Voice,place and genre in popular song performance1

Earlier sociolinguistic studies have conceptualised popular song as a field of phonological variation where singers do or do not maintain features of their national or regional accents in singing. The present paper explores a wider agenda for the sociolinguistics of popular song, theorised as a diverse field of performance organised according to genre. Following initiatives in the sociology of popular music (particularly Simon Frith's research), voice is interpreted as the repertoire of meaning‐making options available to performers. Voice subsumes dialect indexicality, but also the management of singer identity and singer‐audience relations through the performance of lyrics, rhythmic and bodily modalities. Place is understood as the specific socio‐cultural contexts that are explicitly or implicitly voiced, including contexts of performance and reception. By performing within or against generically structured stylistic norms, performers construct and disseminate different vernacular values and identities. Live tracks from three different, broadly‐defined genres are considered in detail – classic rock and roll (Chuck Berry's Maybellene), folk/country (James Taylor's Copperline), and punk rock (the Sex Pistols’Johnny B. Goode).     

Six‐month‐old infants recognize phrases in song and speech

Infants exploit acoustic boundaries to perceptually organize phrases in speech. This prosodic parsing ability is well‐attested and is a cornerstone to the development of speech perception and grammar. However, infants also receive linguistic input in child songs. This study provides evidence that infants parse songs into meaningful phrasal units and replicates previous research for speech. Six‐month‐old Dutch infants (n = 80) were tested in the song or speech modality in the head‐turn preference procedure. First, infants were familiarized to two versions of the same word sequence: One version represented a well‐formed unit, and the other contained a phrase boundary halfway through. At test, infants were presented two passages, each containing one version of the familiarized sequence. The results for speech replicated the previously observed preference for the passage containing the well‐formed sequence, but only in a more fine‐grained analysis. The preference for well‐formed phrases was also observed in the song modality, indicating that infants recognize phrase structure in song. There were acoustic differences between stimuli of the current and previous studies, suggesting that infants are flexible in their processing of boundary cues while also providing a possible explanation for differences in effect sizes.     

Ethnosemiotics: Some personal and theoretical reflections

The question of how individual memory fits, or more accurately, does not fit with history is at the heart of this paper on Maryse Condé’s novel Heremakhonon about Veronica Mercier, a character who was born in Guadeloupe, lived in Paris and travels to West Africa in search of an ancestry that was interrupted by slavery. Suggesting that readings that focus on Mercier as a character are limited in approach, it reads the novel as a staging of time and is attentive to the gaps between thought and speech, between memory and history, between Guadeloupe and Africa, and between women’s personal sexual pleasure and the impersonal reproductive body that interrupt the narrative. The central character’s personal quest for her African roots – for ‘niggers with ancestors’, for Africa as a singular lost object, which necessarily involves ignoring the subaltern – is nuanced by the novel’s deployment of heterogeneous time.     

Applying critical race theory in social work education in Britain: pedagogical reflections

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on personal experiences of teaching white British and Black African students on a social work Master’s course in England. In this paper, I critically discuss the fire at Grenfell Tower in London (14 June 2017) and how it served as a pedagogical tool to open up critical discussions among students about racial in/justice, intersectionality and neoliberal racism. I also explore how Black students were enabled to share their experiences of immigration, racism, and racial inequality in Britain as part of these discussions. Inviting personal experiences of race in the classroom can be highly emotive; but, as this paper shows, these voices can also highlight institutionalized racism and provide a way for Black and ethnic minorities’ histories to be told and learned. These histories matter and can develop student consciousness about racial inequality for pursuing a social agenda. They also challenge claims that Britain is now a ‘post-racial’ society. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) provided a way to counter such claims and critique my ‘whiteness’ and socio-economic class in my teaching, as well as challenge the neoliberal ideologies and structures that reproduce and mask ‘white privilege’ and racial injustice in Britain today.     

Evaluation and social policy. Some reflections on ideas and institutions

This paper discusses the relationship between evaluation as a meta- and as a technical activity in the field of social policy, with special reference to the British experience. Evaluation as a meta-activity is defined to be the analysis of the values and criteria to be used: a process which assumes that the definition of problems is itself problematic. Evaluation as a technical activity is defined to be the application of agreed criteria to agreed policy problems. From this distinction, it is argued, some important implications flow for the role of the universities and the funding of research.     

Academic mothers,professional identity and COVID-19: Feminist reflections on career cycles,progression and practice

Based on a collection of auto-ethnographic narratives that reflect our experiences as academic mothers at an Australian university, this paper seeks to illustrate the impact of COVID-19 on our career cycles in order to explore alternative feminist models of progression and practice in Higher Education. Collectively, we span multiple disciplines, parenting profiles, and racial/ethnic backgrounds. Our narratives (initiated in 2019) explicate four focal points in our careers as a foundation for analyzing self-definitions of professional identity: pre- and post-maternity career break; and pre- and post-COVID-19 career. We have modeled this research on a collective feminist research practice that is generative and empowering in terms of self-reflective models of collaborative research. Considering this practice and these narratives, we argue for a de-centering of masculinized career cycle patterns and progression pathways both now and beyond COVID-19. This represents both a challenge to neo-liberal norms of academic productivity, as well as a call to radically enhance institutional gender equality policies and practice.     

Ethnic monitoring in higher education: Some reflections on methodology

Ethnic Monitoring in higher education has been limited and piecemeal. It often fails to explore the relationships between ethnicity and student progress and achievement, and to account for any ethnic inequalities revealed. In this paper an approach to ethnic monitoring that utilizes quantitative and qualitative methods is discussed. We argue that such an approach gives a clear statistical picture of group progress and achievement, identifies social, economic and institutional factors that might account for ethnic inequalities, and highlights the processes of racism and discrimination in higher education. All of these aspects are vital to a thorough understanding of ethnic inequalities in the higher education sector in the United Kingdom.     

Breaking silence: Some fieldwork strategies in cloistered and non-cloistered communities

This paper deals with some of the linguistic difficulties I encountered during fieldwork conducted among cloistered and non-cloistered communities of Roman Catholic nuns. I illustrate here the necessity for taking both active and passive research modes—that is, moving from observer to participant and back—in order to counteract problems related to interaction styles, lack of language, meaning inversions, and silence as a mode of communication. These problems represent a continuum—a progression from least to most problematical in terms of the connection between researcher and researched. I argue that by adopting a stance appropriate to the groups being studied—that is, by using both active and passive research strategies with equal rigor—many linguistic barriers can not only be overcome, but usedas sources of important data.     

On metaphors,everyday diversity and intercultural education: some further reflections

This paper aims to clarify and discuss the reasons and limits of three rather popular metaphors that are used to speak of today’s complex social and cultural fabric, through references to cultural anthropology, biology and genetics. In her analysis, the author considers not only the linguistic and semantic dimension of each metaphor, but also the pragmatic consequences each entails for the field of intercultural education. In her conclusion, she points out that exploring the many facets of metaphors is a form of intercultural education as it helps to deconstruct some of the current prejudices and stereotypes, and furthermore it encourages a disposition to creativity and intellectual openness that intrinsically belongs to the interculture.     

Some reflections on contemporary writing in the indigenous languages of America

Abstract

This article surveys recent literatures in the indigenous languages of Latin America. The past decade has witnessed a continent-wide rise in indigenous-language publications – a rise calling for a reevaluation of the critical state of indigenous rights and language policies that was expressed in the context of protests around the quincentennial celebrations of Columbus' 'discovery' of the Americas. The new wave of indigenous literatures has arisen in the wake of dramatic acts of violence, such as military repression and neoliberal economic restructuring. However, the large-scale displacement of indigenous peoples that has resulted from these processes has also provoked a desire among indigenous writers to utilize print media in order to preserve knowledge and communal memory. Drawing on specific examples from contemporary indigenous poetry of Peru and Mexico, the article argues that indigenous literature challenges conceptions of indigenous expressive culture as inherently oral, traditional, rural, and communitarian.     

Personal reflections on cautions and considerations for navigating the path of grounded theory doctoral theses and dissertations: a long walk through a dark forest

Grounded theory (GT) has been a popularly used qualitative research methodology in the social sciences and has become increasingly popular for doctoral theses and dissertations. Yet, issues such as the changing nature of grounded theory, time constraints, theses advisors, doctoral committee procedures and Institutional Review Board regulations create challenges for doctoral candidates (researchers) who choose to use GT for their dissertations. In this paper, we present the general and specific challenges of using GT for doctoral theses and dissertations by sharing our personal experiences from our Ph.D. programmes in the USA. We conclude by providing practical suggestions for doctoral researchers who are considering using GT for their theses and dissertations.     

对打造西关文化品牌的若干思考

西关文化是岭南文化的重要组成部分。西关文化包含物质文化和非物质文化两个层面,以西关小姐、西关名人、西关民俗为代表的西关人文,以西关大屋、骑楼街、西关五宝为代表的西关物品,以及记载包括十三行文化在内的大量历史文献典籍成为研究西关文化的三类重要载体。打好人、物、志三张牌,对于培育、宣传西关文化品牌具有重要的历史价值和现实意义。     

Individual and relationship capital: Implications for theory and research on families

It is proposed that the concept of human capital should include both individual and relationship capital. A conceptual model illustrating the investment of human capital in individuals, marriages, and families is presented. Indicators of individual, marital, and familial capital are proposed. Implications of the concepts of individual, marital, and familial capital for theory and research on family processes are discussed. It is suggested that family economists should employ a broader range of measures of human capital and use the concept of relationship capital and that family scientists should use the concepts of individual and relationship capital in theory and research on families. Defining human capital in this manner creates new ways of applying the human capital concept to families.This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the 17th Annual South-eastern Regional Family Economics/Home Management Conference, held at the University of Georgia-Athens, February 4–6, 1988. The authors would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.His research interests include transmission of values in families, family routines, and family stress and coping. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.Her research interests include family resource management and the relationship between conflict among family members and perception of resources. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.     

Standpoint theory and middle-range theorizing in International Sociology

This paper responds to Julian Go's Lecture “Thinking against Empire. Anti-colonial Thought and Social Theory.” It proceeds in two parts: I first follow Go's invitation to read and reread Mabel Dove Danquah and Frantz Fanon and explore what their work contributes to our understanding of state-forms. I then examine the terms of Go's invitation more closely. I contrast Go's juxtaposition of imperial sociology on the one hand and anti-colonial sociology on the other hand, with the broader range of theoretical traditions and methods, which a practice-oriented sociology of sociology and an international history of sociology would highlight. I raise the question what “standpoint” adds to the authors Go discusses and the broader range of scholars who have engaged with post-colonial contexts in their research at this point in time. Calling for consideration of the anti-colonial standpoint is a particular choice, which has a distinctive heritage in Hegelian-Marxian projections of the social whole and is in tension with either deep exploration of particular thinkers or the middle-range theorizing that Go also seems to endorse. Defined at a level of abstraction that is “above” (or underneath) actual conversations in a range of fields and subfields, it can appear as a “test” for scholars who have long engaged with post-colonial contexts, which can have unintended consequences when coupled with the institutional power and asymmetric insularity of Anglo-American academia.     

Editing hip-hop within youth work activities: an actor-network theory analysis

Debates concerning hip-hop have tended to centre on controversy. For example, critics of hip-hop have focused on its association with bads such as violence, misogyny and drug use, gangsta culture, and the vandalism associated with graffiti art, while hip-hop’s defenders have celebrated the enactment of goods such as youth expression and empowerment. Increasingly, practitioners and educators have sought to mobilise particular forms or activities of hip-hop in order to draw on the potential of hip-hop in youth work. This article draws on an ethnographic study that explored how hip-hop activities were produced across a range of youth work sites in Christchurch, New Zealand. Using Actor-Network Theory (ANT) the study traced how hip-hop controversies were negotiated within youth work sites of practice, illustrating the collective editing work that was undertaken in order to handle these controversies (bads). The ANT approach to consider what is sometimes referred to as the ‘mess’ of social reality [Law 2004, 230 After Method: Mess in Social Science Research. New York: Routledge] was well suited to the study’s goal of understanding the complexities involved in using and assembling hip-hop in youth work contexts. This paper provides ‘snapshots’ of the study’s findings, to reveal the collective work in the editing of hip-hop music to avoid hip-hop bads.     

Time use surveys,social practice theory,and activity connections

Social practice theory (SPT) represents a growing body of research that takes the ‘doings and sayings’ (social practices) of everyday life as its core unit of enquiry. Time use surveys (TUS) represent a substantial source of micro-data regarding how activities are performed across the 24-h day. Given their apparent complementarities, we ask why TUS have not been utilised more extensively within SPT-inspired research. We advance two contentions: (1) ontological tensions obscure the relevance of TUS data in addressing core SPT research questions, and (2) SPT concepts do not readily translate for application in TUS analysis. In response, we operationalise Schatzki's (2019) concepts of activity events and chains to explore types and forms of temporal activity connection. Using TUS data we examine three activity events: sleeping, reading, and eating. Two types of temporal activity connection (sequence and synchronisation) are identified, together with four forms of connectivity (degrees of uniformity/diversity, sequential directionality, time-varying connections, and symmetrical/asymmetrical relationships). While practices cannot be reduced to activity connections, we argue that this analytical approach offers a systematic basis for examining the ways in which activities combine to underpin the organisation of social practices. Further analysis to compare activity connections across practices, between different groups of practitioners, and over time would offer a valuable resource to empirically examine claims regarding core processes of societal change. We further contend that SPT approaches offer insights for time use research by providing a framework capable of recognising that activities are dynamic and variable rather than homogeneous and stable categories.     

Citizenship: reflections on a relevant but ambivalent concept for persons with disabilities

This article examines the significance of citizenship with respect to disability. The article first highlights the idea of citizenship as ‘social contract’. This means the possession of civil, political, economic, cultural and social rights as well as the exercise of duties in society. Due to societal barriers, many disabled persons have difficulties fulfilling citizenship roles. Further, this article draws on citizenship theories; it examines three types of citizenship participation – the social citizen, the autonomous citizen and the political citizen – and discusses their promises and ableist implications. To counterbalance the exclusionary aspects of citizenship, we argue that human rights prove important. At the same time, human rights are more easily proclaimed than enforced and citizenship remains a precondition for effectively implementing human rights. The article concludes that citizenship is a relevant but also ambivalent concept when it comes to disability; it calls for a critical understanding of citizenship in Disability Studies.