[t]inking about takoma

1. [t]inking about takoma Race, Place, and Style at the Border of Washington, D.C. Jessi Grieser Georgetown University Symposium About Language and Society—Austin 13 April 2012

2. Defining “Community” Language practice is instantiated in community as a means for community members to show affiliation or distance. • Labov 1963 (Martha’s Vineyard) • Labov 1966 (NYC) • Labov 1972 (NYC Lower East) • Johnstone and Kiesling 2008 (Pittsburgh) • Becker 2009 (NYC Lower East) • And many, many others • Bucholtz 1999 • Eckert and McConell-Ginet 1992 • Bucholtz 2010 • And many others GEOGRAPHIC SHARED SOCIAL PRACTICE www.jessgrieser.com

3. Tapping into the language practices of those who inhabit a particular physical space can shed light on discourses that are meaningful to the members of that community, as well as on the ways in which the community defines and understands itself. www.jessgrieser.com

4. labov 1966 lower east side blackness /r/-deletion working-class www.jessgrieser.com

5. Becker 2009 lower east side authentic /r/-deletion non-gentrifier www.jessgrieser.com

6. Same Physical Community Same Linguistic Variable Different social meaning www.jessgrieser.com

7. Large Scale Studies lg. practice Lg. Practice lg. practice lg. practice www.jessgrieser.com

8. Why Shift? • Indicate a stance (DuBois 2007) • Segmental -- Podesva 2008 • Suprasegmental -- Nielsen 2009 • Express distance from/solidarity with a real or imagined audience • Bell 1984 • Rickford and McNair-Knox 1994 • Hay, Jannedy, and Mendoza-Denton 1999 • Create or reject indexical links between language and racial identity • Anderson 2008 • Podesva 2008 • And many others www.jessgrieser.com

9. Place-Based Identity Labov 1966 and Becker 2009 (r-deltion) Labov 1963 (au-centralization) Dubois and Horvath 2008 (TH-fortition) Podesva 2008 (-t/-d deletion) Johnstone and Kiesling 2008 (au-monopthongization) www.jessgrieser.com

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11. Subjects • Mona • 44 • Lifelong Takoma resident • UMC professional (Lawyer) • Educated at Howard University • African American • Peter • 57 • Lifelong DC resident • LMC/MC service industry worker (barber) • HS equivalency • African American jessgrieser.wordpress.com

12. Interdental Fricative • DuBois and Horvath(1998) find it to be salient marker of Cajun identity (perhaps at a second- or even third-order indexical level) • Sex + network most significant predictor of fortition of fricative • Known feature of African American English (Labov 1966, 1972; Rickford & Rickford 2000) • Previously found to vary in intraspeaker style shifting in a separate study of one of the speakers in the present study (Grieser 2010) jessgrieser.wordpress.com

13. CODING • Coded instances of IF that occurred in talk about Takoma • Coded for Linguistic Factors • Preceding phonological context • Word (random) • Race talk vs. community talk • Function/lexical (Dubois and Horvath 1998) • Type of function word (Dubois and Horvath 1998) • Coded for topic • Talk about DC: Takoma and non-Takoma • Race • Language • Other jessgrieser.wordpress.com

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15. When I grew up there[d] it was predominantly an African-American community, Mhm. and now, white families are starting to move into the[d] community. As well as Latino families, and-just- when I was growing up it wasn't that[d] ... white families couldn't live there[d] because it was just "Oh we don't talk to them[d] white But it was just- they[ð] just didn't . Yeah. Um, and-77 so they[d] started ... um ... close to the[ð] Metro station, and then[ð] just kind of branched ... further[ð] out and ... They were accepted , but it was just when I went to- to high school at Coolidge ... I don't think[θ] I had any white in my graduating class. www.jessgrieser.com

16. When I grew up there[d] it was predominantly an African-American community, Mhm. and now, white families are starting to move into the[d] community. As well as Latino families, and-just- when I was growing up it wasn't that[d]... white families couldn't live there[d] because it was just "Oh we don't talk to them[d] white But it was just- they[ð] just didn't . Yeah. Um, and-77 so they[d]started ... um ... close to the[ð] Metro station, and then[ð] just kind of branched ... further[ð] out and ... They were accepted , but it was just when I went to- to high school at Coolidge ... I don't think[θ] I had any white in my graduating class. www.jessgrieser.com

17. He had came down and asked me for two dollars and I asked him I said wait a minute because I know he expecting me to come off real crazy whuhhh I said let me get this([d]) straight You want me to give you two dollars You want me to reach into my pocket and the([ð]) money that([ð]) I stood there([d]) all day long and cut hair with take my money and give it to you so you can go back up into the(Ø) woods ad smoke some crack (on) the([ð]) milk crate and drink beer with the([d]) money that([ð]) I made all day Is that([ð]) what you asking? Is that([ð]) what you said because I’m not understanding (4 lines omitted) How he’d know how much money I got? I’ma standing here watching everyone’s come in here because its certain ones of them(Ø) around here they([d]) ain’t going to get in nobody’s chair but your chair especially them([d]) gals they([d]) come down there(Ø) for the(Ø) eyebrow arch and they(Ø) don’t mess with([d]) the([d]) rest of them(Ø) I know they(Ø) came to you. www.jessgrieser.com

18. He had came down and asked me for two dollars and I asked him I said wait a minute because I know he expecting me to come off real crazy whuhhh I said let me get this([d]) straight You want me to give you two dollars You want me to reach into my pocket and the([ð]) money that([ð]) I stood there([d]) all day long and cut hair with take my money and give it to you so you can go back up into the(Ø) woods ad smoke some crack (on) the([ð]) milk crate and drink beer with the([d]) money that([ð]) I made all day Is that([ð]) what you asking? Is that([ð]) what you said because I’m not understanding (4 lines omitted) How he’d know how much money I got? I’ma standing here watching everyone’s come in here because its certain ones of them(Ø) around here they([d]) ain’t going to get in nobody’s chair but your chair especially them([d]) gals they([d])come down there(Ø) for the(Ø) eyebrow arch and they(Ø) don’t mess with([d]) the([d]) rest of them(Ø) I know they(Ø) came to you. www.jessgrieser.com

19. He had came down and asked me for two dollars and I asked him I said wait a minute because I know he expecting me to come off real crazy whuhhh I said let me get this([d]) straight You want me to give you two dollars You want me to reach into my pocket and the([ð]) money that([ð]) I stood there([d]) all day long and cut hair with take my money and give it to you so you can go back up into the(Ø) woods ad smoke some crack (on) the([ð]) milk crate and drink beer with the([d]) money that([ð]) I made all day Is that([ð]) what you asking? Is that([ð]) what you said because I’m not understanding (4 lines omitted) How he’d know how much money I got? I’ma standing here watching everyone’s come in here because its certain ones of them(Ø) around here they([d]) ain’t going to get in nobody’s chair but your chair especially them([d]) gals they([d])come down there(Ø) for the(Ø) eyebrow arch and they(Ø) don’t mess with([d]) the([d]) rest of them(Ø) I know they(Ø) came to you. www.jessgrieser.com

20. Fortition by Topic www.jessgrieser.com

21. DC’s Racial Migration 2000 > 2010 census showed migration of upper class whites into western quadrants of DC Increasing minority racial populations in other two quadrants To talk about DC neighborhoods is to talk about race Race-based talk does show significant differences in frequency of variants Takoma vs. Non Takoma talk does not… Takoma != racialized? www.jessgrieser.com

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23. It is evident from this data that an ethnoracially marked variant is used to : a) create racialized characters in narrative b) take stances about race and race neutrality in place c) indicate unity of place and race in what is considered (a)racial space www.jessgrieser.com

24. “Doesn’t make a difference whether I’m black you white or what nationality you are. We’ve gotten past that you know….Doesn’t make a difference whether it’s D.C. or Maryland, bang! We are a part of a community.” --Peter www.jessgrieser.com

25. Many thanks to: Dr. Robert Podseva and my fellow students in GU’s Language and Social Meaning Seminar in Spring 2011 Dr. Natalie Schilling and the other investigators of the Language and Communication in the District of Columbia project Tammi Stout for the last-minute print job www.jessgrieser.com

26. Anderson, K. T. 2008. Justifying race talk: Indexicality and the social construction of race and linguistic value. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 18, no. 1: 108–129. Becker, K.. 2009. /r/and the construction of place identity on New York Cityʼs Lower East Side1. Journal of Sociolinguistics 13, no. 5: 634–658. Bucholtz, M.. 1999. “Why be normal?”: Language and identity practices in a community of nerd girls. Language in society 28, no. 02: 203–223. Bucholtz, M. 2010. White Kids: Du Bois, J. W. 2007. The stance triangle. Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction: 139–182. Dubois, S., and B. M Horvath. 1998. Letʼstink about dat: Interdental fricatives in Cajun English. Language Variation and Change 10, no. 03: 245–261. Eckert, P. 2008. Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12, no. 4: 453–476. Eckert, P., and S. McConell-Ginet. 1992. Communities of Practice: Where language, gender, and power all live. In Locating Power: Proceedings of the 1992 Berkeley Women and Language Conference., 89-99. Berkeley: Berkeley Women and Language Group. Grieser, J.. 2010. Audience-Directed Intraspeaker AAVE Variation: A Study in Washington, D.C. Paper presented at Sociolinguistic Symposium 18 in Southampton, England, September 3. Hay, J., S. Jannedy, and N. Mendoza-Denton. 1999. Oprah and/ay: Lexical frequency, referee design, and style. In Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 1389–1392. Johnstone, B., and S. F Kiesling. 2008. Indexicality and experience: Exploring the meanings of/aw/-monophthongization in Pittsburgh1. Journal of sociolinguistics 12, no. 1: 5–33. Labov, W. 1963a. The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19. 273-309.. 1966. The Social Stratification of English in New York City: 714–62. ———. 1966. The Social Stratification of English in New York City. ———. 1972a. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 1972b. Language in the inner city. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ———. 1972c. The Isolation of Contextual Styles. Sociolinguistic Patterns: 70–109. Modan, G. G. 2007. Turf Wars: Discourse, Diversity, and the Politics of Place. Wiley-Blackwell. Podesva, R. 2007. Phonation type as a stylistic variable: The use of falsetto in constructing a persona. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11, no. 4: 478. Podesva, R. 2008. Linking Phonological Variation to Discourses of Race and Place in D.C. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. In San Francisco, CA, November 19. Rahman, J. 2008. Middle-class African Americans: Reactions and attitudes toward African American English. American Speech 83, no. 2: 141. Rickford, J. R, and F. McNair-Knox. 1994. Addressee-and topic-influenced style shift: A quantitative sociolinguistic study. Sociolinguistic perspectives on register: 235–76. Schilling-Estes, N. 2004. Constructing ethnicity in interaction. Journal of Sociolinguistics 8, no. 2: 163–195. Scollon, R, and SW Scollon. 2003. Discourses in Place: Language in the Material World. Routledge, August 22. Takoma Park Census and Community Information. http://www.americantowns.com/md/ takomapark-information. Tannen, D. 2007. Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge University Press. www.jessgrieser.com

27. Thank you! Jessica Grieser Georgetown University jessgrieser@gmail.com www.jessgrieser.com @jessgrieser www.jessgrieser.com

28. CODING CON’T • Impressionistic coding as [dh, th, d, t, f, v, 0] based on • Checked a sample of perceived stopped tokens in PRAAT • N=1358 (P=852, M =506) Excluded tokens of more than 5 identical at the phrase level • E.g. “I think” “It’s that” • Originally run with all phonological environments • Phonological environments collapsed based on descriptive statistics: • Vowels, pause, alveolar, consonant • Nasal found to be a significant predictor of 0-realization • Following environment not significant and excluded after first run jessgrieser.wordpress.com

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