The Organization of Speech Activity
January 26, 2007

The question of how verbal practice constructs gender encompasses both how what is said or written produces and reproduces gender discourses, and how gender affects peoples' ability to get their words, their ideas, into the discourse - both the small discourse of their immediate groups, and the wider discourse of the community, the nation, and even the world. The power to make meaning in the world depends on the situations in which one's words are heard and taken up. Today's class will examine the organization of speech activity in such constructs as speech situations, speech events, and genres.

Class Slides PDF

Readings

Eckert and McConnell-Ginet Chapter 3

Read the following paper for discussion in section this week.
Elinor Ochs and Carolyn Taylor's paper on dinner table conversation:
The "father knows best" dynamic in dinnertime conversations. Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self, ed. by Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz, 97-120. New York and London: Oxford University Press. 1992.

Purely Optional:

Here is William Labov's paper on playing the dozens. Rules for ritual insults. Language in the inner city, ed. by William Labov, 1972. 297-353. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.