Popular Speech and Social Order in Northern Mexico, 1650-1830

Bibliographic Data

ID2107792
AuthorsCheryl English Martins, Cheryl Martin (The University of Texas at El Paso, corresponding author), Cheryl English Martin
Year1990
Volume32
Issue2
Pages305-324
Publication date1990-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500016509
OpenAlexW2042780167
LanguageEN
Citations received35
References cited23

In recent years historians of Europe and North America have discovered the importance of the spoken word in past times and have explored the ways in which language reflects particular social contexts. Retrieving fragments of popular speech from police reports, court records, and other sources, these scholars have sketched colorful vignettes which reenact such mundane activities of daily life as a game of cards or an argument over a stray calf. Their work has shown that seemingly trivial face-to-face encounters offer valuable clues for understanding social hierarchies and community values of a given time and place. Abstract relationships of class, gender, and social rank take concrete form in the routine conversations of men and women in streets, taverns, and markets, as 'ordinary' people tell us about the societies in which they lived-sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly, but always in their own words. The historian of popular speech moreover recognizes that the social order, far from being static, remains subject to continuous modification not only by the powerful but also by those in subordinate positions, whose words and gestures may either reinforce or undermine accepted standards of behavior and social precedence

Aesthetics · Argument (complex analysis) · Art · Face (sociological concept) · Gesture · Linguistics · Order (exchange) · Political science · Politics · Rank (graph theory) · Social order · Social science · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Computer Science · Historical Education Studies Worldwide · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · History of Education in Spain · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy

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