Co-construction Of Identity Research Articles

A Qualitative Study of Adolescents from Refugee Backgrounds Living in Australia: Identity and Resettlement.

Identity formation among young people from refugee backgrounds is complex, as it occurs while they are both integrating into a novel cultural landscape and navigating the intricacies of adolescence. The present study explored sense of identity and experiences among refugee youth in the context of resettlement. Nineteen young people (15-18 years) from refugee backgrounds, settled in Brisbane, Australia, took part in the study. An individual semi-structured interview, drawing upon the Tree of Life method, was used. The thematic analysis (TA) methodology was adopted, and several themes emerged: experiencing changes in family roles; experience of belonging; experience of bonds with lost loved ones; dealing with emotions in a new context; experience of self in the context of change. There was one emergent overarching theme of meaning-making in the context of change. These themes were explicated within the framework of social identity and sociocultural theories, which emphasises the dynamic co-construction of identity through the interplay of belonging and meaning-making within specific contextual settings. This study highlights the fundamental role of social context, particularly the fostering of school belonging, in the multifaceted process of identity construction. The findings identify the importance of integrating multiple identities and experiences to develop a comprehensive and resilient sense of personal cohesion and selfhood.

Political action and inaction. Identity co-construction in the face of modern crises

The purpose of this research is to examine how the topic of migration is viewed under the political lenses of the European Parliament, and how the identity of both the in-group (characterized by the European Community) and the out-groups (represented by Ukrainian and Syrian refugees) are negotiated in parliamentary discourse. The corpus comprises 20 follow-up interventions dealing with the refugee crisis (from 2015 to 2023). To address these aspects, the paper is based on a multidisciplinary approach rooted in fields such as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and pragma-rhetoric. Looking at how collective identities are projected through pronominal references provides a better understanding of the plurality of voices that shape the process of identity formation. Based on the findings, the last part of the research will draw a comparison between how the identities of the in-group and out-group are discursively constructed and co-constructed and will draw attention to the subsequent strategic effects of group categorizing.

“Just Take Your Time and Talk to us, Okay?”– International Education Students Facilitating and Promoting Interculturality in Online Initial Interactions

ABSTRACT Meeting others abroad and/or online is considered important in the broad field of intercultural communication education (amongst others: international education, minority and migrant education, but also teacher education, language education) to test out one’s learning about interculturality. For several weeks, a group of university students from China and a group of local and international students studying at a Finnish university met regularly online to talk about global educational issues. Using a specific lens of interculturality, which focuses on the discursive co-construction of identities, we explore their initial interactions, how they deal with the uncertainty and potential awkwardness of their very first encounters, before they start working on their educational tasks. Based on the students’ self-disclosure (practices, thoughts, identity construction), and adopting a dialogical discourse analysis, the authors examine their co-construction of interculturality. The results show that the students try to facilitate interculturality while promoting it together more or less successfully. Reasons are discussed. The authors argue that research on the underexplored case of online initial interactions, which represent crucial moments in establishing and negotiating interculturality, could provide important research and pedagogical input for intercultural telecollaboration.

“Their Yoruba Was Pure. It Was Archaic, It Was Native”: Racioreligious Linguistic Ideologies in (Re)constructing Ritual, Language and Identity

ABSTRACT This research proposes racioreligious linguistic ideologies to conceptualize systems of belief that conflate categories of language, spirituality, and peoplehood, with implications for contemporary education. While theories on the semiotics of race (raciosemiotics) and on the interplay of language and race (raciolinguistics) are positioned well to understand how multiple identities co-craft personhood, they have not been regularly applied in exploring religion’s role (alongside language and race) in identity co-construction. This article presents the case of Yoruba language education in the Brazilian city of Salvador to explore its grounding in the semiotic values that language practices have acquired within racioreligious linguistic ideologies. I examine the positioning of Yoruba in ethnographic interviews with three lifelong students who practice African-matrix cosmologies of ancestral devotion and seek a “pure” form of Yoruba. These data highlight how people in this location of the African diaspora are (re)constructing identity, ritual, and ancestral linguistic practices through language education.

Indexing the ‘included’ migrant? Social categorization and interpersonal digital interaction between labor migrants, teachers and employers in Norway

This paper investigates the co-construction of identities of inclusion and exclusion in digitally mediated migrant-host community interaction. Through both interview and digital interactional data, we look at the discursive social categorization of and by Lithuanian labour migrants and their majority population interlocutors and analyze the semiotic practices by which identity categories are talked and written into being in home-school collaboration and workplace interaction. To capture the negotiation of power, (in)equality and authority, we apply the concepts orders of indexicality (Blommaert, 2007), and adequation and distinction (Bucholtz & Hall 2005). Our analysis shows how participants draw on various semiotic resources to interactionally construct identities as included, such as media choice, punctuation, text composition and multimodality.

Exploring the sociomaterial dynamics of home food gardening in a Black-majority, low-income neighbourhood in Chicago, IL, U.S.A.

ABSTRACT Appreciation for the contributions of urban home food gardens to social-ecological resilience, food security, and human health is growing, most recently as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the precarities it has laid bare in the food system. In this study, we used actor-network theory as a guiding sensibility to explore the sociomaterial dynamics of urban home food gardens in a low-income, Black-majority neighbourhood on Chicago’s south side. As collectives, gardens gathered diverse human and nonhuman actors including soil, plants, family members, friends, strangers, and government and non-government organisations. Relations of care, of humans and nonhumans, stabilised networks, as did the co-construction of identity. The care provided for nonhumans, however, did not always qualify as good care, and practices of care for humans through sharing food and plants from the garden were more complicated than suggested by previous studies. Gardening networks – and associated communities of practice – were contracting because of illness, death, and migration of gardeners from the neighbourhood. Based on study results, we make several policy recommendations for expanding urban home food gardening, including increased financial, technical, and material support from local governments and the promotion of gardening as a practice of care in a more-than-human world.

Radio program hosts’ self-identity mobilization in Chinese radio-mediated medical consultations

Abstract While previous studies highlight the dynamic nature of identity co-construction, how and especially why speakers construct and shift their own multiple identities still remains understudied. The present study argues that identity is part of speaker communicative resources as evidenced by radio program hosts’ strategic employment and shift among their different identities to facilitate their interactional purposes. Based on data drawn from radio medical consultations, this article attempts to reveal the dynamic adaptability of hosts’ identity construction. It is found that (1) in general, hosts of medical consultation programs construct three identities for themselves, namely an authoritative expert identity, a caring friend identity and a sales representative identity; (2) the three identities constructed are respectively adaptable to power relationships, solidarity and role relationships between hosts and callers in conversation; (3) the three identities shift in conversations to facilitate callers’ purchasing acts.

Identity construction or obfuscation on social media: a case of Facebook and WhatsApp

ABSTRACT This paper appraises the way Facebook and WhatsApp social media users construct or obfuscate their identities and that of their followers and/or audience. Social media users post their statuses and what is on their mind on the public domain. These posts are presumed to ‘project’ the sender’s identity dis/aligning themselves with readers or potential readers. The discursive processes involved are crucial for the appraisal of how identities are constructed or obfuscated. Language is at the centre of identity co-construction or obfuscation. Engaging the Appraisal and Social Constructionism theoretical frameworks, the paper examines identity construction or obfuscation from the three levels of analysis: lexical, textual pragmatic and interactional levels. Data for analysis is purposively sampled. Observation and group discussions are utilised to appraise the discursive socio-semantic meanings of the status and posts on social media. The paper argues that identities are largely obfuscated than constructed on social media. Identities are never unified, fragmentation of identities in differing situations and contexts compound obfuscation of identities in general.

Some Memoirs of a Male Stripper: The Conflicting Tensions of Disrobing Oneself without Disrobing One’s Self

This autoethnographic paper relives my first working night as a male stripper. The purpose of this paper is to examine my subjectivities as a male stripper by unpacking and theorizing around my autoethnographic writings from working at a private bachelorette party. This paper provides a new perspective in the sex and leisure literature and puts the (male) researcher into the study. It explores the complexities and vulnerabilities entangled within my subjectivities as a male stripper – its construction, deconstruction, and co-construction. Narratives are presented depicting scenes during my first working night from pre-party preparations to post-party reflections. These narratives analyze my desires to be accepted beyond the traditional physicality central to stripping, tensions present within role ambiguity, and the co-consumption of sexuality produced within this sex and leisure space. Critical analysis of my performer perspective advances the understanding of identity co-construction and co-consumption within these sociosexual leisure spaces.

The Impact of Education Abroad on Bilingual Identity Co-Construction: The Shocks That Shatter

The Impact of Education Abroad on Bilingual Identity Co-Construction: The Shocks That Shatter

He Reo for Our Future: Te Reo Māori and Teacher Identities, Attitudes, and Micro-Policies in Mainstream New Zealand Schools

ABSTRACTThe present study investigates the connections between macro-language policies, access to resources, classroom micro-policies, and teacher identities of three Pākehā (‘New Zealand European’) primary school teachers at three New Zealand schools. As New Zealand educators are increasingly expected to incorporate te reo into the classroom, this article explores the challenges that they face in achieving this goal, including those related to their sociolinguistic identities and micro-policies in the classroom. Our findings show that the teachers’ attitudes and personal identity connections with New Zealand English and te reo Māori heavily impacted their classroom language practices. This article concludes that teachers’ micro-policies and practices are reflective of their own beliefs, capabilites, internal and external support, and personal embodied experiences. These factors combined impact the presence of te reo Māori in the modern New Zealand English classroom and the ability for co-construction of identity in the teaching-learning space.

Constructing self-expert identity via other-identity negation in Chinese televised debating discourse

Abstract This article investigates the conflictive construction of identities in Chinese interactions. We examine the way in which people build up their own identities as “experts” and negate others’ similar identities in Chinese televised debates with complex participation structure. Our datasets are collected from 120 Chinese televised debates. Using indexicality (Bucholtz, Mary & Kira Hall. 2005. Identity and interaction: a socio-cultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7[4/5]. 585–614) and Membership Categorization (Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation, vols I and II, edited by G. Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell) as analytic notions to capture the interactional co-construction of identities, we examine the ways in which identity co-construction in such conflict scenarios takes place, as interactants attempt to construct their own identities as experts, and negate the expert identities of others. This exploration fills an important knowledge gap: little research has been done on Chinese conflict talk, in particular from the perspective of the co-construction of identities. Our research models identity construction in conflict by identifying various routes or “strategies” through which identities can be worked out in conflict scenarios. Our focus is on revealing how interlocutors construct or promote their identity by making their membership category conform to their category-bound activity/attribute, and negate others’ identity by revealing others’ violation of category-bound activity/attribute.

Secure-base Relationships as Drivers of Professional Identity Development in Dual-career Couples

Through a qualitative study of 50 dual-career couples, we examine how partners in such couples shape the development of each other’s professional identities and how they experience and interpret the relationship between those identities. We found that the extent to which and how partners shaped each other’s professional identities depended on the couple’s attachment structure, that is, whether one partner—or both—experienced the other as a secure base. Someone comes to regard another person as a secure base when he or she experiences the other as both dependably supportive and encouraging of his or her exploratory behavior. Couples who had a unidirectional secure-base structure experienced conflict between the development of their professional identities. The partner who received a secure base pursued ongoing professional identity development, while the partner who provided a secure base foreclosed it. Couples who had a bidirectional secure-base structure experienced mutual enhancement of their professional identity development. Both partners engaged in it and expanded their professional identity by incorporating attributes of their partner’s. Building on these findings, we develop a model of professional identity co-construction in secure-base relationships that breaks new theoretical ground by exploring interpersonal identity relationships and highlighting their roots in the secure-base structure of a dyadic relationship.

Holding Space for Literate Identity Co-Construction

Many students of color who are also identified as “struggling” readers are likely to have negative experiences in school. In this article, I discuss the findings of a case study examining how reader identities emerged in and through language for such students. The discourse data analyzed here concern an interactional pattern in which the focal students and their teacher collaborated in disrupting identities of deficiency, and instead constructed literate identities within whole-group discussions of text. These findings highlight moments of agency from students marginalized in schools and point toward ways that teachers and students can collaboratively create space for students’ literate voices to be heard.

Nuna

The Inuit land is often known through Western phrasings such as the “Arctic” or the “Great North.” In this article, based on an extensive review of literature, I focus on the name the Inuit give to their own land, which is one of the only words common to all Inuit dialects: nuna. Studying the word’s meaning casts light on a peculiar indigenous territoriality, and on the centrality of environment in Inuit ways of life and holism thinking. The Inuit conceptualize their inhabiting of the circumpolar region in a way radically opposed to Western narratives of wilderness or wasteland.
 In the late twentieth century, nuna was turned into a key component of identity politics. Inuit peoples linguistically reappropriated their lands, in parallel with formal land claims and the recognition of Inuit self-governed territories. Nuna is at the core of these processes, as the concept justifies the claims for recognition of vernacular toponyms, and the vocable itself was included in the names of Inuit regions. Nuna as an indigenous political banner helps understanding the imagination of Inuit political communities, emerging from a dialectical co-construction of identities and territories mediated through the linguistics of place.

Translanguaging Pedagogies for Positive Identities in Two-Way Dual Language Bilingual Education

ABSTRACTResearch suggests that identity matters for school success and that language and identity are powerfully intertwined. A monolingual solitudes understanding of bilingualism undermines children’s bilingual identities, yet in most bilingual education classrooms, academic instruction is segregated by language and children are encouraged to engage in only one language at a time. Few studies have explored how a translanguaging pedagogy supports the development of positive identities when learning through two languages. This article explores the co-construction of identities of emergent bilingual children whose teacher embraced dynamic bilingualism. We carried out a close discourse analysis, drawing on the sociocultural linguistic framework of Bucholtz and Hall of children’s interactions in a two-way bilingual education classroom. Our data revealed that translanguaging offered equitable, empowering educational and language learning opportunities to minoritized, bilingual students. A translanguaging pedagogy resulted in greater metalinguistic awareness, while developing bilingual identities.

Becoming “Spanish Learners”: Identity and Interaction Among Multilingual Children in a Spanish-English Dual Language Classroom

ABSTRACTThis article explores the interactional co-construction of identities among two first-grade students learning Spanish as a third language in a Spanish-English dual language classroom. Drawing on ethnographic and interactional data, the article focuses on a single interaction between these two “Spanish learners” and two of their Spanish-speaking classmates that took place within the context of a classroom literacy event. Analysis involved examining the sequential organization of talk, as well as identifying the particular linguistic resources that speakers recruited in their conversational turns. Findings showcase the interactional mechanisms by which students’ identities were variously asserted, contested, and negotiated in everyday classroom talk. The article ends by offering implications and raising further questions with respect to the implementation of dual language education for multilingual students.

Funciones del metadiscurso en la co-construcción identitaria en exámenes universitarios orales finales de pregrado: un estudio de caso

This article reports the functions of metadiscourse in the co-construction of identity among university teachers and students in final oral undergraduate exams. The review of literature evidences the limited consensus regarding the definition of Metadiscourse. However, all authors considered for this study do agree on the crucial role of Metadiscourse in the establishment of interactions. Thus, this paper offers an operational definition based on the assumptions presented by different authors such as Loureda, Fairclough, Hyland, and Li y Wharton. In addition, the concept of Identity in the terms expressed by Don Zimmermann is supported. Likewise, the analyzed examination is considered as Macrogenre in accordance with Martin y Rose. The corpus analyzed corresponds to two oral final undergraduate university exams in the area of Linguistics. The results show two types of metadiscourse: the first, based on one’s speech or on oneself; the other, focused on the context or on research practice. Metadiscursive comments and strategies serve different functions while the candidate conceptualizes the required knowledge for the exam, and the exam participants construct their identity. The conclusion shows that metadiscursive selections allow for strategic positioning and alignment of the participants.Keywords: academic orality, metadiscursive strategies, identity, macrogenre.

Contextualizing Discourse; Student Identities and Classroom Teaching

The paper explores the role of classroom interactions in construction of identity of students. The same has been attempted within critical discourse analysis framework provided by Norman Fairclough (1992). The results of discourse analysis of teacher-student interactions in audio-recordings of third-fourth-and fifth grade EVS lessons reveal that the critical discourse analysis provides a viable source of analyzing co-construction of identity and learning within the classroom. Though teachers encourage student participation in educational interactions by asking questions, but the interactions remain limited to what the biased perception of the teacher. The results of the present study show that such interactions impact the construction of students“ identities adversely. The theoretical framework provided by Fairclough emphasize the need to give a close look to specific discursive constructions within interactions between the teacher and students. With its specific discourse strategies of talk and text analysis, one can explore what kind of constructions of self is being carried out in interactions within a particular social set up, who is claiming to have knowledge and the same is hedging and mitigating others“ perceptions. At the end the paper attempts to contextualize the understanding within the Indian scenario of changing curriculum understanding and build a perspective towards its correct and perceived errors that it may produce if not understood conceptually.

Commentary on “Co-creating stakeholder and brand identities: A cross-cultural consumer perspective”

This commentary raises awareness for the relevance of other cultural dimensions—besides individualism and collectivism—and alternative approaches to cross-cultural research for exploring cultural variations in stakeholders' co-construction of brand identity and their own identities. The author suggests replacing the value-centered approach to culture by an understanding of culture as something dynamic and unsettled, more than cognitive, disjunctive, and not necessarily bounded to geography. Culture includes other important aspects such as habits, rituals, practices, heroes, language and symbols. Abstract variables fail to capture the rich cultural content of social factors and, as such, are uninformed by and uninformative about concrete social life and the subtleties of local culture. Considering multiple aspects of cultural difference, interactions between these aspects, and the continuous influence of various cultures on each other can provide additional, relevant insights into reciprocal identity co-construction processes between brands and stakeholders.