A Photo-Narrative of the Sociolinguistic and Sociocultural Identities of a Refugee Adolescent

Author(s):  
Alex P. Davies

One's linguistic discourse is directly linked to his or her identity construction. The author conducted a qualitative study that investigated the sociolinguistic and sociocultural identities, both current and imagined, of a newly arrived adolescent of refugee status, named Yerodin, through a photo-narrative approach. Yerodin was unique in that he was 11 years old when he arrived to the United States but did not have any prior formalized schooling. Therefore, he was illiterate in both his first language of Swahili and second language of English. This study took place during a summer school program that sought to develop Yerodin and his siblings' literacy skills before the upcoming school year. Findings illustrated Yerodin's current identity as one who appreciated his experiences in the refugee camp prior to resettlement and as an English learner. Furthermore, Yerodin realized that English, his second language, and academics were key to accessing his desired communities of identity, including aspects of American culture and friendships with “American peers.”

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (4) ◽  
pp. 2-2
Author(s):  
Anita Puckett

This issue of Practicing Anthropology, guest edited by University of Maryland Professor and Applied Anthropologist, Judith Freidenberg, offers a new addition to our usual format of short, reflective pieces on applied anthropological research by professional anthropologists. Judith kindly agreed to translate her introduction into her first language of Spanish, thus opening up her issue on immigration to a new audience for this journal. Given that the research discussed in this issue focuses for the most part on those who come to the United States not knowing English or knowing it as a second language, we both felt that this issue was an especially auspicious one for inaugurating a bilingual approach.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-55
Author(s):  
David Natvig

Using loanword data from Haugen (1953), this paper investigates variation in vowel integrations of English loanwords in the Norwegian among 19th century Norwegian immigrants to the United States, as first-language Norwegian and second-language English speakers. Previous research, most notably Flege (1995), has argued that speakers make use of L1 categories that are the most similar to the integrated L2 sound. In contrast, this research argues that the “most similar,” as well as less similar but attested, L1 integrated phonemes can be understood through the Lahiri and Reetz (2002) Underspecified Recognition model, where phonetic features of L2 input sounds are mapped onto hierarchically organized L1 distinctive features (i.e., Dresher, 2009).


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (16) ◽  
pp. 15-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henriette W. Langdon ◽  
Terry Irvine Saenz

The number of English Language Learners (ELL) is increasing in all regions of the United States. Although the majority (71%) speak Spanish as their first language, the other 29% may speak one of as many as 100 or more different languages. In spite of an increasing number of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who can provide bilingual services, the likelihood of a match between a given student's primary language and an SLP's is rather minimal. The second best option is to work with a trained language interpreter in the student's language. However, very frequently, this interpreter may be bilingual but not trained to do the job.


1981 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 198
Author(s):  
Barbara Brock ◽  
Patricia Byrd ◽  
Carol A. Drum ◽  
Barbara Jean Wittkopf

2012 ◽  
Vol 37 (04) ◽  
pp. 933-968 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Hamlin

International law provides nations with a common definition of a refugee, yet the processes by which countries determine who should be granted refugee status look strikingly different, even across nations with many institutional, cultural, geographical, and political similarities. This article compares the refugee status determination regimes of three popular asylum seeker destinations—the United States, Canada, and Australia. Despite these nations' similar border control policies, asylum seekers crossing their borders access three very different systems. These differences have less to do with political debates over admission and border control policy than with the level of insulation the administrative decision-making agency enjoys from political interference and judicial review. Bureaucratic justice is conceptualized and organized differently in different states, and so states vary in how they draw the line between refugee and nonrefugee.


Author(s):  
Genoveffa Giambona ◽  

The purpose of this article is to analyse Roddy Doyle’s representations of Irishness and Ireland in Oh, Play That Thing (2004). The novel is the second instalment in Doyle’s The Last Roundup Trilogy, a historical fiction describing the making of the Irish nation through the adventures and misadventures of Henry Smart, its protagonist. In the novel, constructions of Irishness are projected onto the outside world through Henry’s picaresque travels in the United States. The article examines how Irishness is constructed in the book and how it becomes intertwined with identity construction in other minority groups.


2020 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-396
Author(s):  
Alison Turner

ABSTRACT This article merges the postmodern critical thinking that scrutinizes bias and power in the formation of archival collections with the refugee and asylee resettlement process in the United States. It proposes that the theoretical accumulation of narratives recorded on applications for refugee and asylum status can be conceived of as a theoretical archive, physically boundless and spread across countries of origin, temporary host countries, and countries of resettlement. A postmodern-archivist lens helps to interrogate the implications of what Mireille Rosello calls the “problematic gap” separating what happened to a person and the narrative that is bureaucratically established during the application process; this article explores this “gap” by engaging fieldwork and scholarship from lawyers, field researchers, and humanitarians who critique how application narratives are recorded, processed, and preserved. It then turns to fiction from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dinaw Mengestu, and Imbolo Mbue that inhabits this “problematic gap,” reading a character in each text as personification of the processes of appraisal, institutional motives, and essentialization of identity. These texts make visible ways in which the application narrative archive operates through what the author calls an “autologic function” that prioritizes familiar forms of narratives while determining who is eligible for refugee status. In turn, the article proposes that these fictional illustrations of autologic processes might inform archival projects focused on inclusion of marginalized communities.


Author(s):  
Alex Kumi-Yeboah

Since 2000, there has been an increasing rate of online learning directed toward K-12 schools in the United States. The need for online courses has become evident as schools are searching for ways to meet student's learning needs. Online and blended courses provide options for schools with limited curricular offerings, scheduling conflicts, or find it difficult to provide highly qualified teachers. In the 2010/2011 school year, it was estimated that approximately 1.5 million students in K-12 schools across the United States were enrolled in an online course (Wicks, 2010). However, a literature search indicates that not much is known about K-12 blended and online learning instruction in virtual K-12 schools. Various issues such as types of instructional delivery, optional management skills, current trend of blended learning, the academic impact on K-12 education are critical areas for teachers and administrators to consider (iNACOL, 2011). This chapter seeks to demonstrate the growing trend of blended and online learning in the United States, analyze instructional implications of blended and online learning to students, discuss major obstacles to blended and online learning in K-12 schools, address possible solutions, and provide recommendations for further studies.


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