scholarly journals Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use

Pragmatics ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jef Verschueren
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Social Implications ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
The Status ◽  
Specific Manifestation

Against the background of a general theory of pragmatics, reflections are formulated on the central role of metapragmatic awareness as a specific manifestation of salience, the status of processes of meaning generation in language use in relation to the cognitive apparatus. First the notions of metalanguage and metapragmatics, as used in linguistics, are discussed. Then metalinguistic and metapragmatic phenomena are presented as reflections of metapragmatic awareness. Two ways in which indicators of metapragmatic awareness function in language use are distinguished: Their functioning as anchoring devices locating linguistic form in relation to context, and their functioning as signals of the language users’ reflexive interpretations of the activities they are engaged in. Finally, some social implications of metapragmatic functioning are discussed, in particular in relation to language ideologies and identity construction.

Media representations of minority French: Valorization, identity, and the Acadieman phenomenon

2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Comeau ◽  
Ruth King
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Discursive Space ◽  
Cable Tv ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Acadian French ◽  
Tv Show

AbstractThis article is concerned with the role of media representations of language use in the promotion of language ideologies and in identity construction. It focuses on media representations of Chiac, a traditionally low-status variety of Acadian French. We consider performances of this variety in the adventures of an animated superhero, Acadieman, presented in a cable TV show running on Rogers TV from 2005 to 2009. We first contextualize Acadieman in terms of the linguistic and cultural contexts in which Chiac is spoken. We then consider how particular social meanings are created through contrasts between Chiac-speaking characters and speakers of other varieties. While the juxtaposition of varieties is at one level quite humorous, on another level it draws on complex indexicalities and valorizes the local variety and, by extension, its speakers. Finally, we argue that the Acadieman phenomenon provides a discursive space within which present-day Acadian identities can be negotiated.

Language Use and Sustainable Development: Opportunities and Challenges for Policy-Makers and Educators in Northeast Vietnamese Areas

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130
Author(s):  
Ha Ngan Ngo ◽  
Maya Khemlani David
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Status ◽  
Wedding Songs

Vietnam represents a country with 54 ethnic groups; however, the majority (88%) of the population are of Vietnamese heritage. Some of the other ethnic groups such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Hoa, Khmer, and Nung have a population of around 1 million each, while the Brau, Roman, and Odu consist only of a hundred people each. Living in northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border (see Figure 1), the Tay people speak a language of the    Central    Tai language group called Though, T'o, Tai Tho, Ngan, Phen, Thu Lao, or Pa Di. Tay remains one of 10 ethnic languages used by 1 million speakers (Buoi, 2003). The Tày ethnic group has a rich culture of wedding songs, poems, dance, and music and celebrate various festivals. Wet rice cultivation, canal digging and grain threshing on wooden racks are part of the Tày traditions. Their villages situated near the foothills often bear the names of nearby mountains, rivers, or fields. This study discusses the status and role of the Tày language in Northeast Vietnam. It discusses factors, which have affected the habitual use of the Tay language, the connection between language shift and development and provides a model for the sustainability and promotion of minority languages. It remains fundamentally imperative to strengthen and to foster positive attitudes of the community towards the Tày language. Tày’s young people must be enlightened to the reality their Tày non-usage could render their mother tongue defunct, which means their history stands to be lost.

scholarly journals Contrastive Pragmatics: Apologies & Thanks in English and Italian

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Cuneyt Demir ◽  
Mehmet Takkac
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
American English ◽  
The Status ◽  
Language Competency ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
Remedial Strategies

<p>Awareness of language or language competency has greatly changed from the focus of language itself as form and structure to language use as pragmatics. Accordingly, it is widely accepted that different cultures structure discourse in different ways. Moreover, studies have shown that this holds for discourse genres traditionally considered as highly standardized in their rituals and formulas. Taking inspiration from such studies, this paper employs a corpus-based approach to examine variations of the apology and thanking strategies used in English and Italian. First the apology itself as a form of social action is closely analyzed and then thanking. This study also pays special attention on analyzing and contrasting apology and thanking strategies in American English and in Italian in terms of Marion Owen’s remedial strategies (Owen, 1983), and Olshtain &amp; Cohen’s semantic formulas in the apology speech act set (Olshtain &amp; Cohen, 1983). The purpose of the study is not only to compare apology and thanking speech acts but to also learn their contextual use. The findings suggest that the status and role of the situation affect the speakers’ choice of apology and thanking strategies, and semantic formulas are of great importance.</p>

scholarly journals A Bridge to Portugal: Language and Identity in Bridgeport, CT

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Fabio Scetti
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
American English ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Language And Identity ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
The Status

Here I present the results of BridgePORT, an ethnographic study I carried out in 2018 within the Portuguese community of Bridgeport, CT (USA). I describe language use and representation among Portuguese speakers within the community, and I investigate the integration of these speakers into the dominant American English speech community. Through my fieldwork, I observe mixing practices in day-to-day interaction, while I also consider the evolution of the Portuguese language in light of language contact and speakers’ discourse as this relates to ideologies about the status of Portuguese within the community. My findings rely on questionnaires, participant observation of verbal interaction, and semi-structured interviews. My aim is to show how verbal practice shapes the process of identity construction and how ideas of linguistic “purity” mediate the maintenance of a link to Portugal and Portuguese identity.

‘BUT EVER SINCE SO TO SAY I HAVE TAKEN OVER THE PROPER WORDS … SO TO SAY I HAVE NO PROBLEMS’: LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES OF VOJVODINA HUNGARIAN MIGRANTS AND COMMUTERS FROM SERBIA TO HUNGARY

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Eszter Gábrity
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Joint Research ◽  
Swiss National Science Foundation ◽  
Minority Community ◽  
Joint Research Project ◽  
The Status ◽  
University Of Bern ◽  
The Relationship

In this paper, I examine and compare views, beliefs and ideas about two varieties of Hungarian in the framework of language ideologies. The purpose of the present paper is to illuminate the linguistic situation of the Hungarian migrants and commuters from Vojvodina through the examination of their language ideologies. The study focuses on the language ideologies of migrants and commuters who belong to the Hungarian minority community in Vojvodina and moved to Hungary or commute between Hungary and Serbia on a regular basis, thus they have frequent linguistic contacts and interactions on both sides of the border.  The research analyzes ordinary people’s views upon the relationship between their vernacular  and the standard variety, their views related to the status of their vernacular as well as their bidialectal language use. I intend to reveal how members of the Hungarian minority community locate, interpret and rationalize (if so) sociolinguistic complexities of their everyday lives. [1] The present paper presents a segment of a research project: Integrating (trans)national migrants in transition states (TRANSMIG) – joint research project in the framework of the co-operation program SCOPES (2009-2012), submitted to the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), coordinated by Prof. Dr. Doris Wastl-Walter (Department of Geography, University of Bern).

Language, class, and ethnicity in Indonesia

2008 ◽  
Vol 164 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zane Goebel
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Language Class ◽  
Language Variety ◽  
Everyday Talk ◽  
Language Region

This paper focuses on the role of institutions and everyday talk in the building of associations between language, region, ethnicity and class in Indonesia. In particular, I am interested in exploring how institutions have contributed to the reproduction of language ideologies that link ethnicity and class with language variety. While I argue that institutional activities have helped – often unintentionally – to associate region with language to the extent that both are equated with ethnicity or ethnic identity, these associations do not fully account for the patterns of language use at the local level.

scholarly journals Ist Standarddeutsch für Deutschschweizer eine Fremdsprache? Untersuchungen zu einem Topos des sprachreflexiven Diskurses

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Hägi ◽  
Joachim Scharloth
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Private Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
Swiss German ◽  
The Status ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
The Relationship

This paper is concerned with the question, whether the status of Standard German in German-speaking Switzerland is adequately described as that of a foreign language. It discusses typological aspects, language awareness and language ideologies among German-speaking Swiss people, the practice of language acquisition, the language use in private life and media and the linguistic discourse about the relationship between the use of Swiss German and Standard German. It argues that from a linguistic point of view in none of these fields a clear decision can be made whether Standard German is a foreign language or not. Thus, the authors suggest that the conceptual framework ought to be widened to adequately describe the status of Standard German in German-speaking Switzerland. Finally, they take occasion to develop the concept of "Sekundärsprache"/"secondary language" for language situations similar to that in German-speaking Switzerland.

Constructing lusobourgish ethnicities

2009 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Jacques Weber
Keyword(s):  
Education Policy ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Educational Equity ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Transnational Students ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions

This paper takes a language ideological approach to describe the ongoing processes of the construction and negotiation of emergent romano- or lusobourgish ethnicities and identities within Luxembourgish society. The first two sections discuss the main theoretical assumptions of the language ideological approach and provide an overview of the language situation in Luxembourg. The following two sections present the results of an ethnographic study of language use, language ideologies and identity construction among luso-descendant adolescents attending a number of youth centres in Luxembourg city. The final section considers the implications of these results for language-in-education policy and, more particularly, the importance of creating “literacy bridges” for transnational students, rather than some form of mother-tongue education, as a first step towards the elusive goal of educational equity.

Butqui c'est la différence? Discourse markers in Louisiana French: The case ofbutvs.mais

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathalie Dajko ◽  
Katie Carmichael
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Shift ◽  
Discourse Markers ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Text Organization ◽  
Louisiana French ◽  
The Status ◽  
Functional Distribution

AbstractThis article examines the use of English discourse markers in Louisiana French, focusing in particular on Englishbutand its French counterpartmais. Based on data collected in Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, we examine the speech of bilinguals to determine the status of these markers, which provide a window onto the role of discourse markers in situations of language contact. Though the markers show an overlapping semantic and functional distribution,butmore often appears in the context of at least one pause. We also provide acoustic evidence and an analysis of the markers in different functions to conclude that the need for iconic contrast via language mixing (Maschler 1994, 1997; de Rooij 2000) is only one possible motivation for the use of foreign markers. We conclude that discourse markers may carry social meaning and be the site of identity construction as much as they are the site of text organization. (Discourse markers, bilingual discourse, codeswitching, language shift)*

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