Prosodic levelling during language shift: Okinawan approximations of Japanese pitch‐accent1

This article demonstrates how the language death process potentially contributes to the emergence of a new dialect. A sociolinguistic survey of the prosodic phonology of Japanese spoken in Yaeyama, Okinawa shows that the obsolescence process of Okinawan has resulted in a new dialect of Japanese. First, Okinawan is undergoing processes typical of language death, including increased variability and the elimination of phonological contrasts at the prosodic level. These processes are also occurring in the incoming language, Japanese. Second, these processes have influenced the acquisition of the prosody of Standard Japanese, resulting in a new prosodic system. Third, a positive attitude towards the local variant of Japanese is prevalent among the younger members of the community, particularly the working‐class males. These results suggest that a local prosodic system is emerging, resulting in a new dialect of Japanese.     

Gender Differences in the Effect of Job Characteristics on Work‐to‐Family Conflict in Japan: Application of the Job Demands‐Resources Model into Japanese Population1

This article uses the job demand‐resources (JD‐R) model to analyze the Japanese population and gender differences in work‐to‐family conflict in Japan. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme in 2015, the study addresses four main questions: (i) does the JD‐R model apply to the Japanese population? (ii) which gender is more likely to experience work‐to‐family conflict? (iii) does gender moderate the relationship between work‐related factors and work‐to‐family conflict? and (iv) do different factors predict work‐to‐family conflict between men and women? The findings show that the JD‐R model applies in part to the Japanese population, and women are more likely to experience a higher level of work‐to‐family conflict than men. There are also different factors predicting work‐to‐family conflict by gender, even though gender does not moderate the relationship between work‐related factors and work‐to‐family conflict. This article points out the peculiar Japanese social and cultural contexts that lead to gender differences in work‐to‐family conflict. It offers two solutions: (i) legal regulations to reduce working hours and the frequency of working on weekends to prevent work from intruding on family life; and (ii) changes to the work environment to make women workers more comfortable at work because of the male‐dominated workplace and Japanese culture on family gender roles in Japan.     

The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, and the Atlantic Working Class in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract This article uses the myth of the many-headed Hydra, commonly employed by members of various ruling classes around the Atlantic to describe the class struggles that surrounded them, to illuminate the history of the working class in the eighteenth century. It concentrates on two groups of workers, wage laborers (especially sailors) and slaves, two zones of the Atlantic, Europe and North America, and four moments in the history of the Atlantic working class: 1747, when, in the Knowles Riot in Boston, sailors and slaves fought the King's press gangs and in so doing created one of the central ideas of the 'Age of Revolution' 1768, when, in the London port strike, sailors, Irish coal heavers, and others pioneered one of the central ideas and activities of the modern working-class movement, the strike; 1776, when, in the American Revolution, sailors and slaves helped to instigate and win the world's first colonial war for liberation; and 1780, when, in the Gordon Riots, the polyglot working class of London liberated the prisons amid the greatest municipal insurrection of the eighteenth century. It argues that fixed, static notions of race, ethnicity, and nationality among historians have obscured a vital world of cooperation and accomplishment within a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, international working class.     

'I don't speak with a Geordie accent, I speak, like, the Northern accent': Contact-induced levelling in the Tyneside vowel system

Evidence is presented in this paper of the levelling of the Tyneside (Newcastle) English vowel system toward that of a putative regional standard. This process is hypothesised to follow from the fragmentation of tight-knit urban communities that formed after large-scale immigration to Tyneside from elsewhere in the British Isles during the 18th and 19th centuries. High levels of dialect contact brought about by this influx are argued to have promoted the creation of an urban koiné, which in its contemporary form appears increasingly to be losing specifically local features. In addition to contact and mobility as agents of change, the history of unusually acute stigma attached to Tyneside speech should be considered. These and other social factors inform an analysis of the FACE and GOAT variables in the speech of 32 contemporary Tyneside English speakers of various ages, both sexes and from two social class groups.     

Language usage and earnings among minorities: The case of the Arabs in Israel

The paper studies the effect of the usage of the majority language by minority members on their earnings. Unlike recent studies on language proficiency, the paper deals with minorities that were not created through migration. It thereby contributes new insight into the “language component” in the decomposition of wage differentials by separating language usage from other human capital resources. The empirical study deals with three sub-groups of the Arab minority in Israel.     

Relative Rank‐order of Salient Identities of the Japanese

How are multiple identities of Japanese people rank‐ordered? Previous studies on multiple identities almost exclusively focus on people in the USA. Little is known about the structure of multiple identities of people living in other countries. Japan is a good comparative case because it has both similar and different social contexts than the USA. Analyzing a recent survey of a nationally representative sample of Japanese adults, I examine how multiple identities are rank‐ordered by their salience among the Japanese. The results suggest that among ten identities, the most salient are the family–marital status identity, the occupational identity, and the national identity, while the least salient identities are social class, religious, and political identities. This identity rank‐order differs from that found in a comparable study of Americans in that the rank‐orders of national and religious identities are reversed. The observed patterns also seem to contradict an emerging line of cross‐cultural research that suggests national identity is less important for the Japanese than for Americans. Overall, this paper empirically demonstrates the fundamental dictum of symbolic interactionism that self reflects society, and suggests the importance of specifying and examining country‐level factors to study identity structures.     

Incorporating translation into sociolinguistic research: Translation policy in an international non‐governmental organisation

This article explores aspects of translation, multilingualism and language policy in the field of transnational civil society. By focusing on translation policies at Amnesty International, an international non‐governmental organisation that performs a key role in global governance, this article seeks to contribute to a globalisation‐sensitive sociolinguistics. It argues that combining a sociolinguistic approach – more precisely linguistic ethnography – with translation studies leads to an increased understanding of the language practices under study. Furthermore, the article calls for more interdisciplinary research, stating that there is space for sociolinguistics and translation studies to contribute to research in international relations and development studies by highlighting the role of multilingualism and challenging the traditionally powerful position of English in transnational civil society.     

The Retention of Newcomers in Second‐ and Third‐ Tier Canadian Cities1

The federal government of Canada and several provincial governments are anxious to promote a more balanced distribution of immigrants across the country. Currently, 89 percent of all newcomers settle in large cities, 75 percent in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal alone. This study examines the internal migration of refugees destined to second‐and third‐tier cities in Alberta. Their decisions to stay in or leave these communities have significant policy implications. The economic vitality of urban centers, the existence of compatriot communities, and the recognition of immigrant skills and educational credentials all contribute to the retention of newcomers in second‐ and third‐tier cities.     

The Hobo Anomalous: Class,minorities and political invention in the Industrial Workers of the World

This article is an analysis of minority political invention in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Against the tendency in recent social and cultural theory to dichotomize class and difference, it argues that it was in and through the IWW's formulation of class that minority political and cultural invention occurred. Using the framework of Deleuze and Guattari's minor politics, the article shows how the IWW's composition in the simultaneously diffuse and cramped plane of work operated against the major political identities and subjects of worker, immigrant, American, citizen and 'people', and towards the creation of minority political knowledges, tactics and cultural styles premised on the condition that 'the people are missing'. Seeking to understand the IWW's modes and techniques of invention, the article explores the general plane of IWW composition, its particular political and cultural expressions (in songs, manifestos, cartoons and tactics), and its minor mode of authorship. The article focuses in particular on two aspects of IWW minority composition, the itinerant worker, or hobo, and the politics of sabotage.     

The multi‐functionality of accounts in advice giving1

Accounts have traditionally been understood as explanations designed to exonerate the speaker from an untoward act (e.g. account for lateness) ( Scott and Lyman 1968 ). In this paper, I examine the use of accounts in advice giving, adopting a broader view of accounts as the reasoning provided to bolster the viability of the advice. The data set consists of 15 graduate peer tutoring sessions and a total of 143 advising sequences collected over a period of four years. Using the methodology of conversation analysis, I show that besides their remedial utility of ‘repairing the broken,’ accounts can also be used proactively to validate and promote a current agenda. In particular, I argue for the multi‐functionality of accounts in addressing face threats, managing resistance, and doing pedagogy.     

Afro‐Caribbeans and Indo‐Caribbeans in the Netherlands: Premigration Legacies and Social Mobility1

The social mobility of immigrants depends not just on the opportunity structure of the receiving society, but also on the past experiences and the sociocultural repertoires that immigrants bring with them on arrival. This becomes clear in a comparison of two ethnic groups that migrated from one Caribbean country to the Netherlands: the Afro‐Surinamese and Indo‐Surinamese. While both groups left Surinam at the same time and settled into very similar conditions in the Netherlands, their premigration histories differed considerably. These different premigration legacies seem crucial to understanding the current differences in the economic and educational performance of these immigrants and their offspring.     

Lost in translation: The World Bank and the Paris Declaration

The Paris Declaration embodies the consensus that country ownership of donor programmes is vital, and above all the principle that donors should base their programmes on developing country priorities. The Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) has assessed the World Bank as performing relatively well against the Paris targets, though not moving towards full compliance. In Sri Lanka and Côte d'Ivoire, however, the Bank pays only lip service to the governments’ priorities. The Paris commitment is swamped by the influence of the Bank's governing Board and its US‐nominated President, its lending imperative and the professional preoccupations of its staff. Real implementation of the Bank's Paris commitment would entail, ideally, a reform of Bank governance and a contractual mechanism for developing countries to hold the Bank (and other donors) to their Paris promises. Less ambitiously, the Bank and other donors may still take limited but precise action to ensure that country priorities are respected and ownership becomes a reality. In the Bank, it might be enough for the Bank's President to make true adherence to the Paris Declaration a personal priority, and to nominate one of his senior managers to follow up.