Language in the Middle: Class and Sexual Discourse in Delhi

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

LANGUAGE IN THE MIDDLE: CLASS AND SEXUAL DISCOURSE IN DELHI DR. KIRA HALL PROFESSOR OF LINGUISTICS AND ANTHROPOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER FEBRUARY 19, 2021 | 2.00 TO 3.30 PM (PST) PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE FOR THIS TALK. REGISTER HERE AFTER REGISTERING, YOU WILL RECEIVE A CONFIRMATION EMAIL CONTAINING INFORMATION ABOUT JOINING THE ZOOM MEETING. Abstract This talk draws from ethnographic research among youth in Delhi’s expanding middle classes to call for more sociolinguistic attention to the role played by sexuality discourse in the reproduction of class relations. The discussion highlights the centrality of the middle classes to sustaining as well as shifting sexual normativity, suggesting that sexual norms are in part constituted through everyday discourses that situate middle class subjectivity between two class extremes. Specifically, the talk tracks how Hinglish, as a “sexy” mixed-language alternative to a class system polarized by English and Hindi, came to replace English as the preferred language of sexuality, challenging an enduring colonialist legacy of vernacular censorship. Two case studies are presented: the first involving a bisexual woman who confronts elitist discourse by cursing in Hindi; the second involving a transgender man struggling to convince the medical establishment of his worthiness for sexual reassignment surgery. While the protagonists in both narratives loosely belong to Delhi’s expanding middle classes and are speakers of what may be characterized as Hinglish, they are not equally able to master the sexuality discourse that has become indexical of upward mobility. Dr. Kira Hall’s work is situated at the intersection of linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics, two closely related fields focused on the relationship between language and society. Dr. Hall’s research examines issues of language and social identity in India and United States, particularly as they materialize within hierarchies of gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic class and shift under processes of globalization. This lecture is hosted by the Department of Linguistics and Asian/Middle Eastern Languages and co-sponsored by the Department of Women’s Studies with support from IRA funds. .

Copy Link

Recommended publications

MARY BUCHOLTZ Department of Linguistics Bucholtz@Linguistics
Last updated: June 26, 2017 MARY BUCHOLTZ Department of Linguistics [email protected] 3432 South Hall http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty/bucholtz/ University of California phone: (805) 893-7492 (main office) Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100 fax: (805) 893-7488 CURRENT POSITION Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2008-present Affiliate Faculty, Comparative Literature Program; Department of Anthropology; Department of Education (Gevirtz Graduate School of Education); Department of Feminist Studies; Department of Spanish and Portuguese; Latin American and Iberian Studies Program Affiliate Faculty, Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Emphases in Applied Linguistics; Black Studies; Cognitive Science; Environment and Society; Global Studies; Feminist Studies; Information Technology and Society; Language, Interaction, and Social Organization; Translation Studies; Writing Studies Director, Center for California Languages and Cultures, Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2011-present PREVIOUS POSITIONS Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2004-08 Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2002-04 Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Discourse Studies, Department of English, Texas A&M University, 1997-2002 Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Fall 2001 EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND Ph.D. Department of Linguistics,
[Show full text]
Linguistics 367.01 Language, Sex and Gender in American Culture Course Syllabus
Linguistics 367.01 Language, Sex and Gender in American Culture Course Syllabus Instructor: xxxxx Email: xxxxx Office: xxxxx Office Hours: xxxxx Phone: xxxxx WebCT URL: http://class.osu.edu/ Instructor’s Mailbox: Entryway of 222 Oxley Hall. Accessible 8am-5pm Monday-Friday. Course Objectives: It is well-established that men and women may differ in the language that they use as well as in the way that they use language. In this course we will examine the ways that sex, gender and language interact, specifically in speech communities in the United States. Specifically, we will: • evaluate various explanations for differentiated language use between men and women including gender- and sex-based explanations • evaluate issues of gender inequality in language use • examine various theories of gender, sex and sexuality • consider how concepts of gender, sex and sexuality are shaped by discourse • use linguistic analyses of conversational interaction to examine some of the ways that gender, sex and sexuality influence language use • examine and evaluate a diverse body of research from sociolinguistics, anthropology, gender studies and psychology that bear on these issues This course is designed to fulfill the GEC second writing course requirement. As a result, an additional important objective of this course is to help you further develop your skills of written and oral expression. This will be done through specific instruction on writing and presenting by the instructor, informal and formal writing assignments, an oral presentation, and short homework assignments focusing on language usage. Feedback on your writing from the instructor and other members of the class is incorporated into the course but you should feel free to ask for additional input if needed.
[Show full text]
Linguistic Anthropology in 2013: Super-New-Big
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST Linguistic Anthropology Linguistic Anthropology in 2013: Super-New-Big Angela Reyes ABSTRACT In this essay, I discuss how linguistic anthropological scholarship in 2013 has been increasingly con- fronted by the concepts of “superdiversity,” “new media,” and “big data.” As the “super-new-big” purports to identify a contemporary moment in which we are witnessing unprecedented change, I interrogate the degree to which these concepts rely on assumptions about “reality” as natural state versus ideological production. I consider how the super-new-big invites us to scrutinize various reconceptualizations of diversity (is it super?), media (is it new?), and data (is it big?), leaving us to inevitably contemplate each concept’s implicitly invoked opposite: “regular diversity,” “old media,” and “small data.” In the section on “diversity,” I explore linguistic anthropological scholarship that examines how notions of difference continue to be entangled in projects of the nation-state, the market economy, and social inequality. In the sections on “media” and “data,” I consider how questions about what constitutes lin- guistic anthropological data and methodology are being raised and addressed by research that analyzes new and old technologies, ethnographic material, semiotic forms, scale, and ontology. I conclude by questioning the extent to which it is the super-new-big itself or the contemplation about the super-new-big that produces perceived change in the world. [linguistic anthropology, superdiversity, new media, big data,
[Show full text]
Discourse Studies
Discourse Studies http://dis.sagepub.com/ Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall Discourse Studies 2005 7: 585 DOI: 10.1177/1461445605054407 The online version of this article can be found at: http://dis.sagepub.com/content/7/4-5/585 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com Additional services and information for Discourse Studies can be found at: Email Alerts: http://dis.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://dis.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Citations: http://dis.sagepub.com/content/7/4-5/585.refs.html Downloaded from dis.sagepub.com at SAGE Publications on March 23, 2011 ARTICLE 585 Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach Discourse Studies Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications. (London, Thousand Oaks, MARY BUCHOLTZ CA and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA Vol 7(4–5): 585–614. KIRA HALL 10.1177/1461445605054407 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO ABSTRACT The article proposes a framework for the analysis of identity as produced in linguistic interaction, based on the following principles: (1) identity is the product rather than the source of linguistic and other semiotic practices and therefore is a social and cultural rather than primarily internal psychological phenomenon; (2) identities encompass macro-level demographic categories, temporary and interactionally specific stances and participant roles, and local, ethnographically
[Show full text]
Shifting Gender Positions Among Hindi-Speaking Hijras
10 hijras1 Kira Hall and Veronica-O'Donovan I was disowned by th~Hindus and shunned by my own wife. I was exploited by the Muslims who dis- dained my company. Indeed I was like a hijda who was neither one thing nor another but could be mis- used by everyone. (Singh 1989: 55) Introduction The hijras occupy a marginalized position in the Indian social matrix, as their ambiguous gender identity provokes conflicting feelings of awe and contempt. Discussed variously in the anthro- pological literature as 'transvestites', 'eunuchs', 'hermaphrodites', and even 'a third gender',2 most of India's hijras were raised as boys before taking up residencein one of the many hijra commu- nities which exist in almost every region of India. Since the late 1980s, several European and American cultural theorists (e.g. Nanda 1985, 1990, 1993, 1994, Bullough and Bullough 1993) have pointed to the visibility of the hijra in Indian society in order to suggestthe cultural possibility of a more liberating, non-dichoto- mous organization of gender. Indeed, the hijras' livelihood is contingent upon their inextricable position in the social structure; according to tradition, they are expectedto sing and dance at births and weddings, where they are rewarded with gifts of clothes, jew- ellery, and money. SHIFTINGGENDER POSITIONS 229 Yet the life-stories of the Hindi-speaking hijras we interviewed in Banaras during the spring and summer of 1993 reflect a very dif- ferent reality from that suggested by these theorists - a reality basedon familial rejection, cultural isolatio n and societal neglect. When the hijra lifestyle is discussedwith respect to this contem- porary reality instead of historical or mythical representation,3 their identification as a uniquely situated third sex becomesmuch more complicated.
[Show full text]
Cyberfeminism
Cyberfeminism Kira Hall Rutgers University, Camden This is an offprint from: Susan C. Herring (ed.) Computer-Mediated Communication 1. Introduction* John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia In her now classic "A Manifesto for Cyborgs", Donna Haraway ([1985]1990) brings together a number of disparate philosophical responses to the increasing 1996 sophistication of technology, and identifies a new feminism. Arguing that the (Published as Vol. 39 of the series blurring of the boundaries between human and machine will eventually make the PRAGMATICS AND BEYOND NEW SERIES, categories of female and male obsolete, she contemplates the ''utopian dream for ISSN 0922-842X) the hope of a monstrous world without gender" (610). Her futuristic vision, inspired in part by the gender-free utopias of feminist science fiction, I is an ISBN 90 272 5051 0 (Hb: Eur.) I 1-55619-800-0 (Hb; US) extension of the postmodern interest in challenging essentialist and dualistic understandings of gender. With her concluding pronunciation ''I would rather be ©Copyright 1996 - John Benjamins B.V. a cyborg than a goddess''. Haraway urges feminists to give up their gender emphasizing icons in favor of gender-neutralizing ones. ''This is a dream not of . No part of this book may be reproduced in any fonn, by a common language," she explains, ''but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia'' print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means, without written permission (610). from the publisher. Haraway's dream of heteroglossia is born from the theoretical tenets of postmodernism, which Jacquelyn Zita (1992) claims "make[s] possible the transmutation of male to female as a matter of shifting contextual locations that 'reinvent' the body'' (110).
[Show full text]
Performativity
Kira Hall YALE UNIVERSITY Performativity he concept of the performative utterance, bom within J. L. Austin's ordinary language philosophy, has influenced the trajectory of lin- Tguistic anthropology in ways that I can only hint at here, capturing the attention of scholars working within areas as diverse as ethnography of speaking, language socialization, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and more recently, gender and language. The origin of the term performative can be traced back to Austin's posthumous How To Do Things with Words. Austin, objecting to the logical positivists' focus on the verifiability of statements, introduced the performative as a new category of utterance that has no truth value since it does not describe the world, but acts upon it—a way of "doing things with words." The classic constative "snow is white" is descriptively true or false, but statements such as "I now pronounce you husband and wife" are something different, their successful outcome depending on a number of conditions (i.e., "felicity conditions") that cannot be evaluated in terms of truth. Such declarations are performative, not constative, be- cause it is by the utterance of the words that the act is performed. By the end of his book, Austin cleverly argues that all utterances are performative, even those that appear merely to describe a state of affairs, since such utterances do the act of informing. This is a revolutionary conclusion, for all utterances must then be viewed as actions, an equation which linguistic anthropologists have of course embraced with fervor. With Austin's exposition, the broader area of speech act theory emerged.
[Show full text]
Notes on Contributors
Notes on Contributors Niko Besnier is Professor of Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has published on a variety of topics in social anthropology and linguistic anthropology, based on extensive ﬁeld research in two areas of Polynesia, Tuvalu and Tonga. His current research focus is the range of transnational experience among Tongans in Tonga and Tongans in migrant communities around the Paciﬁc. He is also developing a research programme that will focus on contemporary urban Japanese society. Mary Bucholtz is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has co-edited several books on language and gender, including Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self (with Kira Hall; Routledge, 1995) and Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse (with Anita C. Liang and Laurel A. Sutton; Oxford University Press, 1999). Her research focuses on the relationship of language, power, and social identity, especially race and gender. She is currently at work on a book entitled Signifying Nothing: Language, Youth, and Whiteness. Deborah Cameron is Professor of Languages at the Institute of Education, London. She has written and edited numerous contributions to language and gender studies, including Feminism and Linguistic Theory (Macmillan, 1992), The Feminist Critique of Language (Routledge, 1998), and Women in Their Speech Communities (with Jennifer Coates; Longman, 1988). Penelope Eckert is Professor of Linguistics, Professor by courtesy of Cultural and Social Anthropology, and Director of the Program in Feminist Studies at Stanford University, California. She has published work in pure ethnography as well as ethnographically based sociolinguistics. Her most recent books are Linguistic Variation as Social Practice (Blackwell, 2000) and Style and Sociolinguistic Variation (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
[Show full text]
Theorizing Identity in Language and Sexuality Research Author(S): Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall Reviewed Work(S): Source: Language in Society, Vol
Theorizing Identity in Language and Sexuality Research Author(s): Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall Reviewed work(s): Source: Language in Society, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Sep., 2004), pp. 469-515 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4169370 . Accessed: 22/08/2012 17:09 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Language in Society. http://www.jstor.org Language in Society 33, 469-515. Printedin the United States of America DOI: 10.1017/S004740450044021 Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research MARY BUCHOLTZ Departmentof Linguistics 3607 South Hall Universityof California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100 bucholtz@ linguistics. ucsb. edu KIRA HALL Departmentof Linguistics CampusBox 295 Universityof Colorado at Boulder Boulder, CO 80309-0295 [email protected] ABSTRACT The field of language and sexuality has gained importance within socio- culturally oriented linguistic scholarship. Much current work in this area emphasizes identity as one key aspect of sexuality. However, recent cri- tiques of identity-based research advocate instead a desire-centered view of sexuality. Such an approach artificially restricts the scope of the field by overlooking the close relationship between identity and desire.
[Show full text]
The Feminist Foundations of Language, Gender, and Sexuality Research
Part I Theory and History 1 The Feminist Foundations of Language, Gender, and Sexuality Research MARY BUCHOLTZ 1. Introduction: Linguistics and Feminism Feminist linguists have been in dialogue with feminists in other disciplines since the field’s formation, yet this historical relationship and its implications for current work are only occasionally highlighted in scholarship. This chapter reaffirms the feminist foundations of a wide range of research on language, gender, and sexual- ity by highlighting and illustrating the numerous, sometimes clashing, and often not fully articulated feminist positionings taken up within various studies over the course of the field’s development. Because the term “feminism” is often misunderstood, I offer the following definition: Feminism: a diverse and sometimes conflicting set of theoretical, methodological, and political perspectives that have in common a commitment to understanding and chal- lenging social inequalities related to gender and sexuality. Although “feminism” often appears in the singular, its reference is always plural; there is no unified feminist theoretical, methodological, or political perspective. Yet, despite the often vigorous and heated debates between different versions of feminism, they share a commitment to addressing social inequality. Furthermore, the field of language, gender, and sexuality is both unified and divided in precisely the same way as is feminism itself: more or less unified in its general political goals, divided in the perspectives it takes toward achieving those goals. But despite this broad scope, not all scholarship on the intersection of language with gender and sexuality is part of the field, because not all of it shares a political commitment to social justice.
[Show full text]
You Shook Me All Campaign Long
You Shook Me All Campaign Long You Shook Me All Campaign Long Music in the 2016 Presidential Election and Beyond EDITED BY Eric T. Kasper and Benjamin S. Schoening ©2018 University of North Texas Press All rights reserved. Printed in Canada 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Permissions: University of North Texas Press 1155 Union Circle #311336 Denton, TX 76203-5017 The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, z39.48.1984. Binding materials have been chosen for durability. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kasper, Eric T., author, editor, writer of introduction. | Schoening, Benjamin S., 1978- editor, writer of introduction. Title: You shook me all campaign long : music in the 2016 presidential election and beyond / edited by Eric T. Kasper and Benjamin S. Schoening. Description: Denton, Texas : University of North Texas Press, [2018] | Includes index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018030231| ISBN 9781574417340 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781574417456 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Music--Political aspects--United States--History--21st century. | Presidents--United States--Election--2016. | Campaign songs--United States--21st century--History and criticism. Classification: LCC ML3917.U6 Y68 2018 | DDC 781.5/990973090512--dc23 LC record available at https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A %2F%2Flccn.loc.gov%2F2018030231&data=01%7C01%7Ckaren.devinney %40unt.edu%7Cbc7ee94d4ce24da8c61108d5fd2b629f %7C70de199207c6480fa318a1afcba03983%7C0&sdata=RCKaP2yvdh4Uwe1bo7RKlObBDeb %2FvX3n35WV8ddVCfo%3D&reserved=0 The electronic edition of this book was made possible by the support of the Vick Family Foundation. Table of Contents Introduction: Tippecanoe and Trump Too Eric T.
[Show full text]
Greville G. Corbett (Ed.) the Expression of Gender the Expression of Cognitive Categories
Greville G. Corbett (Ed.) The Expression of Gender The Expression of Cognitive Categories Editors Wolfgang Klein Stephen Levinson Volume 6 The Expression of Gender Edited by Greville G. Corbett ISBN: 978-3-11-030660-6 e-ISBN: 978-3-11-030733-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: PTP-Berlin Protago-TEX-Production GmbH, Berlin Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Contents Greville G. Corbett Introduction 1 Sally McConnell-Ginet Gender and its relation to sex: The myth of ‘natural’ gender 3 Michael Dunn Gender determined dialect variation 39 Peter Hegarty Ladies and gentlemen: Word order and gender in English 69 Greville G. Corbett Gender typology 87 Marianne Mithun Gender and culture 131 Niels O. Schiller Psycholinguistic approaches to the investigation of grammatical gender 161 Mulugeta T. Tsegaye, Maarten Mous and Niels O. Schiller Plural as a value of Cushitic gender: Evidence from gender congruency effect experiments in Konso (Cushitic) 191 Author index 215 Language index 219 Subject index 221 Greville G. Corbett Introduction Gender is an endlessly fascinating category. It has obvious links to the real world, first in the connection between many grammatical gender systems and biologi- cal sex, and second in other types of categorization such as size, which underpin particular gender systems and also have external correlates.
[Show full text]