cinderella, creole
30 Jan 2011 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouJapan's Cinderella Motif- Beauty Industry and Mass Culture Interpretations of a Popular Icon — Laura Miller
Too much evo-psych but still important observation, from Psychology Behind The Cinderella Complex:
From Wiki's entry on prestige (sociolinguistics):
Although those (I gather) are significant linguistic differences between prestige and standard, couldn't a situation like Southern/non-Southern be considered a kind of diglossia? My understanding is that code-switching is when you mix two languages (dialects?) in the same sentence/breath, like a kind of maladapted or hyper loanword use. Diglossia sounds more like a complete switch, like what I do when speaking with relatives versus the way I speak at work. It also sounds like what people are talking about for Black Americans, who switch easily from Standard American at work to Black American while with friends/family or non-work situations. As others mentioned on earlier threads, that as long as you use those structures and expressions, you're still speaking "Southern" even if your accent is soft (or non-existent), the accent of Southern American, like Black American, is not the key feature. It's the significant differences in the grammatical structure as well as the idiomatic expressions.
Now I am reminded of that segment from Airplane: "Oh stewardess! I speak jive."
Tangential note: out of curiosity, I just looked up jive, wondering where the name itself (jive) originated. Still no idea on that one, but I did just learn that linguistically, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, or what I was calling Black American) is a creole. The bit about prestige dialects remains at the forefront of my lizard brain right now, so that popped back in as I got to the section about Ebonics... and I gotta say, I loathe that term. The political ramifications aren't helped by a strange kind of verbal synesthesia, where the capital E + the bon looks... I don't know how to put it. Like something you'd call a child's music toy, or something. Not quite plastic-cheap, but that kind of reaction. Hard to qualify/express.
However, it seems to me there's a prestige, of a sort, when a dialect is known as a creole, probably in part because of the association with "creole" and "New Orleans" (in terms of cultural import/impact). New Orleans is, and hopefully will continue to be, a huge cultural value for America. So maybe we have an association, thanks to that, that lends prestige to "creole", regardless of whether the listener understands the linguistic differentiation. I think maybe it's also because most people are aware that "creole" (unlike the maligned notion of 'pidgin') is a dialect-into-language. Credibility, perhaps, that isn't granted by a bizarre and frankly stupid invented-word like Ebonics?
Strange, to be reminded yet again (as though I could forget) that words really do make all the difference. Instead of Ebonics and its ridiculous assumption that the non-Standard English is a sign of Black American childrens' lesser communication skills (oh please)... by emphasizing the creole aspect, the truth becomes: Black American children are actually gaining a skill many Standard-American speaking children don't gain: multilingualism. There are huge benefits to having that kind of multi-linguistic exposure as small children, not the least of which is a facility to learn other languages, because the brain is already used to switching back and forth -- and we've got more than just American-English vs non-English languages, we've also got computer languages, these days.
Too bad I'm never a hiring manager, or I think this would be a valuable trait in potential developers. Someone who can code-switch (or use diglossia) between a creole and Standard American is possibly also someone who can do the same with computer-language syntax. It's just one more way of adapting and working with language, and long experience in code-switching gives you the tools to apply the same in a new area. I think that'd be incredibly valuable (especially in industries like mine, which are always stumbling over and into new developments that then need to be integrated with the old).
Then again, I'm not a hiring manager... nor has any hiring manager ever given even a moment's notice to the languages I've studied. Or maybe it's just that as far as I know, I've never had a direct manager who isn't mono-lingual. Maybe you only recognize the value when you're multi-lingual yourself, or spend most of your time in multi-lingual environments, enough to realize that mono-lingual is... well, it's a drawback. It's not something to be proud of.
Also, awesome quote: "A language is just a dialect with an army."
Too much evo-psych but still important observation, from Psychology Behind The Cinderella Complex:
...there is also a division between the smart and the pretty girl. “We can’t do both, evidently,” Fraser said. “And if you are both, then you’re universally hated by both men and women; women because they’re jealous of you, and men because they don’t know what to do with you.” She said that a woman “who is living up to her potential is often cast aside or becomes a social outcast.”
From Wiki's entry on prestige (sociolinguistics):
Some instances of contact between languages with different prestige levels have resulted in diglossia, a phenomenon in which a community uses a high prestige language or dialect in certain situations—usually for newspapers, in literature, on university campuses, for religious ceremonies, and on television and the radio—but uses a low prestige language or dialect for other situations—often in conversation in the home or in letters, comic strips, and in popular culture. Linguist Charles A. Ferguson's 1959 article "Diglossia" listed the following examples of diglossic societies: in Switzerland, Swiss Standard German and Swiss German; in the Middle East and North Africa, Standard Arabic and vernacular Arabic; in Haiti, Standard French and Kréyòl; in Greece, Katharevousa and Dhimotiki; and in Norway, Bokmål and Nynorsk.
Although those (I gather) are significant linguistic differences between prestige and standard, couldn't a situation like Southern/non-Southern be considered a kind of diglossia? My understanding is that code-switching is when you mix two languages (dialects?) in the same sentence/breath, like a kind of maladapted or hyper loanword use. Diglossia sounds more like a complete switch, like what I do when speaking with relatives versus the way I speak at work. It also sounds like what people are talking about for Black Americans, who switch easily from Standard American at work to Black American while with friends/family or non-work situations. As others mentioned on earlier threads, that as long as you use those structures and expressions, you're still speaking "Southern" even if your accent is soft (or non-existent), the accent of Southern American, like Black American, is not the key feature. It's the significant differences in the grammatical structure as well as the idiomatic expressions.
Now I am reminded of that segment from Airplane: "Oh stewardess! I speak jive."
Tangential note: out of curiosity, I just looked up jive, wondering where the name itself (jive) originated. Still no idea on that one, but I did just learn that linguistically, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE, or what I was calling Black American) is a creole. The bit about prestige dialects remains at the forefront of my lizard brain right now, so that popped back in as I got to the section about Ebonics... and I gotta say, I loathe that term. The political ramifications aren't helped by a strange kind of verbal synesthesia, where the capital E + the bon looks... I don't know how to put it. Like something you'd call a child's music toy, or something. Not quite plastic-cheap, but that kind of reaction. Hard to qualify/express.
However, it seems to me there's a prestige, of a sort, when a dialect is known as a creole, probably in part because of the association with "creole" and "New Orleans" (in terms of cultural import/impact). New Orleans is, and hopefully will continue to be, a huge cultural value for America. So maybe we have an association, thanks to that, that lends prestige to "creole", regardless of whether the listener understands the linguistic differentiation. I think maybe it's also because most people are aware that "creole" (unlike the maligned notion of 'pidgin') is a dialect-into-language. Credibility, perhaps, that isn't granted by a bizarre and frankly stupid invented-word like Ebonics?
Strange, to be reminded yet again (as though I could forget) that words really do make all the difference. Instead of Ebonics and its ridiculous assumption that the non-Standard English is a sign of Black American childrens' lesser communication skills (oh please)... by emphasizing the creole aspect, the truth becomes: Black American children are actually gaining a skill many Standard-American speaking children don't gain: multilingualism. There are huge benefits to having that kind of multi-linguistic exposure as small children, not the least of which is a facility to learn other languages, because the brain is already used to switching back and forth -- and we've got more than just American-English vs non-English languages, we've also got computer languages, these days.
Too bad I'm never a hiring manager, or I think this would be a valuable trait in potential developers. Someone who can code-switch (or use diglossia) between a creole and Standard American is possibly also someone who can do the same with computer-language syntax. It's just one more way of adapting and working with language, and long experience in code-switching gives you the tools to apply the same in a new area. I think that'd be incredibly valuable (especially in industries like mine, which are always stumbling over and into new developments that then need to be integrated with the old).
Then again, I'm not a hiring manager... nor has any hiring manager ever given even a moment's notice to the languages I've studied. Or maybe it's just that as far as I know, I've never had a direct manager who isn't mono-lingual. Maybe you only recognize the value when you're multi-lingual yourself, or spend most of your time in multi-lingual environments, enough to realize that mono-lingual is... well, it's a drawback. It's not something to be proud of.
Also, awesome quote: "A language is just a dialect with an army."
no subject
Date: 31 Jan 2011 03:52 am (UTC)(Except that dialects are supposed to be mostly mutually intelligible, right? I defy anyone to translate what my paternal great-aunt is saying when she gets going. Hell, I can't even understand what she's saying, sometimes, between grammar, accent, and the actual idioms used. Not to mention the very subtle nuances of what appear to be grammatically incorrect phrases but are in fact very precise -- like the use of "done" and where it goes in the sentence, but I digress.)
To speak a language signifies being part of a group, distinct (as opposed to being a mediocre not-close-enough attempt at someone else's/mainstream's language). Could there be more prestige if there was a big push to see jive/creole/American Vernacular as actual American, and the mainstream language -- as American English -- to differentiate them like so. As in: "American English" is a dialect of [British] English. American is not; American is a language in its own right, and the main speakers and conveyors of this language are not, in fact, white people.
Actually, I think that's pretty cool. At least, it is if I'm thinking what I think I'm thinking, but if it doesn't come across or comes across kinda wierd, maybe it's post-dinner haze. Post-code haze, post-dinner haze, maybe I should blame the entirety of today on the fact that I had cake for breakfast...
no subject
Date: 31 Jan 2011 05:09 am (UTC)RE: American as a distinct language/slanguage, and who's generating it, we do know that the demographics *will be* nonwhite majorities in future, IMHO clearly a big part of what's got the Tea Partiers' knickers in such a racist twist.
Local demographics may lead to interesting specialities. A good chunk of what you hear in border states will be Spanglish, which feels free to borrow whichever distinct terms that convey meaning more concisely. I don't quite know what to expect from other immigrant populations. Locally, for instance, we have a large Russian population, and one of the more interesting grocery stores started off as a Korean ethnic market which also stocked unusual and specialty items for the local Hispanic population. Now it imports all kinds of things from former Soviet Union states. It makes for very interesting store shelf labeling.
Then there's fads. I see all kinds of use of anime and manga terminology which I first started hearing from rapid adopters back in the 80's, for instance--those folks who were learning Japanese so they could translate new movies imported directly from buying services, none of it easy to do. Otaku, in current western terminology.
no subject
Date: 5 Feb 2011 12:40 am (UTC)***
1
One is with the idea that anyone's dialect can be seen as an incomplete language. If it's someone's native tongue, it's a complete language. Maybe not as wealthy in words as one spoken by millions, but still a complete language and capable of extending to a pretty much infinite degree, as the speaker encounters things they need to express.
Actually, the same goes for anyone's *ideolect* (their personal variant of their dialect).
'Standard American English' is a dialect. So are 'standard British English' and all the other 'standard' versions of English.
***
2
American English (AE) is a cousin of modern British English (BE), not a descendant of it. It's got features of the two dialects' common ancestor that have been lost in modern BE, just as modern BE has features that AE has lost.
Both also have innovations unique to themselves and both have borrowed from each other.