Hamid Allami; Najmeh Barzegar
Volume 8, Issue 2 , September 2020, , Pages 90-104
Abstract
This study investigates the representation of ordinary people in the inaugural speeches of two Iranian presidents and their underlying ideologies through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). An aggregate model integrating Fairclough’s three-dimensional (1989), Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive ...
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This study investigates the representation of ordinary people in the inaugural speeches of two Iranian presidents and their underlying ideologies through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). An aggregate model integrating Fairclough’s three-dimensional (1989), Van Dijk’s socio-cognitive (1993), and Van Leeuwen’s socio-semantic (1996) approaches to CDA was proposed and applied as the analytical tool. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were employed for the study design. In the quantitative part, statistically significant differences in the use of vocabulary items and structures were investigated based on the description stage of Fairclough’s and van Leeuwen’s frameworks. In the qualitative part of the study, attempts were made to justify the found similarities and differences based on the interpretation and explanation stages of Fairclough’s and van Dijk’s frameworks. The study showed that in spite of differences in the presentation of political self, both presidents design similar strategies in their political discourse to project the identity of common people within their sociocultural context.
Mahir Sarigul
Volume 8, Issue 2 , September 2020, , Pages 137-151
Abstract
The study of cosmopolitans – citizens of the world— and cosmopolitanism, traceable to ancient Greece, has, after a long decline in interest, made a strong comeback in social sciences since the 1990s, particularly in sociology and anthropology. This anthropological study aims to understand ...
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The study of cosmopolitans – citizens of the world— and cosmopolitanism, traceable to ancient Greece, has, after a long decline in interest, made a strong comeback in social sciences since the 1990s, particularly in sociology and anthropology. This anthropological study aims to understand cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitans through native English speaking teachers (NESTs) living in and working at various foundation universities in Istanbul, Turkey. A qualitative method of in-depth interviews with 21 participants was employed over a period of 20 months. Drawing from Diogenes’ and Kant’s concept of “world citizen”, the author elaborates on this theory by highlighting how cosmopolitanism has varied due to globalization and given birth to new cosmopolitan types, one of which is the white-collar cosmopolitan, a category defined through themes and commonalities during data analysis and the interviews, to which NESTs belong. The findings also indicate that cosmopolitanism is evolving into a new form and producing new meanings through specific dispositions particularly, willingness to engage with “the Other” and to embrace cultural, social, ethnic, and religious diversity.
Kun Zhang
Volume 7, Issue 1 , March 2019, , Pages 106-117
Abstract
As a former Portuguese colony, Macao is the only region in China where Cantonese, a variety of Chinese, and English, an international language, are enjoying de facto official statuses, with Putonghua being a quasi-official language and Portuguese being another official language. Recently, with an increasing ...
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As a former Portuguese colony, Macao is the only region in China where Cantonese, a variety of Chinese, and English, an international language, are enjoying de facto official statuses, with Putonghua being a quasi-official language and Portuguese being another official language. Recently, with an increasing number of Mainland Chinese students crossing the border to pursue their tertiary studies in Macao, the question as to how they cope with the complex sociolinguistic situation there is of great importance. The present study focuses on how Mainland students perceived Chinese-English code-mixing during their sojourn. It has been found that in the process of their adapting to Macao, the Mainland students’ attitudes towards Chinese-English code-mixing shifted due to the influence of local flexible ideologies about multilingualism. Accordingly, they could strategically resort to Chinese-English code-mixing, a linguistic practice negatively perceived on the Mainland, to socialize with people of different linguistic backgrounds when sojourning in Macao. In this process a flexible cross-border identity was constructed.
Eucabeth Ong’au-Mong’are; Augustine Agwuele
Volume 5, Issue 1 , March 2017, , Pages 29-43
Abstract
The stories we tell about our lives unveil their content just as much as the lexical choices we make index a certain worldview, attitude, positionality, and relationship to reality. In essence, in narratives, individuals construct the self and denote personal identities. The available narrative identity ...
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The stories we tell about our lives unveil their content just as much as the lexical choices we make index a certain worldview, attitude, positionality, and relationship to reality. In essence, in narratives, individuals construct the self and denote personal identities. The available narrative identity studies have largely ignored the language employed by the bewitched while narrating their experiences. Based on the personal narratives obtained from three self-professed previously bewitched individuals from the AbaGusii community of Kenya (Aba = people, hence AbaGusii = Gusii people), this article examines the verbal clauses employed by these narrators as they recounted their experiences. The goal is to understand how these individuals constructed their personal identities through the three different phases (i.e., pre-bewitchment phase, the bewitchment phase, and the post bewitchment phase) of their bewitchment experiences. The paper argues that understanding the various identity constructions by the bewitched is invaluable for understanding not only how they represented and structured events in their lives, but also how the identities represented them as particular agents in their world, and how they viewed themselves as particular community members.
Zeinab Kafi; Khalil Motallebzadeh
Volume 4, Issue 2 , September 2016, , Pages 134-140
Dora Edu-Buandoh
Volume 4, 1 (Special Issue on African Cultures and Languages) , March 2016, , Pages 34-44
Abstract
Research related to colonialism and post colonialism shows how the identities of indigenous people were constructed and how these identities are reconstructed in our contemporary world. The thrust of this paper is that colonialism brought a shift in the linguistic structure of Ghana with the introduction ...
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Research related to colonialism and post colonialism shows how the identities of indigenous people were constructed and how these identities are reconstructed in our contemporary world. The thrust of this paper is that colonialism brought a shift in the linguistic structure of Ghana with the introduction of the use of English among Ghanaians. The coexistence of both Ghanaian languages and English after colonialism has introduced a hybrid linguistic situation that is engineered by the presence or absence of literacy among the people of Ghana. The paper asserts that language and formal literacy, which have been closely linked to the English language, have informed the construction and reconstruction of identities of elitism and subjectivities and subsequently led to the representation of such identities in different pragmatic contexts. The paper advocates a reconsideration of language policies in mainly post-colonial contexts to bring indigenous language to coexist equally with former colonial languages in education and other related contexts.
Wincharles Coker
Volume 2, Issue 1 , March 2014, , Pages 53-62
Abstract
As a result of the epiphany of giant multinational media conglomerates, transnational trade networks and the politics of globalization, it is tempting to believe that individual and national identities have morphed. This article argues that such homogenization in relation to individuation is tedious ...
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As a result of the epiphany of giant multinational media conglomerates, transnational trade networks and the politics of globalization, it is tempting to believe that individual and national identities have morphed. This article argues that such homogenization in relation to individuation is tedious to accept. It draws from theories of symbolic interactionism, social psychology, Foucauldian, and postcolonial constructs to hold that structuralist significations of postmodern society ought to be contested. The article emphasizes that human identity can hardly be spoken of in either/or terms, by revisiting notions of selfhood, culture, and bio-power. The paper concludes by examining how these elements act, shape, and constrain individual identities in ‘glocal’ societies, rather than as persons affected by them in homologous deterministic ways.