Liquid Narrative of European Cultural Identity in the Time of Uncertainty (2008–2020)

As Leonidas Donskis (2016: 9) once wrote, “Europe has been saved many times by its narrative powers”. In this time of uncertainty and disasters, our public narratives are filled with gossips, conspiracies, intolerance, and hate speech that strengthen divisions in society. During pandemic lockdowns, when physical closeness is exchanged with social interactions online and when global identities and culture are uploaded on digital platforms, we ask: what does it mean to be European in a time of uncertainty and what binds our collective identities and helps us to overcome our fears and anxieties? Considering the past and present (2008–2020) global and European economic, political, healthcare, and cultural as well as personal crises, this auto-ethnographic essay raises these questions: How can personal narratives help to strengthen European cultural identity in these times of uncertainty? Do personal narratives weaken collective identities? By using an auto-ethnographic approach, this paper is an attempt to determine whether a holistic research approach can be used in the analysis of “liquid” European cultural identity and personal narratives. Therefore, this paper is not just for finding the right answers or right stories but is meant to act rather as a stepping stone for further discussion on how to communicate European cultural identity and how to raise self-identification, cultural solidarity, and unity during these times of uncertainty.

English as an identity marker in Bangladeshi TV commercials

This paper analyzes the use of English in Bangladeshi commercials from a sociocultural perspective. A semiotic approach describes these multimodal commercials. An identity-construction approach provides a sociolinguistic understanding of them. The results are categorized into three types: monolingual, bilingual, and English loanword-translation commercials. This study confirms that, in the Bangladeshi context, the presence and positive connotations of English and Western culture increase the social and cultural value of the advertised product, engendering satisfaction and symbolic pleasure in consumers. These commercials prove that English is used to reconstruct and recontextualize the Bangla language and Bangla sense of identity on the basis of linguistic, semantic, and contextual references that exemplify metrolingualism. Thus, this paper contributes to the ongoing study of the role played by commercials in promoting the intersection between metrolingualism and the construction of local, national, and global identities within the methodological and theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics.

Identity-related attitude in the child development centres for protecting educational asylum of early childhoods: From rural communities to schooling cities

The global identities of parents’ popularity in rural communities to make-decision effects of their attitudes to transfer their Early Childhood from Child Development Centres and Local Primary School for moving study into the schooling cities that looks like children’ asylum of their educational conditions, problems, administration’ school directors, teachers, and schools’ environments to protect that described. The involving CDCs’ perceptions got using the 25-item My CDC Identity Inventory (MCDCII) in five scales, three options. Teacher and Caregiver-Early Childhood interactions have assessed with the 30-item Questionnaires on Teacher Identity Interaction (QTII) in five scales on five options. The 10-item Local Identity-Related Attitude (LIRA) has been associated with a sample of 300 children’s parents, teachers, and caregivers. The determination of efficient predictive value (R2) shows that 30% of accepted the identities on cohesiveness, competitiveness, physical indoor and outdoor environmental development, satisfaction, and strong-sense identity. 74% of their CDCs can protect the educational asylum of early childhoods from rural communities. The R2 value shows 49% of the variance in children’s parents’ perceptions was because of the MCDCII have associated. Despite Thailand’s success in expanding educational access, new empirical evidence suggests that much more needs to be done to maximize the potential of its students. The performance gaps among schools have disadvantaged and poorer-performing students have concentrated in small rural village schools. The Thai pre-primary school system is dramatically lacking in qualified the CDCs’ learning environments and achievements, and teachers. It allocated small rural schools teachers with lower qualifications and teaching experience.

Sprachwechsel in der neuesten litauischen Migrations- und Mobilitätsliteratur

Language Change in the Most Recent Lithuanian Literature of Migration and Mobility. When discussing literary multilingualism within the Lithuanian literary scene, researchers usually refer to different groups of authors. Some were born and socialised abroad immediately after the Second World War, some left Lithuania after 1990, but producing their texts in different linguistic contexts all of them write consistently in one language, English or Lithuanian. In the most recent Lithuanian migration and mobility literature, however, one can observe examples of intra-textual bilingualism or multilingualism, which illustrate the integration problems of Lithuanian (labour) migrants into foreign societies on the one hand and the development of multiple global identities on the other. The paper examines these spreading tendencies focusing on the exemplary novel Stasys Šaltoka (2017) by Gabija Grušaitė and discussing the structure and functions of the intra-textual code-switching. The creative use of language directed against conventional linguistic purism shows that the young generation of Lithuanian authors tends to break language and cultural borders. The authors Unė Kaunaitė, Gabija Grušaitė and others show that the playful use of multilingualism can be subversive, ironic, but at the same time can highlight the problems of language dominance and thus political, social and cultural exclusion, express group mentality, identity changes, etc. The way that Lithuanian literature deals with multilingualism, expressed explicitly or implicitly, reveals the extent to which certain literary texts can be described as transcultural, in line with the current tone of European and global migration and mobility literature.

«Are you Koreans?» — «No, we are Kalmyks!»: развитие танцев «K-pop cover dance» среди молодежи Калмыкии

Introduction. The article deals with the k-pop cover dance direction as one of the movements globalizing the youth environment. Nowadays, the K-pop youth subculture has reached a significant number of teenage schoolchildren with its popularity. Currently, belonging to the K-pop subculture and its dance practices are becoming integral to creating new global identities for young people. Goals. The study aims to examine the richness of K-pop components through dance culture, especially popular among school-age teenagers. Materials. The work primarily analyzes the author’s field materials with the aid of the structural/functional method, that of included observation, as well as interviews (narrative, semi-structured) with respondents. Results and Conclusions. The paper concludes that Kalmyk K-pop fans form a bi-ethnic identity in which a combination of features of both — their own and other ethnic cultures — is equally manifested. At the same time, K-pop cover dance proves the most accessible way to get socialized and develop imagination (i.e., a leisure-time activity) in present-day youth culture.

Feeling global belonging: Sensorial experiences in global education

Global citizenship education (GCE) seeks to develop critical thinking and self-reflexivity and, crucially, to create feelings of belonging to a common humanity. Although the subjectivity of belonging has been widely recognized, gaps remain around the micro-level experiences and practices that foster global identities. This article addresses these questions through the analysis of the individual’s lived experience on an international GCE programme. It will be argued that global belonging is a transformative process of self-identity, shaped primarily through shared sensorial experience where the unfamiliar becomes familiar. The senses here help to create new personal and shared norms building trust, bonds and belonging between individuals from different backgrounds. Thus, in order to understand the journey towards feelings of global belonging, we must look to the senses as key sites of transformation.

New Media and National Identity: The Representatıon of Atatürk on Ngo’s November 10th Instagram Posts

National symbols, traditions, and rituals emerge as the most influential signifiers of national identity and nationalism. These symbols and images that embody the basic concepts of nationalism, make them visible to the members of society, help to make abstract ideologies more socially concrete, strengthen the sense of national loyalty and strengthen the awareness of the community members that belong to the same nation. On the other hand, Atatürk appears as a symbol of both Turkey's modernization process and Turkish unity and solidarity. Focusing on the representations of Atatürk as one of the national symbols on the internet and social media, this research examines the symbolic construction of the national identity of NGOs that represent different social groups in Turkey through the "November 10th, Atatürk Commemoration Day”. In this context, the November 10, 2019, posts of 38 Non-Governmental Organizations, which operate in different fields, are the most followed and have social, cultural, and economic activity on the society, were analyzed on Instagram. Shared visuals were used to categorize with the help of various codes assigned to them. The thematization method was used to characterize the types of photos posted on Instagram with embedded coding. Then, by combining very close codes, they were also subjected to clustering analysis to see which symbols are frequently used together and which meaning patterns they form. The findings of the study show that social media, which is often depicted as the space of global identities and flows, is a space where national identities are eclectically reconstructed by subjects and social groups that make up the nation and circulated through symbols.

NEW MEDIA AND NATIONAL IDENTITY: THE REPRESENTATION OF ATATURK ON NGO’s NOVEMBER 10th INSTAGRAM POSTS

National symbols, traditions, and rituals emerge as the most influential signifiers of national identity and nationalism. These symbols and images that embody the basic concepts of nationalism, make them visible to other members of society, help to make abstract ideologies more socially concrete, strengthen the sense of national loyalty and strengthen the awareness of the members of the community that they belong to the same nation. On the other hand, Atatürk appears as a symbol of both Turkey’s modernization process and Turkish unity and solidarity. Focusing on the representations of Atatürk as one of the national symbols on the internet and social media, this research examines symbolic construction of national identity of NGOs that represent different social groups in Turkey through the “November 10, Atatürk Commemoration Day”. In this context, the 10 November 2019 posts of 38 Non-Governmental Organizations, which operate in different fields, are the most followed and have social, cultural, and economic activity on the society, were analyzed on Instagram. Shared visuals were used to categorize with the help of various codes assigned to them. Thematization method was used to characterize the types of photos posted on Instagram with embedded coding. Then, by combining very close codes, they were also subjected to clustering analysis in order to see which symbols are frequently used together and which meaning patterns they form. The findings of the study show that social media, which is often depicted as the space of global identities and flows, is a space where national identities are eclectically reconstructed by subjects and social groups that make up the nation and circulated through symbols.

Language, identity and unintelligibility: A case study of the rap group Higher Brothers

The Chengdu-based quartet Higher Brothers recently became the first China-born hip hop group to gain global fame. As rap music – originally a local, ethnic African American culture in the United States – has been continually relocalized all over the world and thus globalized, the Higher Brothers have undergone another process of glocalization. This presents a new case study to further examine the dynamics between the global and the local. Because rap is an intensely verbal art, this article explores how the Higher Brothers construct and negotiate their complicated and multiple (local, national and global) identities from the perspective of language. It analyses the language used in their songs – Sichuan Chengdu Mandarin, Standard Mandarin (Putonghua) and English – before and after they signed with 88rising, the media company that brought the group to the West. Due to the rappers’ distinctive ways of vocal production, many of their trap-style songs prove hard to understand not only for global audiences but also for most Chinese national audiences and even for the quartet’s local audiences. Drawing on recent studies of mumble rap, this article explores the politics and sonic aesthetics of unintelligibility of the Chinese trap music.