A Study on Social Networks and the Subcultures of Migrants’ family - Focusing on Language Choice and Use of Socio-cultural Practices

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 5-28
Author(s):  
Jeong-eun Lee
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 537-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Addo Sowatey ◽  
Justice Tankebe

Much of our methodological insights from researching policing in sub-Saharan Africa comes from studies of frontline officers. Consequently, many important methodological questions about research on senior police officers remain unanswered. This article addresses this gap by drawing on insights from interviewing senior officers in Ghana. It focuses on the challenges and opportunities in negotiating access, establishing trust during interviews and dealing with ethical dilemmas. We highlight the role of informal social networks and cultural practices of surprise visits, what we have termed strategic ambush, in securing formal approval for our research. However, this represented mere or putative access for which deference towards institutional gatekeepers was key to its actualization. Deference towards officers and extensive knowledge of the policing environment helped to put the senior officers at ease, and enhanced the chances of a successful interview. Finally, we offer reflections on our responses to unexpected ethical dilemmas that we faced in the field.


2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5.1-5.18
Author(s):  
Naomi Kurata

This paper examines the patterns of language choice and the construction of L2 learning opportunities in foreign language learners’ social networks by focusing on how these patterns and opportunities are socially structured in a Japanese language learner’s natural interactions. It is based on a range of data, including a script of on-line chat occurring in natural environments as well interview data. Drawing on Cummins’ (1996) concept of interpersonal space, the findings indicate that there were a number of social and contextual factors that seemed to affect the learner’s language choice and L2 learning opportunities in complex ways. Most of these factors appeared to be related to the learner’s and/or his network interactants’ identity as an adequate L2 user and their perception of each other’s L2 proficiency and/or role. This paper provides insights into how to create environments that promote the learners’ opportunities for L2 use and learning.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Amanda Gilbertson

<p>Marcus Banks (1996: 8) argues that the life of ethnicity has been lived out through the writings of academics rather than in the lives of the people they have studied and, indeed, local discourses of ethnicity are remarkably understudied. This thesis takes a step towards addressing the lack of attention given to local discourses of ethnicity by exploring the ways in which sixteen New Zealand-born Gujaratis talked about their Indianness in interviews conducted specifically for this project. Herbert Gans’ (1979) notion of symbolic ethnicity is initially employed as a framework for understanding participants’ narratives. Although this analysis gives an indication of the salience of ethnicity in the lives of my participants, it fails to account for the complex dilemmas of difference they expressed – the definition of ‘Indian culture’ in terms of difference from other ‘cultures’ and the suggestion that they were different from other New Zealanders by virtue of their Indianness. These issues are explained through an exploration of the assumptions about the cultural and the person that were inherent in notions expressed by participants of living in ‘two worlds’ and having to find a balance between them. This analysis suggests that participants constructed both ‘culture’ and ‘the individual’ as highly individuated categories. It is argued that these conceptualizations of ‘culture’ and ‘the individual’ can be usefully understood in terms of reflexive, or liquid, modernity and reflexive individualism. Under the conditions of late modernity, reflexive – that is, selfdirected and self-oriented – thought and activity become idealised and individuals are ideologically cast as the producers of their own biographies. My participants’ discussions of their Indianness can, therefore, be understood to represent a kind of ‘self-reflexive ethnicity’ that is centred on the person rather than on social networks or cultural practices. This mode of ethnicity does not necessarily require the decline of such networks and practices; they are simply reconfigured in terms of personal choice.</p>


2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 5.1-5.18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Kurata

This paper examines the patterns of language choice and the construction of L2 learning opportunities in foreign language learners’ social networks by focusing on how these patterns and opportunities are socially structured in a Japanese language learner’s natural interactions. It is based on a range of data, including a script of on-line chat occurring in natural environments as well interview data. Drawing on Cummins’ (1996) concept of interpersonal space, the findings indicate that there were a number of social and contextual factors that seemed to affect the learner’s language choice and L2 learning opportunities in complex ways. Most of these factors appeared to be related to the learner’s and/or his network interactants’ identity as an adequate L2 user and their perception of each other’s L2 proficiency and/or role. This paper provides insights into how to create environments that promote the learners’ opportunities for L2 use and learning.


2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 301-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominique Cardon ◽  
Fabien Granjon

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devyani Sharma

AbstractThe role of social networks in language variation has been studied using a wide range of metrics. This study critically examines the effect of different dimensions of networks on different aspects of language variation. Three dimensions of personal network (ethnicity, nationality, diversity) are evaluated in relation to three levels of language structure (phonetic form, accent range, language choice) over three generations of British Asians. The results indicate a scaling of network influences. The two metrics relating to qualities of an individual's ties are more historically and culturally specific, whereas the network metric that relates to the structure of an individual's social world appears to exert a more general effect on accent repertoires across generations. This two-tier typology—network qualities (more culturally contingent) and network structures (more general)—facilitates an integrated understanding of previous studies and a more structured methodology for studying the effect of social networks on language.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-155
Author(s):  
Abdelaziz Ait Taleb ◽  
Mohamed El Ghazi

The study of Language Maintenance and Shift (LMS) is mainly concerned with exploring the effects of contact between two varieties or more on the speakers' "habitual use" of these varieties. This paper focuses on investigating two cases of LMS among native Amazigh-speaking youngsters who were enrolled at a higher education institution in the city of Agadir, Morocco. With regard to their linguistic background, the two cases are bilingual in an Amazigh variety (Tashlhit) as their mother tongue and Moroccan Arabic (Darija) as their L2. The purpose of the study is to explore the possible determinants of LMS among these two cases by exploring both their language choice patterns and social networks in particular language use domains (family and school). The instruments utilized to collect data included 'natural speech' recordings, self-report questionnaires, and interviews. The collected data were analyzed and interpreted in the light of Domain analysis and Social Network theories. The results revealed inconsistency in the case studies' patterns and determinants of LMS. Accordingly, the study concluded by recommending adopting more comprehensive models to better comprehend the dynamics of LMS in indigenous settings.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 014
Author(s):  
Òscar Coromina ◽  
Adrián Padilla Molina

Social platforms are playing an increasingly more important role in different aspects of our daily lives, which can range from the most mundane to such crucial processes as the transmission of meanings and values in our society. Much of the interest lies in the fact that storytelling on social networks is a collective process in which users participate by creating, sharing and commenting on content. All these actions generate digital traces that are easily accessible, in a non-intrusive and automated manner, which represents an unprecedented opportunity to investigate the mediation of social and cultural phenomena. Digital Methods is an epistemological proposal that, aligned with Studies in Science, Technology and Society (STS), assumes the existence of a technological mediation of social and cultural practices and uses computational techniques, not only to extract the digital traces left by the users of these social networks, but also to analyze and display their content. This article takes as a case study the representation of the Spanish Civil War on Facebook to exemplify the affordances of such a methodological approach to investigate the processes of generation, diffusion and representation of historical knowledge.


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