Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1994 08:54:49 -0400

From: BHOWARD BHOWARD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU

Subject: Re: Language and Status: Working Girl



Jennifer, the Melanie Griffith/Harrison Ford movie *Working Girl* is one that

today's students are still familiar with, and it works powerfully in a

sociolinguistics class on language and status. In the movie, Griffith is a

working class New Yorker who tries to improve her language by attending speech

classes and listening to (and mimicking) a tape of her upper-class boss's

speech. Finally she gets the right haircut and "borrows" the right clothes,

and voila! she is taken for a corporate executive. Meanwhile her buddy, played

hilariously by Joan Cusack, resolutely refuses to change and tells Griffith

that she talks fine and shouldn't try to change. As the movie progresses--and

as Griffith's status progresses--the contrast between the two becomes

increasingly sharp.



Becky Howard BHOWARD[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CENTER.COLGATE.EDU

Department of Interdisciplinary Writing

Colgate University, Hamilton NY 13332

Voice (315) 824-7315; FAX (315) 824-7121