© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���5 | doi �0.��63/ ���34638-� �340063 Journal of Jewish Languages 4 (�0 �6) 44–68 brill.com/jjl Jewish Argument Style among Russian Revolutionaries Gabriella Safran1 Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States gsafran@stanford.edu Abstract Jewish speech was heard in Russian revolutionary contexts as characterized by emphatic tones, rhetorical questions, an argumentative stance, and sarcasm, all per- formative elements of Jewish English ( JE) as well. I examine depictions of Jewish Russian ( J R) in the world of the non-Jewish Socialist Revolutionary (S R) leader Victor Chernov. This article first introduces Chernov, then analyzes his depictions of JR, and finally looks at transcripts of speeches by SR leaders for evidence of Jewish speech style. I use speech length, bold-face, exclamation points, and question marks as prox- ies for the heightened emotion and argumentative stance associated with JR. My anal- ysis indicates no significant difference between the speech of Jewish and non-Jewish SR leaders as a whole, but shows that Chernov’s own speech contains a significantly higher than average use of these elements. This result complicates the notion of eth- nolect and suggests that individuals’ evaluations of other people’s language should be examined in light of their biographies. Keywords Russian – argument style – political speech – stenography – boldface – exclamation points – question marks – applause 1  I am grateful to those who have helped me make this foray into sociolinguistics: Sarah Benor, Lazar Fleishman, Gregory Freidin, Dan Jurafsky, D. Brian Kim, Adrienne Lo, Stephen Lovell, Larry Marshall, Jim McGuirk, Jessica Merrill, Josiah Ober, John Rickford, Michael Widner, Glen Worthey, and Steve Zipperstein.