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:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UoJ1-ZGb1w

 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?