scholarly journals Translanguaging as a resource for meaning-making at multilingual construction sites

Multilingua ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Kahlin ◽  
Leelo Keevallik ◽  
Hedda Söderlundh ◽  
Matylda Weidner
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Team Leaders ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Transformative Power ◽  
Professional Interaction ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Structures

Abstract In this article we investigate spoken professional interaction at construction sites in Sweden, where workers from Poland, Ukraine and Estonia are temporarily employed as carpenters, ground workers and kitchen installers. We study how the workers use resources associated with different languages and how these resources are mobilized along with embodied resources for meaning-making. The analysis aims at investigating what social space the workers construct by going between or beyond different linguistic structures, as defined in the theory of translanguaging. The study is based on Linguistic Ethnography and Conversation Analysis is used for close analysis. We focus on instances of translanguaging, such as Swedish-sounding institutionalized keywords, practices of receptive multilingualism and the search for communicative overlaps in repertoires. The findings from busy construction sites show that the stratifying aspect gives some workers a voice in the organization, while others remain silent. Hence, it is primarily professionals functioning as team leaders, who talk to different occupational categories and use resources associated with different languages. The data provide an opportunity to investigate the theory of translanguaging and its transformative power in relation to professional settings that are linguistically diverse, but also strictly hierarchical.

Who tells which story and why? Micro and macro contexts in narrative

2008 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna de Fina
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Local Context ◽  
Local Meaning ◽  
The Many

AbstractThis article focuses on the inter-relations between storytelling and micro and macro contexts. It explores how narrative activity is shaped by and shapes in unique ways the local context of interaction in a community of practice, an Italian American card-playing club, but also illustrates how the storytelling events that take place within this local community relate to wider social processes. The analysis centers on a number of topically linked narratives to argue that these texts have a variety of functions linked to the roles and relationships negotiated by individuals within the club and to the construction of a collective identity for the community. However, the narrative activities that occur within the club also articulate aspects of the wider social context. It is argued that, in the case analyzed here, local meaning-making activities connect with macro social processes through the negotiation, within the constraints of local practices, of the position and roles of the ethnic group in the wider social space. In this sense, narrative activity can be seen as one of the many symbolic practices (Bourdieu 2002 [1977]) in which social groups engage to carry out struggles for legitimation and recognition in order to accumulate symbolic capital and greater social power.

Affective meanings and social relations: identities and positions in the social space

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Ambrasat ◽  
Christian von Scheve
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Conceptual Knowledge ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Occupational Status ◽  
Regional Culture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Affective Meanings ◽  
Affective Relations

Ever since Georg Simmel’s seminal works, social relations have been a central building block of sociological theory. In relational sociology, social identities are an essential concept and supposed to emerge in close interaction with other identities, discourses and objects. To assess this kind of relationality, existing research capitalises on patterns of meaning making that are constitutive for identities. These patterns are often understood as forms of declarative knowledge and are reconstructed, using qualitative methods, from denotative meanings as they surface: for example, in stories and narratives. We argue that this approach to some extent privileges explicit and conceptual knowledge over tacit and non-conceptual forms of knowledge. We suggest that affect is a concept that can adequately account for such implicit and bodily meanings, even when measured on the level of linguistic concepts. We draw on affect control theory (ACT) and related methods to investigate the affective meanings of concepts (lexemes) denoting identities in a large survey. We demonstrate that even though these meanings are widely shared across respondents, they nevertheless show systematic variation reflecting respondents’ positions within the social space and the typical interaction experiences associated with their identities. In line with ACT, we show, first, that the affective relations between exemplary identities mirror their prototypical, culturally circumscribed and institutionalised relations (for example, between role identities). Second, we show that there are systematic differences in these affective relations across gender, occupational status and regional culture, which we interpret as reflecting respondents’ subjective positioning and experience vis-à-vis a shared cultural reality.

scholarly journals Living in between a house and a home: Where’s the comfort zone anyway? Dislocated identities in Morrison’s "The Bluest Eye" and Cisneros’ "The House on Mango Street"

Oceánide ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 18-27
Author(s):  
Alcina Pereira de Sousa ◽  
Alda Maria Correia
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Literary Representations ◽  
Comfort Zone ◽  
Bluest Eye ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
Cultural Experiences ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One ◽  
Linguistic Structures ◽  
Selection Of

This paper aims to provide a reflection on literary representations of home alternatively to current collocations in the media, in the psychological and sociological realm (home vs comfort zone). The selection of two postcolonial texts, one by Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970), and another by Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (1984), provides ways-in to discuss changing social and cultural experiences with a focus on characters’ search for identity in a multicultural and multilingual setting, as is the one in the United States. The study will depart from a brief theoretical survey (Anderson 1991) to a corpus-based approach which maps such shifts and changes (Baker 2006) while resorting to a close analysis of contexts of occurrence of the keywords home and house, along with their patterns of collocation, in the texts under scope (from the sentence to the textual levels, following Biber et al. 1998; Sinclair 2004, among other). The analysis is meant to unveil ways in which writers make use of linguistic structures and most importantly what it means to be at home when characters never felt welcome there, or characters’ inner / outer struggle to develop a sense of belonging in disrupted settings.

Analyzing the talking book Imagine a world: A multimodal approach to English language learning in a multilingual context

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 747-774
Author(s):  
Heather Lotherington ◽  
Sabine Tan ◽  
Kay L. O’Halloran ◽  
Peter Wignell ◽  
Andrew Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
Linguistically Diverse Students ◽  
Multimodal Analysis ◽  
Professional Interest ◽  
Semiotic Resources

Abstract In recent years there has been increased academic and professional interest and awareness in approaches to English language teaching (ELT) that take a plurilingual approach. This is often combined with a multimodal stance. The outcome of this combination is an approach to English language teaching that integrates multiple languages and multiple semiotic resources. This paper examines how a plurilingual approach to ELT can be viewed through a multimodal lens by analyzing the construction of a plurilingual talking book created as a student project in an elementary public school. The analysis uses multimodal analysis software to map the interaction of languages and images, in order to determine how these function as meaning-making resources in a multimodal, multiple-language text created by linguistically diverse students with high ELT needs. The findings indicate how combinations of different semiotic resources work together to create meaning, delineates the role of English in meaning-making, and illustrates the children’s multilingual interactions in the creation of their collaboratively composed multimodal talking book.

What Can I Do?

2017 ◽  
pp. 481-498
Author(s):  
Eliza G. Braden
Keyword(s):  
Critical Literacy ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Third Graders ◽  
Culturally And Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Inservice Teachers ◽  
Classroom Context ◽  
Linguistically Diverse Students ◽  
Text Types ◽  
Multimodal Text

This chapter offers preservice candidates and inservice teachers a portrait into a classroom context where one teacher: 1. Identified the experiences and backgrounds of 20 culturally and linguistically diverse students; 2. Used critical literacy as a theory to purposefully select literature grounded in the lives and experiences of her culturally and linguistically diverse third graders; and 3. Used critical literacy and multimodal text types to enhance students meaning making and talk. Implications for practice and research are provided.

Multiliteracies Performance Assessment Zones (MPAZ)

2019 ◽  
pp. 165-198
Author(s):  
Stefania Savva
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Literature Analysis ◽  
Virtual Museum ◽  
Multimodal Learning ◽  
Design Based Research ◽  
Analysis And Evaluation ◽  
Linguistically Diverse Students ◽  
Multimodal Interactions ◽  
Delivery Strategies

Recognition of the dramatically changing nature of what it means to be literate in the so-called “information age” has resulted in an increasing interest among the educational research community around the importance of students developing “multiliteracy” skills and engaging in multimodal learning. Nevertheless, for such learning to be meaningful, requires to reconceptualize delivery strategies and assessment of multimodally mediated experiences. The aim of this chapter is dual: First to introduce an alternative framework for formative assessment of multimodal interactions for learning. Secondly, the intention is to uncover the story of culturally and linguistically diverse students' multimodal experiences, resulting from engagement in the creation of a student-generated virtual museum during a design-based research implementation. Drawing from the literature, analysis, and evaluation using the framework explained, it is evident that virtual museum-based multiliteracies engagement, benefits pupils' multimodal awareness, meaning making, and development as active designers of their learning.

scholarly journals Maintaining Urban Complexities: Seeking Revitalization without Gentrification of an Industrial Riverfront in Gothenburg, Sweden

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-77
Author(s):  
Gabriella Olshammar
Keyword(s):  
Research University ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
University Education ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Construction Sites ◽  
Study Research

This article presents case study research performed in a small-scale and centrally located industrial site by the riverfront in Gothenburg, Ringön. It has been highlighted in municipal visions to develop according to its very own circumstances, meaning small-scale and zoned for industrial use. Being closely located to the historic core of the city and surrounded by large construction sites, Ringön has received a lot of attention lately in local newspapers, research, university education and social media. The area is repeatedly pictured as redundant, with some rough potential to become something of a hipster mekka. However, this coverage mostly recognises newcomers from the creative industries and art, while neglecting existing repair-shops and small-scale manufacturing industries. To picture an area as redundant and in need of improvements, exemplifies a feature of gentrification, where extant qualities are seldom appreciated, and where outsiders define the needs to revitalize. The purpose is here to understand and shed light on a diversity of perspectives and interests among Ringön stakeholders, i.e. the insiders, who together affect the development in question. In order to grasp the complexity of the process, I develop a many-faceted narrative in line with Bent Flyvbjerg’s approach to case study research. Meaning-making histories and activities that have come forward in field studies are sorted into eras that are considered lost, still alive, almost lost or recently found. This play of thought is inspired by current discourses on worlds coming to an end, as interpreted by Déborah Danowski and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. In addition, the concept of “urban glue” from Nigel Thrift is introduced to illustrate how Ringön embodies an era that is certainly still alive.

(Re)conceptualizing digital literacies before and after the election of Trump

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Sulzer
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Social Space ◽  
English Education ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Digital Literacies ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Before And After

Purpose As part of a larger global phenomenon, the election of Donald Trump in the USA represents a crucial moment for the (re)conceptualization of digital literacies. The purpose of this paper is to build theory with respect to what this moment means for English education. Design/methodology/approach This teacher reflection focuses on what digital literacies meant for my teaching before and after the 2016 election. Using a before-and-after format, I argue that the before conceptualization of digital literacies, while still relevant and useful for introducing many important ideas to English educators, was missing a direct treatment of political power. The after conceptualization takes up this topic. Findings Themes taken up in the before section involve a parallel between digital literacies and disciplinary literacies and a distinction between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 interfaces. Themes in the after section address the propensity for governments and other well-resourced groups to occupy Web 2.0 environments for their own ends. Methods for accomplishing these ends involve restricting, surveilling and targeting flows of information and enacting three populist practices via internet trolling: aggregating the unmet demands of disparate groups, establishing popular subjectivity and dichotomizing the social space through the persistent construction of the enemy. Research limitations/implications A critically conscious approach to digital literacies must consider the ways in which political entities occupy digital environments. Practical implications Further research should be done in English education classrooms to understand the ways in which individual online meaning making becomes entangled within a nexus of political activity. Further research should investigate how online meaning making intersects with political power. Originality/value The role of political entities is often downplayed or ignored in discussions of digital literacies. In an age of alternative facts, fake news and echo chambers, it is important to foreground the interplay between the social, the political and the digital in contemporary meaning making. This contribution offers concepts that can be taken up and expanded, as well as a set of questions for English educators to use in framing a critically conscious conversation about digital literacies.

scholarly journals Co-experiencing Psychotherapy of F. Vasilyuk and Linguistic Turn in Social Sciences, Psychology and Psychotherapy

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.P. Busygina
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Everyday Language ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
New Interpretation

Co-experiencing psychotherapy of F. Vasilyuk is considered in the context of the linguistic turn in social sciences in the second half of the twentieth century. The linguistic turn meant the change of research style under the influence of increased attention to everyday language. Language is viewed as a form of social action not so much representing reality as constructing it. The linguistic turn in psychology has led to the development of such theoretical and methodological approaches as discursive psychology, narrative psychology, narrative psychotherapy and to the development of such language-oriented methodologies as discourse analysis, narrative analysis, conversation analysis. The main idea of the article is that co-experiencing psychotherapy is a successor of this movement and contributes greatly to the development of language-oriented methodologies in psychology and psychotherapy. It is argued that in co-experiencing psychotherapy the unique methodology of discourse analysis has been proposed and much attention is paid to meaning-making and sense-making processes by means of everyday language. The paper also offers a new interpretation of lifeworlds as stylistics of narrative contemplation of experience. Based on the conversation analysis of training and counseling sessions held by F. Vasilyuk it is argued that the empathetic counseling strategy created in co-experiencing psychotherapy involves repeated reformulations of client statements which open up possibilities for changing the scale of an individual’s experiencing by means of employing the aesthetics of different genres.

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