scholarly journals Multilingualism in Migrant Contexts in Pakistan and the UK: Transcending Physical, Social and Symbolic Borders in Transnational Social Spaces

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 177
Author(s):  
Tony Capstick
Keyword(s):  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Language Varieties ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
System Use ◽  
Transnational Social Spaces ◽  
Azad Kashmir ◽  
The Uk

This paper is based on a four-year ethnographic study of multilingualism in transnational Mirpuri families in Azad Kashmir (Pakistan) and Lancashire (United Kingdom). Data were collected in a range of physical settings in Pakistan and the UK as well as social spaces online. Migrants’ literacy practices are often related to the standard language variety of the country to which the migrant is moving. However, this paper suggests that migration requires different kinds of literacies, not all of which relate to standard writing system use. The study sought to understand how these literacies are shaped in Pakistan before they are taken up in the UK, by seeing them as part of migrants’ everyday translanguaging. This perspective involves exploring how different language varieties (such as Punjabi, Urdu and English) and different linguistic resources (such as scripts, styles and registers) are appropriated by migrants at different stages of their migration trajectories alongside migrants’ own perspectives on these practices. The findings demonstrate how migrant families counter discrimination in their everyday multilingualism as part of the translingual practices which transcend physical, social and symbolic borders.

Anxiety, insecurity and complexity of transnational educational migration among Korean middle class families

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bae Sohee
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Multiple Scales ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Migrant Families ◽  
Early Study Abroad ◽  
Transnational Migrants ◽  
Educational Migration ◽  
Middle Class Families

Language is one of the most crucial factors which influence social experiences and relations of transnational migrants. Moreover, crossing borders becomes an important strategy for acquiring valuable linguistic resources in the globalized neoliberal economy. For instance, through jogi yuhak (Early Study Abroad), the transnational educational migration of Korean middle class families, parents aim to provide their children with the opportunities to acquire multilingual competence as important skills for them to become competitive neoliberal workers in the global economy. However, anxiety and insecurity are inherent in transnational movement in the sense that relocation necessarily implies adjustment to new conditions of life. This paper investigates the anxieties and insecurities which Korean jogi yuhak families experience during their transnational educational migration. Based on an ethnographic study on Korean educational migrant families in Singapore, it explores how uncertainty and tension serve as an unavoidable aspect of strategic migratory choices and how the fierce pursuit of neoliberal subjectivity through global mobility works to increase the anxieties of the families. Korean jogi yuhak families’ constant negotiation between conflicting expectations and options across multiple scales of Time and Space in their migratory trajectories leads to awareness of the complex relationship between language and space, resulting in increasing anxiety and insecurity.

scholarly journals Situational Domestication and the Origin of the Cafe Worker Species

Sociology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ida Marie Henriksen ◽  
Aksel Tjora
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Smart Phones ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Work Habits ◽  
Work Spaces ◽  
The Social ◽  
Close Study ◽  
The Uk

Given the pervasiveness of free Wi-Fi zones in cafes, use of laptops, tablets and smart phones supports the transformation of cafes from social spaces to work spaces for many customers. In this article we analyse, on the basis of an ethnographic study of individuals’ laptop work in urban cafes in Norway and the UK, (1) what it is about cafes that makes people visit them for working purposes, and (2) how individual laptop work changes the social life of such venues. By linking our analysis to theories of communal processes and the domestication of technologies, we put forward the concept of ‘situational domestication’, encompassing the aspects of socially embedded individual working. Consequently, the close study of how cafe spaces are being used for work offers insights into how progressively technologised work and work habits influence not only work itself, but also public space at a broader level.

After the Blackbird Whistles: Listening to Silence in Classrooms

2010 ◽  
Vol 112 (11) ◽  
pp. 2833-2849 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Schultz
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
High School Students ◽  
Classroom Practice ◽  
Literacy Practices ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
School Students ◽  
Student Talk ◽  
The Individual

Background/Context Students spend a large part of their time in schools in silence. However, teachers tend to spend most of their time attending to student talk. Anthropological and linguistic research has contributed to an understanding of silence in particular communities, offering explanations for students’ silence in school. This research raised questions about the silence of marginalized groups of students in classrooms, highlighting teachers’ role in this silencing and drawing on limited meanings of silence. More recently, research on silence has conceptualized silence as a part of a continuum. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study The purpose of this project was to review existing literature and draw on two longitudinal research studies to understand the functions and uses of silence in everyday classroom practice. I explore the question, How might paying attention to the productivity of student silence and the possibilities it contains add to our understanding of student silence in educational settings? Silence holds multiple meanings for individuals within and across racial, ethnic, and cultural groups. However, in schools, silence is often assigned a limited number of meanings. This article seeks to add to educators’ and researchers’ tools for interpreting classroom silence. Research Design The article is based on two longitudinal qualitative studies. The first was an ethnographic study of the literacy practices of high school students in a multiracial high school on the West Coast. This study was designed with the goal of learning about adolescents’ literacy practices in and out of school during their final year of high school and in their first few years as high school graduates. The second study documents discourses of race and race relations in a postdesegregated middle school. The goal of this 3-year study was to gather the missing student perspectives on their racialized experiences in school during the desegregation time period. Conclusions/Recommendations Understanding the role of silence for the individual and the class as a whole is a complex process that may require new ways of conceptualizing listening. I conclude that an understanding of the meanings of silence through the practice of careful listening and inquiry shifts a teacher's practice and changes a teacher's understanding of students’ participation. I suggest that teachers redefine participation in classrooms to include silence.

scholarly journals Putting sexualized labour in the picture: Encoding ‘reasonable entitlement’ in the lap dancing industry

Organization ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 783-801
Author(s):  
Sophie Hales ◽  
Kathleen Riach ◽  
Melissa Tyler
Keyword(s):  
Service Providers ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Body Images ◽  
Exchange Relationship ◽  
Customer Expectations ◽  
Corporate Websites ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Lap Dancing

This article is based on a semiotic analysis of corporate websites in the lap dancing industry. Forming part of a larger ethnographic study of the UK lap dancing industry, it focuses on how the exchange relationship between dancers and customers is shaped by the industry’s online presence. Methodologically, it draws on Hancock’s semiotic approach to the analysis of organizational artefacts and Brewis’s writing on the importance of understanding how sex work is constructed and perceived. The article shows the importance of corporate websites as virtual spaces that landscape customer expectations of the exchange relationship emphasizing how these expectations perpetuate, on the one hand, a very prescriptive range of body images shaping the performance and consumption of lap dancing work, and on the other, an ambiguous suggestion of open-ended possibility. The article argues that, in combination, this landscaping of prescription and possibility constitutes a powerful organization of anticipation underpinning perceptions of reasonable entitlement within the lap dancing exchange relationship considering how this impacts upon the dancers’ experiences of this relationship. The analysis highlights both the importance of virtual corporate spaces in landscaping interactive service exchanges, as well as the intensification that results from the ambiguity encoded within these spaces, requiring service providers to reconcile anticipation and experience, prescription and possibility, within the exchange relationship.

Register variation in L1 and L2 student writing

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larissa Goulart
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
First Year ◽  
Five Dimensions ◽  
Register Variation ◽  
Linguistic Resources ◽  
Brazilian Students ◽  
The Uk ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract While there have been many studies describing L2 academic writing, most of these studies have used corpora of first year or assessment writing (Crosthwaite 2016; Weigle & Friginal 2014). The present study seeks to describe linguistic variation in L2 writing for content classes and to compare these linguistic patterns to those found in L1 writing. A multi-dimensional (MD) analysis was conducted in two corpora, BAWE and BrAWE, extracting five dimensions. The L2 corpus contained 379 texts written by Brazilian students doing part of their undergrad in the UK and the L1 corpus contained 395 texts from BAWE. The results of this study indicate that L1 and L2 writers use similar linguistic resources to convey the purpose of university registers, with the exception of case studies, designs, exercises and research reports. This linguistic variation between L1 and L2 writers might be explained by students’ interpretation of these registers’ communicative purposes.

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