Why Be Normal By Maria Bucholtz Summary
In the article “Why be normal?”: Language and identity practices in a community of nerd girls.” Bucholtz first described what both speech community, and community of practice were? According to her definition, Speech community was a language-based unit of social analysis used in traditional sociolinguistics research. The community of practice, on the other hand, was an ethnographic, activity-based approach. In her research paper, she strongly agreed with the theory of community of practice. The reason why she strongly supported with the method was that in the process of the community of practice researchers could examine both aspects of language and society. On the other side, the speech community can solely deal with the issue related to language.
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In my point of view, Bucholtz’s criticism of speech community was very efficient.
To help me better understand her points I needed to find out some further explanations in the article. I found her reference to both Bourdieu and Certeau to be the exact thing which I am looking for. Both researchers mainly talked about the hexis and habitus (speak, walk, read, or eat) which were our individual actions utilised in socialisation. Their supports on non-linguistic methods of communication upholds Bucholtz’s argument that speech community was limited as non-linguistic methods which didn’t necessarily only involve language. In her later research she mentioned six limitations of the speech community. These limitations sorted out all of the negative aspects of speech community in the relation of conformity and standardisation. She made an excellent point because speech community was initially presumed to have unified standards built by central community members. Not everyone in the community allowed to speak out their thoughts and instead generalised by social a
stigma. I had no preference between speech community, and speech of practice, however, Bucholtz’s arguments seemed more convincing to me. Like what she mentioned in her article that other sociolinguists who studied both social factor and language couldn’t use the theory of speech community as a paradigm, and would cause some problems for these researchers. I found this part was crucial because throughout the article she gave lots of explanations on this point. The central thesis which Bucholtz wanted to pursue in her research paper was that she tried to analyse the linguistic practices of a community of female nerds at US high school. Bucholtz was very unclear about her study in the beginning. It was tough for me to follow what exactly she was trying to illustrate her points, and how she went about it. However, her further explanations clarified my confusions and allowed me to go back on track. Bucholtz was good at presenting her thesis, because in her research paper she mentioned Lobov’s statement that New York residents were all from the same speech community, and moved on she used her account to bolster the point that speech community focused too solely on language. The most exciting part of this research paper was that Bucholtz’s observations of nerd girl in a lunch conversation. Eckert separated high-school students into three different groups. Jacks were a type of students who “overachieving students who oriented to middle-class values,” and Burnouts were a type of students who “underachieving students who were bound for work, rather than college, at the end of their high-school careers.” The mean topic for the research paper was focusing on the group of nerd girls, but this type of students did not belong to either Jack or Burnouts. Nerds always defined as “uncool” student, so nerd people belong to the third type of group. She brought up how nerds were disposed to neglect cool things such as using slangs or humour things instead of intellectual terms and references. For instance, the choice of the word “knowledgeable”. This type of vocabulary was quite commonly used among the community of nerds because they wanted to show the public that they were brilliant and intelligent. I totally agreed with this point. I still remembered when I was in high school. There was a classmate of mine. At that time he was the smartest student among all of the others in our class. In his writing assignment, he would always use words which nobody would understand. I thought the most accurate reason why he used those high-standard words was that that he wanted to show his intelligence to both of his classmates and teacher. Both positive and negative practices have useful tendencies to illustrate the nerds’ choices to either declare their intelligence in the conversation or discard ignorant remarks at all. Even though she focused her study on specific nerd group, it was apparent that the identity of practices was viable in other instances.For example, In my point of view, this is just like a type of situation where a group of lawyers are conversing in a serious talk. The positive practice will be a bunch of lawyers who are constantly rebutting against each other to identify themselves as proficient lawyers necessarily. However, the negative side of the practice will be present simultaneously because they are trying their best to seem like incomplete lawyers compared to other colleagues. I realised that in this case, Bucholtz’s identity practice seemed reasonable, but confusing at the same time. I feel confused because are both positive and negative practices possible by the same person, at the same time? Is there any contradictory identity practice or such is possible because there are simply no limitations outside the speech community? Bucholtz successfully proves that normal speech community will not be able to dish out these identity practices and distinguish individual differences in each social group. Identities can’t merely explain by language only. It would be ridiculous to account the only language when there are many other social factors which are more important than the language like culture, gender, custom, etc. Action and individualism must be considered simultaneously to distinguish one’s identity successfully. I found her argument really bolstered by the end of the study, and found her research methods are advantageous.
In my point of view, Bucholtz’s criticism of speech community was very efficient.
To help me better understand her points I needed to find out some further explanations in the article. I found her reference to both Bourdieu and Certeau to be the exact thing which I am looking for. Both researchers mainly talked about the hexis and habitus (speak, walk, read, or eat) which were our individual actions utilised in socialisation. Their supports on non-linguistic methods of communication upholds Bucholtz’s argument that speech community was limited as non-linguistic methods which didn’t necessarily only involve language. In her later research she mentioned six limitations of the speech community. These limitations sorted out all of the negative aspects of speech community in the relation of conformity and standardisation. She made an excellent point because speech community was initially presumed to have unified standards built by central community members. Not everyone in the community allowed to speak out their thoughts and instead generalised by social a
stigma. I had no preference between speech community, and speech of practice, however, Bucholtz’s arguments seemed more convincing to me. Like what she mentioned in her article that other sociolinguists who studied both social factor and language couldn’t use the theory of speech community as a paradigm, and would cause some problems for these researchers. I found this part was crucial because throughout the article she gave lots of explanations on this point. The central thesis which Bucholtz wanted to pursue in her research paper was that she tried to analyse the linguistic practices of a community of female nerds at US high school. Bucholtz was very unclear about her study in the beginning. It was tough for me to follow what exactly she was trying to illustrate her points, and how she went about it. However, her further explanations clarified my confusions and allowed me to go back on track. Bucholtz was good at presenting her thesis, because in her research paper she mentioned Lobov’s statement that New York residents were all from the same speech community, and moved on she used her account to bolster the point that speech community focused too solely on language. The most exciting part of this research paper was that Bucholtz’s observations of nerd girl in a lunch conversation. Eckert separated high-school students into three different groups. Jacks were a type of students who “overachieving students who oriented to middle-class values,” and Burnouts were a type of students who “underachieving students who were bound for work, rather than college, at the end of their high-school careers.” The mean topic for the research paper was focusing on the group of nerd girls, but this type of students did not belong to either Jack or Burnouts. Nerds always defined as “uncool” student, so nerd people belong to the third type of group. She brought up how nerds were disposed to neglect cool things such as using slangs or humour things instead of intellectual terms and references. For instance, the choice of the word “knowledgeable”. This type of vocabulary was quite commonly used among the community of nerds because they wanted to show the public that they were brilliant and intelligent. I totally agreed with this point. I still remembered when I was in high school. There was a classmate of mine. At that time he was the smartest student among all of the others in our class. In his writing assignment, he would always use words which nobody would understand. I thought the most accurate reason why he used those high-standard words was that that he wanted to show his intelligence to both of his classmates and teacher. Both positive and negative practices have useful tendencies to illustrate the nerds’ choices to either declare their intelligence in the conversation or discard ignorant remarks at all. Even though she focused her study on specific nerd group, it was apparent that the identity of practices was viable in other instances.For example, In my point of view, this is just like a type of situation where a group of lawyers are conversing in a serious talk. The positive practice will be a bunch of lawyers who are constantly rebutting against each other to identify themselves as proficient lawyers necessarily. However, the negative side of the practice will be present simultaneously because they are trying their best to seem like incomplete lawyers compared to other colleagues. I realised that in this case, Bucholtz’s identity practice seemed reasonable, but confusing at the same time. I feel confused because are both positive and negative practices possible by the same person, at the same time? Is there any contradictory identity practice or such is possible because there are simply no limitations outside the speech community? Bucholtz successfully proves that normal speech community will not be able to dish out these identity practices and distinguish individual differences in each social group. Identities can’t merely explain by language only. It would be ridiculous to account the only language when there are many other social factors which are more important than the language like culture, gender, custom, etc. Action and individualism must be considered simultaneously to distinguish one’s identity successfully. I found her argument really bolstered by the end of the study, and found her research methods are advantageous.