Talk:Linguistic insecurity

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Beautiful page. One question: in the discussion of the effects of linguistic insecurity in multilingual societies, do the authors of the cited works explicitly attribute the changes described in that section to 'linguistic insecurity' per se? Ldmanthroling (talk) 01:11, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, it seems like the article may incorporate sources that do not actually use the concept of "linguistic insecurity". Per WP:SYNTH we cannot use sources that do not explicitly use the concept of linguistic insecurity to advance claims about that concept.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 02:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, the authors cited for the Quebecois French example do use the concept of linguistic insecurity. The information for this section was taken from the book "Language Issues in Canada" and the chapter "Whose French? Language Attitudes, Linguistic Insecurity and Standardization in Quebec" specifically. The chapter discusses the effects of the general perception of French from France as being the standard form and the effort to "deethnicise" Quebec. Gkneveu (talk) 03:02, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I have some questions about the indexicality section: first of all, the transition between RP and Bejing accents seems a little odd, secondly, I wonder about some of your assertions. They feel a little uninvestigated on the cultural-anthropological side, for example: can we really say that "southern speakers perceive their speech to be inferior"? Is this really true of all southerners? Also, in the gender section, you talk about the differences among female speakers, but you don't go into much detail in explaining the differences among speakers of different genders. (-gwenkingston)

I definitely agree about the indexicality section: It seems that you are suggesting some sort of link between the Beijing example and the RP example. I wonder if this section couldn't be longer as well? I think someone who hasn't studied sociolinguistics and/or indexicality would find this section rather baffling. Mmjacobs (talk) 16:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree that this section might be a little tough going for those not already familiar with the topic. I think that 'Description' starts out well, but that then the 'Standard and Prestige' section, with its 'Language Ideology' and 'Indexicality' sub-headings is increasingly hard to follow. It might flow better if instead of relying on headers to organize the prose, the headers were eliminated and greater effort were made to create prose that flowed, with bridging prose that introduced the notion of prestige varieties, language ideology, and indexicality, so that it is clearer why they are relevant.


 * Minor point: "As linguistic insecurity is related to the perception of how one speaks in comparison to some other standard..." Is it accurate to characterize the variety in question as '...some other standard...'? In the kinds of setting in which linguistic insecurity is generally discussed, is there more than one standard?Ldmanthroling (talk) 13:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I would tend to agree with Gwen's characterization of your assertions as somewhat bluntly put. I too noticed that particular example stood out -- you don't provide a lot of foundation for your claim and some southerners might even perceive it as slightly offensive; the statement is extremely generalized and really not explained or qualified at all. Watch out to make sure you qualify your statements not just as much as is necessary to understand the point, but as much as you can so that there aren't any misunderstandings. As far as content goes, you have pretty much all the sections I would hope for with one exception: linguistic convergence. When i was doing research on this I found some pretty interesting sources on the effects of linguistic insecurity in determining how different languages or dialects converged, both in smaller personal conversations and in the bigger cultural scheme of things. It might be interesting to add a section about the "effects" of linguistic insecurity in determining the prevalence or assimilation of certain linguistic varieties and how this relates to the concepts of convergence and borrowing that we discussed in class. Benjpianist (talk) 06:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Gwen that the gender section does not have as much information as I would have expected. The first paragraph is sort of vague - you mention what appears to be the social capital theory, but then discard it with the vague sentence, "Differing social patterns may offer an explanation for why some women have less linguistic insecurity than others." This sentence doesn't really mean anything to me and leaves me feeling unsatisfied that you know what you're talking about. You also mention the network theory for why some women don't tend to use standard forms. I'm not sure how related to linguistic insecurity this paragraph is. I also think there are different explanations, like the one we talked about in class, for some women not using standard forms, namely cultural contingencies - the fact that not all cultures associate women with upper class, being lady-like, etc. On the otherhand I'm just not sure that you need to talk about these theories because they don't relate to linguistic insecurity as much as social capital theory does. Rebeccakoganlee (talk) 07:04, 19 October 2011 (UTC)rebeccakoganlee


 * Does anyone who talks about gender-based variation actually invoke 'linguistic insecurity' as an explanatory mechanism? If not, it may not make sense to include a discussion of gender in this section. Ldmanthroling (talk) 13:47, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

To contribute something different to the discussion -- I wonder if a link to linguistic discrimination or profiling might be appropriate, for as it stands, it sounds a little like linguistic insecurity is unfounded, and that speakers just think that their speech is inferior or superior due to an abstract language ideology. That may be true in a sense, but I think discussing the social consequences of failing to adhere to language ideology could be emphasized a bit further. Kraecarpenter (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC).

The page is very well organized and relatively easy to read. I also enjoyed finding examples from our readings. There were several small points that I noticed. Stylistically, the frequent use of the "/" between points distracted me a little. I was also curious if the example of the two women, Hannah and Paula, did in fact point to linguistic insecurity or the point of non-standard forms being generated by interaction within a speech community. Also, with regards to the several lines regarding insecurity and perceived incorrectness of one's own dialect, I believe a section on linguistic resistance would provide a nice, and perhaps necessary, counterpart. Alanadanielle (talk) 09:12, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Your page is great, very thorough and not too hard to read. The content issue that stood out to me was the seeming overlap between your sections on Language Ideology ("how varieties of language are correlated with certain moral, social or political values") and Indexicality (e.g., "an effort to index themselves as cosmopolitan"). I think it would help readers if you made explicit the relationship between these two ideas. In terms of style, I think there is sometimes an overuse of links to other Wikipedia pages, where they really aren't necessary (e.g., "retail stores") and/or where they aren't linking to a page that explains the term in the way your context is using it (e.g., "catalyst" linking to a page about chemical/enzyme catalysis). More uniformity in the formatting of your references would also be a plus. Jdhlee89 (talk) 10:48, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

I also think that the page is very well done; I was wondering, just out of interest, if there is any other information or examples on distinguishing between conscious and unconscious shifts in language use that result from linguistic insecurity, aside from shifting registers. Otherwise, I don't have too much to add that has not already been said. I liked that relevant links were posted underneath particular headings.Hbolaria (talk) 10:57, 19 October 2011 (UTC)Harkiran

Your page looks great, very well organized, thorough, and well written. My one comment is in the Social category section. What you have so far is great, but I think the page could benefit from a discussion of not just socioeconomic class and gender, but also possibly race. In my education class we have discussed African American vernacular English, how it differs from 'standard' English, and how many students have what I understand to be language insecurity when in the classroom and feel the pressure to sleek the 'standard'. I feel as though there could be many cases across different races like this. Hollyhelena (talk) 16:31, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

The two speech styles that constitute the focus of Labov's classic /r/-study are characterized as 'casual' and 'emphatic' in the second paragraph in the 'Description' section. I'm not sure that either of these characterizations are ones that sociolinguists would employ. What is 'casual' about r-deletion? Recall that this is also a characteristic of RP. In the same paragraph linguistically insecure speakers are also characterized as being 'forced' to hypercorrect. I'm not sure any sociolinguist would every characterize hypercorrection as something that is 'forced' upon a speaker. Quite the opposite, actually. Ldmanthroling (talk) 13:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Minor point: "These effects of linguistic insecurity can come in the form of sound changes..."; I wonder if use of the term 'sound change' in this context comes confusing close to the notion of 'sound change' in historical linguistics. I wonder if something like 'changes in pronunciation' would run less risk of confusion. Ldmanthroling (talk) 13:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I found the following paragraph hard to understand, under 'Creole' (My comments in square brackets):


 * "The nonlinguistic implications [what non-linguistic implications? What is being talked about here?] may be explained by ethnological [ethnological? In what sense? 'Ethnology' is an academic field], or emotional barriers [what is meant by 'barrier' here?] concerning the attitudes of speakers of one language to the speakers of another [why another?] foreign [why are 'foreign' languages being discussed in a section on creole languages?] or unofficial language. One explanation [of what?] is that some populations of speakers are more insistent on the use of their particular form [of what?], as it is commonly claimed to be more “pure”. This assumption places this form as a higher [redundant] more prestigious standard, creating a tense environment that promotes feelings of insecurity to those who do not follow this standard (and speak “impure” variations)."

This paragraph would definitely benefit from some attention: 1) What is the purpose of the paragraph? 2) What are the citations that back up the specific claims? Ldmanthroling (talk) 13:56, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The title 'Creole' may not be the best choice -- you mean 'Creole Languages', right? The heading 'Occurences' under 'Creole' is puzzling. 'Occurences' of what? Do you mean something like 'Case Study'? And then, in the discussion under that heading, none of the varieties you discuss are actually creole languages (!). Also, the first sentence of this section is puzzling: "Carl Blyth identifies that more recent sociolinguistic studies have a greater concern for communicative competence, and notices a movement of focus from the idealized speech of individual speakers to the linguistic system of the community." How is this relevant to creoles, and how does the prose that follows relate to this initial sentence? What is the point that this section is trying to make? Needs work! Ldmanthroling (talk) 14:04, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 27 August 2020 and 18 November 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Mcc980.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:08, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Declaring potential COI
I have just noticed that this article cites work that I wrote. I did not add the citation, but I did (just moments ago) format the reference to include the author's name (that is, my name). I have also edited other sections of the article, as recently as today and at various times in the past. Some other editor should probably check the article and my editing history to ensure that everything is above board.

By the way, the original publication is available at the following URL. Cnilep (talk) 02:20, 12 July 2021 (UTC)