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In:Positioning the Self and Others: Linguistic perspectives
Edited by Kate Beeching, Chiara Ghezzi and Piera Molinelli
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 292] 2018
► pp. 219–239

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Chapter 10
“Proper is whatever people make it”

Stance, positionality, and ideological packaging in a dinnertime conversation

Published online: 17 July 2018
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.292.10val
Abstract
This study analyzes a family dinnertime conversation in order to understand how language ideologies are created through everyday talk. Drawing on Conversation/Discourse Analysis and linguistic anthropology, this study address three questions central to this volume: (1) What and how do linguistic forms convey a speaker’s subjectivity and identity in the local context of interaction and to what level of language do they belong? (2) Which forms position individual speakers or groups of speakers socially and culturally (because of their association with particular situations or situational dimensions)? And (3), what are the socio-cultural norms for language usage, which enable speakers to represent their identities? I argue that a range of linguistic stance-taking strategies, and the way these strategies create positionalities for interlocutors, illustrate the relationship between ideology and everyday interaction. This paper also argues for the importance of understanding the sociocultural context of talk in order to interpret interactional data.
Article outline
  • 1.Constructing ideology via stance and positionality
  • 2.The sociopolitical hierarchies of Spanish
  • 3.“Now you can see how crazy we really are”: Data and methods
  • 4.Generating implication through stance-taking
  • 5.The relationship between code choice and linguistic hierarchy
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
References (43)
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