Scott Fabius Kiesling is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh. [1] With the completion of his dissertation, Language, Gender, and Power in Fraternity of Young Men's Discourse, Kiesling received a PhD in linguistics in 1996 from Georgetown University, where he previously completed an M.S. in linguistics. He also received a B.A. in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. Kiesling has held previous academic positions at the University of Sydney and The Ohio State University.
The University of Pittsburgh is a state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was founded as the Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on the edge of the American frontier. It developed and was renamed as Western University of Pennsylvania by a change to its charter in 1819. After surviving two devastating fires and various relocations within the area, the school moved to its current location in the Oakland neighborhood of the city; it was renamed as the University of Pittsburgh in 1908. Pitt was a private institution until 1966 when it became part of the Commonwealth System of Higher Education.
Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise nine undergraduate and graduate schools, among which are the School of Foreign Service, School of Business, Medical School, and Law School. Located on a hill above the Potomac River, the school's main campus is identifiable by its flagship Healy Hall, a National Historic Landmark. Georgetown offers degree programs in forty-eight disciplines, enrolling an average of 7,500 undergraduate and 10,000 post-graduate students from more than 135 countries.
The University of Pennsylvania is a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is one of the nine colonial colleges founded prior to the Declaration of Independence and the first institution of higher learning in the United States to refer to itself as a university. Benjamin Franklin, Penn's founder and first president, advocated an educational program that trained leaders in commerce, government, and public service, similar to a modern liberal arts curriculum.
Scott Kiesling is best known for his studies of language and identity, particularly the construction of masculinity and gender. [2] [3] His work treats dominant social categories such as masculinity, heterosexuality and whiteness as social constructions achieved via discourse and language behavior, among other social behaviors. [4] In his work with American fraternity members, Kiesling suggests that men are expected to demonstrate both solidarity, a condition of closeness with other men, and heterosexuality, which precludes intimacy with other men. [4] [5] He suggests that one way to show these complicated relationships is through the use of "cool" language elements such as the word dude or sundry non-standard language variants. [2]
Masculinity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with boys and men. As a social construct, it is distinct from the definition of the male biological sex. Standards of manliness or masculinity vary across different cultures and historical periods. Both males and females can exhibit masculine traits and behavior.
Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between persons of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to persons of the opposite sex; it "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions." Someone who is heterosexual is commonly referred to as straight.
Whiteness studies is an interdisciplinary arena of inquiry that has developed beginning in the United States, particularly since the late 20th century, and is focused on what proponents describe as the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white, and the social construction of "whiteness" as an ideology tied to social status. Pioneers in the field include W. E. B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Theodore W. Allen, Ruth Frankenberg, author and literary critic Toni Morrison and historian David Roediger. By the mid-1990s, numerous works across many disciplines analyzed whiteness, and it has since become a topic for academic courses, research and anthologies.
Kiesling is also known for work in sociolinguistics and language variation in both American English and Australian English. For example, in a 1996 paper, Kiesling suggests that some American men use alveolar -ING tokens (e.g. walkin' rather than walking) to index power roles associated with working-class men, and indirectly with the values of hard work and physical strength. [3] Similarly, a 2005 paper finds that Greek and Lebanese speakers in Australia pronounce word-final -ER (as in brother) further back in vocal space and longer than Anglo speakers do. [6] For some speakers this backed variant is indexical of Greek identity, but in general "creates a stance of authoritative connection, a linguistic resource which is also potentially available to Anglo-Australians." [6]
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It differs from sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics. It is historically closely related to linguistic anthropology, and the distinction between the two fields has been questioned.
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. American English is considered one of the most influential dialects of English globally, including on other varieties of English.
Australian English is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. Although English has no official status in the Constitution, Australian English is the country's national and de facto official language as it is the first language of the majority of the population.
Kiesling is the author of the textbook on on sociolinguistic variation, Language Variation and Change. [7]
Variation is a characteristic of language: there is more than one way of saying the same thing. Speakers may vary pronunciation (accent), word choice (lexicon), or morphology and syntax. But while the diversity of variation is great, there seem to be boundaries on variation – speakers do not generally make drastic alterations in sentence word order or use novel sounds that are completely foreign to the language being spoken. Linguistic variation does not equate with language ungrammaticality, but speakers are still sensitive to what is and is not possible in their native lect.
Kiesling is also co-editor, with Christina Bratt Paulston, of Intercultural Discourse and Communication: The Essential Readings, a book of readings on intercultural discourse for students in sociolinguistics, anthropology, communication or other related fields. [8]
Cross-cultural communication is a field of study that looks at how people from differing cultural backgrounds communicate, in similar and different ways among themselves, and how they endeavor to communicate across cultures. Intercultural communication is a related field of study.
Anthropology is the scientific study of humans and human behavior and societies in the past and present. Social anthropology studies patterns of behaviour and cultural anthropology studies cultural meaning, including norms and values. Linguistic anthropology studies how language influences social life. Biological or physical anthropology studies the biological development of humans.
Communication is the act of conveying meanings from one entity or group to another through the use of mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic rules.
