Scott Fabius Kiesling
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
"Now I Gotta Watch What I Say":
Shifting Constructions of
Masculinity in Discourse
This article provides a description of how a member of a collegefraternity uses
particular linguistic devices to display different masculinities. It is argued that
masculinity can be understood as a repertoire of authoritative stances that
implicate a social hierarchy. Speakers select from this repertoire depending on
the speech activity and their interlocutors. Gender identity is a performance
that is understood in a complex context that includes not only the immediate
speech event, but knowledge of cultural expectationsfor gender and knowledge
of social structures.
ecent work in language and gender suggests that gender should not
be thought of as a presocial, unidimensional, or bipolar category, but
a fluid, cultural construction by social actors who use language to
"do gender" (see Bergvall et al. 1996; Coates 1997; Hall and Bucholtz 1995;
West and Zimmerman 1987). At the same time, research on masculinity has
emphasized that there are different kinds of masculinity (Connell 1995) and
that the term masculinity is itself a culture-bound concept (Hart 1994).
Though comparatively little work has focused on the role of language in
creating men's gender identity, or how men's identities differ from person
to person and situation to situation (cf. Cornwall and lindisfame 1994;
Johnson and Meinhof 1997), the recent emphasis on gender fluidity suggests that focusing on the variation within "masculinities" and "femininities" may provide a better understanding of the relationship between
gender and identity.
journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11 (2):250-273. Copyright © 2001, American Anthropological
Association.
250
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
251
In this article I investigate the linguistic strategies that one man uses to
create a multitude of identities and show how these strategies are connected
to wider cultural understandings.1 "Pete" takes up various authoritative
stances through expressions of epistemic certainty, boasts, taunts, insults,
and disagreement. However, these linguistic forms are not static repetitions
of a single strategy, but creative responses to moves by his interlocutors,
their identities, his social position, and his position in the speech situation.
Through an investigation of Pete's gender-identity shifts as he deploys these
resources, this article illuminates the processes by which language is used
to perform identities.
Although the notion that gender is a fluid construct is not new (see Freud
1949; cf. Connell 1987:27 ff), recent scholarship in this area has emphasized
how gender can be actively constructed through language. The point is
made most starkly by research on people whose biology does not match
their gender in culturally expected ways. This work, including Garfinkel
(1976), Kessler and McKenna (1978), Butler (1990), Cornwall (1994), Hall
(1995), Gaudio (1996), and Hall and O'Donovan (1996), examines how individuals in a number of cultures who would be biologically classified in
contemporary Western cultures as "male" create a "feminine"—or at least
"not masculine"—identity. This shift is not a straightforward "crossing
over/' but relies on a number of different dimensions that make up gender
identity.
These "gender blurrings" nevertheless rely on a culturally defined masculine-feminine dichotomy to help create identities of the "opposite" categories. Gender (and identity) performances are thus understood within a
particular interpretive frame, or knowledge about what kinds of interaction
are typical of members with culturally relevant identities, such as woman or
man. Such knowledge and expectations, shared by members of a culture,
give rise to the statistical regularities we find between categories, such as
"women tend to be more positively polite than men."
The tension between the regularity and expectations of gendered behavior
and its performativity echoes the tension between structure and practice
discussed by such social theorists as Bourdieu (1977) and Giddens (1984),
and linguists such as Eckert (1993, 2000) and Eckert and McConnell-Ginet
(1992). A theory of gender relations in society and the relationship between
language and gender must provide a model of how the tension between
structure and practice is resolved. One such model is that of structural coupling, an interdependent, ongoing, and mutually reinforcing process (as explained by Foley 1997, based on Maturana and Varela 1992). This view
suggests that neither structure nor performance is prior, but that each creates
and reinforces the other. I explore the nature of this structural coupling
between structure and practice through the case of one man's gender identity.
There is an emerging consensus that the nexus between structure and
practice is located in what Hymes (1974) has called the speech activity or
speech event. This view has been illustrated in analyses of language in cultures around the world, including the Kuna of Panama (Sherzer 1987), the
Kaluli of Papua New Guinea (Schieffelin 1987), children in south Philadelphia (Goodwin 1990), police officers in Pittsburgh (McElhinny 1993, 1994),
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Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
and experimentally in the United States (Freed and Greenwood 1996). Ochs
(1992) has theorized more generally about the ways that language indexes
gender through the speech activity and its constituent acts and stances. She
cites as an example Japanese sentence-final particles, in which the ze particle
is directly indexed with a "coarse" stance, and this coarse stance is in turn
indexed with "male voice" (1992:342). The cultural norms for appropriate
stances, acts, and activities mediate the cultural norms for how gender identity is "appropriately" constructed and the kinds of language used by
women and men.
Stance is thus the location of the structural coupling between performativity and structure; it is in stances that identity performativity takes place.
Stance is defined here as "the specific interpersonal relationship constructed
by talk in interaction." This definition subsumes traditional sodolinguistic
constructs such as power, solidarity, intimacy, and politeness; however, it
can also describe more specific relationships constructed by speakers, such
as "kind but firm father." Stance is sometimes used interchangeably with
the term footing, but here footing is used to refer strictly to the speaking roles
identified by Goffman (1981): animator, author, and principal. The structural
regularities of stance mean that interactants know what kinds of stances are
possible in an interaction and expect people to take particular stances. The
more permanent kind of identity is in fact a repertoire of stances, where
people of the same gender, for example, tend toward similar kinds of stances
while leaving space for individual variation (cf. Kroskrity 1993). Stances,
like identities, must also be appropriate to interlocutor and activity type
(Goodenough 1965:5).
"Masculinity" is thus a bundle of stances, which have in common a claim
to authority that puts a person at the top of some hierarchy (defined as a
rank ordering of persons in a social arena or field), whether it be the structure of an institution, the structure of society, the nature of someone's
knowledge, or the nature of someone's experience. This bundle of authoritative stances is grounded in, and reproduces, the cultural ideology of
hegemonic masculinity, an ideology that orders identities into relatively subordinate and dominant (Connell 1987, 1995): " 'Hegemonic masculinity' is
not a fixed character type, always and everywhere the same. It is, rather,
the masculinity that occupies the hegemonic position in a given pattern of
gender relations, a position always contestable
It is the successful claim
to authority, more than direct violence, that is the mark of hegemony"
(1995:77; emphasis added). This "claim to authority" is accomplished not
only through structural societal relationships (e.g., a hierarchy based on potential violence to enforce hierarchy itself), but also through face-to-face encounters. The use of different strategies and hierarchies is what distinguishes
hegemony from simple dominance.
Researchers have identified several mechanisms that are used to claim hierarchy and power in different cultures. These include:
1. Direct indexing through conventionalized markers of status asymmetry, such as honorifics (Duranti 1992; Keating 1998).
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
2. Semi-direct indexing through the use of a linguistic item associated
with a particular group, such as the pronunciation of / r / in New York
City (Labov 1966).
3. The use of speech acts or grammatical forms that presuppose, and thus
create, a hierarchical relationship between speaker and hearer(s). The
prototypical example is the use of directives to create a social order
(Goodwin 1990). Forms of such speech acts which are more bald on record (Brown and Levinson 1987) also tend to create more hierarchical
differences.
4. Indirect indexing through the use of an item that indicates a speech act,
stance, or speech activity associated with a powerful group (Ochs
1992). An example of this is the use of epistemic modality and agency to
index a confident stance that in turn indexes an expert identity (Matoesian 1999).
The interactions discussed in this article show how one man's identities
of hegemonic masculinity are accomplished using strategies from categories (3) and (4). Two main types of authoritative stance can be found: First,
simple assertion of dominance; and, second, expression of confidence. The
repertoire of linguistic strategies Pete uses includes boasts, taunts, insults,
disagreement, and direct comparisons between himself and others, though
the most important strategy is the expression of certainty and confidence
through epistemic modality and zero-evidential marking (see Fox, this issue, for a good discussion of this linguistic feature and its use for claiming
authority, responsibility, and entitlement). The hierarchies Pete uses in taking these stances can be classified as follows: (1) positions in an institutional
structure; (2) physical or mental strength, skill, or endurance; (3) knowledge
and experience; and (4) economic wealth. All of these stances are hierarchies
in that they implicitly order people by some criteria, although the criteria
may differ in each case. Crucially, however, the social alignments within
which Pete might take authoritative stances are constrained by the speech
situation and negotiated by Pete and his interlocutors. He must therefore
shift the kind of hierarchy through which he constructs his authority as he
responds to the changes of setting, his interlocutors' expectations, and his
goals for the interaction.
Method and Background
Following McLemore (1991), the college fraternity provided an ideal site
to investigate forms of men's identity. Fraternities are all-male social groups
at American universities and colleges. They are dense, multiplex networks,
with members usually drawn from similar societal groups. Fraternity men
are generally stereotyped in a number of unflattering ways with regards to
drinking, casual sex, and hazing.2 But if we consider gender and identity
to be fluid, the fraternity becomes an excellent site for understanding the
tension between cultural norms and individual creativity, because such fluidity should apply to every person's gender, not just so-called transgendered
people.
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Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
Because I was a "brother" in the same national fraternity, I was accepted
by the members as almost an insider. I was included by the men in all
aspects of the fraternity, from serious business discussions to parties.3'4 I
spent over a year attending different events and hanging out with the members throughout their day, resulting in a corpus of 37 hours of interaction:
15 hours of meetings from 11 different meetings, 11 hours of ethnographic
interviews from nine different interviews, and 11 hours of socializing (a
heterogeneous class of spontaneous speech not fitting the other two categories, including bar talk and talk while hanging out and watching television).
Lee University is a university of approximately 13,000 undergraduates in
the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.5 It is a local university
with a student body of primarily state residents (89 percent), specifically
residents of Northern Virginia (81 percent). Most Lee students live off campus (85 percent), and informal discussions with students suggest that approximately half of these students live at home. The members of Gamma
Chi Phi are overwhelmingly European American, and non-European
American members were often marked explicitly (e.g., through jokes and
nicknames such as "Punjab" and "Turk").6
The fraternity men are at a life-stage that is a transition time from adolescence to adulthood in American society. Members include those who
have plans to work single-mindedly towards corporate success and those
who have thought little about their next step in life. The university/college
provides both a last fling at adolescence and a space where students can
learn to take on "adult" responsibilities, such as time-management and independent work practices. Extracurricular activities provide an apprenticeship function, since the leaders of these student-run organizations often have
"real-world" responsibilities with significant budgets. As the younger students learn to run the organization from the older students, this prepares
them for life after the university.
The fraternity—and the "Greek" system in general—can be seen as an
institutional implementation of the broader cultural organization of hegemonic masculinity. It reproduces the societal structures of gender relations
such as hegemony, domination and subordination, as well as relations of
authorization and marginalization (see Connell 1995). In addition, the larger
Greek system of which the fraternity is a part reproduces dominant gender
ideologies, particularly the polar categorization of men and women, and
the dominance of heterosexuality. This institutionalization of hegemonic
masculinity is reinforced through both the practices and the structures of
Greek life: the kinds of activities that members engage in, and the pervasive
hierarchies of organization and constructions of social boundaries underlying these activities. Boundaries are created between Greeks and non-Greeks
by wearing certain clothing and through the selection of members during
"rush." In rush, the members judge whether a "rushee" is "a good guy,"
and the rushees have a similar chance to see if they fit in to the fraternity.7
Relations within the Greek world also constitute a pattern of hegemonic
masculinity. First, there is a strict binary organization offraternitiesand sororities, separate organizations for men and women, respectively. The ideology
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
255
and structures of competition between fraternities and sororities orders
"authorized" identities: the motto of Gamma Chi Phi is "Be Men." Gamma
Chi Phi was continually concerned with its standing with respect to other
fraternities. One aspect of the fraternity the members were most proud of,
for example, was its dominance of intramural sports: for several years they
had won the trophy for the most successful intramural sports team, and
they prided themselves on "making enemies." Competition came in other
forms as well: which fraternity had the best parties (i.e., well attended by
attractive women), and how well they did in rush (i.e., how big their "pledge
class" was).
There is also a hegemonic masculinity structure within the fraternity.
Once a student joins, he becomes a probationary member, or a "pledge."
Pledges are treated much like soldiers in a boot camp: they learn the customs
of the fraternity, are treated as if they have little individuality or autonomous
rights, and are often "feminized." The full members are thus put in a dominant position, with the pledges in a subordinate one. After becoming full
members in the fraternity, members are still considered to be unknowledgeable and in need of more instruction in the ways of the fraternity. As they
become older, they move up in a fraternity hierarchy based on experience.
There are thus several intersecting and related hierarchies that are important
to fraternity members. Among these are: age, offices held, how much service
("hard work") a member has given the fraternity, sports ability, competitiveness, hetero- and homosociability, and intelligence.
As discussed below, these hierarchies are constituted through linguistic
practices such as name calling, boasting, and insulting. This interactional
style signals the men's closeness with each other through the lack of any
attention to each other's positive face (Brown and Levinson 1987). The competitiveness thus coexists with a sense of acceptance and camaraderie that
the men value. They have already "proved themselves" to be in a hegemonic
position by passing through rush and pledging, and can relax with their
"equals" in an arena where they know they are accepted. The fraternity
also provides a way of expressing homosocial closeness without worrying
about homosexual connotations, which would threaten the men's status in
middle-class America.
The Four Faces of Pete
Pete—a short, stout, middle-class Italian American from Virginia Beach,
Virginia—was vice president of the fraternity when I began my research.
A former wrestler, he carries his body with bent elbows and arms to the
side, as if he is perpetually ready to take on an opponent. He moves and
changes positions little when he sits. This body image suggests solidity and
a physically powerful identity; his often combative demeanor fits with this
type of identity. Pete's demeanor also suggests a relaxed ease with accomplishments, as if success will come about through natural talent. Pete is part
of what might be called thefraternity's"establishment," since he has taken
the path up the hierarchy through hard work, culminating in his election
as vice president.
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Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
Election Meeting
The first excerpt is of Pete speaking in a election meeting. He is at the
time the vice president of the fraternity and is commenting on the candidates
running for vice president. As such, he has an obvious claim to power based
on his position and as an expert with knowledge about what it takes to be
the vice president. Pete makes salient his positions in the structural and
experience hierarchies of the fraternity and creates a confrontational stance
with other fraternity members, castigating them for doing less work in the
fraternity than he does. This "hard-working" stance is also authoritative in
the fraternity: a member who dedicates himself to the fraternity and works
hard in its service is regarded highly. The stances that he takes imply his
status at the top of the fraternity hierarchy, both in age and in title. They
do not go unchallenged by the audience, however, who asserts that the
claims Pete makes about the vice president position are claims about his
performance in the office rather than qualifications for the office.
Elections in the fraternity are held once a year, and follow a generic format: After nominations, all candidates leave the room, each returning for a
short speech. After the speeches, while the candidates are still out of the
room, members discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates.
This discussion itself has a structure: Each member raises his hand, and the
president, in this case, Hotdog, notes his name down. The president then
recognizes a speaker who then theoretically has the floor indefinitely. However, in practice each speaker has a tenuous hold on the floor and does not
hold it exclusively; there is constant intrusion as members react to and
evaluate what is being said.8
Below are Pete's comments on the vice-presidential candidates. He begins by explicitly making his position and his authority salient (his speech
will be presented in three parts to facilitate analysis).9
(1) 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Hotdog:
Pete:
Pete.
OK. (2.5)
As vice president I will tell you who I would like. (2.1)
'Kay this jo.b entai:ls a fuckin' hell of a lot of stress
#lemme just tell you thatrightnow#
((interlabial fricative))
?:
Jesus.
This brief section shows that Pete is explicitly putting himself in a hierarchical position of both structure (as he highlights in line 3, he holds a high
office) and knowledge (through his "informing" acts as in Line 5). In addition to baldly highlighting his official position, Pete's comments in Line 3
(and "OK" in Line 2) perform a prefacing function. This prefacing gives his
comments more weight by delaying the speaker's actual argument, much
the way extended pauses give more drama to award announcements. The
long pauses (2.5 and 2.1 seconds) following Lines 2 and 3 also add to the dramatic effect of this preface. This prefacing and pacing are characteristic of
older members who hold offices, and thus allow Pete to take an authoritative stance from the outset by indexing this group of members.
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
257
One common strategy employed by members high on the explicit hierarchies of age and office-holding is to make claims without any modal attenuation or evidence (Kiesling 1997). Another strategy used here is a syntactically iconic separation of Pete from the audience, through his addition
of "lemme just tell you that right now" in line 5. It removes him from his
audience through a separation of pronouns, and claims an expert, knowledgeable position. It situates Pete in opposition to, and more knowledgeable
than, his audience.
Next, the audience coconstructs his confrontational, boastful stance
through their own opposition. Pete takes it a bit too far, however, and is
castigated by several members.
(2) 8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Pete:
Pencil:
Pete:
Mack:
Pete:
Hotdog:
Pete:
OK. and 1 I can't see 1
1 (He'll eat 1 his way) He just eats the stress up
I-1 eat eat it dude
l(I-Icouldfuckin'?) 1
1 (hell of a lot of aggression) 1
Ask- Ask Connor dude
1
1 I suck in some stress 1
1 ((bangs gavel)) 1
1 SHUT UP
You guys don't realize the fuckin' work I have to do for
you=
17. Hotdog:
18. Pete:
19.
20. ?:
21. Tex:
22. ? :
23.
=Gohead.
And you guys don't do SHIT
And now you're fuckin' (takin')
COMEOkN
This isn't about you Pete (this is about ?)
1 Shut up du:de stop feelin' sorry for yourself.
((several others speak at once, unintelligible))
In this excerpt Pete uses speech acts such as complaining, insulting, and
bragging to create an authoritative stance, primarily in response to the audience's evaluations of his first claim.
Finally, Pete moves to the next stage of the structure, the comments about
the candidates, and returns to a structural authoritative stance based on his
status as an older member. He again begins with a kind of preface in lines
24-25. Notice the audience's relative silence during this portion of his comments, which suggests that Pete's stance is acceptable to the audience.
(3) 24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
Pete:
I'm tellin you dude
I'm telling yourightnow OK
Saul, the only reason he wants this,
Is 'cause he wants a fuckin' titlehead (05)
*or figurehead whatever* he wants a title.
Doesn't deserve it.
Can't do the work.
There's no way in hell.
Speed, (1.8.) h- he's not a fuckin'Rush he did great a great job,
it's a week long.
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Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43. ?:
44. ?:
45. Pete:
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
Hotdoe:
And he was fuckin' stressed to hell over rush,
Last Fall he had his chick do it.
And he didn't do anything to change rush, I mean
He spoke about how much he was gonna change #this do
this do this#
We've done the sa:me fuckin' thi:ng every semester.
No one's changed rush.
OK?
That 1 leaves 11 Except for 1 the stripper.
Shh chu chu chu chu
That leaves Paul Sutton and Brad Waterson.
And out of those two,
I think Paul Sutton is the only person qualified for the job,
'cause Waterson is just a little too young.
and needs to hold a position,
and prove himself,
before he does anything else.
Paul Sutton is fuckin'He's done his job.
I mean he- he has done his job
and he's done it well.
I mean yeah he fucked up on times here and there.
But he fuckin' got us some fuckin #Patriot Centers when
he got the opportunity.#
Y'know.
And he fuckin' tried to organize philanthropies that (we)
didn't go to.
So, y'know, if he didn't do his job it's my fault.
Y'know.
And I think he did a good job.
*He's #the only person I see qualified to do this job.#*
Don Conner.
In this excerpt, Pete uses several devices to index his place at the top of the
fraternity age and structural hierarchy. In the prefacing comments in lines
24-25 ("I'm tellin' you dude, I'm telling you right now OK"), Pete iconically
separates himself from the audience using first- and second-person pronouns. Furthermore, the verbs he uses create an asymmetry, with him as the
active, instructing, subject, and the audience as a passive, naive, experiencer. This sets Pete up as more knowledgeable than his listeners, and demands their attention.
Another device that demands the audience's attention is the lack of mitigation in any of his statements, which creates an air of certainty that helps
construct an authoritative stance. Notice especially his comments about Saul
in Lines 29-31: "Doesn't deserve it. Can't do the work. There's no way in
hell." Pete is also unmitigated when he discusses Paul Sutton in Lines 53-SS:
"He's done his job. I mean he- he has done his job and he's done it well."
In Lines 33-40 he displays his knowledge of fraternity history, which in
rum indexes his age and authority. In fact, the statements about rush in
Lines 39-40 are irrelevant to Pete's actual argument about Speed; they serve
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
259
almost exclusively to mark his status as an authoritative elder in the fraternity.
Two more aspects of this excerpt help Pete create this authority. First, in
line 60, Pete takes credit for Paul's mistakes: "So yicnow if he didn't do
his job it's my fault" (it is Pete's fault because one of the jobs of the vice
president is to get members to attend functions). This line indexes Pete's
authority because it puts Pete in a leadership position over PauL Finally, in
Pete's last line (the summary) he uses a syntactic frame often used by the
older members in these statements: I see X as Y. The / see creates an authoritative stance through the metaphor of being able to see clearly and wisely,
as if looking into the future. Moreover, it implies that simply because Pete
believes this to be the case, others should see what he sees.
In Excerpt (1) Pete uses a confrontational and boastful stance to create a
hierarchy with the audience. In Excerpt (2), he constructs authority through
his ability to handle stress and work hard, while in Excerpt (3), he takes
the stance of an older, wiser member, with a knowledge of bom the candidates, the job, and the fraternity. The next situation finds Pete in a much
more fluid, and less serious, situation, although he still manages to stay at
the top of any hierarchy he is challenged with.
Monopoly Game
The Monopoly game is very different from the meeting: there are only
three interlocutors (Pete, Dave, and Boss), any one of whom may claim the
floor. There is no set agenda, and the Monopoly game is for amusement
and camaraderie rather than "business." Moreover, the game is the focus
of activity, or at least a catalyst for talk. Game events affect the speakers'
"game selves" (their fictional characters in the game narrative), providing
resources for stance-taking and playful talk.
Pete displays a mastery of deflecting verbal challenges in this conversation. His most effective strategy in meeting such challenges is to change the
hierarchy of competition, by boasting about his success on a different hierarchy than the one on which his opponents originally criticized him. The
talk here is the kind of competitive play talk mat has been observed in
many male groups (e.g., Kochman 1983; Kuiper 1991; Labov 1972; Leary
1980). It is in such games that boys learn how to perform hegemonic identities, as play is often rehearsal for "real life." In the meeting, Pete is attacked
by the audience for boasting and insulting, while in the Monopoly game
we will see that his boasts and insults are all part of the game, a verbal
sparring that goes on in parallel with the competition on the game board.
Pete seems to relish this sparring and is quite skilled at it. Dave, on the
other hand, seems to struggle to keep up with Pete, alternately playing
down Pete's taunts, acknowledging them, and challenging them. Boss says
little and does not comment on Pete's boasting.
It is a Sunday afternoon at the townhouse where Pete lives, a center of
social activity for Gamma Chi Phi. Several members of the fraternity have
come over to watch football. Pete, Dave, Boss, and I are sitting at the dining
room table (within view of the television), and the three members are playing
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Journal of linguistic Anthropology
the board game Monopoly.10 In the first excerpt, Pete lands on one of Dave's
properties, and after some negotiation, does not pay rent because he has a
free pass.11
(4) 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Dave:
Pete:
Boss:
Dave:
Pete:
Dave:
Pete:
Dave:
Pete:
Dave:
((Pete rolls, moves))
Nice. Pay me. (2.3)
I can't. Aren't you in jail or something? Don't I not have to
pay you this time?
1 Free pass. 1
You 1 got a 1 free pass. He's got one more.
No that's your last one.
I have one more.
I've got one left.
No that's it.
I have one left. I've only used two.
That'sright.And these over here. OK.
The deal was for fi'.ve.
God damn I needed that money too you son of a bitch.
((Dave rolls))The deal was for TWO.
(4.3)
I present this excerpt primarily as context for the next two, but there are a
few aspects to note as the players position themselves. Dave and Pete have a
dispute about whether Dave has to pay, and Pete "wins" the dispute, as his
interpretation of the state of affairs holds sway. This ability to determine the
outcome of events is the very definition of power, and Pete is therefore at the
top of a hierarchy. In the next excerpt, he takes up a fictional "game identity," drawing on the fact that he is metaphorically staying at Dave's property rent free:
(5) 17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
Pete:
Boss:
Dave:
Pete:
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
Boss:
Pete:
Dave:
Hi: hi: hi: honey I'm home.
I'm gonna blow by Daverighthere.
((Boss rolls))
Fuckin' so awful.
I know its fuckin't- tumin wheels and shit in your parking
lot.
(2.5)
((Pete makes car squealing noises as he moves the car
marker))
Go Pete.
And my horse has left a big shit right on your property.
Big tur.drightthere.
Alo:ng with the money.
((Pete moves))
(9.0)
Pete's taunt in Line 17 constructs and reflects dominance relations in the
larger society, especially domestic relationships between heterosexual partners. Pete uses the phrase "Hi honey I'm home" to take on a fictional role
of a stereotypical American husband greeting his housewife upon returning
home from work. I informally asked several of the men, including Pete,
what the phrase suggested to them (without telling them the context), and
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
261
almost all suggested this interpretation. A smaller majority said the phrase
brought up a picture of a 1950s husband arriving home from work, and
cited the fifties sitcom Leave It To Beaver as the paradigmatic example. Within
the game, this move focuses attention on Pete's game status: he is "staying"
rent free on an expensive property, and Dave must provide him "hospitality," so Dave is a kind of unpaid servant. By assigning roles in a well-known
cultural script, with himself in the authoritative husband role and Dave in
the subordinate wife role, Pete achieves a dominant hierarchical position
over Dave. This practice of assigning subordinate women's roles to others
is common among the fraternity men, especially in this kind of competitive
camaraderie (see Kiesling in press). Pete's statement thus reinforces societal
gender inequalities, since his statement makes little sense unless the interlocutors share the cultural model. As Hill (1995) has shown, jokes are often
powerful, if covert, vehicles to perpetuate hierarchical relationships in society.
In the exchange that follows, we see Dave admit that this event puts him
at a disadvantage in the game. Pete builds on this game situation and figuratively creates other mininarratives in the game world, using the shapes
of the game pieces (car and horse) as cues. In this world, Dave is again put
into the subordinate position; Pete claims a dominant position for Boss by
saying that Boss's car is turning wheels in (i.e., vandalizing) Dave's parking
lot, thereby creating a stance for Boss against Dave (in Line 20). Thus we
can see a social structure being created by the talk around the game, both
in meta-comments about the rules, as in Excerpt (5) and in elaborated images
of the game world, as in Excerpt (6). Pete exemplifies a hegemonic masculinity in all these fields, while Boss presents what Connell (1995) calls a
complidt masculinity (not hegemonic, but benefiting from dominance relations and allied with hegemonic masculinities), and Dave a subordinate one.
These alignments are continued in the final Monopoly game section.
Here the hierarchy revolves around the amount of money each player has
accumulated. Pete is challenged by Dave, but cleverly redefines Dave's
challenge as a boast about his ability to come back from almost losing the game.
(6) 30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
Pete:
Dave:
Pete:
Dave:
Pete:
Dave:
PeteDave:
Pete:
Dave:
Pete:
((Pete moves))
(9.0)
Two hundred.
(2.0)
Boss do you have some hundreds?
How much- do I owe you?
Five fifty.
That is just piss poor rent is what that is. Fi:ve fifty. That isEvery little bit helps,
pocket change my friend pocket change.
Listen to the man now he's talking shit.
I remember about six turns ago he had no:flow:whatsoever.
Had I eight dollars. I
I Mortgage I everything
Had eight dollars man. I want you to give me the red, man.
In this excerpt, Pete shifts the hierarchy on which he constructs an authoritative stance twice, through boasts at Lines 37 and 42. In each case, Pete
262
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
uses the challenges presented by Dave as material for his boasting. In Line
36 Dave finally gets some rent from Pete (and $550 is a high rent in Monopoly), but Pete turns this around to point out that he has so much money
that this is nothing to him. This move highlights his position on an economic
hierarchy. Then Dave tries to point out how poor Pete was only a few turns
previous, and Pete agrees, implying with pride that only had eight dollars
a few moments before.12'13 Pete thus refigures his previous poverty away
from its low spot on an economic hierarchy to a high place on a (Monopoly-playing) skill hierarchy.
Although Pete is consistently boastful and confrontational in these excerpts, he shifts the hierarchy on which he bases his boasts a total of at least
three times. First, he is dominant in a dispute about the state of the game.
Next, with single phrases he creates entire imaginary worlds, based on the
"game world," in which he is dominant. Finally, he creates a dominant
position for himself in the game per se, as the player with the most money
or the most skill in getting it. Some of these shifts are in response to Dave,
who seems to be trying out different strategies in his responses.
The differences in language use are heightened by the differences in body,
voice quality, and role in the fraternity. Dave is tall and thin, and speaks
softer than Pete. He thus does not immediately project a physically powerful
image, which Pete does. He is also not as loquacious as Pete. For example,
whereas Pete often speaks in meetings, Dave speaks only occasionally. Dave
admits to setbacks, such as when Pete does not have to pay rent. And
instead of threatening or taunting back, he calmly suggests mat he is going
to get some money despite the actions of Pete's horse.
In sum, Pete deftly changes the field on which he takes an authoritative
stance as he negotiates his position with Dave. While the genre I have investigated is play, it nevertheless gives us a window into more "serious"
genres. Compare Pete's boasting in the meeting with that of the game: in
the former his claim to authority using boasts was unsuccessful, while the
latter was successful. But in the meeting Pete still managed to create an
authoritative stance through other means. In addition, we have seen that
the identity that a man tries to create can fail to be authoritative. In the
Monopoly game, Pete successfully creates a powerful identity at every turn,
turning even what should be a "setback" (paying a high rent) into a chance
to boast about how much money he has. Dave cannot say anything that
Pete does not turn into an opportunity for boasting, even though Dave takes
several lines of "attack."
I played this excerpt for another member, Mack, whose comments upon
hearing this excerpt provide telling insight into what is going on. First, Mack
commented that this type of competitive, boasting, and insulting banter is
central to the social life of the fraternity, noting that it goes "only skin deep."
He noted, however, that some members get picked on more than others,
because they are perceived as targets: "People get relegated to a position,
because they can't stand up in the beginning." Dave is one of these members. Mack said that Dave is a "designated welcome mat" who "gets stepped
on the most." Dave seems to have a fraternity role as the one who gets
picked on, largely because he is not skilled at this particular speech genre.
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
When he listened to the Monopoly excerpt, Pete found the conversation
to be normal, and indeed, very humorous. In contrast, he was serious and
even regretful about his behavior when he listened to the tape of the meeting. Even though he is confrontational in both activity types, Pete recognizes
that boasting and insulting are more appropriate for "just hangin' out." This
fact suggests that Pete may have been simultaneously indexing another activity type besides the meeting (or trying to reframe the activity type; see
Tannen 1993). The role he indexes, while creating a confrontational stance
and a competitive role, also indexes the competitive camaraderie typical of
the men's discourse when they socialize with each other. In fact, Pete may
have considered Pencil's sarcastic interrupting statement in line 9 of Excerpt
(2) ("He just eats the stress up") to be an opening to one of these boasting
contests, and thus continued in this vein. Pete's particularly confrontational
boasting in the meeting, appropriate in an activity type with a "play"
frame/key, but not in the meeting's "business" frame/key, can thus be explained by a momentary mixing of activity types. However, the mismatch
and negative reaction of the audience in the meeting to his aggressive boasting show that different ways of manifesting powerful identities are appropriate for some situations, but not others, and that strategies cannot be chosen from a list at random.
Maggie's Bar
In this section, we see Pete shift discourse strategies during an activity
because of a change in the participants. Pete is sitting in a bar with me and
another member's friend from home. After a short time, a woman (Jen)
comes in, and Pete's language changes dramatically. In these excerpts we
get a view of the different identities Pete constructs for male and female
friends.
In the first episode, which takes place before Jen comes in, Pete is subtly
confrontational by playing down the significance of Dan's utterances. The
excerpt begins during a conversation about a party at Pete's house later that
night.
(7) 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Dan:
Pete:
Dan:
Pete:
Dan:
(You got) a keg?
(?)
BYOB? ((Bring Your Own Beer))
IS it really?
That's what it always is at our place man
except for once in a whi:le.
An' everybody just comes over there gets wasted.
fuckin' sits around,
plays caps or whatever, ((caps is a drinking game))
I love play in'caps.
That's what did me in last-1 last week.
I that's- I
Everybody plays that damn game, dude.
(1.5)
Y'know who's good is: Nell?
(1.0) *Is good uh*
263
264
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
Pete:
Dan:
Pete:
Dan:
(1.3) ((snapping))
What's his name.
The marine guy.
What's his name?
Griceman?
Yeah.
He's good. (0.8)
Everyone's: (.) all right.
Everyone's pretty good.
1 Just depends on how 1 wasted you are.
l(?? awful) 1
Throughout this excerpt, Pete takes a stance of "informed native/' saying
we always do X (Line 5), or everybody does X (Lines 7 and 13). He thus creates
an authoritative insider role, putting himself at the top of a social hierarchy
(which in this case is an "inner circle"). Pete continually plays down Dan's
comments through his use of everyone, everybody, and always (Lines 5,7,13,
24, and 25). This use of everybody and just implies that these practices are
common occurrences, and that Pete (or at least his house) is at the center of a
social milieu.
A short time later Jen, a sorority member, walks in. After greeting Pete,
she goes to talk with some friends at another table, and then returns to our
table. As she returns, Pete remarks, "Now I gotta watch what I say." After
Pete introduces me and Dan to Jen, Jen and he begin a conversation. Pete
continues his nonchalant stance, but his intonation range becomes narrower, and his utterances shorter.
(8) 93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107.
108.
109.
110.
Jen:
Pete:
Dan:
Jen:
Dan:
Pete:
Jen:
Pete:
Jen:
Jen:
Pete:
Jen:
Pete:
111. Jen:
112.
113.
114.
115.
Pete:
Jen:
Pete:
Jen:
116.
117. Pete:
God I haven't been here in a long time.
Um, what time do have to leave?
Do you really have to go to class?
lYes.
1 Can we have another glass? ((to waiter))
You do?
No rush, ((as if to waiter, who had been slow))
What time is it?
I'm parked over there is that OK?
(?)
Six twenty-five
Forty five?
Twenty-five.
What time do you have to leave?
I have to leave by seven.
No:. Seven fifteen. (.)
Do you have a test in your class?
Yes.
Oh well then OK (?)
I'll leave at (.) ten after.
Greta's coming here too.
Greg?
No.
Y'knowwhat-?
Greg was s'posed to come.
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
118.
119.
120.
121.
122.
123.
124.
125.
126.
127.
128.
129.
130.
131.
132.
133.
134.
135.
136.
137.
138.
Jen:
Pete:
Dan:
Pete:
Dan:
Jen:
Pete:
Jen:
Pete:
Jen:
Pete:
Jen:
Pete:
Jen:
Pete:
265
Alex called, was like
Can you tell Greg to urn
he owes us a hundred an twenty dollars for his bills.
I was like he doesn't live here now.
(3.1)
(Guess that's Greg's problem.)
You want another one?
Yeah I want another one. Huh.
(3.7)
I told him to get you a glass.
(I got kicked outta here one time)
Why? Were you being obnoxious and rowdy?
Oh: my God. I can't tell you how drunk I was.
Don't even remember anything.
Shouldn't drink so much.
Are they gonna card me? (.)
Huh?
Are they gonna card me?
Pro I bably. I
I I'm I nervous, he ha
I wouldn't worry about it too much.
Because of Pete's comments, we know that Jen's presence will make a difference in the way he talks. Pete told me that he and Jen had dated in the
past, so each was likely to be performing identities that they hope are sexually desirable to the other. Pete now shows the inexpressive face that Sattell
(1983) discusses. Notice in Line 96 Pete's very short answer to Jen's question
about him going to class. Later in the conversation (Lines 109-110), we find
out that he has a test in his class. But in Line 96, Pete does not volunteer this
information. He just says "yes/' indicating that the decision isfinal,no justification needed. Compare this answer to Pete's answer to Dave's question
about "BYOB" in Line 5 ("That's what it always is at our place man"), which
provides much more justification.
Pete takes a paternalistic stance toward Jen. His question in line 129 is
paternalistic because the utterance has a singsong intonation, with an exaggerated final rise, as well as a more precise articulation (less coarticulation,
deletion, and vowel reduction) than his other utterances. These qualities
give the utterance a "parentese" quality, which positions Jen as a child, and
Pete as the father (the authority in a stereotypical middle class American
familial hierarchy). After Jen's explanation, Pete quietly, and ironically, tells
her she shouldn't drink so much (as he drinks several glasses of beer before
an exam). Pete also creates this paternalistic stance with his reassurance in
line 138, another speech act that indexes a parent-child relationship. All of
these statements create an impression of paternalistic protection: confidence,
knowledge of the world, and suggestions for better behavior.
This excerpt parallels some of the meeting speeches made by other men
(see Kiesling 1997) in an intriguing way. In the meeting, one of the strategies
members used to create an authoritative identity was to appear as a wise
elder or father figure, displaying knowledge about the fraternity and using
that knowledge to give advice. Here Pete is creating a similar identity with
266
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
Jen. The stance Pete creates is also similar to the stance of problematizer
and primary recipient, roles most often identified with the father in Ochs
and Taylor's (1995) study of family interaction in white, middle-class America. There is thus a connection here between the "father knows best" cultural
model and Pete's interaction with Jen.
Another device Pete uses in this excerpt with both Dan and Jen is the
dropping of the subject of a sentence (Lines 26 and 132). This device adds
to Pete's inexpressiveness by using the minimal amount of words to express
his ideas. Both instances are used at points where Pete is creating an "in
control" identity. In Line 26 ("just depends on how wasted you are"), Pete
is an expert on caps. In line 132, he's a counselor ("shouldn't drink so
much").
Upon hearing this excerpt Pete was tentative about his motivations for
his "inexpressive" behavior with Jen, saying "I guess I didn't want to have
a conversation [with Jen] in front of you guys." But Mack characterized
Pete's behavior as typical for Pete, who, said Mack, is always different
around women. Mack believes Pete's voice becomes a little deeper, and Pete
goes into "shut down mode," in which he tries to act like a "calm, cool,
got-his-shit-together guy." This observation suggests that this stance is one
in a repertoire of stances for Pete, and is used only in a particular speech
setting.
The two parts of this excerpt illustrate the ways in which a man uses
language to modulate his identity with respect to the audience. In both parts
of the excerpt, though, Pete is the expert. He creates a stance in both situations that puts him at the top of a hierarchy, based on his superior knowledge of a group (his social circle) or the world at large- However, with Dan,
he has more intonational range and more phatic discourse particles such as
man, dude, and fuckin'. With Jen, he uses a narrower intonation and uses
fewer modifiers of any kind (including adjectives and modals). Thus, he is
"authoritative" throughout (focusing on knowledge power), but he is "inexpressive" when speaking to the woman. Jen's role in keeping up a steady
stream of questions and comments allows Pete to interject minimal amounts
of information (cf. Fishman 1983), underscoring how interlocutors help to
coconstruct a complementary stance and identity (Goodenough 1965). This
difference between Excerpts (7) and (8) shows that the hierarchies at the
top of which Pete places himself are different with each interlocutor. With
the man, he shows his knowledge of—and central position within—his social
group, but with the woman, he orients himself towards the world at large,
and presents himself as a wise, authoritative, unemotional (father) figure.
Interestingly, there are parallels between Pete's syntax when speaking to
Jen and when speaking to the fraternity in a meeting. Both times he uses
bald assertions without justification or elaboration, which suggests that Pete
is creating similar stances in terms of knowledge and authority. Indeed, in
both situations he seems to create an identity based on worldly wisdom and
experience. This similarity may atfirstseem paradoxical since the two settings
are so different in terms of formality, but when we consider society's ordering of women and men in terms of authority, it is not surprising: Such an
ordering is identified as the most important aspect of hegemonic masculinity,
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
267
and central to the hierarchic ideology of the fraternity, which puts the men
of the fraternity at the top. Pete's everyday identity construction thus reproduces on a local level the ideologies of the fraternity and society as a
whole.
Conclusion
In these four situations, we have seen Pete deftly shift the hierarchies on
which he creates a dominant, or hegemonic, identity. But this microscopic
window into Pete's "doing gender" has also revealed how this fluidity of
identity is restricted: Pete's attempts to create authoritative stances were not
always accepted by his interlocutors. In addition, he continually shifted his
stance within a conversation as the social alignments of hierarchies were
negotiated (e.g., in the Monopoly game and in the bar with Dan). His stances
were thus responses to the speech situation and the reactions of his interlocutors.
But while the identities presented by Pete were fluid, there was also a
remarkable consistency in the way Pete relentlessly put himself at the top
of a hierarchy. This consistency suggests that we must find some way to
reconcile the local and interpersonal fluidity of identity with the cultural
constraints placed on identities that lead to probabilistic similarities among
members of culturally defined identity types. Thus, we have to understand
that while gender is in theory infinitely fluid, in the practice of most people's
lives, it is constrained by cultural models: for men's identity, women's identity, middle-class identity, fraternity identity, etc.
The hierarchies created by Pete can all be connected to cultural models
of men in North America: the corporate or military leader implicates a structural or economic hierarchy, a "working class hero" implicates a physical
strength hierarchy (see Kiesling 1998), a "father knows best" model implicates a knowledge/experience hierarchy, and a sports star implicates a skill
hierarchy. These models can also in turn index other hierarchies: Pete created a structurally authoritative stance when he created husband- and
fatherlike stances in the Monopoly game, and with Jen. We thus see how
this system of language-stance-hierarchy-cultural model creates feedback
loops within interactions, so that the cultural models are not simply something "out there" that speakers invariably index, but something that speakers help create. For example, by using the "Hi honey I'm home" phrase to
index a specific kind of family, Pete keeps this model alive and makes it
valid. Here then is the connection between structure and practice: the fact
that the indexing of a cultural model is not ever wholly a presupposing one
(see Silverstein 1976), because through its very use, the model is reinforced
and (re)created. This is the feedback loop that allows the structural coupling
between gender practice and gender structure to happen.
What we characterize as "masculinity," then, can be thought of as a repertoire of stances connected with hierarchies and cultural models. Speakers
select from this repertoire depending on the speech activity and their interlocutors. The linguistic devices found probabilistically and sometimes stereotypically associated with genders are due to expectations about the kinds
268
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology
of repertoires that people wish to perform, within the constraints of available
cultural models. Gender identity is a performance that is understood in a
complex context that includes not only the immediate speech event, but
knowledge of cultural expectations for gender and knowledge of social
structures.
Notes
Acknowledgments. A much abbreviated form of this article was given at the 1995
AAA Annual Meeting. I wish to thank that AAA audience, Bob Connell, Alessandro
Duranti, Ralph Fasold, Judith Irvine, Roger Shuy, Deborah Tannen, Julie Vanneman, and two anonymous reviewers for valuable suggestions, but I take full responsibility for errors of all kinds.
1. I use the term identities and men's identities rather than masculinity because of
the problems of the latter term identified above. In addition, identities captures the
fact that gender interacts fundamentally with "other" aspects of a person's identity,
such as class and ethnicity.
2. Hazing is the practice of putting a potential member in danger of mental or
physical harm or requiring illegal activity during initiation activities.
3. Members from other chapters are always outsiders to some extent, as they do
not have the close personal connections of other members and have not participated
in the local initiation rituals. The initiation ritual boundary marker was made clear
to me when one brother suggested that their initiation practices were "harsher" and
more difficult than I was subjected to in my local chapter.
4. I was thus doing ethnography largely in my "native" environment. As a
number of ethnographers have pointed out, there are both positive and negative aspects of doing "insider" ethnography (see particularly Eckert 1989; Dunk 1991; and
the papers in Messerschmidt 1981). I entered thefraternity(which I will call Gamma
Chi Phi) as a middle-class, European American, male member of the same national
fraternity. However, there were also a number of significant cultural differences between these men and me. I was at a very different life-stage, being between five and
ten years older than the men and engaged to be married (and later married). Second,
I was in afraternityat a private university in a big city, as opposed to a state school in
the suburbs. I was also a graduate student, while none of the men in the fraternity
ever expressed an interest in academia as a career choice. Thus, when I began the
ethnography, I found their world quite different from mine and it took me a while to
get over this slight shock and to leam the interactional norms of their culture.
5. All figures are from the 1993-94 student handbook; all names (school, fraternity, and people) are pseudonyms.
6. Of the 33 members as of Fall 1994, four were from Middle Eastern backgrounds
and one from a Korean background
7. The rush process for sororities is somewhat different, but the differences are
not relevant here. See McLemore (1991) for a description of the rush process in
Texas, which is essentially the same as at Lee University.
8. The election is between four members: Speed Farmer, an older member who
has held the position of rush organizer; Saul Larousse, a second-year member who
has held a few offices, but who has a reputation as being "belligerent;" Paul Sutton,
another second-year member who has held the jobs of philanthropy and fundraising chair; and Brad Waterson, a newly initiated member who has held no positions.
Sutton won the election.
9. Transcription conventions (a slightly modified version of those introduced by
Gail Jefferson for conversation analysis) are as follows:
Shifting Constructions of Masculinity
I I
=
(2.5)
#
IS
*
:
,
?
(You got)
((snapping))
269
Bounds simultaneous speech.
Connects two utterances produced with noticeably less transition
time between them than usual.
Silences timed in tenths of seconds.
Bounds passage said very quickly.
Uppercase letters indicate noticeably loud volume.
Bounds passage said at low volume.
Indicates that the sound that precedes is cut off, stopped suddenly
and sharply.
Indicates the sound that precedes it is prolonged.
Indicates a slight intonational rise.
Indicates a sharp intonational rise.
Transcript enclosed in single parentheses indicates uncertain
hearing,
Double parentheses enclose transcriber's comments.
10. Monopoly is a game in which players move pieces around a square board,
landing on squares that are "properties" (modeled after Atlantic City, New Jersey).
A player may buy the property if no other player has yet done so, using play money
each receives at the beginning of the game. If the property is bought, the player who
lands on it must pay rent to the owner. Properties are organized into colored groups;
if a player acquires all properties in a group, then he has a monopoly. A monopoly
raises the rent on all properties in the group, and gives the owner the right to buy
houses or hotels on the properties, which increases the rent of the properties still
more. The object of the game is to bankrupt all the other players. It is thus very competitive and players can evaluate how well they are doing by the amount of money
they currently have.
11. Free passes are agreements between players that exempt one player from
paying rent on another's property, usually given in exchange for a property.
12. Pete is also just having fun with language here, playing with the alliteration of
labial consonants in piss poor, five-fifty, and pocket change. Here again we see the function of the talk in the game as parallel to the purpose of the game itself, which is simply to have fun.
13. Boss ends up getting the red property and eventually wins the game.
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