(no subject)

[pauamma]

Marking the unmarked (term, case) sounds like a useful concept and one I'd like to know more about, but the search hits DDG gave me all either fly way above my head or are too long for my attention span or both. Does anyone know of a quick introduction to the concept and its uses?

Comments

[green_knight]

Googling for 'unmarked case' brings up a fair amount of resources, among them
Ellis (2007) Monolingualism: The unmarked case
(contains link to full text PDF) which itself briefly discusses 'unmarked state' not only in the strict linguistic but wider societal use, and gives a couple of references that may be a starting point.

[pauamma]

Thanks for that link. It looks like my search (for "marking the unmarked") may have been too specific. I'll read that paper and see if it specifically discusses that practice, or is just an example of it, as the abstract hints.

[thekumquat]

There's a lot of discussion about 'unmarked' vs 'always marked' when it comes to women's clothing in the office - a woman has many choices when it comes to coming across as ballsy, seductive, kind, no-nonsense, etc, but no equvalent to the totally-neutral male grey suit - ie no unmarked solution as every choice for women is marked (including the practically-identical grey suit).

Looking up marked clothing choices may lead to more general discussion.