The “we” vs. “they” distinction in Slovakia Hungarians' discourse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildikó Vančo

AbstractLinguistic differentiation is a basic component of sociocultural differentiation: social processes create the social and linguistic meanings of variants, sometimes also contributing to language change through discourse processes. In addition to being continuously constructed, discourse is in a dialectic relationship with extra-discursive factors and can therefore be studied only when embedded in its social and linguistic contexts (cf. Fairclough 2010: 3–5, Laihonen 2009). In this article I investigate how the notion of “we” occurs in the metalinguistic discourse of Hungarian speakers in Slovakia (with reference to Slovakia Hungarians and their Hungarian language use) (cf. Kontra 2006) in contrast with the notion of “they” (with reference to Hungary Hungarians and their Hungarian language use) in lay speakers' utterances referring to language. The study reported on in this article uses directed interviews and employs discourse analysis to provide insight into the use of “we” vs. “they” and their meanings in the Slovakia Hungarian variety. It also seeks to show how certain expressions become indexical in conceptualizations of identity and how the distinction of “we” vs. “they” is created by language.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Bergs

Abstract This paper focuses on the micro-analysis of historical data, which allows us to investigate language use across the lifetime of individual speakers. Certain concepts, such as social network analysis or communities of practice, put individual speakers and their social embeddedness and dynamicity at the center of attention. This means that intra-speaker variation can be described and analyzed in quite some detail in certain historical data sets. The paper presents some exemplary empirical analyses of the diachronic linguistic behavior of individual speakers/writers in fifteenth to seventeenth century England. It discusses the social factors that influence this behavior, with an emphasis on the methodological and theoretical challenges and opportunities when investigating intra-speaker variation and change.


2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariza Abdullah ◽  
Mohd Azidan Abdul Jabar ◽  
Nik Farhan Mustapha ◽  
Pabiyah Toklubok@Hajimaming

Women are the main driving force of society along side men. High personality of women will  bring into the world strong generation and community in facing challenges of life. If they are weak, the community also will become strengthless. Muslims, regardless being  majorities in Moslem countries or minorities in non Moslem countries should revive excellency as early generations of Islam that bring forth advanced world civilization for several centuries. The stories of the early generations had been written by many authors such as Mohammad Rashid Rida’s writing about the wives of the Prophet, as well as contained in history books known as “sirah”, autobiographies as well as other forms of writings, translations of thousands of titles in the subject but not studied analytically. Thus analyzing the social processes that apply at that time through the content of Prophetic hadith and discourse analysis texts as proposed by social language analysts, prevail to expose the excellency and sustainability of  women implied in the events as had been narrated by themselves and others. Methodology of this study is based on analysis of the content of hadith and Fairclough (2003, 1992, 1989)’s concept of discourse analysis through the dimension of intertextuality. Several prophetic Hadith are selected, analyzed and being related to social practice to formulate the principles that should serve as a model to modern  women especially by Moslim women. This is because the development of human capital especially female identity is the backbone of the nation’s development.


2021 ◽  
Vol VI (III) ◽  
pp. 44-55
Author(s):  
Jabreel Asghar

This research paper looks at the language use to exploit and propagate certain stereotypes imposing on the parties involved in the institution of marriage. A critical discourse analysis with a field, tenor, mode approach uncovers how bride and bridegroom are deprived of their consents on various issues and are socially forced to accept the assumptions created by prevalent social norms. The study exposes how the use of certain discourses and lexical choices restrict the participants to overlook or discard other options which could be otherwise legally and religiously granted to them. The study emphasizes that the current marriage certificate (Nikah Nama) needs to be thoroughly revised in order to eliminate language exploitation and allow both parties to be well aware and exercise their rights before giving their consent in good faith, predetermined by the social taboos.


2010 ◽  
Vol 84 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 253-268
Author(s):  
Renée Figuera

"Convention, Context and Critical Discourse Analysis: 'Jim The Boatman' and The Early Fiction of Trinidad" re-evaluates the claim of colored authorship which has been attributed to a short story published anonymously, in the Trinidad Spectator in 1846. This re-evaluation is significant since 'Jim the Boatman" has been cited as part of a collection of writing in the emerging literary tradition of nonwhite authors of nineteenth century Trinidad. A critical discourse approach to identifying the writer, in this essay, proposes an alternative paradigm to traditional "plantation power structures" which have been used for identifying writers of anonymous texts, as they may override the cultural context of literary discourse formation in complex Anglophone Caribbean societies like Trinidad. Critical Discourse Analysis focuses specifically on the ways in which writers’ discursive behavior is the result of external sociopolitical pressures, and the strategies they use for textualizing their worldview, in their cultural contexts. This alternative paradigm is based on the researcher’s critical observation of the social context, discourse conventions, and language use in relation to anonymous texts.


1984 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 46-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Heller

In 1980, in this journal, Joshua Fishman presented the major theoretical issue in sociolinguistics as being the link between microsociolinguistic and macrosociolinguistic processes. In 1984 that is still the case, although the issue is receiving more explicit attention than it did four years ago.There are two branches of sociolinguistics which approach this issue in different ways. These two branches are interactionist and variationist sociolinguistics. Interactionist sociolinguistics is principally interested in what language use can tell us about social processes, and therefore a central concern is the social meaning of language use. Variationist sociolinguistics is interested in accounting for linguistic variation and change, at least partly as a product of the social distribution of language varieties. It is, therefore, less concerned with meaning as process, and more concerned with the interaction of linguistic and social systems; in this view the significance of language is mainly symbolic. In this review, I will discuss the contributions of these branches to the problem of the relationship between microsociolinguistics and macrosociolinguistics, as well as the theoretical problems peculiar to each branch.


Author(s):  
Rita Bossan ◽  
Gideon Abioye Oyedeji

Attaining national unity and cohesion is a function of deliberate strategic plans of different facets of human endeavour in a nation. The language front has important role to play in fostering national unity and cohesion in any country. The Nigeria and Africa situation is not an exception. The chaos and rivalry that have become an intrinsic experience for us in Nigeria and in fact, Africa is partly a function of careless and unchecked language use in the social media. This paper, therefore, explores the use and misuse of language on social media. The study examines the comments of Facebook users to online news headlines posted on Premium Times Facebook handle. A corpus of a week screenshot samples of these comments are collected out of which nine (9) were purposively selected for the analysis. These nine (9) data are grouped into five (5) texts. The selected data were analysed using Dell Hymes’ Ethnography of Speaking complemented by Theo van Leeuwen’s Identities and Subjectivity Model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The paper uses the SPEAKING acronym as the theoretical insight and discussion was based on the postulations of the CDA model adopted. The study found that the responses from readers are mostly tilting towards their individual affiliations. Also, instances of arguments and rebuttals by readers reflect a situation where the polarity tilts in bidirectional positive in-group - “us” and negative out-group – “them” among the different affiliations the users represent. The study further found that copious use of vulgar expressions pervades the comments of readers. This study therefore concludes that such use of language cannot help Nigeria and Africa in its quest for unity. The study recommends that media literacy be taught in schools in order to entrench civility in the discussions of people on social media.


Author(s):  
Samuel Weeks

Abstract This article brings together trends in Critical Discourse Analysis dating from the 1980s – which examine how language use and ideologies (re)produce social inequality – with current research in the social sciences on neoliberalism and other emerging politico-economic formations. The article addresses such a problematic with an empirical case: the language strategies, dubbed langue de bois, that people affiliated with Luxembourg’s offshore financial center employ to justify their practices. The contribution herein surveys the political rationality of the country’s financial center by analyzing the langue de bois that its representatives and boosters use. These language strategies, furthermore, enable Luxembourg’s finance elites to socialize the domestic public’s understanding of their activities.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Charteris-Black

The concept of ‘purposeful metaphor’ is proposed as an alternative to ‘deliberate metaphor’ (Steen, 2008) in providing a theory of metaphor in discourse and communication. The case for ‘purposeful metaphor’ is framed within a discussion of intentionality in a murder trial. It is argued that ‘deliberateness’ originates in epistemologies based in language use, but is not valid for epistemologies that distinguish between conscious and unconscious thought process; in literary studies it is known as the ‘intentional fallacy’. However, considerations of intention are relevant in critical metaphor analysis that seeks insight into the social and political motivation of metaphor. Insights from Speech Act Theory and rhetorical theory suggest that ‘deliberate metaphor’ could be modified to ‘purposeful metaphor’ because we conceptualise ‘purpose’ in terms of a SOURCE (or idea), a PATH (or rhetorical plan) to realise a GOAL (or rhetorical outcome). ‘Purposeful metaphor’ therefore integrates the source (or idea behind) path, (or rhetorical plan), and goal, (or rhetorical outcome) of metaphor, while ‘deliberate metaphor’ only profiles its inception. Illustrations are given of how ‘purposeful metaphor’ contributes to an explanation of metaphor use in political and legal discourse, and other persuasive genres. Linguistic evidence for purposefulness is in the interaction between textually complex use of metaphor and contextual features such as political purpose or describing medical conditions.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 741-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amelia Abercrombie

AbstractThis article takes an ethnographic approach to language standardisation. My research focuses on Romani language use in Prizren, Kosovo, which has a tradition of multilingualism. Moving away from approaches to standardisation that focus only on linguistic processes, I look more broadly at the social processes behind language standardisation. I explore discussions, debates, and attitudes towards me as a language learner to show how a Romani standard is being produced and legitimised in Prizren. Applying theories of purism and standardisation, I examine how certain speech practices are made inferior and how social hierarchies legitimise this. I relate this more broadly to the politics of Romani language and to theories of sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. (Romani, Kosovo, standardisation, purism, language ideology)*


Author(s):  
Anisa Mufidah ◽  
Rohmani Nur Indah

This study analyzes the written discourse which contains social relation in Tempo newspaper on The World Statesman Award through multidisciplinary Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) proposed by van Dijk (1998). It concerns with how the discourse of the news has particular purpose in relation to the readers. Employing the theory, this study aims to answer two main questions: (1) What are the social relations of the language use in online Tempo news related to World Statesman Award to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from Appeal of Conscience Foundation2013? (2) How are the social relations of the language use in online Tempo newspaper to World Statesman Award from Appeal of Conscience Foundation 2013? The data analysis covers first, analysis on the context of news followed by drawing semantic macrostructure. Then, identifying the local meaning of the text as well as the social relation is done. The findings show that the social relations reflected in the social cognition of the news cover the knowledge of shared belief, attitude, or shared opinion, and ideology in both shared knowledge and attitude.Keywords: social relation, multidisciplinary Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)


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