Student Projects
Youth Language Project
Young people’s language is characterized by terms, expressions and usages that are outside of what is recognized as “standard” language. Although these are often labeled as “slang” or “bad/incorrect,” linguistic anthropologists resist making such a judgment, instead recognizing youth culture and youth peer groups as a site of linguistic creativity and innovation. Rather than judging youth language on the basis of grammatical “correctness,” linguistic anthropologists are interested in the pragmatic aspects of language (see, for instance, Scott Kiesling’s “Dude” study). This means paying attention not just to what is said, but how it is said, to whom, and for what purpose. How is language used to construct and negotiate social relationships? To project a certain image of one’s self? To refer to wider socially circulating stereotypes? Students worked in small groups to study the social meaning of a particular currently used phrase or expression through observation of the contexts in which it is used, ethnographic interviews with people about how and why they use or don’t use it, and gathering instances of its use in popular culture and media.
Language, Stereotype, and Social Differentiation in the Tri-Co
The purpose of this project was to understand the ways that Tri-Co students use language to construct college-specific identities and stereotypes. Although the Tri-Co, a community comprised of Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges, shares the basic trait of being oriented around comparable and intertwined elite liberal arts institutions, there is a constant and ongoing process of social differentiation undertaken by students within this community, bolstered by distinctions that are both inter-college (between different colleges) and intra- or trans-college (among different social types within or across the different campuses).
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How does language create, reinforce, and perpetuate, social distinctions between Tri-Co students?
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What are the social categories and stereotypes that are invoked? How are they invoked (implicitly/explicitly)? How are they circulated (eg. through gossip, college publicity, social media, etc.)? In what contexts are they expressed? How do they emerge in interaction?
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How do these social categories/stereotypes interact with other social differentiators (most prominently, gender, but also race and SE class) and/or with structural/institutional divides?