Talk:Style (sociolinguistics)

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Very nice page. A minor comment to start off the discussion: the 'origins' section begins "Sociolinguistic style has its roots in the variationist approach [btw, to what?]..." Of course 'sociolinguistic style' as a phenomenon does not have its root in the variationist approach! Rather, the *concept* of 'sociolinguistic style' was developed by linguists working within the variationist paradigm in sociolinguistics. Quite a different thing. Ldmanthroling (talk) 14:23, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I like how most of the page was developed, especially the "Modern approaches" section, which I thought was clear and insightful. My only issue is with the sections "Style-shifting" and "Style matching". The writing under "Style-shifting", while very informative, is rather abrupt. In contrast, the "Style matching" section flows well and is illuminating. I know that you guys don't want to bloat the "Style-shifting" section with tons of detailed examples, but the combination of extremely succinct text and large subheadings is quite distracting – how about an embedded list instead? Vanessa (talk) 19:42, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Like the post above, I appreciate the fact that the page connects many ideas we have discussed in class, especially the "Modern approaches to style." There were a few bracketed words, like [ideology] and [masculinity], in the "Style and ideology" section; I'm not sure if these are typos, or possible links to other pages. Perhaps, in the "Performative creation of new styles" section, it would be beneficial to focus more on Podesva's study regarding the gay lawyer and how it specifically exemplifies performative creation of new styles, as well as delineating how it parallels Eckert's findings. 99.121.57.99 (talk) 05:46, 2 November 2011 (UTC) Harkiran Bolaria

Like the other commenters, I thought the page was really good. I also want to second Vanessa's post above about the Style-shifting section as I found it to be very jarring. The content was good, but the headings and the broken up text made it very difficult to follow. One comment I wanted to make was about the Urban Styles section. When discussing the pronunciation of the burn-outs you write that they were using “[foyt] instead of [fayt].” Is [y] being used in place of [j]? I'm wondering if it would be useful to mention that an American IPA system is being used here to avoid any confusion between the vowel [y] and the semi-vowel [j]. Gkneveu (talk) 06:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The page looks great, very informative and organized well. My comment is similar to many of the above ones about the style shifting section. I fell as though adding a short succinct example for each of the subheadings would help make clear exactly what each one is. Your description of each is very good though. Also, for the footing and framing section I'm a little confused because footing is described but there is not actual mention of what framing is, is it another word for footing? Hollyhelena (talk) 16:24, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I like the variety of information that you guys provided. I agree with the above comments that the Style-shifting section looks odd. I also wonder if the chart in the "Performative creation of new styles" section is really necessary. It provides a break in the text but the contents of the chart don't seem that important in understanding the concept in relation to sociolinguistic style. I have a question of whether or not part of your article has bits of personal interpretation, though I am unsure since this may be an artifact of formatting and writing style. I cannot necessarily tell which parts are cited since the citations cluster oddly (having a bunch on one word or sentences versus having no citations in an entire section) Also, there are some words I tend to associate with subjectivity (e.g. "An excellent example of this performative style can easily be exemplified by non-linguistic situations" and the use of the word "obviously”). Ahwu (talk) 06:47, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Hey guys, nice work on the page overall. A couple things came to mind about the overall presentation of the page, one is that the lead in section (the initial paragraph), doesn't really grab my attention in the way that I think wikipedia articles are designed to do. Typically, that first paragraph is supposed to provide a summary of the entire article and serve as a quick go-to section for answering the question of what the topic of the article is about, and I felt as if it could be expanded a bit. The other "wikipedia" type issue that came to me was the lack of links to outside pages in the article itself; typically, most of the key words/concepts employed about within the article will link to additional articles, and I felt that this page on a whole had a fewer amount of paragraph-internal links than is normal of a wikipedia article. BerkeleyAaron (talk) 06:57, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Just as an organizational note that came to mind while I was reading over the page, I think it would be more clear if the "Style and Ideology" section directly followed "Style and Indexical Order" because the two seem very closely related. The description on the ideologies of styling still maintains a link to the indexing of certain social groups, and should come before the stance section that takes a different approach that does not consider the factor of indexical order. I also think it would benefit if some examples of these varying approaches were provided to better distinguish the differences between them. All of the headings have good descriptions, but I think each of them would be further strengthened by evidence that demonstrates social situations in how style is established through ideological indexing or stance. Skang03 (talk) 19:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I very much enjoyed reading this page and the all of the numerous citations to class readings. I noticed by the end however, a considerable leaning on Penny Eckert's research. Though of course an excellent paper, a wider variety of sources might add breadth and a greater understanding of your topic. The section on style matching was interesting and fun to read. Nice charts and graphics too. I noticed in the introduction there was a list of the three ways style/linguistic variation is expressed, phonologically, syntactically, and lexically, but there didn't seem to be an explicit back up to those categories. Also, it could be useful having the case-studies in style before the end, and perhaps a section like, "the emergence of new styles" towards the end. Nice work! Alanadanielle (talk) 21:55, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The discussion of 'footing' in the 'Footing and framing' section is far too brief to understand how footing relates to style, let alone what framing is (which is never discussed). The final sentence "The generality of the footing concept allows for a more flexible theory." is rather hard to understand. More flexible than what? And how? Ldmanthroling (talk) 05:29, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for creating this page. A citation comment: the quote about footing in the style-shifting section, which is attributed to Kiesling (Reference 13), is not actually in the text cited. I am not sure where the quote is from. --Sasclo (talk) 16:45, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Origins paragraph
This paragraph would benefit from some clarification and greater explicitness:

"...he used interviewing techniques to observe the/r/-fullness of various subjects' language use in an effort to characterize their social class or standing." 1) This makes it seem like Labov examined the frequency with which /r/ surfaced in people's speech to figure out what class people were in. You don't mean that, do you? 2) How standard is the term /r/-fullness? 3) And crucially, how does this related to style???

"Labov characterized linguistic style as comprising of a consistent set of relationships between linguistic forms and corresponding meanings." Is this right? What you've defined here does not seem to me like 'linguistic style' per se -- this is more like the definition of the linguistic sign. Ldmanthroling (talk) 01:07, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

"He used a similar approach for further studies of North American language variation" It's not clear this really adds much. Similar in what way? What studies? Maybe say something about the classic Martha's Vineyard study as a way of saying something more concrete?

"This view on linguistic style is powerful..." Which view? It's not clear what is being talked about. And how is it powerful? Ldmanthroling (talk) 05:29, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought that the glossing of the many linguistics terms provided was quite good. However, I think the section on ideology could use a more thorough explanation and could probably even be done in fewer words. The use of a variety of sources is nice but I was left wondering if all of the linguists needed to be mentioned. Granted, many were the first to talk about some of these issues, but it makes it feel a little less like an encyclopedia, and more like a research paper. I think, maybe, if the authors don't have a link to their own page, it might be better to note them in the citation section, or in text in parenthesis at the end of a statement. (This was not meant for the "Origins" section, unable to access others, apologies) -greene — Preceding unsigned comment added by Greene.katelyn (talk • contribs) 09:01, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Style and indexical order paragraph
"Penny Eckert’s[2] characterization of style as variable rather than static..." But you haven't yet said anything about style being static, so this is rather a non-sequitir. Maybe you should say something about that in the 'Origins' paragraph?

"She builds on Michael Silverstein’s notion of indexical order: the notion that linguistic variables index a social group, which by association leads to the indexing of certain traits stereotypically associated with members of that group. This results in multiple non-linear orders of indexicality, wherein the social group constitutes a first-order indexical and all further traits or characteristics associated with the linguistic variable become higher-order indexicals." This will be pretty impenetrable to those not familiar with indexicality. I recommend: 1) an example after the first sentence; 2) rewriting the second sentence to avoid the daunting phrase "multiple non-linear orders of indexicality"; and 3) clarifying the claim "the social group constitutes a first-order indexical" -- that's not quite right, is it? The group isn't an indexical. The group is indexed by the indexical.Ldmanthroling (talk) 01:32, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Style and Stance
"Eckert’s system is intended as an additive reparation to other theories of style and variation that uses indexicality to explain a perceived fluidity of style." What's an 'additive reparation'? Why 'a perceived' fluidity of style? Is it not actually fluid? What is meant by 'fluid' here?

The discussion of 'stance-taking' approaches seems to characterize it as 'contrastive' to Eckert's approach. But aren't they actually compatible? It's the older 'static' notions of style (not really described anywhere, btw) that the indexical and stance-taking approaches both contrast with.Ldmanthroling (talk) 01:32, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Awkward prose
In the first sentence of 'Origins :"...sociolinguistics, which was introduced by William Labov in the 1960s." Labov 'introduced' sociolinguistics? Ldmanthroling (talk) 01:05, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Ya might want to replace that with started the study of sociolinguistics, or created the sociolinguistic methods, or was the father of sociolinguistics.P0PP4B34R732 (talk) 01:11, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

In 'Performative creation of new styles', reference is made to 'non-linguistic situations'. What does this mean? What is a 'linguistic situation'? What is a 'non-linguistic situation'?Ldmanthroling (talk)

Merge with style-shifting?
As far as I can tell this article and style-shifting are on basically the same topic and cover much of the same ground, and they should probably be merged into a single article on style in sociolinguistics. AJD (talk) 04:16, 10 November 2013 (UTC) ✅