Hip Hop Nation Language 405 We also witnessed signification in the call and response section of the Black Thought performance described above. As Jackson (2001) notes, Thought appears to be signifyin on the audience by highlighting their lack of familiarity with Black cultural modes of discourse: “I wonder if it’swhatI’msaying . A-yo!” The Roots have been known to signify on audiences that are not as culturally responsive as they would like them to be. During a 1999 concert at Stanford University, they stopped the music and began singing theme songs from 1980s television shows like “Diff’rent Strokes” and “Facts of Life,” snapping their fingers and singing in a corny (not cool) way. The largely white, middle-class audience of college students sang along and snapped their fingers – apparently oblivious to the insult. After the show, the band’s drummer and official spokesman, Ahmir, said: “Like if the crowd ain’t responding, we’ve done shows where we’ve stopped the show, turned the equipment around, and played for the wall, you know” (Alim 1999). In this sense, the Roots remove any hint of indirection and blatantly bust on the unresponsive audience. The examples above make clear that HHNL speakers readily incorporate signifyin and bustin into their repertoire. Whether hip hop heads are performing, writing rhymes, or just “conversatin,” these strategies are skillfully employed. Other hip hop cultural modes of discourse and discursive practices, which fall out of the purview of this chapter, are tonal semantics and poetics, narrative sequenc- ing and flow, battling and entering the cipher. Linguistic scholars of the hip hop generations (we are now more than one) are needed to uncover the complexity and creativity of HHNL speakers. In order to represent – reflect any semblance of hip hop cultural reality – these scholars will need to be in direct conversation with the culture creators of a very widely misunderstood Nation. Acknowledgments It is my pleasure to acknowledge the assistance and encouragement of John Baugh, Mary Bucholtz, Austin Jackson, Marcyliena Morgan, Geneva Smitherman, James G. Spady, and Arthur Spears in the preparation of this chapter. I would also like to thank Ed Finegan for his scrupulous reading of the manuscript and for his insight and many helpful suggestions, and John Rickford for his support and careful review of an early draft of the manuscript. The chapter has been greatly improved by their efforts as editors. Lastly, much props to my students in Linguistics 74: “The Language of Hip Hop Culture”; they have challenged me to represent to the fullest. Suggestions for further reading and exploration Forathorough understanding of the philosophies and aesthetic values of hip hop’s culture creators, the Umum Hip Hop Trilogy is an excellent source. Its three volumes (Spady and Eure 1991, Spady et al. 1995, Spady et al. 1999) offer 406 h. samy alim extensive hip hop conversational discourse with such members of the HHN as Ice Cube, Busta Rhymes, Chuck D, Kurupt, Common, Eve, Bahamadia, Grandmaster Flash, and others.These volumes also provide primary source material for scholars of language use within the HHN. For early works on hip hop culture, see Hager (1984), Toop (1984, 1994, 1999), Nelson and Gonzales (1991), Rose (1994), and Potter (1995). For updates on what’s happening in the HHN, the most informative website is Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner (www.daveyd.com). Useful hip hop periodicals include Murder Dog, The Source, XXL, Vibe and Blaze. One might gain the most insight by “reading” the hip hop saturated streets of America. 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Samy Alim. 1999. Street Conscious Rap. Philadelphia: Black History Museum/Umum Loh Publishers. Stavsky, Lois, Isaac Mozeson, and Dani Reyes Mozeson. 1995. A2Z:the Book of Rap and Hip-Hop Slang.New York: Boulevard Books. Toop, David. 1984 (1994, 1999). Rap Attack: from African Jive to New York Hip Hop. London: Pluto Press. Turner, Lorenzo. 1949. Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wa Thiongo, Ngugi. 1992. Moving the Center: the Struggle for Cultural Freedom. London: Heinemann. Wideman, John. 1976. “Frame and Dialect: the Evolution of the Black Voice in American Literature,” American Poetry Review 5(5): 34–37. Wolfram, Walter. 1969. A Sociolinguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech.Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics. Yancy, George. 1991. “Rapese.” Cited in Spady and Eure, eds. Hip Hop Nation Language 409 Yasin, Jon. 1999. “Rap in the African-American Music Tradition: Cultural Assertion and Continuity.” In Race and Ideology: Language, Symbolism, and Popular Culture, ed. Arthur Spears. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Discography B-Legit. 2000. Hempin Ain’t Easy.Koch International. Bahamadia. 1996. Kollage. EMI Records. Big L. 2000. The Big Picture. Priority Records. Cappadonna. 1998. The Pillage. Sony Records. DJ Pooh. 1997. Bad Newz Travels Fast.DaBomb/Big Beat/Atlantic Records. Drag-On and Baby Madison. 2001. Live from Lenox Ave.Vacant Lot/Priority Records. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. 1982. The Message. Sugarhill Records. JT the Bigga Figga. 1993. Playaz N the Game. Get Low Recordz. Juvenile. 2001. Project English. Universal Records. L.O.X. 2000. We Are the Streets. Ruff Ryders Records. Ludacris. 2001. Word of Mouf. Universal Records. Missy Elliot f/ Jay-Z and Ludacris. 2001. MissE SoAddictive. Elektra/Asylum. Mystikal. 2000. Let’s Get Ready.Jive Records. Nelly. 2000. Country Grammar. Universal Records. Raekwon. 1999. Immobilarity. Sony. Rza. 1998. Rza as Bobby Digital in Stereo. V2/BMG Records. Three X Krazy. 2000. Real Talk 2000.DUBARecords. Treacherous Three (Kool Moe Dee, LA Sunshine, Special K and DJ Easy Lee). 1980. “New Rap Language.” Enjoy Records. 22 Language, gender, and sexuality MARY BUCHOLTZ Editors' introduction A chapter called “Language, Gender, and Sexuality” could hardly have appeared in the first Language in the USA because the field of language and gender studies was too young in 1980. Mary Bucholtz here contextualizes her discussion of the subject within the historical, intellectual, and political forces at play in recent decades, and she illustrates how fluid both language use and scholarly understanding of it can be. For decades, many sociolinguists had established correlations between linguistic features such as pronunciations and grammatical forms with fixed social categories like socioeconomic status, sex, and ethnicity. A notable development in the late twentieth century was the rise of feminist studies, gender studies, and studies of sexuality in language and literature. This chapter analyzes language variation from these latter perspectives. Beginning with “the fundamental insight of feminism” that “the personal is political,” Bucholtz describes analyses of women’s language in the 1970s and the unprecedented move to replace sexist nouns like fireman and stewardess and sexist pronouns like he (meaning ‘he and she’) with nongendered expressions (firefighter, flight attendant, he and she, s/he). Less well known is the notion of indexes – how “identities form around practices and practices develop around identities.” The chapter shows that temporary identities (interaction-specific identities, Bucholtz calls them) such as ring maker or hopscotch player can take precedence over broader identities such as girl, African American, or Latina. Even more important is the fluid nature of identity and of the role of language, including performed language, in creating identity. Performance and performance language can enact an identity that “may or may not conform to the identity of the performer by others.” In other words, identity may be deliberately chosen and performed. Calling some findings of correlational sociolinguistics into question, Bucholtz observes that “studies of the relationship between gender and sexuality bring performance to the forefront because they emphasize the fluidity of categories often believed to be fixed, and they challenge traditional assumptions of what it means to be female or male, feminine or masculine. By suggesting that gender and sex are not natural and inevitable but socially constructed, studies of the performance of these dimensions of identity raise questions about the fixedness of all social categories.” Despite a long tradition of folk beliefs in the USA and elsewhere about how women speak, the scholarly study of language and gender is a relatively recent phenomenon. Developing in response to the emergence of feminism as a political movement, this young and vibrant field changes rapidly as a result of debates 410 Language, gender, and sexuality 411 and developments both within language and gender studies and within feminist scholarship more generally. It is not surprising that feminism has had such a pow- erful impact on the formation of language and gender studies, for the fundamental insight of feminism – “The personal is political” – is nowhere more evident than in how language is used by, to, and about women. But there is no single variety of feminism: feminist thinkers disagree on a number of fundamental issues. And although language and gender studies have traditionally focused on research on women by women from a feminist perspective, men too are increasingly involved in the field both as researchers and as study participants; it is important to keep in mind that men too may be feminists. Moreover, gender is related to but distinct from sexuality, and thus the study of language and sexuality is both a branch of language and gender studies and a subfield in its own right. For these reasons, the following discussion is not simply a summary of “what we know” about language, gender, and sexuality, but an overview of the historical, intellectual, and political issues that have given rise to different strands of research. Ihave tried to highlight rather than gloss over these issues in order to show that like all of sociolinguistics the linguistic study of gender and sexuality is embedded in ongoing debates and that these issues, far from being settled, are still open for discussion and further research. Early language and gender studies: language and sexism For most Americans, questions about how language interacts with gender are most prominent in their English classes in high school and college in which as part of their instruction in writing they are taught to avoid sexist language. Whereas only a generation ago, masculine forms such as he and chairman were considered to encompass female referents as well, student writers today are encouraged to use gender-neutral and gender-inclusive nouns and pronouns and to treat women and men in a parallel fashion. Writing handbooks recommend, for example, that com- pounds with -man be replaced by nongendered forms (police officer for policeman, firefighter for fireman, etc.) and that humanity and humankind substitute for man and mankind. They further urge writers to refer to women and men of equivalent status equivalently: women should not be referred to by first name or by a title such as Mrs. (or Ms.) when men are referred to by last name alone or as Dr. The promotion of nonsexist language represents perhaps the greatest impact of language and gender scholarship on the American public. But while Americans have generally been eager to be told where to put their prepositions (not at the end of the sentence) and how to protect their infinitives from adverbial interlopers (no split infinitives), guidelines for nonsexist language have not met with the same warm welcome. Such guidelines were slow to catch on and gained ground only with a great deal of resistance from opponents. In fact, the Linguistic Society of America itself adopted guidelines for nonsexist writing as late as 1992, and then only over strong objections from some members of the association, who maintained that the guidelines were prescriptivist in intent and thus counter to the 412 mary bucholtz linguistic principle of descriptivism. (For more discussion of language ideologies such as prescriptivism, see chapter 15 by Lippi-Green in this volume.) If linguists have had difficulty coming to agreement over this issue, then feminists have found it an even more challenging task to convince nonlinguists of the importance of nonsexist language. The use of the masculine pronoun he has been a particular source of controversy. Advocates of traditional prescriptive grammar argue that he, his, and him can function in certain contexts as epicene pronouns (that is, as pronouns that include both genders). And members of the general public, uneasy about abandoning the prescriptive principles drilled into them in school, are equally skeptical about what at first seemed to many to be a faddish and politically motivated practice. Because the nonsexist language movement grew out of the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s, it was viewed with suspicion by those who disagreed with the aims of feminism. It is all the more remarkable, then, that nonsexist language guidelines have been so successful, taking hold not only in high school and college writing handbooks but in the professional publication manuals of a number of fields. In part this success has to do with greater acceptance of certain feminist principles (if not the label feminism itself) by most Americans. But some part of the success of gender-inclusive pronouns – such as she or he (or he or she), she/he, and s/he – can be attributed to the fact that, unlike other nonsexist language practices, these pronominal forms are limited almost entirely to written and formal contexts of language use. Because they do not occur in everyday speech they do not require an extensive revision of pre-existing linguistic habits. And because they are used only in situations in which language is carefully planned and often edited, they can be consciously learned and used, for learning the linguistic practices associated with formal contexts already involves the mastery of explicit rules, unlike the mostly unconscious acquisition of spoken language. Moreover, some nonsexist alternatives (such as s/he) are unpronounceable, and therefore written discourse is more conducive to their use. The issue of nonsexist pronouns does not arise for ordinary spoken English because most speakers of American English use they rather than he as the epicene or indefinite pronoun, as in Somebody left their book on the desk. But in formal writing the use of they to refer to a single person is generally considered “incorrect” from a prescriptive standpoint. Prescriptivists hold that the use of epicene they replaces grammatical correctness with political correctness. But some feminists (women and men alike) are proponents of the use of indefinite they even in written formal contexts; they point out that the form has a long and respectable history and is found in earlier stages of the English language, along with he or she. Epicene he, by contrast, entered the language quite late and only took hold by Parliamentary fiat: during the prescriptive grammar craze of the eighteenth century in England a grammarian named John Kirby proposed that he should, from that time forward, be understood as including female referents as well. A century later, Parliament banned the official use of he or she in favor of he (Bodine 1975). Since few modern-day Americans hold themselves accountable to the laws of the British Parliament, this appeal to history has done a great deal to rebut the Language, gender, and sexuality 413 objections of prescriptivists and descriptivists alike. But feminist scholars relied on other kinds of research to strengthen their argument as well. Studies of readers showed that those who encountered epicene masculine forms in texts tended to envision male rather than female referents (Martyna 1983). And close analysis of texts revealed that so-called epicene masculine forms in fact often referred to males exclusively: “In practice, the sexist assumption that man is a species of males becomes the fact. Erich Fromm certainly seemed to think so when he wrote that man’s ‘vital interests’ were ‘life, food, access to females, etc.’ Loren Eisley implied it when he wrote of man that ‘his back aches, he ruptures easily, his women have difficulties in childbirth . . .’” (Graham 1975: 62). Some feminists attempted to introduce entirely new epicene pronouns, such as co,but they did not catch on. Such efforts to change fixed elements of the linguistic system were often viewed by nonfeminists as ludicrous; even the use of generic she as a counterbalance to the overwhelming use of generic he was found objectionable, on the grounds that the pronoun called too much attention to itself. Yet many feminists would argue that it is one of the great virtues of these innovative pronominal systems that they require language users to think about linguistic choices – and the social consequences of those choices. At the same time that battles were being waged over pronouns in the 1970s, feminist scholars were scrutinizing other elements of English for evidence of sexism and misogyny. A set of feminist lexical studies demonstrated that the English lexicon treats women and men differently. For example, over time words for women become more negative or trivialized in their meaning while equivalent terms for men do not shift in meaning: governess versus governor; lady versus lord; courtesan versus courtier, etc. Moreover, English has far more negative terms for women than for men, and insult terms for women, but not for men, most often involve sexual promiscuity (Schulz 1975). In a widely read book that cleared the way for the new field of language and gender studies, Robin Lakoff described the features of a speech style she called “women’s language,” which she argued was culturally imposed on women and put them in a communicative double bind: to sound helpless and ladylike or to sound powerful and unladylike. Among the characteristics of “women’s language” proposed by Lakoff are: (1) . . . a large stock of words related to [women’s] specific interests, generally relegated to them as “women’s work”: magenta, shirr, dart (in sewing), and so on (2) “Empty” adjectives like divine, charming, cute (3) Question intonation where we might expect declaratives: for instance tag questions (“It’s so hot, isn’t it?”) and rising intonation in statement contexts (“What’s your name, dear?” “Mary Smith?”). (4) The use of hedges of various kinds. Women’s speech seems in general to contain more instances of “well,” “y’know,” “kinda,” and so forth: words that convey the sense that the speaker is uncertain about what he (or she) is saying . . . (5) . . . the use of intensive “so” (6) Hypercorrect grammar: women are not supposed to talk rough. . . . 414 mary bucholtz (7) Superpolite forms (8) Women don’t tell jokes (9) Women speak in italics (1975: 53–56) It is important to note that Lakoff does not suggest that all women use “women’s language” (which might more aptly be called “ladies’ language”) but that they choose not to use it at their peril. Many scholars have sought to disprove or modify Lakoff’s claims, but her larger claim – that women’s experience of sexism constrains (but does not determine) their use of language – is widely accepted by feminists. The feminist work of the 1970s was invaluable for bringing the issue of sexism in language to public attention for the first time. Scholars persuasively described how language systematically participates in sexism by allotting different accept- able linguistic behavior to women and men, by denigrating women through insult- ing and trivializing labels, by engulfing women’s experience in a purportedly generic but actually male perspective. But these studies did not look at how indi- vidual women resisted linguistic sexism or turned a seemingly sexist system to their own ends. To ask such questions would have been premature at a time when few people would even admit that language could contribute to sexism, or that sex- ism itself should be eliminated. Today, however, most people in the USA would argue that women and men should be treated – both linguistically and otherwise – as equals. As a result, it has become necessary to move beyond the concerns of the 1970s and to turn to the questions asked in later phases of feminism. The struggle to eradicate sexist linguistic practices is by no means over, despite the feminist victory with regard to nonsexist pronouns. Although nonsexist lan- guage is promoted as policy, it is less often accepted as practice. Some of the worst offenders are linguists themselves, as shown in an analysis of example sentences in linguistics textbooks, such as: Susie was appointed secretary to the president of the company. The man is hitting the woman with a stick. Margie wears clothes which are attractive to men. (cited by Macaulay and Brice 1997) And some commentators on the nonsexist language debate choose to focus less on the successes of the movement than on its apparent failure with regard to innovative pronominal systems. Yet new nonsexist systems of gender reference were successfully employed in feminist science fiction of the 1970s to introduce the reader to worlds where the possibilities of gender are different from those of our own society, as in June Arnold’s use of the pronoun na in her speculative feminist novel The Cook and the Carpenter (1973): A hand covered Leslie’s nose and mouth, pushing into nan face; one deputy easily dragged na to the car; another followed by the side, whacking Leslie’s body wherever nan stick could land. (cited in Livia 1999: 338–39) [...]... Hall 199 5 “Introduction: Twenty Years after Language and Woman’s Place.” In Hall and Bucholtz Pp 1–22 (Forthcoming) Theorizing identity in language and sexuality, Language in Society Bucholtz, Mary, A C Liang, and Laurel A Sutton, eds 199 9 Reinventing Identities New York: Oxford University Press Cameron, Deborah 199 2 Feminism and Linguistic Theory, 2nd edn New York: St Martin’s Press 199 7 “Performing... 421–51 Ochs, Elinor 199 2 “Indexing Gender.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, eds Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Pp 335–58 Pauwels, Anne 199 8 Women Changing Language London: Longman Queen, Robin M 199 7 “‘I Don’t Speak Spritch’: Locating Lesbian Language. ” In Livia and Hall Pp 233–56 Romaine, Suzanne 199 9 Communicating Gender Mahwah... Practices in Language Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications Bergvall, Victoria L., Janet M Bing, and Alice F Freed, eds 199 6 Rethinking Language and Gender Research: Theory and Practice London: Longman Bodine, Ann 197 5 “Androcentrism in Prescriptive Grammar: Singular They, Sex-indefinite He and He or She,” Language in Society 4: 1 29 46 Bucholtz, Mary 199 8 “Geek the Girl: Language, Femininity, and Female Nerds.” In. .. ( 199 5) and Bucholtz, Liang, and Sutton ( 199 9) have several chapters on communities of color; Kotthoff and Wodak ( 199 7) is highly international in scope For revisitations and updates on the sexist language debate, see Pauwels ( 199 8) and Romaine ( 199 9) and Livia (2001) Frank and Treichler ( 198 9) offers both theoretical and practical perspectives on gender, language, and professional writing Leap ( 199 6)... Johnson, Sally, and Ulrike Hanna Meinhof, eds 199 7 Language and Masculinity Oxford: Blackwell Kiesling, Scott 199 7 “Power and the Language of Men.” In Johnson and Meinhof Pp 65–85 Kotthoff, Helga and Ruth Wodak, eds 199 7 Communicating Language and Gender in Context Amsterdam: John Benjamins Lakoff, Robin 197 5 Language and Woman’s Place New York: Harper and Row Forthcoming Language and Woman’s Place: Text... studies on particular communities and contexts: Benor et al (2002), Bergvall, Bing, and Freed ( 199 6), Bucholtz, Liang, and Sutton ( 199 9), Hall and Bucholtz ( 199 5), Kotthoff and Wodak ( 199 7), McIlvenny (2002), Mills ( 199 5), and Wodak ( 199 7) Most of these collections range widely, but there are differences: for example, Mills ( 199 5) has substantial sections on gender in written language and in educational... was an Indian doing the killing, then wouldn’t he be called the Killer Indian? I mean Custer was an Indian killer, not a killer Indian.” (Alexie 199 6: 247) Marie’s syntactic re-interpretation of the title – and, by implication, of the general theme of the entire book – highlights the linguistic underpinnings of the divide between Seattle’s Native American and white populations with respect to the enigmatic... unconsciously In so doing, it limits us in some ways and empowers us in others Thus the study of language, gender, and sexuality is always also the study of the politics of language From this perspective, early feminist linguists do not seem so far from the mark Words are our world, and therefore changing language – the language that we use, the language that is used to and about us – to correspond with the. .. “women’s language in American English Speakers may also opt out of gender constraints altogether, as shown by the linguistic and social practices of high school girls who describe themselves and are viewed by other students as “nerds” (Bucholtz 199 8, 199 9) Unlike popular girls, nerd girls do not dress, act, or talk according to the constraints of dominant ideologies of femininity However, in rejecting... a unique combination of historical and cultural issues that complicates the critical process of integrating sociolinguistics into the interpretive process Latino/Latina American literature exemplifies Linguistic identity and community in American literature these complications fully Because there are no “Latino” people and no single Latin nation, the descriptor “Latino American” in Latino American literature . not determine) their use of language – is widely accepted by feminists. The feminist work of the 197 0s was invaluable for bringing the issue of sexism in language to public attention for the first. in the first Language in the USA because the field of language and gender studies was too young in 198 0. Mary Bucholtz here contextualizes her discussion of the subject within the historical, intellectual,. making use of links between social practices (including linguistic practices) and social categories is known as indexing (Ochs 199 2). The following example illustrates how indexing works. The