The Production of Social Meaning Via the Association of Variety and Style: A Case Study of French Vowel Lengthening in Belgian

2004 ◽  
Vol 49 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 397-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Hambye ◽  
Anne Catherine Simon
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Social Constructs ◽  
Speech Styles ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Vowel Lengthening

AbstractThis article questions the common usage of the concept of “linguistic variety” and the usual view of vernacular speech as the expression of a speaker’s identity. The term “variety” in linguistics has an ambiguous status: it is used to describe “linguistic representations” (social constructs) as well as actual linguistic practices. An alternative way of understanding the function of varieties in the sociolinguistic space is proposed: we explain how varieties relate to speech styles in a way that captures the social significance of linguistic variation. A case study about vowel lengthening in the French spoken in Belgium is then presented. Through both a quantitative and qualitative analysis, it is shown how marked regional variants are used to produce a particular social meaning, even among middle-class speakers.

Citizen sociolinguists scaling back

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Betsy Rymes ◽  
Gareth Smail
Keyword(s):  
Social Meaning ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Everyday Language ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Multilingual Communication ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Practices ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThis paper examines the different ways that professional experts and everyday language users engage in scaling practices to claim authority when they talk about multilingual practices and the social significance they assign to them. Specifically, we compare sociolinguists’ use of the term translanguaging to describe multilingual and multimodal practices to the diverse observations of amateur online commentators, or citizen sociolinguists. Our analysis focuses on commentary on cross-linguistic communicative practices in Wales, or “things Welsh people say.” We ultimately argue that by calling practices “translanguaging” and defaulting to scaled-up interpretations of multilingual communication, sociolinguists are increasingly missing out on analyses of how the social meaning of (cross)linguistic practices accrues and evolves within specific communities over time. By contrast, the fine-grained perceptions of “citizen sociolinguists” as they discuss their own communicative practices in context may have something unique and underexamined to offer us as researchers of communicative diversity.

Sound is Not a Simulation

2010 ◽  
pp. 44-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda O Keeffe
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Game Player ◽  
Prior Investigation

In order to design a computer game soundscape that allows a game player to feel immersed in their virtual world, we must understand how we navigate and understand the real world soundscape. In this chapter I will explore how sound, particularly in urban spaces, is increasingly categorised as noise, ignoring both the social significance of any soundscape and how we use sound to interpret and negotiate space. I will explore innovative methodologies for identifying an individual’s perception of soundscapes. Designing virtual soundscapes without prior investigation into their cultural and social meaning could prove problematic.

scholarly journals Digital Environmentalism: A Case Study of PM2.5 Pollution Issue in Chinese Social Media

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 76
Author(s):  
Yanshuang Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Air Pollution ◽  
Environmental Discourse ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Civil Discourse ◽  
The Common

The emergence of social media over the last decade has substantially altered not only the means people communicate with each other but also the whole online ecosystems. For the common public in particular, social media enables and broadens the social conversation that anyone interested can engage in on urgent social problems such as environmental pollution. In China, the ever-thickening air pollution smothering most urban cities in recent years has provoked a nationwide discussion, and popular social media like Weibo has been fully utilised by various social actors to participate in this “green speak”. This paper examines the civil discourse about the deteriorating air pollution on China’s largest microblogging platform-Sina Weibo, and seeks to understand how different social actors respond to and reconstruct the reality. Through a discourse analysis aided by a text analytics/ visualisation software—eximancer, this paper investigates the civil discourse from three angles: the demographics, the discursive strategies and the potential social effect. The result suggests that proactive civil engagement in this issue has produced an environmental discourse with a wide range of topics involved, and that the benign interactions between social actors could give rise to a proactive interactional mode between Chinese state and civil society which would definitely be beneficial to the democratisation process in contemporary China.

scholarly journals VENUGOPAL'S SELF-CONFESSION AND POETRY

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 179-188
Author(s):  
Shahabuddin
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Common ◽  
Common Man ◽  
Taking Action

English: Venugopal has a distinct identity in Hindi poetry. The atmosphere of disillusionment and the social status quo had an effect on your poem. Oriented towards Akavita. But soon you realized his regression. As a result, progressives were oriented towards the stream. The land of reality shaped beautiful dreams of the future. Your poem conveys the hopes, dreams, feelings, sensations of the common man. It also exposes the middle class weaknesses while being sympathetic towards the neglected workers and is a proponent of action against the power. It shares the golden dreams of the future, in retaliation for its oppression-exploitation-violence. It has the content of strategy and tactics for the youth taking action from the power. Sometimes it is very suggestive and expresses socio-political reality in an interesting way. Where the dialogue style is present in it, its symbolism is multidimensional. This poem also questions the role of media by taking a sarcastic pose. Hindi: वेणुगोपाल हिन्दी कविता में विशिष्ट पहचान रखते हैं। मोहभंग के वातावरण और सामाजिक यथास्थिति का आपकी कविता पर प्रभाव पड़ा। अकविता की ओर उन्मुख हुए। परंतु शीघ्र ही आपको उसकी प्रतिगामिता का बोध हुआ। परिणामस्वरूप प्रगतिशील धारा की ओर उन्मुख हुए। यथार्थ की जमीन ने भविष्य के सुन्दर-सुखद स्वप्नों को आकार दिया। आपकी कविता साधारणजन की आशाओं, स्वप्नों, अनुभूतियों, संवेदनाओं को रूपाकार देती है। यह उपेक्षितों-श्रमिकों के प्रति संवेदना रखते हुए भी मध्यवर्गीय कमजोरियों को उजागर करती है और सत्ता के विरुद्ध मोर्चेबन्द कार्रवाही की प्रस्तावक है। यह उसके दमन-शोषण-हिंसा का प्रतिकार करते हुए भी भविष्य के सुनहरे स्वप्न बाँटती है। इसमें सत्ता से मोर्चेबन्द कार्रवाही करते युवाओं हेतु रणनीति और रणकौशल की सामग्री मौजूद है। कहीं-कहीं यह बहुत विचारोत्तेजक है और सामाजिक-राजनीतिक यथार्थ को रोचक ढंग से अभिव्यक्त करती है। इसमें जहाँ संवाद-शैली मौजूद है वहीँ इसकी सांकेतिकता बहुआयामी है। यह कविता व्यंग्यात्मक मुद्रा लेकर मीडिया की भूमिका को भी प्रश्नांकित करती है।

Employment Law in Context

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cabrelli
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Employment Law ◽  
Labour Law ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Employment Rights ◽  
A Company

Employment Law in Context combines extracts from leading cases, articles, and books with commentary to provide a full critical understanding of employment law. As well as providing a grounding in individual labour law, this title offers detailed analysis of the social, economic, political, and historical context in which employment law operates, drawing attention to key and current areas of debate. An innovative running case study contextualizes employment law and demonstrates its practical applications by following the life-cycle of a company from incorporation, through expansion, to liquidation. Reflection points and further reading suggestions are included. The volume is divided into eight main Parts. The first Part provides an introduction to employment law. The next Part looks at the constitution of employment and personal work contracts. This is followed by Part III, which examines the content of the personal employment contract and the obligations imposed by the common law on employers and employees. The fourth Part is about statutory employment rights. The fifth Part covers equality law. Part VI looks at the common law and statutory regulation of dismissals. The Part that follows considers business reorganizations, consultation, and insolvency. Finally, Part VIII describes collective labour law.

The Sarawak Dabogong Festival and Its Social Significance in the Chinese Community in Malaysia

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Hsu Yu-Tsuen ◽  
Chang Wei-An ◽  
Chang Han-Pi
Keyword(s):  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Chinese Community ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Chinese Tradition ◽  
The Third ◽  
Historical Literature ◽  
The Social

Abstract Dabogong is a Chinese deity with a widespread following in Sarawak; however, the connections between Dabogong temples are underdeveloped compared with that between Chinese subethnic associations. 1 Therefore, Sibu Dabogong Temple proposed to establish an association to plan and oversee the Sarawak Dabogong Festival in 2009. Since then, the scope of the organization’s membership and activities has become national as well as international. To learn how the social meaning of the festival is understood by the participants, we reviewed the local historical literature, conducted field research, and administered a questionnaire survey during the third Sarawak Dabogong Festival at Kuching 10 Miles in Sarawak in 2011. First, we explored the defining characteristic of Dabogong temples in Sarawak, the prominence of Dabogong in the Sarawak Chinese community, reasons for building temples, the accompanying gods in a Dabogong temple, and the timing of temple construction. Next, we examined the formation of the Dabogong Festival and the characteristics of the participants. Finally, we determined that the social significance of the festival can be attributed to its role in the transmission of Chinese tradition and the promotion of Dabogong belief.

Curation as research. A case study in orphaned and underreported archaeological collections

2012 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara L. Voss
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Innovative Research ◽  
Archaeological Collections ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common

AbstractAs archaeologists grapple with the international curation crisis, new attention is being given to the problem of ‘orphaned’ archaeological collections and collections that are underanalysed and underreported. The common rationale for curating such collections is to restore research potential, but such efforts are met with frustration because of the difficulties of re-establishing provenance and quantitative control for artefacts long separated from their original archaeological context. Moreover, most archaeologists view curation as a process that manages, rather than investigates, archaeological collections. To the contrary, this article argues that accessioning, inventory, cataloguing, rehousing and conservation are not simply precursors to research, but rather meaningful generative encounters between scholars and objects. Examples from the curation of the Market Street Chinatown archaeological collection illustrate how the process of curation can generate innovative research undertakings. Because archaeological research on this collection cannot proceed in a typical way, the research developed through the curation process departs from archaeological conventions to bring new perspectives on the social history of the Overseas Chinese diaspora.

scholarly journals ‘Continental Connotations’: European Wine Consumption in 1970s Britain

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-450
Author(s):  
Stella Moss
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Study Analysis ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Case Study Analysis ◽  
Wine Consumption ◽  
The Social ◽  
Good Housekeeping ◽  
Women's Magazine ◽  
The Impact

This article considers the significant increase in wine consumption in Britain in the period 1965–85. It explores the social and cultural meanings attached to wine through a case study analysis of Good Housekeeping, a women's magazine aimed at a mainly middle-class readership. The vast majority of wine consumed in Britain at this time was European, the appeal of which was, for many, rooted in an idealised evocation of continental sophistication. In illuminating the development of new socio-cultural habits, this article reveals the influence of continental tourism is bolstering enthusiasm for wine, as well as the impact of greater availability and affordability in popularising consumption.

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