Performing blackness,forming whiteness: Linguistic minstrelsy in Hollywood film1

The ideological and indexical aspects of linguistic representation have been extensively examined in contemporary sociolinguistics both through investigations of language crossing in everyday interaction and through analyses of mediatized linguistic performances. Less well understood are the indexical meanings achieved when language crossing itself becomes the focus of linguistic representation. One prominent instance of this phenomenon is the use of African American English by European American actors in Hollywood films as part of what is argued to be a complex language‐based form of blackface minstrelsy. As mock language, linguistic minstrelsy in such films involves sociolinguistic processes of deauthentication, maximizing of intertextual gaps, and indexical regimentation of the performed language, but unlike earlier forms of minstrelsy these performances are typically problematized within the films as transgressions of the ideology of racial essentialism. In the two films analyzed in detail in the article, linguistic minstrelsy is shown both to reproduce and to undermine the symbolic dominance of hegemonic white masculinity.     

Mock Ebonics: Linguistic racism in parodies of Ebonics on the Internet

This study describes and analyzes outgroup linguistic racism in parodies of Ebonics (‘Mock Ebonics’) that appeared on the Internet in the wake of the December 18, 1996 resolution of the Board of Education of the Oakland (California) Unified School District on improving the English-language skills of African-American students. We examined 23 World Wide Web pages containing 270,188 words, from which we chose nine pages containing 225,726 words for in-depth analysis. Drawing on a characterization of Mock Spanish, our analysis shows that Mock Ebonics is a system of graphemic-phonetic, grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic strategies for representing an outgroup's belief in the imperfection and inferiority of Ebonics and its users. We show how producers of Ebonics parody pages employ these strategies, which are common in speech stereotypes, to articulate an anti-Ebonics language ideology and shift the blame for the poor academic performance of African Americans from a racist society to learners and the community from which they come.     

Literacy in the modern world

Books reviewed in this article:
Clark, R. and Ivanic, R. The Politics of Writing
Hasan, Ruqaiya and Williams, Geoff (eds.). Literacy in Society (Applied Linguistics and Language Study)
Johns, Ann M. Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies (Cambridge Applied Linguistics)
Lankshear, Colin with Gee, James Paul; Knobel, Michele and Searle, Chris. Changing Literacies
Andre´e, Tabouret-Keller; Le Page, Robert B.; Gardner-Chloros, Penelope and Varro, Gabrielle (eds.). Vernacular Literacy: A Re-evaluation (Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics)     

The voices people read: Orthography and the representation of non-standard speech

Combining features of matched guise tests with sociolinguistic interviewing and oral performance, this study investigates the social meanings carried by non-standard orthographies. Participant evaluations of the personas represented by non-standard orthographies showed that people connected orthography to social identities. Specifically, we found that people uncritically and spontaneously read non-standard orthographies as indices of low socioeconomic status. When we asked participants to read texts out loud, we found marked shifts in their reading performances of texts in standard versus non-standard orthographies. Through a case study analysis of participants' readings and attitudes, we identify two kinds of stances taken by participants towards stigmatized identities indexed by non-standard orthographies. Finally, we use these case studies to argue for the necessity of contextually rich qualitative research methods for the study of language attitudes.     

'Tie, tied and tight': The expansion of /ai/ monophthongization in African-American and European-American speech in Memphis, Tennessee

This paper explores the distribution of /ai/ monophthongization in African-American and European-American speakers in Memphis, Tennessee. While often considered a feature characteristic of White Southern speech, /ai/ monophthongization has also been recorded in Black speech, both within and outside the South. However, expansion of glide-weakening to the less common pre-voiceless contexts has been considered unique to European-American dialects. Evidence of extensive glide-weakening in the African-American community in Memphis will be presented and compared to the degree and contexts of glide-weakening in the European-American community. The results will show that not only is /ai/ monophthongization a feature of Memphis speech generally, regardless of ethnicity, but that African-Americans in fact lead in glide-weakening in all contexts. The role of Southern identity in the expansion of /ai/ monophthongization is discussed as a critical component in the selection of features in both Black and White speech in the Memphis area.     

The linguistic sense of placement: Habitus and the entextualization of translingual practices in Swedish academia

This paper adopts a Bourdieusian approach to discourse in contemporary Swedish academia. Habitus, entextualization, and translingual practice are employed as epistemological perspectives for investigating the place of Swedish in the text trajectories of two disciplines where English prevails in publishing. Data from meeting recordings, email correspondence, and interviews show that Swedish is the legitimate language throughout in the text production and that discipline‐specific Swedish is practiced so long as it encompasses all participants’ repertoires. In fact, the researchers point to an almost physical awkwardness linked to the unwarranted use of English among themselves. Following Bourdieu, it is argued that these sensibilities pertain to the linguistic sense of placement of socialized agents and that the unease of being out of place prevents them from lapsing into what is socially perceived as unacceptable discourse in their translingual practices.     

Performances of social class,race and gender through youth subculture: putting structure back in to youth subcultural studies

This paper aims to advance debates in youth studies about the contemporary relevance of social structures of class, race and gender to the formation of youth subcultures. I demonstrate how drawing on a cultural class analysis and education literature on learner identities and performativity can be productive in theorising the continued significance of class, and indeed also race and gender in young people's lives. In examining school-based friendships and (sub)cultural forms through empirical research in urban schools, I argue that not only are young people's subcultural groups structured by class, race and gender but also they are integral to the production of these identities. By examining the discursive productions of two school-based subcultures as examples: the ‘Smokers’ and the ‘Football’ crowd, I further argue that these identity positions embody resources or capitals which have differing value in the context of the urban school and thus demonstrate how race, class and gender privilege are maintained and reproduced through youth subculture.     

Bodies ‘locked up’: intersections of disability and race in Australian immigration

Between 2005 and 2006 it came to be known that over 200 people had been wrongfully detained in Australian immigration detention centres, of whom 13 were people with a disability. A review of the subsequent Commonwealth Ombudsman Reports into the wrongful detentions exposed an organizational culture in which othered voices were discredited and disregarded, an over‐willingness to detain a person and a lack of proper oversight of these powers. This paper explores these reports and argues that proper investigation needs to go beyond organizational culture and to look also at historical, social, political and cultural forces shaping Australia’s use of immigration detention. The authors propose that the intersection of disability and race leaves people vulnerable to human rights violations primarily because this is also the intersection of both racial and rational prejudices of the dominant hegemony.     

The globalization of local indexicalities through music: African-American English and the blues

This article reports on a sociolinguistic study into the prevalence of African-American English (AAE) features in the lyrical language use of blues artists, relying on data from different social and national backgrounds and time periods. It adopts a variationist linguistic methodological approach to examine the prevalence of five AAE forms in live-performed blues music: /aɪ/ monophthongization, post-consonantal word-final /t/ deletion, post-consonantal word-final /d/ deletion, alveolar nasal /n/ in < ing > ultimas, and post-vocalic word-final /r/ deletion. Mixed effects logistic regression analysis applied to a corpus of 80 performances finds no statistically significant association between national/ethnic background and variant use, and indicates that blues artists, from different eras and nationalities, are highly probable to realize the AAE variant of the analyzed variables, regardless of their sociocultural background. By building on early scholarly work on language and music, existing studies considering the use of AAE by non-members of the African-American community, and current theorizing on authenticity, style, and indexicality, this study hence provides tentative support for the existence of a standard blues singing style, which involves performers using AAE forms as a stylistic-linguistic strategy to index artistic authenticity.     

Changing linguistic attitudes in Valencia: The effects of language planning measures1

Linguistic policy measures have an undeniable effect on the linguistic attitudes of a population and, consequently, on the use of the languages concerned. In Valencia, the process of Catalan revitalization, which started in the early 80s, has had some very positive effects, of which education – especially of the youngest members of the population – in Catalan, has been the most important. A 1998 study assessed how the three language varieties that coexist in Valencia are perceived. Ten years later, this study has been replicated in order to analyze the effects of the great demographic and political changes during those years. The attenuation of the ideological conflict between Catalan and Castilian can be attributed to language policy. It seems difficult, however, to explain the disappearance of Valencian (the local variety of Catalan) as the language of group identity. The institutionalization of the conflict between Valencian and Catalan has led to ‘linguistic peace’, but it has also weakened attachment to Valencian, representing a major setback to its revitalization.     

The great automobile race of 1908 as a public relations phenomenon: Lessons from the past

The 1908 Great Race from New York to Paris captured the imagination of the world as intrepid competitors endured the hardships of the around the world race. The New York Times, its co-sponsor and source of the publicity, was in a unique position to practice media relations. Framing research was used to examine how the New York Times used strategic communication to build interest in the race to sell more newspapers and to allow automobile manufactures to broaden their markets. Media frames used to generate interest provide insight into strategies for influencing behavior through a controlled form of media relations.     

The cross-fertilization of critical race theory and Disability Studies: points of convergence/ divergence and some education policy implications

This article discusses the ways in which insights from critical race theory can be used in order to supplement and reinforce the field of Disability Studies by highlighting the intersecting and contextually contingent ways in which the notion of disability is constructed and positioned. The cross-fertilization of critical race theory and Disability Studies can enhance understanding of the intersecting effects of racism and disablism through a reflexive process of exploring points of convergence and divergence of racial and corporeal markers of difference. These understandings should permeate anti-discrimination legislation and other education policy frameworks aimed at redressing systemic injustices and power inequities that impact upon disabled people’s identities and lived experiences.     

The social dimension of the Southern Vowel Shift: Gender, age and class

The three most broadly recognized dialect areas of American Regional English are currently being re-defined by, in some cases, sweeping changes that alter the way vowels are being pronounced in the South, North and West. While research into the changes in urban Northern dialects has contributed a fairly broad picture of both the phonetic and social character of the Northern Cities Shift (NCS), the changes affecting the Southern region of the U.S. have received less attention, particularly in terms of social distribution and dissemination. This paper seeks to address the question of how successfully changes in the high and mid front and back vowels in the South are being disseminated throughout a local urban community and how these changes fit in with changes occurring in other American dialects. In addition, the paper weighs the attraction to local or national norms in determining the success and diffusion of each of the shifts relative to the social environment in which they are developing and attempts to relate the local social embedding of the shifts to their meaning in the larger national context.     

Socio‐phonetics and social change: Deracialisation of the GOOSE vowel in South African English1

This paper examines the degree of sociolinguistic change in the English of young middle‐class South Africans of different ethnic backgrounds in relation to new post‐apartheid opportunities and friendships. Once tightly controlled, social networks of young people of middle‐class background are now deracialising. The paper examines whether young people of the major ethnic groups, Black, Coloured and Indian, are simply adopting prestige White middle‐class norms, adapting them or resisting change. Forty‐eight speakers were analysed within a Labovian framework in relation to the goose vowel (long /u/or /uw/). Over 4000 tokens were analysed acoustically using PRAAT and compared via vowel normalisation procedures based on Watt and Fabricius (2003) . The results show that middle‐class speakers of the three ethnicities are fronting the vowel, but in different ways. Black speakers show the greatest accommodation to erstwhile White norms. Females show greater resistance among Coloureds and Indians, but overall it is the Black females of the study who approximate most closely to the norms of the White reference group of their gender.     

Framing interior: race,mobility and the image of home in South African modernity

This paper explores the depiction of dwellings in order to locate the emergence of a particular framing of the interior in South Africa. I suggest that in the first half of the twentieth century, images of domestic spaces pointed both to racially distinct interiors and racialised forms of interiority. As an aesthetic technology of the late nineteenth century, photography aided in the production of visual motifs that fixed the appearance of race in a new way, and located such an appearance in particular places. The visual intertwining of race and place – designating racially proper and improper places – was instrumental to apartheid’s attempt to curtail racial mixing and unregulated mobility. In contrast with the imposed movement engendered by migrant labour, I suggest that the figure of the interior becomes a privileged standpoint from which to view the triumph of race as a form of fixity in modern South Africa.     

Making registers in politics: Circulation and ideologies of linguistic authority

This paper examines the role of register‐making in constructing and evoking authority for political discourses. Three aspects of such enregisterment are defined and exemplified: clasping, relaying, and grafting. Though they occur together in any case of enregisterment, these processes are analytically separable. As registers circulate, they link arenas of social action, creating relations of authority between the social arena of those who construct the register and the arena of those whom the register names and characterizes (clasping). Registers also display connections between organizations in different social arenas (relaying). Finally, registers may draw on—tap into—institutional discourses that are highly authorized, implanting onto them ways of speaking that convey meanings opposed to the institution's values. Paradoxically, such graftings draw authority from the very discourses they oppose. Examples come from Hungarian and other east European politics, as well as historical cases from the US.     

The rejected voice: towards intersubjectivity in speech language pathology

Speech language pathology needs to be linked with philosophy. Those with communication impairments encounter many problems when engaging in conversation with others. Does only the speaker(s) bear the responsibility to make their speech intelligible? In order to answer this question, I suggest that a Wittgensteinian approach offers original insights into speech as an intersubjective phenomenon. By exploring my experiences of having speech difficulties due to cerebral palsy, I shall argue that the unintelligibility of my voice is not simply my failure to achieve the able-spoken standard(s) of speech, but also the failure of others to recognise my utterance as speech. I hope to offer a different account of the voice that defines the human voice as intelligible speech – one that provides a more appropriate philosophical diversity for understanding the ethics of articulation.     

The Presentation of Self: Dramaturgical Theory and Generations in Organizations

While interest in intergenerational phenomena has been growing in organizations, academic research in the field of organizational studies has questioned the existence of generational differences. However, despite this questioning, generational stereotypes are known and enacted in the workplace. Using a dramaturgical approach as suggested by Goffman (1959), the purpose of this theory article is to advocate a simple model of generational stereotype reinforcement in organizations in which individuals enact (or do not enact) prototypical generational traits and behaviors when doing so allows them to appear in a positive light to a particular generational group.     

On the conditions of authority in academic publics

The discourse of some of the most powerful public figures in today’s world is often incoherent and nonsensical. Incoherent yet authoritative discourse shows that authority does not rest in language but results from non‐linguistic and pre‐textual conditions. The non‐linguistic and pre‐textual conditions are exemplified in an Australian case‐study of a media debate between the Immigration Minister and a refugee, drawing on research by Smith‐Khan (2019a, 2019b). Two such conditions are then examined with reference to academic publics. First, I ask which languages do or do not carry authority, before moving on to speaker identity as a condition of authority. The close association between English and academic excellence has resulted in diminishing the authority of academic publications in languages other than English. The same is true of publications by women and people of colour. I close by reflecting on referencing practices as forms of extending authoritativeness to voices in excluded languages and from excluded scholars in academic publics.