Abstract
Abstract This article focuses on intersections of race, gender, class, and (im)politeness within the African American speech community (AASC). Although general linguistic theorizing aims at universalizing (im)politeness, ultimately identifying common components within human (im)politeness systems worldwide, African American perspectives have not been interjected within that broader theorizing. Thus, I examine (im)politeness from the perspective of African Americans with a focus on females’ linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviors. A plethora of work examines, challenges, and refutes stereotypical gender. I explore facets of the stereotypical, particularly as applied to Black females with the aim of broadening understandings of (im)politeness based on cultural variation. Specifically, I examine sassy as a social construct when applied to Black women in U.S. contexts, especially two Black women’s online assessments of sassy performativity by Sasha Obama, as a vehicle for allowing Black women’s voices and experiences to enter into theory-making. The analysis is interpretative and idiographic. The two African American women bloggers’ words and meanings suggest that (im)politeness within the AASC resides in sociolinguistics, not pragmatics. As a result of the analysis, I suggest that (im)politeness theorizing could pay attention to the social embodiedness of human polite and impolite behaviors. This, in part, constitutes the sociolinguistics of (im)politeness.
Highlights
This article focuses on intersections of race, gender, class, and politeness within the African American speech community (AASC)
The two African American women bloggers’ words and meanings suggest thatpoliteness within the AASC resides in sociolinguistics, not pragmatics
This article focuses on intersections of race, gender, class, andpoliteness1 within the African American speech community (AASC). (Im)politeness, though nebulous, may be viewed as a uniquely human practice concerned with how people interact in their social world through the use of language and actions, which are evaluated as appropriate/inappropriate within specific social contexts
Summary
This article focuses on intersections of race, gender, class, and (im)politeness within the African American speech community (AASC). (Im)politeness, though nebulous, may be viewed as a uniquely human practice concerned with how people interact in their social world through the use of language and actions, which are evaluated as appropriate/inappropriate within specific social contexts (see Mills 2003 and Watts 2003, who focus on discursive struggle and first order [im]politeness). This article focuses on intersections of race, gender, class, and (im)politeness within the African American speech community (AASC). I examine (im)politeness from the perspective of African Americans with a focus on females’ linguistic and nonlinguistic behaviors. Politeness has been interrogated since 1975 with Lakoff’s canonical Language and Woman’s Place, politeness and impoliteness are shrouded in hegemonic spaces and ensconced in stereotypical “Western,” middle-class behavior (see Mills 2003). The article is divided into the following subsections: (1.1) stereotypical gender within Black female spaces; (2) critique of Brown and Levinson’s (1978, 1987) (hereafter, B&L) theorizing on politeness; (3) cultural variational perspectives on/approaches to (im)politeness, socially constituted (im)politeness; (4) sassy as a social practice; (5) two online data sites and analysis of Black women’s frames for sassy; and (6) conclusion
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