Linguistic Anthropology in Action

by Laura Ojugbana

Definition: The idea that language, culture, and society all have a preexisting reality and the way we use language changes over time.  

Description: Practice and emergence is important since it allows us to understand how and why language transforms over time. The languages that we speak and cultural practices that we inherited come from a pre-existing society. That being said, take the racist history of the United States. It allows us to see the ripple effects language has in society and specifically, the African-American community. White Americans would always remind African Americans about how inferior they were through the use of racial slurs which, over time, caused them to be completely removed from society. White America used language as a means to dehumanize black people to the point where the government did not even recognize them as citizens. Regardless of their legal status, black people were still being targeted, beaten, and murdered because they were seen as less than human. Even after slavery was abolished, Jim Crow laws upheld the racist practices. Language ideologies sustained the notion that black people were inferior due to the way they communicated and, African American Vernacular English which stemmed from slavery was seen as uneducated. As a result, African Americans and White Americans were segregated through schools, neighborhoods, restaurants, etc. The beliefs that existed decades ago are still prominent in American society today in our institutions. Therefore, the more we interact within these institutions, the more we bring these racist norms into being. We can see this through habitus which causes us to be conditioned to behave in certain ways due to these racist structures we have been socialized to. And, as long as humans continue to act within these pre-existing institutions, all languages and cultures are emergent meaning that language will change over time. This also means that it is possible to redefine and reproduce the institutions that we live in. 

 

Application: 

The concept of Practice and Emergence sheds light on social issues that we as a society are currently facing. Examples of this concept can be seen throughout the Trump Administration and their consistent use of language that initially had a different meaning. However, as Trump utilized these terms throughout his campaign and presidency, the more stigmatized these phrases became in American politics. 

 

Fake News

Prior to the 2016 campaign, “fake news” was not a phrase heard too often. The term was usually used to describe “actual fabricated news stories from websites that publish hoaxes, as well as from hyper-partisan websites purporting to offer real news”. Initially, labeling websites as “fake news” was an indication for publications not to reference articles that were deemed as “unreliable”. This would prevent the news from releasing information that was untrue to the public. However, roughly after the 2016 campaign, the usage of “fake news” skyrocketed by 365%. During this time, false news articles about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent, began circulating throughout the internet and Trump used this opportunity to call out Western news outlets for doing the same to him. 

On his campaign trail, Trump would often attack the news, specifically liberal media outlets, for false reporting despite no evidence that media outlets were becoming more radically inaccurate. Over the next several months “fake news” was popularized by the Trump Administration in order to single out news outlets that Trump himself deemed as unreliable. In other words, if Trump did not agree with what the media was reporting about him, he automatically labelled them as “untrue”. As a result of this, research has shown that “42 percent of Republicans now consider any news critical of a politician to be ‘fake news’” and no doubt, the opinions of other U.S citizens had changed due to his usage. 

After the Trump Administration coined the term, a Buzzfeed reporter who had previously used the phrase “fake news” explained that he “kept trying to be clear about [his] definition” of it, but after Trump had turned it into a weapon against the media, he just avoided using the phrase at all. Here, practice and emergence helps us understand that “fake news” which was originally supposed to keep the public from interacting with actual, false articles now has a different meaning which is used to villainize certain media outlets. 

 

Alternative Facts 

The Trump Administration has also used the phrase “alternative facts” as a means for the public to perceive Trump in a better light. Shortly after Trump was sworn into office, Sean Spicer, the press secretary at the time, claimed that Trump’s inauguration was the biggest of all time despite photographic evidence that proved otherwise. 

Not long after, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s strategist, took to NBC and claimed that Sean Spicer had simply provided “alternative facts” which Conway later clarified was, “additional facts and alternative information”. The phrase itself became well known all throughout social media though, not in the same way as “fake news”. However, this does not mean that “alternative facts” did not have an impact within society. The term started to be used as a punchline in pop culture and comedians had started to use the phrase in segments and skits. Although the phrase is not being used as often anymore, “alternative facts” will no doubt, continue to hold the same meaning until a person utilizes and redefines its definition over time.  

by Maekala Turner

Definition: 

Standard American English (SAE) can be defined as the variety of the English language that is typically used in formal and professional settings and which is dominant over all over varieties in the United States. 

Description: 

SAE is typically defined more by what it is not rather than what it is because of the hegemonic formulation in its roots. It allows for the historic dominance of white people in America to be seen through language. Standard American English is the most dominant variety of English used in America because of the systematic inequities that have overwhelmed marginalized groups for centuries. Through white rule, other varieties of English have been suppressed and Standard American English has reigned the leading language in the United States. Because SAE is often seen as a more beneficial way of speaking, fluency in many other varietiess of English and foreign languages are often lost in multilingual families from generation to generation. With language policing becoming popular in America, speaking SAE is seen as the only path to success for many who belong to oppressed groups. Standard American English is the language spoken by the educated and elite in America, so it is a common misconception for people to believe that SAE is what defines high social and economic statuses.

Application:

African American Vernacular English (AAVE)  is another prominent variety of the English language in the United States. It can be characterized by its unique grammatical rules such as double negatives, copula deletion, and the habitual be. It is most often used by Black communities across the country, but can sometimes be observed being used by other demographics who may live with or around communities of AAVE speakers. African American Vernacular English contains grammatical structures and social implications that are deemed incorrect by the rules of Standard American English and its speakers. SAE speakers are seen as more professional, put together, and intelligent. In the same way, those who speak AAVE are often seen as uneducated, ignorant, and uncivilized.  

The usage of one variety of English over another can have serious real-life consequences or advantages. There is a profit of distinction, or a benefit, to speaking Standard American English rather than African American Vernacular English. In the education system, Black AAVE speakers are often at a disadvantage before they even enter school. Native African American Vernacular speakers often struggle when they enter classrooms in which they are taught in SAE. Because they are such distinctive dialects, there is frequently a disconnect between SAE speaking teachers and AAVE students that SAE speaking students do not have to face. SAE speaking students generally perform better than their African American Vernacular speaking classmates. Through language, specifically the language ideologies behind SAE and its relationship to AAVE, we can analyze and address the systematic racial inequities in the American education system. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX1-FgkfWo8

Oftentimes, people will learn to code-switch or style-shift to benefit themselves in different social settings. During a job interview, a native AAVE speaker may opt to speak Standard English because it is the preferred dialect in professional settings. It would be seen as inappropriate, weird, or even out of character for the same person to speak SAE with a group of other native AAVE friends. An example of how beneficial code-switching is capable of being can be seen through Barack Obama’s Presidential campaigns. Obama was raised by a Standard English speaking mom in Hawaii and attended elite Ivy League schools in which speaking SAE was even more reinforced. Yet when it came to his campaign, his fluency in African American Vernacular allowed him to connect with a larger demographic of voters that his competitors could not reach. 

https://digg.com/video/code-switching-explained

The stakes of code-switching are much higher for black people than they are their white counterparts. In many cases, style-shifting from AAVE to SAE can be the difference between outcomes in very serious situations. In 2012, Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old black teenager, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. Trayvon’s tragic death is not only a reminder of racism in America but also how language upholds these immoral beliefs and actions. The lead witness in Zimmerman’s murder trial was Rachel Jeantel. Jeantel failed to style shift in her testimony. The jury judged Rachel’s verbal and nonverbal language, not the truths of her story. Her testimony was dismissed as incomprehensible and incredible. It is seen too often that speaking AAVE has such severe consequences. The language ideologies behind SAE and AAVE are more about the people who speak the languages and less about the dialects themselves, which speaks to language’s influence on the power dynamic in America, specifically the inequality found in the justice system.

African American Vernacular is undoubtedly its own, unique variety. Yet, most people, especially those in power, consistently fail to acknowledge it as more than a dialect because it does not conform to the rules that govern Standard American English. Being multilingual in a globalizing world is becoming more and more useful in today’s societies and fluency in AAVE should not be swept under the rug. African American Vernacular English carries its own distinguishing traits that define the culture and thought of its speakers in the same way that SAE and other languages do. It is only in comparison to the “Standard” American English that African American Vernacular and other “inferior” languages are invalidated. But it is not just the language being invalidated when people are looked down upon for speaking AAVE; It is also the thoughts, culture, and virtues carried with the people who speak the vernacular. 

by Tristan Webster

Definition: A dialect spoken by many African Americans that contains grammar and structures that would be deemed incorrect in Standard American English.

Description: African American English is a dialect that is very different from the traditional, more powerful form of English known as Standard American English. Standard American English is more common in America and is seen as the “intelligent” way to speak. African American English speakers are seen as “ignorant” and belonging to the lower socioeconomic class. In African American English, it is acceptable to use double negatives whereas in Standard American English a double negative can completely change the meaning of a sentence. African American English has many rules such as Copula Deletion which is the omission of “to be” in a sentence. An example of Copula Deletion would be “She happy” rather than “She is happy”. African American English also allows for its speakers to pronounce “asks” as “aks”. This confuses speakers of Standard American English because saying “I aksed that man” gives a listener the impression that you “axed” someone rather than asking them something. Another feature of African American English is the reduction of final consonants. This means that “A stop consonant at the end of a word may be omitted if it is preceded by another consonant of the same voicing.” An example of this would be pronouncing “left” as “lef”, or “old” as “ol”.  These differences in pronunciations and sentence structures create negative ideologies about African American English since it is different, and less powerful than Standard American English in the American society. Speakers of African American English are forced to conform and learn Standard American English for professional settings such as job interviews, universities, and even when writing academic work. Because of the language ideologies behind African American English, using this dialect of English is frowned upon when writing academic work. Using Copula Deletion or double negatives on a resume or college essay would result in a lost job opportunity or a bad grade for “lack of correct grammar.” The making of African American English came with segregation; where Blacks adopted their own way of speaking since they had no way to learn Standard American English without the presence of white people in their schools and work settings.

Application: Athletes hold very strong voices when it comes to political issues, issues within their sport, and many other things. Social media boosts their platform and because they are professionals they are expected to speak with almost perfect Standard American English. Typically on apps such as Twitter or Instagram, if an athlete creates a post where they are using African American English they will be criticized or told to “go back to college English class.” Antonio Brown is an example of an athlete who is consistently criticized for his lack of display of Standard American English on social media. On September 28th, Antonio responded to Baker Mayfield, who had called out Antonio for being a bad teammate, in saying “Sorry a** Chico keep rolling right you ain’t done nothing in this league the internet only place u would ever talk too or about me; you know u get beat quick slice u up some humble pie.” Underneath the Facebook post, comments such as “God I hope AB enrolled in some English lessons at Central Michigan” and “I’m convinced AB is literally a special needs child. I would love to see some of his writing assignments.” are present. Dwayne Haskins of the Washington Redskins said “they done messed up” after he was drafted at pick No. 15 on April 25th. Similarly to Antonio Brown, a facebook user commented “that good ol’ Ohio State Education”, referencing the college that Dwayne was coming out of. In Antonio Brown’s response he uses several features of African American English that is frowned upon in Standard American English. He uses double negatives and uses “ain’t”, a term coming from blacks in the south. Dwayne Haskins uses “done” instead of “just” when saying that NFL teams had made a mistake, but in African American English using “done” is perfectly acceptable. The intelligence of both athletes came into question when they spoke a dialect of English that was not Standard American English, despite both athletes receiving a college education and being millionaire athletes. The commenters do not see that they received a college education, they only see the differences from Standard American English that African American English holds and they deem those differences as incorrect and ignorant. The commenters in this case are no different from the people in society who uphold the hegemony of Standard American English, causing African American English users to be in the minority and seen as different.

 

 

by Youverlande Ozerus

Definition:
Bodily hexis is the unconscious way that people in a given society learn to use their bodies to express their social identity.

Descriptions:
Bodily hexis shows the social learning that an individual has gained through the repeated motion of using their body to unconsciously interact or act in the world around them. These bodily actions are learned during childhood, such as culturally appropriate ways of using their bodies when they talk, stand, sit, and walk. Moreover, bodily hexis allows a person to identify with a social group by enabling them to learn the social and cultural practices of that specific group, for example, body language like postures, speech, and body movement. Bodily hexis also shows one’s social place by allowing them to see a combination of their social status through the way they use their body in social interactions and the way it is interpreted by people in a specific setting. This concept can be connected to the idea of performance due to the way it enables an individual to perform society’s rules and values, through the bodily routines they act upon in the social world without having to think about it.

Application:
In recent years, one issue that has become problematic for the black community is police brutality. In a study published by Frank Edwards (et al), 1 out of 1,000 black boys and men will be killed by the police in their lifetime which is 2.5 times more than white boys and men. Bodily hexis is a linguistic concept that can help us understand this phenomenon because it can be used to identify and label someone through their physical performance.

Negative cultural stereotypes about black people have been ingrained in many people in society through structural racism and the media. In the media, black people are often portrayed in a negative light, for example in various movies and TV shows the common theme around a black person is being identified with poverty, violence, dysfunctional, and criminals. Furthermore, in the media, a black person wearing a hoodie, cornrows, and tattoos is often associated with the idea of being part of a gang. These cultural stereotypes are an example of how bodily hexis is used to characterize someone that’s black.

Associating these cultural practices with a violence concept results in the audience connecting this idea to a real black person when they are performing a part of their culture in real life, such as covering their head with a hoodie, certain ways of walking and talking. As a result of these violent stereotypes, the public’s interpretations of these negative stereotypes create a fear and paranoia response when meeting black people in the physical world.

However, the issue is that police officers are an audience who have also had these default images and ideas ingrained in their mind before becoming a police officer. Therefore, a confrontation with a black person that embodies these stereotypes will elevate a fear response from the police officers. Police officers are conditioned to fire when they feel threatened, they use their body to perform a subconscious learned move or stand for their protection. This bodily hexis is embedded in their minds as a reflex due to the dangerous level of their job. Therefore, through impulse, the police officers will take the stand to fired because they are afraid of being harmed or overpowered during the confrontation since the media has created an unconscious correlation between being black with being violent.

Another negative effect of these bodily hexis movements is when a black person is in an encounter with a police officer, any body movement such as reaching creates that fear response because they assume that they are in the possession of a weapon even if they might have been reaching for ID.

A study by Yara Mekawi, the participants were shown pictures of both black and white individuals, who were armed and unarmed and had minimal seconds to decide who to shoot. The result shows that they respond more quickly to shoot when an armed black target was shown. Importantly, when the experiment was performed in States with less strict gun law, unarmed black targets were more likely to be shot.

However, this is not to excuse the act but bodily hexis help us understand some factors associated with this issue.

Bodily hexis can also show unconscious racism in performance, as some police officers take advantage of such fear response and these stereotypes to satisfy their racist urges by killing innocent black people. This can be shown when these types of killing happen, they use body hexis as an excuse to justify their actions. One example is that after the death of many black people by the police, in most cases the police officers usually reiterate by justifying their actions by stating that they believe the victim was reaching for a gun, or is in the possession of a firearm. Again, a stereotype should not be used to justify the killing of innocent black people. When news of these type of killing occurs, they often used picture that portrays the victims as violent, dangerous. For example, #IfTheyGunnedMe hashtag went viral after black twitter users notice that after the killing of a black teenager Micheal Brown, the picture the media use show him as a thug due to his stand and the fact that he’s holding a “gang signs”.

Furthermore, black people are becoming more aware of how police officers are using bodily hexis as a way to justify their killing. In response, black people are becoming more aware of this notion, therefore, they’re using it as a form of resistance.

Nowadays, in the black community, black children are being socialized in ways to use their bodies to prevent police officers from using their cultural stereotypes to justify their killings. Now, recently some news articles such as Get Home Safely: 10 Rules of Survival, are educating black people on how to use bodily hexis to keep themselves safe during an interaction with the police. Bodily actions such as “Keep your hands in plain sight and make sure the police can see your hands at all times”, “Avoid physical contact with the police. No sudden movements, and keep hands out of your pockets”, ”Do not run”. Movies such as The Hate U Give included a scene where a black father is teaching his young children how to behave when in contact with a police officer.

Overall, bodily hexis can help us see police brutality differently and think about how learning new forms of bodily hexis can be used as a form of resistance and survival.

by Michelle Njuguna

Definition

Language ideologies are widely held beliefs about language use, users and practices.

Description

Language ideologies stem from different societal, cultural and personal beliefs that are spread across a community and are then implanted into other minds. The concept of language ideologies is connected to other concepts such as language policing and the linguistic marketplace.

An aspect of language ideologies is that they almost always serve the interests of a group. Which shows how language ideologies can be positive and/or negative while on one side it is negative towards one group the same ideology can positively impact another group.

Another aspect of language ideologies is that they are shared beliefs held by a large group of people. This is where the language ideologies gain their power, due to so many people believing in it, it gains a more powerful impact than if not that many people shared the belief.

There is also the aspect that language ideologies can be shared across different groups and the members of the groups can have language ideologies placed on them that do not coincide with their specific groups. This is because people can belong in many different groups at the same time meaning they hold many different language ideologies.

Application

One way that language ideologies can be seen in the world today is in the United States where there are negative language ideologies held against Spanish language speakers, especially people of color. The ideology held is that they do not belong in the United States and this leads to language policing. It leads to this because there have been incidents of people calling ICE on Latinx Spanish speakers because they believed they were illegal immigrants. It also connects to the linguistic marketplace because even though speaking more than one language is a great quality, the knowledge of English in the United States is held above the knowledge of Spanish. Knowledge of this concept helps provide insight into how different language communities see other language communities. It also shows how people connect language use to beliefs they already hold.

This ideology can be seen all across the United States such as an incident that happened in New York City. The incident occurred in a restaurant when a man was badgering the patrons and employees for conversing in Spanish. The man makes a scene by yelling unwarranted comments including “Your staff is speaking Spanish to customers when they should be speaking English”. This comment was one of many that the man had thrown at these people. These comments were based solely on his beliefs, because he had no history with the people he was yelling them at. The beliefs the man’s comments were based on were the belief that in the United States you should speak English and that being a native Spanish speaker is a bad thing. From these beliefs stemmed assumptions of a person’s life which can be seen when he says “My guess is they’re not documented. So my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country… If they have the balls to come here and live off my money, I pay for their welfare. I pay for their ability to be here. The least they can do … is speak English.”. These assumptions switch the idea of language ideologies from the language and turn them on to the speaker and their background. This is a bad way to see language ideologies because it essentializes groups, when in reality different groups can overlap and there is no distinct line separating each. This incident is a very good example of a language ideology that is used to put down one language and its users to uphold another language and its users. While the man was putting down the Spanish language he kept referring back to the English language and that being the right language. This shows that there is a definite hierarchy when it comes to languages and gives an explanation as to why English is higher in the linguistic marketplace than Spanish it the United States.

These types of incidents can be seen all across the United States the sheer number of how many times it has occurred is astonishing. One can put this all off to ignorance or lack of knowledge, that a regular person just living in the United States might not know that there are people of color who speak Spanish that are legal citizens. But that is not the case when we see people whose sole purpose is to police against people of color who speak Spanish. Although it is not in their job description, ICE is targeting Latinx people Spanish because they believe that all people of color who speak Spanish are undocumented. ICE stands for immigration and customs enforcement, their responsibilities are “to promote homeland security and public safety by enforcing U.S. federal criminal and civil laws concerning border control, customs, trade, and immigration.”. However, we have seen incidents of them targeting Spanish speakers such as the time in Montana. In this situation, we see an officer stop and detain to women for speaking Spanish. The officer said, “Ma’am, the reason I asked you for your ID is because I came in here, and I saw that you guys are speaking Spanish, which is very unheard of up here,”. This shows that not only do regular people have these language ideologies but people in positions of power do as well.

Though I would like to believe that language ideologies stem from the language and the use, most of the time it is based on the users. The speakers of a language are directly affected once they are put under a negative language ideology. Even though we know that people can fall under more than one category it is still an essentialized view.  This causes incidents such as the ones seen against Latinx Spanish speakers in the United States, where there was a flat perspective on who they are based on the ideologies placed on them. From that came the discrimination they face due to the sole fact that people cannot see past the negative language ideologies. Although language ideologies are shared, they are widely spread by large institutions that can warp the ideologies to benefit their wants. This is what causes the huge amount of negative language ideologies held towards Spanish speakers in the United States. To stop language ideologies from bringing down groups, we have to start from large institutions that spread the negative language ideologies.

by Nia Hyppolite

Definition

Hegemony is institutional domination and power over another group. 

Description

Hegemony is a product of our racist history. Hegemony focuses on cultural and political power. It can exclude others and create barriers for those who do not hold institutional power, which can make it hard for the oppressed to reach success.  Institutions emerge subtly from history which can be hard to change. In the United States, the roots of our racist history as tied to hegemony comes from slavery. Through African-Americans being enslaved, white people were able to establish their cultural power. Since hegemony is not static, it can be reaffirmed. The laws created by white men that excluded African-Americans and other minorities from society affected the white hegemonic society of the America we know today. Since hegemony can be reaffirmed, it can also be confronted and changed through the use of oppositional agency. America has seen hegemony being challenged through the civil rights and women’s movement. Considering white people have dominated America culturally for centuries, citizens are able to see this domination in the public school systems, government, and many more. Everything that is associated with white upper class people, their way of talking, language, etc. has been replicated in institutions due to hegemonic cultural dominance. Those who do not fit into the dominant group have to assimilate into their culture to succeed in life. We see hegemony through the linguistic marketplace, which is when one way of speaking gives you access to resources. The linguistic marketplace works through the language ideologies people have about languages that can uphold certain ways of speaking and put down others. The relevance of hegemony is the access of power it gives to certain groups and barriers it holds for others. Those who benefit from hegemony can gain cultural dominance and social status easily and live successful lives. 

Application

Hegemony can help us understand how Standard American English (SAE) has so much power in the United States. If a black male used African American Vernacular (AAVE) during an interview, it could cost him his job whereas if he used SAE it would likely help him. When we think about hegemony, we must think: who does hegemony help and who does it hurt? It hurts those who are forced to code-switch because their ways of speaking are seen as inferior. Oftentimes, African-Americans find themselves code-switching in order to make white people comfortable and to reach success in life. When African-Americans use AAVE in institutions, they are viewed as uneducated, whereas if they were to use SAE they would be seen as smart. Since SAE is associated with white people, it is seen as better and is more common to use in institutions. In America, the way that someone speaks can cost them their entire future. 

The relevance of hegemony is that certain ways of speaking (Standard American English) have more insitutional dominance over other ways of speaking (African-American Vernacular English). Those who do not have linguistic power should not have to change their way of speaking in order to be respected. It is clear that hegemony hurts people of color and benefits white people. Have you ever heard a politician or teacher use African American Vernacular? The school systems, government, and social media all produce hegemony through the constant use of Standard American English. Hegemony can be challenged through using languages that do not hold power in institutions. In this way, we can have a place for languages with less influence and make them the norm. 

Another way that we see hegemony is through the experiences of multilingual students. After taking this anthropology class, I learned that my educational experience is a product of hegemony. Growing up as a billingual child, I spoke Haitian Creole and a non-standard form of English that I learned from my parents. When I entered kindergarten, my teachers did not understand me as a bilingual student and placed me into the ELL (English Language Learners) program. For six years, I was a part of the ELL program even though I spoke English fluently. Because of the power SAE holds through hegemony, my elementary school failed to recognize me as an English speaker. Unfortunately, my experience has been replicated through hundreds of other multilingual students in the school system. Since institutions emerge from our history, it is clear that SAE is heavily a part of our school curriculum due to the language ideology that Americans only speak English, which hurts multilingual students who enter our school systems. Many ELL students who are a part of long-term ELL get stuck in the program when they do not need it. These hegmonic institutions and institutionalized racism keeps them from “graduating” the ELL program. What the school systems fail to realize is that the pros do not outweigh the cons.

Standard American English was enforced in my ELL class through grammar worksheets, oral tests, and standardized testing. Since I was pulled out of multiple mainstream classes, I missed out on important lessons that were taught and suffered academically. For example, I was unable to tell time on a clock. My teachers instilled in me that SAE was the best way of speaking. If institutions understood the complexities within bilingual students, they would have more academic success and learn to appreciate their native language. Pulling students out of their mainstream classes to learn a language students already know will not help them in the long run.

In addition to the school system valuing SAE, hegemony is tied to race. Due to preconceived notions about people of color and their language, almost all of the students who were a part of the ELL program at my school were low-income students of color. Because I was a Black student and my parents were immigrants, my school made the assumption that I was not taught the ‘correct’ form of English.  In addition to the ELL program, I was able to learn SAE through my friends, siblings, and the TV. When there are white students who are bilingual, people usually praise them, whereas multilingual students of color are judged and seen as less than. 

Hegemony exposes the institutional dominance white people have over people of color and the biases towards multilingual students like myself exemplify this. Overall, looking at the experiences of multilingual students of color helps us understand the power that hegemony has. 

 

by Sarah Tolland

Definition

Markedness can be used to observe and study the power dynamics of different cultures and languages. It refers to the binary ranking of essentialized social identities where society favors one identity while disadvantaging the other.

Description

When observing markedness, identities are viewed in one of two ways: Marked or Unmarked. Where we see unmarked identities, we have the dominant identities that are seen as what is normal or default. The marked identities are labeled groups who are seen and treated as less than those of the unmarked category. 

Markedness stems from the differences between people. As society observes these differences, language is used to label and describe them, essentializing groups by race, gender, sexuality and more. We mark these identities in our speech, habitus, and our thoughts. These actions may be both explicit and implicit, allowing markedness to evolve through practice both consciously and subconsciously. When marking these identities, we mark the language ideologies of them as well, stereotyping these essentialized groups by their appearances, actions and linguistic habits.

Markedness is a phenomenon that develops alongside power relations, hegemony, and agency. Through the constant yearning for power in our society, we see that hegemony supports the existence of markedness and that the two may influence power relations and agency through their ability to influence the flow of power and respect given to individuals in a society. 

Application:

While markedness is relevant to many topics, ideas and stereotypes in society,  markedness related to race, gender, and sexuality has come to the forefront of many conversations recently. A journal post by Anyana Garg in Yes Magazine states that, “in 2018, 26 trans people were killed, most of them people of color. And at least 20 trans or gender nonconforming women of color have been murdered in the United States as of November 2019 alone.” Because of the horrible treatment of black transgender people, the rush to fight for equality has exposed many views and opinions on the markedness of this group that in the words of Renee Jarreau, “sit[s] at the intersection of anti blackness and transmisogyny.”

Studying markedness gives us the ability to understand why people are discriminated against for straying from the gender stereotypes that are seen as normal.

While learning language as a child, we also learn gender. In their book Language and Gender, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Genet identify  the idea that gender is learned in which we unconsciously adopt behaviors and ideals that are socialized into society. Our society teaches gender binary pronouns, sexism, misogyny and so many more horrible practices that all have a main goal of disadvantaging a group of people. While there are many movements to change these these societal stereotypes, (such as the movement towards gender equality, the gay rights movement and the transgender rights movement), while things may be getting better, there is definitely not equality for any of these groups of people. 

As I stated previously, people practice these habits of marking people through their use of language. A big part of being inclusive to the those who identify as transgender and gender nonconforming or non-binary is making an effort to use the correct pronouns. Many universities and institutions have taken steps towards limiting the amount of mis-gendering that happens within their walls. As people who don’t use the pronouns “she” and “he” have adopted the pronoun “they”, it has become marked through its affiliation with a marked group. In deliberately trying to be hurtful and disrespectful to those who wish to be referred to as “they,” people have used more dehumanizing terms such as “it”; a term commonly used by children when bullying in schools.

While being transgender is a marked identity, the hardships that a trans person has to go through are amplified when they identify with other marked identities. 

African American Vernacular English is one of many English dialects that is marked for not using the Standard American English grammar structure. While AAVE has its own grammar and semantics, many black people are seen as dumb or incompetent for not using “proper grammar.” While there are many other characteristics of black people that have been marked, (natural hair seen as unprofessional and unkempt, being “rowdy” or loud, etc.), the community as a whole has been marked as a result of ongoing racism. 

When someone who identifies as a black person also identifies as transgender, the markedness that oppresses each of these identities falls hardest on them. Black transgender women are discriminated against to the point of death. While the number of individual deaths may sound low, the “Unerased: Counting Transgender Lives” project calculates that the rate at which young black transgender people are being killed is over 7 times that of the rest of Americans. “If in 2015 all Americans had the same risk of murder as young black trans women there would have been 120,087 murders instead of 15,696 murders.”

The sad reality is that innocent people are being killed for being true to themselves. A truth so personal that doesn’t hurt anyone is the  reason for their deaths.

Markedness allows us to study discrimination against essentialized identities, especially discriminatory language. We can understand how society disadvantages identities that are not seen as the default and hopefully find a way to change the stigma that people have about being different. We should embrace and support our differences because being happy and being yourself is more important than anything else.

by Gabriela Gabriel

Definition: how one’s process of acquiring language and its’ culture are virtually inseparable as they are utilized in a variety of ways through different linguistic, cultural, and geographic communities throughout life.

Description: Language Socialization is necessary to know how people use the languages they have learned within their language communities and it helps them understand how and why they communicate the way they do.

In language socialization, one puts linguistic features they learn into practice through speech. In analyzing stylistic features of speech or analyzing what separates different languages that people speak, one can gain insight into someone’s culture.

Also, being multilingual in certain communities creates a hegemonic relationship between Standard American English and native languages (which are often suppressed to allow for proper code-switching to accommodate to the normative speech).

To challenge inequality, becoming multilingual as a choice can help revitalize languages and allow for cross-cultural interactions between users of varieties of different languages.

Furthermore, people learn various manners of speech throughout their lives due to one’s interaction with their own communities. This is done by learning a language alongside a culture that can only be attributed to that language and hence introduces diversity. 

Application: I would like to tie language socialization to a particular video I saw a few years ago. A 4-year old Russian girl is taught approximately 7 languages – Russian, English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Arabic, and German.

https://nypost.com/2016/10/19/this-4-year-old-girl-speaks-7-languages/

This connects to language socialization because Bella’s parents taught her all seven languages in the environment that is their home. One could say that Bella’s home is a speech community where certain languages are spoken and taught for a particular purpose.

In Bella’s case, her parents wanted her to have a love for languages and hence invested time and hours of speech, reading and writing to improve it. By interacting with Bella in these ways, the languages are more likely to be ingrained in her mind and become useful in everyday life.

Furthermore, one could say that there is a hegemonic standard in terms of race that is rather clear in this video. Bella is a white 4-year-old who is brought out to a show in front of thousands because of her multilingualism.

However, as I introduced in my description, there are communities where children speak multiple African and Native American languages and dialects and are not applauded in the same way Bella is. If anything, they are suppressed and forced to speak English.

What is discouraging is that children of color have to see the product of white hegemony (the white race being held above anyone who is not of this race) and the dominance of Standard American English (the type of English taught in American schools) so early on in their lives that it unfortunately becomes the norm. 

Another way that language socialization can be applied is through the acquisition of culture. In my experience, I am a Dominican-American who acquired Spanish as my second language at home.

My mother would interchangeably use English and Spanish around the house in hopes that I would be fluent soon enough. Just as she planned, that was the case, but there was something learning Spanish at home came with that neither she nor I could shake: my Dominican accent.

Sure, much like 19 other countries, The Dominican Republic’s official language is Spanish. But of course, the way I learned Spanish was unique. I have a Dominican accent when I speak, often dropping the ‘s’ in many plural words like ‘nosotros’ meaning us, turning into ‘nosotro’. This is not a written grammatical rule used in the Spanish language, but it is something that can only be attributed to the Dominican culture and speech mannerisms. This makes it far easier for a Spanish speaker from another Spanish speaking country to identify Dominican Spanish.

In addition to learning Spanish at home with my mom and dad, I grew up visiting the Dominican Republic my entire life, which is how I also knew the cuisine, holidays and customs by experiencing them first hand. My parents brought such accents and customs with them to the United States and socialized them into my knowledge over time. Language Socialization notes that by definition, learning a language comes with years and years of culture passed down through generations that are used within speech.

But of course, socialized culture can be seen in speakers of different languages across the globe. An example one can see in action is the language and culture of the Japanese. As a learner of this language at the college level myself, it has definitely been no easy feat. The grammatical structure of the language, as well as its culture, are very different from the ones I grew up with and are rather difficult to get used to. In terms of grammar, Japanese is a Subject-Object-Verb language while English and Spanish are both Subject-Verb-Object languages.

In addition to this, the Japanese language has formalities as well as informalities when speaking to different people. Speaking to a new person requires bowing of the head after saying “yoroshiku onegaishimasu” which directly translates to “please treat me well” to signify respect. If one were to say or do such a thing in America towards someone who has no knowledge of this culture, one would likely be given a look of confusion.

In my Japanese class, I was required to bow when giving an assignment to my professor, or receiving it. Alongside the bow, one says “domo”(doh-mo) when receiving and “doozo”(doh-zo) when giving or offering something. In turn, this only further proves the theory of language socialization being the learning of culture alongside language as it is an impossibility for me to want to be fluent like a native and ignore the culture.

In proving this theory, I thought of how to introduce myself without using any formalities or bows. A simple hello? A wave? Perhaps that is what is done in America, yet to a Japanese native, it would come across as ignorant and rude.

To conclude, there are cultural and linguistic aspects within societal existence that can only be attributed to where someone is from geographically and or their socialization into their everyday practices over time. Whether some may argue the Chomskian idea of language acquisition over language socialization in the realm of language learning, one thing is for sure: culture and language are inseparable.