%0 Journal Article %J Journal of Linguistic Anthropology %D 2000 %T The Symbolic Capital of Social Identities: The Genre of Bargaining in an Urban Guatemalan Market %A French, Brigittine M. %K bargaining %K Barktin %K Bourdieu %K change %K genre %K Guatemala %K hegemony %K identity %K ideology %K market %K social capital %K social value %X This article examines bartering speech in a Guatemalan market as a particulartype of discourse, the genre of bargaining. It also investigates marketers' uses of that discourse as facilitating a process of negotiating their identities as social actors. The article examines, first, how the invocation of the genre of bargaining orders marketers' speech into a stable and coherent discourse; second, how the genre's connections with social, ideological, and political-economic relations invest marketers' speech with pre-established associations; and third, how marketers may manipulate social and ideological associations established by past conventions in order to negotiate the social value of their identities at present. %B Journal of Linguistic Anthropology %V 10 %P 155–189 %8 2000 %G eng