Embodied versus Disembodied Information: How Online Artifacts Influence Offline Interpersonal Interactions

This article examines how the sheer volume of personal information recorded and searchable online (online artifacts) has transformed the situated activity system central to Goffman's dramaturgical theories. In‐depth interviews reveal that individuals believe disembodied information based on online artifacts is a more accurate representation of others than embodied information from spatially and temporally bounded face‐to‐face (FTF) processes because they represent how others have behaved over time and are attested by their online contacts. However, the n‐adic structure of online interaction leads to mismatched expectations about whether disembodied information is taken into account during FTF encounters, and consequently can result in embarrassment.     

Performance and ideology in speaking tests for adult migrants

Language learning linked to migration is an important issue in many contemporary societies. This article discusses how adult migrants following a L2 Swedish course express beliefs on competence, language learning and language use during a test event. The theoretical framework is based on performance theory and the Bakhtinian notion of addressivity. Drawing on an interactional analysis of 27 video‐recorded paired speaking tests (a candidate‐candidate discussion) in the final national exam in an L2 Swedish course for adult migrants, the article discusses how the speaking tests could be interpreted as institutionalized staged performance. It is argued here that institutional performance puts ideologies on display. Stance‐taking, interactional alignment and an orientation to dominant discourses on monolingualism and integration become important resources for keeping the discussion going in front of the examiners. Finally, the study argues that the view of speaking tests as performance provides a deeper understanding of the complexity of language use in test settings.     

Variation in the English definite article: Socio‐historical linguistics in t'speech community1

This paper provides a sociolinguistic analysis of variation in the English definite article, a.k.a. definite article reduction (DAR), in the city of York, northeast Yorkshire, England. Embedding the analysis in historical, dialectological and contemporary studies of this phenomenon, the findings uncover a rich system of variability between the standard forms as well as reduced and zero variants. These are involved in a system of multicausal constraints, phonological, grammatical, and discourse‐pragmatic that are consistent across the speech community. However, the reduced variants are not derivative of each other, but reflect contrasting functions in the system. Interestingly, the reduced variants are accelerating in use among the young men, suggesting that DAR is being recycled as an identity marker of the local vernacular. This change is put in sociohistorical context by an appeal to the recently developing interest and evolving prestige of Northern Englishes more generally.     

Smartphones and Face‐to‐Face Interaction: Digital Cross‐Talk During Encounters in Everyday Life

Using data collected from focus groups and nonparticipant observations, this article explores how and why cross‐talk by way of smartphone affects face‐to‐face encounters. The findings show there are three types of digital cross‐talk: exclusive, semi‐exclusive, and collaborative. Furthermore, it was found that digital cross‐talk can either facilitate or disrupt the expressive order of an encounter. Semi‐exclusive and collaborative digital cross‐talk were found to facilitate encounters. Exclusive digital cross‐talk was found to disrupt or have little influence on encounters, depending on whether or not interlocutors successfully engaged in a corrective process, an avoidance process, or aggressive face‐work.     

Language attitudes in interaction1

This paper discusses the observation of language attitudes in interaction and argues that these approaches provide invaluable insights for the study of language attitudes. In the first half of the paper, the three different kinds of discourse‐based methods of analysis that scholars have used to analyse language attitudes (content‐based approaches, turn‐internal semantic and pragmatic approaches, and interactional approaches) are discussed. In the second half, then, the third of these approaches is used to illustrate such an analysis with four stretches of conversation in different contexts. In the end, the argument is put forward that discourse‐based approaches in general and interactional approaches in particular should be viewed as at least as fundamental to language attitude research as more commonly used quantitative methods of analysis, since the former can provide the researcher with insights that the latter do not.     

Rehearsing Gender and Sexuality in Modern Thailand

Abstract

In this paper I draw on a series of interviews with gay-identified Thai men, and with male bar workers and their clients in order to chart the traditions, discourses, and institutional contexts contributing to the construction of gender and sexual identity in Thailand. I argue against the uncritical application of Western paradigms to the study of Thai sexuality and present a view of gender and sexuality that is “fluid and pragmatic.” I consider difficulties associated with sexual choice and levels of acceptance and toleration, and look at examples of how sex work has been socially constructed. Finally, I discuss the attachment of Thai male bar workers to the “gay” community.     

Intercultural language educators for an intercultural world: action upon reflection

Abstract

Bearing in mind that learning a new language is much more than acquiring a new code, but a new way of being in the world, the aim of the article is to briefly raise and discuss relevant issues relating to language teacher education in these contemporary times, especially in the area of English Language Teaching (ELT). Emphasis is placed on the importance of teacher education responding to the new demands of this globalised world, proposing among several aspects, new political and pedagogical postures which are to lead into preparing students to become more critical of their own realities and more sensitive to the intercultural encounters they are supposed to engage with this highly complex and ever increasingly intercultural world.     

Confucius Institute in the Sino-Thai relations: A display of China's soft power

The establishment of Confucius Institutes (CIs) is a great endeavor by the Chinese government to spread Chinese language and culture in neighboring countries. It is commonly regarded by foreign countries as part of China's soft power initiative. With the implementation of BRI, it becomes a platform to promote systematic connections with countries along the route. Based on the examination of CIs’ programmes run in Thailand, this article finds that CIs made extensive efforts in these respects and garnered the support of the Thai government, Thai royal family and local business. In this sense, CIs also serve as a soft power for the Thai government and royalty to cement their Sino-Thai relationship. Within the local community, there are varying voices. While some supported the Chinese language and cultural programme, others have expressed some dissatisfaction over the role of the CIs in the community.     

Through a Glass,Darkly: The Dynamics of Fan‐Celebrity Encounters

Mass media influence interaction in important ways: fans of serial television use mass media to incorporate the fictional and the extraordinary into their real, ordinary, everyday lives. Using ethnographic and interview data, this article examines the activities through which certain fans seek face‐to‐face encounters with the celebrities they admire and how this intersection of the ordinary with the extraordinary creates problems of interpretation that fans attempt to solve. Fans make and take advantage of opportunities for prestaged encounters at official public appearances by their favorite actors. Some fans may also encounter their favorite celebrities by chance in the course of their daily rounds in “celebrity sightings,” or unstaged encounters. Certain fans, however, actively pursue actors, deliberately seeking them out and creating fan‐staged encounters. These efforts produce a distinctive interactional tension in which pursuing fans recognize the similarities between their behavior and that of “celebrity stalkers” and attempt to differentiate themselves from the stalkers celebrities fear. This article analyzes these interactions as a step toward a theory of fan‐celebrity interaction.     

Techno‐social Life: The Internet,Digital Technology,and Social Connectedness

This essay explores what it means to be socially connected in a techno‐social world. It describes how a “triple revolution” in social connectedness has been catalyzed by the ever‐increasing use of the Internet, mobile communication, and social media networking (Rainie and Wellman 2012). It argues for the usefulness of the concepts of the community and the network in understanding how social connectedness is created and experienced in the use of digital (computerized) communication technology. It examines some of the consequences – both benefits and hazards – of being near‐continuously available to one another via the Internet, mobile phones, and social media. And it describes how digital (online) and face‐to‐face (offline) spaces become fully integrated and experienced as a single, enmeshed reality. The article concludes that people's use of digital communication technology tends to strengthen social connectedness and prompt, not deter, face‐to‐face interaction and local community ties.     

The impact of the political context on discourse characteristics in Jewish–Arab encounters in Israel: between peace talks and violent events

Research in the field of intergroup relations has developed considerably over the last two decades, influenced by events and by the historical zeitgeist. We suggest applying an interactional way of dealing with intergroup encounters, which emphasizes the situational macro‐context (political, historical and social) in which the contact takes place. Employing this approach, the impact of the social‐political context on the characteristics of two encounters in which Jewish and Arab Israeli students met to deal with the Israeli–Arab political conflict was examined. The workshops took place within two completely different political contexts. The first workshop was at the time of peace talks, following the Oslo Accords (1996–1997), the second during the al‐Aksa Intifada (2001–2002). The discussions were recorded and fully transcribed. The two workshops were compared using a typology for classification of the developmental process of discourse between groups. The analysis revealed that during the peace talks ‘ethnocentric discourse’ was the dominant speech category, characterized by two monologues that do not meet. In the second workshop dialogic categories characterized by sharing of feelings, listening to the ‘other’ and making an effort to understand how reality looks from his/her perspective were salient. The research findings are discussed with regard to the paradoxical impact of the political–social context on discourse in small groups. The findings give a new understanding of the role of small intergroup meetings against the background of violent reality in an intractable conflict.     

‘English… it's part of our blood’: Ideologies of language and nation in United States Congressional discourse

Utilizing a combination of corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis, the article describes ideologies of United States (U.S.) national identity based in civic and ethnic nationalisms. These ideologies circulated during debates and hearings in the U.S. Congress concerning the 2006 reauthorization of provisions of the Voting Rights Act requiring that multilingual voting materials be made available for language minorities in certain jurisdictions. The article argues that although those legislators supporting the use of multilingual voting materials construct an ideology of civic nationalism that promotes inclusion of language minorities, they are still greatly influenced by the dominant language ideology. Those opposing multilingual voting materials construct a U.S. national identity that places stringent requirements on newcomers to assimilate and learn English. These legislators simultaneously attempt to avoid the suspicion of ethnic nationalist ideologies by arguing that English is a neutral entity, detaching it from its dominant linguistic community. The findings suggest that despite Congressional support for multilingual voting materials, the language ideologies present in Congress are not necessarily favorable to the rights of language minorities. These findings have language policy implications in that they suggest opposition to a right to language for linguistic minorities in the U.S.     

Legitimating the Philippines as a language learning space: Transnational Korean youth's experiences and evaluations

This paper examines how a peripheral English‐speaking country is constructed as a legitimate language learning space in the global English language teaching (ELT) industry by investigating South Koreans’ recent engagement in Philippine English education. It focuses on a short‐term English study abroad program, in which the Philippines serves as a transit place prior to students’ moving to a Western English‐speaking country. Drawing data from ethnographic research on South Korean youth studying English abroad, the article analyzes why Korean students seek Philippine English education in spite of their apparent pursuit of authentic English, and how they evaluate their learning experience in the Philippines. This paper finds that the Philippines holds a niche market in the global ELT industry by separating a space for English learning from other public and everyday spaces of English use and offering pedagogically intensive but emotionally supportive environments to English learners.     

Immigrants' Language Skills: The Australian Experience in a Longitudinal Survey

This article is concerned with the determinants of English language proficiency (speaking, reading and writing) among immigrants. It presents a model of immigrant destination language proficiency based on economic incentives, exposure to the destination language, and efficiency in second language acquisition. A unique data set, the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia, is used to test the model. This survey had three waves, at about six months, eighteen months and three‐and‐a‐half years after immigration. The analyses are performed by wave, type of language skill and gender using probit analysis. Bivariate probit analysis is used across waves. The hypotheses are supported by the data. The bivariate probit analysis indicates a positive correlation in the unexplained component that declines with time between waves, suggesting a “regression to the mean” in the unobserved components of English language proficiency.     

Breast‐Feeding Advocacy,Risk Society and Health Moralism: A Decade’s Scholarship

This article reviews research published this century that engages critically with the mantra ‘Breast is Best’ and the associated expansion of official breast‐feeding promotion programmes. In recent years there has been a marked increase in the number of such studies published. They mostly explore experience in English speaking, industrialised countries (the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain) which are in some social and cultural respects dissimilar, yet where very similar developments and problems are detected in regards to breast‐feeding promotion. We highlight how this exploration of breast‐feeding promotion internationally has developed understanding of wider sociological themes. This scholarship, we suggest, has provided a powerful illustration of the relation between risk society (more particularly a heightened consciousness of risk) and the evolution of a code of conduct that regulates behaviour, that has been termed ‘health moralizm’. The article covers three themes: ‘Science, risk society, authority and choice’; ‘Public health policy and infant feeding’; and ‘Moralization and women’s identity work’. We conclude that the research discussed shows how the sociological imagination continues to shed light on the relation between private troubles and public issues. We also suggest one conclusion that can be drawn from this research is that official discourse and everyday maternal experience appear increasingly distant from each other.     

To be Karen in the Thai–Burma borderlands: identity formation through the prism of a human rights discourse

Current debates on Karen identity have tended to focus on the development of a nationalist construct of a pan-Karen community. This article moves beyond this notion to explore a Karen identity that is being recast in the form of a human rights discourse where the Karen construct, adapt, and reify the social aspects of their political identity in order to establish a claim to a political self, where they protest the persecution and discrimination waged against them as well as larger claims around governance and political representation. This human rights discourse is framed by increased emphasis in the Thai–Burma borderlands on a human rights framework to address Burma’s ongoing conflict. Such an argument has the potential to move current debates beyond the more militant ethno-nationalist discourses of the Karen identity and develop an adequate framework for the practices of identity, which occur among displaced Karen in the Thai–Burma borderlands.     

In other words: Language mixing,identity representations,and third space1

This paper analyzes the use of Hindi in English newspapers in India to argue that code‐switching creates a discursive space – a third space ( Bhabha 1994 ) – where two systems of identity representation converge in response to global‐local tensions on the one hand, and dialogically constituted identities, formed through resistance and appropriation, on the other. The results of the analysis of data show that code‐switching: (1) reflects a new socio‐ideological consciousness; (2) yields a new way to negotiate and navigate between a global identity and local practices; and (3) offers a new linguistic diacritic for class‐based expressions of cultural identity. Based on these results, I conclude that code‐switching, as linguistic hybridity, is a third space where social actors (re‐)position themselves with regard to new community‐practices of speaking, reading, and writing. It is in this space that actors are presumed to have the capacity to synthesize, to transform: code‐switching serves as a visible marker of this transformation.     

Public Discourses About International Students

A growing, English‐language literature analyzes the public discourse of international education and students. One large set of studies highlight the discursive marginalization of non‐western, international students in western, host societies. They draw on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and meta‐narratives of western, White, and elite dominance, which diminish the theoretical importance of discourse in non‐western and non‐elite settings. A second, smaller set of studies analyze the public discourse of international education in non‐western, specifically Asian, countries; they generally reference educational discourse in both Asian and western countries. Relatively few studies critically examine patterns of discursive domination in Asian discourse; but the ones that do so compare both Asian and Western countries. Even rarer are studies of social media discourse among international students. We find a few studies of social media discourse among Asian students who studied abroad, but none of foreign students studying in host, Asian countries. Attention to multiple discourses and theoretical narratives offers a fruitful, research agenda and underlines the complex, dynamic, global nature of contemporary public discourse on international education.     

谈中西文化的冲突与融合及本土文化的传承——以电影《当孙悟空遇到蜘蛛侠》为例

外语学习不仅是语言的习得过程,更应当学习目的语文化,加强对目的语国家文化的认同与接受,只有这样才能熟练运用该语言与具有目的语国家文化背景的人进行有效的交流。同时,交际的过程是一个双向的交流传输过程,因此既要做到对目的语文化的输入,也要求做到对母语文化的输出,只有这样才能保证跨文化交际的平衡发展。面对频现的"中国文化失语症",我们在教学中应培养学生的主体文化意识,尤其是加强学生用英语表达本土文化的能力。《当孙悟空遇到蜘蛛侠》这部影片不仅向我们展示了中西文化的冲突与融合,同时也细腻地向我们展示了中国的传统文化。我们应该利用英文电影帮助英语学习,使其成为英语学习者不可或缺的一本活的教科书。     

Early language socialization and language shift: Kazakh as Baby Talk

This paper draws attention to the key role of a caregiver's bilingual language practices in the process of language shift. It argues that certain multilingual practices actually discourage children's multilingualism and devalue the language at the same time as they provide preverbal children with direct input. The analysis is based on data collected in Russophone urban families of ethnic Kazakhs. Drawing from work on registers and footing, the paper demonstrates that in these families the Kazakh language, while quantitatively prevailing in caregiver's speech, systematically co‐occurs with Baby Talk – a specific register directed to infants and toddlers in their preverbal stage. The metapragmatic typification of talking Kazakh to non‐agentive objects‐of‐minding, and talking Russian to autonomous social agents, suggests that language practices envision expert members of the local community as Russian speaking. This ideology sustains the ongoing language shift to Russian despite families’ aspiration to raise Kazakh‐Russian bilingual children.