LING 1020, Fall 2020
Reading guide for Chapter 10 of Meyerhoff (2019)
Note: We will be covering only pages 226 to 249. (We will stop right before the section, ‘Gender
Practices’).
Here is a list of key terms and ideas that you need to know. Write a definition or explanation for
each one as you encounter it during the reading.
difference between sex and gender:
o sex: Biologically based distinction between males and females
o gender: indicates social identity that emerges or is constructed through social
actions
gender-exclusive features: associated solely with a particular user or group of users or
solely in particular context
gender-preferential features: distributed across speakers or groups but is more frequently
by some than by others
direct indexing: word has a semantic feature female or male as part of its basic meaning
like he and she
indirect indexing: distribution of gender is based on sex preferential
conventional implicature: interference that arises from meaning of a word or phrase.
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constitutive view of relationship between a linguistic feature and a non-linguistic factor:
reflexive view of relationship between a linguistic feature and a non-linguistic factor:
William Labov’s Principles of gender and variation
Principle I: Women use the standard more than men
The tendency for women to use more of the standard with stable variables can be seen as
indicating women’s greater sensitivity to what’s considered standard. Why is that?
o Trudgill’s proposal:
o Eckert’s proposal: Women make greater use of symbolic sources to establish
their identification with, or position within a social group or their opposition to a
group
Principle Ia: Change above the level of awareness: Women use the standard more than
men
Principle II: Changes below the level of awareness: Women use more of the incoming
variant then men
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Penelope Eckert’s work on Principle II, and the Northern Cities Shift
Northern Cities Shift – For review, you might want to watch this video again:
[Link]
Eckert found that among the high-school girls she studied, gender interacted with another
category: distinction between burnouts and jocks in the high school
Sali Tagliamonte’s use of Labov’s Principles in studying non-standard were in York
Step 1: Who used non-standard were more frequently, men or women? men
Step 2: In an apparent time study, there was evidence of: change in progress
Step 3: This appeared to violate Principle _II__, because: women were supposed to lead the
change from below but it was the men who favored the nonstandard
Step 4: In follow-up work, it was found that the on-going change was restricted to ___negative
tags_______, where ____women____ were the more frequent users of the incoming
variant.
When women don’t use more of the standard
Language that contradicts Principle I: Arabic
Review: Diglossia (Chapter 6):
Review: High code (Chapter 6):
Two possible reasons why women don’t use more of the standard in Arabic:
1. Most of the jobs were dominated by men
2. Limited access to education in the past
Moving beyond Labov’s principles
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Main criticism of Labov’s broad social groupings (like gender): the groupings masked
internal differentiation
The ‘Gender Paradox’:
Women are more likely to use both standard forms (Principle 1 1a) and more likely to use
innovative vernacular forms(PrincipleII)
Two major points raised by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet:
1. The paradox is only a paradox if it can be shown that the women who are
leading in the nonstandard variants are actually the same ones who are using more
of the standard variants
2. By lumping together all the women or all the men together in an analysis the
researcher is essentially claiming that gender identity is a simplex phenomenon
derived directly from speakers biological sex
Two advantages of adopting the perspective of understanding gender identity in relation
to other identities and other relationships:
1. Methods now allow us to interpret all of the data we might gather in
sociolinguistic research
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2.
Understanding how gender and other social identities interconnect through language
variation is highly relevant for the goals of variationist sociolinguistics. Why?