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Monday, August 26, 2013

At the end of your words

I have had a chance to observe a person who has been socialized in the Ukraine and who didn't arrive in the U.S. until after adolescence, the time period during which socialization happens.  I have also been able to observe a number of people from a number of countries south of the U.S. and from Canada for very short periods of time whose childhood happened outside the U.S., some whose childhood and adolescence happened outside, and some whose childhood, adolescence and early adulthood occurred entirely outside the United States.  This has allowed me to anecdotally compare the kind of socialization that occurs in the U.S. with that of people outside the country.

So, did the same features of marking conversation of the two sexes appear?  In the group of people socialized in the Americas, it was a mixed bag. The feature outside in/inside out appeared right away.  Alignment of women to other women in conversation appeared also.  Men taking the floor away never appeared, but adding important detail so as to look important did appear.  Interruption patterns of men with women didn't appear as reported in the gender language literature.  This is merely by observation, not by empirical data.  As far as the person from the Ukraine is concerned, I have observations only from mixed company (men and women together), so I don't have enough observation data to go on.

Socialization is powerful, and its traces are embedded in language.  It would appear that knowing who is on the other end of your words, no matter the country of origin, affects interpretation of and attitude toward the speaker.


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