Search results for "IDENTITY"
showing 10 items of 1751 documents
Confronting blackface
2019
Abstract Recently, the Netherlands witnessed an agitated discussion over Black Pete, a blackface character associated with the Saint Nicholas festival. This paper analyzes a televised panel interview discussing a possible court ban of public Nicholas festivities, and demonstrates that participants not only disagree over the racist nature of the blackface character but also over the terms of the debate itself. Drawing on recent sociolinguistic work on stancetaking, it traces how panelists ‘laminate’ the interview’s participation framework by embedding their assessments of Black Pete in contrasting dialogical fields. Their stancetaking evokes opposing trajectories of earlier interactions and …
Researching Identity and L2 Pragmatics in Digital Stories: A Relational Account.
2020
This study explores college EFL learners' construction of identity through the analysis of their pragmatic choices in digital stories, in which they narrated their relationship with another person they had helped in the past. More specifically, such choices were examined following Relational Dialectics Theory in learners' enactments of "connection" with and "autonomy" from this person. A specific view of identity in language education, the notion of "relational work" in (im)politeness research, and a social semiotic framework were also employed in data analysis. Learners' pragmatic choices ranged from the selection of the topic of their narratives according to types of social bonds, to the …
Odysseus the traveler: Appropriation of a chronotope in a community of practice
2020
Abstract In this article we analyze the role of chronotopes in the formation and negotiation of identities. In particular, we consider the case of a superdiverse community of practice formed by minors asylum seekers and teachers in a school of Italian in Sicily, Italy. In our analysis we stress the role of reciprocity on the ways in which the chronotopic figure of Odysseus is reinterpreted and appropriated by members of this community. We look at how through a process of mutual engagement the indexical values associated with the figure of Odysseus are recontextualized by both teachers and students in light of their present experiences. Data for the article come from interviews, narratives a…
Indigenous Identity in Print: Representations of the Sami in News Discourse
2003
This article examines news representations of the indigenous Sami people in the Finnish news discourse and the role of the representations in the politics of Sami identity. Through critical discourse analysis of Finnish newspaper texts collected from the leading daily Helsingin Sanomat, I analyse the representations by examining how the journalists utilized textual and linguistic resources available to them, how journalistic practices limited and enabled choices made and, finally, how the textual choices contributed to the representations. The study suggests that a combination of the minority position of the Sami, journalistic practices and an unawareness of or insensitivity towards the re…
Translating Teacher Funds of Identity into Curricular Proposals for the EFL Classroom: A Model for Student-Teacher Innovation and Professional Develo…
2019
This article describes the progress and findings of a research project, organized in the context of a university Masters course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL), which aimed at translating the student-teachers' (STs) funds of identity into worthwhile curricular proposals for the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) subject. The first part of the research involved 38 STs in three workshops through which they became aware of their own funds of identity, expanded their own teacher identity, and finally designed curricular proposals that incorporated their funds of identity as valuable pedagogical resources. The second part of the research took place during the two-month practicu…
The emotional journey of being and becoming bilingual
2017
This article examines the foreign language learning biographies of six Finnish English speakers who reflect on their journey towards a bilingual identity. In this article language learning is examined as a process that is intrinsically emotional as emotion connects individuals with the world as well as being a movement within oneself. The data analysis is based on dialogical and narrative approaches. Through the analysis two key story types were named: Bilingualism as striving and Bilingualism as a gift. In the striving stories English was held up as an ideal, as a way of engaging with the wider world but moreover as a way of finding a better ‘me’. In the gift stories, English was experienc…
Learners’ attitudes to first, second and third languages pronunciation in structuring multilingual identity
2022
Abstract This paper investigates multilingual learners’ attitudes to native (L1 – Ukrainian), second (L2 – Polish) and foreign (L3 – English) languages’ pronunciation, and discusses them from the perspective of structuring multilingual identity. In the study, the choice of the sample has been controlled in terms of the participants’ nationality and the context in which they acquire their second and foreign languages – variables that are interwoven in shaping identities. More specifically, the 40 Ukrainian individuals, taking part in the study, are in the process of a foreign language acquisition, English, embedded in the context of their second language, Polish. The attitudes to L1, L2 and …
Hope and equilibrium in the dystopian world of The Hunger Games
2021
This paper provides evidence of the fruitfulness of combining analytical categories from Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis for the analysis of complex literary characterizations. It does so through a detailed study of the “tributes”, i.e. the randomly selected children who have to fight to death in a nationally televised show, in The Hunger Games. The study proves the effectiveness of such categories to provide an analytically accurate picture of the dystopian world depicted in the novel, which is revealed to include a paradoxical element of hope. The type of dehumanization that characterizes the dystopian society of Panem is portrayed through an internally consistent se…
Development and Preliminary Validation of a Sport-Specific Self-Report Measure of Identity Foreclosure
2021
A sport-specific, self-report measure of identity foreclosure was developed through a systematic process that included item pool generation, expert review, administration of items to a development sample of intercollegiate student athletes (N = 326), item evaluation, and administration of scales to validation samples of intercollegiate student athletes (N = 322, N = 54, and N = 64, respectively). The process yielded two four-item scales reflecting commitment to the occupational identity of athlete and one 4-item scale reflecting active exploration of roles other than that of athlete that (a) are internally consistent and temporally stable, (b) demonstrate preliminary factorial and convergen…
Secure attachment and individual protective factors against internalized homophobia
2019
This article explores the relationship between internalized homophobia and three main variables: attachment to mother, father, and peers; ego resiliency; and self-esteem. We recruited 51 Italian gay men and 54 lesbian women aged between 18 and 30, and asked them to complete self-report measures. The results showed that internalized homophobia negatively correlated with the security of attachment to father and self-esteem. On the other hand, no significant association was found between ego resiliency and internalized homophobia. The implications of these findings are considered in the discussion, along with the potential role of preventive programs targeting attachment relationships and self…