Talking “like a race”: Gender, authority, and articulate speech in African American students’ marking speech acts
-
Jennifer B. Delfino
Abstract
This study examines how 9- to 13-year old African American students in a Washington, D.C. after-school program use an African American discourse practice called marking to voice adults performing acts of discipline. Using audio-recorded data collected during nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, it shows how students used marking to resemiotize the prestige value of African American Language (AAL) relative to so-called “standard” American English, which is imagined in relation to whiteness as an objectively correct set of linguistic practices. As part of an intersectional raciolinguistic perspective, this study foregrounds how students recruit gender stereotypes to challenge hegemonic ideas about racial and linguistic difference. It also attends to the contradictory nature of everyday acts of resistance: while students transformed hegemonic raciolinguistic ideologies of “articulate” and “appropriate” language in the after school space, they relied on racial and gender stereotypes in order to do so.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the journal editors, Alexandre Duchêne, Ruanni Tupas, and Isabelle Affolter, and the two anonymous reviewers, whose directions and comments helped me much improve upon the conceptualization and analysis in this paper. I would also like to thank Angela Reyes and H. Samy Alim for commenting on earlier versions of this work and for their encouragement. Thank you to Mary Bucholtz and the participants of the 2018 American Anthropological Association panel, who read and heard some version of this work: Addie China, Rosy Hall, Maureen Kosse, and Adrienne Lo. A special thank you to the co-authors of this thematic issue, whose work has been inspiring for my own: Addie China, Rachelle Jereza, Sabina Perrino, Jennifer Roth-Gordon, and Catherine Tebaldi. Thank you so much to Adrienne Lo, our issue’s discussion essay author. Finally, my most heartfelt thank you to Maureen Kosse, who continues to inspire much of my work on voicing and who has joined me on this project since we first organized it as a 2018 AAA panel.
Appendix A. Transcription key
| “ ” | constructed dialogue |
| . | end of intonation unit |
| , | end of intonation unit; fall-rise indicates possibility for turn continuation |
| - | self-interruption/repair; break in the word, sound abruptly cut off |
| : | lengthening |
| h | laughter; each token marks one pulse |
| (( )) | transcriber comment |
| [ ] | overlap |
| = | continuing turn |
| (<0.5) | pause <0.5 s |
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Racialization and the national body: (Re)defining selves and others in changing contexts of liberal democratic governance
- “#JeSuisSirCornflakes”: Racialization and resemiotization in French nationalist Twitter
- “They are just a danger”: Racialized ideologies in Northern Italy and the Philippines
- Talking “like a race”: Gender, authority, and articulate speech in African American students’ marking speech acts
- Racialization and gender in Tumblr: Beyoncé as a raciolinguistic semiotic resource
- Producing white comfort through “corporate cool”: Linguistic appropriation, social media, and @BrandsSayingBae
- Commentary
- Commentary: On affect and race under capitalism
- Book Review
- Looking like a language, sounding like a race: Raciolinguistic ideologies and the learning of latinidad
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Racialization and the national body: (Re)defining selves and others in changing contexts of liberal democratic governance
- “#JeSuisSirCornflakes”: Racialization and resemiotization in French nationalist Twitter
- “They are just a danger”: Racialized ideologies in Northern Italy and the Philippines
- Talking “like a race”: Gender, authority, and articulate speech in African American students’ marking speech acts
- Racialization and gender in Tumblr: Beyoncé as a raciolinguistic semiotic resource
- Producing white comfort through “corporate cool”: Linguistic appropriation, social media, and @BrandsSayingBae
- Commentary
- Commentary: On affect and race under capitalism
- Book Review
- Looking like a language, sounding like a race: Raciolinguistic ideologies and the learning of latinidad
