Fourth section

Tyler SchnoebelenQuestions?

Tylers at stanford

Agenda

• Ochs and Taylor (1995)• Mid-term review– Send me questions in e-mail and I’ll compile ‘em

for everyone– There are no stupid questions– And even if there are, I’ll keep the questions

anonymous, so no one will know

What’s the point?

Methods

• Dinner conversations for 7 middle-class white families (1987-1989)– One 5 y/o, one older sibling minimum– 100 past-time narratives for this study– Conversational analysis– Definition of roles (protagonist, introducer,

recipient, etc)

Power and gender

• “In the family context, issues of gender and power cannot be looked at as simply dyadic, i.e., men versus women as haves versus havenots.” (Ochs and Taylor 1995)

• “Gender is not an individual matter at all, but a collaborative affair that connects the individual to the social order.” (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 31)

“Problematize”

• An ugly word, a useful idea• When someone renders an action, condition,

thought, or feeling as problematic (or possibly problematic)

• Some ways to problematize:– Question the truth, credibility; throw doubt on the

situation– Point out negatives (it’s thoughtless, dangerous)– Suggest incompetence, lack of self-control– “Unfair, rude, excessive”

Stages

• Stage one– Mothers introduce narrative– A locus of power!

• Stage two– Ah, but how ephemeral—fathers get a platform for

monitoring and judging

• Stage three– Mothers strive to reclaim control– But this is a cycle

Why do mothers bother?

Midterm review

Your questions, first and foremost

Some questions

• If you want to build a model of “meaning making”, what sorts of things do you need to include?

• Why is gossip in a section about meaning making?• How do various authors use the metaphor of “the

market”?• Does it matter whether you use a masculine

pronoun for generic situations? Why or why not?

New takes on old words• Desire• Negotiation/construction/production• Labels• Stereotypes• Sex/gender• Institutions• Legibility• Iterability• Discursive• Face• Context

New-ish words and phrases • Heteronormativity• Indexicality• Imagined communities• Hall of mirrors• Heterosexual market• Gender binary• Gender order• Essentialism• Variation• Social practice• Communicative competence• Intersubjectivity• Interlocutor• Recursiveness

Compare and contrast

• Queer Theory and Radical Feminism• The discourse turn, the performance turn • Interpretations of Lakoff (1972)• Difference vs. dominance• Prescriptivism vs. descriptivism• Speech community, community of practice,

network• Back-channels vs. interruptions

Nested terms

• Speech activities (situations, activities, events, acts)– Types of speech acts (performative)

• Conversation roles• Linguistic disciplines– Especially sociolinguistics

Beyond the classroom

• Hold on to your wallet when people use these words:– Neutral– Natural– Common sense– Objective

Beyond the classroom II

• Pay attention to where things come from– How is meaning getting made? By whom?– It can be useful to be a problematizer; it can be

useful to recognize problematizing from others

Beyond the classroom III

• When reading about gender differences (or differences between any social categories), watch out for monolithic statements– What about differences among women, for

example– When do differences within each group outweigh

differences between groups– How can you detect a “hall of mirrors”?

Beyond the classroom IV

• “Frames” are a really useful concept—we’ll talk more about these after the mid-term.– See Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 2003: 105