(Non)fuzziness of Identity in the Spanish-Portuguese Borderland: The Case of the Linguistic Community of A Fala de Xálima (Spain)

(Non)fuzziness of Identity in the Spanish-Portuguese Borderland: The Case of the Linguistic Community of A Fala de Xálima (Spain)This article analyses the social dynamics observable in a conversation with a minoritized language activist about the neighbouring speech communities. The study demonstrates that the local variety, along with its socially meaningful context, can be an important factor for the interactionally constructed local identity. The interviewee is a member of the community of practice of A Fala de Xálima, a Galician-Portuguese Romance minoritized language with about 5,000 speakers; they live in the Spanish province of Cáceres (on the border with Portugal). The analysis applies the ontological and epistemological principles of sociocultural linguistics in order to identify some indexical interactional orientations, such as stance and ideology. (Nie)ostrość tożsamości na pograniczu hiszpańsko-portugalskim – przypadek społeczności językowej A Fala de Xálima (Hiszpania)Celem artykułu jest analiza dynamik społecznych, które można zaobserwować w konwersacji z aktywistą na rzecz języka mniejszościowego, prowadzonej na temat sąsiednich społeczności językowych. W dalszej kolejności, celem jest ukazanie, że lokalna odmiana językowa, brana pod uwagę wraz ze swoim społecznie znaczącym kontekstem, może znacząco wpływać na lokalną tożsamość językową, budowaną w sposób interakcjonalny. Rozmowa została przeprowadzona z członkiem wspólnoty praktyki A Fala de Xálima – języka mniejszościowego należącego do galicyjsko-portugalskiej grupy języków romańskich – która liczy ok. 5000 użytkowników mieszkających w hiszpańskiej prowincji Cáceres (na granicy z Portugalią). W analizie autor posługuje się zasadami ontologiczno-epistemologicznymi tzw. językoznawstwa społeczno-kulturowego i przy ich użyciu opisuje wybrane orientacje indeksykalne o charakterze interakcjonalnym, takie jak pozycjonowania społeczne (ang. stance) i ideologie.

Migration of population in Sverdlovsk oblast: problems and solutions

In the context of the necessity to implement the national goals, one of the important areas of activity is support of positive demographic processes, promotion of population growth in the country, including through resettlement and migration of residents of other countries. This is relevant not only at the country level, but also at the regional level, each of which has features that must be considered when forming demographic policy. The article analyzes the effectiveness of the program to promote migration and resettlement of compatriots from other countries to Sverdlovsk oblast. Its advantages and limitations are highlighted, its effectiveness is considered on the example of immigrants from several CIS countries: Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. It is shown that despite the formal fulfillment of the objectives of the program (more than 28 thousand foreigners arrived in Sverdlovsk oblast within 9 years), some meaningful moments were missed, the selection of migrants based on the occupations in demand in the labor market of the region was not fully carry out. There are presented the directions of improving the program for the medium term, which are connected with new approaches to raising the quality of program implementation in Sverdlovsk oblast. It is shown that it is necessary to formalize and improve the mechanism for attracting foreign labor to the region using notification quotas, organized recruitment, modification of selection criteria for the point system, development of the material base and linguistic community for an accelerated adaptation. Analysis showed that promotion of resettlement is necessary with relation to professionals in relevant areas of activity (doctors, teachers), while the demand for unskilled labor is satisfied by migrants.

How language learning and language use create linguistic structure

Languages persist through a cycle of learning and use: you learn a language through immersion in the language used in your linguistic community, and in using language to communicate you produce further linguistic data which others might learn from in turn. We know that languages change over historical time as a result of errors and innovations in these processes of learning and use; this paper reviews experimental and computational methods which have been developed to test the hypotheses that those same processes of learning and use are responsible for creating the fundamental structural properties shared by all human languages, including some of the design features that make language such a powerful tool for communication.

The image of the fly in Polish, French and English phraseology. A comparative analysis

The article concerns the image of the fly in Polish, French, and English phraseology. Connections between language and culture are discussed, with comparative semantic analyses as an important element of intercultural dialogue. Such analyses also benefit translation studies and language teaching. It is considered what properties of the fly are important for a given linguistic community, how the insect is viewed axiologically, and what experience of the insect has been preserved in the language’s phraseology. In the analysis, parallel phraseological units in all three languages are identified, with an account of the connections motivated by the physical properties of flies, their behaviour and axiology in relation to humans. In each language, different features of the fly are preserved so that the overall images of the insect are different. The frequency of the units with the nominal ‘fly’ in these languages also varies.

Cultural values in American and Spanish TV advertising at the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic

This article discusses the similarities and differences found in some Spanish and American television advertisements broadcast at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. To carry out this study, forty advertisements shown on television in the two countries during the months of March and April 2020 were analysed. Qualitative and quantitative analysis considered the cultural dimensions of identity, uncertainty avoidance and masculinity. In addition, the Chi-square formula was also applied in order to confirm that the differences found in both groups of adverts were not significantly important. The results show that a great deal of similar messages and even expressions was conveyed to both audiences in both countries, although some differences were also found. Besides, the main goal of these ads in both groups was to comfort the audience, and not to clearly promote or advertise the product. Thus, this study demonstrates once again that despite the differences that these two cultural groups display, and which are usually portrayed in intercultural literature, the context highly influences the values typically assigned to a linguistic community. That is reflected in the discourse of speakers, and it is the reason why we can find values opposite to those expected in a cultural group.

J. Baudouin de Courtenay, A. Schleicher and “Beiträge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der arischen, celtischen und slawischen Sprachen”

The article is devoted to two outstanding linguists - Jan Niecisław Ignacy Baudouin de Courtenay (13.03.1845-3.11.1929) and A. Schleicher (19.02.1821-6.12.1868) - and their cooperative work in Beitrge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der arischen, celtischen und slawischen Sprachen, the journal established by A. Schleicher and A. Kuhn. The article contains some understudied facts about the relations between the two great scientists and a description of the scientific paradigm in which their interaction developed. This article provides a full list of Baudouins works published in the Beitrge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der arischen, celtischen und slawischen Sprachen journal and the articles by Schleicher published in its first volume. It also gives the names of scientists who supported the journal and influenced academic development of both linguists. Beitrge zur vergleichenden Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der arishen, celtischen und slawischen Sprachen, one of the most authoritative bodies of Indo-European studies of the XIX century, has become a recognized tribune of world-class researchers in the field of comparative historical linguistics since its foundation in 1858. In addition to A. Kuhn, A. Schleicher and his students (A. Leskin and J. Schmidt), such outstanding linguists as T. Aufrecht, A.F. Weber, F. Miklosich, M. Mller, A.F. Pott, H. Steinthal, W.D. Whitney, H.W. Ebel and many others published their scientific works there. J. Baudouin de Courtenays collaboration with this scientific publication was fruitful for his development as a scientist and allowed him to introduce his revolutionary views to the general linguistic community.

Sociolinguistic Awareness of Spanish Speakers on the Mexican Border with Belize

The border society of Chetumal is studied in order to know how the speakers of this linguistic community conceive their ways of speaking Spanish in different situational contexts (home or work), before different people (employers, friends or subordinates) and with it get to check the degree of linguistic awareness they possess; that is, if the social boundaries present in their speech exist and are recognized as such by all speakers. This study is based on just over 100 questionnaires applied to the same number of Spanish-speakers born in Chetumal in 2019, who were registered according to the traditional sociolinguistic factors of age, sex, and socio-cultural level, the latter calculated basically on the individual's education index. The conclusions reflect the linguistic reality of Spanish speakers on the southern border of Mexico in which Caribbean and English elements are palpable in the lexical sector of the language.

Decoding Cultural-Code Meaning of Allusion in Translations (Xi Jinping’s Speech at Davos Forum 2021)

The results of the analysis of the rhetoric of Xi Jinping’s public speech are presented. The novelty of the research lies in an attempt of a comparative interpretation of allusive linguistic representations of the text of the speech and its translations into English and Russian. It is emphasized that the interpretation of linguistic representations or their decoding is possible in the contexts of linguacultural accents of allusions of the text and dictionary entries, since by its sign essence language is one of the codes of culture. The authors proceed from the fact that the allusion, being a cognitive category, has a cultural-code meaning (CC-meaning), which is reflected not only in the vocabulary conceptual content, but also in the system of extralinguistic knowledge, associations and images that acquire meaning, enshrined in the culture of linguistic community. The results of an interpretative analysis in order to identify allusive hidden meanings and cultural-code meanings of the units under study are presented in the article. An algorithm is proposed for the interpretative analysis of figurative units in the speech of Xi Jinping by comparing their representations in three languages. The question is raised that the allusions in the speech of the Chinese leader and their semantic correspondences in the translation texts are addressed both to the internal addressees / speakers of the Chinese language and to the external — foreign-language audience.

Understanding of source code in language: Contribution of philosophical hermeneutics to the critical code studies

The article discusses the attempt to understand a source code under the conception of philosophical hermeneutics guided by language. Based on a confrontation between H.-G. Gadamer’s and Paul Ricoeur’s philosophy, our main goal would be searching for the essence of the source code in language. Thus, a closer look is taken into cultural symbols, natural language, and artificial languages. Especially, there would be discussed the problem of abstraction, linguistic community, self-forgetfulness, vitality of formal languages, and display of individuality. This is where the cultural layer of the code can be traced, hence we may find our world-view verbal in nature. In line with the Critical Code Studies approach, in this article, the source code is treated as text. Because of its complexity, the issue should be studied within philosophical inquiry and computer science knowledge. Hence, the perspective developed here goes back to origins and provides a philosophical foundation for Critical Code Studies thinking. The article presents academics with a philosophical challenge: how to understand the source code with an adaptation of a philosophy rejecting artificiality. With philosophical reflection, the source code gains additional meaning and experiences increase in being. Understanding happens in language, which realizes as discourse.

Conflict Dynamics between Two Neighbours: Looking Beyond Federalism

Ethiopia is a multicultural and multilingual country. The Oromo and Somali communities are found in the same linguistic community, that is, the Cushitic language. Historically, Somalis and Oromo have a long tradition of co-existence and strong socio-cultural interactions, as well as antagonistic relationships and intermittent conflicts. Traditionally, the major sources of conflict between the two communities were competition over scarce resources, territorial expansion, livestock raids and counter raids, kidnapping for marriage purposes and the revenge tradition. However, this time the conflict took a different nature, form and bigger scale causing devastation never seen in the history of communal conflict in the country. The study has utilised primary and secondary data collection and employed narration and content analysis to realise the objective of the paper. The findings of this study reveal that the causes of the Oromo–Somali conflict are complex and dynamic. This urges the need to carry out a deeper investigation beyond the federal arrangement. Thus, fundamental and triggering factors including the involvement of internal and external forces, the collapse of social norms and prevalence of moral anarchism, socio-economic issues, competing interests among public and military officials, poor leadership and governance system, competing interests over resources, aspects of local cultural institutions in regulating inter-ethnic relationships are identified in fuelling ethnic conflict in the studied area. Since the conflict in the region is much more complex than the dominant narrative of resource scarcity and ethnic politicisation, open democratic dialogue, genuine consultation and negotiation at a different level with various interest groups, stakeholders and community representatives, militant groups operating in the area is of paramount importance to ease the increasing ethnic tension and political crisis in order to build sustainable peace in the region.