Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-02T23:08:28.815Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Biographical Indexicality: Personal History as a Frame of Reference for Social Meaning in Variation

from Part II - The Structure of Social Meaning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 July 2021

By
Devyani Sharma
Edited by
Lauren Hall-Lew ,
Emma Moore  and
Robert J. Podesva
Lauren Hall-Lew
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Emma Moore
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
Robert J. Podesva
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Get access

Summary

Social meaning has been shown to be richly produced within and among social groups (Eckert 2008a). In this study, I describe a different context in which social meaning routinely arises: personal biography. A person’s history of style acquisition and their dominant styles can become a frame of reference for inferred social meanings, referred to here as biographical indexicality. I examine two different scales – micro (individual lifespan) and macro (migration) – for evidence of how sequential biographical history factors into indexical meaning. In both cases, the indexical work achieved by certain linguistic forms derives primarily from inferences based on a person’s past history or default style rather than socially shared valuations of forms. In closing, I discuss three kinds of indexicality that run counter to the predictions of group-oriented models yet are well-attested. These can be explained if we allow meaning to additionally emerge out of an individual’s personal history. Biographical indexicality thus adds to the set of processes that generate social meaning; it also de-essentialises the link between ethnolectal features and their potential social meanings (Eckert 2008b).

Keywords

biographylifespanstyle acquisitionstyle-shiftingindexicalitysocial meaning
Type
Chapter
Information
Social Meaning and Linguistic Variation
Theorizing the Third Wave
 , pp. 243 - 264
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abel, Jennifer, and Babel, Molly. 2017. Cognitive load reduces perceived linguistic convergence between dyads. Language and Speech 20(3), 479–502.Google Scholar
Babel, Anna (ed.). 2016. Awareness and Control in Sociolinguistic Research. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, Allan. 1984. Language style as audience design. Language in Society 13(2), 145–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Allan. 2001. Back in style: Reworking audience design. In Eckert, P. and Rickford, J. R. (eds.), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 139–69.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Levinson, Steven C.. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny, Kerswill, Paul, Fox, Susan, and Torgersen, Eivind. 2011. Contact, the feature pool and the speech community: The emergence of Multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15(2), 151–96.Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 1980. Style shifting in a Cardiff work setting. Language in Society 9(1), 1–12.Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 1985. ‘Hark, hark, the lark’: Social motivations for phonological style-shifting. Language & Communication 5(3), 153–71.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2007. The Stance Triangle. In Englebretson, R. (ed.), Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction. Amsterdam, NL: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 139–82.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 1997. Age as a sociolinguistic variable. In Coulmas, F. (ed.), Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 151–67.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2000. Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Identity in Belten High. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2001. Style and social meaning. In Eckert, P. and Rickford, J. R. (eds.), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 119–26.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2008a. Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4), 453–76.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2008b. Where do ethnolects stop? International Journal of Bilingualism 12(1), 25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2012. Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology 41, 87–100.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Susan, and Romaniuk, Tanya. 2013. Discourse analysis. In Podesva, R. and Sharma, D. (eds.), Research Methods in Linguistics. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 466–99.Google Scholar
Fox, Sue, and Torgersen, Eivind. 2009. The acquisition of Multicultural London English: A case study. Paper presented at the International Conference on Language Variation in Europe (ICLaVE) 5. Copenhagen, DK: University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Gasiorek, Jessica. 2016. The ‘dark side’ of CAT. In Giles, H. (ed.), Communication Accommodation Theory: Negotiating Personal Relationships and Social Identities across Contexts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 85–104.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, Coupland, Nikolas, and Coupland, Justine. 1991. Accommodation theory: Communication, context, and consequence. In Giles, H., Coupland, N., and Coupland, J. (eds.), The Contexts of Accommodation. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1–68.Google Scholar
Gilles, Peter. 1999. Dialektausgleich im Letzebuergeschen: Zur phonetisch-phonologischen Fokussierung einer Nationalsprache. Tubingen, DE: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Gumperz, John J. 1964. Linguistic and social interaction in two communities. American Anthropologist 66(6), 137–53.Google Scholar
Gumperz, John J. 1976. The sociolinguistic significance of conversational code-switching. In Cook Gumperz, J. and Gumperz, J. J. (eds.), Papers on Language and Context. Berkeley, CA: Language Behavior Research Laboratory, Working paper 46.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory, and Cutler, Cecilia. 2011. Speech style and authenticity: Quantitative evidence for the performance of identity. Language Variation and Change 23(1), 139–62.Google Scholar
Hall-Lew, Lauren L., Starr, Rebecca, and Coppock, Elizabeth. 2012. Style-Shifting in the U.S. Congress: The vowels of ‘Iraq(i)’. In Hernandez-Campoy, J. M., and Cutillas-Espinosa, J. A. (eds.), Style-Shifting in Public: New Perspectives on Stylistic Variation. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 45–63.Google Scholar
Hart, Rod, Carlson, Robert, and Eadie, William. 1980. Attitudes toward communication and the assessment of rhetorical sensitivity. Speech Monographs (March), 1–22.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara. 1999. Lingual biography and linguistic variation. Language Sciences 21, 313–21.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara. 2009. Stance, style and the linguistic individual. In Jaffe, A. (ed.), Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 29–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara, and Kiesling, Scott F.. 2008. Indexicality and experience: Variation and identity in Pittsburgh. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(1), 5–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendall, Tyler. 2009. Speech Rate, Pause, and Linguistic Variation: An Examination Through the Sociolinguistic Archive and Analysis Project. Ph.D. dissertation. Durham, NC: Duke University.Google Scholar
Kerswill, Paul. 1994. Dialects Converging: Rural Speech in Urban Norway. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirkham, Sam, and Moore, Emma. 2016. Constructing social meaning in political discourse: Phonetic variation and verb processes in Ed Miliband’s speeches. Language in Society 45(1), 87–111.Google Scholar
Kockelman, Paul. 2004. Stance and subjectivity. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14(2), 127–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William. 1966. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2001. The anatomy of style-shifting. In Eckert, P. and Rickford, J. R. (eds.), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 85–108.Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2013. The Language of Life and Death: The Transformation of Experience in Oral Narrative. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Le Page, Robert B., and Tabouret-Keller, Andrée. 1985. Acts of Identity: Creole-Based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Local, John. 1992. Continuing and restarting. In Auer, P. and Di Luzio, Aldo (eds.), The Contextualization of Language. Amsterdam, NL: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 273–96.Google Scholar
Modaressi-Tehrani, Yahya. 1978. A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Modern Persian. Ph.D. dissertation. Lawrence: University of Kansas.Google Scholar
Nycz, Jennifer. 2015. Second dialect acquisition: A sociophonetic perspective. Language and Linguistics Compass 9(11), 469–82.Google Scholar
Podesva, Robert J., Jamsu, Jermay, and Callier, Patrick. 2015. Constraints on the social meaning of released /t/: A production and perception study of U.S. politicians. Language Variation and Change 27(1), 59–87Google Scholar
Rickford, John R., and Price, Mackenzie. 2013. Girlz II women: Age-grading, language change and stylistic variation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17(2), 143–79.Google Scholar
Roelofs, Ardi, and Piai, Vitória. 2011. Attention demands of spoken word planning: A review. Frontiers in Psychology 2(307), 1–14.Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian. 2018. Language change across the lifespan. Annual Review of Linguistics 4, 297–316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie. 2004. Constructing ethnicity in interaction. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8(2), 163–95.Google Scholar
Selting, Margret. 1985. Levels of style-shifting exemplified in the interaction strategies of a moderator in a listener participation programme. Journal of Pragmatics 9(2–3), 179–97.Google Scholar
Sharma, Devyani. 2016. Changing ethnicities: The evolving speech styles of Punjabi Londoners. In Samy Alim, H., Rickford, J., and Ball, A.. (eds.). Raciolinguistics: How Language Shapes Our Thoughts about Race. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 221–37.Google Scholar
Sharma, Devyani. 2018. Style dominance: Attention, audience, and the ‘real me’. Language in Society 47(1), 1–31.Google Scholar
Sharma, Devyani, and Rampton, Ben. 2015. Lectal focusing in interaction: A new methodology for the study of style variation. Journal of English Linguistics 43(1), 3–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharma, Devyani, and McCarthy, Kathleen. 2018. Cognitive load and style control. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 24(2), Article 15.Google Scholar
Sharma, Devyani, and Sankaran, Lavanya. 2011. Cognitive and social factors in dialect shift: Gradual change in London Asian speech. Language Variation and Change 23(3), 399–428.Google Scholar
Snell, Julia. 2018. Solidarity, stance, and class identities. Language in Society 47(5), 665–91.Google Scholar
Soukup, Barbara. 2009. Dialect Use as Interaction Strategy: A Sociolinguistic Study of Contextualization, Speech Perception, and Language Attitudes in Austria. Vienna, AT: Braumüller.Google Scholar
Thakerar, Jitendra, Giles, Howard, andCheshire, Jenny. 1982. Psychological and linguistic parameters of speech accommodation theory. In Giles, H. and Clair, R. St. (eds.), Advances in the Social Psychology of Language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 205–55.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Uriel, Labov, William, and Herzog, Marvin. 1968. Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. In Lehmann, W. and Malkiel, Y. (eds.), Directions for Historical Linguistics: A Symposium. Austin: University of Texas Press, 95–188.Google Scholar
Wells, John C. 1982. Accents of English, Vol. 2 (The British Isles). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfram, Walt, and Schilling-Estes, Natalie. 1998. American English: Dialects and Variation. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×