Sociolinguistic Groups Research Articles

I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya (review)

Gabrielle Lynch, Say to You: Ethnic Politics and in Kenya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. 283 pp. This account of ongoing importance of ethnic affiliation in contemporary Kenyan political life begins with proposition that ethnic identities are often recent constructs, but nonetheless enjoy a seemingly and natural appeal. Gabrielle Lynch describes how their potential to unite and divide depends on contextually discernable categories of people based on assumed commonalities and differences in histories and cultures. In today's globalized world, ethnic identities enjoy recognition through cultural and peoples' rights and specially designed institutional frameworks. In multi-party electoral politics, ethnic identities can be mobilized by political leaders, educated elites, local elders, and urban and rural residents to promote and defend socioeconomic and political interests. But there is also concern about potential for sense of ethnic difference to activate or endorse violent atrocities against other. Fueled by ethnic-politicking and opportunism, Kenya's post-election violence in 2008 led to death of 1300 people and displaced well over half a million. Say to You offers a meticulously researched, minutely documented history of ethnic group in Kenya. The label Kalenjin, which means I say to you, dates from mid-20th century and refers to linguistic propinquity of peoples subsumed under this designator. In calculus of colonial administration, sub-groups were regarded as separate tribes. A tiny group of politically aware and active members of Nandi and Kipsigis socio-linguistic groups came up with idea of as an inclusive ethnic category as a means to meet needs and interests of their communities. This effort gained some ground and the Kalenjin became a group acknowledged by colonial government, among others, during turbulent decade before independence. Local fears of marginalization and exclusion and assumed benefits of amalgamation initiated construction of this new inclusive identity, but did not foment a popular sense of difference and competition until Mau Mau emergency lent shape, menace, and immediacy to communal fears. Approaching independence opened up political competition and economic production to African citizens, thus creating new opportunities for ownership and control of power, wealth, and geographical space. This in turn raised expectations of development in newly independent country, but also heightened fears of groups that felt potentially threatened by other powerful groups of Kenyans. Lynch's central argument is that while processes of ethnic construction and negotiation are limited by need for ethnicity to be rooted in primordial discourses of cultural similarity and shared pasts, main motivation for construction and politicization of alliance was, and continues to be, a nexus of fear of loss and potential for gain. From outset, ethnic narratives of territoriality, threat, and opportunity were intertwined with a portrait of community's marginality and vulnerability as ethnic others to rising power groups in post-independence Kenya. To this point, narratives made a collective claim to Rift Valley on basis of prior residence and an assumed right of locals to own and control their homelands. Lynch's analysis is most convincing as she traces construction and popularization of inclusive identity and its early and active rejection of Mau Mau. Anti-Kikuyuism discourse came to fore just prior to independence as did an ethnically delineated notion of territorial ownership and control. By independence, popular logic encouraged by colonial experience to think and act ethnically classified regional disparities in economic development, including formal employment, mission influence, and divergent fortunes of agricultural and pastoralist communities. …

Code-switching as appraisal resource in talking about third parties

This article explores the function of code-switching in talking about absent third parties. The basis for the investigation is a corpus of sociolinguistic individual and group interviews with German immigrants in the US and American immigrants in Germany. In these interviews, the interviewees are asked to recount their migration experiences and their lives before and after migration. For each individual speaker, the interviewer and – in the group interviews – the other participants in the group are, on the one hand, potentially 'sympathetic' fellow migrants. On the other hand, however, they are potentially problematic figures, because talking about absent third parties means that these third parties might share characteristics with the interviewer or the others in the group. Talking about third parties can, thus, be face-threatening for both the interviewer and the interviewees. In the analyses presented in this article, we identify how speakers employ English-to-German code-switching when it comes to verbalizing others – specifically members of home and host cultures – in discourse and how they position themselves and their audience in relation to them.

Diversity, Geographical, and Consumption Patterns of Traditional Vegetables in Sociolinguistic Communities in Benin: Implications for Domestication and Utilization1

Diversity, Geographical, and Consumption Patterns of Traditional Vegetables in Sociolinguistic Communities in Benin: Implications for Domestication and Utilization. Traditional vegetables in many African rural areas are an important part of the daily diet and economy but have been poorly documented until recently. We undertook a survey in Benin on the diversity and patterns of use of traditional vegetables by 18 sociolinguistic groups in the three major phytogeographical regions. Major groups include the Yoruba–Nagot, Fon, Bariba, Adja, Cotafon, and Ditammari. Focus groups and field visits were conducted in 49 villages. Species richness at the country level and in phytogeographical regions was estimated using species accumulation curves. Our results indicated that 245 species belonging to 62 families are used as vegetable resources all over the country. The most frequently used families include Amaranthaceae, Asteraceae, Cucurbitaceae, and Leguminoseae. About 80% of collected vegetables are wild resources; only 19% were clearly under cultivation. Herbs were the most widely consumed life form. The Guinean and the Sudanian regions exhibit similar species richness while in the Sudano–Guinean region vegetable richness is higher. The use of a species as a vegetable depends not only on socio–cultural attributes but also on geographical occurrence. Based on this inventory, we identified needs for further research and activities for both the conservation and promotion of traditional vegetables.

Color words in literary Russian: Connotations and gender differences in use

Abstract Connotations, or the semantic prosodies of words, are associations acquired through exposure to diverse contexts and may be different for the same language item used by different speakers or groups of speakers. In order to compare connotations of the same language item between groups, tools of comparison are of interest. One such tool is analysis of word frequencies in contexts. This article considers a few hypotheses on gender-linked differences in the use of color words in Russian literary texts. Frequencies of total use of color words, and then of color words modifying nouns referring to body parts, color words modifying nouns referring to clothes, color words which have emotional connotations and of color words used to describe elements of landscape are compared for texts authored by women or by men. For the first three subcategories, it was hypothesized that women on average use more color adjectives in this category than men do. For the last category, it was hypothesized that men use more color adjectives in this category than women do. Two studies have been done to verify these hypotheses. Only the last hypothesis, on greater frequency of color words used to describe landscape in men-authored texts, has been confirmed at a statistically significant level. The hypotheses that women use a greater number of total color adjectives on average, and that women use more color adjectives to modify nouns referring to body parts and clothes, were each confirmed at a marginal level of statistical significance. Another avenue for investigating the limits of the concept “connotation” uses syntactic tests. One can say that a number of phrases in Russian are (un)acceptable or highly unusual because there exists a recurring connotation connecting a certain color with a certain state of affairs. However, it is questionable whether connotations limited to a sociolinguistic group can be tested using syntactic tests.

Reading and Spontaneous Speaking Fundamental Frequency of Young Arabic Men for Arabic and English Languages: A Comparative Study

Speaking fundamental frequency (SFF), the average fundamental frequency (lowest frequency of a complex periodic sound) measured over the speaking time of a vocal or speech task, is a basic acoustic measure in clinical evaluation and treatment of voice disorders. Currently, there are few data on acoustic characteristics of different sociolinguistic groups, and no published data on the fundamental frequency characteristics of Arabic speech. The purpose of this study was to obtain preliminary data on the SFF characteristics of a group of normal speaking, young Arabic men. 15 native Arabic men (M age = 23.5 yr., SD=2.5) as participants received identical experimental treatment. Four speech samples were collected from each one, Arabic reading, Arabic spontaneous speech, English reading, and English spontaneous speech. Speaking samples, analyzed using the Computerized Speech Lab, showed no significant difference for mean SFF between language and type of speech and none for mean SFF between languages. A significant difference in the mean SFF was found between the types of speech. The SFF used during reading was significantly higher than that for spontaneous speech. Also Arabic men had higher SFF values than those previously reported for young men in other linguistic groups. SFF then might differ among linguistic, dialectical, and social groups and such data may provide clinicians information useful in evaluation and management of voice.

Developmental data on a French sociolinguistic variable: Post-consonantal word-final /R/

To begin, we review three theoretical problem areas in the field of research into phonological variation in children. Next, we present the results of a cross-sectional study of two groups of children, aged 6 to 7 years and 10 to 12 years, relating to the deletion of post-consonantal word-final /R/ in French (production and judgments of acceptability). In an experimental study, we then examine the mechanism involved in the learning of words with a variable /R/. Finally, the interpretation of the results within the framework of a cognitive conception of variation leads us to four conclusions: (i) children have a tendency to copy adult surface forms rather than to encode a variable rule; (ii) orthography causes the late encoding of certain variable /R/s; (iii) the establishment of linguistic factors precedes that of social factors; and (iv) age-related changes are not guided by the sociolinguistic value that groups consciously attribute to the variables.

An ablative postposition in the Xining dialect

This article describes a morphosyntactic feature of the Xining dialect that is unique among all Chinese dialects: that is, the use of a postposition to express ablative nominal relationships. The postposition [t[curly-tail lowercase c]ia] is invariably pronounced in the neutral tone and has no cognates in either earlier varieties of Chinese or among present Chinese dialects. The morpheme's origin is shown to have come from a neighboring non-Sinitic language. Moreover, the variations within the syntactic expression of the ablative are correlated with various sociolinguistic groups. These correlations suggest an ongoing change in the dialect's morphosyntactic system of a kind rarely observed among Chinese dialects. Finally, the process of linguistic change is correlated with demographic changes within the Xining region that show Xining is a place where language contact and rapid linguistic change are likely to be found.

A Stylistic and Historical Analysis of Shoulder Patterns on Plains Indian Pottery

AbstractA stylistic analysis of the incised patterns executed on the shoulders of the pottery of five Central and Northern Plains village groups yields two broad pattern types. The configurations of these types and their variants in time and space conform to what is now known of the development of the five historic socio-linguistic groups considered: Pawnee, Arikara, Cheyenne, Crow, and Mandan-Hidatsa. The spread of a distinctive triangular pattern, the “Alternating Triangle,” from its inception along the eastern boundary of the Central Plains, provides a test of the hypothesis that incised Plains pottery shoulder patterns derive in large part from stimuli from Mississippian groups to the east. Subsequent history of the incised patterns is that of a strong collective tradition over-riding earlier patterns in the Northern Plains. This incised tradition is related to historic data on skin and robe painting and to the concept of a general art style of the area, as well as to fundamental problems in the field of art.

Perforated Elk Teeth: A Functional and Historical Analysis

In 1955 an archaeological field party from the State Historical Society of North Dakota recovered 2 perforated elk teeth from a village site, 32SI4, on the Missouri River in North Dakota. The excavations at this site were directed by Alan R. Woolworth and the writer. In an attempt to determine the significance of these specimens the writer searched the literature for data on their distribution in archaeological and ethnographic contexts and hints as to their function among socio-linguistic groups.