PERSON REFERENCING

1. PERSON REFERENCING Chapter 3 in Tracy’s Everyday Talk

2. Person Referencing Practices • In what ways do reference terms for self and others have implications for speakers and their targets? • “Pet Owners vs. Pet Guardians”

3. Sally Ellis Mrs. Sally Ellis Mrs. Mark Ellis Sally Frand-Ellis Marital Names (Sally Frand marries Mark Ellis)

4. Personal Address • Personal address is the label given to terms used to refer to a person in his or her presence • Proper Names • First name • Last name • Informal or diminutive versions of first name

5. PERSONAL ADDRESS • Kinship terms • Mother, Mama, Mom • Father, Dad, Pop . . . . • Titles • Mister . . . • Sir • Miss, Mrs., Ms., Ma’am

6. Personal address • Religious Leaders • Rabbi, Father, Pastor • Mayor, Professor, Doctor • Nicknames and Endearments • Sweetie, Honey, Junior • Snugglebug

7. Personal Address • Second-Person Pronouns • In English: “You” is the only option • German: “du,” “Sie” • French: “tu,” “vous”

8. Identity Implications of Personal Address: Closeness & Equality • (1) Degree of closeness or distance; Informal/close nicknames FN title +LN titles Formal/distant

9. Identity Implications of Personal Address • (2) Whether the parties are equal or not; • Equality is marked in relationships through the use of reciprocal forms of address; • For instance, if one uses the other’s FN and the other uses the speaking partner’s title and LN, then a difference in rank is communicated;

10. Ethnicity- and Race-Linked References (p. 53) • We often have to refer to someone and in a way that distinguishes that person from others; • E.g., “Hispanic” has come to refer to the shared language heritage of previously separate groups: Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and Mexican Americans;

11. Ethnicity- and Race-Linked References (p. 53, bottom) • Ethnic- and Race-Linked labels, like all labels, draw attention to some features and hide others; • A New York Puerto Rican and a new immigrant from Chile fall under the label “Hispanic,” and yet they are different in significant ways; • Categories are a way to divide the social world. They are lumping and excluding devices;

12. Gender-Linked References • It is just about impossible to avoid referring to someone by gender (sex); • Names, pronouns in English; • The generic “he”; • “Miss” and “Mrs.”;

13. The Membership Categorization Device (MCD) • MCD refers to “collections of categories for referring to persons, with some rules of application.” • Collections of categories, e.g., mother and baby; male and female; • Mother and baby are part of the family category; • Categories are associated by a larger context; • The same word may be part of different categories, “baby” as a young child vs. “baby” as the youngest offspring;

14. The Membership Categorization Device (MCD) • Membership categorizations are inference-rich; • They are inference-rich because they are part of a larger context with rules of application; • The use of membership terms is not necessarily a conscious behavior;

15. Inference-Rich Reference • A husband asks his wife, who is warming up something in the microwave: “What do you have there?”She replies: “My dinner. This is Sunday.” • Explanation: On Sunday family members fend for themselves. They warm up left-overs. “My dinner” implies much.

16. The Membership Categorization Device (MCD) • Rules • One feature of MCD’s is that we expect them to be used together if they can be; • “The baby cried. The woman picked it up.” Will be interpreted as likely not the baby’s mother. “The mother picked it up,” would be interpreted as the baby’s mother; • Consider “The male cried.” What inferences are implied? • In both cases an inference is made;

17. The Membership Categorization Device (MCD) • Finally, by the membership categorizations devices we use, we build our identities; • We altercast others; • We frame another and their actions as reasonable, stupid, cruel, and so on; • Some choices can be seen as natural and others as choices, depending on the speech community;