scholarly journals Identity Construction and Language Use by Immigrant Women in a Microenterprise Development Program

2000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Bonder
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Fabio Scetti

Here I present the results of BridgePORT, an ethnographic study I carried out in 2018 within the Portuguese community of Bridgeport, CT (USA). I describe language use and representation among Portuguese speakers within the community, and I investigate the integration of these speakers into the dominant American English speech community. Through my fieldwork, I observe mixing practices in day-to-day interaction, while I also consider the evolution of the Portuguese language in light of language contact and speakers’ discourse as this relates to ideologies about the status of Portuguese within the community. My findings rely on questionnaires, participant observation of verbal interaction, and semi-structured interviews. My aim is to show how verbal practice shapes the process of identity construction and how ideas of linguistic “purity” mediate the maintenance of a link to Portugal and Portuguese identity.


2022 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-192
Author(s):  
Rita Akele Twumasi

Death is part of human existence. When a person hears the news of someone’s death, it is very common for that person to express their feelings about it. This feeling is in the form of condolences which express the speaker’s sorrow, and condolences fall into the category of speech act. Semantically, condolences have a social meaning which refers to language use. Identities are created in relationships with others, and condolences are major platforms for the construction of identities, in that, existing relationships are, clearly, manifested in the messages that sympathizers expressed. Using a qualitative approach, the study analyzed twenty condolence messages which were purposely sampled from condolence messages posted in the portals of International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), when one of its members passed away. The analysis of the data revealed two main identity types enacted for the deceased: role identity and Social Identity. The major Role identity enacted, metaphorically, was Father while the least role was Achiever. Second, identity as an International Figure was dominant with the Social roles, but Good Personality was used less frequently. The present study adds to studies in identity construction, in general, and studies in condolence messages, in specific.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (01) ◽  
pp. 47-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHELE CRANWELL SCHMIDT ◽  
JANE M. KOLODINSKY

Through a path regression analysis of data from the Vermont Micro Business Development Program, this study examines the relationships between client characteristics, program activities, interim outcomes, and impacts, to understand factors that lead to and mediate client success in microenterprise development programs and as entrepreneurs. Statistics demonstrated excellent model fit to the data. The interim outcome of improved personal well-being was related to more sources of capital, course completion, being partnered and younger. Starting a business was related to having more financial resources and mediated by improved well-being. Clients who experienced an increase in income had previous business experience and an increase in assets. Increased income was mediated by improved well-being and business start. Reduction in public assistance was related to course completion, more sources of capital, not being in poverty, and increased assets. Increased assets were related to more education, not being in poverty, and more sources of capital. Being older, more sources of capital, a larger family, and improved well-being led to job creation. Overall, access to more financial resources enabled clients to meet personal and business goals and work toward self-sufficiency. The results suggest implications for public policy regarding business training and loan financing.


2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ladilova

Collective identity construction as a discursive action is highly dependent on language use. Migration settings offer a wide range of linguistic repertoires to fall back upon in order to mark identity. While the ‘majority’ language is usually neutral in this sense, the use of the ‘minority’ or the heritage language, defined as a language “other than the dominant language (or languages) in a given social context” (Kelleher 2010, 1), can act as a specific means of identity construction. Moreover, the heritage language acts as a vehicle for transmission of collective memory which is also central in the process and will thus be discussed in this paper. These questions will be analysed by drawing on the results of an empirical study carried out in 2010 in Volga German communities in Argentina.


Pragmatics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-466 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vally Lytra

In this paper I look at how through the use of teasing as a socially recurrent activity the members of a multilingual, multicultural and multiethnic peer group (comprised of majority Greek and minority Turkish-speaking children of Roma heritage) make particular identity ascriptions and displays salient and position themselves and others in particular ways in peer talk during break-time in an Athens primary school. Taking as a point of departure that identities are produced relationally, through systems of opposition (Barth 1969), the paper deals with how members of this school-based peer group exploit teasing as a versatile discursive device to construct one particular peer as a “poor” pupil and themselves by extension as “good” pupils in talk-in-interaction. The focus on the situated and relational construction of identity makes visible how children position themselves with regard to others in order to construct academic hierarchies. At the same time, it brings to the fore how through such positionings children may reproduce but also challenge powerful institutional discourses of academic success and failure in circulation in the classroom by negotiating identity options closer to their peer concerns. These processes of identity construction demonstrate how social selves are produced in interaction through contestation and collaboration and how identities may be simultaneously chosen and imposed through language use.


2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Pedone

This volume presents the results of a number of studies about Chinese migration to Italy carried out between 2003 and 2013. The data discussed in the different chapters were collected mostly through ethnographic fieldwork carried out both in China and in Italy. Covered topics include: the organization of Chinese trade activities in Italy, the perception of Italy as a country of migration, identity construction among Italian-born Chinese, language use among Chinese migrants in Italy and literary works written by Chinese in Italy. In addition to the chapters devoted to the discussion of data gathered from fieldwork, an introductory chapter based on a review of the scientific literature is offered in order to provide the reader with a basic background about the characteristics of a migration flow that has lasted nearly a century.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark McGlashan

Previous studies of online (collective) identity have explored how social media–specific practices like hashtags can enable identity construction and affiliation with a wider community of users. Practices such as mentioning and retweeting have also been discussed in the literature but the practice of following as a discourse practice is underexplored. This article presents a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analytical approach to the study of collective identity on Twitter that focuses on the relationships between following and language use and details a study conducted on the language used by followers of the Football Lads Alliance – a protest group who say they are ‘against all extremism’. This approach was fruitful in identifying correlations between salient discourses in follower profile descriptions and their tweets and suggests that a portion of the followership constructs identity in relation to radical right-wing and populist discourse specifically concerning Islam/Muslims.


Pragmatics ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 439-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jef Verschueren

Against the background of a general theory of pragmatics, reflections are formulated on the central role of metapragmatic awareness as a specific manifestation of salience, the status of processes of meaning generation in language use in relation to the cognitive apparatus. First the notions of metalanguage and metapragmatics, as used in linguistics, are discussed. Then metalinguistic and metapragmatic phenomena are presented as reflections of metapragmatic awareness. Two ways in which indicators of metapragmatic awareness function in language use are distinguished: Their functioning as anchoring devices locating linguistic form in relation to context, and their functioning as signals of the language users’ reflexive interpretations of the activities they are engaged in. Finally, some social implications of metapragmatic functioning are discussed, in particular in relation to language ideologies and identity construction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-103
Author(s):  
Fadilatul _ HUDA

This research was conducted because the researchers found that there was a language development program where students were required to use English on certain days, that is monday and tuesday. Based on preminary research, the research found some problems that occur in the use of language and language knowledge in VIII class at Mts Sumatera Thawalib Parabek. There are: some students just talked without paying attention to the correct sentences and students rarely used English for communication or interaction. The design of this research was descriptive quantitative. The sample was collected from 57 students of VIII grades of Mts Sumatera Thawalib Parabek which used purposive sampling as the data was done by identfying the respondents’ responses. The result showed that the mean score of students’ awareness of language use has a good enough awareness which score is 58,74%. Furthermore, students’ awareness of language knowledge has a good awareness which score is 68,98%.


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