Abstract This article suggests that one of the understudied and substantive ways in which actors produce and transform social hierarchies and classifications is by aligning and mis-aligning genres. Alignments within and across genres have furnished methods for construing and evaluating qualities of people – as examples, the genre repertoires of job applications or promotion dossiers. A fine attunement to new and emergent semiotic alignments via genres can also reveal how people are engaging with social and technological transformations. To study this, we advocate turning to four focal points: shifting genre hierarchies, stabilizing genres, cross-genre identities, and empty genres.
NEPAL HAS RECENTLY BEEN REPLACING ITS MONOLINGUAL, NEPALI-ONLY, ASSIMILATIONIST POLICY OF THE PAST WITH A NEW MULTILINGUAL POLICY IN EDUCATION AND BROADCASTING BASED ON ETHNOLINGUISTIC DIFFERENTIATIONS. THIS ARTICLE ANALYSES THE IMPACT ON TWO GROUPS: THE RESPONSE OF THE TAMANG IS SPURRING FORWARD THE CREATION OF A PAN-TAMANG ETHNIC IDENTITY; CONVERSELY THE RESPONSE OF THE THARUS IS TO CREATE A LANGUAGE TO ADD TO THE BELONGINGS OF THEIR IMAGINED COMMUNITY. THE FORMER IS A CASE OF A LANGUAGE IN SEARCH OF AN ETHNIC GROUP, THE LATTER A CASE OF AN ETHNIC GROUP IN SEARCH OF A LANGUAGE.
"Based on extensive original research, this book explores the early educational experiences of foreign children in Japan. It considers foreign children's experiences of Japanese schools, examines the special tutoring such children often have to improve their language proficiency, and explores the role of mothers in encouraging their children's education. It contrasts the experiences of foreign children with those of Japanese children, sets out the extensive difficulties foreign children encounter in becoming fully accepted by and integrated into Japanese society"--
This paper provides a framework for understanding the social complexity of the linkages between language, identity, and territoriality (or attachments to place). Drawing on qualitative research among Inuit in the Canadian Arctic and in Ottawa, it discusses Inuit identities in relation to the role played by local, regional, national, and global processes in constructing Inuitness and the transformation of Indigenous identities nationally and globally. The paper argues that although Inuktitut is being supported by institutional and political structures in Nunavik and Nunavut, English and French have become increasingly important in daily Northern life. At the same time, Inuit migration to Southern cities has offered new challenges and established new priorities in the fostering of the plurilingualism necessary for urban Inuit life.
Abstract Despite the human rights principle of no discrimination, the growing numbers of imprisoned linguistic minorities around the world face multiple inequalities related to communication barriers: from cultural and social isolation to lack of equal access to facilities and services. This international survey of prison language policies shows that, in general terms, the protection of prisoners' language rights responds to non-binding international provisions and scarce broadly-defined national ones. At the individual level, however, prison systems can be grouped according to two distinctive factors: (a) the comprehensiveness of their prison language policies, and (b) the type of policy instruments used to provide for language issues. This article describes the content and extent of language, translation and interpreting policies in forty prison systems around the world, placing a final focus on California and England and Wales, which emerge as examples of good practice that could potentially inspire other systems.
Papahana Kaiapuni is a K-12 public school program in which the Hawaiian language is the medium of instruction. In 1987, parents and language activists started the program in response to the dwindling number of speakers that resulted from a nearly century-long ban on the indigenous language. This study examined how participation in this indigenous heritage language program influenced students and their families. Data included interviews with 12 adolescent students and their family members. Results suggested that the program promoted students' learning about and practicing traditional Hawaiian values, and influenced cultural pride among family members. Participation in the program also encouraged youths and their family members to become politically active around Hawaiian cultural issues. Unlike the more typical process in which culture is passed down from the older to the younger generations, participants viewed Kaiapuni students as the carriers of the culture and language, teaching older family members about these topics. Informants also reported that Kaiapuni promoted positive community views about both Hawaiian language and culture revitalization efforts.
AbstractResearch has highlighted the significance of the family and community in minority language revitalisation, whilst raising concern for efforts solely focused at the school level. This article draws upon research with children in Gaelic Medium Education, in Scotland, to explore their experiences and perceptions of their language use. The findings illustrate the dominance of English language across multiple aspects of children's lives and highlight the opportunities/threats of recent revitalisation efforts to push the bilingual benefits of language learning. The findings suggest the need for a more considered approach, such as translanguaging pedagogies, in order to effectively revitalise Gaelic language.
Using a blend of statistical analysis with field survery among native Irish speakers, Reg Hindley explores the reasons for the decline of the Irish language and investigates the relationships between geographical environment and language retention. He puts Irish into a broader European context as a European minority language, and assesses its present position and prospects.
School of Applied Sc. And Humanities, Haldia Institute of Technology,Haldia, WB Being a multilingual country India has seen several language movements in the recent decade. These movements have created separate state boundaries but the languages itself did not get high recognition and promotion in government's language education policies. Though several languages made it to the VIII scheduled as the scheduled languages, the indigenous or tribal languages of the country remain unaffected and are struggling to survive. The Government's recent efforts to promote tribal languages in school seem to be somehow positive but the different language policies and the widespread acceptance of English and Hindi put a shadow on the efforts. The scenario of the language situation in India is quite complicated and dynamic; incorporating languages in Indian education has always been a centre of both debate and controversy. The central issue in the recent decade is the medium of instruction in schools or in higher education. Educational planners have, by and large, committed themselves for an inclusive education system without questioning the elitist framework of education followed from the British era. In this multilingual setting with a federal polity, one can find a wide variation in states' Education curriculums as far as the medium, content, duration, and nomenclature of educational stages are concerned. The present paper aims to focus on the role of a tribal language, which is Santhali, in Education in the light of the education system in West Bengal. A case study on Santhali which explores the situational and attitudinal aspects of the language in education is the central work of the present paper, where Bangla plays the dominant role. It also tries to find out whether Santhali can be a medium of instruction in a class of heterogeneous learners.
Marehemu Shaaban Robert is well-known in Russia not only among specialists, but also in the circles of the reading public at large. It was in Russian (the only European language) in which Shaaban Robert´s prose writings were translated for the first time for the general reader. The creative work of Shaaban Robert occupies a special place in the scientific research of Russian scholars. They regard him as a philosopher, a distinguished public figure, a founder of modern literature in Kiswahili who connects centuries-old traditions of Swahili oral and written literature with the demands of modern times. Affirming new social ideals and expressing views of the new intellectual elite, Shaaban Robert, through his literary works, directly participated in the development of the political and philosophical ideas of his country.
Linguistic choices are widely understood to have the potential to contribute to, but also to challenge, dementia stigma. This scoping review therefore aims to better understand: 1) the characteristics of language-oriented studies into representations of dementia and people with dementia, particularly regarding theoretical engagement with dementia stigma; and 2) what specific linguistic features have the potential to contribute to and/or challenge dementia stigma. Using Scopus, PubMed, PsychInfo and Google Scholar, 44 papers published between January 2000 and December 2022 were selected and thematically synthesized. We found that the number of publications addressing language and dementia stigma increased dramatically over the period covered. Most studies (75 %) did not explicitly define their use of the term stigma, and those that did drew on a range of theories and sources. Linguistic features associated with stigma included catastrophizing metaphors and the personification of dementia as a cruel enemy. Distancing and delegitimizing strategies were popularly used for people living with dementia, including homogenization, negative group labels, dehumanizing metaphors, infantilization and passivization. Humor could be used to perpetuate dementia stigma, but also to resist and reclaim stigmatizing discourses. Dementia stigma could be challenged through redefining the roles attributed to social actors, directly critiquing harmful discourses, and by providing counter-discourses. Counter-discourses used normalizing, holistic, person-centerd, rights-based, optimistic and affirmative language. Overall, a complex picture of language and dementia stigma emerges. Based on our review of the 44 papers considered, we argue that much language has the potential to perpetuate or resist stigma, and that this is shaped by and depends upon the broader discursive context within which such language use takes place.
