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The class meets in GESB 150
The readings in this course are all published (or almost published) articles. If you would find a textbook helpful, see Eckert, Penelope & Sally McConnell-Ginet. 2013. Language and Gender. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Assignments are listed in the week in which they are due. Because many of these assignments play a role in planning the next class, we discourage late work. If you need an extension, consult with us in advance. Assignments submitted late on the due date will lose 10%, another 10% the following day, and no assignments will be accepted after the beginning of the next class. Grades will be Calculated as follows: Assignments 70% Final Project 20% Participation 10% Students with documented disabilities: Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate the request with the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) located within the Office of Accessible Education (OAE). SDRC staff will evaluate the request with required documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the request is being made. Students should contact the SDRC as soon as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 723-1066). |
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Take a look at Deborah Cameron's blog There's also lots of good stuff on Language Log Great article on the power pose |
4/3 , 4/5 , 4/10 , 4/12 , 4/17 , 4/19 , 4/24 , 4/26 , 5/3 , 5/8 , 5/10 , 5/15 , 5/17 , 5/22 , 5/24 , 5/29 , 5/31 |
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Week 1 (Jan. April 3, 5): Language, Gender and the Hall of Mirrors There are two fundamental issues to begin with. Both language and gender are central to human life, and objects of popular belief. In this first week, we will sort out some ideological issues and consider an empirical approach to language, gender, and the relation between the two. The first task is to get over your linguistic prejudices. A couple of great blogs on linguistic prescriptivism: Geoff Pullum's Lying About Writing Deborah Cameron's Fantasy Grammar |
For Thursday: Watch this short video Read: Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 2013. Chapter 1. Recommended: Goffman, Erving. 1977. The arrangement between the sexes. Theory and society, 4(3), 301-332. Butler, Judith. 1988. Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. Theatre journal 40.519-31. Rubin, Gayle S. 1984. Thinking sex: Notes for a radical theory of the politics of sexuality. Pleasure and danger: Exploring female sexuality, ed. by C.S. Vance, 3-44. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. |
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Week 2 (April 10, 12): Imagining and Policing Women's Language
Language plays a central role in social differentiation, and in people's imaginings of gender categories. The language of all kinds of subordinate groups is constantly policed, and this policing reproduces the sense of difference. On Tuesday, we will consider what the discourse of gender difference is all about. Reading the Inoue paper should give you a perspective on the ideological work that notions like "women's language" do. Keep this in mind as you read the Jones paper. What does it mean to say that Hillary Clinton is talking "like a man"? Some media stuff on policing: An article about policing women's language Eckert on policing women's language on NPR's Fresh Air and here's the Fresh Air program about Do I sound gay? that preceded (and triggered) it. |
Read: Inoue, Miyako. 2002. Gender, language and modernity: Toward an effective history of "Japanese women's language". American ethnologist 29.392-422. Jones, Jennifer. 2017. Talk "like a man": The linguistic styles of Hillary Clinton, 1992-2013. Perspectives on politics 14.625-42. Assignment 1 due Monday noon (April 9). In preparation for Thursday's class, download Praat and this sound file and this one Recommended. The current "crisis": Okamoto, Shigeko. 1995. "Tasteless" Japanese: Less "feminine" speech among young Japanese women. In Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self (ed.) M. Bucholtz. New York and London: Routledge. 297-325. |
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Week 3 (April 17, 19): Segmental Phonetics This part of the course examines gender as a stylistic construction. We will begin this week with the stylistic use of available variability in phonological segments - that is, consonants and vowels, with a focus on /s/. Here are two short and basic videos introducing segmental phonetics: Consonants Vowels |
Read: Calder, Jeremy. Under Review. From sissy to sickening: The indexical landscape of /s/ in SoMa, San Francisco. Zimman, Lal. 2017. Gender as stylistic bricolage: Transmasculine voices and the relationship between fundamental frequency and /s/. Language in Society 46.339-70. Assignment 2 due Monday noon Recommended: Podesva, Robert J. 2011. The California vowel shift and gay identity. American Speech 86.32-51. |
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Week 4 (April 24, 26): Prosody and Voice Quality Prosody, particularly voice pitch, plays a central role in gender construction. We will focus this week on pitch, intonation and voice quality. Here's a website with descriptions and recordings of different voice qualities (phonation types) If you know some French, especially if you've been hanging around Paris, you'll find this "e prépausal" video interesting. Voice quality has been the subject of a good deal of attention lately as the media have been excited about "vocal fry." And here are two media coverages of cuteness: "from the New Republic from the Guardian |
Read: Moon, Kyuwon. Under review. Authenticating the fake: Linguistic resources of aegyo and its media assessments. Here's a video demonstrating aegyo Podesva, R. (2007). Phonation type as a stylistic variable: The use of falsetto in constructing a persona. Journal of sociolinguistics, 11(4), 478-504. Recommended: Starr, Rebecca L. 2015. Sweet Voice: The role of voice quality in a Japanese feminine style. Language in Society 44.1-34. |
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Week 5 (May 1, 3): Sound, Style and Persona At this point, we will pause and consider the relation between gender and persona, and particularly to think about the social-semiotic landscape. We will jointly come up with a set of character types and their relations in the landscape, and begin some analyses of style. |
Read: Mendoza-Denton, Norma. 1996. Muy macha: Gender and ideology in gang girls' discourse about makeup. Ethnos 61.47-63. Hall, Kira (2009). Boys' Talk: Hindi, Moustaches, and Masculinity in New Delhi. In Pia Pichler and Eva Eppler (eds.), Gender and Spoken Interaction. Palgrave Macmillan. 139-162. Assignment 3 due Monday noon |
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Week 6 (May 8, 10): How Gender Emerges in Conversation. Individual agency depends on getting one's words into the discourse, so the study of interaction has always been central to the study of language and gender. Carrying on a conversation - or even walking down the street - is not a natural process. We learn how to do it as we acquire language, and the norms for doing these things are culture-specific. |
Read:
Cameron, Deborah. 1997. Performing gender identity: Young men's talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In Language and masculinity (eds) S. Johnson & U.H. Meinhof. Oxford: Blackwell. Assignment 4 due Monday noon Recommended: Basso, K. H. (1970) To give up on words: Silence in Western Apache culture. In P. P. Giglioli (Ed.), Language and Social Context (pp. 67-86). Schegloff, E & H Sacks. 1973. Opening up closings. Semiotica 8.289-327. |
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Week 7 (May 15, 17): Gender in Discourse Resources like quotatives, discourse markers, and expressives play an important role in structuring discourse and linguistic style. This week we will delve into the ins and outs of gendered use and gendered stereotypes of use of these resources. |
Read: Cameron, D, F McAlinden & K O'Leary. 1988. Lakoff in context: The social and linguistic function of tag questions. In Women in Their Speech Communities: New Perspectives on Language and Sex (eds) J. Coates & D. Cameron. London and New York: Longman. Assignment 5 due Monday noon |
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Week 8 (May 22, 24): Gender in the Lexicon
The lexicon is the repository of referential meaning, and as such it is loaded with gender ideology. From color terms to slurs to the regular derogation of female terms, there is always gender action in the lexicon. |
Read:
Wong, Andrew. 2005. The re-appropriation of Tongzhi. Language in Society 34.763-93. Hines, Caitlin. 1999. Rebaking the pie: The woman as dessert metaphor. Reinventing identities: The gendered self in discourse, ed. by M. Bucholtz, A.C. Liang & L.A. Sutton, 145-62. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. McConnell-Ginet, S. 1989. The sexual (re)production of meaning: A discourse-based theory. In Language, Gender and Professional Writing: Theoretical Approaches and Guidelines for Nonsexist Usage (eds) F.W. Frank & P.A. Treichler. New York: MLA. Assignment 6 due Monday noon |
| Week 10 (June 5 and 8): Final Project Presentations |