scholarly journals Negotiating identities through pronouns of address in an immigrant community

Pragmatics ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grit Liebscher ◽  
Jennifer Dailey-O’Cain ◽  
Mareike Müller ◽  
Tetyana Reichert
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Positioning Theory ◽  
Immigrant Community ◽  
Language Attrition ◽  
Interactional Sociolinguistics ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Conversational Interviews ◽  
Analytical Tools

This article investigates forms of address, in particular the T/V distinction in German, in conversational interviews with German-speaking immigrants to English-speaking Canada and their descendants. From among 77 interviews conducted in two urban areas in Canada, we discuss instances of both the interactional use of and metalinguistic comments on forms of address. Our analysis is largely guided by conversation analysis and interactional sociolinguistics (e.g. Goodwin & Heritage 1990). Using Clyne, Norrby and Warren’s (2009) model of address as a backdrop, we investigate the construction of group identity and group socialization through the lens of positioning theory (e.g. van Langenhove and Harré 1993; Dailey-O’Cain and Liebscher 2009). This combination of analytical tools can explain shifts in both usage of and attitudes toward the T/V distinction that cannot be explained through language attrition arguments alone.

The collaborative and selective nature of interpreting in police interviews with stand-by interpreting

Interpreting ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-287
Author(s):  
Eloísa Monteoliva-García
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Interactional Sociolinguistics ◽  
Spanish Speaking ◽  
Police Interviews ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Way

Abstract This study explores interaction in two authentic interpreter-mediated police interviews with suspects. The analysis focuses on the interpreting regime used: stand-by interpreting. The interactional regime in the analysed interviews featured exolingual communication in English between a Spanish-speaking suspect with emerging competencies in English and English-speaking interviewers, with intermittent interpreter participation. Drawing on Conversation Analysis and interactional sociolinguistics, this study analyses how the interpreting regime was negotiated, how it was constructed over the course of the interviews, and the observable function of interpreting episodes. The analysis revealed a markedly collaborative nature of stand-by interpreting, differences in the distribution of interactional power over interpreting episodes among the three participants depending on their activity role and the interview phase, and the multimodal nature of turn-management. Interpreting was used selectively as a resource to either repair or prevent miscommunication, aligning with the way the interpreting regime was set up. Rather than advocating for or against the stand-by mode of interpreting, this paper describes its features in the police interview and highlights both its potential and its risks for communication in interpreter-mediated police interviews as a discourse genre.

The Predictive Validity of Assessment Centers in German-Speaking Regions

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Becker ◽  
Stefan Höft ◽  
Marcus Holzenkamp ◽  
Frank M. Spinath
Keyword(s):  
Predictive Validity ◽  
Target Group ◽  
Assessment Centers ◽  
Credibility Interval ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Intelligence Measures ◽  
Meta Analyses

As previous meta-analyses have focused almost solely on English-speaking regions, this study presents the first systematic meta-analytical examination of the predictive validity of assessment centers (ACs) conducted in German-speaking regions. It summarizes 24 validity coefficients taken from 19 studies (N = 3,556), yielding a mean corrected validity of ρ = .396 (80% credibility interval .235 ≤ ρ ≤ .558). ACs with different purposes and different kinds of criterion measures were analyzed separately. Furthermore, target group (internal vs. external candidates), average age of the assessees, inclusion of intelligence measures, number of instruments used, AC duration, as well as time elapsed between AC and criterion assessment were found to moderate the validity.

From Nowhere to “Partyslava”

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 299-320
Author(s):  
Peter Barrer
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Cultural Perspective ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
East Central Europe ◽  
East Central ◽  
The Past ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking

Over the past two decades, Prague has cemented itself as a tourist hotspot in the popular imagination. But what of Bratislava, long considered a “poor cousin” to Prague? What images of Bratislava have foreign publics been presented with since the fall of communism in East-Central Europe and the establishment of the Slovak Republic? Building on previous research which has examined visitors’ historical perceptions of Bratislava primarily from a German-speaking perspective, this paper seeks to map the development of Bratislava’s image in media texts from English-speaking countries since 1989 by focusing on two central motifs: Bratislava as a post-communist space and Bratislava as a locus of touristic pleasures (“Partyslava”). The images presented herein will be evaluated and contrasted with local descriptions of Bratislava, thus offering a cross-cultural perspective which will contribute to the wider discussion of popular perceptions of post-communist urban spaces in East-Central Europe.

scholarly journals POLITICAL ABSTENTION IN THE INDIAN MIDDLE CLASS, THE RISE OF POPULISM AND THE REINFORCEMENT OF RENT

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arkaprabha Pal
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
New Middle Class ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
Urban Indian ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Major Section

The Indian middle class witnessed a reconfiguration in its composition after the failure of the secular nationalists in their method of development and redistribution of resources. This reconfiguration used cultural and religious fundamentalism in the form of Hindutva as its instrument to assert their right to access the resources and strive towards a non-State centric redistribution. However, this new middle class, which was mainly conversing in the vernacular and had its base in the smaller urban areas, was also faced with the assertion of the lower class identarian groups. In such a situation, a large section of the urban Indian middle class shied away from taking part in the electoral process citing moral crises of the corrupt secular English speaking elite on one hand and the lowly criminal nature of the lower class political assertion on the other. Taking hints from the works of Christophe Jaffrelot, I would try to argue in this paper, that non-participation of a major section of the urban middle class was a manifestation of securing the rechanneled and partially redistributed rent legitimised through the instrument of Hindutva. This has led to increased persona-centric populist narratives from the mid-1990s to the present times with efforts to undermine parliamentary democracy (which is associated as an institiution of the immoral secular nationalists). This in turn, I would try to argue by the end of this paper, has again assisted in concretising the very rent-seeking practices and patron-client political relationships that the new middle class had initially opposed to rise to political prominence throughout the late 1970s and 1980s

Grammatical morphology in language–impaired children acquiring English or German as their first language: A functional perspective

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katrin Lidner ◽  
Judith R. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
First Language ◽  
Sentence Production ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Language Impaired ◽  
Functional Perspective ◽  
Grammatical Morphology ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Impaired Children

ABSTRACTFourteen matched pairs of German-speaking and English-speaking language-impaired children, aged 4;5–6;11, were tested for their knowledge of grammatical morphology and expressive vocabulary, using the Grammatical Closure subtest of the ITPA or its German adaptation, Grammatik in the PET, and the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test or the Aktiver Wortschatztest. Children were matched pairwise on the basis of their chronological age, nonverbal IQ, and scores in a sentence imitation and a sentence production task. As predicted, the German-speaking language-impaired children earned higher scores in grammatical morphology and vocabulary than did the English-speaking children. These findings add to a growing body of literature that documents language-specific sensitivity to particular sorts of syntactic devices. They also suggest that the morphological difficulties seen in English-speaking language-impaired children stem in part from the minor functional role played by these forms during the early language learning years.

The positioning of English-medium of instruction

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
John Trent
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Positioning Theory ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Medium Of Instruction ◽  
English Medium Instruction ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Medium Of Instruction ◽  
The University

Abstract The proliferation of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education institutions (HEIs) across non-English-speaking Europe has been recently documented in several large-scale surveys. The opportunities and challenges of designing and implementing EMI policies are also widely recognized. However, our understanding of the use of EMI in Russian HEIs is limited. This study responds to this research need by exploring the experiences and perspectives of instructors teaching business-related subjects using the English language in two different Russian HEIs. A contribution of the study is to investigate these perspectives and experiences using the analytic lens of positioning theory. Results reveal the ways in which instructors are positioned by the university, as well how they position themselves, within an EMI environment. Acknowledging the potential antagonism that might result between different EMI stakeholders because of this positioning and repositioning, suggestions are then made as how this outcome could be avoided. Implications for future research are also considered.

‘Positioning’ in the conversation analytic approach

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Day ◽  
Susanne Kjaerbeck
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Positioning Theory ◽  
Analytic Approach ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Do So

From the perspective of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (EM/CA), the concept of positioning may offer a compellingly rich metaphor for understanding identity and relations. There appears, however, to be no such analytical concept in EM/CA. Instead, the EM/CA approach offers concepts such as alignment-affiliation, identities and membership categories — all of them based on actional resources on the micro-level of talk. The aim of this article is to inquire if EM/CA tools for the analysis of identities and relations in talk might be considered interesting from the perspective of positioning theory. To do so, we offer EM/CA analyses of narrative and non-narrative data in which the in situ negotiation of identities and relations plays a major role.

scholarly journals INTERACTIONAL SOCIOLINGUISTICS IN CASUAL CONVERSATION OF GRADUATE STUDENT IN EFL CONTEXT: A PRAGMATICS STUDY

Epigram ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Betari Irma Ghasani
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Graduate Student ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
The Other ◽  
Influential Factor ◽  
Interactional Sociolinguistics ◽  
Efl Context ◽  
Turn Taking

Communicating to others towards text which is as the result of discourse is everyone need. In producing text, there are some factors affected. Context which is one important influential factor needs to be analyzed. On the other hand, conversation as a media of exchanging meaning among the speakers are done in order to fulfill speaker aim. Pragmatics that learns meaning is seen as the best media to learn meaning produced by both speakers related to the context. By using interactional sociolinguistics, as a part of conversation analysis in pragmatics, this approach takes pragmatic and sociolinguistics aspects of interaction, as well as adjacency pairs, turn-taking and sequences, giving importance to the way that language is situated in particular circumstances in social life. Based on the analysis done, it maps out that interactional talk claiming common ground with vague reference as a marker of both speaker friendship. Key words: Interactional Sociolinguitics, Casual Conversation, EFL

scholarly journals The grammar of proposals for joint activities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra A Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
American English ◽  
Joint Activity ◽  
Interactional Linguistics ◽  
Joint Activities ◽  
Institutional Talk ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract The action of proposing has been studied from various perspectives in research on talk-in-interaction, both in mundane as well as in institutional talk. Aiming to exemplify Interactional Linguistics as a drawing together of insights from Linguistics and Conversation Analysis, we explore the grammar of proposals and the stances displayed by participants in making proposals in the context of joint activities, where a future or hypothetical activity is being put forth as something the speaker and recipient(s) might do together. Close examination of interactions among American English-speaking adults reveals four recurrent grammatical formats for issuing proposals: Let’s, Why don’t we, Modal Declaratives, and Modal Interrogatives. We argue that these four formats for doing proposing within a joint activity are used in socially distinct environments, contributing to a growing understanding of the fit between entrenched linguistic patterns and the social work they have evolved to do.

scholarly journals When “one” can be “two”: Cross-linguistic differences affect children’s interpretation of the numeral one

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-313
Author(s):  
Sarah Dolscheid ◽  
Franziska Schleussinger ◽  
Martina Penke
Keyword(s):  
Judgment Task ◽  
Value Judgment ◽  
Linguistic Differences ◽  
Linguistic Difference ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Truth Value ◽  
Do So ◽  
The Way

In English, a lexical distinction is drawn between the indefinite determiner “a” and the numeral “one”. English-speaking children also interpret the two terms differently, with an exact, upper bounded interpretation of the numeral “one”, but no upper bounded interpretation of the indefinite determiner “a”. Unlike English, however, German does not draw a distinction between the indefinite determiner and the numeral one but instead uses the same term “ein/e” to express both functions. To find out whether this cross-linguistic difference affects children’s upper bounded interpretation of “ein/e”, we tested German-speaking children and adults in a truth-value-judgment task and compared their performance to English-speaking children. Our results revealed that German-speaking children differed from both English children and German adults. Whereas the majority of German adults interpreted “ein/e” in an upper bounded way (i.e. as exactly one, not two), the majority of German-speaking children favored a non-upper bounded interpretation (thus accepting two as a valid response to “ein/e”). German-speaking children’s proportion of upper bounded responses to “ein/e” was also significantly lower than English children’s upper bounded responses to “one”. However, German children’s rate of upper bounded responses increased once a number-biasing context was provided. These findings suggest that German-speaking children can interpret “ein/e” in an upper bounded way but that they need additional cues in order to do so. When no such cues are present, German-speaking children differ from both German-speaking adults and from their English-speaking peers, demonstrating that cross-linguistic differences can affect the way speakers interpret numbers.

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