Scott Fabius Kiesling is a professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pittsburgh. With the completion of his dissertation, ''Language, Gender, and Power in Fraternity of Young Men's Discourse'', Kiesling received a PhD in linguistics in 1996 from Georgetown University, where he previously completed an M.S. in linguistics. He also received a B.A. in linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1989. Kiesling has held previous academic positions at the University of Sydney and The Ohio State University. Scott Kiesling is best known for his studies of language and identity, particularly the construction of masculinity and gender.Kiesling, Scott F. 2004
Dude
American Speech 79(3). 281-305.Kiesling, Scott F. 1996. Men's identities and patterns of variation. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 3(1). 171-196. His work treats dominant social categories such as

masculinity Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...

heterosexuality Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to ...

and whiteness as social constructions achieved via discourse and language behavior, among other social behaviors.Kiesling, Scott F. 1997. From the 'margins' to the 'mainstream': Gender identity and fraternity men's discourse. Women and Language 20(1). 13-17. In his work with American

fraternity A fraternity (from Latin language, Latin ''wiktionary:frater, frater'': "brother (Christian), brother"; whence, "wiktionary:brotherhood, brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club (organization), club or fraternal ...

members, Kiesling suggests that men are expected to demonstrate both solidarity, a condition of closeness with other men, and heterosexuality, which precludes intimacy with other men.Kiesling, Scott F. 1998. Men's identities and sociolinguistic variation: The case of fraternity men. Journal of Sociolinguistics 2(1). 69-99. He suggests that one way to show these complicated relationships is through the use of "cool" language elements such as the word ''dude'' or sundry non-standard language variants. Kiesling is also known for work in

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...

and language variation in both

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...

and

Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Engli ...

. For example, in a 1996 paper, Kiesling suggests that some American men use alveolar -ING tokens (e.g. ''walkin rather than ''walking'') to

index Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...

power roles associated with

working-class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

men, and indirectly with the values of hard work and physical strength. Similarly, a 2005 paper finds that Greek and Lebanese speakers in Australia pronounce word-final -ER (as in ''brother'') further back in vocal space and longer than Anglo speakers do.Kiesling, Scott F. 2005. Variation, stance and style: Word-final -er, high rising tone, and ethnicity in Australian English. English World-Wide 26(1). 1-42. For some speakers this backed variant is indexical of Greek identity, but in general "creates a stance of authoritative connection, a linguistic resource which is also potentially available to Anglo-Australians." Kiesling is the author of a textbook on sociolinguistic variation entitled ''Language Variation and Change''.Kiesling, Scott. 2011. Language Variation and Change. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kiesling is also co-editor, with Christina Bratt Paulston, of ''Intercultural Discourse and Communication: The Essential Readings'', a book of readings on intercultural discourse for students in

, anthropology, communication or other related fields.Kiesling, Scott F. & Christina Bratt Paulston. 2005. ''Intercultural Discourse and Communication: The Essential Readings''. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing.

External links

Scott Kiesling

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiesling, Scott Kiesling, Scott Sociolinguists Living people University of Pittsburgh faculty Year of birth missing (living people)