Ethnolinguistic Communities Research Articles

Symbolic motivation as one way of displaying culture in language (showcased by French neophraseologisms)

This article elucidates the role of symbolic motivation in the creation of the neo-phraseological stock of the French language, which reflects the connection of language units with the culture, history and mentality of its speakers. The author refines the concept of a symbol, which she defines as a sign conveying important information about the specificity of perceiving the world in a certain linguoculture. Among the linguistic symbols that serve as a product and source of culture for the ethno-linguistic community, phraseologisms occupy an important place. After all, they contain a set of features of the cultural stock of a certain ethnic group, verbally represent the universal and national-cultural conceptual image of linguistic consciousness. Analyzing the images and symbols contained in the meaning of the French adjective vert, which is a common component of phraseological units, the author proves that in the course of the development of the French-speaking society, together with its language, the symbol can take on new meanings and serve as the basis for emergence of new collocations. A detailed study of the neophraseologisms of modern French that are underpinned by symbolic motivation has shown that they reflect different associative links with the objects, phenomena and concepts of the surrounding reality of the French socium. In particular, we bear in mind chromatomorphic, substancemorphic, anthropomorphic, floromorphic, naturomorphic, chronomorphic associations. As a result, the author states that the symbol exists in the collective consciousness of the French ethnic group, reveals its content due to the action of many linguistic and non-linguistic factors that determine its understanding by all members of a particular society. Awareness of the nature of the close interconnection and interdependence of the linguistic and cultural spheres, makes it possible to bring to light manifestations of culture in language and the motivation of its senses in linguistic units, as well as specific spheres of language use in which it captures the achievements of culture.

Urdu Language, Its Role and Status in Pakistan

The article deals with a set of questions concerning Urdu – the national language of Pakistan and the fourth language in the world in terms of number of Urdu-speakers. In the history of the Hindustan subcontinent Urdu was set to play a specific role of “a playing-card” in the intricate Anglo–Indo–Muslim political game started over two hundred years ago. Through the years it turned into a conflict between Hindu and Muslim communities of British India, resulting in partition of the country and foundation of Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The article highlights landmarks in the evolution of Urdu emphasizing the background of severing the once common language into “Hindu Hindi” and “Muslim Urdu” at the beginning of the 19th century. Several decades later there came to the fore and gathered strength the problem of “Urdu – Hindi” confrontation fueled by the “theory of two nations” and the Indian nationalism with its two scenarios: Muslim and Hindu. Indian Muslim nationalists’ community made efforts to assert Urdu as a marker of Muslim identity. The author provides insight into key elements of the language policy of the establishment and the methods of its actualization through the years of Pakistan existence. Particular emphasis in the article is given to the relation between “official” English and “national” Urdu as well as interrelation of both with local regional languages. Noticeable weakening of connection among Pakistanis as regards to their identity and language (both native and national) strengthens their self-identification as common not to ethnolinguistic community but to the whole nation

Bilingualism and the Serbo-German Bilingual Community of Serbs in Ingolstadt

In this study we represent the bilingual language situation in the ethnolinguistic community of Serbs in Ingolstadt, recorded over the period of time from 2010 until 2013. The paper also addresses the occurrences of bilingualism and diglossia in the context of contact linguistics, their classification, as well as the samples of bilingualism in the researched corpus, with the accompanying phenomena of language contact. The obtained cross-section of the sociolinguistic and linguistic situation of the researched ethnolinguistic community, as well as the research results, refer to the specific community and specific corpus. Nonetheless, obtained results with certainty allow introspect into the life cycle dynamics tendency for the Serbo-German bilingual communities. Reflecting upon the research results we may conclude that our investigated sample, which can expand onto the entire research corpus, can be regarded as being almost in the second last phase of the language change process. A rather significant part of the corpus in the further development of the language change process would certainly be the third generation of working migrants. Further direction of the bilingual community development will most likely be dependent upon this generation, as well as other accompanying factors.
 In the researched sample we can observe different percentual representation of balanced bilinguals and dominant bilinguals, as well as passive and receptive bilinguals. The fact that there is a significant percentual presence of passive and receptive bilinguals among the third group of migrants explains the situation that one part of the second generation of working migrants in the researched community is powerless before the pressure of social networks, economic and social relations that we find in the social majority group. They abandon teaching their children the Serbian language, and they perceive the German language as the capital asset through which those who belong to the third generation of working migrants can gain top positions in the education system and in the market as well.
 In the language practice of bilingual speakers there is the phenomenon of language contact from the first to the third generation, specifically in the occurrence of transference (mixing of two language systems on the basis of phonetics, morphology, syntax) or in code switching (mixing of two languages from the communicative aspect). Transference, as a phenomenon in the direct and indirect language contact, may have multiple results which will be considered in future papers on the issue of language contact phenomenon.
 Finally, under the environmental effect (standard German language, German dialects), as well as the effect of different language community dialects the members of the first generation of working migrants come from, a new language is developed. This new language cannot be called the Serbian language spoken by the Serbs in the homeland but namely we propose a new term Serbian diaspora language in Germany. This language as such is then transferred onto the new generations and/or its use declines in one and sustains in other domains. Ultimately, at the end of this process, as many contact linguistic researches have illustrated, an inevitable situation may occur where a life cycle of the bilingual community might come to an end and there might be a complete language change of the minority with the majority community.

РОЛЬ ЛІНГВОКУЛЬТУРНИХ ДОМІНАНТ У ПРОЦЕСІ ФОРМУВАННЯ ІДЕНТИЧНОСТІ НІМЕЦЬКОМОВНОЇ СПІЛЬНОТИ (НА ПРИКЛАДІ КОНЦЕПТУ ORDNUNG)

The article is devoted to the study of the stereotypical linguаcultural concept of ORDNUNG, which led the conceptual sphere of the cultural field of the German ethnolinguistic community, and thus became for her the «measure of all things», its main leitmotif. We investigated how the dominant ORDNUNG concept shaped the mental identity of the Germans, where its origins were, whether its influence was always constructive, whether it was inherent to the vast majority of Germans, and, in general, how the mechanism of influence of dominant stereotypical linguistic and cultural concepts works peoples. The conceptual linguistic and cultural dominance of ORDNUNG, in its own way, continues to stereotype the content of the mental identity of the Germans and thus influences their choice and behavior, especially when it comes to building a hierarchy of values, which, thanks to ORDNUNG, is of utmost importance for ordering. Therefore, becoming a major life imperative for both the individual and the entire ethno-linguistic community, the ORDNUNG concept can both assist and interfere with the arrangement of both private and national existence. Thanks to discipline, rational thinking, the ability to organize and organize, the German linguistic community has achieved great success in the world, having taken a leading position not only in the economy, but also in the fields of philosophy, music, literature and more. At the same time, the passion for structuring the little things, the meticulous attitude to keep order and the desire to tidy up the whole surrounding space, sometimes prevents you to grasp the essence of the case and to understand the main thing. Therefore, there are exceptions to all the rules to illustrate which in this article we have decided on the example not ordinary burgers, and the carrier of the precedent name in the world of German music by L.V. Beethoven. However, the vast majority of Germans are still adherents of this stereotypical behavioral setting and therefore conform to the content of the typisch deutsch stereotype. That is why the name of the nation Deutschland and the name of the language Deutsch are so consonant with the word deutlich.

The ethnolinguistic vitality of Arabic in the Australian multicultural landscape

This paper investigates the ethnolinguistic vitality of Arabic in Australian society and the implications such vitality has on claims of a successfully multicultural Australia. Vitality in this regard is defined as ‘that which makes a group likely to behave as a distinctive and active collective entity in intergroup situations’ (Giles, Bourhis and Taylor 1977, p. 308). To conduct this research, empirical data was collected to understand the way members of the Arabic ethnolinguistic community view their own vitality. Additionally, secondary sources were studied to present an overview of the place Arabic holds within the Australian multicultural landscape. A total number of 53 (n=53) students across Melbourne were surveyed. The results indicate that when looking at the variable of demography and informal institutional support, Arabic held a high rate of vitality. However, participants believed Arabic had a low vitality in regard to the level of social status and formal institutionalised support./ Keywords: ethnolinguistic, ethnolinguistic vitality, Arabic, Arab community, multiculturalism

Multiracial identity and racial complexity in sociolinguistic variation

AbstractWhat is the relationship between ethnolinguistic communities and ways of speaking? Who is an authentic speaker of an ethnolinguistic variety? In a time where scholarly and public conceptualizations of race and ethnicity are variable and rapidly changing, potential effects on both self‐identification and ways of speaking present an area ripe for study. However, linguistics and allied fields have often overlooked individuals and communities that do not neatly conform to well‐defined racial categories. As multiracially identified individuals are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States, researchers will necessarily need to address the way that traditional methodologies have excluded individuals and groups who fall outside of these racial and ethnic categories. This presents a unique challenge for sociolinguistics in particular, since we are interested in how people draw on linguistic variation to perform aspects of their identities, including their races and ethnicities. This article examines the ways in which race and ethnicity have been traditionally conceptualized in linguistics and allied fields and draws on research from other social sciences to see how they have begun to study individuals who fall outside of traditionally preexisting social categories. The article also briefly discusses the results of one of the first major sociolinguistic studies on multiracially identified participants, which found substantial effects of self‐conceptualization and self‐identification on linguistic behavior of these participants, a result which informs how future work should consider individuals who identify as two or more races. Finally, it will address future directions for research at the intersection of personal identity, race, and language.

Greening the information desert

AbstractParents and prospective parents who speak a language other than English in New Zealand are in something of an information desert when it comes to how and why they might go about raising their children bilingually. While the official languages, Te Reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, have special status among the languages of New Zealand, other languages are viewed very much as the responsibility of ethnolinguistic communities. To support the intergenerational transmission of minority languages in New Zealand, research-informed material has been created for dissemination in a website, an associated Facebook page and a series of lecture-workshops for parents and professionals which have been made available in digital form in this website. Workshops continue to be offered to professionals such as speech-language therapists, early childhood educators, midwives, doctors, and nurses who work with families with young children. Questions asked during these workshops help to select the myths about multilingualism we need to address in this outreach to irrigate and green the information desert. Already, a bilingual French class and a Swedish playgroup have been set up as direct results of the parents’ workshop events. Individual parents have reported feeling empowered to persevere in their efforts to raise their children as speakers of their language. Invitations to contribute to education programs for the professionals who work close to young children are beginning to arrive.

The Grammar of Violence: Insights from Danish Ethnosyntax and the Wierzbicka-Pinker Debate

<p>Artykuł dotyczy semantyki i etnoskładni duńskiego słowa vold ‘przemoc’, kluczowego dla duńskiej kultury. Biorąc pod uwagę (i) podobieństwa i różnice między słowami oznaczającymi ‘przemoc’ w różnych społecznościach etnolingwistycznych oraz (ii) kluczową rolę etnoskładni w opisie takich konceptów, jak angielskie VIOLENCE, duńskie VOLD itd., artykuł otwiera nową perspektywę badań nad konceptami wyrażającymi negatywne zjawiska społeczne i związanymi z nimi pozytywnymi systemami wartości. W artykule bada się etnoskładnię, składnię „pojęciową” duńskiego vold, zawartą w strukturze morfologicznej złożeń takich jak hustruvold ‘vold (w stosunku do) żony’ czy politivold ‘vold policyjna’. Analiza nowszych tworów, np. forældrevold ‘vold rodzicielska’, pokazuje, iż duńska etnoskładnia zawiera w sobie obraz świata, w którym tradycyjne autorytety, takie jak mężczyźni, policja, czy rodzice, postrzegani są jako agresorzy, natomiast kobiety, obywatele i dzieci kodowane są jako ofiary przemocy (w sensie vold).</p>

Variation, race, and multiracial identity in linguistic research.

What is the relationship between ethnolinguistic communities and ways of speaking? Who is an authentic speaker of an ethnolinguistic variety? In a time where scholarly and public conceptualizations of race and ethnicity are variable and rapidly changing, potential effects on both self-identification and ways of speaking present an area ripe for study. However, linguistics and allied fields have often overlooked individuals and communities that do not neatly conform to well-defined racial categories. As multiracially identified individuals are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States, researchers will necessarily need to address the way that traditional methodologies have excluded individuals and groups who fall outside of these racial and ethnic categories. This presents a unique challenge for sociolinguistics in particular, since we are interested in how people draw on linguistic variation to perform aspects of their identities, including their races and ethnicities. This study examines the ways in which race and ethnicity have been traditionally conceptualized in linguistics and allied fields, and draws on research from other social sciences to see how they have begun to study individuals who fall outside of traditionally pre-existing social categories. The study also briefly discusses the results of one of the first major sociolinguistic studies on multiracially identified participants, which found substantial effects of self-conceptualization and self-identification on linguistic behavior of these participants. Finally, it will address future questions and directions for research at the intersection of personal identity, race, and language. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Evolution of Language Linguistics > Linguistic Theory Linguistics > Computational Models of Language Linguistics > Language Acquisition.

Book Review: Signing and Belonging in Nepal by Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway

Signing and Belonging in Nepal is an accessible, quick-reading 120 pages on how the Deaf signing community of Nepal has strategically reshaped their ethnolinguistic identity to gain legitimacy in a society that subordinates them. Erika Hoffmann-Dilloway describes a predominantly Hindu society largely influenced by the belief that “an inability to hear was the result of bad karma, or misdeeds in a previous life” (p. 3) and that this bad karma “could be transmitted to others through contact” (p. 4). Fearing negative karmic effects on their own lives, the greater Nepali community ostracized the deaf. Hoffmann-Dilloway explores how the Nepali signing community legitimizes themselves as an ethnolinguistic community within this dominant Hindu framework, as equally deserving of representation.

Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power

Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power

Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power

Jihad & Co.: Black Markets and Islamist Power

Migrant Culture Maintenance: The Welsh in Granville, Washington County, New York, 1880–1930

Migrant Culture Maintenance:The Welsh in Granville, Washington County, New York, 1880–1930 Robert Llewellyn Tyler (bio) Any study of nineteenth-century emigration from Wales must first acknowledge that Welsh emigrants were relatively few in number. This was due not only to the small size of the Welsh population, which did not register as more than one million until the 1841 UK census, but also to the rate of emigration from Wales, which was significantly lower than that in either England, Scotland, or Ireland.1 Nevertheless, in recent years the Welsh in the United States have received increasing attention from historians and, quite understandably, these historians have focused on the areas that attracted the greatest concentrations of Welsh people, the mining and metallurgical districts of Pennsylvania and Ohio.2 Many settlements in New York also attracted significant numbers of Welsh migrants, and studies of such settlements can provide relevant insights into Welsh-American communities and the ways in which they changed.3 One such settlement [End Page 99] was Granville, Washington County, located in the famous New York/Vermont Slate Valley. Named for John Carteret, the second Earl Granville, the town was founded in 1780.4 The earliest European settlement in the area dates back to about 1770, although the first recorded town meeting took place in 1787. What was initially an overwhelmingly agricultural settlement was rapidly transformed by the discovery of slate in about 1850 and the opening of the first quarries in 1853. As an emerging slate producing center, Granville drew migrants from across the United States and from across the Atlantic Ocean. The Irish were present in numbers from 1860 onwards, with 428 listed as Irish-born in 1870, a figure that declined thereafter to 329 in 1880, 203 in 1910, one hundred in 1920, and a mere thirty-two in 1930. Besides the Irish, only migrants from Wales maintained a long-term presence. In 1910, when the Welsh community was at its zenith, at least as indicated by the census of that year, the total Welsh-born numbered 949. These first-generation migrants from Wales, when added to the 566 US-born children with both parents Welsh, totaled 1,515 individuals and made up 23.5 percent of the town's population.5 (The only other group to register more than one hundred foreign-born at any census were those from Hungary, who reached 143 in 1900.) Click for larger view View full resolution Table I. The Welsh in Granville, Washington County, New York *Born in USA with both parents born in Wales [End Page 100] The Welsh comprised a highly visible ethno-linguistic community in Granville during the early decades of the twentieth century, with one local describing the new arrivals as "the strangest people dressed in costumes and who spoke in a very strange language."6 This study attempts to quantify the extent to which an identifiable Welsh community was established and maintained during this period, the nature of that community, and the forces for change. In so doing, this article considers cultural and religious institutions, language, economic specialization, and levels of exogamy, and provides a micro-level analysis of a Welsh community as it existed in a particular area during a specific period of time. It is hoped that this consideration of the characteristics of the community and the factors governing its long-term viability provides information of interest regarding the history of Granville and the experiences of the Welsh who found themselves living and working in the town, and contributes in some small way to a greater understanding of New York's immigration experience in general.7 Several factors facilitated the establishment and maintenance of the Welsh community in Granville. A close perusal of the census returns for 1910, when the Welsh were at their most numerous in the town, clearly indicates ethnic clustering, with Pacific, Williams, and Lawrence Streets having large concentrations of Welsh people, and Irving Avenue almost entirely inhabited by Welsh migrants and their families.8 In addition, the predominance in the area of the slate industry saw Granville drawing Welsh people from a specific part of Wales, namely the slate quarrying...

Maternal Health in Timor-Leste: Representations and Practices during Pregnancy, Birth and the Postnatal Period

Culture has a strong influence on the representations and health behaviour of individuals and groups. This is reflected in the reproductive health of the Timorese women, intervention in this field being of a priority nature in Timor-Leste in view of its high fertility and maternal mortality rates. The purpose of this ethnographic study is to analyse beliefs, representations and practices associated with pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. It was conducted in Timor-Leste and involved the participation of health professionals, traditional midwives, women and couples, all of them selected through a snowball chain sampling procedure. Data was collected by means of exploratory semi-structured interviews and observation, and its content was duly analysed. The results show the existence of various recommendations, taboos and restrictions which aim at protecting the health of both mother and child, making use of traditional care practices which may vary among ethnolinguistic groups, communities or families.

Cultural patterns within and outside of the post-contact Great Plains as revealed by parfleche characteristics: Implications for areal arrangements in artifactual data

For some time it has been recognized that areal arrangements in ethnographic data might help archaeologists understand equivalent arrangements in artifactual data, especially in anthropologically relevant terms. Equally, ethnographic data have shown that material-culture patterns do not necessarily conveniently map discrete “peoples” or ethnolinguistic communities. However, the question still persists as to whether areal patterns in artifactual data represent anthropologically important information, and if so, how. Ethnographically, studies of these issues have tended to adopt two approaches. Some studies have examined areal patterning across broad geographic areas in terms of presences and absences of particular artifacts or suites of artifacts. Alternatively, studies have looked at variation in the stylistic traits of particular artifacts, but over a relatively more discrete geographic range, typically a sub-region defined on the basis of other cultural and/or ecological distinctions. Here, in this study a different approach is taken, whereupon variations in the inter-tribe attributes of a singular artifact class (post-contact-era “parfleches” or decorated rawhide bags) are examined over a wide geographic area (western North America). Multivariate statistical analyses demonstrate that among-tribe variation in parfleche characteristics most strongly conforms to three geographic stylistic regions and, moreover, that these three stylistic regions disregard linguistic affiliations and “culture area” designations. These trait-level patterns conform to documented trade patterns across the study area, explaining why these areal patterns disregard distinctions made on other criteria. Ultimately, the study demonstrates ethnographically the value of contrasting areal patterns based on discrete artifactual distinctions (i.e., presence and absence of particular artifacts) versus broader-scale, but trait-level, patterns in artifacts common across these different areas.

Culture Maintenance, Occupational Change, and Social Status

Through a consideration of residential propinquity, religious and cultural activity, language retention, and levels of exogamy, this article provides a microstudy of the Welsh community in San Francisco and identifies the Welsh as a distinct ethnolinguistic community in the city during the late decades of the nineteenth century and the early decades of the twentieth. What was the nature of Welsh immigrant culture, and to what extent were working-class Welsh people involved in its expression? In addition, through an analysis of intragenerational changes in socioeconomic status, as indicated by occupational mobility, the article tests the assumption that the Welsh were prime illustrations of the “American Dream,” thus providing a clearer picture than the images promulgated by contemporary Welsh leaders who strove to emphasize the industry and upward mobility of their fellow countrymen. Did the Welsh as a group occupy a privileged position in the occupational hierarchy, and were they universally successful in improving on this position?

The (Mis)Management of Ethno-linguistic Diversity in Ethiopian Cities

Ethiopia has an ethnic federal system that is based on the assumption that the ethno-linguistic communities of the country are located in neatly defined, or definable, territorial areas. On the basis of this assumption the federal system aspires to accommodate the ethnic diversity of the Ethiopian people through, principally, if not exclusively, territorial schemes. This assumption is, however, incorrect as far as urban areas are concerned which, despite being territorially enclosed within one of the ethnic-based regions or sub-regional units, have thousands of multi-ethnic dwellers. The territorial scheme thus fails to cater to a large contingent of multiethnic urban dwellers.

Prospects on Hungarian as a Regional Official Language and Szeklerland’s Territorial Autonomy in Romania

This article analyses two options the Hungarian ethno-linguistic community in the Transylvanian region of Romania has in order to preserve its ethno-linguistic identity. Firstly, there is the option of unrestricted language use in the public domain. At present the Romanian legal framework assigns members of the Hungarian speaking community in Transylvania individual linguistic and cultural rights only. The Romanian language policy is further restricted by a threshold rule. The ratio of minority must number 20 per cent of the total inhabitants of a certain administrative-territorial unit in order to have their language recognised officially. The second possibility is that historical territories where Transylvanian Hungarians statistically form a dominant majority (i.e. Szeklerland) are granted territorial autonomy. The territoriality principle would secure linguistic minority rights. We will conclude that the prospects for Hungarian as a regional language in Romania are more realistic than the recognition of Szeklerland’s territorial autonomy.

“La biblioteca es importante”: A Case Study of an Emergent Bilingual Public Library in the Nuevo U.S. South

ABSTRACTResearch examining ethnolinguistic community schools (García, Zakharia, & Otcu, 2013) proposes that local spaces not directly affiliated with schools sustain bilingualism and identity. Though researchers often theorize about how community schools sustain home language literacies, less research examines how local public spaces sustain bilingualism among immigrant communities and, more broadly, what this would resemble. With a conceptual framework modeled after García's (2009, 2011) theorization of translanguaging as a dynamic bilingual practice, we offer a counter to monolingual assumptions permeating current language education policy and ideologies. This case study of a public library examines a translanguaging space that offers a window into an emerging Latin American immigrant community in the U.S. South and the complexities of bilingual contact in the United States as a whole. We found that this nurturing public library fostered bilingualism, intentionally refuting language-minoritized stigmas for students learning English. With targeted programming and mentorship, the library challenged misinterpreted “deficit” views of emergent bilingual communities with reoriented views of English language learning to a translingual orientation (Horner, Lu, Royster, & Trimbur, 2011) that extends the innovative and critical practices of shuttling across diverse language repertoires. The public space of the library honored and cultivated the literacy practices of its local communities, and the importance of this is, without overstating, that public spaces for bilingual learning further the missions of all schools.

INTEGRATION IN LATVIA: FLOWS AND EBBS IN NATIONAL AND EUROPEAN CONTEXT

Russian-speaking communities in the member states of the European Union (EU), especially the Baltic States and Germany, have earned special attention, in recent years, as subjects of important integration policies, on one hand, and the main targets of Russia’s propagandist efforts, on the other. Because a significant part of Russian-speaking communities accepted these efforts, questions were raised concerning the effectiveness of previous integration policies to strengthen the national identity and invoke a feeling of political togetherness. Thus the factors fostering and triggering integration and the relations between civic and ethnocultural components of integration are of wide interest. This paper presents a case study of Latvia, as a country with the highest share of Russian-speaking citizens among the EU member states and a clear prevalence of ethnocultural components in its integration policies in recent years. The study examines the successes and failures of the integration policies of Latvia during the last twenty-five years, using mainly direct observations and sociological data collected during the last twenty years. The results show that language knowledge, citizenship status, and socioeconomic conditions play an important role in integration. In addition, these factors appear more effective with development of inclusive political practices and civil society structures, cooperative discourse, and facilitation of mutual trust between ethnolinguistic communities.