Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine Bucholtz had done the same study, but in her opening paragraph and all the way through, she describes choices as being both *towards* certain directions as well as *away from* other directions. She describes groups in terms of in-group-ness and out-group-ness (and other-group-ness?) with reference to other relevant factors in addition to race. That would be a better paper.

If only she HAD stuck to saying that “nerds are a group of people who have thrown off the balance between standard and nonstandard features. This (among other things, such as use of an academic register and use of Latinate terms rather than Germanic ones) marks them as different.” She could have made her point (claim) that adhering to norms too rigidly is what makes nerds unusual as a marked group (linguistically speaking) in more neutral linguistic terms. She chose not to (or she chose her words poorly).

By the way, from above, “The motive for why they eat only blueberries isn’t important–this is linguistic research, not psychology research.”

For something that is linguistic research, not psychology research, Bucholtz makes a lot of claims about the students’ motives.

“Two people can speak dialects of English that are very different from each other, and still be considered to be speaking Standard English. ” I think I have a different definition of ‘dialect’ than you (and a lot of people, judging from WikiP) do. No matter, certain accents/dialects definately are more ‘acceptable’ than others. But even there, race is only one factor. Northeastern cities often have regional accents/dialects, spoken largely by whites, that are considered substandard outside of local areas (and often even within them.) There are a lot of dynamics in society, and race is but one of them.

Again, I’m not sure how much of this is due to sociolinguistics and how much is just Bucholz, but I suspect the former, based on that amusing bit at the beginning of the 2001 paper where she solemnly notes that scholars have recently realized that whites are not a monolithic group. It sounds like a sociolinguistic study of Japan or Iceland would be difficult to write about, which makes me think they’re being a bit light on the actual science.

Of course, you do run into issues like this in nearly racially homogeneous places like Japan. And in a place like that it would not make sense to look at it in terms of race–region and class are more important there. But we’re not talking about Japan. We’re talking about the United States. And in the United States, race is a central part of how language constructs identity.

What determines which dialect is the standard is a different question. Your (I’m assuming sociolinguistics’) answer being race, by way of the race of the group in control. The ‘group in control’ part of it may have some merit, but the race part of it is a needless complication. Even in a racially homogenous country, you’ll get variations. One of them will become the standard.

However, race appears to be central to sociolinguistics. I think this is why the terminology appears to be loaded. It really wasn’t meant to handle situations where race isn’t the issue. You end up with twisted language, such as a group being “racially marked” regardless of the group’s race.

And on the berries, you’re actually coming close to the point of the article. Except it doesn’t really work with the blueberry issue because in the metaphor “blueberries” are just a stand-in for “features associated with Standard English.” In a sense, Bucholtz is saying that nerds are a group of people who have thrown off the balance between standard and nonstandard features. This (among other things, such as use of an academic register and use of Latinate terms rather than Germanic ones) marks them as different. In previously explored cases, racially marked groups are so marked because they fail to adhere to the socially expected norms of their race, not because they adhere to those norms too rigidly. That’s what makes nerds unusual, and that’s the point of the article.

Church:
I’m not even sure what the discussion is about at this point. The hypothetical -boop dialect is not grammatical for anyone, so I’m not sure how it is relevant. When I say grammatical, I’m using it in the linguistic sense: the internal set of rules we all have for our versions of our language. I think we’re using it the same way, but I wanted to be sure. There are variations in these internal grammars based on what version of our language we have learned. Number 1 up there is grammatical in some versions of English, ungrammatical in others. This is true of other expressions as well. But the question of which version of English is Standard English is determined by who speaks which version. The version spoken by people in control is what is considered Standard English. That’s why you can’t separate the idea of Standard English from race–in a world with no racial or social disparities in society, number 1 would be just as standard as the others. But since we live in this world, numbers 2 and 3 are standard, while number 1 is not. It’s not that anyone is incapable of framing the issue in other ways, it’s that there is no separating Standard English from racial disparities–they feed off of one another.

Yes, the difference between 2 and 3 would not be noticed most of the time, because it’s a (slight) difference in pronunciation, not usage. Number 1 is a bit weird (unless you’re a native french, or AAVE, or ASL speaker) becaue double negatives are counted differently in (SW/SS) english. It’s not as weird as “-boop” but it’s in the same ballpark. Well, same city. Maybe region. Point made.

Sarah, I’m with you on the berry argument. I’m thinking at this point that sociolinquists are literally incapable of framing the debate any other way.

1. “She ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
2. “She isn’t goin’ anywhere.”
3. “She isn’t going anywhere.”

(This isn’t the best linguistic format, but I don’t want to bother trying to do IPA here.)

All three are perfectly grammatical, well-formed utterances in some dialects of English. They all communicate more or less the same piece of information, and they all do it with equal effectiveness. However, #1 is nonstandard. 2 and 3 show a piece of variation, but in most registers of spoken English this variation would not be marked. There’s nothing special about it–it’s just not disfavored. That’s what I mean when I say that Standard English is only defined by the opposite.

Then Bucholtz’s word choices cloud the discussion.

“It’s about what, linguistically and to a certain extent culturally, distinguishes them from the unmarked majority.”

Framed in a much more loaded way.

My fruit analogy stripped out race as a factor because I don’t see where it’s been established that “the issue” (what distinguishes them from the unmarked majority) is inherently racial.

“merely the fact that eating only blueberries separated them out of the norm when we would expect it to be the most normal of all.”

We whom? If the norm includes a mix of blueberries and other food, why would unbalancing the mix make it *more* normal? To focus on one component (even the majority component) as the make-or-break of whether a diet fits the norm, instead of looking at the balance, seems like a misleadingly discrete way to look at the issue.