scholarly journals Metonymic Figures: Cultural Representations of Foreign Domestic Helpers and Discourses of Diversity in Hong Kong

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharanya Jayawickrama
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Minority Population ◽  
Cultural Representations ◽  
Ethnic Minority Population ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Private And Public

Abstract Foreign Domestic Helpers account for nearly half of Hong Kong’s total ethnic minority population and are therefore integral to any discussion of diversity in the postcolonial, global Chinese city. In Asia, discourses of diversity have evolved from the juncture of complex historical, political, and cultural factors including colonialism, postcoloniality, traditional and precolonial customs and values, religious and spiritual beliefs, as well as Western-derived liberal-democratic discourses of rights and citizenship. “Diversity” has been identified as one of the core values and attributes of the territory by the Hong Kong Government yet it is not a concept that is carefully interrogated and delineated. This essay examines discourses of diversity via analysis of a varied set of cultural representations of Foreign Domestic Helpers, including a television programme and advertisements, a work of short literary fiction, online erotic fiction, social media, as well as an example of multi-media artwork. Taken together, these representative forms provide insight into the cultural imaginary that shapes private and public discourse and perception. Using an approach informed by both cognitive linguistics and postcolonial studies, the essay focuses on metonymic techniques, for example, doubling and substitution to argue that representations of Foreign Domestic Helpers reveal the anxieties, fears, and desires of the dominant culture. The essay shows that the Foreign Domestic Helper becomes a critical figure around whom linked questions of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class in the majority ethnic Chinese population of Hong Kong circulate.

scholarly journals Ježíšek (‘Baby Jesus’?) as a conceptual construct and the key word of the Czech culture

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irena Vaňková
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
Key Word ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract The study of the relationship between language and culture has recently found an interesting source of inspiration in the theoretical-methodological basis of cognitive linguistics and ethnolinguistics. The paper draws on this resource, especially on the findings of J. Bartmiński’s Ethnolinguistic School of Lublin and the theory of culturally key words by Anna Wierzbicka, and following the previous ethnolinguistic research of Czech Christmas, it focuses on the image of the Christmas giver Ježíšek in contemporary Czech (private and public) discourse. This image has been reconstructed based on the analysis of language data and culturally significant texts dealing with the Ježíšek topic, and also based on a survey conducted among Czechs on social networks. The objective of the analysis is to contribute to the formulation of the so-called cognitive definition connected to the Ježíšek conceptualization, and to identify some of its aspects.

scholarly journals Biochemical abnormalities in COVID-19: a comparison of white versus ethnic minority populations in the UK

2021 ◽  
pp. jclinpath-2021-207446
Author(s):  
David R Taylor ◽  
Devon Buchanan ◽  
Wiaam Al-Hasani ◽  
Jessica Kearney ◽  
Tina Mazaheri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Troponin T ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Patient Data ◽  
Minority Population ◽  
Gamma Glutamyl Transferase ◽  
Ethnic Minority Population ◽  
Glutamyl Transferase

AimsPublic Health England has identified that in COVID-19, death rates among ethnic minorities far exceeds that of the white population. While the increase in ethnic minorities is likely to be multifactorial, to date, no studies have looked to see whether values for routine clinical biochemistry parameters differ between ethnic minority and white individuals.MethodsBaseline biochemical data for 22 common tests from 311 SARS-CoV-2 positive patients presenting to hospital in April 2020 in whom ethnicity data were available was retrospectively collected and evaluated. Data comparisons between ethnic minority and white groups were made for all patient data and for the subset of patients subsequently admitted to intensive care.ResultsWhen all patient data were considered, the ethnic minority population had statistically significant higher concentrations of C reactive protein (CRP), aspartate aminotransferase and gamma-glutamyl transferase, while troponin T was higher in the white group. A greater proportion of ethnic minority patients were subsequently admitted to intensive care, but when the presenting biochemistry of this subset of patients was compared, no significant differences were observed between ethnic minority and white groups.ConclusionOur data show for the first time that routine biochemistry at hospital presentation in COVID-19 differs between ethnic minority and white groups. Among the markers identified, CRP was significantly higher in the ethnic minority group pointing towards an increased tendency for severe inflammation in this group.

Literate Design in the Discourses of Revolution, Reform, and Transition

1998 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Scollon ◽  
Suzanne Wong Sgollon
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Contemporary China ◽  
The Public

In contemporary China, including Hong Kong, literate design from the choice of writing system or romanization to presentational formats articulates an inter-discursivity among three major discourses: the language reforms of the post-Liberation revolutionary discourse, the Dengist reform discourse, and the discourse of the transition of sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to China. Thus literate design represents the polyvocality of utterance in the public discourse of signs, announcements, and advertisements, symbolizing the new wine of reform by placing it in the old bottle of the symbols of the revolutionary discourse. There is also a smaller contrasting trend of re-symbolizing the revolutionary discourse with the designs of the reform discourse.

Family as a framing resource for political identity construction: Introduction sequences in presidential primary debates

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Sclafani
Keyword(s):  
Political Discourse ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Presidential Debates ◽  
Family Identity ◽  
Political Identities ◽  
Presidential Primary ◽  
Family Discourse ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Family Identities

AbstractThis study investigates the construction of political identity in the 2011–2012 US Republican presidential primary debates. Focusing on candidates’ self-introductions, I analyze how candidates use references to family members and roles to frame their political identities or ‘presidential selves’. Family references are shown to (i) frame candidates’ personal identities as family men/women; (ii) interweave the spheres of home and politics and consequently, their private and public selves; (iii) serve as a tool of discursive one-upmanship in self-introduction sequences; and (iv) demonstrate intimate familiarity and expertise on the topic of national security. This study extends research on family discourse and identity by examining the rhetorical function of mentioning family-related identities in explicitly persuasive public discourse, and contributes to sociolinguistic research on political discourse by examining how family identities serve as a resource for framing political identities. (Discourse analysis, framing, family, identity, political discourse, presidential debates, sequentiality)

scholarly journals COVID-19 health inequities and association with mechanical ventilation and prolonged length of stay at an urban safety-net health system in Chicago

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0258243
Author(s):  
Jacquelyn Jacobs ◽  
Amy K. Johnson ◽  
Arianna Boshara ◽  
Bijou Hunt ◽  
Christina Khouri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ◽  
Mechanical Ventilation ◽  
Length Of Stay ◽  
Pulmonary Disease ◽  
Safety Net ◽  
Chronic Obstructive ◽  
Minority Population ◽  
Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ◽  
Ethnic Minority Population ◽  
Prolonged Length

Millions of Americans have been infected with COVID-19 and communities of color have been disproportionately burdened. We investigated the relationship between demographic characteristics and COVID-19 positivity, and comorbidities and severe COVID-19 illness (use of mechanical ventilation and length of stay) within a racial/ethnic minority population. Patients tested for COVID-19 between March 2020 and January 2021 (N = 14171) were 49.9% (n = 7072) female; 50.1% (n = 7104) non-Hispanic Black; 33.2% (n = 4698) Hispanic; and 23.6% (n = 3348) aged 65+. Overall COVID-19 positivity was 16.1% (n = 2286). Compared to females, males were 1.1 times more likely to test positive (p = 0.014). Compared to non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic persons were 1.4 (p = 0.003) and 2.4 (p<0.001) times more likely, respectively, to test positive. Compared to persons ages 18–24, the odds of testing positive were statistically significantly higher for every age group except 25–34, and those aged 65+ were 2.8 times more likely to test positive (p<0.001). Adjusted for race, sex, and age, COVID-positive patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were 1.9 times more likely to require a ventilator compared to those without chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (p = 0.001). Length of stay was not statistically significantly associated with any of the comorbidity variables. Our findings emphasize the importance of documenting COVID-19 disparities in marginalized populations.

East Asian Pop Culture

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chua Beng Huat
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Chinese Language ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Chinese Diaspora ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Production Location ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Production Distribution

Since the 1990s, there has been dense traffic of pop culture routinely crossing the national and cultural boundaries of East Asian countries of Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. The unequal traffic is predominantly from Japan and Korea into ethnic-Chinese dominant locations, which has a historically long and well established production, distribution and exhibition network; Japan and Korea are primarily production-exporting nations, while China and Singapore as primarily importing-consumption ones, with Taiwan emerging as the production centre in Mandarin pop music and Hong Kong remaining as the primary production location of Chinese languages cinemas. Japanese and Korean pop culture are translated, dubbed or subtitled into a Chinese language in one of the ethnic-Chinese importing locations and then re-exported and circulated within the entire Chinese ‘diaspora’. The structures and processes that engender this transnational flow are the foundational to the emergence of an East Asian regional media cultural economy that increasingly see co-production of films and television dramas.

ACUTE PANCREATITIS IN PATIENTS WITH SEVERE HYPERTRIGLYCERIDEMIA IN A MULTI-ETHNIC MINORITY POPULATION

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 429-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ambika Amblee ◽  
Divyanshu Mohananey ◽  
Micheal Morkos ◽  
Sanjib Basu ◽  
Ayokunle T. Abegunde ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Acute Pancreatitis ◽  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Minority Population ◽  
Ethnic Minority Population ◽  
Severe Hypertriglyceridemia

scholarly journals Founder Mutation c.1516A>C in KLHL40 Is a Frequent Cause of Nemaline Myopathy With Hyponatremia in Ethnic Chinese

2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (9) ◽  
pp. 854-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han-Chih Hencher Lee ◽  
Shun Wong ◽  
Frank Ying-Kit Leung ◽  
Luen-Cheung Ho ◽  
Siu-Ki Timothy Chan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Autosomal Recessive ◽  
Genetic Variant ◽  
Polymorphic Marker ◽  
Nemaline Myopathy ◽  
Ultrastructural Examination ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Ethnic Chinese ◽  
Muscle Disorder ◽  
Nemaline Bodies

Abstract KLHL40-related nemaline myopathy is a severe autosomal recessive muscle disorder. The current study describes 4 cases of KLHL40-related nemaline myopathy in Hong Kong ethnic Chinese presenting within 3 years, which are confirmed with clinicopathologic features and genetic studies. The incidence is estimated to be at least 1 in 45 226 livebirths (at least 1 in 41 608 among ethnic Chinese livebirths) in Hong Kong. Hyponatremia appears to be another common feature in these patients. Salient histological features include nemaline bodies ranging from 200 to 500 nm in diameters on ultrastructural examination as well as negative KLHL40 immunohistochemistry; type II fiber predominance is obvious in 2 cases. We demonstrate the founder effect associated with genetic variant c.1516A>C (p.Thr506Pro) by polymorphic marker analysis, which revealed a 0.56–0.75-Mb or 0.41–0.78-cM shared haplotype encompassing the disease allele. The mutation is believed to have occurred around 412 generations ago or 6220 BCE, as estimated using DMLE+ and a formula described by Boehnke. We believe the founder variant might possibly underlie a sizable portion of nemaline myopathy in ethnic Chinese. Analysis of the KLHL40 gene may be considered as the first-tier testing of congenital myopathy in this ethnic group.

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