The role of language in the formation, reproduction and promotion of cultural and social identities

The role of language in the formation, reproduction and promotion of cultural and social identities PDF Author: Kristina Kolb
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3640500970
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 12

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Book Description
Essay from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: B, , language: English, abstract: According to structuralist and post-structuralist theories, identities are relational, and as such they are formed and shaped through communicative processes. In order to communicate, we need a common system of signs that can be understood by every member of the group, in everyday speech referred to as “language”. Although it is certainly true to say that language forms, reproduces and promotes identity, it must not be forgotten that identities are plural, intersect, interact and enter into conflict with each other, and language identity is no exception to this. Consequently, the relationship between language and identity, when taking a closer look at it, involves many different considerations and is not as clear-cut as one might anticipate.

The role of language in the formation, reproduction and promotion of cultural and social identities

The role of language in the formation, reproduction and promotion of cultural and social identities PDF Author: Kristina Kolb
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3640500970
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 12

Get Book Here

Book Description
Essay from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: B, , language: English, abstract: According to structuralist and post-structuralist theories, identities are relational, and as such they are formed and shaped through communicative processes. In order to communicate, we need a common system of signs that can be understood by every member of the group, in everyday speech referred to as “language”. Although it is certainly true to say that language forms, reproduces and promotes identity, it must not be forgotten that identities are plural, intersect, interact and enter into conflict with each other, and language identity is no exception to this. Consequently, the relationship between language and identity, when taking a closer look at it, involves many different considerations and is not as clear-cut as one might anticipate.

Language and Identity

Language and Identity PDF Author: David Evans
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567047792
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
Language not only expresses identities but also constructs them. Starting from that point, Language and Identity examines the interrelationships between language and identities. It finds that they are so closely interwoven, that words themselves are inscribed with ideological meanings. Words and language constitute meanings within discourses and discourses vary in power. The powerful ones reproduce more powerful meanings, colonize other discourses and marginalize or silence the least powerful languages and cultures. Language and culture death occur in extreme cases of marginalization. This book also demonstrates the socio-economic opportunities offered by language choice and the cultural allegiances of language, where groups have been able to create new lives for themselves by embracing new languages in new countries. Language can be a 'double-edged sword' of opportunity and marginalization. Language and Identity argues that bilingualism and in some cases multilingualism can both promote socio-economic opportunity and combat culture death and marginalization. With sound theoretical perspectives drawing upon the work of Bakhtin, Vygotsky, Gumperz, Foucault and others, this book provides readers with a rationale to redress social injustice in the world by supporting minority linguistic and cultural identities and an acknowledgement that access to language can provide opportunity.

Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts

Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts PDF Author: Amy B.M. Tsui
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351560891
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Bringing together scholarship on issues relating to language, culture, and identity, with a special focus on Asian countries, this volume makes an important contribution in terms of analyzing and demonstrating how language is closely linked with crucial social, political, and economic forces, particularly the tensions between the demands of globalization and local identity. A particular feature is the inclusion of countries that have been under-represented in the research literature, such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Pakistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Korea. The book is organized in three sections: Globalization and its Impact on Language Policies, Culture, and Identity Language Policy and the Social (Re)construction of National Cultural Identity Language Policy and Language Politics: The Role of English. Unique in its attention to how the domination of English is being addressed in relation to cultural values and identity by non-English speaking countries in a range of sociopolitical contexts, this volume will help readers to understand the impact of globalization on non-English speaking countries, particularly developing countries, which differ significantly from contexts in the West in their cultural orientations and the way identities are being constructed. Language Policy, Culture, and Identity in Asian Contexts will interest scholars and research students in the areas of language policy, education, sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, and critical linguistics. It can be adopted in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses on language policy, language in society, and language education.

Problematizing Identity

Problematizing Identity PDF Author: Angel Lin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780805853384
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
This book argues that identity as a term needs to be problematized, not taken for granted – for both the risks and the potential that the concept offers to educators for understanding issues of social inequality and how social inequality is being reproduced, and for exploring possible alternative ways educators can work with identity de/formation processes to seek to break the social reproduction structures mediated through identity fixing and essentialization. It provides some of the meta-language and theoretical, analytical tools to embark on such a practice of making the familiar strange, problematizing the taken-for-granted, and uncovering the linguistic, discursive, and cultural processes that serve to subordinate some people while privileging others. The chapters are organized around three themes: Identity, Class, and Difference; Gender, Ethnicity, and Education; and Gender, Ethnicity, and Language. The diverse sociocultural contexts in which the data and analyses are situated help to illustrate symbolic struggles and identity politics that are being engaged in by peoples in different cultures, languages, and societies of the world, offering insights from multidisciplinary, trans-cultural, and trans-local perspectives. By offering a comprehensive integration and clarification/ delineation of the different ways identity has been thought about and used in different theoretical traditions, and discussing the implications of different theoretical senses of "identity" for language educators, this volume will be useful to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and educators in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, discourse analysis, sociology, education, gender studies, and cultural and media studies.

The Politics of Language : Conflict, Identity, and Cultural Pluralism in Comparative Perspective

The Politics of Language : Conflict, Identity, and Cultural Pluralism in Comparative Perspective PDF Author: Carol L. Schmid Professor of Sociology Guilford Technical Community College
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195350219
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Important aspects of the history of language in the United States remain shrouded in myth and legend. The notion of "one nation, one language" is part of the idealized history of the United States, although in its short history it has probably been host to more bilingual people than any other country in the world. Language is more than a means of communication. It brings into play an entire range of experiences and attitudes toward life. Furthermore, language is a potent symbolic issue because it links power and political claims of ownership with psychological demands for group worth. How people belonging to different language and cultural communities live together in the same political community and how political and structural tensions arise to divide them along language lines, are questions addressed in The Politics of Language. This book analyzes the historical background and recent controversy over language in the United States and compares it to two official multilingual societies: Canada and Switzerland. It's accessibility as a survey of this topic makes it ideal for courses in linguistics, political science, and sociology.

Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century

Language, Youth and Identity in the 21st Century PDF Author: Jacomine Nortier
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107016983
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This volume explores and compares linguistic practices among young people in linguistically and culturally diverse urban spaces.

A Peculiar Mixture

A Peculiar Mixture PDF Author: Jan Stievermann
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271063009
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Through innovative interdisciplinary methodologies and fresh avenues of inquiry, the nine essays collected in A Peculiar Mixture endeavor to transform how we understand the bewildering multiplicity and complexity that characterized the experience of German-speaking people in the middle colonies. They explore how the various cultural expressions of German speakers helped them bridge regional, religious, and denominational divides and eventually find a way to partake in America’s emerging national identity. Instead of thinking about early American culture and literature as evolving continuously as a singular entity, the contributions to this volume conceive of it as an ever-shifting and tangled “web of contact zones.” They present a society with a plurality of different native and colonial cultures interacting not only with one another but also with cultures and traditions from outside the colonies, in a “peculiar mixture” of Old World practices and New World influences. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Rosalind J. Beiler, Patrick M. Erben, Cynthia G. Falk, Marie Basile McDaniel, Philip Otterness, Liam Riordan, Matthias Schönhofer, and Marianne S. Wokeck.

Language Attitudes and the Pursuit of Social Justice

Language Attitudes and the Pursuit of Social Justice PDF Author: Mara R. Barbosa
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781032612577
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Language Attitudes and the Pursuit of Social Justice explores the relationship between language attitudes and forms of inequality and oppression, fostering greater awareness of how linguistic choices become political ones and encourages the search for practices that promote social justice. The volume is organized around different sections which look at language attitudes and their intersection with different dimensions of contemporary social and cultural life: language policy and planning; language and education; and the role of identity in forming strong communities that promote multilingualism and multiculturalism. Both established and emerging scholars explore the ways in which language attitudes are informed by extralinguistic factors and in particular, stereotypes, drawing on case studies through the lens of French, Italian and Spanish in Canada; interaction of migrant languages in Austria; national languages in West Africa and in Senegal; Signed languages in Spain; Spanish in Aruba, Uruguay, the U.S., and Catalonia and Majorca in Spain; and Quechua in Peru.The collection urges the development of critical linguistic awareness and a view of languages which recognizes their ability to continue to shift across time and space. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language education, language policy and planning, and bilingual education.

Regimes of Language

Regimes of Language PDF Author: Paul V. Kroskrity
Publisher: James Currey Publishers
ISBN: 9780933452626
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
In Regimes of Language, ten leading linguistic anthropologists integrate two often segregated domains: politics (without language) and language (without politics). Their essays contribute to an understanding of the role of language ideologies and discursive practices in state formation, nationalism, and the maintenance of ethnic groups, on the one hand, and in the creation of national, ethnic, and professional identities, on the other. Moving beyond a preoccupation with ideologies of cultural "others," the volume includes reflexive analyses of European language philosophy and historical linguistics, US academic ideologies of language, political discourses by US journalists and elite image advisors, and the impact of Christian missionaries on indigenous peoples in the Papua New Guinea highlands.

Language and Identity

Language and Identity PDF Author: John Edwards
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139483285
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
The language we use forms an important part of our sense of who we are - of our identity. This book outlines the relationship between our identity as members of groups - ethnic, national, religious and gender - and the language varieties important to each group. What is a language? What is a dialect? Are there such things as language 'rights'? Must every national group have its own unique language? How have languages, large and small, been used to spread religious ideas? Why have particular religious and linguistic 'markers' been so central, singly or in combination, to the ways in which we think about ourselves and others? Using a rich variety of examples, the book highlights the linkages among languages, dialects and identities, with special attention given to religious, ethnic and national allegiances.