Social marker

Last updated

A social marker is a discernible sign that gives a clue to a group identity of the person with the marker. [1] It is frequently used by members of elite to indicate their dominant position through appearance, speech, dress, choice of food, and rituals of socializing, [2] so called class markers. [3]

Contents

The markers delimit the boundaries between the social groups, connecting a person to "in-group" people like them and at the same time separating from the "out-group" ones (unlike others). [4]

Language and speech

In sociolinguistics, a social marker is a cue to the social position of the speaker provided through both linguistic (choice of language or languages, language style, accent, dialect, code-switching) and paralinguistic (voice pitch and tone) means. These clues might indicate the context of the speech, the well-known ones define the social group of the speaker: age, sex and gender, social class, ethnicity. [5] For example, an average Briton would have no problem identifying an American or Australian, and, quite likely, a native of Exeter or Liverpool through their patterns of speech. [6]

High social status is typically associated with the prestige of the standard language variety (for example, of the received pronunciation in Britain). [6] The social markers associated with the speech, along with other forms of social capital, are among the hardest to acquire [7] while moving up the social ladder. Using non-standard variety of language sometimes carries societal benefits as well, this phenomenon is called the "covert prestige".

Dress

Dress is probably the most easily observable social marker, in the 21st century it manifests itself as "really expensive" brand names. [8]

Timothy Reuter points to the crucial importance of the dress as a marker in the Middle Ages: aristocrats "were willing to risk [...] immortal souls for the sake of a sable coat" (Adam of Bremen, 11th century) while limiting the availability of expensive materials (furs, bright-colored fabric) to the rest of the population (cf. the sumptuary laws spreading in the 12th century). [8]

Appearance

In the medieval Europe nobles were easy to recognize by their appearance alone: they ate more (and better) food and were physically larger (the modern humans are much taller than medieval commoners, but about the same height as the nobles of the same times), and the sick members of nobility were mostly hidden from view (in monasteries, giving an appearance of lack of physical and mental problems among them. [9]

Teeth and (later) access to dentistry have been used as a social marker since the Neolithic age. [10]

Food

The food represents a demarcation line for the elites (caviar, champagne, goat cheese), this class marker was commented upon since the Classical Antiquity (cf. works by Mozi for the ancient Chinese perspective). Upwardly mobile group imitates the elites, so in the past the sumptuary laws were used to restrict the elite food (like porpoises or sturgeons in the medieval England) consumption by the masses. [11]

Use of tobacco

Use of tobacco and similar substances have been employed as social marker many times to delimit various groups:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Communication</span> Transmission of information

Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not only transmits meaning but also creates it. Models of communication are simplified overviews of its main components and their interactions. Many models include the idea that a source uses a coding system to express information in the form of a message. The message is sent through a channel to a receiver who has to decode it to understand it. The main field of inquiry investigating communication is called communication studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco</span> Agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana

Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus Nicotiana of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the chief commercial crop is N. tabacum. The more potent variant N. rustica is also used in some countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tobacco smoking</span> Practice of burning tobacco and breathing the resulting smoke

Tobacco smoking is the practice of burning tobacco and ingesting the resulting smoke. The smoke may be inhaled, as is done with cigarettes, or simply released from the mouth, as is generally done with pipes and cigars. The practice is believed to have begun as early as 5000–3000 BC in Mesoamerica and South America. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 17th century by European colonists, where it followed common trade routes. The practice encountered criticism from its first import into the Western world onwards but embedded itself in certain strata of a number of societies before becoming widespread upon the introduction of automated cigarette-rolling apparatus.

Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on language and the ways it is used. It can overlap with the sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hookah</span> Type of water pipe

A hookah, IPA: ; also see other names), shisha, or waterpipe is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for heating or vaporizing and then smoking either tobacco, flavored tobacco, or sometimes cannabis, hashish and opium. The smoke is passed through a water basin—often glass-based—before inhalation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sumptuary law</span> Laws controlling consumption and apparel

Sumptuary laws are laws that try to regulate consumption. Black's Law Dictionary defines them as "Laws made for the purpose of restraining luxury or extravagance, particularly against inordinate expenditures for apparel, food, furniture, or shoes, etc." Historically, they were intended to regulate and reinforce social hierarchies and morals through restrictions on clothing, food, and luxury expenditures, often depending on a person's social rank.

Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is generally distinguished by immense wealth which is passed on from generation to generation. Prior to the 20th century, the emphasis was on aristocracy, which emphasized generations of inherited noble status, not just recent wealth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Status symbol</span> Object that denotes ones social position

A status symbol is a visible, external symbol of one's social position, an indicator of economic or social status. Many luxury goods are often considered status symbols. Status symbol is also a sociological term – as part of social and sociological symbolic interactionism – relating to how individuals and groups interact and interpret various cultural symbols.

Mleccha is a Sanskrit term, referring to those of an incomprehensible speech, foreigners or invaders deemed distinct and separate from the Vedic tribes. In Vedic literature, the term is used to refer to 'non-Aryans' : foreigners who did not speak Indo-Aryan languages and those considered culturally or linguistically distinct from the Vedic or Aryan people and outside the religious and cultural sphere of Vedic dharma.

A sin tax is an excise tax specifically levied on certain goods deemed harmful to society and individuals, such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs, candies, soft drinks, fast foods, coffee, sugar, gambling, and pornography. In contrast to Pigovian taxes, which are to pay for the damage to society caused by these goods, sin taxes increase the price in an effort to decrease the use of these goods. Increasing a sin tax is often more popular than increasing other taxes. However, these taxes have often been criticized for burdening the poor and disproportionately taxing the physically and mentally dependent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torajan people</span> Ethnic group from South Sulawesi, Indonesia

The Torajan are an ethnic group indigenous to a mountainous region of South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Their population is approximately 1,100,000, of whom 450,000 live in the regency of Tana Toraja. Most of the population is Christian, and others are Muslim or have local animist beliefs known as aluk. The Indonesian government has recognised this animistic belief as Aluk To Dolo as well as Hindu Alukta, namely, a form of Hinduism in Indonesia.

In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally considered by a society to be the most "correct" or otherwise superior. In many cases, they are the standard form of the language, though there are exceptions, particularly in situations of covert prestige. In addition to dialects and languages, prestige is also applied to smaller linguistic features, such as the pronunciation or usage of words or grammatical constructs, which may not be distinctive enough to constitute a separate dialect. The concept of prestige provides one explanation for the phenomenon of variation in form among speakers of a language or languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beedi</span> South Asian Hand-Made Cigarette

A beedi is a thin cigarette or mini-cigar filled with tobacco flake and commonly wrapped in a tendu or Piliostigma racemosum leaf tied with a string or adhesive at one end. It originates from the Indian subcontinent. The name is derived from the Marwari word beeda—a mixture of betel nuts, herbs, and spices wrapped in a leaf. It is a traditional method of tobacco use throughout South Asia and parts of the Middle East, where beedies are popular and inexpensive. In India, beedi consumption outpaces conventional cigarettes, accounting for 48% of all Indian tobacco consumption in 2008.

Randall Collins is an American sociologist who has been influential in both his teaching and writing. He has taught in many notable universities around the world and his academic works have been translated into various languages. Collins is currently the Dorothy Swaine Thomas Professor of Sociology, Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a leading contemporary social theorist whose areas of expertise include the macro-historical sociology of political and economic change; micro-sociology, including face-to-face interaction; and the sociology of intellectuals and social conflict. Collins's publications include The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (1998), which analyzes the network of philosophers and mathematicians for over two thousand years in both Asian and Western societies. His current research involves macro patterns of violence including contemporary war, as well as solutions to police violence. He is considered to be one of the leading non-Marxist conflict theorists in the United States, and served as the president of the American Sociological Association from 2010 to 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoking</span> Practice of inhaling a burnt substance for psychoactive effects

Smoking is a practice in which a substance is combusted and the resulting smoke is typically inhaled to be tasted and absorbed into the bloodstream of a person. Most commonly, the substance used is the dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which have been rolled with a small rectangle of paper into an elongated cylinder called a cigarette. Other forms of smoking include the use of a smoking pipe or a bong.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social class in Cambodia</span>

The structure of social class in Cambodia has altered several times throughout its history. The traditional hereditary elites were marginalised in the 1970s, when military leaders gained prominence, before the Khmer Rouge attempted to dramatically eliminate existing class structures in the late 1970s. Since the emergence of peace in the early 1990s, social inequality has increased in Cambodia.

British Latin or British Vulgar Latin was the Vulgar Latin spoken in Great Britain in the Roman and sub-Roman periods. While Britain formed part of the Roman Empire, Latin became the principal language of the elite and in the urban areas of the more romanised south and east of the island. In the less romanised north and west it never substantially replaced the Brittonic language of the indigenous Britons. In recent years, scholars have debated the extent to which British Latin was distinguishable from its continental counterparts, which developed into the Romance languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of smoking</span>

The history of smoking dates back to as early as 5000 BC in the Americas in shamanistic rituals. With the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th century, the consumption, cultivation, and trading of tobacco quickly spread. The modernization of farming equipment and manufacturing increased the availability of cigarettes following the reconstruction era in the United States. Mass production quickly expanded the scope of consumption, which grew until the scientific controversies of the 1960s, and condemnation in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smoking in North Korea</span>

Tobacco smoking is popular in North Korea and culturally acceptable among men, but not for women. As of 2019, some 43.6% of men are reported to smoke daily, whilst in contrast only 4.5% of women smoke daily, with most of these being older women from rural areas. Smoking is a leading cause of death in North Korea, and as of 2021 mortality figures indicate that 14.2% of North Koreans die due to smoking-related causes, which is the 6th highest rate after China, Greenland, Kiribati, Denmark and Micronesia. There are tobacco control programs in North Korea, and although smoking was not prohibited in all public spaces, the smoking rates have declined since their peak in the 2000s.

In sociolinguistics, covert prestige is the high social prestige with which certain nonstandard languages or dialects are regarded within a speech community, though usually only by their own speakers. This is in contrast to the typical case of standard varieties holding widespread and often consciously acknowledged high prestige—that is, overt prestige—within a speech community.

References

  1. Pitts & Gallois 2019, "Most social markers only give an indication of group membership".
  2. Reuter 2002, p. 89.
  3. Norcliffe 2011, p. 236.
  4. Avruch 2019, p. 258.
  5. Pitts & Gallois 2019.
  6. 1 2 Vaughan & Hogg 2013, p. 528.
  7. Reuter 2002, p. 92.
  8. 1 2 Reuter 2002, p. 91.
  9. Reuter 2002, pp. 89–90.
  10. Zakrzewski 2012, pp. 137–138.
  11. Anderson 2020, p. 184.
  12. Kvaavik, von Soest & Pedersen 2014, p. 7.
  13. Danesi 1993, p. 53.
  14. Collins 2014, p. 312.
  15. Collins 2014, p. 314.
  16. Collins 2014, p. 313.

Sources

Further reading