Article published In:
Australian Review of Applied LinguisticsVol. 28:1 (2005) ► pp.1–18
“Tell me the goss ok”
Urban Indigenous girls (re)constructing norms, values and identities through email at school
Gossip has mainly been investigated as an oral discourse practice, one that serves as a mechanism to reaffirm relationships and to construct, monitor and maintain social norms and values within communities. This study investigates how a group of Aboriginal English speaking teenage girls constructed norms, values and identities in their email gossip. Adopting a communities of practice perspective and a social constructionist understanding of identity, the study draws on ethnographic data collected on the writing practices of a group of Indigenous girls in a high school program for educationally ‘at risk’ students. The findings indicate that the girls used email gossip to do friendship while constructing multifaceted identities and negotiating social norms and values relating to four themes: 1) the social practices of girls in friendship circles; 2) the physical attributes, characters and social practices of boys; 3) the relationships between girls and boys; and 4) risk-taking practices. By creating spaces in the curriculum for email writing (and gossip), teachers can make school a more personally meaningful place for ‘disaffected’ students. It can also enhance students’ writing, computer and analytical skills and raise their language awareness with respect to constructing identities needed to participate in the workplace and wider community.
References
Bucholz, M., Liang, A. C. & Sutton, L. A.
(Eds.) (1999) Reinventing identities: the gendered self in discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cameron, D.
(1997) Performing gender identity: young men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In S. Johnson & U. H. Meinhof (Eds.) Language and masculinity (pp. 47–64). Oxford: Blackwell.
Chafe, W. L.
(1985) Linguistic differences produced by differences between speaking and writing. In D. Olson, W. Torrance & A. Hildeyard (Eds.) Literacy, language and learning: the nature and consequences of reading and writing (pp. 105–123). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cherland, M. R.
(1994) Private practices: girls reading fiction and constructing identity. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
Coates, J.
(1988) Gossip revisited: language in all-female groups. In J. Coates & D. Cameron (Eds.) Women in their speech communities: new perspectives on language and sex (pp. 94–121). London: Longman.
(1996) Women talk. Oxford: Blackwell.
(1999) Changing femininities: the talk of teenage girls. In A. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang & L. A. Sutton (Eds.) Reinventing identities: the gendered self in discourse (pp. 123–144). New York: Oxford University Press.
Dobkins, R. J.
(1999) Strong language, strong actions: Native American women writing against federal authority. In M. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang & L. A. Sutton (Eds.), Reinventing identities: the gendered self in discourse (pp. 181–199). New York: Oxford University Press.
Eckert, P.
(2003) Language and gender in adolescence. In J. Holmes & M. Mey-erhoff (Eds.), The handbook of language and gender (pp. 381–400). Maiden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 
Eckert, P. & McConnell-Ginet, S.
(1992) Think practically and look locally: language and gender as community-based practice. Annual Review of Anthropology, 211, 461–490.
Eder, D.
(1991) The role of teasing in adolescent peer culture. In S. Cahill (Ed.) Sociological studies of child development (Vol. 41, pp. 181–197). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Education Department of Western Australia
(1996) Monitoring standards in education. Perth, WA: Education Department of WA.
Eggins, S. & Slade, D.
(1997) Analysing casual conversation. London: Cassell.
Everhart, R. B.
(1983) Reading, writing and resistance: adolescence and labor in a junior high school. Boston: Routeledge & Kegan Paul.
Gluckman, M.
(1963) Gossip and scandal. Current Anthropology, 41, 307–317.
Goodwin, M. H.
(1999) Constructing opposition within girls’ games. In M. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang & L. A. Sutton (Eds.) Reinventing identities: the gendered self in discourse (pp. 348–368). New York: Oxford University Press.
Grote, E.
(2004) An ethnography of writing: the writing practices of female Australian Indigenous adolescents at school. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Edith Cowan University, Mount Lawley, WA.
Gumperz, J. J.
(1982) Discourse strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hey, V.
(1997) The company she keeps. Buckingham, England: Open University Press.
Hines, C.
(1999) Rebaking the pie. In M. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang & L. A. Sutton (Eds.) Reinventing identities: the gendered self in discourse (pp. 145–162). New York: Oxford University Press.
Ivanic, R.
(1998) Writing and identity: the discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Johnson, F. L. & Aries, E. J.
(1998) The talk of women friends. In J. Coates (Ed.) Language and gender: a reader (pp. 211–215). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Jones, D.
(1980) Gossip: notes on women’s oral culture. In C. Kramarae (Ed.) The voices and words of women and men (pp. 193–198). Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Kaldor, S., & Malcolm, I. G.
(1991) Aboriginal English – an overview. In S. Romaine (Ed.) Language in Australia (pp. 67–83). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lave, J. & Wenger, E.
(1991) Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Malcolm, I. G.
(2000) Aboriginal English research: an overview. Asian Englishes, 3(2), 9–31.
Malcolm, I. G., Haig, Y., Königsberg, P., Rochecouste, J., Collard, G., Hill, A. & Cahill, R.
(1999) Towards more user-friendly education for speakers of Aboriginal English. Perth: Centre for Applied Language and Literacy Research, Edith Cowan University and Education Department of Western Australia.
Mendoza-Denton, N.
(1999) Turn-initial no: collaborative opposition among Latina adolescents. In M. Bucholtz, A. C. Liang & L. A. Sutton (Eds.) Reinventing identities: the gendered self in discourse (pp. 273–292). New York: Oxford University Press.
Morgan, M.
(1999) No woman, no cry: claiming African American woman’s place. In M. Bucholtz, A. C. Laing & L. A. Sutton (Eds.) Reinventing identities: the gendered self in discourse (pp. 27–45). New York: Oxford University Press.
Nordenstam, K.
(1996) Gossip and gender in a Swedish context. Working Papers on Language, Gender and Sexism, 6(2), 79–93.
Ochs, E., Taylor, C., Rudolph, D. & Smith, R.
(1992) Storytelling as a theory-building activity. Discourse Processes, 151, 37–72.
Pavlenko, A. & Blackledge, A.
(Eds.) (2004) Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts. Clevendon, England: Multilingual Matters, Ltd.
Smitherman, G.
(1994) Black talk: words and phrases from the hood to the amen corner. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Spindler, G.
(1963) The transmission of American culture. In G. Spindler (Ed.) Education and culture: anthropological approaches (pp. 148–172). New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Sunderland, J. & Litosseliti, L.
(2002) Gender identity and discourse analysis: theoretical and empirical considerations. In L. Litosseliti & J. Sunderland (Eds.) Gender identity and discourse analysis (pp. 3–39). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Tannen, D.
(1990) You just don’t understand. New York: Ballantine Books.
Tebbutt, M.
(1995) Women’s talk? A social history of ‘gossip’ in working-class neighbourhoods, 1880–1960. Hants, England: Scolar Press.
Waller, W.
(1965) The sociology of teaching. New York: John Wiley.
Wenger, E.
(1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
West, C. & Zimmerman, D.
(1998) Women’s place in everyday talk: reflections on parent-child interaction. In J. Coates (Ed.) Language and gender: a reader (pp. 165–175). Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers.
Wierzbicka, A.
(1987) English speech acts: a semantic dictionary Sydney: Academic Press.
Willis, P.
(1977) Learning to labour: how working class kids get working class jobs. Westmead, England: Saxon House.
Cited by
Cited by 5 other publications
Coles, Laetitia, Melissa Johnstone, Cassandra Pattinson, Karen Thorpe, Olivia Van Halen, Zhaoxi Zheng, Olivia Bayliss, Nicole Lakeman, Mark Western, Jenny Povey & Sally Staton
2023. Identifying factors for poorer educational outcomes that may be exacerbated by COVID‐19: A systematic review focussing on at‐risk school children and adolescents. Australian Journal of Social Issues 58:1 ► pp. 13 ff. 
Eckhaus, Eyal & Batia Ben-Hador
2019. Gossip and gender differences: a content analysis approach. Journal of Gender Studies 28:1 ► pp. 97 ff.
González Ybarra, Mónica & Grace D. Player
2024. Chismosas Against White Hetero-patriarchy: Chisme as a Literacy Pedagogy of Resistant Girlhood/Womanhood. Equity & Excellence in Education ► pp. 1 ff.
Grote, Ellen
2006. Challenging the Boundaries between School-sponsored and Vernacular Literacies: Urban Indigenous Teenage Girls Writing in an ‘At Risk’ Programme. Language and Education 20:6 ► pp. 478 ff.
Miczo, Nathan, Theresa Mariani & Crystal Donahue
2011. The Strength of Strong Ties: Media Multiplexity, Communication Motives, and the Maintenance of Geographically Close Friendships. Communication Reports 24:1 ► pp. 12 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.