Language Socialization Practices Research Articles

Learning Gender Subjectivities through Peer Language Socialization Practices in Pretend Play: The case study of a trilingual child in a Turkish presch

Article History: Received 23.10.2015 Received in revised form 08.02.2016 Accepted 14.02.2016 Available online 21.03.2016 Second language learning includes not only acquiring grammar rules and new vocabulary but also learning the social routines of the culture to specifically project subjectivities in the way that is valued by the culture. This paper is part of a larger ethnographic fieldwork on naturally occurring peer group interactions of Turkish preschool children. The focused participant of the study is a 4 years old boy, Mete, who is trilingual and can speak English, Spanish and learn Turkish in the preschool. The excerpts in the study came from different play activities of children including family play and block play and were analyzed using techniques of talk-in-interaction with ethnography. The results suggest children pay attention to ideologies of gender from their culture, and socialize group members to project valued stances and subjectivities through utilizing a variety of linguistic resources strategically. © 2016 IOJES. All rights reserved

Gender and Disparaging Humour

The article covers the problem of deprecating humor in English anecdotes. It deals with the issue of using invective lexical units in comic discourse. Women swear considerably less than men. Aggressive anecdotes frequently disparage women. Generalizations about women and men inevitably involve false assumptions as they refuse to acknowledge the diverse identities, aspirations and personalities of individual women and men. Women are the brunt of more jokes than men. In English anecdotes men’s voice dominates. Conceptions of male dominance and patriarchy have also affected the lens through which we view the maternal image in language socialization practices.

Conflicting Ideologies and Language Policy in Adult ESL: Complexities of Language Socialization in a Majority-L1 Classroom

This study looks at how language ideologies affect and are revealed in language socialization practices in a majority-L1 adult ESL classroom, particularly looking at language use and policy. It draws on recent theories and critiques of language socialization (Bayley & Langman, 2011; Bronson & Watson-Gegeo, 2008; Garrett & Baquedano-López, 2002; Kulick & Schieffelin, 2004), language ideologies (Woolard, 1998; Woolard & Schieffelin, 1994; Wortham, 2008) and second language learning (Auerbach, 1993; Cook, 1997). Qualitative, semi-ethnographic methods are used to address the intersection of language learning, socialization, and ideologies as related to classroom language use. The study reveals complex language ideologies that value students’ L1s, as well as adherence and resistance to socialization practices. It also reveals complications related to the teacher’s accommodation of languages besides English, particularly Spanish, for minority non-Spanish-speaking students. This paper concludes with implications for teacher pedagogy, policy, and ideologies in mixed-L1 classrooms.

(Be)laboring Childhoods in Postville, Iowa

By examining a flagrant case of “child” migrant labor in a meatpacking facility, this article addresses the cultural politics of global childhood. Conflicting constructions of childhood first emerged informally within kin and community networks. Community-based constructions were later overshadowed and delimited in a child labor trial that took place two years after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (ICE) raided Agriprocessors, the town’s major employer. I trace the shifting contours of cultural and legal battles over childhood and forms of citizenship that, in microcosm, speak to on-going debates over immigration and economic policies tying the United States to Guatemala. During a year of political campaigning, the Guatemalan president is assailed by reporters who hurl questions at him asking why he thinks he deserves to be re-elected. “You failed to keep your promise about improving the economy,” one reporter accused. The president, looking shocked and offended, replies, “What do you mean!?! Since I took office the economy has grown; now everyone has a job. Look!” he exclaimed, indicating a niño de la calle (street child) busily washing a parked car nearby. (Guatemalan political satire, originally circulated via a major Guatemalan national newspaper)

Imagined Communities and Language Socialization Practices in Transnational Space: A Case Study of Two Korean “Study Abroad” Families in the United States

AbstractThis is a yearlong ethnographic case study of 2 study abroad South Korean families' language socialization practices in their home. It explored how these parents', particularly the mothers', future visions of their returning community in South Korea influenced their home language socialization practices. As their future vision, it employed the notion of “imagined communities” (ICs) (Anderson, 1991; Kanno & Norton, 2003; Norton, 2001; Norton & Pavlenko, 2007). The data from interviews and participant observations revealed that these 2 mothers not only created different ICs, but also aligned themselves differently with their ICs. I argue that each family's unique negotiation of multiple memberships among communities they left behind, local ones, and ones they hoped to become part of in the future caused that diversity, which led to their divergent practices and attitudes toward different languages in their home. Furthermore, having membership renewal as the main goal in their IC, these families strived to maximize their language learning opportunities overseas and at the same time imposed constraints on their daily practices through language ideologies brought from their ICs.

“I Will Be a Person of Two Generations”: Temporal Perspectives on Sociolinguistic Change in Northern Thailand1

This article examines how speakers of Kam Muang in Northern Thailand draw on distinct temporalities (the slow paced, long-term historical temporality of longue durée; the medium paced, autobiographical temporality of intermediate time frames; and the fast-paced, immediate temporality of the courte durée) to conceptualize their community's shifting language practices and language policies. The analysis demonstrates how the traces of these temporalities in speakers' language ideologies, language practices, and language socialization practices reflect their lived experiences in distinct, class-based trajectories of socialization.

The politics of Arabic language education: Moroccan immigrant children's language socialization into ethnic and religious identities

This paper focuses on issues of reproduction and the manufacturing of national/ethnic and religious identities in the deterritorialized space of the Moroccan immigrant diaspora. More specifically, this paper examines Moroccan immigrant children's language socialization into pan-Arabic and Islamic identities in relation to the teaching of the Arabic language to these younger generations of Moroccans, who have either already been born in Spain, or who immigrated to Spain with their parents when they were toddlers. Moroccan immigrant children in this study attend Arabic language classes in a Spanish public school—a relatively new program jointly funded by the Spanish and Moroccan Ministries of Education—and in after-school religious classes in a small oratory-mosque run by a local Islamic cultural organization. In this paper, I address similarities and differences in linguistic and literacy practices between these two contexts, paying particular attention to how the internal dynamism of the Moroccan community itself organizes adults’ socializing efforts in relation to language education, especially where there may be some conflicting interests in achieving literacy by religious and secular elements of the children's communities of origin. Comparing language and literacy practices in the fields of Arabic language classes at the school and in the mosque allows us to trace homologies, or similarity of organization in linguistic and cultural (re)production, across these two settings, but also to uncover different kinds of strategies teachers engage in and the differential effect pursued by putting these strategies to use in the classroom. Outlining both, processes of homology and heterogeneity, is particularly important to understand the degree of redundancy in language socialization practices, as well as the possible areas of disjuncture that may impinge upon children's ability to negotiate commonality of belonging in their multiple communities.

Narrative discourse of native and immigrant Russian-speaking mother-child dyads

Mother-child storytelling was used here as a first step toward exploring language socialization through the narrative discourse of Russian-speaking non-Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in two host cultures. This study examined five groups of mother-child dyads: Russian-speaking Ashkenazi Jews living in Ukraine, Israel, and the United States and two Russian-speaking Jewish immigrant groups living in the United States and Israel. These five groups of mothers and their three to five-year-old children were asked to tell a story using a wordless picture book. This study sought to examine the themes of home present in narrative discourse across these groups. More specifically, this research attempted to explore the ways in which the narrative process may facilitate and/or obstruct the necessary skills children need to be socialized into their cultural communities (Ochs, 2002; Ochs & Schieffelin, 2008). Measures included quantitative analysis of the length of narrative, use of questions, character speech, emotion qualifiers, and switches in language use for mothers and their children as well as narrative expressions of issues of loss common among immigrant groups. Findings are discussed in terms of how narratives reveal the language socialization practices of immigrants, including linguistic choices made to use native or host goals and styles and thematic expression of their immigrant experience.

ANA CELIA ZENTELLA (ed.), Building on strength: Language and literacy in Latino families and communities

Ana Celia Zentella (ed.), Building on strength: Language and literacy in Latino families and communities . New York: Teachers College Press, 2005. Pp. 224. Pb $23.95. The 11 essays in Zentella's edited volume investigate language socialization practices of U.S. Latinos and together make possible a conceptualization of Latino language and literacy that resists “a view of Latino parents as monolithic and unconcerned about education” (p. 3). In her introduction, Zentella briefly traces the history of language socialization research and introduces the framework that undergirds the volume.

Gaining Cultural Sensitivity: Student SLPs Work and Learn in Bolivia

Gaining Cultural Sensitivity: Student SLPs Work and Learn in Bolivia

Accelerating language acquisition.

How much can the development of language and other skills be accelerated in the general population? High correlations between early verbal and mental competencies and parent and teacher language socialization practices suggest enormous potential for widespread improvement. Here we report follow-up research in progress in studies of late adolescent children from diverse ethnic and educational backgrounds who participated in a language enrichment programme during infancy in the home or day-care. In 39 of 44 home-stimulated children located to date (nearly all from college-educated families) 62-93% were: in gifted or advanced programmes, obtaining high grades, avid readers and skilled in writing (over half read before school and wrote creative material independently) and generally highly skilled in verbal, mathematical and other academic domains. They also excelled socially and in sports, and showed intellectual independence. Additional subjects and data (on competence, later experiences and Scholastic Aptitude Test [SAT] scores) are currently being collected. Preliminary data analyses suggest that although early language enrichment can in the short term easily increase competence in all groups well beyond norms generated by current socialization practices, long-term outcomes are a complex function of developmental dynamics between the early, complex, foundation of high skills and motivation for learning, and the interaction with facilitative parental resources.

Interview with Elinor Ochs

Interview with Elinor Ochs Wendy Klein University of California, Los Angeles Dr. Elinor Ochs, Professor of Applied Linguistics at UCLA, is co-founder, along with Dr. Bambi Schieffelin and Dr. Shirley Brice Heath, of the field of lan- Ochs was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied with Dell Hymes, and earned a Ph.D. in anthropology. Her work takes an interdisciplinary approach to language in social context, bridging guage socialization. Dr. scholarship in the areas of linguistic anthropology, psycholinguistics, and applied linguistics. Her early groundbreaking study of child language acquisition in West- ern Samoa yielded important discoveries about the connection between cultural practices and children's pragmatic development. In Dr. Ochs's subsequent studies grammar and discourse as resources for constructing identities and activities, she has explored what it means to become a culturally competent member of a of community. Ochs has examined how language is used to organize social interaction and construct knowledge in a variety of settings. In addition to her work in West- ern Samoa, Dr. Ochs has conducted ethnographic research in Madagascar, Italy, and the United States. Her current project involves examining high-functioning Dr. autistic children's discourse practices at home and T. in school in order to better un- abilities. derstand these children's social, cognitive, and linguistic Dr. Ochs is a 998 recipient of the John D. and Catherine Mac Arthur Foundation Fellowship, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her publications Bambi Schieffelin, Editors), Lan- guage Socialization Across Cultures (1986, with Bambi Schieffelin, Editors), Cul- ture and Language Development: Language Acquisition and Language Socializa- tion in a Samoan Village ( 988), Constructing Panic: The Discourse of Agorapho- bia (1995, with Lisa Capps), Interaction and Grammar (with E. Schegloff, S. Th- include Developmental Pragmatics (1979. with ompson, Editors, 1996), cultures. as well as numerous other collections, articles, and book chapters on language socialization, and narrative and discourse practices across Klein: to Did something in your own experience or past make it meaningful for you pursue the development of language socialization as an area of inquiry? Ochs: The language socialization study developed most immediately from doing fieldwork in Western Samoa, and it is indirectly related to my past because when you go part of to do fieldwork, you start to notice the things that are not obvious or not is your own expectations. One of the things I began to notice that people Issues in Applied Linguistics ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 10 1999, Regents of the University of California No.

Language Socialization Practices and Cultural Identity: Case Studies of Mexican-Descent Families in California and Texas

This article explores the relationship between language and cultural identity as manifested in the language socialization practices of four Mexican-descent families: two in northern California and two in south Texas. The analysis considers both the patterns of meaning suggested by the use of Spanish and English in the speech and literacy performances of four focal children as well as family and dominant societal ideologies concerning the symbolic importance of the two languages, the way language learning occurs, and the role of schooling—all frameworks in which the children's linguistic behaviors were embedded. All four focal children defined themselves in terms of allegiance to their Mexican or Mexican American cultural heritage. However, the families were oriented differently to the Spanish language as a vehicle for affirmation of this commonly articulated group identity. The differences are emblematic of stances taken in a larger cultural and political debate over the terms of Latino participation in U.S. society. Parents in all of the families endorsed Spanish maintenance and spoke of the language as an important aspect of their sense of cultural identity. Only two of the families, however, pursued aggressive home maintenance strategies. Of the other two families, one used a protocol combining some Spanish use in the home with instruction from Spanish-speaking relatives, whereas the family that had moved most fully into the middle class was the least successful in the intergenerational transmission of Spanish, despite a commitment to cultural maintenance.

Storytelling as a Bridge to Literacy: An Examination of Personal Storytelling Among Black Middle-Class Mothers and Children

The present article is concerned with the language socialization practices of Black middle-class children and their families. In describing some preliminary results from research in progress its purpose is two-fold: (1) to determine whether stories of personal experience occur as part of the everyday lives of Black middle-class children, and (2) to show some of the ways stories of personal experience function to affirm these children's literate identities. The present study thus investigates personal storytelling as a conduit through which values, beliefs, and identity are transmitted to middle-class Black children. It is a part of a larger ethnographic investigation of personal storytelling in five communities: Black middleclass, White middle-class, Black working-class, and White-working class in Chicago; and Chinese middle-class in Taiwan (Miller et al., in press). Children in each of the five cultural groups were observed in their homes by a researcher who was racially and culturally similar. The overall goal of the larger study is to develop a comparative programmatic for studying the ways in which narratives of personal experience function in the socialization and acquisition processes (Miller & Moore, 1989), with a special focus on personal storytelling as a site of self-construction. This article will present in a preliminary fashioning some of the ways in which stories of personal experience function to affirm the value of schooling and literacy and to create a literate identity in Black middleclass children. Focussing on the personal storytelling practices of the children and their families, it will address the following questions: (1) Do stories of personal experience occur as part of the everyday home life of Black middle-class children? (2) If they occur, are they a major means of communication? (3) Do the children tell literacy stories of personal experience, i.e., stories about their literacy-related experiences in school or church?