Language and Social Identity

Language and Social Identity PDF Author: John J. Gumperz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521288972
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Throughout Western society there are now strong pressures for social and racial integration but, in spite of these, recent experience has shown that greater intergroup contact can actually reinforce social distinctions and ethnic stereotypes. The studies collected here examine, from a broad sociological perspective, the sorts of face-to-face verbal exchange that are characteristic of industrial societies, and the volume as a whole pointedly demonstrates the role played by communicative phenomena in establishing and reinforcing social identity. The method of analysis that has been adopted enables the authors to reveal and examine a centrally important but hitherto little discussed conversational mechanism: the subconscious processes of inference that result from situational factors, social presuppositions and discourse conventions. The theory of conversation and the method of analysis that inform the author's approach are discussed in the first two chapters, and the case studies themselves examine interviews, counselling sessions and similar formal exchanges involving contacts between a wide range of different speakers: South Asians, West Indians and native English speakers in Britain; English natives and Chinese in South-East Asia; Afro-Americans, Asians and native English speakers in the United States; and English and French speakers in Canada. The volume will be of importance to linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, and others with a professional interest in communication, and its findings will have far-reaching applications in industrial and community relations and in educational practice.

Language and Social Identity

Language and Social Identity PDF Author: John J. Gumperz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521288972
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book

Book Description
Throughout Western society there are now strong pressures for social and racial integration but, in spite of these, recent experience has shown that greater intergroup contact can actually reinforce social distinctions and ethnic stereotypes. The studies collected here examine, from a broad sociological perspective, the sorts of face-to-face verbal exchange that are characteristic of industrial societies, and the volume as a whole pointedly demonstrates the role played by communicative phenomena in establishing and reinforcing social identity. The method of analysis that has been adopted enables the authors to reveal and examine a centrally important but hitherto little discussed conversational mechanism: the subconscious processes of inference that result from situational factors, social presuppositions and discourse conventions. The theory of conversation and the method of analysis that inform the author's approach are discussed in the first two chapters, and the case studies themselves examine interviews, counselling sessions and similar formal exchanges involving contacts between a wide range of different speakers: South Asians, West Indians and native English speakers in Britain; English natives and Chinese in South-East Asia; Afro-Americans, Asians and native English speakers in the United States; and English and French speakers in Canada. The volume will be of importance to linguists, anthropologists, psychologists, and others with a professional interest in communication, and its findings will have far-reaching applications in industrial and community relations and in educational practice.

Composing Social Identity in Written Language

Composing Social Identity in Written Language PDF Author: Donald L. Rubin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113669028X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This volume constitutes a unique contribution to the literature on literacy and culture in several respects. It links together aspects of social variation that have not often been thus juxtaposed: ethnicity/nationality, gender, and participant role relations. The unifying theme of this collection of papers is that all of these factors are aspects of writers' identities -- identities which are simultaneously expressed and constructed in text. The topic of social identity and writing can be approached from a variety of scholarly avenues, including humanistic, critical, and historical perspectives. The papers in the present volume make reference to and contribute to such humanistic perspectives; however, this book lies squarely within the tradition of social science. It draws primarily upon the disciplines of linguistics, discourse analysis, anthropology, social and cognitive psychology, and education studies. The constituent topics of social identity, style, and writing themselves lie at the intersections of several related fields of scholarship. Writing remains of peak interest to educators from many fields, and is still a "hot" topic. The instructional ramifications of the particular issues addressed in this volume are of vital concern to educational systems adjusting to the realities of our multicultural society. This publication, therefore, should attract a substantial and diverse readership of scholars, educators, and policymakers affiliated with many fields including applied linguistics, composition and rhetoric, communication studies, dialect studies, discourse analysis, English composition, English/language arts education, ethnic studies, language behavior, literacy, sociolinguistics, stylistics, women's studies, and writing research and instruction.

Style and Social Identities

Style and Social Identities PDF Author: Peter Auer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110190816
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Why do languages allow us to say 'the same thing' in so many different ways? This volume explores how variability in language is exploited (and maintained) in order to perform. It shows that variable features cluster together in socially meaningful ways when considered as social (communicative) styles linked to social identities.

The Language of Social Media

The Language of Social Media PDF Author: P. Seargeant
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137029315
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This timely book examines language on social media sites including Facebook and Twitter. Studies from leading language researchers, and experts on social media, explore how social media is having an impact on how we relate to each other, the communities we live in, and the way we present a sense of self in twenty-first century society.

Language and Identity

Language and Identity PDF Author: David Evans
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567047792
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Language not only expresses identities but also constructs them. Starting from that point, Language and Identity examines the interrelationships between language and identities. It finds that they are so closely interwoven, that words themselves are inscribed with ideological meanings. Words and language constitute meanings within discourses and discourses vary in power. The powerful ones reproduce more powerful meanings, colonize other discourses and marginalize or silence the least powerful languages and cultures. Language and culture death occur in extreme cases of marginalization. This book also demonstrates the socio-economic opportunities offered by language choice and the cultural allegiances of language, where groups have been able to create new lives for themselves by embracing new languages in new countries. Language can be a 'double-edged sword' of opportunity and marginalization. Language and Identity argues that bilingualism and in some cases multilingualism can both promote socio-economic opportunity and combat culture death and marginalization. With sound theoretical perspectives drawing upon the work of Bakhtin, Vygotsky, Gumperz, Foucault and others, this book provides readers with a rationale to redress social injustice in the world by supporting minority linguistic and cultural identities and an acknowledgement that access to language can provide opportunity.

Us and Others

Us and Others PDF Author: Anna Duszak
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027297363
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
It is natural for people to make the distinction between in-group (Us) and out-group members (Others). What is it that brings people together, or keeps them apart? Ethnicity, nationality, professional expertise or life style? And, above all, what is the role of language in communicating solidarity and detachment? The papers in this volume look at the various cognitive, social, and linguistic aspects of how social identities are constructed, foregrounded and redefined in interaction. Concepts and methodologies are taken from studies in language variation and change, multilingualism, conversation analysis, genre analysis, sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, as well as translation studies and applied linguistics. A wide range of languages is brought into focus in a variety of situational, social and discursive environments. The book is addressed to scholars and students of linguistics and related areas of social communication studies.

The Sociolinguistics of Identity

The Sociolinguistics of Identity PDF Author: Tope Omoniyi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9780826490643
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Brand new in paperback this volume looks at the problematic and controversial area of identity, re-examining the analytical tools employed in sociolinguistic research.

Social Identities and Multiple Selves in Foreign Language Education

Social Identities and Multiple Selves in Foreign Language Education PDF Author: Damian J. Rivers
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441160647
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Within foreign language education contexts across the globe, inadequate attention has been paid to documenting the dynamics of identity development, negotiation and management. This book looks at these dynamics in specific relation to otherness, in addition to attitudinal and behavioural overtones created through use of the term 'foreign' (despite its position as an integral marker in language acquisition discourse). This book argues that individual identities are multidimensional constructs that gravitate around a hub of intricate social networks of multimodal intergroup interaction. The chapters pursue a collective desire to move the notion of identity away from theoretical abstraction and toward the lived experiences of foreign language teachers and students. While the identities entangled with these interactions owe a significant measure of their existence to the immediate social context, they can also be actively developed by their holders. The collection of chapters within this book demonstrate how foreign language education environments (traditional and non-traditional) are ideal locations for the development of a sophisticated repertoire of discursive strategies used in the formulation, navigation, expression and management of social identities and multiple selves.

Language and Identities

Language and Identities PDF Author: Carmen Llamas
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748635785
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Language and Identities offers a broad survey of our current state of knowledge on the connections between variability in language use and the construction, negotiation, maintenance and performance of identities at different levels - individual, group, regional and national. It brings together over 20 specially commissioned chapters, written by distinguished international scholars, on a range of topics around the language/identity nexus. The collection deals sequentially with identities at various levels, both social and personal. Using detailed, empirical evidence, the chapters illustrate how the multi-layered, dynamic nature of identities is realised through linguistic behaviour. Several chapters in the volume focus on contexts in which we might expect to observe a foregrounding of factors involved in the definition and delimitation of self and other: for example, cases in which identities may be disputed, changing, blurred, peripheral, or imposed. Such a focus on complex contexts allows clearer insight into the identity-making and -marking functions of language. The collection approaches these topics from a range of perspectives, with contributions from sociolinguists, sociophoneticians, linguistic anthropologists, clinical linguists and forensic linguists.

Language and Ethnic Identity

Language and Ethnic Identity PDF Author: William B. Gudykunst
Publisher: Multilingual Matters Limited
ISBN:
Category : Anthropological linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
This volume demonstrates that the study of language and ethnic identity is a dynamic and rigorous research area within the study of the social psychology of language. The research presented here demonstrates that social and ethnolinguistic identity theories have the scope necessary to explain the influence of ethnic identity on such diverse processes as language attitudes, second language competence, sociolinguistic stereotypes, perceived ethnolinguistic vitality, and speech accommodation.