From cultural distance to skills deficits: “Expatriates,” “Migrants” and Swiss integration policy

Multilingua ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shirley Yeung
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Cultural Distance ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Brain Gain ◽  
Migration Policies ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Free Movement Of Persons ◽  
European Harmonization

AbstractThis article examines two social categories brought into being by recent migration policies in Switzerland: the expatriate (or “expat”) and the migrant. Treating these categories as relationally constituted, the article explores how this distinction was constructed and managed in response to processes of European harmonization in the 1990s, employing shifting discourses of difference: while Switzerland’s Three Circle immigration model differentiated immigrants along lines of “cultural distance” vis-à-vis Switzerland, Swiss participation in the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons contrasted these groups according to a new discourse of “skills.” Focusing on this discursive transition, the article argues that the expatriate-migrant distinction constructs differently valued immigrants whose contrasting relationship to the nation and “integration” is enacted in legal and social expectations surrounding language use. The article argues for critical attention to how “brain gain” and skills discourses enable, and extend border-maintaining discourses of “culture.”

“Who Are You?”: Exploring Adolescent Girls’ Process of Identification

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa A. Walton ◽  
Jennifer L. Fisette
Keyword(s):  
Adolescent Girls ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
The Social

We used ethnographic methods to examine the ways that adolescent girls (n=9) defined and understood themselves as individuals and in relation to cultural identities. We utilized Cook-Sather’s (2002, 2006, 2007) theory of translation to make sense of their identification as an unfixed process of negotiation by centering their voices and revelations. While the girls struggled to articulate cultural identities in relation to themselves, they had clear notions of those identities and the social expectations associated to them. They noted the ways cultural identities could be both empowering and constricting. Moreover, we found that they understood and discussed cultural identities in relation to themselves and others in ways that both resisted and maintained social categories.

Contextualizing the development of social essentialism

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Pauker ◽  
Christine Tai ◽  
Shahana Ansari
Keyword(s):  
Intergroup Relations ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Psychological Essentialism

Given the critical role that psychological essentialism is theorized to play in the development of stereotyping and prejudice, researchers have increasingly examined the extent to which and when children essentialize different social categories. We review and integrate the types of contextual and cultural variation that have emerged in the literature on social essentialism. We review variability in the development of social essentialism depending on experimental tasks, participant social group membership, language use, psychological salience of category kinds, exposure to diversity, and cultural norms. We also discuss future directions for research that would help to identify the contexts in which social essentialism is less likely to develop in order to inform interventions that could reduce social essentialism and possible negative consequences for intergroup relations.

scholarly journals Between ideologies and realities: Multilingual competence in a languagised world

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 353-374 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Ruuska
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Linguistic Ideologies ◽  
Real Effects ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Complex Picture ◽  
Linguistic Practices ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractRecent developments in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics have put emphasis on the contrast between ideologies of distinct ‘languages’ and the multifaceted reality of linguistic practices. This article argues that recent usage-based reconceptualisations of the notions of competence and repertoire can help paint a more complex picture of the relationship between monolingual ‘ideologies’ and diverse linguistic ‘realities’. Drawing on data from interviews with highly proficient adult speakers of Finnish as a second language, I explore some aspects of how speakers’ competence can be understood as shaped by language use, and what role linguistic ideologies, social expectations and speakers’ environments play in this process. I conclude that, in a languagised world, the ability to keep ‘languages’ apart and to successfully display monolingual competence can be seen as part of multilingual speakers’ competence. In this way, a usage-based perspective on competence enables us to treat ‘languages’ as ideological constructs, while at the same time acknowledging their ‘real’ effects on speakers’ competence and language use.

scholarly journals Pamięć monumentalna? O ostatnim filmie Andrzeja Wajdy

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 127-143
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Idczak
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Critical Reception ◽  
Social Expectations ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Andrzej Wajda ◽  
Changing Society ◽  
The Way

THE MONUMENTAL MEMORY? ON THE FINAL FILM OF ANDRZEJ WAJDA The paper attempts to study the Afterimages, the last Andrzej Wajda’s film, in the light of its critical reception in Poland. The author investigates what place in collective memory of Polish viewers oc-cupies both the director and the protagonist — Władysław Strzemiński. The author argues that the exceptional circumstances, like jubilee celebrations and director’s funeral — turned critical attention away from the film itself to the entire director’s oeuvre. Afterimages, interpreted with the category of “monumental memory”, allows the author of the presented paper to show the place of Wajda’s work in Polish contemporary film culture. The author argues that this peculiar position is determined by a combination of social expectations and imaginations, and historical conditions, but above all by the way of perceiving the role of art in a changing society. In this context the question about problematic memory of the avant-garde seems to be crucial.

How Language Use “Translates” Women

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-85
Author(s):  
Roxana Ciolăneanu
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Cognitive Metaphor ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Implicit Stereotyping ◽  
The Way

The chapter focuses on how language use mirrors the way people think and act. An interdisciplinary perspective will be used in the attempt to cross-fertilize insights form critical discourse approach and cognitive linguistics that will hopefully contribute to a better understanding of how the language employed conveys stereotyped ideas and metaphors that pervade (many times unconsciously) people's way of talking. Proverbs, taken as language samples potentially revelatory of some cognitive bases of the way people have been thinking and talking about women throughout time, will be analyzed. The idea that gender is socially and discursively constructed will be thus reinforced. Implicit stereotyping, a concept borrowed from social psychology, will be employed to demonstrate that unconscious exposure to stereotyped knowledge influences people's judgements and relations with other social categories. It will be equated to what is called cognitive metaphor in cognitive linguistics and ideology in critical discourse studies.

Sociolinguistics

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Mallinson
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Social Product ◽  
Linguistic Behavior

The study of sociolinguistics constitutes a vast and complex topic that has yielded an extensive and multifaceted body of scholarship. Language is fundamentally at work in how we operate as individuals, as members of various communities, and within cultures and societies. As speakers, we learn not only the structure of a given language; we also learn cultural and social norms about how to use language and what content to communicate. We use language to navigate expectations, to engage in interpersonal interaction, and to go along with or to speak out against social structures and systems. Sociolinguistics aims to study the effects of language use within and upon societies and the reciprocal effects of social organization and social contexts on language use. In contemporary theoretical perspectives, sociolinguists view language and society as being mutually constitutive: each influences the other in ways that are inseparable and complex. Language is imbued with and carries social, cultural, and personal meaning. Through the use of linguistic markers, speakers symbolically define self and society. Simply put, language is not merely content; rather, it is something that we do, and it affects how we act and interact as social beings in the world. Language is a social product with rich variation along individual, community, cultural, and societal lines. For this reason, context matters in sociolinguistic research. Social categories such as gender, race/ethnicity, social class, nationality, etc., are socially constructed, with considerable variation within and among categories. Attributes such as “female” or “upper class” do not have universal effects on linguistic behavior, and sociolinguists cannot assume that the most interesting linguistic differences will be between groups of speakers in any simple, binary fashion. Sociolinguistic research thus aims to explore social and linguistic diversity in order to better understand how we, as speakers, use language to inhabit and negotiate our many personal, cultural, and social identities and roles.

scholarly journals How Stereotypes Are Shared Through Language: A Review and Introduction of the Social Categories and Stereotypes Communication (SCSC) Framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Camiel J. Beukeboom ◽  
Christian Burgers
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Social Category ◽  
Cultural Groups ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Stereotype Content ◽  
The Social ◽  
Biased Language ◽  
Linguistic Labels ◽  
Label Content

Language use plays a crucial role in the consensualization of stereotypes within cultural groups. Based on an integrative review of the literature on stereotyping and biased language use, we propose the Social Categories and Stereotypes Communication (SCSC) framework. The framework integrates largely independent areas of literature and explicates the linguistic processes through which social-category stereotypes are shared and maintained. We distinguish two groups of biases in language use that jointly feed and maintain three fundamental cognitive variables in (shared) social-category cognition: perceived category entitativity, stereotype content, and perceived essentialism of associated stereotypic characteristics. These are: (1) Biases in linguistic labels used to denote categories, within which we discuss biases in (a) label content and (b) linguistic form of labels; (2) Biases in describing behaviors and characteristics of categorized individuals, within which we discuss biases in (a) communication content (i.e., what information is communicated), and (b) linguistic form of descriptions (i.e., how is information formulated). Together, these biases create a self-perpetuating cycle in which social-category stereotypes are shared and maintained. The framework allows for a better understanding of stereotype maintaining biases in natural language. We discuss various opportunities for further research.

Linguistic Competence in Aphasia

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-92
Author(s):  
Leonard L. LaPointe
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Careful Study ◽  
Feral Children ◽  
Performance Factors ◽  
Performance Loss ◽  
Linguistic Rules ◽  
Communication Goals ◽  
Aphasia Treatment ◽  
And Performance

Abstract Loss of implicit linguistic competence assumes a loss of linguistic rules, necessary linguistic computations, or representations. In aphasia, the inherent neurological damage is frequently assumed by some to be a loss of implicit linguistic competence that has damaged or wiped out neural centers or pathways that are necessary for maintenance of the language rules and representations needed to communicate. Not everyone agrees with this view of language use in aphasia. The measurement of implicit language competence, although apparently necessary and satisfying for theoretic linguistics, is complexly interwoven with performance factors. Transience, stimulability, and variability in aphasia language use provide evidence for an access deficit model that supports performance loss. Advances in understanding linguistic competence and performance may be informed by careful study of bilingual language acquisition and loss, the language of savants, the language of feral children, and advances in neuroimaging. Social models of aphasia treatment, coupled with an access deficit view of aphasia, can salve our restless minds and allow pursuit of maximum interactive communication goals even without a comfortable explanation of implicit linguistic competence in aphasia.

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