Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T02:43:47.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Aging and gendering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2005

RICHARD CAMERON
RICHARD CAMERON
Affiliation:
Department of English (M/C 162), 601 South Morgan Street, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Il. 60607-7120, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Unlike class or ethnicity, gender-based differences are assumed to result from social difference, not distance, yet across multiple societies, researchers find that gender separation is practiced to varying degrees. Such separation creates distance. Preference for same-gender affiliations emerges around age three, peaks in middle childhood, and lessens during the teen years, yet persists in the workplace and later life. Though reasons for this are many, Thorne (1993:51) identified one finding in these terms: “Where age separation is present, gender separation is more likely to occur.” Because age segregation varies with stage of life, one may predict that gender segregation would wax and wane across the lifespan. This study investigates this prediction with three sociolinguistic variables of Puerto Rican Spanish. In turn, it explores the prediction across other varieties of Spanish, German, and English, focusing on variables that are stable, undergoing change, or in the end stage of loss.I want to send very special muchísimas gracias to Miriam Meyerhoff and William Labov for critical, insightful, and engaged readings of an earlier version of this research. Over the past two years, I have presented portions of this research at various conferences. In these contexts, on more than one occasion, Greg Guy, Gillian Sankoff, and Shahrzad Mahootian have provided both critical and supportive comments. I admire and love all these people. Finally, I thank Jane Hill and the two reviewers whose very useful comments called for clarification and qualification. I appreciate their attention very much. None of these individuals is responsible for shortcomings in the research. I hope any shortcomings here will stimulate long-term research elsewhere. Besos a Diana González-Cameron, mi esposa.

Keywords

Gender segregationage segregationvariation
Type
Research Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , January 2005 , pp. 23 - 61
Copyright
© 2005 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arber, Sara, & Ginn, Jay (1991). Gender and later life: A sociological analysis of resources and constraints. London: Sage.
Bailey, Guy; Wikle, Tom; Tillery, Jan; & Sand, Lori (1993). Some patterns of linguistic diffusion. Language Variation and Change 5:359–90.Google Scholar
Barrett, Rusty (1999). Indexing polyphonous identity in the speech of African America drag queens. In Bucholtz et al., 313–31.
Baugh, John (1996). Dimensions of a theory of econolinguistics. In Gregory Guy et al. (eds.), Towards a social science of language: Papers in honor of William Labov: Volume 1: Variation and change in language and society, 397–419. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Beebe, Leslie, & Giles, Howard (1984). Speech-accommodation theories: a discussion in terms of second-language acquisition. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 46:5–32.Google Scholar
Benor, Sarah, Rose, Mary, Sharma, Devyani, Sweetland, Julie, & Qing Zhang (2002) (eds.). Gendered practices in language. Stanford: CSLI.
Bing, Janet, & Bergvall, Victoria (1996). The question of questions: Beyond binary thinking. In Victoria Bergvall et al. (eds.), Rethinking language and gender research: Theory and practice, 1–30. London: Longman.
Bloomfield, Leonard (1933). Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Bock, Kathryn, & Griffin, Zenzi (2000). The persistence of structural priming: Transient activation or implicit learning? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129:177–92.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary (1995). From mulatta to mestiza: Passing and the linguistic reshaping of ethnic identity. In Hall & Bucholtz, 351–373.
Bucholtz, Mary (2000). Gender. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9:80–83.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary; Liang, A.C.; & Sutton, Laurel (1999) (eds.). Reinventing identities: The gendered self in discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cameron, Deborah (1998). Gender, language, and discourse: A review essay. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 23:945–73.Google Scholar
Cameron, Deborah, & Kulick, Don (2003). Language and sexuality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cameron, Richard (1992). Pronominal and null subject variation in Spanish: Constraints, dialects, and functional compensation. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Available through Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania, IRCS Report No. 92-22.
Cameron, Richard (1996). A community-based test of a linguistic hypothesis. Language in Society 25:61–111.Google Scholar
Cameron, Richard (1998). A variable syntax of speech, gesture, and sound effect: Direct quotations in Spanish. Language Variation and Change 10:43–83.Google Scholar
Cameron, Richard (2000). Language change or changing selves?: Direct quotation strategies in the Spanish of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Diachronica 17:249–92.Google Scholar
Cameron, Richard, & Flores Ferrán, Nydia (2004). Perseveration of subject expression across regional dialects of Spanish. Spanish in Context 1:41–65.Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta (1973). The interplay of social and linguistic factors in Panama. Dissertation, Cornell University.
Chambers, J. K. (1992). Dialect acquisition. Language 68:673–705.Google Scholar
Chambers, J. K. (1995). Sociolinguistic theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chambers, J. K., & Trudgill, Peter (1980). Dialectology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chang, Franklin; Dell, Gary; Bock, Kathryn; & Griffin, Zenzi (2000). Structural priming as implicit learning: A comparison of models of sentence production. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 29:217–29.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny (1987). Age and generation-specific use of language. In Ulrich Ammon et al. (eds.), Sociolinguistics: An international handbook of the science of language and society, 760–67. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Cheshire, Jenny (1998). Linguistic variation and social function. In Jennifer Coates (ed.), Language and gender: A reader, 29–41. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chevrot, Jean-Pierre; Beaud, Laurence; & Varga, Renata (2000). Developmental data on a French sociolinguistic variable: Post-consonantal word-final /R/. Language Variation and Change 12:295–319.Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert, & Gerrig, Richard (1990). Quotations as demonstrations. Language 66:764–805.Google Scholar
Clarke, Sandra (1990). Phonological variation and recent language change in St. John's English. In Jenny Cheshire (ed.), English around the world: Sociolinguistic perspectives, 108–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cockerham, William (1998). Medical sociology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Crompton, Rosemary (1998). Class and social stratification: An introduction to current debates. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity.
Deaux, Kay, & Major, Brenda (1987). Putting gender into context: An interactive model of gender-related behavior. Psychological Review 94:369–89.Google Scholar
Downes, William (1998). Language and society. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eckert, Penelope (1989). The whole woman: Sex and gender differences in variation. Language Variation and Change 1:245–67.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (1997). Age as a sociolinguistic variable. In Florian Coulmas (ed.), Handbook of sociolinguistics, 151–67. Oxford: Blackwell.
Eckert, Penelope (2000). Linguistic variation as social practice. Oxford: Blackwell.
Eckert, Penelope, & McConnell-Ginet, Sally (1992). Think practically and look locally: Language and gender as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology 21:461–90.Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope, McConnell-Ginet, Sally (2003). Language and gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eisikovits, Edina (1987). Sex differences inter-group and intra-group interaction among adolescents. In Anne Pauwels (ed.), Women and language in Australian and New Zealand society, 45–58. Sydney: Australian Professional Publications.
Eisikovits, Edina (1998). Girl-talk/Boy-talk: Sex differences in adolescent speech. In Jennifer Coates (ed.), Language and gender: A reader, 42–51. Oxford: Blackwell.
Ehrlich, Susan (1997). Gender as social practice: Implications for second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 19:421–46.Google Scholar
Entwistle, Joanne (1998). Sex/gender. In Chris Jenks (ed.), Core sociological dichotomies, 151–65. London: Sage.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne (2000). Sexing the body: Gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books.
Fischer, John (1958). Social influences on the choice of a linguistic variant. Word 14:47–56.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony (1984). The constitution of society. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gilbert, Dennis (1998). The American class structure in an age of growing inequality. 5th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Gilmore, David (1990). Men and women in southern Spain: “Domestic power” revisited. American Anthropologist 92:953–70.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday.
Goldsmith, John (1990). Autosegmental and metrical phonology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Guy, Gregory (1990). The sociolinguistic types of language change. Diachronica 7:47–67.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory, & Boyd, Sally (1990). The development of a morphological class. Language Variation and Change 2:1–18.Google Scholar
Guy, Gregory; Horvath, Barbara; Vonwiller, Julia; Daisley, Elaine; & Rogers, Inge (1986). An intonational change in progress in Australian English. Language in Society 15:23–52.Google Scholar
Haeri, Niloofar (1996). The sociolinguistic market of Cairo: Gender, class, and education. London: Kegan Paul.
Hall, Kira, & Bucholtz, Mary (1995) (eds.). Gender articulated: Language and the socially constructed self. New York: Routledge.
Harding, Jennifer (1998). Sex acts: Practices of femininity and masculinity. London: Sage.
Harkness, Sara, & Super, Charles (1985). The cultural context of gender segregation in childrens's peer groups. Child Development 56:219–24.Google Scholar
Hartrup, Willard (1983). Peer relations. In Paul Mussen & E. Mavis Heatherington (eds.), Handbook of child psychology, Volume 4: Socialization, pesonality, and social development, 103–96. New York: Wiley.
Hazen, Kirk (2002). Identity and language variation in a rural community. Language 78:240–57.Google Scholar
Herdt, Gilbert (1990). Mistaken gender: 5-Alpha reductase hermaphroditism and biological reductionism in sexual identity reconsidered. American Anthropologist 92:433–46.Google Scholar
Hindle, Donald (1979). The social and situational conditioning of phonetic variation. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
Hinskens, Frans; Kallen, Jeffrey; & Taeldeman, Johan (2000). Merging and drifting apart: Convergence and divergence of dialects across political boundaries. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 145:1–28.Google Scholar
Holmquist, Jonathan (1985). Social correlates of a linguistic variable: A study in a Spanish village. Language in Society 14:191–203.Google Scholar
Jerrome, Dorothy (1981). The significance of friendship for women in later life. Ageing and Society 1:175–97.Google Scholar
Jerrome, Dorothy (1992). Good company: An anthropological study of old people in groups. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Jerrome, Dorothy, & Wenger, G. Clare (1999). Stability and change in late-life friendships. Ageing and Society 19:661–76.Google Scholar
Kemper, Susan (1992). Language and aging. In Fergus Craik & Timothy Salthouse (eds.), Handbook of aging and cognition, 495–551. Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Kerswill, Paul (1996). Children, adolescents, and language change. Language Variation and Change 8:177–202.Google Scholar
Kiesling, Scott (1998). Men's identities and sociolinguistic variation: The case of fraternity men. Journal of Sociolinguistics 2:69–99.Google Scholar
Kulick, Don (1997). The gender of Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. American Anthropologist 99:574–85.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1990). The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change. Language Variation and Change 2:205–54.Google Scholar
Labov, William (1994). Principles of linguistic change: Volume 1: Internal factors. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Labov, William (2001). Principles of linguistic change: Volume 2: Social factors. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Ladegaard, Hans, & Bleses, Dorthe (2003). Gender differences in young children's speech: the acquisition of sociolinguistic competence. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 13:222–33.Google Scholar
La Freniere, Peter; Strayer, F. F.; & Gauthier, Roger (1984). The emergence of same-sex preferences among preschool peers. Child Development 55:1958–65.Google Scholar
Larson, Reed, & Richards, Maryse (1991). Daily companionship in late childhood and early adolescence: Changing developmental contexts. Child Development 62:284–300.Google Scholar
Laumann, Edward (1966). Prestige and association in an urban community. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Liang, A. C. (1999). Conversationally implicating lesbian and gay identity. In Bucholtz et al. (eds.), 293–310.
Lippi-Green, Rosina (1989). Social network integration and language change in progress in a rural alpine village. Language in Society 18:213–34.Google Scholar
Lipski, John (1994). Latin American Spanish. London: Longman.
Lizardi, Carmen M. (1993). Subject position in Puerto Rican WH-questions: Syntactic, sociolinguistic, and discourse factors. Dissertation, Cornell University.
López Morales, Humberto (1983). Estratificación social del Español de San Juan de Puerto Rico. México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Ma, Roxana, & Herasimchuk, Eleanor (1975). The linguistic dimensions of a bilingual neighborhood. In Joshua Fishman et al. (eds.), Bilingualism in the barrio, 2nd ed., 347–479. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Macaulay, Ronald K. S. (1977). Language, social class, and education. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
Maccoby, Eleanor (1988). Gender as a social category. Developmental Psychology 24:755–65.Google Scholar
Maccoby, Eleanor (1998). The two sexes: Growing up apart, coming together. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Maltz, Daniel, & Borker, Ruth (1982). A cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In John Gumperz (ed.), Language and social identity, 196–216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Matthews, Sarah (1986). Friendships through the life course. London: Sage.
McCloskey, Deirdre (1999). Crossing: A memoir. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Meân, Lindsey (2001). Identity and discursive practice: Doing gender on the football pitch. Discourse and Society 12:789–815.Google Scholar
Meditch, Andrea (1975). The development of sex-specific speech patterns in young children. Anthropological Linguistics 17:421–31.Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, Miriam (1996). Dealing with gender identity as a sociolinguistic variable. In Victoria Bergvall et al. (eds.), Rethinking language and gender research: Theory and practice, 202–27. London: Longman.
Meyerhoff, Miriam (1998). Accommodating your data: The use and misuse of accommodation theory in sociolinguistics. Language and Communication 18:205–25.Google Scholar
Milroy, James, & Milroy, Leslie (1978). Belfast: Change and variation in an urban vernacular. In Peter Trudgill (ed.), Sociolinguistic patterns in British English, 19–36. Baltimore: University Park Press.
Milroy, James, & Milroy, Leslie (1992). Social network and social class: Toward an integrated sociolinguistic model. Language in Society 21:1–26.Google Scholar
Nanda, Serena (2000). Gender diversity: Crosscultural variations. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland.
Nichols, Patricia (1983). Linguistic options and choices for Black Women in the rural South. In Barrie Thorne et al. (eds.), Language, gender, and society, 54–68. Rowley, MA: Newbury.
Ostermann, Ana Cristina (2003). Communities of practice at work: Gender, facework and the power of habitus at an all-female police station and a feminist crisis intervention center in Brazil. Discourse and Society 14:473–505.Google Scholar
Paolillo, John (2002). Analyzing linguistic variation: Statistical models and methods. Stanford: CSLI.
Petersen, Trond, & Morgan, Laurie (1995). Separate and unequal: Occupation-establishment sex segregation and the gender wage gap. American Journal of Sociology 101:329–65.Google Scholar
Pereira Scherre, María, & Naro, Anthony (1991). Marking in discourse: “Birds of a feather”. Language Variation and Change 3:23–32.Google Scholar
Perren, Kim; Arber, Sara; & Davidson, Kate (2003). Men's organisational affiliations in later life: The influence of social class and marital status on informal group membership. Ageing and Society 23:69–82.Google Scholar
Popielarz, Pamela (1999). (In)Voluntary association: A multilevel analysis of gender segregation in voluntary organizations. Gender and Society 13:234–50.Google Scholar
Pujolar i Cos, Joan (1997). Masculinities in a multilingual setting. In Sally Johnson & Ulrike Hanna Meinhof (eds.), Language and masculinity, 86–106. Oxford: Blackwell.
Pyke, Karen (1996). Class-based masculinities: The interdependence of gender, class, and interpersonal power. Gender and Society 10:527–49.Google Scholar
Rawlins, William (1992). Friendship matters: Communication, dialectics, and the life course. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Richer, Stephen (1990). Boys and girls apart: Children's play in Canada and Poland. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.
Roberts, Julie (1996). Acquisition of variable rules: (-t,d) deletion and (ing) production in preschool children. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania dissertation. Available through The Institute for Research in Cognitive Science, University of Pennsylvania, IRCS Report No. 96-09.
Roberts, Julie (1997). Hitting a moving target: Acquisition of sound change in progress by Philadelphia children. Language Variation and Change 9:249–66.Google Scholar
Samper Padilla, José Antonio (1990). Estudio sociolingüístico del Español de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Las Palmas: Caja de Canarias.
Sankoff, Gillian; Blondeau, Hélène; & Charity, Anne (2001). Individual roles in a real-time change: Montreal (r > R) 1947–1995. In Hans Van de Velde & Roeland van Hout (eds.), R-atics: Sociolinguistic, phonetic, and phonological characteristics of /r/, 141–57. Brussels: Études et Travaux.
Santa Ana, Otto, & Parodi, Claudia (1998). Modeling the speech community: Configuration and variable types in the Mexican Spanish setting. Language in Society 27:23–51.Google Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie (1998). Investigating ‘self-conscious’ speech: The performance register in Ocracoke English. Language in Society 27:53–83.Google Scholar
Seger, Carol (1994). Implicit learning. Psychological Bulletin 115:163–96.Google Scholar
Sherman, D. George (1987). Men who are called “women” in Toba-Batak: Marriage, fundamental sex-role differences, and the suitability of the gloss “wife-receiver.” American Anthropologist 89:867–78.Google Scholar
Sidnell, Jack (2002). ‘Badboy/Badman’: Variation and social categories. In Benor et al. (eds.), 375–87.
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen (1981). Extending the sociolinguistic variable to syntax: The case of pleonastic clitics in Spanish. In David Sankoff & Henrietta Cedergren (eds.), Variation omnibus, 335–42. Edmonton: Linguistic Research.
Stokoe, Elizabeth, & Smithson, Janet (2001). Making gender relevant: conversation analysis and gender categories in interaction. Discourse and Society 12:217–44.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah (1994). Gender and discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thorne, Barrie (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Trudgill, Peter (1972). Sex, covert prestige and linguistic change in the urban British English of Norwich. Language in Society 1:179–95.Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter (1974). Sociolinguistics: An introduction. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Trudgill, Peter (1983). Acts of conflicting identity: The sociolinguistics of British pop-song pronunciation. In his On dialect: Social and geographical perspectives, 141–60. Oxford: Blackwell.
Valiente, Celia (2002). An overview of research on gender in Spanish society. Gender and Society 16:767–92.Google Scholar
Vogt, Paul (1993). Dictionary of statistics and methodology: A nontechnical guide for the social sciences. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Weinreich, Uriel (1953). Languages in contact: Findings and problems. The Hague: Mouton.
Wenger, G. Clare (2001). Introduction: Intergenerational relationships in rural areas. Ageing and Society 21:537–45.Google Scholar
Whiting, Beatrice, & Edwards, Carolyn (1988). Children of different worlds: The formation of social behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wright, Erik O. (1997). Class counts: Comparative studies in class analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press.