Sociolinguistics Beep Boop Bop

Hello, I am late to the blog party. Here are some memes to hopefully express my current state of mental stability. 

   

Sociolinguistics

Language differences are sometimes easily noticeable and can be a key to understanding a person and how they live or how they were raised. I read an article called "The Need for New Approaches To Social Class Analysis In Sociolinguistics" that's about the approaches to research within sociolinguistics and thought it would help me find a new perspective on how people interact with each other and its relation to language. Basically, the article focuses on the importance of social class, ethnicity, and network. Another important factor within this article is their weight of importance on the socio side of linguistics and that made me think of a sociology project I had to complete this semester that is focused on the relationships between students and professors across the departments within Clarion University. I had used participation observation as a method of conducting my research for that project. This brought me to make a connection of networking that was one of the key factors within the article. I noticed through my observations within the classrooms that there are social structures within the students and they seem to be connected by their goals in that class. Those who seem to have a strategy of when participation would help them most sat with those who had a similar technique. I think this relates to how humans process language and learn from it, but also has shown me that within the student body there were little groupings based on how they learn. I noticed that these groups were also linked by the way they spoke based on when the professor was around or not. There were also differences in types of mannerisms or jokes being said within the classroom. I find networking to be a very important skill set and can be varied based on how a person was raised and with the inequality within America, there can be disadvantages that can lead to variations with how people speak when they are networking.   

 -Zoe Stone

http://web.stanford.edu/~eckert/Institute2015/Readings/Rickford1986.pdf   -  Article Link

Proceedings of our Last Meeting

Well, our blog has run its course—and performed its primary function, which was to keep us all engaged and talking to each other about the topics and ideas of this class in "American Voices." I am so pleased with the way all of you rose to this very unexpected occasion and together created such an interesting conversation about language and dialect in the time of quarantine.

For those of you who haven't been able to zoom in, last Wednesday we had our final "meeting"—party, really, because all we did was shoot the breeze, crack some jokes, and toast the future, whatever it may bring.

Oh, and play some music. Zoom doesn't permit overlapping audio feeds, so jamming was a complete non-starter. So we took turns. I played a couple, then Nate played one, then Eli—well, I think Eli was about to play something, but then we fell down a rabbit hole and forgot that was ever going to happen. (Sorry, Eli!)

Nate's tune was a cover of Ben King's "Stand By Me". Here's a cool version of it (although I feel I must point out that any "standing by" now needs to be at a safe distance of six feet):

These were my tunes, plus a third one that I meant to play but forgot:


https://open.spotify.com/artist/4fM1RtB7pgnhic6phSkanx

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1CPwHx5lgVxv0rfcp7UXLx

 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0hh1N707d2q6xRvhnvraIK     

I literally have no idea what Eli was going to play, so here's my best guess as to what it might have been...

Bye folks, it's been swell. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed our little time together. Stay well, stay home, stay sane, and we'll all meet again on the other side of Covid-19!

Marine Vocabulary Lesson

The other day I was talking to a friend of mine who is in the Marines. I was joking about how I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time when he uses their lingo/slang- and then I remembered this class and realized, hey, I can use that! So I got him to define a few terms for me, and now I will share them with you: slang apparently used by Marines, as informally defined for me by my friend Mark.

1. Grunt: “Ground Unit Not Trained,” or “musclehead” infantrymen.
2. POG: “Person Other than Grunt.” An insulting term which implies you aren’t a “real” Marine if you aren’t infantry.
3. Blue Falcon: That one guy that screws everyone else over; someone who really needs to get their act together.
4. Boot: Someone fresh out of boot camp, especially one who flaunts the fact that they’re a Marine now and gives you secondhand embarrassment.
5. Skate: A verb; to get the easiest job where you have to do minimal work.
6. Barney style: Instructions given in words even a toddler could understand.
7. Terminal lance: I quote, “the many, many lance corporals who have given up on life, and are just waiting out the rest of their enlistment in agony so they can get out.”
8. Ninja punch: NJP, Non-Judicial Punishment. Mark says this is his favorite term, and is basically criminal charges without a trial and with its own punishment system, used when someone does something stupid but not warranting an actual trial.

Anyone else never heard of most of these before? Or, alternatively, have others to share?

"He" to "he/she" to "they" to...?

One of the passages that interested me in our textbook was the section on the gradual shift away from using masculine words as generic forms. For a long time, it was commonly accepted practice to use “man” as synonymous with “humankind,” to use the pronoun “he” by default when referring to an unknown individual, and so on. This only changed around the 1970s, prompted by the second wave of feminism. Generic “he,” and considering men the default in general, started to fall out of favor. Today, the generic “he” seems old-fashioned, and it’s more common to see “he or she,” “he/she,” “(s)he” or some other variation on including both male and female pronouns. Another option, which I haven’t seen as frequently, is to alternate the pronouns used for the unknown or hypothetical person every time you start a new sentence.

Even more recently, though, singular “they” has been making a comeback- probably helped along by many people (including myself!) using it as a personal pronoun. The advantages of “they” in place of “he/she” are greater inclusivity, eliminating the need for one pronoun or the other to come first, and generally being less clunky to write, read, and say. However, it also has its disadvantages, such as the possibility of confusion if a single unknown person is referred to with “they” in the same passage where a group of people is also referred to with “they.” This can be avoided with careful enough phrasing, but having to phrase things carefully to avoid pronoun confusion can get annoying.

So, after reading about how quickly the generic “he” became “he or she,” and knowing that “he or she” now seems to be turning into singular “they,” I’ve been wondering: is there going to be another shift? If we move away from “they,” where will we go next? Or do you think we’ll be sticking with it for a while, until it’s swept away in some big social movement? I don’t know if anyone is still looking at this blog, since the semester is over, but if anyone does read this, I’d like to hear your thoughts!

Language in the Workforce Cont.

https://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1827&context=ngresearchconf

I have included the link to a pdf that I found that was exactly what I seemed to be experiencing in the workforce in regard to gendered language. The article follows a woman named Hettie, listening to her speak and watching how she conducts herself within the work force.

The article talks about how Hettie "constructs herself as a competent professional, managing a difficult situation well and with dignity through a variety of strategic discursive, lexical and grammatical choices. These choices also present her as a vulnerable, warm-blooded person with strong feelings, and a story-teller who is responsive to her audience". She tries to relate to the person she is assisting and makes her work persona very personable and approachable, while at the same time alluding a ray of authority and professionalism. 

This article then went on to talk about how men and women differ in the fact that women tend to use more "rapport-talk", or rather where more personal information is used in the act of conversation, but I tend to disagree slightly. I disagree in that I do believe a lot of men participate in rapport talk as well. Within my own job the men around me are often telling stories of their past. Mostly because that past consists of serving in the United States Military, and military men are different than normal men - in my opinion, which is a whole other discussion - telling militia tales. 

Differences in Gender Language in the Workforce

For the last couple of weeks I have been working at a technology center for Northwest Savings Bank in Warren, PA. Due to the fact that technology and help support such as this are predominately male dominated, I was able to observe and record the differences in language between male and female coworkers and within different help desk calls received by the desk.

I suppose I should start by explaining what we do: I am one of four interns currently working at the Tech Support Center, with an additional employee-band of ten or less. From that work pool of people there were three girls total, myself included. To me, this was more than I thought there would be when I started working for tech support. During a normal work day we answer close to one-hundred calls each; each call with a different technological issue that needs solving. Now while that sounds impressive, it's merely unlocking user accounts and logging back in.

From performing these calls myself, and also listening into many calls made by others, I was able to observe many different styles of speaking between male and female.

Some of these observations are that, like in school, women tend to tag themselves before speaking. By this I mean, they begin asking their question(s) by saying things such as "I don't know if you'll be able to fix this..." or "hopefully his isn't too tricky...". They never want to outright ask for something to be fixed. And the same goes on my end. After I solved some issues for people I would go to email them back and find myself belittling my own accomplishment of fixing their issue by saying something along the lines of: "everything SHOULD be fixed by now" and "Hopefully it works for you".

But this fact is not the same when it comes to my male coworkers. In observation I decided men are very matter-of-fact. They state what needs to be said, and hardly elaborate more. If the account is unlocked thats all the information they give you. Whereas women tend to add more information than needed. For example I would always add in the note: "If you have any more issues please do not hesitate to call the help desk and someone will take care of it". The men at work hardly ever did a follow up on someone's account or issues that were previously recorded; while women remember the names of frequent callers and have chats about life in between fixing the problem.

There were so many different part about speech and gender in the workforce and I will continue to write and observe more.

Digging into Family Root Similarities

As my last blog post I wanted to bring attention to my family roots, the dialects of the Polish and Ukrainian language.  My father’s side is Polish and my mother’s side is Ukrainian. Both have made comments here and there, mentioning that both languages are quite similar.  But in what ways? I began to dig, asking my very Ukrainian grandmother and doing some research on my own.  This is what I found, both Polish and Ukrainian are Slavic languages from the Indo-European family.  And during the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ukraine came under the domination of Poland this resulted in cultural Polonization.  Gradually, the official language of Ukrainian provinces under Poland was changed to Polish.  As a result, many Ukrainian nobles learned the Polish language.  This could explain why the west of the modern day Ukraine has much closer vocabulary and dialect use of the Polish language.  To get technical, both Ukrainian and Polish orthography is largely phonetic. There is a consistent correspondence between their spelling system of language, sounds, and letters.  As for grammar, both languages have a relatively free word order, and are considered a highly inflected language.  This meanings a language that changes the form or ending of some words due to the way they are used in a sentence.  There are no articles, and often subject pronouns are dropped.  Adding to that, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and numerals are inclined by numbers, cases, and gender. 

I watched an interesting video of a man who spoke Polish and a women who spoke Ukrainian, trying to have a simple conversation.  It was interesting the way the women picked up on a few common spoken words.  I recommend watching about 5 or so minutes since the video is so long.  Let me know what you thought and if you know any other slavic languages who are also similar.  Or feel free to express your family’s roots if they have any correspondence to one another. 

Across the Pond

I thought with all the unsettling news going on in the world for the past couple months, I would make my last blog post about something fun.  We talked a lot about different accents locally and in the US.  I want to talk about the accents across the pond in the UK.  I did some research on some of the more recognizable accents.  RP is Received Pronunciation which is “the Queen’s English”, or close to it.  RP is the posh British accent that can be heard from Tom Hiddleston.  The Geordie accent is very distinctive, but the debate is whether that is a good or bad thing.  On the plus side it is viewed as a very friendly accent, on the negative many people cannot understand it.  Two members, Jade and Perrie, of the girl band Little Mix are particularly known for their Geordie accent.   There are other distinctive accents such as Welsh, Brummie, Scouse, and Essex, but the one that really caught my eye is Cockney.

Cockney is an accent particular to East London and is generally looked upon as a mark of lower class.  One of the most recognizable British accents, Cockney is the accent of the stereotypical British hitman in movies and TV shows.  They do not use "h" and th as in think is pronounced "fink", these are just a few examples of the defining characteristics of Cockney.  https://youtu.be/1WvIwkL8oLc This video demonstrates and explains the Cockney accent very well.  The thing about the Cockney accent that really caught my attention was its Rhyming Slang.  I speak English, but if someone was to come up to me speaking Cockney Rhyming Slang I would understand most of the individual words being spoken and still have no idea what they were trying to say.  From what I can tell the rhyming slang involves replacing certain words with other words.  The replacement words are a pare of words in which the final word rhymes with the original word.  For instance, “I went up the apple and pears” or “I went up the stairs”.  But wait, it gets even more confusing as most of the time the second half of the rhyme is removed.  So, you would say “I went up the apples” instead of “I went up the stairs”.  This was a trend started in the mid-1800’s that continues to this day.  This video explains it better than I ever could  https://youtu.be/La7Tg5e547g.     

As If Online Learning Isn't Hard Enough

I am sure I am not alone in finding distance learning to be difficult. Transitioning to everything being an online this or an online that has both depersonalized the learning experience as well as caused many students to feel like we have to teach ourselves the content. This is something thankfully most of us have been able to adapt to as college students -- but what about younger students?

Imagine being five years old and suddenly your school is now online only. Parents are having to take up the role of at-home teacher in order to achieve distance learning objectives. This presents its own unique host of challenges in general but now add into the equation that your parent is not a fluent English speaker -- what then? How do they help their young children do the schoolwork they themselves have trouble reading and understanding? Which is where my title for this blog post comes into play -- as if online learning isn't hard enough, let's contend with language barriers. 

We have been learning a lot these past few weeks in class about dialects across the United States but for my last post I wanted to travel back to some of our discussions from earlier in the semester (a simpler time when I got to see you all in person instead of through my laptop screen). We had spent time talking about the different languages spoken across the United States and the differing experiences of those whose native language is not English.

In this new, online based world, life for these non-native speakers is becoming even more challenging. An article published by a Floridian news outlet titled "Language Barrier Makes Distance Learning Hard for Some ParentsLanguage Barrier Makes Distance Learning Hard for Some Parents" explains the specific problems they are facing. 

The article focuses on an Hispanic mother named Martin del Campo who has four children who are now learning online at home. She explained that she had been having difficulty understanding the assignments she is trying to teach her youngest children since they are in English and as such has had to have her older kids become her unofficial teaching assistants -- something that detracts from their own studies. 

Paired with the already difficult work of trying to navigate unknown online programs -- which del Campo admitted "I struggle a lot because I also don’t know how to use a computer...I couldn’t understand when it says go to this link, log in to this website, so it gets really complicated.” these language barrier issues are making the transition to distance learning extra hard for families. 

The problem of language barriers in the world of distance learning is something that I had not even considered when we all switched to an online based education in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic but it is truly a serious concern. What do you all think of the problems presented by language barriers in regards to online learning? What do you think are the best ways to try and help these families who are struggling? 

Amateur Hour

This week, we looked at William Labov’s article “How I Got Into Linguistics, and What I Got Out of It." Labov explains how, on the basis of linguistics alone, he saved a man from a prison sentence. Paul Prinzivalli was thought to be behind bomb threats made to the LA airport. The police had tape recordings of calls made by the suspect, and they claimed that the voice on the recordings sounded like Prinzivalli. However, Prinzivalli had a New York City accent, and Labov recognized that the voice on the recording had a Boston accent. Labov presented linguistic evidence in court, and thereafter it was ruled that Prinzivalli was innocent.
I found this case study to be fascinating. Something as seemingly simple as an accent made the difference between this man keeping his freedom and being wrongfully imprisoned. I looked up videos on YouTube of people speaking in NYC and Boston accents. Having done this, I can vouch for the fact that, to the untrained ear, these two accents do sound somewhat similar. To a linguist, it's probably quite simple to distinguish between the two. Indeed, Labov said “the moment I heard the recordings I was sure that he was innocent.” Labov picked up on this immediately. However, I was much less certain, and apparently I am not alone in this. According to Labov, prior to his testimony, the judge heard "no difference" between NYC and Boston accents.
This case is definitely interesting, but it’s also thought-provoking. Do you pick up on any major differences between the two accents? What might account for the two sounding similar to "regular" people, yet being so distinct to Labov? Interested to hear your thoughts! :)

Good ol' Bill, linguistic royalty.

Image courtesy of Alchetron.

Boston British

Hey everyone! Last week when I went to respond to blog posts I noticed there was not as many as normal. I kept wondering why but just responded to the ones that were there. Then I remembered today that we were supposed to post TWICE! I went back and looked at the schedule and would you believe it, I was the one that was missing! So my apologies for that, but hopefully posting now will make up for it...
Anyways, this past Wednesday we read and discussed Dennis Preston's, "They Speak Really Bad English Down South and in New York City". In the reading there's multiple maps made of data from multiple groups of people illustrating where they think proper English is spoken and who they think speaks the most pleasantly (whatever that means). Amongst these maps is a map of the US with sections made by someone from Michigan (who probably thinks very highly of himself as apparently all people from Michigan do...) that illustrate where they think the dialect areas are in the US. Most of it is what you'd expect with Texans being singled out as hillbillies and of course people from Michigan being labeled as normal. One thing specifically caught my eye however, and that is that New England was circled and labeled as simply, "British". In a historical context, British would make sense, but when I think of the modern New England accent the LAST thing I think of is British. I asked about this in class and Professor Luthin mentioned an accent that I had never heard of before called Boston Brahmin. After listening to a video to a conversation between two men with the accent I can confidently say that it does in fact sound like British. ALOT like British. So, I'm not sure if that is actually what that person from Michigan was talking about in the map, but honestly I don't care anymore. This whole post was a McGuffin to get all of you to look up the Boston Brahmin accent and have your mind blown...
If you happen to listen to it let me know what you think! this isn't really a discussion that can lead to a deep discussion but it is incredibly interesting (at least to me).

"Talking the Tawk"

In the midst of doing some Google searches, I came across an interesting article by The New Yorker that talks of William Labov and his explanations of Brooklynese.  I found it quite interesting, and I thought I would share some of the most interesting facts from the article.  (I also think that bullet points are more logical for this type of thing, so I will do that instead of paragraphs.)

1.) The dropping of the "r" lost its imperial status after WW2.  "'Before the war,' Labov said, 'the judges in the gangster pictures dropped their ‘r’s, but after the war only the hoodlums did it.'"
2.) Apart from the adenoidal "oi" (like saying "boid" instead of "bird"), Brooklynese has remained unchanged for the past fifty years.
3.) You can hear it in parts of New Orleans and Cincinnati because of the "bankers who moved to those cities in the nineteenth century to finance the cotton trade."
4.) "'Brooklynese is exactly the same whether it’s spoken in the Bronx, Queens, and Staten Island or in Brooklyn. Or the Lower East Side.' The city’s dialect, [Labov] said, 'is much more indicative of one’s social status than of one’s neighborhood.  Although no one wants to admit this,' he added, 'because we’re supposed to live in a classless society.'”
5.) "What causes dialects to change? Not television, Labov said. The people he calls 'extreme speakers'—those who have the greatest linguistic influence on others—tend to be visible local people: 'politicians, Realtors, bank clerks.'”

So I have to ask--what fact/opinion did you find most interesting?  I thought it was insane how the dialect hasn't really changed in 50 years.  It is hard to imagine, but fascinating nonetheless.

The Social Stigma of Using Words: Like Specifically the Word “Like”

I found an article discussing the different ways we use the word “like.” Normal uses of “like,” as a verb, noun, quotative, or as a word for comparison, are diverse as it is. But outside of those, the uses of “like” are normally looked down upon as socially unacceptable, much in the same way that uptalk is. Some people say that this is just another way to fill space, or another word for “um.” However, using “like” is not always associated with pauses in speech; its use is often intentional. Sometimes, we use it at the beginning of a sentence to emphasize or clarify a previous statement (e.g. The cheesecake was awesome! Like the raspberry sauce was so rich!). Other times, we use it in the middle of the sentence to highlight the importance of a specific phrase (e.g. I didn’t get to bed until like 3 in the morning). Here, we’re emphasizing the fact that it was so late to be going to sleep.

The two sources I looked at agreed that the use of “like” in this second way was for emphasizing the importance of something in the middle of the sentence. However, I think I also use it as “around” or “about,” meaning that it’s an estimate of something inexact (e.g. She cut the paper into like 5 pieces). Here, it isn’t about emphasizing the fact that it was five pieces, it’s more about communicating that we’re not sure how many pieces she cut it into. Anyway, this was just another meaning that I thought of that the articles didn’t mention.

The use of “like” was far more diverse than I realized. Are there other uses/meanings of “like” that you use or have heard? If you have time, check out some of the examples in the first article below!

Do you think “like” has the stigma of being annoying or incorrect in the same way that uptalk does?

https://theconversation.com/like-isnt-a-lazy-linguistic-filler-the-english-language-snobs-need-to-like-pipe-down-122056

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/like

https://xkcd.com/1483/

When Chile's in tha haus!

For this week's post, I wanted to share with you this very interesting video that depicts (in a very hilarious way) Chilean culture and language , under the eyes of our Latin American neighbours .What would happen if Chile was invited to a kind of group therapy with other countries? The following video shows some of the Chilean culture features that maybe are a little bit annoying for others to understand, but somehow determine our language as well. "Chilean Intervention" deals with many of our characteristics as a country: we speak terribly fast,we have a very changeable weather, we experience earthquakes almost everyday and we are absolutely convinced that we are the inventors of Pisco ( a very popular alcoholic drink) which is a no ending debate with our Peruvian brothers.

I firmly believe that the way we speak , has a tremendous impact on how others see us and the image we project as speakers. In her article, Amy Tan talked about how people perceived her mother based on her level English.The same phenomenon can be seen in how we speak our own language .Chile is a paradigma, in the sense that from all the Spanish speaking countries, we are considered the most difficult to understand

What ar your perceptions about Chilean culture and especially its language?

Does this video  show some of your perceptions about Chile?

Do you have perceptions of your own that I could confirm or debunk?

Socioeconomic Language

I found this chapter to be very interesting because I find sociolinguistics absolutely riveting. I spend a lot of my free, everyday time listening to the way people talk and, essentially, "reading between the lines" of their speech. While it may not be polite, I think you can learn a lot about someone just by the way they speak. I'm sure some people will consider it unfair profiling, but, for me, it's just second nature. You can learn a lot just by listening to people. For instance, this past summer I spent a week in Old Orchard Beach, Maine and the New England accent was striking. Of course, to us here in Pennsylvania that accent is always striking, but what really made me stop and take note was how different people working different jobs had different strengths of the accent. To help you visualize this, let me give you some examples. One day, I was walking back from the beach and there was a garbage truck in the alley between our hotel and the beach and the man that was tossing the trash into the track had one of the thickest New England accents I have ever heard in my life. It was the prototypical that you hear in movies and hear in your head when someone talks about the New England accent. Conversely, the guy who owned the parking lots near the pier and attractions didn't have a thick accent like the garbage man did. Now, I don't know if the owner of the parking lots was from Maine or even the New England region, he did have a New England hint to his speech. Despite not knowing the owner's birthplace or origins, I was confident that he was a man of higher intelligence. There were a lot of other factors that went into this prediction like dress, hygiene, etc. As my travel companion and I traveled through Massachusetts on our way to and from Maine, I noticed thick and less than thick accents. It seemed like a lot of the difference lied in where I saw this people and what they were dong.

So, for this post, I really want to hear your stories about your experiences with sociolinguistic and if you ever do what I do and try and pin-point someone's SES based on their speech. 

Language Stratification

After reading the chapter, I have come to conclusion that language differences and class divisions are almost inevitable.  In recent decades, research has shown across low, middle, and high SES groups that your parent’s language input directly effects their children’s language output.  According to Hart and Risley’s study, the amount of language young children are exposed to correlates with SES.  Children who come from highly successful families, significantly speak more on average to those from working-class or poverty level families.  Depending on your SES, it is likely young children may lag behind or not communicate effectively due to the parent’s phonological variables.  Considering the social distribution of language in New York, there seems to be more prestige with the consonantal [r] in the word “car” compared to the word “car” with the absence of the [r].  This is a great example of how the normal working of society have produced systematic differences.  Socioeconomic scales have been subjected to scrutiny and seem to focus on superficial measures.  But, it’s hard not to admit that socioeconomic status has a strong correlation to language differences.  In order to better understand the features of “high-quality” input, examining words, sounds, sentences, and social contexts can influence an individual’s language learning, especially as a child.  Many people defy the odds and are exceptions to this link between socioeconomic status and language variation. 

Furthermore, what kind of factors contribute to these SES discrepancies? Stratification? Have you known someone who has defeated the odds against the link between language differences and SES?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5901657/

Valley People Speak

Reading about gender and its roll in linguistics made me wonder about the stereotypical “Valley Girl” accent.  My main question about valley speak was do the men that live in that region speak the same way?  

According to an article I found, valley girl speak or uptalk is used by both men and women but women tend use it more frequently.  The stereotype for American southern California valley girl accent originates in the 1980’s.  Frank Zappa’s song “Valley Girl” was released during that decade along with movies like Valley Girl, Heathers, and later Clueless.  Uptalk is not limited to the Southern California region, it is however a staple of their dialect.  Sociologist Thomas J. Linneman found “Men use uptalk more when surrounded by women contestants, and when correcting a woman contestant after she makes an incorrect response. The more successful a man is, the less likely he is to use uptalk; the more successful a woman is, the more likely she is to use uptalk.”  One theory as to why uptalk is used is to prevent interruption. 

My personal theory is that women are used to having to work harder to be heard.  The more success they gain the more they expect people to listen to them, so they pitch their voice accordingly in preparation of being interrupted.  Men deepen their voices to sound authoritative, so they are not interrupted at all.  In answer to my original question men do speak valley girl, but it does not fit in with their natural language usage the way it does for women.  I had not connected valley girl speak with Kaylar's "Language Police" until I started looking into it.  Now that I have it makes sense that the two would go hand in hand.

Sources:  

https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/23/overturning-the-myth-of-valley-girl-speak/
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/12/scienceshot-men-talk-valley-girls-too

The Language Police

I am incredibly conscious of the way that I speak.

I teach dance at a local studio to four year olds. I know that when I am with my students my voice gets extra loud and peppy to try and keep their attention -- and when a friend comes to pick me up from work and hears me teaching, I am self-conscious that they had to hear my "teacher voice". When I lead meetings for College Democrats, I try to speak calmly and at a lower volume so that my cohorts take me seriously -- and I am constantly stressed, hoping that I am doing a good job. When I meet with local political leaders, who are predominately male, I get worried that my voice is too high-pitched and as such, they won't care what I have to say. This is just a small sampling but I am sure you all can also think of times in your own life where you have changed how you speak to fit the situation.

I promise I have a point to these anecdotes! It relates to the article I found this week relating to gender and speech called "From Upspeak to Vocal Fry: Are We 'Policing' Young Women's Voices?" by NPR.

In the article, it focuses on a female journalist who, after venturing into the world of podcasts, was criticized for the way that she sounded. In particular, listeners disliked her "upspeak" tendencies. The complaints got so bad that she eventually went to a voice coach in order to change the way she spoke in an attempt to placate the audience.

This opened up broader concerns about how women's voices are particularly targeted by those who dislike "upspeak" and vocal fry -- while ignoring the fact that men also use the same sounds. The linguist interviewed for the article, Penny Eckert, was angered by the fact that people try to hypocritically police women's voices. She wrote that she was particularly angry because, "the biggest users of vocal fry traditionally have been men, and it still is; men in the U.K., for instance. And it's considered kind of a sign of hyper-masculinity." Therefore, is it surprising that in a male-dominated society women have attempted to use their speech patterns to be taken seriously? It is a disheartening reality that women have to try and speak in ways to please others instead of being able to speak how they wish.

The final point from the article that really stuck with me was in the conclusion. Our journalist from the beginning of this tale decided to stop going to a voice coach. She explained that "I have started thinking of voice almost as the way I think about outfits. If I'm going for a job interview I'm going to wear a different outfit than when I'm out with my friends...now I do think of it a little bit more as these two separate things, whereas before I had zero awareness of it. And I don't know if that's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's just about wanting to change for yourself instead of feeling like you're being forced to change by external forces." Her way to deal with the negativity surrounding her voice was not to change it in all situations but instead to use different voices depending on the situation.

This opens up a whole can of worms that I wanted to ask you all about. What do you think of the idea of changing your voice to fit situations? Do you think that it is useful? Bad?

Furthermore, what do you think of the idea that society polices women's voices? Why does this happen? Do you think there is a way to change this in the future?

If you haven't, I highly recommend taking a look at the article as well.

Example of a Multi-Purpose Survey

In Monday's Zoom, we talked about updating a survey, the Western Pennsylvania Local Speech Survey, I did in this class two years ago with new questions. Here's a heatmap we were able to generate from that survey, looking at the geographical distribution of the Pittsburghese word jumbo (for 'balogna'):

Here is a link to the questionnaire for that survey:

• WPLSS Collection Form for In-Person Interviews 

Anyway, look it over and try to think of new questions we might want to explore this time around. Post your suggestions in the comment section...

applying the power/connection grid outside of family dynamics

So unsurprisingly enough I decided to focus a lot more of my blog post to the two out of text book articles as they were more interesting and I felt like had a lot more to offer than the book this week. I also chose to take a closer look at Gender and Family interaction as opposed to vowels and nail-polish as I had already been exposed to that piece last year with my previous anthropology class. Overall I find gender to be one of the most interesting topics to talk about as it seems to be a topic that many people are very guarded about, for good reason as no one wants to offend someone else, but gender is one of the topics that has the greatest impact on language development as well as how languages evolve and change over time. Anyway now onto the Gender and Family article. I overall found the article to be full of some very interesting topics but one of the largest ones that stood out to me was the power/connection grid. I find it interesting as it effects the dynamics of each individual family as a whole but also can always be changing and fluid as families can easily become closer or more distant to one another and in some cases can also have their power become more equal or hierarchical. I find this interesting and actually thought of what other circumstances other than just family could this grid be applied to. I think it has a reach much further beyond just looking at family dynamics and one of the most obvious to me was in the classroom. I feel like this translates very easily as in some classroom the teacher has total control and are very authoritarian in their control not letting students give much feedback which in turn also makes them kinda distant with one another and the teacher as they do not get to have that connection that allows them to feel included into discussion with one another. On the flip side there are classes like ours I feel like that allows us to easily be equal with one another. I feel like there are a number of different reasons for this but I think it makes us a much more connected classroom than the ones where the teacher lectures and the students only take notes. In our classroom, I never feel like I am being forced to talk or stay quiet and instead it is only up to each person's individual choice if he/she wants to speak. this I feel like also makes it a very equal space for everyone. In my opinion, having been in both styles of classrooms, I feel like this style where we are all equal for the most part and are able to freely bounce ideas off of one another and are not directly limited by the idea where the teacher lectures and the students only take notes and do not get a chance to drive the conversation; to be a style where ideas are given a chance to be shared more readily and can actually be changed as well as challenged in a way that really fosters intellectual thinking and discussion that is lacking in the other style.

A Linguistic Cry for Help

For my blog post this week, I decided to look into Lapgaliski, which I had learned about when I interviewed my friend Marija for the linguistic biography. Before we get down to business, let me just establish that I, apparently, have been spelling it wrong this whole time. It is, in truth, spelled Latgaliski. Oops. Also, it appears to also be referred to under the alias of Latgalian. This language thing is a whole new level of mess. 

From what Marija told me, there is debate in Latvia over whether it is simply a dialect of the Latvian language, or whether it qualifies as its own distinct language. I was curious to see where this confusion lies, so I did some digging. 

It is said to be used primarily in an eastern region of Latvia called Latgale, although there is a small fraction of speakers also in Russia, Germany, Canada, and the United States. There are 150,000 - 200,000 speakers of the language; compare that to 1.5 million Latvian speakers and 265 million Russian speakers. Most Latgalian speakers are trilingual in Latgalian, Latvian, and Russian, and although it is not acknowledged legally, it is optionally taught at some preschools and is used in some primary and secondary schools for studies in local history. It additionally has a written component, leading to the establishment of its own canon of literature and folklore. Its cultural contributions expand also to theatre, music, newspapers, and radio broadcasts. More simply, Latgalian exists as the primary mode of communication within the Latgale region and within families, such that there are some elders who have practical familiarity with Latgalian but not its parent language, Latvian.

So, based on these new bits of information, do you think Latgalian is classified better as a dialect or a minor language? What qualifications exist to decide what makes a form of communication its own language? Let me know what you think! :)

Latgale, the land of beautiful scenery and confusingly spelled words.

Source

https://iso639-3.sil.org/sites/iso639-3/files/change_requests/2009/2009-048_ltg.pdf

Image

https://www.lolaakinmade.com/europe/latvia-files-a-cultural-tour-through-latgale/

The Chilean Way: a basic guide to speak Chileno

During the time I was in the USA, many people asked me to speak a little bit of Spanish,whether it was out of curiosity or because they spoke Spanish too.This situation made me feel a bit uncomfortable, mainly  because I had to speak a neutral Spanish in order to be understood.I knew that if I talked to them with my natural Chilean accent, they would look at me perplexed.

Somehow, I thought I was being unfaithful to my own identity. Therefore in an attempt to keep my chilenity, I stated to explain some modisms and features of my language (what I like to call Chilean Spanish) to the people a talked to. 

First of all, we tend to OMIT some letters at the begining and at the end of a word. For instance in  the following sentence: Estoy enamorado ( meaning " I'm in love"), we eliminate 'es' in estoy and the 'd' in enamorado, changing to: ´Toy enamorao. This patern is repeated in all words ended in "do". Sometimes, especially in a semi-formal context ,s, turns into a very soft derivation of h:  E'htoy enamorao/ E'htamoh cansadoh ( instead of estamos cansados, meaning "we are tired").

Another distinctive feature is to place the word "la" (the) before a name when both speakers know the person. This is often used in informal and semi-formal conversations:

      Eg -¿Quien te dio ese libro? ( Who gave you that book?)

           -La Sthephanie me lo dio ( Sthephanie did)

The complexity of Chilean Spanish not only is due to these particular characteristics and  grammatical deviations, but also for some words and expressions which literal translation does not have any sense without the context.The following link shows a useful article with some of the most used Chilean slangs.

     https://www.thisischile.cl/chilean-slang-from-a-to-z/?lang=en

Which of them caught your attention the most? Do you think you would be able to survive in the Chilean jungle?

Linguistic "Groupyness"

            

             At the end of Chapter 5, the authors use Pittsburghese as an example for linguistic identity. In a large paragraph, they list several words and pronunciations that are associated with people who live in Pittsburgh. This list includes the usual terms we hear: nebby, slippy, yinz. After all that, however, we learn that outside of possibly the pronunciation of “dahntahn” and the use of “gumband,” “none of these items is unique to Pittsburgh”; instead, the idea of Pittsburghese is more about identity and the “people’s pride in being residents of Pittsburgh” (154). This surprised me (although it probably shouldn’t have). I didn’t realize that almost all of these linguistic differences were not unique to Pittsburgh, and that the idea of having a “Pittsburghese” was about the sense of having a “linguistic homeland.”

            This all reminded me of the linguistic biography I did about the different languages in China. My aunt explained to me that small and distinct linguistic communities are what make someone feel connected and part of a group. The idea of having an insider language that only a certain group understands is not only useful, but unifying. She mentioned that Mandarin, although it is the national language and gives people a common ground, does not unite the Chinese people in the same way that local languages do. This feeling of “groupyness,” found in smaller communities, is strong. Perhaps the idea of identity related to Pittsburghese is similar in the way it unites the people who live there and speak accordingly. But what’s the difference? Does the person in China, who speaks several distinct languages, have a deeper connection with those who are from the insider language than people who have only a dialectal difference? Is there something to be said for the ability to move in-and-out of multiple languages rather than switching between dialects? Also, do dialects lead to distinct languages if groups of people are separated for enough time?

Other questions I had from this chapter…

-       -     Are there any big differences in grammar across the linguistic regions of the US? Our book talks about small differences that apply to just one phrase, but are there overarching and applicable grammar rules that are distinct to a region?

-       -     The different vowel shifts are cool (pgs. 137-140)! Am I thinking correctly in imagining them to become like the GVS we learned about in Intro. to Linguistics? Will the vowels move enough to be completely new words so that the dialects are extremely different in each region (so different that they cannot be understood by outsiders)?

Everything's Bigger in Texas...Unless You're Looking at a DARE Map.

What sparked my interest about Chapter 5 actually happened quite early in the chapter. In section 5.2 on page 128 while talking about mapping regional variants it mentioned how some of the earlier computerized cartographic maps, including DARE maps, displayed states based on population density rather than geographical area. Because of this, a state like Texas which is geographically large, appeared smaller than New York. Personally, I would have never thought that this could happen. I've always assumed that every state had a fairly even amount of regional variants, and if anything, I thought that bigger states had more than smaller states. In retrospect however, it does make sense, as areas with higher population density act as melting pots where people are exposed to so many other cultures that they eventually lose their linguistic purity. So, while it does make sense, I am still hung up on the fact that it's Texas we're talking about. As Texas is on the Mexican border I would have thought there would have been a similar amount of regional variants compared to somewhere like New York. So, as a question to the rest of the class, do you think this is because Texas is only dealing with two main cultural groups while New York has multiple cultural groups within it (Even though each group individually within New York likely isn't as big as the Hispanic/Mexican culture in Texas)?
[P.S. it should be noted that everything I stated is pure speculation, I am not educated on Texas demographics or New York demographics...]

Linguistic Holes

So, one thing that caught my eye whilst reading chapter five, looking at dialect maps, and reflecting on conversations from English 282 and this class was the make up of dialectal boundaries. On page 130 of the textbook (I was able to find the image on Google and attach it above), there is a map depicting the spread of the use of the word pail. I was really interested in the fact that you could pretty much draw a line across the center of Pennsylvania and separate the pail people from the bucket people. As I kept looking at the above map, I noticed the lingering parts of PA that use the pail. My theory is that these are areas that saw overflow from West Virginia and New Jersey because the flow into Western PA clearly has roots in WV. Likewise with Eastern PA having overflow from NJ. However, as we look at other states in this map, we can see somewhat random breaks in the dialectal continuation. In West Virginia, we can see the continuation in the northeast, but then there is a break that picks up again towards the middle of the state, another break, then it picks up towards the southern border of the state. This continuation on the southern border seems to stem from a chain that stretches from most of Georgia, South Carolina, and some of North Carolina.

However, like I said before, there are several spots in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina where bucket is used over pail, so the question(s) I pose to all of you is: how or why do these gaps form? Do you think part of their formation comes from the movement of people to certain areas and not others? Why do you suppose there are non-concentrated areas surrounded by concentrated areas in the southern states in the above map?

(I apologize for the quality of the image, but that's the best I could do. A clearer, larger image can be found on page 130 of the textbook.)

Good Will Shakespeare

Whenever one mentions the name “William Shakespeare,” many different thoughts flood throughout many different minds. Some roll their eyes; some openly praise him; some utter the word “overrated”; some do not care. No matter who you are, though, or what you think about his work, one cannot deny his brilliance. It is obvious that Shakespeare changed the game for literature, theatre, and writing, but what most people do not realize is how much his work impacted the English language as a whole. True, there are people who read Romeo and Juliet and/or Julius Caesar in high school that do not care about his achievements, and might even find them overvalued; however, no one can escape his contributions. Why is this?

Well, Shakespeare had knowledge of seven different languages, and had an estimated vocabulary of about 24,000 words; a truly staggering amount. This background allowed for him to invent new words for the English language-- over 1,700 to be exact-- and also to flesh out our language in more ways than one. In many ways, these words are his most underrated works. Below are some of the most popular (I copied and pasted the word list from William Shakespeare: His Influence in the English Language):

Eyeball, moonbeam (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Puking (As You Like It)
Obscene, new-fangled (Love’s Labour’s Lost)
Cold-blooded, savagery (King John)
Hot blooded, epileptic (King Lear)
Addiction (Othello)
Arch-villain (Timon of Athens)
Assassination, unreal (Macbeth)
Bedazzled, pedant (The Taming of the Shrew)
Belongings (Measure for Measure)
Dishearten, swagger, dawn (Henry V)
Eventful, marketable (As You Like It)
Fashionable (Troilus and Cressida)
Inaudible (All’s Well That Ends Well)
Ladybird, uncomfortable (Romeo and Juliet)
Manager, mimic (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Pageantry (Pericles)
Scuffle (Antony and Cleopatra)
Bloodstained (Titus Andronicus)
Negotiate (Much Ado About Nothing)
Outbreak (Hamlet)
Jaded, torture (King Henry VI)
Grovel (Henry IV)
Gnarled (Measure for Measure)

Which are your favorites?

Ideas to Be Thinking About

So what are we going to do with ourselves the rest of the semester, besides read some stuff and talk about it? I have always, with this class, made a point of doing a class project—interviewing people (check: did that), collecting data about some aspect of dialect, testing a theory—and I am loath to let that go, even in our diminished sequesterment.*

    

     * New word. You saw it here first, folks!

At our first Zoom session (which turned out to be fun, I thought), we talked about a few ideas for potential surveys (online, obviously, given the present circumstances). As I recall, these were as follows:

Pittsburghese — There are reports that Pittsburghese is experiencing considerable dialect swamping, and is beginning to fade in the speech of younger generations. Conversely, to what extent are incoming outsiders picking up aspects of Pittsburghese in their own speech as tokens of acculturation? Can we figure out a way to explore these questions?

Dialect & Gender — There are all kinds of ways in which our gender influences our speech. Reading up and focusing on some of those patterns, can we devise some kind of survey that would show this in action?

Language of Social Media — There is a lot of research on this of late, but I don't know what's in it. People would have to read into it and figure out how to do something with it. Could be very interesting...

Loss of Rural Vocabulary — A whole lexicon of older mostly rural expressions of Western Pennsylvania seem to be disappearing. The last time I taught this class we looked into some of this; there is a lot more to explore...

Personally, I think they all sound like fantastic research avenues. So why don't yinz-all think about them and decide which ones you think sound interesting to you, that we might like to work on as a class in the time we have left. Maybe we could even break into groups to tackle more than one of them...

Thoughts, anyone? (You can blog on these ideas yourselves, as well...)

Testing, testing...

Oh look. A blog post. More to come shortly...