag queens. Because drag queen performers so skillfully manipulate (RO sets),
the rationality of the Rational Choice model is very appropriate in explicating the choices made.
As Elster (1989) states, “When faced with several courses of action, people usually do what they
believe is likely to have the best overall outcome” (p.22). Hence, the choice of the course of
action based upon what an individual feels is most appropriate, embodies the very nature of the
Rational Choice model. In other words, this rational aspect explains the motivation behind the
choices and the reasons why they are made.
Filter 2 (F2): Two innate architectures
According to Carol Myers-Scotton (2003), this filter makes use of two possibly
overlapping innate architectures. First among them, Damasio’s (1996) theory of somatic
markers, which influence types of response an organism has to stimuli. Damasio theorizes that
all organisms have this ability to use these markers in making quick judgments and therefore
actions and reactions, including social situations, consequentially, involving linguistic choices.
Damasio (1999) further suggests that these markers can be called upon in future situations,
through associated reward and punishment experiences and other relevant stimuli, creating a net
somatic state used in creating favorable outcomes for the organism.
The second innate theoretical construct involves the “markedness evaluator” (MyersScoton (1998). This evaluator assesses the relative markedness in a given set of linguistic choices
made by others. This mechanism gives the individual the ability to decipher in social interactions
things that are marked and unmarked. Both markedness evaluator and somatic markers are
themselves products of experience. However, whereas somatic markers may indicate the course
of action for the best outcome, markedness evaluations may only compare actions of possible
courses of action. Thus, these two components may create a type of ‘check and balances’
regarding appropriateness of linguistic appropriateness.
Filter 3 (F3): Rational operation
This is where the rational mechanism operates. Selection of appropriate (RO sets) are determined by three
sets of features:
1) Speakers take into account their desires, values, and prior beliefs
2) Speakers check elements for internal consistency
3) Speakers assess available evidence that may inform them of likely outcomes
After processing these steps the individual sets on a rational course of action. It should be noted, however,
that this course is only rational to the extent that the speaker deems it in his or her best interest, not by some
objective standard. In other words, speakers take into account what they want to do and what they can do.
Except for certain circumstances as in exploratory CSSV, most speakers are fairly aware of
interactional factors such as the social identity of the participants, the topic, and the setting. However, the
way in which they evaluate the constraints produced by these factors is subjective, rather rational in their
judgment. Exploratory CSSR is analyzed in the first analysis section using data from RuPaul’s first
televised interview.
Drag Queens
Barrett (1998) defines drag queens as occupying the social category of gay men who dress as a
woman, especially those that perform in gay bars. While there are many similar appearing individuals who
may cross dress or straight men dressing as woman, the only ‘real’ drag queens considered here are those
that are part of the gay and lesbian community. Also, in this particular study, “Glam” drag queens will be
examined. “Glam” refers to those drag queens that dress in exaggerated high-class women’s attire, to
undermine those that don’t believe men can dress as woman and often to play on the irony of this. Another
important qualification of drag queens by Barrett (1998) regards gay men dressing in drag to perform,
demonstrating the irony of crossing genders. In other words, while proudly being known as a gay man,
they manipulate social and linguistic factors in performing this irony.
AADQ’s (African American drag queens) performances consist of many components. First,
humorous monologues are used while interacting with the audience. Second, their performances are full of
information exposing the relationship among cultural, societal and linguistic issues. Turner (1986) stated,
“The relationship between performance genres and society is reciprocal and reflexive; it is a critique, direct
or veiled of the social life it grows out of” (p.22). This is precisely what is revealed upon analyzing data
from drag performances.
Barrrett (1998) mentions,” A primary concern of drag performance is to highlight mismatches
between the performer’s “perceived” identity (as a woman) and her biographical identity (as a man)
(p.140). In other words, a true performer uses both linguistic and non-verbal cues to devise juxtaposed (RO
sets) mismatching language and identity. Therefore, Butler (1993) stated that an effective drag
performance requires using language in a way that demonstrates categories based on gender, ethnicity,
class, and sexuality and is not some authentic performance based on any one sole identity.
Defined below are three styles that AADQ’s make use of in their performances:
White Woman Style (Lakoff 1975)
a) Specific lexical items to their specific interests, generally relegated to them as “woman’s work”:
dart (in sewing) and specific color terms (ecru, magenta)
b) Empty adjectives like divine, charming, cute
c) Question features with declaratives: tag questions (It’s so hot, isn’t it?), rising intonation in
statements contexts (What’s your name, dear? Mrs. Smith?)
d) The use of hedges of various kinds (e.g., well, y’know, kinda)
e) The intensive use of so
f) Hypercorrect grammar, superpolite forms, and euphemisms: women are not supposed to talk rough
g) Women don’t tell jokes
Gay Male Speech Style (Barrett 1997)
a) The use of the lexical items and structures included as part of Lakoff’s women’s language, e.g., specific
colors terms and the and the “empty” adjective (marvelous, adorable, etc.), as well as hedges and boosters
b) The use of the wider pitch range for intonational contours than in the speech of straight men.
c) Hypercorrect pronunciation; the presence of phonologically non-reduced forms and the use of hyperextended vowels
d) The use of lexical items specific to gay language (Rodgers [1972] 1979) gives a somewhat dated lexicon
of many such expressions
e) The use of a H*L intonational contour, often co-occurring with extended vowels (as in FAAABulous)
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) Style (Walters 1992)
AAVE Realizations of Standard English Phonological Features:
a) Interdental fricatives as labiodental fricatives: “teeth”
b) Final consonant reduction: /r/ deletion, “sister”
c) Intervocalic weakening: /r/ deletion,
d) Strident cluster metathesis or modification: “ask”
e) Prenasal raising of [E] to {i}
f) Monophthongization of [ai]: “my” ma
e) Stress fronting: “police”
AVVE Morphological and Lexical Innovations and Realizations of SE
Features:
f) Absence of non-syllabic inflectional endings: third person singular [-s], noun plural [-s] possessive
[-s]
g) Reduction of unstressed syllabic inflectional [ings]: [In]. or [.n], and [to]: “going to”
h) Lexical verbs as aspect markers: perfective ”done,” I done finish my work; Inceptive “come” don’t
come coming in here; future perfect be done; intensive continued progressive be steady; habitual
copula: she be nervous vs. she nervous (non-habitual) (Green 1994)
i) Negation: multiple negation, didn’t do nothing; ain’t as negative of forms of to be and to have
j) “You” plural distinction: y’all and y’all’s
f) Special intonation patterns, e.g., H*HL in rhetorical speech
While these styles are not necessarily mutually exclusive to a particular group, they have been adopted
from Barrett (1998) in analyzing AADQ CSSR.
Use of Unmarked Choices:
Exploratory
Among many reasons for CSSV, there is one that occurs relatively less frequently: exploratory
CSSV. When the speaker does not have adequate knowledge of the addressee, in this case the audience,
various unmarked choices are made. In speaking, the three filters suggested by Carol Myers-Scotton
(2002) of the rationality of the Markedness model illustrate the CSSV process.
Upon analyzing RuPaul’s first appearance on the national television show the Arsenio Hall Show,
by RuPaul’s own admission, he was quite nervous RuPaul (1995). Nervousness on behalf of the performer
was in part due to not having a full grasp of the audience nor experience being in front of a live studio.
According to (F1), there are external constraints that affect the speaker’s choices of (RO sets). He
did not have full knowledge of the audience or adequate knowledge of the identity of the audience. The
age, various ethnic backgrounds, and micro-aspects of the audience were unclear to him. Armed with this
information or lack thereof, (F2) prescribes that quick judgments (somatic markers) must have been made
in order to deal with this communicative task, possibility including past successful experiences dealing with
situations of anxiety. All utterances are therefore unmarked, for the speaker is unsure of who will evaluate
what. As a result, (F3) takes all of this information into account, along with the speaker’s desire to
negotiate his multiple identities and the resulting rational mechanism produces this response to a
welcoming audience:
Example 1
H*L
1 I love it.
H*
HL
2 I feel aaaall the love…
H*L
3 I feel that.
L
H
4 I feel all the love you’re sending me. (Rusty Barrett (1998), p.153)
The above introduction to RuPaul’s interview exemplifies both (RO sets) indexing identity and the role of
rationality in the Markedness model. The Rational Choice model (F3) permits the speaker to choose
among various registers, dialects, and genres in this situation, optimizing what the speaker believes is the
best outcome. In line 1, Barrett notes that the utterance I love it carries a H*L intonational pattern which
reflects stereotypical gay speech (p.153). In line 2, the word all is lengthened with a H*HL pattern indexing
both AAVE rhetorical speaking and games typical in AAVE similar to genres such as sermons (p.152). In
line 3, he reverts back to gay speech. In the final line, RuPaul makes use of a higher stress on the word
love, indexing white woman’s style. In other words, not only are these three styles reflecting (RO sets) of
gay, AAVE, and white woman style, the alternation among them demonstrates a rational choice on behalf
of the speaker to cope with unknown identities of the audience and expressing the multiple identities of the
speaker.
Use of Marked Choices:
Manipulating Register and Dialect
The Rational Choice model is particularly well suited in explicating marked stylistic choices in
AADQ performances. In drag performances it is common to pick audience members directly and address
them. An example of this was described in The Lady Chablis, which was a best seller Midnight in the
garden of good and evil. The Lady Chablis explains her approach:
Example 2
Whenever I performed my monologue, I made sure to comb the audience for a “victim.” I’m
always gonna pick on someone—that’s part of my act. Still is. I’ll usually find somebody in the front row
who’s got a certain afraid look on their face, like “Oh my God, please don’t say nothing to
me.”
That’s when I move in for the kill. If I see a woman, and she’s draped in diamonds, I might ask, “Girl,
what didja do to get those jewels? Didja suck dick that good? Share y’secrets with The Doll! (The Lady
Chablis (1996), p103)
While most of the addressees in RuPaul’s situation were unknown, here it is clear that The Lady
Chablis could plainly see and interact more directly with both the particular addressee and the other
audience members, fulfilling the criteria set forth by (F1); that is, various components of identity are visible
and assessable. The performer was able to observe the gender, estimate the age, and generate some idea of
socioeconomic status of the ‘victim’. Taking into account these characteristics of the addressee, one would
then communicate with appropriate register and dialect, for instance. However, given the knowledge
filtered through (F1), and an evaluation of what utterances would be appropriate given the situation from
(F2), it is the desire, therefore, rational choice of the performer, to juxtapose (RO sets) producing
purposefully inappropriate outcomes.
In a deliberate manner both register and dialect were used in breaking assumptions and attributing
identity to a member of the audience who do not necessarily possess that given gender, ethnic or
socioeconomic background. For instance, Barrett states, “The highly informal style and coarse language
directed at a woman “draped in diamonds” is unexpected, indexing a (false) closeness and familiarity
between the drag queen and the audience member (p. 154). This is further evidenced by the term used to
address the woman ‘girl’, and the fact that sexually explicit matters are not usually discussed among
strangers. It was the intent of the performer to suggest that the woman from the audience was not a
member of the upper wealthy class; rather, she was a woman that was handsomely rewarded for her sexual
ability. As Myers-Scotton (2002) mentions, “such a marked choice is often a powerful feature of language,
because it deviates from the expected and because its motivations may not be clear, therefore leaving the
addressee off balance and unable to predict the (RO set) in effect for the rest of the exchange or to explain
the speaker’s precise motivations” Myers-Scotton (1985). These precise (RO sets) that disrupt assumptions
and render the addressee somewhat bewildered, are in effect the combination of somatic markers and
markedness evaluation corresponding to (F2). This correspondence is realized by knowing what the
appropriate style of speech is and knowing how to purposely misuse it. Therefore, it was the belief of the
speaker that being “draped in diamonds” was attributable to a higher socioeconomic class. Therefore,
desire of the speaker to manipulate language for a comedic effect, that is, juxtaposing styles and creating
mismatches, produced the rational and desired outcome for the performer, adhering to (F3).
Use of Marked Choices:
Undermining Gender
In the final analysis of an AADQ’s performance, an alternation of dialects is used in marking
white woman style, to then undermine its very use. As it should be noted again, the choice of styles is
rational to the extent that it fulfills the criteria so deemed rational by the speaker, not by any objective
measure. This AADQ from Texas is introducing a male stripper in a gay bar.
Example 3
1 Are you ready to see some muscles?
2 (audience yells) Some dick?
3 Excuse me I’m not supposed to say that, words like that in the microphone
4 Like shit, fuck, and all that, you know?
5 I am a Christian woman.
6 I go to church.
7 I’m always on my knees. (Rusty Barrett (1998) , p. 155)
The AADQ juxtaposes obscenities in what would otherwise be considered white woman’s style speech,
therefore, apologizing for words such as dick, shit, and fuck. Juxtaposing (RO sets) to disrupt woman’s
style speech in Lakoff’s definition (women don’t talk rough) undermines a white woman’s speech, creating
a deliberate departure from being perceived as a proper woman. The ability to use white woman’s speech
comes from knowledge gained in (F1), and the manipulation of the style from (F2). The marked stylistic
choices counter each other producing a comedic effect. In lines 5 and 6, (a Christian woman who is always
on here knees) conveys what Harvey (1998) terms as an example of Ludicrism. This term refers to
language that infers or underscores the indeterminacy or multiplicity of meaning in a given utterance. He
further suggests a type of ludicrism, a double-entendre, is always sexual in nature. Harvey’s notion is
consistent with line 7 (I’m always on my knees). The multiplicity encoded in the utterance is twofold. The
performer both implies that he is a devote Christian and performs fellatio.
Taking into consideration the performers belief of what constitutes a white woman’s speech, his
desire to play on a gender mismatch, and assessment of the best course of action in manipulating marked
stylistic speech successfully produces the desired comedic affect mapped out in the (F3). In other words,
rationally, it is the desire of the performer to violate expected behavior and play off stereotypes, using
CSSV as the linguistic mechanism by which this task is accomplished.
Conclusion
It has been shown that the use of dialects, registers, and genres are used in indexing particular (RO
sets). While the use of different languages (bilingualism) was not analyzed, it has been well documented
that the Markedness model of code switching operates within the same theoretical framework as does
stylistic variation (Myers-Scotton (2002) & Barrett (2002)). This analysis of monolingual AADQ’s
suggests, along with the integration of the Rational Choice model within the Markedness model, that these
two linguistic phenomena can in fact be reconciled into one paradigm: CSSV (code switching stylistic
variation).
Exploratory CSSV was used in situations were aspects of addressee’s identity were unknown. The
rational mechanism inherent within the Markedness model elaborated in this paper, demonstrated both the
unmarked stylistic choices and why they were used. A natural combination of code-switching and stylistic
variation thereby resulted, stemming from the principles set forth by the Markedness model consisting of a
Rational Choice component.
CSSV showed that marked stylistic choices Lady Chablis used were able to build a false sense of
solidarity, thereafter disrupting further predictable assumptions: a desired rational outcome.
The Texas AADQ successfully juxtaposed (RO sets) indexing white woman’s speech with (RO
sets) indexing unladylike vulgarities, via marked stylistic choices. The success of undermining the speech
of a ‘proper’ lady is a direct result of rational choice on the part of the performer.
Qualitatively, the demonstration of AADQ’s use of CSSV in performances is useful in advancing
the theory that code-switching and stylistic variation can in fact be unified into one operating theoretical
paradigm.
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