Sociolinguistic interaction and identity construction: The view from game‐theoretic pragmatics

Understanding the dynamics that characterize interaction between conversational participants is a fundamental goal of most theories of socially conditioned language use and identity construction through language. In this paper, I outline a class of formal tools that, I suggest, can be helpful in making progress towards this goal. More precisely, this paper explores how Bayesian signalling game models can be used to formalize key aspects of current sociolinguistic theories, and, in doing so, contribute to our knowledge of how speakers use their linguistic resources to communicate information and carve out their place in the social world. The Bayesian framework has become increasingly popular for the analysis of pragmatic phenomena of many different types, and, more generally, these models have become a dominant paradigm for the explanation of non‐linguistic cognitive processes. As such, I argue that this approach has the potential to yield a formalized theory of personal and social identity construction and to situate the study of sociolinguistic interaction within a broader theory of rationalistic cognition.     

Totally tall sounds totally younger: Intensification at the socio‐semantics interface

In two social perception experiments, we explore the relationship between the social meaning and the semantic/pragmatic properties of the intensifier totally in American English. In Experiment 1, we show that totally is perceived as a more salient index of social identity categories – measured in terms of Age, Solidarity and Status attributes – when it targets a scalar dimension grounded in the speaker's attitude, as opposed to when it occurs in contexts where the scale is provided by the subsequent predicate. In Experiment 2, we show that the social indexicality of totally is even more salient in contexts in which the intensifier, by virtue of its pragmatic contribution, invites a stance of heightened proximity and convergence between the interlocutors. These results point to a principled connection between the semantic, pragmatic and personality‐based social meanings of totally, providing new insights into the dynamics whereby different layers of meaning conspire to determine what an expression ‘says’ when deployed in interaction.     

Appropriation of African American slang by Asian American youth1

This article explores the ways in which Asian American teenagers creatively appropriated two African American slang terms: aite and na mean. While some teens racialized slang as belonging to African Americans, other teens authenticated identities as slang speakers. Through close analysis of slang‐in‐use and particularly of the metapragmatic discussions such uses inspired, this article examines how the teens specified relationships between language, race, age, region and class, while achieving multiple social purposes, such as identifying with African Americans, marking urban youth subcultural participation, and interactionally positioning themselves and others as teachers and students of slang. As slang emerged with local linguistic capital, the teens used slang to create social boundaries not only between teens and adults, but also between each other. The discursive salience of region implicitly indexed socio‐economic status and proximity to African Americans as markers that teens drew on to authenticate themselves and others as slang speakers.     

From sociolinguistic variation to socially strategic stylisation1

This article investigates the indexical relation between language, interactional stance and social class. Quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of a linguistic variable (the first person possessive singular) is combined with interactional analysis of the way one particular variant (possessive ‘me’, as in Me pencil's up me jumper) is used by speakers in ‘stylised’ interactional performances. The aim of this analysis is to explore: (1) how possessive ‘me’ is implicated in the construction and management of local identities and relationships; and (2) how macro‐social categories, such as social class, relate to linguistic choice. The data for this analysis comes from an ethnographic study of the language practices of nine‐ to ten‐year‐old children in two socially‐differentiated primary schools in north‐east England. A secondary aim of the article is to spotlight the sociolinguistic sophistication of these young children, in particular, the working‐class participants, who challenge the notion that the speech of working‐class children is in any way ‘impoverished’.     

Staging language: An introduction to the sociolinguistics of performance

Staged performance involves the overt, scheduled identification and elevation of one or more people to perform, with a clearly demarcated distinction between them and the audience. It involves the agentive use of language, building on the foundation of existing social meanings. Staged performances tend to be linguistically stylized, pushing the limits of language creativity. They have the potential to trigger significant sociolinguistic effects, circulating novel forms and contributing to language change. The paradigms used in this theme issue for approaching language performance include Bakhtin's notion of Stylization, Bell's Audience and Referee Design, Silverstein's Indexicality, Agha's Enregisterment, and Bauman's construct of Discursive Culture. Themes that run through the articles include: a concept of identity that is part product, part process; the centrality of the audience; the reflexivity of staged performance; and the importance of non‐linguistic modalities such as music and appearance. The language analysis in this collection of papers concentrates mainly on phonological features of varieties of English, finding instances of selectivity, mis‐realization, overshoot and undershoot in their performances of a range of targeted dialects.     

基于论元NP的作格分裂的语用阐释

以跨语言语料为基础,从语用学视角探讨了基于作论元的名词短语（NP）的语义性质的作格分裂模式。格结构中的论元NP具有指示性。将充当论元的NP按指示性的强弱分为不同的NP类,即为NP指示性等级。调查表明,基于NP指示性等级的作格分裂模式不仅适用于格标语言,也适用于汉语这样的非格标语言。在上述讨论的基础上,分析了汉语的作格分裂模式。     

Indexicality and experience: Exploring the meanings of /aw/‐monophthongization in Pittsburgh1

In this paper we test the hypothesis that monophthongal /aw/ is semiotically associated with local identity in Pittsburgh. We compare results of an experimental task that directly elicits participants' sense of the indexical value of /aw/‐monophthongization with the occurrence of this variant in the same people's speech. People who hear monophthongal /aw/ as an index of localness are unlikely to have this feature in their own speech, and many of the people who do monophthongize /aw/ do not associate this variant with localness. Exploring how four of these participants talk about this feature and its meanings, we show that the indexical meanings of speech features can vary widely within a community, and we illustrate the danger of confusing the meaning assigned by hearers to a linguistic form with the meaning users would assign to it. We suggest that a phenomenological approach, attending to the multiplicity and indeterminacy of indexical relations and to how such relations arise historically and in lived experience, can lead to a more nuanced account of the distribution of social meanings of variant forms than can studies of perception or production alone.     

卜辞里“雨”的功能指示分析及词性鉴定

殷墟卜辞中普遍存在兼类词现象,“雨”是典型的动名兼类词。本文在认知-心理和 殷代巫术占卜系统的基础上,分析“雨”的语义功能场景和语义结构,是如何通过功能指示 而逐级上升为句法结构单位的。由于“雨”的语义结构的运演导致了它所支持的“雨”的词 性的变动,从而形成动名兼类现象,这是现实的句法结构要求的结果,是汉语词类辩证地、 历史地发展的结果。