LING20010 Chap.6 Language, Gender and Sexuality
Language, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter replaces the old variable of speaker sex with gender, a social identity produced through action, and notes that neither sex nor gender is binary. It sets out Labov's gender paradox: women use fewer stigmatised variants in stable variation, take up prestige forms faster in change from above, yet lead innovative change from below.
Explanations based on network structure and on symbolic capital are compared with the criticisms that the paradox is partly an artefact of binary grouping and that it is ethnocentric. Eckert's Belton High data then show negative concord directly indexing an anti-establishment stance and only indirectly indexing gender.
The chapter closes with gender diversity and sexuality: Zimman's transmasculine speakers, Podesva's study of one speaker's falsetto across settings, and the problem of operationalising sexuality.
Throughout, the chapter treats gender as one factor that interacts with class, networks and communities of practice, which is why the lecture ends by recommending combinations of social variables over any single category when explaining variation and change.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Sex, gender and the end of the binary
- 02
Labov's gender paradox
- 03
Network and inequality explanations
- 04
Direct and indirect indexing
- 05
Transmasculine voices and pitch
- 06
Operationalising sexuality
Worked example · free
Separate stance from gender in an indexing chain
- 1Identify what negative concord directly indexes: an autonomous, anti-establishment stance.
- 1Explain that the stance is unevenly taken up across boys and girls, so the form looks gendered.
- 1Conclude that gender is indexed only indirectly, through the stance, which is why anti-school girls lead.
Key terms
- Gender paradox
- The gender paradox is Labov's observation that women seem both more standard and more innovative than men.
- Direct indexing
- Direct indexing is the link between a linguistic form and the stance or quality it most immediately signals.
- Falsetto
- Falsetto is a high vocal register, which Podesva measured in one speaker at between 240 and 630 hertz.
Language, Gender and Sexuality FAQ
Is the gender paradox a real contradiction?
Meyerhoff argues it is only a true paradox if the same women who lead non-standard change are also the ones using more standard forms. Grouping speakers into a binary can create the appearance of contradiction from two different sets of women.
Why is the gender paradox called ethnocentric?
Its generalisations come mainly from English-speaking communities. In Iraqi Arabic, men used Standard Arabic variants more than women, who favoured local forms, so the pattern cannot be treated as universal.
What did Zimman find about transmasculine voices?
Among ten speakers, pitch fell with longer time on testosterone. Changes in /s/ were better explained by each speaker's gender identity and presentation, with more masculine-identifying speakers producing a different /s/ from others.
How did Podesva study one speaker's identity?
He recorded a medical student in three settings, a barbecue with friends, a phone call and a patient consultation, and compared his use of falsetto and creak. The differences across settings showed identity as a persona built in context rather than a fixed group trait.
Assessment move
Learn the three principles of the paradox as a table with one example each, then learn the two criticisms well enough to argue against a careless generalisation, which is the most likely way the topic is tested. Draw the indexing chain from negative concord to stance to gender and practise explaining it in three sentences.
For gender diversity and sexuality, focus on method: how Zimman and Podesva defined their speakers, why Podesva compared settings rather than groups, and why sexuality can be operationalised as orientation, identity, behaviour or network. If your project codes gender, say explicitly how you collected it and whether you coded outside the binary.
A good self-test is to explain, in under a minute, why burned-out burnout girls using the most negative concord is a problem for any simple claim about women and standard language.
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