Norm and trope in social indexicality

Abstract

The concurrent lamination of distinct categorial principles in speech allows language users to interpret and create a vast range of social-interpersonal realities. Any conceivable dimension of social life – from the mental states of persons to the forms of belonging they exhibit within sociohistorical orders of caste, class, age-set, gender, commerce, or profession – can indexically be linked to features of speech, and thus enacted in interpersonal encounters. This paper discusses a range of cases in which such dimensions of social life are made manifest through social indexical effects performed and negotiated through speech. In the course of analyzing a delimited set of case studies, the paper presents an outline of the analytic tools and methods that permit the systematic study of such processes in any language community or locale.