Language in Society

Meetings: A cultural perspective

by David Boromisza-Habashi

Co-authored with Leah Sprain. Published in the Journal of Multicultural Discourses (2012).

We draw on Helen Schwartzman’s seminal work on meetings to make the case for studying meetings and studying them from... more We draw on Helen Schwartzman’s seminal work on meetings to make the case for studying meetings and studying them from a cultural perspective. In a global context marked by the increasing interdependence of social groups of all sizes, scholars need ways to study and interpret local phenomena; a cultural approach to meetings provides a means for discovering local practices and theories of communication, and for enabling cross-cultural comparison to generate empirically grounded multi-cultural perspectives. After reviewing how scholars have used Schwartzman’s work, we revisit her scheme for studying meetings and demonstrate how it orients researchers to local cultural practices and processes. To illustrate the kind of theoretical innovation that can follow from the application of her scheme, we reformulate her work on the relationship between meetings and social order to argue that egalitarianism and hierarchy should be theorized as strategic communicative accomplishments that serve the locally relevant social ends of some or all meeting participants.

Grammatical flexibility as a resource in explicating referents

by Galina Bolden

Bolden, G. and Guimaraes, E. (2012). Grammatical flexibility as a resource in explicating referents. Special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(2) (Eds. Celia Kitzinger & Gene Lerner), 156-174.

Reference recalibration repairs: Adjusting precision for the task at hand

by Galina Bolden

Lerner, G., Bolden, G., Hepburn, A., and Mandelbaum, J. (2012). Reference recalibration repairs: Adjusting precision for the task at hand. Special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(2) (Eds. Celia Kitzinger & Gene Lerner), 191-212.

Pursuing a response by repairing an indexical reference

by Galina Bolden

Bolden, G., Mandelbaum J., and Wilkinson, S. (2012). Pursuing a response by repairing an indexical reference. Special issue of Research on Language and Social Interaction, 45(2) (Eds. Celia Kitzinger & Gene Lerner), 137-155.

Why are the Native Languages of the Chinese Malaysians in Decline?

by Tze Wei Sim

published in 'Journal of Taiwanese Vernacular' Vol.4, No. 1, 2012

The vast majority of Chinese Malaysians have originated from south China with their native languages, Hokkien, Hakka,... more The vast majority of Chinese Malaysians have originated from south China with their native languages, Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, Teochew, Hokchew and Hainanese. Most of these native languages are weakening due to lack of intergenerational transmission. Languages spoken in the families are largely shifting to Mandarin and English. This paper has investigated the reasons why the community is shifting away from their native languages. Language attitudes, beliefs, and ideologies held by the majority of Chinese Malaysians have been collected and they are presented together with the historical development of Chinese languages. The origins of the factors, which put their native languages into disadvantageous positions, are discussed. This paper also explores the possibilities of running language revitalization programmes in the community.

Neuman 2006. L'hébreu du kibboutz : dynamique d'un sociolecte (Yod 10)

by Yishai Neuman

Neuman, Yishai (2006). L'hébreu du kibboutz : dynamique d'un sociolecte, Yod 10, pp. 153-183

http://aleph.nli.org.il:80/F/?func=direct&doc_number=000473972&local_base=RMB01

Whittaker & Martin Rojo A dialogue with bureaucracy: Register, genre and information management as constraints on interchangeability. Journal of Pragmatics (1999) Volume: 31, Issue: 2, Publisher: Elsevier, Pages: 149-189 ISSN: 03782166

by Luisa Martín Rojo

Abstract

This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of a section of the Spanish law regulating... more Abstract

This paper presents a critical discourse analysis of a section of the Spanish law regulating students' requests for a remarking of their university entrance examinations and of the students' responses. A systemic functional analysis of the Ministerial Directive and the students' texts reveals ambiguities in the Directive as regards the role assigned the students, and explains the differences in the type of text they write in response. Their choice of role seems to depend on their conception of the institution they are addressing, seen in the two styles they produce: powerful and powerless. We suggest explanations for features of these texts on seeral levels: (1) the criteria for the acceptability of the students' texts can be understood in the framework of the mechanisms of distribution and appropriation of discourse and the regulation of the linguistic market; (2) the ambiguities contained in the breaucratic text seem to be due to the tensions of interests at a time of profound social change in Spain; (3) a bureaucratic text is the product of an equilibrium between different readerships: other breaucrats, and the groups whose behaviour it regulates. Finally, we suggest developing citizens' awareness of the role of discourse in social conflicts, and providing linguistic tools permitting them to face social domination.

Melissa G. Moyer and Luisa Martin Rojo. 2007. Language Migration and Citizenship: New Challenges in the Regulation of Bilingualism. In M. Heller (ed.) Bilingualism: Social Approaches, pp. 137-160. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan. ation of bilingualism

by Luisa Martín Rojo

The contributors to this volume provide a critical examination of the notion of bilingualism as it has developed in... more The contributors to this volume provide a critical examination of the notion of bilingualism as it has developed in linguistics and of its use in discourses of social regulation in state and civil society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. They attempt to move the field away from a "common sense," but in fact highly ideologized, view of bilingualism as the co-existence of two linguistic systems, and to develop a critical perspective which approaches "bilingualism" as a wide variety of sets of sociolinguistic practices connected to the construction of social difference and of social inequality under specific historical conditions.

Bilingüismo y diversidad cultural en el aula.

by Luisa Martín Rojo

Linguistic Cyberscape: How Virtual Society Creates and Receives Multilingual Messages

by Dejan Ivković/ Дејан Ивковић

(description)
The very first time the concepts linguistic cyberpscape and virtual
linguistic landscape were presented and abstract published in conference proceedings (March 2007).

Ivković, Dejan. 2007. Linguistic Cyberscape: How virtual society creates and receives multilingual messages. Paper presented at Cognition 2007 (2007), Connected Minds: Cognition and Interaction in the Social World. Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada.

Occasional Paper: Language, Ideology and the 'Scottish Voice'

by James Costa

Costa, J. (2011). Language, ideologies, and the ‘Scottish voice’. International Journal of Scottish Literature, 7.

In this Occasional Paper, I would like to emphasise one way in which language ideological issues permeate literary... more In this Occasional Paper, I would like to emphasise one way in which language ideological issues permeate literary discourse in Scotland. Focusing on issues related to Scots, I will analyse two (in my view complementary) introductions to anthologies of texts in Scots published over the past twenty years, and show how they participate in a wider ideological debate on language and society in Scotland.

Costa, J. (2011). Review: Language and Identities, by D. Watt and C. Llamas. Language List, 22(3263).

by James Costa

From Center to Periphery: The Demotion of Literary Sinitic and the Beginnings of Hanmunkwa—Korea, 1876–1910

by W. Scott Wells

From the 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa to Korea’s annexation in 1910, the last thirty-five years of the Chosŏn dynasty... more From the 1876 Treaty of Kanghwa to Korea’s annexation in 1910, the last thirty-five years of the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) were witness to some of the most impactful events in Korea’s modern history. Through encounters with Western powers and the influence, both direct and indirect, of a rapidly modernizing Japan, many Koreans began to reappraise their country’s Sino-centric past and the once-shared knowledge, symbols, and practices of the traditional East Asian cosmopolitan order. A major consequence of this reappraisal was the demotion of Literary Sinitic (commonly known as Classical Chinese) from its long-held status as the de facto official written standard of state and its removal from the center of the curriculum of state-sponsored education to the periphery in the guise of a newly created classroom subject hanmunkwa.

This thesis details how shifts in the terminology for both Literary Sinitic and the vernacular script, the educational activities of Western missionaries, the abolition of Korea’s traditional civil service examination system, the establishment of a Western-style educational system, the proliferation of new Literary Sinitic teaching materials and methodologies, and the influence of Japan combined at the end of the Chosŏn dynasty to demote the learning and use of Literary Sinitic. Furthermore, this thesis shows that Literary Sinitic’s demise was not simply the collateral damage of a predestined and unavoidable rise of Korea’s native script, but was, by the time of annexation, already a long though still unfinished process.

The reappraisal and demotion of Literary Sinitic in Korea is important for more than merely understanding the precolonial moment in Korea. It is vital to improving our understanding of Korea’s part in the disintegration of a once vibrant East Asian cosmopolitanism, while further exploring the early development of hanmunkwa will also help us apprehend the lingering effects and influences exercised by once transcultured practices, even after those practices are reimagined and reconfigured according to new, nationalized frameworks.

LIBRARIES IN THE INFORMATION-ORIENTED SOCIETY

by Nadya Stamatova

On the Organization of Repair in Multiperson Conversation: The Case of “Other”-Selection in Other-Initiated Repair Sequences

by Galina Bolden

Bolden, G. (2011). On the organization of repair in multiperson conversation: The case of “other”-selection in other-initiated repair sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 44(3), 237-262.

Preference organization of sequence-initiating actions: The case of explicit account solicitations.

by Galina Bolden

Robinson, J. D., & Bolden, G. (2010). Preference organization of sequence-initiating actions: The case of explicit account solicitations. Discourse Studies, 12(4): 501-533.

"Articulating the unsaid" via and-prefaced formulations of others' talk.

by Galina Bolden

published in Discourse Studies (2010), 12(1), 5-32.

“So What's Up?”: Using the Discourse Marker So to Launch Conversational Business

by Galina Bolden

Bolden, G. (2008). "So what's up?": Using the discourse marker "so" to launch conversational business. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 41(3), 302-327.

Beyond answering: Repeat-prefaced responses in conversation

by Galina Bolden

Bolden, G. (2009). Beyond answering: Repeat-prefaced responses in conversation. Communication Monographs, 76(2), 121-143.

Reopening Russian Conversations: The Discourse Particle–to and the Negotiation of Interpersonal Accountability in Closings

by Galina Bolden

Bolden, G. (2008). Reopening Russian conversations: The discourse particle –to and the negotiation of interpersonal accountability in closings. Human Communication Research, 34(1), 99-136.