The stigma enigma: When the personal (dative) is political

Abstract

This study focuses on two variably stigmatized constructions in non-mainstream English and the implications for social pragmatics of how these constructions and their users are assessed. Unlike non-standard constructions broadly viewed as “bad English”, non-polarity anymore (Gas is really expensive anymore) and personal datives (I need me a new phone) are not stigmatized within the relevant core speech communities. When noticed by out-group speakers, however, such constructions are typically judged as incorrect and their users as illiterate or uneducated. Such expressions and constructions function as both positive and negative markers of group identity. In-group speakers are sensitive to the contempt and inauthenticity of out-group “elitist” politicians and recording artists who impersonate the non-standard speakers they view as uneducated hicks. The divergent social meanings assigned to a given usage in different contexts parallel the distinct social meanings carried by ethnic and gendered slurs based on who “owns” the expressions in question and on power and status asymmetries. Extending Nunberg 2018, it is argued that the derogation associated with both slurs and appropriated constructions arises as a Manner implicature illustrating “ventriloquism”, a practice by which speakers affiliate themselves with a like-minded community of bigots and linguistic profilers.