Download Penelope Eckert's Study: Social Categories & Linguistic Change in High School - Prof. Jame and more Study notes Personality Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! Penelope Eckert- Professor of Linguistic, Professor by Courtesy in the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology and Director of the Program in Feminist Studies at Stanford’s Center on Adolescence Jocks & Burnout- Social Categories and Identity in the High School- received wide acclaim New Ways of Analyzing Change-editor chap. Social Polarization and Choice of Linguistic Variants Linguistic Variations as Social Practice (2000) Ethnography study of the social motivations of linguistic change (Sociolinguitics). Two years-hanging around common areas of the school, hallways, courtyards etc., not classrooms. Gathered information through observation of normal activities and interaction, through participation in independently occurring activities and interactions, and through brief encounters and long and short discussion with groups and individuals. Ask student to “Trace friendship from childhood to present” Linguistic change is defined as a constant and regular process which gives rise over the short term to regional dialects or accents, and over the long term to language families. (How Latin changed into modern Romance language) Adolescents lead their communities in sound change in our societies. She chose adolescent in a High School in the Detroit area–because high schools bring together adolescents from a variety of social backgrounds in such a way as to force them to interact with and react to each other. Category affiliation, social network orientation, and gender have turned out to be the major and intricately interacting, social parameters that determine participation in sound change in the adolescent community. Focus on social polarization between the class-based social categories, the Jocks and the Burnouts Differentiation begins in middle school (junior high school) The Burnouts- working class home, enrolled primarily in general and vocational courses, smoked tobacco and pot, took chemical, drank beer and hard liquor, skipped classes, and may have had occasional run in with the police. Counter school culture, adversarial relationship with the school The Jocks- middle class and college bound, played sports for the school, participated in school activities, got respectable grades and drank beer on weekends. The termed jock may be an athlete but on a broader base it can be used for someone whose life-style embraces a broader idea associated in American culture with sports. Cooperative relationship with the school. Share the goals of the school. Center their social lives around the school Jock and Burnout categories reflect opposing relations to the school, the single institution that dominates the life of the adolescent age group. Adults do not impose their class system and ideologies on adolescent; they provide the means by which adolescent can do it themselves The Jock and Burnout represent opposing ways of existing within the school (they both endorse school) The essence of the polarization between the Jocks and the Burnouts lies in the act that they are in competition to define their life stage and to set norms of community interactions. Symbol of Category Membership- The Hangout---Courtyard or Locker Smoking - Clothing – Sports
