Sociolinguists have usefully turned to the study of interactions as essential sites in which language is used to accomplish social action, such as the construction of social identities. Interactional approaches to identity, rather than presuming identity to be fixed and quantifiable by the researcher, emphasize the moment-by-moment emergence of identity through interactions and interactionally complex units of meaning other than identity categories (e.g., stances and acts), as well as allow for the intersectional nature of identity. Additionally, as Bucholtz and Hall (2005) note, these approaches treat identity as positioned in the relationship between macro-level categories, local positions, and moment-to-moment stance-taking acts, thus allowing for analysis on multiple levels of
6 It should be noted here that I am using “stereotype” in a conventional sense to refer to the ideologically-loaded qualities ascribed to a particular group of people, rather than in the Labovian sense, which Johnstone and Kiesling (2008), for example, define as “[a] variable feature which is the overt topic of social comment; may become increasingly divorced from forms that are actually used; the form may eventually disappear from vernacular speech” (9). Eckert (2008) also draws on Silverstein’s (2003) interpretation of Labov’s (1972a) use of the term “stereotypes” to refer to variables that are used in
identification processes. In this section, I present each of these theoretical assumptions as well as discuss specific scholars who have engaged with them.
Such an approach is distinct from variationist methods of analysis that investigate primarily how language features correlate with identity variables such as class (e.g., Labov 1966, 1972a), race (e.g., Wolfram 1969), and sex (e.g., Trudgill 1972), often in ways that have been critiqued as “static” rather than “dynamic.” Such quantitative methods, prominent in sociolinguistics since the 1960s, clearly offer a powerful tool for identifying patterns of variation across communities or situations. Variationism has different goals from approaches that view identity as socially constructed (e.g., stylistic variation, interactional identity): it has “set itself other primary objectives, linked to understanding language systems and how they change, rather than understanding social action and interaction through language” (Coupland 2007:7).
An interactional approach can fruitfully address how identity is socially constructed.7 One of the earliest studies in this vein, Le Page and Tabouret-Keller’s (1985) “acts of identity” framework emphasizes that individuals have active roles in using language to identify with or distance themselves from others (181). This approach foregrounds the dynamic qualities of identity and views identity as a process, rather than depending on externally defined categories. This theoretical perspective has been a promising one for bridging the disciplinary gap between linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. In particular, linguistic anthropologists have taken a critical stance toward the use of “identity” as a theoretical construct in sociolinguistics because this
concept has been used to essentialize characteristics of groups of people and depict qualities of individuals as inherent and generalized (see Bucholtz & Hall 2004 for a summary of this critique). However, an interactional approach to identity attempts to correct for this essentialization by acknowledging an individual’s agency in his or her identity construction, rather than imposing identity categories determined by external forces on the individual. It is worth noting, however, that a focus on individuals’ constructions of identity risks ignoring the significance of how identity ascriptions, or assignments of identity by others, can be highly relevant in the daily lives of individuals. In addition, the influence exercised when social institutions assign identity categories to individuals is not always acknowledged when analyzing from a speaker-centric analytical perspective (cf. “structuration theory” [Giddens 1984]). It is therefore important for the analyst to consider the ways in which broad social categories may also be made relevant in interactions.
2.3.1 Stance
Importantly, the process of indexically linking forms and social meanings must be understood along temporal trajectories. The fact that these indexical links may shift, or at least oscillate, between different units of social meaning, such as categories of stance and identity—was articulated by Ochs (1992) and has more recently been highlighted in numerous analyses of interaction and linguistic styles (e.g., Johnstone 2007; Bucholtz & Hall 2008; Bucholtz 2009; Johnstone 2009; Kiesling 2009; Snell 2010). In her work on gendered language, Ochs (1992) differentiates between direct and indirect indexicalities: a “direct index” links a linguistic form (e.g., ‘baby talk’) with an interactional act (e.g., accommodation), while an “indirect index” links that interactional act (e.g.,
accommodation) to a social identity (e.g., “caregiver”). Significantly, she draws attention to the relationship between linguistic forms and social identity or group as mediated by interactional acts, such as stances and other acts of social positioning, given that
particular stances and acts become conventionally associated with social categories of people over time.
Interactional approaches thus attend to how language is related to nuanced units of social meaning, such as stances, acts, and activities (Ochs 1992) and how these nuances of meaning may eventually become associated with broadly defined social groups. An interactional approach provides a framework for analyzing the moment-by- moment emergence of identity and production of meaning (Bucholtz & Hall 2005), primarily through the positioning moves achieved, or stances taken, by speakers. Jaffe (2009:13) defines stance as an analytical framework that examines “the subject positions and relationships that can be enacted through forms of talk,” which in turn are
“statistically and/or stereotypically mapped on to named linguistic systems (“accent”, “dialect,” “language,” “mixed codes”) or less explicitly named discourse categories (register, genre, discourse” (13). When speakers engage in stance-taking, or take up “a position with respect to the form or the content of one’s utterance” (Jaffe 2009:3).
Stance-taking is essentially a dialogic process of evaluation by which speakers position themselves in relation to a stance object and assign it value (Du Bois 2007:143). Within a sociolinguistic framework of stance, two particular types of stance-taking moves have been foregrounded—epistemic and affective stance. Through epistemic stances speakers make claims of knowledge and authority about a stance object relative to their interlocutors. Affective stances represent the speaker’s feelings toward the stance object
as the speaker’s evaluation positions her on an affective scale. As Du Bois’ stance triangle (2007) shows, through both epistemic and affective stance-taking moves, in addition, speakers position themselves relative to their interlocutors by aligning or disaligning with their interlocutors’ positionings toward the stance object.
Attention on the interactional level thus privileges the ways in which identity is constructed through the positions taken up by participants in moments of discourse. By examining stances, or “footings” (Goffman 1981[1979]), which allow the speaker to construct relational identities with other social actors, analysts are able to connect
moment-by-moment interactions to other levels of identity construction, such as personas and styles (e.g., Johnstone 2007; Bucholtz 2009; Kiesling 2009) that may take place along various timescales (e.g., Wortham 2003), whether those that are sociohistorically emergent in a community, ontogenetically emergent for an individual, or micro-
interactionally emergent within a particular moment of talk. In other words, using stance as a framework for interpreting identity construction in interaction allows the analyst to look across interactions to see how speakers employ stances that become “habitually and conventionally associated with particular subject positions…and interpersonal and social relationships” (Jaffe 2009:4). That is, through repetition over time, “stance accretion” (Du Bois 2002, cited in Bucholtz & Hall 2005) enables fleeting stances to build into persisting and recognizable personas and styles. Finally, taking an interactional approach to identity encourages the analyst to investigate the indexical relationships that result from stances mediating the association between linguistic forms and dimensions of social identification (Ochs 1992; Jaffe 2009).
2.3.2 Relational and collaborative construction
According to this “sociocultural linguistic” approach (see Bucholtz & Hall 2005, 2008, 2010), identity is understood as the “social positioning of self and other” (Bucholtz & Hall 2005:586), a definition that allows for identity to be approached as a “relational and sociocultural phenomenon that emerges and circulates in local discourse contexts of interaction rather than as a stable structure located primarily in the individual psyche or in fixed social categories” (585–586). Because identities are relational, they obtain their meanings relative to other identity positions, individuals, and social groups.
Crucially, under this approach, identity is not merely constructed but it is necessarily co-constructed by participants in an interaction, as disregarding the ways in which identity is collaboratively constructed risks attributing too much agency to the individual speaker. Not only does an individual construct his or her identity, but others with whom they interact also participate in this process of construction and negotiation. The importance of these “local discourse contexts” in the process of identity construction highlight the importance of situating interactional approaches to identity within
communities, and interactional analysis is one means to develop a close understanding of how relevant categories are produced through discourse practices within a community. 2.3.3 Intersectionality
Moreover, because it conceives of identity as simultaneously constructed along various social dimensions at once (e.g., race, class, gender, age), an interactional theory of identity reflects a productive way that sociolinguists have addressed the intersectional nature of identity: that social dimensions intersect, rather than operate independently of each other. The goal of intersectionality theory is to analyze “how social and cultural
categories intertwine” and to examine “[t]he relationships between gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, class and nationality” (Knudsen 2006:61). In the 1990s, multicultural and black feminists (e.g., Collins 1990; Crenshaw 1991) formulated
intersectionality theory as a response to the version of feminist studies that privileged the experiences of white women and excluded the experiences of women of color. Thus, intersectionality theory provides a framework for understanding “the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relations and subject formations” (McCall 2005) and how multiple dimensions of identity interact to produce a mixed identity (Anzaldúa 1987). In particular, intersectionality theory has most often been deployed to analyze how interlocking systems of race, class, and gender intersect to produce
situations of oppression and marginalization. As Collins (2000) explains, intersectional theorists “view race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and age, among others, as mutually constructing systems of power. [And] . . . these systems permeate all social relations” (11). Crucially, analysis through an intersectional lens rejects the notion of identity as additive and instead argues that “effects of identity categories are
multiplicative, producing contextualized experiences of oppression and privilege for all individuals and groups, not just women of color” (Mallinson 2006:39–40). And,
intersectionality tries to unite the influences of structure with the everyday practices (Brah & Phoenix 2004) as well as capture “the ways in which subjects experience subjectivity or strategically deploy identity” (Nash 2008:11).
Intersectionality theory has only recently been applied explicitly to sociolinguistics (e.g., Mallinson 2006; Lanehart 2009; Levon 2011). Although
of color, it has been increasingly applied to understanding how other dimensions of identity intersect. As Mallinson (2006) notes, since intersectionality privileges “questions that center on context and variation rather than separable and discrete membership
categories,” it “allows for a broader examination of not only majority group members but also those of previously understudied groups” (41). Regarding the analysis of social meaning in language variation, Levon (2011:81) argues that sociolinguists should privilege an intersectional understanding of identity:
we cannot know a priori how individuals will experience the intersection of two social categories in their lives or how that experience will inform their social practice. Rather, it is only in the context of empirical investigation that intersectionality gains its explanatory potential—a potential that is itself necessarily grounded in the facts of observed social practice.
While intersectionality was founded primarily to focus on race, class, and gender as categories of identity, some scholars (e.g., Collins 2000; Lanehart 2009) have acknowledged the dimension of age as part of the interlocking system of identities. Because it does not presume that any particular category of identity is necessarily
relevant to an interaction prior to its analysis, an interactional approach to identity allows the analyst to be attentive to the multiple intersecting social dimensions that may emerge as simultaneously relevant and connected through the interaction.
CHAPTER 3
Ethnographic Field Site and Methods
3.1 THE FIELD SITE:THE ANDRUS CENTER