Novedad bibliográficaInfoling 12.19 (2020)

History and current affairs show that words matter - and change - because they are woven into our social and political lives. Words are weapons wielded by the powerful; they are also powerful tools for social resistance and for reimagining and reconfiguring social relations. Illustrated with topical examples, from racial slurs and sexual insults to preferred gender pronouns, from ethnic/racial group labels to presidential tweets, this book examines the social contexts which imbue words with potency. Exploring the role of language in three broad categories - establishing social identities, navigating social landscapes, and debating social and linguistic change - Sally McConnell-Ginet invites readers to examine critically their own ideas about language and its complicated connections to social conflict and transformation. Concrete and timely examples vividly illustrate the feedback loop between words and the world, shedding light on how and why words can matter.

Getting Started 

1 Labeling: “What Are You, Anyway?” 
Shifting Ethnic/Racial Labels for a Single Individual? 
What Do Ethnic and Racial Identity Labels Label? 
Deep Historical Antecedents to Recent Labeling Disputes: Latino vs Hispanic 
Creating Labels to Mobilize Groups: The Case of Asian American 
“My Mom Says It’s Not Polite to Call Someone Black” 
Tracking People: Sex/Gender Labels 
“One Name to Rule Them All”: Strategic Labeling Dances 
Labeling vs Describing 
Notes 

2 Marking/Erasing: “Instead of Saying ‘Normal Americans,’ You Can Just Say ‘Americans’” 
Marking and Erasing: First Pass 
Us vs Them Marking 
How Did English Man Lose Its Generic Inclusiveness? 
Squeezing Marked Subcategory Members Out: Where Are the Women? 
Who Is an ‘Unmarked’ – ‘Normal’ – American? 
Modifiers and Marking 
“Jocks, You’re Not Aware of It”: Becoming ‘Normal’ People 
Trying to Mark Dominant Groups: The Politics of Cisgender and Its Kin
Notes

3 Generalizing: “All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave”
Implicit Stereotypes and Prejudices
Colorblind?
Black Lives Matter . . . Or Should!
Quantificational Generalizing: Who Counts? 
Generic Generalizations: When Do They Essentialize? 
Norms 
Notes 

4 Addressing: “All Right, My Man . . . Keep Your Hands on the Steering Wheel” 
Vocatives 
Power and Solidarity 
English Address (and Reference) Resources 
Naming, Nicknaming, and Authority 
Being (In)Considerate, (Dis)Respectful, (Im)Polite 
Notes 

5 Putting Down: “[They] Aren’t People – They’re Animals” 
“Words Will Never Hurt Me” 
Malevolent Metaphorical Moves 
Escalating Language Games 
S-Words Nearer to My Home 
Native American Team Names and Mascots: “In Whose Honor?” 
Slurs Targeting Women 
Other Insults and (Apparent) Name-Calling 
Reclamation: A Success Story? 
Notes 

6 Reforming/Resisting: “It’s Like a Kind of Sexual Racism” 
The Birth of Sexism 
Reshaping Existing Linguistic Resources: The Case of Racism and Racist 
Is It About Language? Redefining Rape 
Preferred Gender Pronouns 

Euphemism vs “Identity-Affirmation” or “Correction” 
Notes 

7 Authorizing: “When I Use a Word It Means Just What I Choose It to Mean . . . [But Who] Is to Be Master?” 
Dictionaries 
Division of Linguistic Labor: Expertise 
Dueling Experts: The Pluto Wars 
Courts Authorizing Meanings: Fruit and Marriage 
Inclusive Language Guidelines: Prescribing and Proscribing 
Politically Correct (PC): Virtue-Signaling and Mockery 
Empowering First-Person Semantic Authority 
Communities Are the Ultimate Semantic Authorities 
Notes 

8 Concluding 
Does It Seem Crazy? Why? 
Using Language Recommendations to Expand Minds 
Naming Frontiers 
Typographical Distinctions: Boundary-Policing and Dog-Whistling 
“Why Don’t You Go Back Where You Came From?” 
Framing the Free Speech Debate
Linguistic Change Can Be Painful
Notes

References 

Index