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The Whiteness of Nerds: Superstandard English and Racial Markedness
Author(s) -
Bucholtz Mary
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
journal of linguistic anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.463
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1548-1395
pISSN - 1055-1360
DOI - 10.1525/jlin.2001.11.1.84
Subject(s) - distancing , ideology , white (mutation) , sociology , norm (philosophy) , identity (music) , variety (cybernetics) , gender studies , political science , aesthetics , art , politics , law , mathematics , covid-19 , medicine , biochemistry , chemistry , statistics , disease , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , gene
Anthropological research has shown that identities that are "not white enough" may be racially marked. Yet marking may also be the result of being "too white." California high school students who embrace one such white identity, nerds, employ a superstandard language variety to reject the youth culture norm of coolness. These practices also ideologically position nerds as hyperwhite by distancing them from the African American underpinnings of European American youth culture.