Sociolinguistic Paradigms Research Articles

Critical Discourse Analysis of Literary Texts of NCTB English for Today (Class II - Class VIII) Textbooks: A Qualitative Study

This research has attempted an analysis of the Literary Texts included in the NCTB English for Today (Class II - Class VIII) Textbooks from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which is fundamentally a sociolinguistic paradigm to find and locate the internal ideological, social, ethical, moral and political implications encoded in the texts. CDA has been adopted both as a theoretical and methodological framework to carry out the research. Literary texts like poetry, short story etc. have been used as a secondary source materials and data collected from students and teachers from 20 Government primary schools and 10 secondary schools covering 1500 students and 150 teachers as primary data for this research. The primary data has been collected through survey questionnaire and focused group discussion. The collected data has been analyzed using qualitative methods like Content analysis, Narrative analysis, Thematic analysis, Grounded theory (GT) and Interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Various Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) like ATLAS.ti, Dedoose (mixed methods), MAXQDA (mixed methods), NVivo and QDA MINER have been used where necessary to analyze in-depth interviews. The collected data have been analyzed using NVivo software depending on the similarities; the data have been then grouped into categories and themes. These patterned themes have emerged objectively out of the data as emergent themes. The findings from the data shows that 33% of the total student respondents do not at all read the literary texts, 33% of the teacher respondents do not teach or discuss literary texts in the classrooms and only 16% of the students read the literary texts on their own. The literary texts are totally skipped and ignored by around 8% of the student respondents and only 8% of students and teachers read and teach the literary texts effectively as intended. Other results from the data analysis show that majority ..............

Самоидентификация жителей непризнанных Республик Донбасса: по материалам общения в Интернете

The article describes the transformation of the Donbass population identity in the course of the current armed conflict. The subject of the research is the self-positioning of the unrecognized Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LDNR) residents, and its correlation with a number of categories marked with the pronouns we, ours, everyone and you. The structure reflects regional society the division into “friends and foes”, in accordance with the attitude of citizens to the conflict as a whole and its various aspects. The object of study is the Internet communication, dialogues and speech manifestations. Internet-resources affiliated with the LDNR make up the research source base, the main method of collecting information is monitoring and a continuous selection of language material by keywords. The work belongs to the sociolinguistic paradigm and embraces ethnolinguistic theory. In the course of the research the author found out that the leading theme of the self-consciousness transformation taking place in Donbass is the rejection of the Ukrainian national-political identity and the strengthening of the regional Donbass identity with the development of such a variant as Donetsk / Lugansk Russians. On a broad basis of the community of fellow countrymen united by cultural, linguistic and ideological priorities a group of “true” Donetsk residents is being formed. They have jointly experienced all the years of the tragedy of war on their land.

PRINCIPLES OF IMPROVING SOCIOLINGUISTIC COMPETENCE AMONG STUDENTS OF PHILOLOGICAL UNIVERSITIES

Developing sociolinguistic competence of philology students focuses on training and actualization of a certain set of components of sociolinguistic competence - the sociolinguistic paradigm that imposes a specific form on the individual speech behavior depending on the given social environment and the prevailing social and communicative context. The training system for the improvement of sociolinguistic competence of students should be based on didactic and methodological principles, enriched with special sociolinguistic content, which is the basis for the improvement of knowledge, skills, and abilities of students to build their speech behavior based on the speech profile of the interlocutor, taking into account sociolinguistic norms of communication adopted in a particular socio-communicative context. The improvement of sociolinguistic competence of students of philological faculties in teaching foreign languages is facilitated by teaching means of expressing sociolinguistic content through the prism of their functional content. The principle of contextual-thematic representation of teaching material implies that the very sociolinguistic nature of language functioning is inherently situational. The principle of concentrism involves teaching sociolinguistic competence with a gradual increase in the complexity of the sociolinguistic material studied in order to teach students to identify sociolinguistic parameters of communication situations in different social dialects, to identify social characteristics of the interlocutor by social markers in his speech and to build their socially correct speech behavior.

Antara Yogyakarta dan Jakarta: Campur Kode dan Domestikasi Bahasa Jawa dalam Iklan Tokopedia

The sociolinguistic paradigm forms the background of this study. Code switching in advertisements is an interesting thing because it actually shows the interrelation between major and minor languages which are in Indonesian and Javanese. On the other hand, code switching is a linguistic phenomenon that is closely related to certain social situations. The object in this study is the Tokopedia advertisement "Berani Tentukan Mimpi: Lanjutkan Mimpi atau Ubah Mimpi". The method of the study is qualitative based on video advertisements in the Youtube channel. Based on the results of the analysis, it is concluded that the linguistic event (code switching) is Tokopedia's strategy in imaging itself, increasing the interest of producers and consumers in making transactions in the marketplace at once.

En torno a un nuevo realismo feminista como superación ontológica del constructivismo sociolingüisticista

La segunda mitad del siglo xx ha estado dominada por el giro lingüístico y la conversión de la filosofía en un sociologismo de/constructivista. En el ámbito de las teorías feministas, el paradigma sociolingüisticista avanzó desde la incorporación del “género” como categoría hegemónica hacia la disolución transgenérica de lo sexual y su remate en la queerización del feminismo y la eliminación de las mujeres como sujetos ontológicos. Por el contrario, el siglo xxi ha levantado su vuelo especulativo sobre el agotamiento de la posmodernidad discursiva, con la certeza ontológica de lo real en su consistencia irreductible a discursos, textos, interpretaciones, relaciones económicas o normativas biotecnológicas. En el marco del así llamado nuevo giro especulativo o realista, las siguientes páginas intentarán reontologizar la diferencia sexual femenina por fuera de la falsa alternativa dualista esencialismo vs. antiesencialismo o sustancialismo vs. nominalismo a la cual ha sido posmetafísicamente forzada.

Applying legal narratives. Some comments on Bernard Jackson’s sociolinguistic approach in legal semiotics

In the article some applications of the concept of legal nar­rative are undertaken in the perspective of Bernard Jackson’s legal semiotics. The analysis are developed in the perspective of Polish social and economical changes of recent decades. The leitmotif is constituted by remarks on sociolinguistic aspects of teaching legal narratives in changing reality. In this context a notion of “legal grapholect” is introduced to discuss possible influence of “deep layer” of legal language on evolving Polish law­yers’ language and vernacular. Additionally, issues of semiotic group of lawyers and legal register are discussed on the basis of the sociolinguistic paradigm. Reasoning is enriched by remarks of possible merger of Jackson’s legal semiotics and Ch. Perelman’s theory of legal argumentation.

Paisajes lingüísticos de la migración. Contextos mediáticos, urbanos y formativos

New plurilingual spaces reflect a (super)diversity, which represents, in turn, an important indicator of the fluid and dynamic changes taking place in the structure of society today. Based on these considerations originating within the sociolinguistic paradigm that considers the interrelationship between plurilingualism and pluriculturalism in interactional space, the authors of the papers collected in this special issue adopt interdisciplinary views. They combine social theories and media studies, pragmatic, discourse and linguistic analysis, the theory of perception, aesthetics and semiotics to shed light on the complexity and plurality of the experience, practice and perception of the new spaces in media, urban and educational environments.

Sociolinguistic insights into chick lit: Constructing the social class of elegant poverty

Aiming at suggesting ways whereby the sociolinguistic paradigm can benefit from the analysis of chick lit, this paper explores the ways through which the social class of “elegant poverty” is stylistically constructed in Modern Greek chick lit texts. Although chick lit has been analyzed primarily in terms of gender identity construction, I argue that it can be also seen as a goldmine of styles pertinent to social class due to its rather extravagant but meticulous treatment of social class cultural models and the caustic stylistic representation thereof, both of which aim at increasing the sales of chick lit. More specifically, chick lit offers analytical insights into social classes that are powerful but are traditionally hard to get ethnographic access to, such as elegant poverty in Athens. Relatively recently formed, elegant poverty consists of primarily former wealthy northern Athenian suburbanites who due to the financial recession are characterized by the ownership of estate but absolute lack of cash. Drawing on excerpts from chick lit authored by Pavlina Nasioutzik, it is argued that in chick lit elegant poverty is represented as the amalgam of socioeconomic and cultural models, which are styled through irony, satire and code-switching.

What are historical sociolinguistics?

AbstractThis paper takes a look at recent shifts in sociolinguistic paradigms and considers their applications to historical sociolinguistic research. Besides growth areas such as multilingualism, a current trend is convergence of established approaches. My discussion focuses on those that go even further, bridging the gap between macro- and micro-levels of analysis in the historical context of study. Presented as interdependent levels, layers or domains of analysis, these models usually imply that the analyst needs to cross boundaries between established sociolinguistic paradigms when moving from one level of analysis to another. From the analyst’s perspective the issues include the layered simultaneity of the multiple contexts present at any given point in time and the ways in which their chronologies stretch over time and space. I discuss the reconstruction of macro- and micro-contexts and their interdependence by presenting a case study of Samuel Pepys, a seventeenth-century English naval administrator. I conclude by advocating both informational maximalism and an empirical baseline for such studies. Digital humanities will no doubt facilitate this research in the future.

Analyzing Ethnic Orientation in the quantitative sociolinguistic paradigm

Ethnic Orientation, defined as speakers’ sociolinguistic practices and attitudes, does not affect all communities, languages, or linguistic variables equally. We illustrate that the types of differences that emerge depend on methodological decisions, particularly at the analysis stage. We provide examples of inter-community differences including some that emerge differently depending on the method of analysis. This is accomplished by comparison of Heritage Language patterns among groups of Toronto residents: speakers of Heritage Cantonese, Italian, Russian, Ukrainian and Polish; and English patterns in Chinese-descent and Italian-descent Torontonians, comparing across three generations since immigration. We examine the variables pro-drop and Voice Onset Time in the Heritage Language data. The Canadian Vowel Shift and consonant cluster simplification are examined in English. We show that no Ethnic Orientation facets correlate to all types of linguistic variation. The relationships found between linguistic variables and Ethnic Orientation variables suggest Ethnic Orientation is a key factor in modeling variation in Heritage Language communities – their variation should not be attributed solely to subtractive processes like incomplete acquisition or attrition.

An ethnographic case study of code switching and language choice: the uses of Cypriot Turkish in London

This article explores the changing patterns of language choice, code switching, and borrowing in naturally occurring conversations of Turkish Cypriot adults in a London workplace. The small representative sample contains workers of second and third generation Cypriot women. It is shown that language use can be variable with intergenerational patterns. In Cyprus while Cypriot Turkish (henceforth CT) is influenced by Standard Turkish (henceforth ST), the shift is more towards English in London. However, CT continues to have an important social function in both communities and is used to convey culturally specific experiences in routine daily conversations. The purpose of this case study is to highlight language shift in a London sample, to show that language use in the Cypriot Community — as in other linguistic communities in the UK — is changing increasingly to adapt to new sociolinguistic paradigms.

A quantitative study of gender differences in the ellipsis of the Japanese postpositional particles-waand-ga: Gender composition as a constraint on variability

ABSTRACTIt has been claimed that the ellipsis of postpositional particles is one of the properties of Japanese women's language. The validity of this claim, however, is compromised by several methodological problems in prior research in this area: (1) the subjective comparison of bare percentages without any statistical verification of male–female differences; (2) the neglect of the intersecting relationships among a variety of potential constraints which simultaneously influence the speaker's choice of the variable; and (3) the exclusive focus on single-sex interactions. Conducting multivariate analyses of conversational data from both single-sex and cross-sex peer interactions, this preliminary study demonstrates the overgeneralization of gender-linked differentiation in past work due to the neglect of the relative strength of potential intersecting factors. The results also reveal statistically significant degrees of stylistic intragender variability across different types of gender composition, which counters the static approach to a social variable of gender in the traditional sociolinguistic paradigm.

What should we call patients with schizophrenia? a sociolinguistic analysis

To avoid identifying patients with a class while classifying disorders, DSM-IV specifies that it will not use such expressions as a schizophrenic but instead will use the designation an Individual with schizophrenia. This review aims to explore the sociolinguistic connotations of various designations used for patients suffering from schizophrenia. An analysis of these designations from six perspectives, using conceptually different sociolinguistic paradigms, systematically supports the DSM-IV comment. Further research is required into the social impact of the language of psychiatry.

Questioning in Classrooms: A Sociolinguistic Perspective

This article reviews research on classroom questioning. Analysis focuses on three characteristics of questions: context, content, and responses and reactions by speakers. Studies originating in the process-product and sociolinguistic paradigms are discussed separately, but findings from both research traditions are interpreted from a sociolinguistic perspective. The review argues that research on questioning must acknowledge that the meaning of questions is dependent on their context in discourse, that the content of questions cannot be ignored, and that questions may reflect and sustain status differences in the classroom. Research on questioning has generally failed to recognize that classroom questions are not simply teacher behaviors but mutual constructions of teachers and students.

Interpretation in doctor-patient interviews: A sociolinguistic analysis

This paper discusses interpretation in doctor-patient interviews from a sociolinguistic perspective. A meaning-centered orientation to clinical practice calls for practitioners to create a clinical picture of the illness that is compatible with the patient's experience. This requires that appropriate interpretation of symptoms take place. Using transcripts of doctor-patient interviews, this paper demonstrates that another interpretive process, necessary to understanding illness, occurs at the level of conversation. Contrasting examples illustrate that without an adequate degree of "conversational cooperation," interpretation cannot take place. The results of poor conversational interpretation are the creation of an inaccurate clinical picture and the loss of clinically relevant information. The anthropological and sociolinguistic paradigms are linked by showing how differing perspectives on the illness affect conversational interpretation.