Identities and linguistic varieties in Japanese

Pragmatics ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chie Fukuda
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
First Language ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Analytic Tool ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Second Language Speakers

This study explores categorization processes of people (identities) and language (linguistic varieties) in interactions between L1 (first language) and L2 (second language) speakers of Japanese and the language ideologies behind them. Utilizing Conversation Analysis (CA) in combination with Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA), the present study focuses on how participants apply these categories to self and other where identities and language ideologies emerge in the sequences of ordinary conversations. The study also illuminates how the participants react to such ideologies, which is rarely documented in previous studies of L2 Japanese interactions. It is controversial to use CA and MCA as methodologies for inquiries into ideology due to different epistemological and theoretical frameworks. Yet, joining the emerging trend of CA studies that address ideological issues, this study will also demonstrate the compatibility between them. Methodological integration of CA and MCA has been proposed since the 1970s, but has started to be adopted only recently. Because few studies employ this combination in the area of language ideologies, it serves as a novel analytic tool in this body of research. Thus, this study makes a methodological contribution to the study of language ideologies, illustrating the production of language ideologies and reactions to it as participants’ accomplishments.

Lexical preference in second dialect acquisition in a second language

2021 ◽  
pp. 136700692110369
Author(s):  
Ksenia Gnevsheva ◽  
Anita Szakay ◽  
Sandra Jansen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
First Language ◽  
Social Constraints ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Second Language Speakers ◽  
Dialect Acquisition ◽  
Second Dialect Acquisition ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Australian English

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: How does second dialect acquisition in a second language compare to that in a first language in terms of rates and predictors of second dialect vocabulary use? Design/methodology/approach: A lexical preference task was completed by four groups of participants residing in Australia: first language speakers of Australian (L1D1) and American (L1D2) English, and first language speakers of Russian who acquired Australian (L2D1) and American (L2D2) English first. The participants named objects which are denoted by different words in American and Australian English (e.g. bell pepper vs capsicum). Data and analysis: The response was coded as either American or Australian, and percentage of use of Australian items was calculated for each group. Findings/conclusions: L1D1 used Australian words the most and L1D2 the least. L2D1 and L2D2 fell between the two L1 groups. L1D2 rate of use was predicted by proportion of life spent in Australia. L2D1 were more likely to choose Australian words if they had lived in Australia longer and had positive attitudes toward Australia. L2D2 were less likely to use Australian words the longer they had lived in the USA. Similar, but not identical, factors predict second dialect acquisition in the first and second languages. Originality: The research is innovative in considering second dialect acquisition in second language speakers and creates a bridge between second language and second dialect acquisition research. Significance/implications: The finding that second language speakers may be more flexible in second dialect acquisition than first language speakers has important implications for our understanding of cognitive and social constraints on acquisition.

KULTURMØDER TIL FORHANDLING: Betydningen af ‘kultur’ i praktiksamtaler med voksne med dansk som andetsprog

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Tranekjær
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Discursive Psychology ◽  
Second Language Speakers

The article demonstrates how the combination of discursive psychology and conversation analysis enables an examination of culture as a product of discursive processes which are influenced and permeated by a broader social, discursive and cultural context. In this way an understanding is presented of cultural encounters as something which is not only determined by the background of the participants but is a product of interaction and the resources used in the negotiation of meaning and identity. The article is based on research of internship interviews, that is, interactions between Danish employers and adult second language speakers seeking an internship placement. Through examples from these interviews, it is argued that culture can be analyzed by combining a micro-perspective on the negotiation and organization of meaning in interaction with a macro-perspective on interactions as a manifestation of a broader social, discursive and cultural practice and organization.

ELF and migrant categorization at family clinics in Finland

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-123
Author(s):  
Päivi Iikkanen
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Ideology ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Working Life ◽  
English Language Proficiency ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Standard Language Ideology

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine how nurses in family clinics use language, and clients’ perceived English proficiency in particular, when categorizing their non-Finnish-speaking clients in their talk. Through membership categorization analysis (Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2007. A tutorial on membership categorization. Journal of Pragmatics 39(3). 462–482), this study shows that perceived proficiency in English, along with migration status and reliance on the native English speaker norm, seemed to be the most decisive elements in how the nurses categorized their migrant clients. The findings demonstrate the power of categorization as an instrument in institutional decision-making and highlight the role language plays in these categorizations. In particular, the study shows how influential perceived English language proficiency and the native speaker norm are in how nurses categorize their migrant clients. The findings suggest that being able to interact with clients in English is becoming a more and more important skill in working life in Finland, also in the health care sector. It would be important to understand how influential perceived language proficiency is in the way nurses conceptualize their clients, and to what extent this relates to the standard language ideology (Milroy, James. 2001. Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5. 530–555).

scholarly journals Enriching CA through MCA? Stokoe’s MCA keys

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Systematic Application ◽  
Membership Categorization

In this commentary on Stokoe’s article, ‘Moving forward with membership categorization analysis’, I take up the challenge to apply her keys for MCA to an extract of conversation recorded in a restaurant. The strengths of conversation analysis have not included – and indeed have not attempted to achieve – successful engagement with beyond-the-immediate-talk aspects of culture and the commonsense workings of society. The aim of the article is to explore what MCA might add to an analysis of a stretch of talk using conversation analytic tools. It was found that a systematic application of the keys did indeed provide a richer account of what was going on. Whereas categories alone did not appear to provide more insights than commonsense can tell us, when the broader array of MCA tools and keys were applied, an enhanced analysis of the passage of talk emerged. An exploration of whether this can be extended as a method for a rigorous investigation of culture and society while still being grounded in participants’ mutual, moment-by-moment orientations to categories seems at the very least worth the serious attention of scholars interested in interaction.

Introduction to L2 attrition

2019 ◽  
pp. 329-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teodora H. Mehotcheva ◽  
Barbara Köpke
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
First Language ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Research Directions ◽  
Short Overview ◽  
Future Research Directions ◽  
The Subject

As the introduction to the section on second language (L2) attrition, this chapter provides a broad presentation to research on attrition of L2 and foreign languages (FL). We will first discuss the terminology used in the field, focusing on some important differences in the terminology used in first language (L1) attrition studies. It provides a short overview of the development of the field, outlining major challenges and obstacles that research on the topic has to deal with. Next, it briefly describes the major findings and knowledge amassed on the subject before reviewing in more detail the findings of some of the most significant and large-scale projects carried out on L2/FL attrition. A final presentation of several theoretical frameworks of interest for L2/FL attrition research will allow us to show how L2/FL attrition is commonly explained but also to provide some ideas for future research directions.

scholarly journals Identity and naturally occurring interaction: An interview with Elizabeth Stokoe

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Keiko Ikeda
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Foreign Language Learning ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Learning Contexts ◽  
Naturally Occurring ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Per Se

Dr. Elizabeth Stokoe is one of Europe’s foremost authorities on identity-in-interaction. Although her work does not focus on foreign language learning contexts per se, many scholars and students of identity in Japan are familiar with her 2006 book Discourse and Identity, co-authored with Dr. Bethan Benwell, and her qualitative yet strongly empirical approach to documenting identity-in-interaction through Conversation Analysis (CA) and Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA). Dr. Stokoe is Professor of Social Interaction in the Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University. She was interviewed by Keiko Ikeda

scholarly journals “I’ll just make sure we’re all on the same page”: Talking fictional worlds into being

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robyn E Stobbs ◽  
Arlene Oak
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Information Practices ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Small Story ◽  
Fictional Worlds ◽  
Roleplaying Games ◽  
Fictional Space

This poster will present emerging results from a study of material and discursive information practices in tabletop roleplaying games. The focus will be on the ways in which players collaboratively construct and interact with the fictional worlds of play. A “big and small story” approach, influenced by the ethnomethodological methods of conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis, will be used to analyze the players’ talk as they intersubjectively create and sustain a fictional space of play.

Conversation Analysis and Intergroup Communication

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Weatherall
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Classroom Interaction ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Intergroup Communication ◽  
Institutional Settings ◽  
Video Recordings ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Identity Category

Conversation analysis is a distinctive approach to research on language and communication that originated with Emanuel Schegloff, Harvey Sacks, and Gail Jefferson. It assumes a systematic order in the minute details of talk as it is used in situ. That orderliness is understood to be the result of shared ways of reasoning and means of doing things. Conversation analytic studies aim to identify and describe how people produce and interpret social interaction. For example, the interpretation and response to the question, “How are you” differs depending on whether it is asked by a doctor in a medical consultation or a friend during a casual conversation. Overwhelmingly, data are naturalistic audio (for telephone-mediated talk) or video recordings (for copresent interactions). The recordings are transcribed using conventions first established by Gail Jefferson. They have been further developed since to better capture features such as crying and multimodality. Specialized notations are used to highlight features of talk such as breathiness, intonation, short silences, and simultaneous speech. Analyses typically examine how everyday actions are done over sequences of two or more turns of talk. Greetings, requests, and complaints are actions that have names; others don’t. Studies may examine a range of linguistic, embodied, and environmental phenomena used in coordinated action. Research has been conducted in a broad range of mundane and institutional settings. Medical interaction is one area where conversation analysis has been most applied, but others include psychotherapy and classroom interaction. A conversation analytic perspective on identity is also distinctive. Typically, approaches to intergroup communication presuppose a priori the importance of social identities such as age, gender, and ethnicity. They are theorized as independent variables that impact language behaviors in predictable and measurable ways. This view strongly resonates with common sense and underpins popular questions about gender-, race- or age-based differences in language use. In contrast, a conversation analytic approach examines social identities only when they are observably and demonstrably relevant to what participants are doing and saying. The relevance of an identity category rests on it being clearly consequential for what is happening in a particular stretch of talk. Conversation analysis approaches identity as a type of membership categorization. The term “member” has ethnomethodological roots that recognizes a person is a member from a cultural group. Categories can be invoked, used and negotiated in the flow of interaction. Membership categorization analysis shows there is a systematic organization to category work in talk. Using conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis, discursive psychology studies how social identity categorizations have relevance to the business at hand. For example, referring to your wife as a “girl” or a “married woman” invokes different inferences about socially acceptable behavior.

scholarly journals Moving forward with membership categorization analysis: Methods for systematic analysis

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stokoe
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Analytic Approach ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
The Road ◽  
Hierarchical Relationship ◽  
Analysis Methods ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Run Off ◽  
Separate Discipline

This article has four aims. First, it will consider explicitly, and polemically, the hierarchical relationship between conversation analysis (CA) and membership categorization analysis (MCA). Whilst the CA ‘juggernaut’ flourishes, the MCA ‘milk float’ is in danger of being run off the road. For MCA to survive either as a separate discipline, or within CA as a focus equivalent to other ‘generic orders of conversation’, I suggest it must generate new types of systematic studies and reveal fundamental categorial practices. With such a goal in mind, the second aim of the article is to provide a set of clear analytic steps and procedures for conducting MCA, which are grounded in basic categorial and sequential concerns. Third, the article aims to demonstrate how order can be found in the intuitively ‘messy’ discourse phenomenon of membership categories, and how to approach their analysis systematically as a robust feature of particular action-oriented environments. Through the exemplar analyses, the final aim of the article is to promote MCA as a method for interrogating culture, reality and society, without recourse to its reputed ‘wild and promiscuous’ analytic approach.

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