Men's identities and patterns of variation

Scott Kiesling

Sat. 11:00-12:40 C

Various explanations have been proposed for men's greater use of vernacular variants, from Trudgill's (1972) explanation based on the notion of covert prestige, to Eckert's (1989) explanation of sex differences based on differential access to economic power. Because variation patterns are ultimately rooted in the speakers' everyday linguistic practices, investigating these practices is the next step in the pursuit of an explanation for the patterns. In this paper, I continue to explore the link between local practices and global patterns in men's use of the (ING) variable. This variable, with the vernacular alveolar variant (-in') in opposition to the standard velar variant (-ing), has been studied many times in several world Englishes (e.g., Houston 1985, Labov 1966, Trudgill 1974, Shopen 1978). Across studies, the vernacular variant has regularly been favored by men more than women. This regularity makes (ING) an ideal candidate to investigate the stylistic, topical, and situational shifting that gives rise to patterns of variation. I investigate such practices in the intensively male community created by an American college fraternity. I analyze ten fraternity members' speech in three situations: sociolinguistic interviews, fraternity meetings, and casual interaction. All of the men use the vernacular variant of the (ING) variable in casual interaction more than they do in more 'formal' settings; however, some men shift significantly less than the others. Ethnographic data and discourse analysis provide a better understanding of this pattern than quantitative data alone. The ten speakers fall in two groups. Five of the men show a dramatic shift between speech situations, while the other five shift markedly less. Since past studies suggest that style shifting is to be expected, I focus on the unexpected behavior of five men who do not shift (which cannot be explained on geographic or social class grounds). Because of time constraints, I further narrow my focus to two speakers, Mick and Pete. I have previously explained Speed's resistance to shifting through his individualistic, resistant stance towards authority. Mick and Pete do not share this resistant stance. Instead, both are very much part of the fraternity power structure. Through interactional discourse analysis, I show that their use of the nonstandard is nevertheless consistent with their identities. For Mick, the -in' variant is a solidarity-building device, as opposed to a combative device; he shows that he is a hard-working, 'regular guy'. Pete is more combative, but the nonstandard use for him is also emblematic of his hard-working, strong, and irreverent identity. All of the identity constructions of the non-shifting group can be described as 'powerful.' But an explanation that states simply that the men use the nonstandard variant to be powerful does not show how or why it is powerful, and misses the variety with which the variable fits into the men's presentations of self. In this study, I explicitly show how speakers make the connection between power and their identities through the (ING) variable, and how these connections lead to larger patterns of variation.

References

Eckert, Penelope. 1989. The whole woman: Sex and gender differences in variation. Language Variation and Change 1:245-267.

Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Houston, Ann. 1985. Continuity and Change in English Morphology: The Variable (ING). Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania.

Labov, William. 1966. The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Shopen, Timothy. 1978. Research in the variable (ING) in Canberra, Australia. Talanya 5:42-52.

Trudgill, Peter. 1972. Sex, covert prestige, and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich. Language in Society 1:179-95.

Trudgill, Peter. 1974. The social differentiation of English in Norwich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.