American Anthropological Association Conference Becoming Cosmetologists: Language Socialization in an African American Beauty College Lanita Jacobs-Huey Anthropology and American Studies & Ethnicity University of Southern California November 19, 2003
Why Study Hair? Cultural Significance of Place Beauty Salon/Kitchen as Quintessential Black Women s Space Cultural Significance of Practice Hair Care Practice as Cultural and Highly Gendered events Practices and Places of Hair Care are, likewise, Important Sites of Language and Identity Socialization Cultural Significance of Hair Socio-Political Semiotics of Hair Cultural Discourse(s) around both Hair and Hair Care
Cultural Sites of Black Hair Care Home Hair Care (Oakland, CA) Beauty Salons (Oakland, CA, Los Angeles, CA) Regional & International Hair Expos (Los Angeles, CA, Columbia, SC, Atlanta, GA, London, England) Hair Educational Seminars (Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, CA, Charleston and Columbia, SC, Atlanta, GA, London, England) Christian Cosmetology Association (Los Angeles, CA) Electronic/Listserv Communities (Cyberspace) Cosmetology School (Charleston, SC) 200 Hours of Recorded Data
From the Kitchen to the Parlor: Language & Becoming in Black Women s Hair Care 6-year, multi-sited ethnographic study Explored women s talk in beauty salons, hair seminars, cosmetology schools, bible study meetings, and, more recently, black standup comedy Issues of representation often at heart of my observations and discoveries
The Cosmetology Institute: Learning from Mistakes Breaches (Garfinkel( 1967) or breaks in frames (Goffman( 1981) happen when clients or stylists act out of line or in other ways contest or subvert their respective role expectations as hair novices and hair experts Clients can break implicit frames governing client-stylist negotiations by asking too many questions (Jacobs-Huey 1996a) or actively monitoring the progression of their hairstyle
Learning from Mistakes Stylist, too, can disrupt implicit institutional scripts (Schank( & Abelson 1977) governing client-stylist negotiations Publicly or indirectly criticizing colleague s work Lexical breaches (saying curling iron versus curler ) can mitigate the professional nature of cosmetological practice Breaches often compel speakers to bracket or animate what went wrong or was supposed to happen in interaction (Schieffelin( 1990)
Learning from Mistakes Ethnographic & discourse analys- es of breach episodes reveal: How clients, c stylists, and students bracket specific linguistic exchanges Implicit linguistic ideologies about the communicative roles that distinguish service providers from service recipients in hair care Ideas about communicative stances deemed suitable for students and their clients during hair care The voices (e.g., cultural, professional) employed by clients, students, stylists in the execution and/or resolution of a breach Speakers mental states and intentions in the perpetration of a breach
Linguistic Breaches in the Field Lanita: Mrs. Collins do you plan on washing your hair today? Mrs. Collins: Do you mean shampoo? Because you wash dogs not hair.
Linguistic Breaches beyond the Field The Essay: Like Combing through My Kitchen with a Fine-Toothed Comb The Ultimate Breach: Calling My Mother Out of Her Name The Reprimand: I am not a hairdresser! I don t dress the hair. I cultivate the hair.
Insights from the Breach Language a means of constructing expert identity Professional talk as a means of socializing novices into proper discourse knowledge and roles
Reverberations across the Data Language Socialization in Cosmetology School Language Socialization in Advanced Hair Care Seminars Contending with Vulnerability: Exposing the Breach
Reverberations across the Data Language Socialization in Cosmetology School Language Socialization in Advanced Hair Care Seminars Contending with Vulnerability: Exposing the Breach
Becoming Cosmetologists Learning the Science of Hair = Learning the Professional Language of Cosmetology Students learn to abandon Cultural/Kitchen Terminology for Scientific Terminology Students learn the symbolic power of word choice and correction as a rhetorical display of one s expertise
Client-Stylist Negotiation at TCI Client: Hi, I want to get something for this bad hair day heh heh Ms. Smith: What do you want? Client: A perm Ms. Smith: A relaxer? Client: A relaxer Ms. Smith: Okay, that will be $20
Client-Stylist Negotiation at TCI Client: Hi, I want to get something for this bad hair day heh heh Ms. Smith: What do you want? Client: A perm Ms. Smith: A relaxer? Client: A relaxer Ms. Ms. Smith s Smith s rising rising intonation intonation marks marks her her reply reply as as a question; question; an an explicit explicit repair repair Ms. Smith: Okay, that will be $20
Client-Stylist Negotiation at TCI Client: Hi, I want to get something for this bad hair day heh heh Ms. Smith: What do you want? Client: A perm Ms. Smith: A relaxer? Client: A relaxer Ms. Smith: Okay, that will be $20 Ms. Ms. Smith s Smith s rising rising intonation intonation marks marks her her reply reply as as a question; question; an an explicit explicit repair repair Only Only when when client client provides provides right right answer answer is is her her request request legitimized legitimized before before all all
The Work of Correction Linguistic means of displaying expertise and socializing novices Ms. Smith s correction establishes her expertise as a stylist/teacher Ms. Smith s repair also socializes the client to respect her knowledge and use proper salon communication when making a hairstyle request The client s subsequent visit proves this socialization to be a success Breaches in preferred courses of discursive action can be actively or tacitly used to provoke repairs and, as such, act as mediators of language and cultural socialization (Mertz 1992)
Reverberations across the Data Language Socialization in Cosmetology School Language Socialization in Advanced Hair Care Seminars Contending with Vulnerability: Exposing the Breach
Language Socialization in Advanced Hair Care Seminars We are like Doctors [Transcript 1]
We are Like Doctors Language as a Mediator of Professional Identity Meta-pragmatic Ideology of Language Language as a resource in the socialization of professional beings What s at stake?
What s at Stake? Clients as Potential Competitors [Transcript 2]
Clients as Potential Competitors Dilemma: Hairstylists skill and knowledge must be constructed and is oft-contested Because clients are not dependent on stylists to the same degree as patients are on doctors, Khalif stresses the importance of obscuring clients lay knowledge and hair care skill Stylists rely on the register of medical discourse and an ideological alignment with doctors to represent themselves as experts
What s at Stake? Clients as Potential Competitors Cosmetologists expertise is subject to contestation, resistance, and ridicule
What s at Stake? Social Face Expositions on the Difficult Client She [client] steady struggling to see. I turn her chair this way, she turning against me (Deirdre, TCI Student) After Lynn (TCI student) completes a client s hair, the client picks up Lynn s curling iron and proceeds to curl her hair. After the client leaves, another sympathetic client observes, You have to be patient, huh? Lynn responds, Yeah, I have to be in my profession. The client adds, Yeah, I do too but that client tried to curl her hair with your curler! Lynn replies, Yeah, but I took it away from her.
What s at Stake? Clients as Potential Competitors Cosmetologists expertise is subject to contestation, resistance, and ridicule
What s at Stake? Hairstylists? You know ya ll ain t sh%! right? [Comedy Clip]
Black Humor as a Marker of Local Knowledge Black/ urban standup comedy as a communal forum Black comedy exposes ingroup/cultural knowledge and secrets Black comedy as counterhegemonic narrative Black comedy speaks truth to power Jokes about black stylists and black hair salons, as well as audience s laughter, reveal local knowledge
Reverberations across the Data Language Socialization in Cosmetology School Language Socialization in Advanced Hair Care Seminars Contending with Vulnerability: Exposing the Breach
Contending with Vulnerability Cosmetology Students = Vulnerable Subjects Client s challenges can = assaults on students professional face Resolution of linguistic breaches further reveal what is at stake in language and representation for student and licensed stylists
The Case of Multiple Breaches Notes from the Field Notes from the Field (See Handout, Pg. 3)
The Case of Multiple Breaches Notes from the Field (See Handout, Pg. 3) Clients distinction between cut and trim and reference to her 46 years of hair care service situate her as co-expert Ms. Collins must empathize with the client, while preserving her own professional face - even as the client threatens to subvert it High-stakes engagement before attentive audience of vulnerable and impressionable bystanders (e.g., clients and students)
The Case of Multiple Breaches Notes from the Field (See Handout, Pg. 3) Deirdre, an unratified participant, signifies on the perceived inappropriateness of the client s verbal and nonverbal behavior: Acting like she the stylist No she didn t! The client recognizes herself to be the intended target and, in turn, exposes and critiques Deirdre s interference Mrs. Collins also attempts to silence Deirdre Mrs. Collins failure to align with Deirdre is viewed by students as a stance of disloyalty
The Case of Multiple Breaches What counts as a linguistic breach? Who is responsible for the breach (i.e., client, student, teacher)? These questions become the focus of a subsequent lesson on Salon Management (Transcripts 3-4) 3
Where s the Breach? Transcript 3 Transcript 3 (See Handout, Pg. 4)
Where s the Breach? Transcript 3 (See Handout, Pg. 4) Mrs. Collins comments seem apropos to the earlier exchange involving her, Deirdre, and the disgruntled client (lines 16-20) Deirdre contests the relevance of the textbook script to interactions at the school; she feels clients unfairly exploit student labor and treat them poorly (line 21)
Where s the Breach? Transcript 4 Transcript 4 (See Handout, Pg. 5-6)
Where s the Breach? Transcript 4 (See Handout, Pg. 5-6) Deirdre invokes the case of multiple breaches and again critiques the clients perceived breach of stylists professional face (lines 41-43) Deirdre acknowledges her veiled critique of client (line 42) Mrs. Collins explicitly problematizes Deirdre s involvement (lines 44, 46)
Where s the Breach? Transcript 4 Transcript 4 (See Handout, Pg. 5-6) In particular, Mrs. Collins suggests that a clientstylist negotiation is a personal affair and Deirdre breached this implicit contract (lines 55, 57, 60, 66, 72, 75) Deirdre disavows her veiled critique of the client (lines 56, 58) Deirdre problematizes client s expert stance (lines 71, 73-74)
Where s the Breach? Transcript 4 Transcript 4 (See Handout, Pg. 5-6) Deirdre perceives Mrs. Collins to be complicit in breaching implicit linguistic protocols governing stylists conduct by occasionally obliging clients hair care requests for a seasoned cosmetologist (lines 49, 67-69, 76-91) While Deirdre and Mrs. Collins disagree on the exact nature and person(s) responsible for the breach, they broach a consensus on clients need to understand the fact that students are (still) learning (lines 93-95)
Final Remarks Language is an important mediator of stylists professional identity Lexical Choices Linguistic Ideology Language socialization is a principal means through which cosmetology students become cosmetologists and stylists affirm their membership in a shared (and ever vulnerable) community of practice Correction is but one of many means of socializing novices to respect stylists authority and knowledge
Learning from the Breach Breaches reveal the linguistic ideologies and strategies which comprise stylists face-work (Goffman( 1967) Students are socialized through and to professional identity and language use even in the violation and subsequent reconstitution of communal and institutional meta-scripts. The professional and cultural discourse strategies student and licensed stylists employ to mitigate threats to their individual and collective social face reveal implicit linguistic contracts governing their service-related related encounters.
Learning from the Breach Whether enacted by clients or stylists, unwittingly or intentionally breaches are prime occasions in which to investigate TCI students acquisition and use of professional literacies
References Garfinkel,, Harold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hill, Inc. Goffman, Erving.. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Goffman, Erving.. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday Jacobs-Huey, Lanita. 1996a. Negotiating Price in an African American Beauty Salon. Issues in Applied Linguistics, (June) Vol. 7, No. 1: 45-59. 59. Jacobs-Huey, Lanita. 1996b. Negotiating Social Identity in an African American Beauty Salon. Forthcoming in the Proceedings of the Berkeley Women and Language Group Conference (April) Berkeley, CA. Mertz, Elizabeth. 1992. Linguistic ideology and praxis in U.S. law school classrooms. Pragmatics, Vol.2., No. 3: 325-334. 334. (September). Schank,, Roger and Robert Abelson.. 1977. Scripts, Plans and Knowledge. In P. Johnson-Laird and P. Wason (Eds.) Thinking: Readings in Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schieffelin,, Bambi. 1986. Teasing and Shaming in Kaluli Children s s Interactions. In B.B. Schieffelin and E. Ochs (Eds.) Language Socialization Across Cultures (165-181). 181). Cambridge University Press.