Social marker

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]

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]

References

^ Pitts & Gallois 2019, "Most social markers only give an indication of group membership".
^ Reuter 2002, p. 89.
^ Norcliffe 2011, p. 236.
^ Avruch 2019, p. 258.
^ Pitts & Gallois 2019.
^ ^a ^b Vaughan & Hogg 2013, p. 528.
^ Reuter 2002, p. 92.
^ ^a ^b Reuter 2002, p. 91.
^ Reuter 2002, pp. 89–90.

Sources

Pitts, Margaret Jane; Gallois, Cindy (2019-05-23), "Social Markers in Language and Speech", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.300, ISBN 978-0-19-023655-7
Reuter, Timothy (2002-12-31). "Nobles and Others: The Social and Cultural Expression of Power Relations in the Middle Ages". Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe. Boydell and Brewer. doi:10.1515/9781846150111-011. ISBN 978-1-84615-011-1.
Vaughan, Graham M.; Hogg, Michael A. (2013). Social Psychology. Always learning. Pearson Higher Education AU. ISBN 978-1-4425-6231-8. Retrieved 2024-10-11.
Avruch, Kevin (2019-11-21). "Culture and Conflict Resolution". The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies. Cham: Springer International Publishing. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-11795-5_67-1. ISBN 978-3-030-11795-5.
Norcliffe, Glen (2011). "Neoliberal mobility and its discontents: Working tricycles in China's cities". City, Culture and Society. 2 (4). Elsevier BV: 235–242. doi:10.1016/j.ccs.2011.11.006. ISSN 1877-9166.