Communicative Repertoires in African Languages

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Storch
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
National Language ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
African Languages ◽  
The Social

Even though the concept of multilingualism is well established in linguistics, it is problematic, especially in light of the actual ways in which repertoires are composed and used. The term “multilingualism” bears in itself the notion of several clearly discernable languages and suggests that regardless of the sociolinguistic setting, language ideologies, social history and context, a multilingual individual will be able to separate the various codes that constitute his or her communicative repertoire and use them deliberately in a reflected way. Such a perspective on language isn’t helpful in understanding any sociolinguistic setting and linguistic practice that is not a European one and that doesn’t correlate with ideologies and practices of a standardized, national language. This applies to the majority of people living on the planet and to most people who speak African languages. These speakers differ from the ideological concept of the “Western monolingual,” as they employ diverse practices and linguistic features on a daily basis and do so in a very flexible way. Which linguistic features a person uses thereby depends on factors such as socialization, placement, and personal interest, desires and preferences, which are all likely to change several times during a person’s life. Therefore, communicative repertoires are never stable, neither in their composition nor in the ways they are ideologically framed and evaluated. A more productive perspective on the phenomenon of complex communicative repertoires puts the concept of languaging in the center, which refers to communicative practices, dynamically operating between different practices and (multimodal) linguistic features. Individual speakers thereby perceive and evaluate ways of speaking according to the social meaning, emotional investment, and identity-constituting functions they can attribute to them. The fact that linguistic reflexivity to African speakers might almost always involve the negotiation of the self in a (post)colonial world invites us to consider a critical evaluation, based on approaches such as Southern Theory, of established concepts of “language” and “multilingualism”: languaging is also a postcolonial experience, and this experience often translates into how speakers single out specific ways of speaking as “more prestigious” or “more developed” than others. The inclusion of African metalinguistics and indigenuous knowledge consequently is an important task of linguists studying communicative repertoires in Africa or its diaspora.

Jumbos and Jumping Devils

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha P R
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.

scholarly journals Playing with data and its consequences

First Monday ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miren Gutiérrez ◽  
Stefania Milan
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Critical Data ◽  
Data Practices ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World

The fundamental paradigm shift brought about by datafication alters how people participate as citizens on a daily basis. “Big data” has come to constitute a new terrain of engagement, which brings organized collective action, communicative practices and data infrastructure into a fruitful dialogue. While scholarship is progressively acknowledging the emergence of bottom-up data practices, to date no research has explored the influence of these practices on the activists themselves. Leveraging the disciplines of critical data and social movement studies, this paper explores “proactive data activism”, using, producing and/or appropriating data for social change, and examines its biographical, political, tactical and epistemological consequences. Approaching engagement with data as practice, this study focuses on the social contexts in which data are produced, consumed and circulated, and analyzes how tactics, skills and emotions of individuals evolve in interplay with data. Through content and co-occurrence analysis of semi-structured practitioner interviews (N=20), the article shows how the employment of data and data infrastructure in activism fundamentally transforms the way activists go about changing the world.

scholarly journals The Russian language functioning outside Russia: specifics of using the «national» type of language

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (26) ◽  
pp. 101-106
Author(s):  
Mariya E. Avakyan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
National Language ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Russian Language

The article examines functioning of the Russian language outside the Russian Federation: the peculiarities of the «national» Russian language in the Republic of Armenia, the concept of this term itself, the significance of using Russian in the media, overlapping national features. The main characteristics of the «national» Russian language outside Russia are considered to be as follows: the language is seen as an «advocate» of necessary national ideas and a real opportunity to transmit national ideas, thoughts, messages and information in a language of international communication. The development of the social institution of the «national language» in the future will largely determine the preservation of national cultural, educational as well as political and economic unity with Russia. We should not forget that professional journalistic activity is, first and foremost, a verbal activity. And the professional culture of journalists depends on how well they master the language. The linguistic features of the Russian-language media in Armenia present a rather broad spectrum of issues possible and relevant for consideration. The national variant is a certain form of adapting the classical literary language to the traditions and cultural values, to the urgent needs of a particular nation, thus becoming a special form of functioning of the language common for the nation.

scholarly journals Forging the trowel, hammering the Dacians: Marxism and Late Iron Age Archaeology in Romania (1948–1989)

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 23-62
Author(s):  
Alin Henț ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Late Iron Age ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Key Events

The aim of this paper is to make a critical evaluation of the Romanian historiography from 1948–1989 which had as a subject of study the social history of the northern Balkan communities in the Late Iron Age period. The two years that I have chosen have both a symbolical and a chronological value. The year 1948 marks the beginning of an extensive and radical process of political, economic, social, and cultural changes, while the year 1989 symbolizes the fall of the Romanian “communist” regime. I propose a contextual analysis, which takes into account the evolution of the “communist” regime, as well as some key events that shaped the discourse. Through this evaluation, I want to intervene in the symbolic struggles that had as a final stake the Late Iron Age archaeology from Romania. Without claiming an objective analysis, I want to offer an alternative to the distorted portrayals which had existed so far. Although labelled as a “Communist” or “Marxist” historiography, it never strayed too far from the nationalist ideology, creating massive distortions along its way. In almost 50 years, the Romanian Late Iron Age historiography has gone from a formal and superficial application of Marxist theories, to a relative liberalization, and finally returned to an almost right‑wing discourse over the Dacian past. Moreover, I will show, in contrast to the classical post‑Communist view that the Late Iron Age archaeology in Romania was in touch, at least at some point, to the contemporary historiographical debates.

Vaccinating against Vasoori: Eradicating smallpox in the ‘model’ princely state of Travancore, 1804–1946

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-386
Author(s):  
Aparna Nair
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Herd Immunity ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cultural Meanings ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Control And Prevention ◽  
Princely State ◽  
Medical Histories

The social and medical histories of vaccination are increasingly important in the twenty-first century, as anti-vaccination narratives threaten herd immunity across the world. Much of the historical scholarship on vaccination in India focusses on smallpox, largely in the context of the colonial or post-colonial state. This article explores the histories of this policy in the ‘model’ princely state of Travancore. The essay integrates medical and social history as it tracks the introduction and progress of vaccination into the princely state and examines the process as biomedical discourse about disease and public health, and as a set of corporeal practices. The article also examines the broader cultural meanings ascribed to biomedicine in this princely state and the efforts to construct a ‘modern’ corporeal consciousness through direct and indirect interventions. Finally, the article also engages with the question of what exactly the introduction of biomedicine entailed for the average resident of this region in terms of disease control and prevention.

Imagining Selves and Inventing Festival Sriwijaya

1999 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy P. Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
New Order ◽  
Cultural Discontinuity ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
History Of

Clifford Geertz, in his discussion of the social history of an East Central Javanese town, described how rural migrants attempted to make sense of modern elections and political factions by applying old systems of meanings. As people adjusted to the evolving social conditions of new urban contexts, new knowledge supposedly emerged to order social relations. Yet he observed that in the 1950s this rarely was the case; usually a sense of vagueness and incoherence persisted. Similarly, Geertz's analysis of a Javanese funeral concluded that the ritual “failed” and consequently tensions persisted and intensified as a result of societal and cultural discontinuity; the social and the cultural were moving in opposite directions. Old cultural notions did not tend to give way to new notions more adept at effecting social solidarity. The contest over whose voice, whose sense of self and image of post-colonial Indonesia would prevail eventually culminated in the bloodbath of 1965–66, which marked the abrupt end of the Old Order and the birth of the Suhartoled New Order regime.

scholarly journals Breaking the Stage: From Te Matatini to Footprints/Tapuwae

Te Kaharoa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Te Rita Papesch ◽  
Sharon Mazer
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social History ◽  
Direct Action ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Performance Practices ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cultural Performances ◽  
The Relationship

There’s too much talk of decolonising the stage, as if the theatre were not itself a colonial artefact, a hangover from the settlers’ desire to appear civilised in what they saw as a savage land. Here we reject the notion of ‘syncretic’ or ‘hybridic’ theatre, because when European and Māori performance practices meet and mingle under the proscenium arch waters that should be troubled are smoothed beyond recognition. We want to see the stage broken open, its fragments exposed to a critical gaze that recalls rather than transcends social history, that seeks not to console but to confront and catapult us, if not into direct action, then into a conversation that does more than keep us contained within the frame of the dominant culture. This paper is written as two sides of an ongoing debate about the relationship between the theatrical and the social in not-quite-post colonial Aotearoa New Zealand. We look at Te Matatini – the biannual national Kapa Haka Festival, most recently held in Christchurch in March 2015 – and at Footprints/Tapuwae – a bicultural opera first produced in 2001 and revived in June 2015 by the Free Theatre Christchurch – to find powerful cultural performances and contrary theatricalities in 21st century Aotearoa New Zealand.

The Impact of In-group/Out-group Stereotypes: The Image of Foreign Cultures in Flemish Youth Literature in the Nineteenth Century

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Coillie Jan Van
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Pedagogical Discourse ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Studies ◽  
Norms And Values ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Youth Literature

Which image of other cultures did Flemish youth literature in the nineteenth century disseminate? Which linguistic features supported and communicated this image in the texts? And what was the relationship between this image and the (social) context? To answer these questions, a text corpus is screened for linguistic expressions influencing the image of foreign cultures. The theoretical framework is inspired by recent insights from imagology and post-colonial studies. The linguistic analysis is based on models taken from critical linguistics and discourse analysis. In order to interpret the results of the analysis, I explore how the image of other cultures in youth literature materialized in close interaction with the colonial and pedagogical discourse. A major finding is that the image transferred Western bourgeois norms and values as part of education. Furthermore, this image is characterized by input-output stereotypes, whose effect is to indirectly glorify one's own culture by rejecting foreign mores. The bourgeois values that resulted in these stereotypes were aspects of the Western conception of civilization, which was constantly set off against the uncivilized ways of ‘savage’ peoples. This ethnocentric stance, which was never questioned, served as primary justification for colonization and exploitation of foreign peoples.

scholarly journals Talking like a servant: What nineteenth century novels can tell us about the social history of the language

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Hodson
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social History ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Cultural Constructs ◽  
Cultural Concepts ◽  
The Social ◽  
British Fiction ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth Century Novels

AbstractThis article investigates what nineteenth-century novels can tell us about the speech of the lower orders, using the “Dialect in British Fiction 1800–1836” database to focus specifically on how the speech of servants is represented. Recent work on enregisterment has led to a resurgence of interest in literary representations of dialect in relation to specific linguistic features and varieties. I argue that a sustained engagement with literary texts has the potential to illuminate wider cultural constructs of language variation, and that to accomplish this, attention must be paid to issues of genre as well as a range of stylistic features including speech representation, metalanguage and characterisation. The article concludes that, while novels are able to tell us little about how servants really spoke, they are a rich source of information about the attitudes and assumptions that underpinned cultural concepts such as “talking like a servant”.

scholarly journals Renegotiated (Post)Colonial Relations within the New Portuguese Migration to Angola

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-80
Author(s):  
Pétur Waldorff
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Economic Opportunities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Colonial Encounters

This article examines the new wave of Portuguese migration to Luanda in the first decade after Angola's civil war, a time characterised by extensive economic growth and shifting economic prospects in Angola. It frames Portuguese–Angolan relations in contemporary Angola, relations that are sometimes portrayed as amicable and influenced by a common brotherhood, as multifaceted. This article distinguishes different social, cultural, and historic interpretations of this migration and investigates how such interpretations influence people's relations, identities, feelings, and personal understandings of the social, political, and historic contexts that people confront on a daily basis in contemporary Luanda, a capital city where “colonial encounters in postcolonial contexts” have increasingly become everyday occurrences. It argues that at the intersections of Angolan and Portuguese contact in Angola, new configurations of power are being produced and reproduced against the backdrop of its colonial history and Lusotropicalist myths, where colonial and postcolonial inequalities, as well as economic opportunities, are brought to the fore in both Angolan and Portuguese imaginaries.

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