This research report engages with the concern that African learners attending English medium, multiracial schools are losing their proficiency in African languages. In so doing, the report explores the language practices of four multilingual Grade 9 learners at a desegregated private high school in Gauteng. In a school environment that does not overtly support the use of African languages, I explore the extent to which multilingual learners use African languages in the school context, to position themselves and others, as an identity building resource, and the extent to which the use of African languages is implicated in their identities. I also explore the possible influence of the learners’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds on their language practices, and related to this, the expression of their identities. I look at how their language practices help them shift identities with space and purpose, and the contradictions therein. The study draws on poststructuralist theories of language and identity (Weedon, 1997; Zegeye, 2001), in considering how language constitutes identity (Pennycook, 2004) and self and other ‘positioning’ (Davies and Harre`, 1990) It also draws on Bourdieu’s (1991) theorizing of language and power and language as a form of cultural capital. I draw on two traditions in qualitative research: case study and ethnography. In my analysis of the data, I argue that both African languages and English are important in learners’ identities. I indicate that through their language practices, the learners continue to position themselves in multiple and contradictory identities that continue to shift with context. I also argue that the learners’ proficiency in English has not led to them losing proficiency in their home languages, which are retained and used as a primary marker of ethnic identities and for ideas of ethnic purity. This purity is in turn not constructed in a staidly ‘traditional’ manner, but negotiated through joking and verbal competition. Notions of ethnic purity are also often discursively constructed through the use of English, illustrating the contradictory nature of identities. I also point out that some learners protected apartheid constructed ethnic compartmentalization by setting boundaries of belonging. I point to language being a site of struggle for power and contestation in an effort by the learners to resist linguistic assimilation.

This ethnographic study investigates the language ecology of Urumchi, Xinjiang with a focus on contextual factors as related to the language practices of Uyghur young adults. The thesis explores how the migration and settlement of Han Chinese, coupled with the expansion of Mandarin (and corresponding marginalization of Uyghur and other ethnic minority languages) in the Xinjiang education system has resulted in a punctuation of the linguistic equilibrium of the province. This study demonstrates how socio-political forces contribute to the devaluation of minority linguistic capital in a linguistic market, and how a language policy in the domestic field, as the primary structuring structure, may be utilized to stabilize diglossia and maintain the intergenerational transmission of a minority language. Participant observation, interview and documentary data were collected over an 18-month period of fieldwork in Urumchi. The analysis of interview data from 26 Uyghur adults, defined as early to mid-twenty years of age, who had been educated in Mandarin classes (mínkăohàn), Uyghur classes (mínkăomín), and bilingual Mandarin-Uyghur classes (shuāngyǔ) or a combination of these programs yielded four themes: context and language investments; expected returns; language choice; and linguistic anxiety. The data suggests a high degree of ambivalence among Uyghur young adults toward Mandarin; this form of cultural capital is conceived of as requisite for participation in the Han Chinese dominated economy, yet of a colonial nature and damaging to the demarcation of Uyghur social identity. Case study narratives are presented on four Uyghur young adults: one female educated in Mandarin classes (mínkăohàn); one male educated in Mandarin classes (mínkăohàn); one female educated in Uyghur primary and Mandarin-Uyghur secondary classes (mínkăomín/shuāngyǔ); and one male educated in Uyghur primary and Mandarin-Uyghur secondary classes (mínkăomín/shuāngyǔ). Each case study consultant completed a 94-item expressive vocabulary assessment. The data suggests that the expansion of Mandarin as the language of instruction in the Xinjiang education system has resulted in unstable diglossia among Uyghur communities, evidenced by Uyghur language attrition and Mandarin-Uyghur code-switching. Findings emphasize contextual factors that are contributing to the disruption of the intergenerational transmission of Uyghur and actions to support the vitality of this cultural heritage. / text

This four-month case study explored the connections among language, literacy, and identity development of five African American women as they shared narratives within a beauty salon context. The questions that guided the study were: (a) What language and literacy practices are enacted in the beauty salon? (b) In what way do African American women narrate their experiences? (c) What stories are shared by African American women in the salon? (d) What are the effects on the listeners of the narratives shared in the salon? and (e) How are social and cultural identities (co)constructed and performed in the narratives? The narratives were analyzed using Reissman’s (2008) dialogic/performance analysis approach. The Identities in Practice framework applied, situated the work in relation to the four contexts for identity development (figured worlds, positionality, spaces for authoring, and making world through serious play) outlined in Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s (2008). The findings supported previous findings that storytelling events and the use of narratives were the primary means for African American women sharing their lived experiences in the beauty salon. This corroborated with findings from Richardson (2003) and others focused on African American female language and literacy practices. Three themes emerged from the narrative data, which reflected challenges the women experience in their social, racial/cultural, and gendered conversations and experiences. Additionally, two focal participants’ narratives were examined to explore the ways identity was performed through their use of language in the narratives. The analysis indicated Kelly and Pam were strongly affiliated to social and cultural identities that included identities about motherhood, gender equity, and activists in the Black community. The importance of this research is to continue to explore the ways African American women build and shape their identities through language. Schools across the nation are neglecting the power and uses of language to build up the language and literacy resources of children that arrive to school with a history of oral traditions. Presenting school contexts as a space of authoring would undoubtedly create greater equity and access for others to learn about their lived experiences that make up a part of their educational experiences.

abstract: This thesis study describes English Language Learner (ELL) participation practices in a summer English language development (ELD) middle school classroom in a public school district in Arizona. The purpose of the study was to document Mexican immigrant and Mexican American English learners' language experiences in a prescriptive ELD program in relation to the social, historical and cultural context. The study utilizes a sociocultural framework and critical language awareness concepts as well as qualitative interpretive inquiry to answer the following research questions: What is the nature of ELL participation during language lessons? That is, what are the common participation practices in the classroom? What social or cultural values or norms are evident in the classroom talk during language lessons? That is, in what ways do participants use language for social purposes? And, what is the cultural model of ELD evident in the classroom language practices? Data collection and analyses consisted of close examination of ELL participation within official language lessons as well as the social uses of language in the classroom. Analysis of classroom discourse practices revealed that ELL participation was heavily controlled within the common Initiation-Response-Evaluation pattern and that the students were limited to repetition and recitation responses. Further, analysis of discourse content demonstrated that classroom participants used language for social purposes in the classroom, most often using regulatory, decontextualized and resistance language. The findings revealed a cultural model of constrained ELD language practices that can be considered a pedagogy of subtractive assimilation. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education 2010

[pt] Esta pesquisa é um estudo teórico-exploratório sobre a modalidade de ensino a distância - EAD - via Internet e sobre o processo de ensino-aprendizagem de produção de texto em língua materna, on-line. Algumas propostas de cursos de produção de texto existentes e oferecidos na internet foram criticamente analisadas e se mostraram afastadas de práticas de linguagem que envolvem e privilegiam os pressupostos interacionais, uma vez que colocam a construção do sentido no texto e não na interação. A partir do levantamento das necessidades e do perfil de um público-alvo selecionado, nossa proposta é planejar e elaborar um curso de produção de texto em língua materna a distância, via Internet, que preencha as lacunas deixadas pelos cursos avaliados, ou seja, que privilegie não somente o conteúdo, mas principalmente a interação entre os participantes, a retextualização da oralidade para a escrita, o dialogismo e outras práticas de linguagem socio-interacionalmente ancoradas. Para tal, revisamos a literatura em EAD e ensino-aprendizagem de produção de textos, analisamos cursos existentes e fizemos pesquisa de campo com uma turma de produção de texto do curso de Letras da PUC-Rio. Os dados da analise de necessidades foram obtidos via observação de sala de aula, entrevista com a professora e questionário. / [en] This research is a theoretical-exploratory study fo e- learning and the teaching and learning of writing in the first language on-line. A critical analysis of existing textual production courses offered in the internet have revealed negligence of language practices that involve interactional practices and that place meaning construction in interaction, rather than in the text. Based on a needs analysis and on the profile of the target group, the purpose of this study is to plan and design an on-line textual production course in L1 that would fill such gap and that would focus not only on content, but on language practices embodied by socio-interactional principles such as retextualization from orality to writing and dialogism. To do so, it reviews the literature on e-learnig and the teaching-learning of writing, analyzes existing on-line writing courses, and conducts field researched by observing and collecting data from a class of text production at PUC-Rio, majoring in Letters. The data for the needs analysis were gathered by means in class observation, interview with the professor, and one questionaire.

abstract: ABSTRACT This study investigated the effects of a family literacy program for Latino parents' language practices at home and their children's oral language skills. Specifically, the study examined the extent to which: (a) the program called Family Reading Intervention for Language and Literacy in Spanish (FRILLS) was effective at teaching low-education, low-income Latino parents three language strategies (i.e., comments, high-level questions and recasts) as measured by parent implementation, (b) parents maintained implementation of the three language strategies two weeks following the program, and (c) parent implementation of such practices positively impacted children's oral language skills as measured by number of inferences, conversational turns, number of different words, and the Mean Length of Utterance in words (MLU-w). Five Latino mothers and their Spanish-speaking preschool children participated in a multiple baseline single-subject design across participants. After stable baseline data, each mother was randomly selected to initiate the intervention. Program initiation was staggered across the five mothers. The mothers engaged in seven individual intervention sessions. Data on parent and child outcomes were collected across three experimental conditions: baseline, intervention, and follow-up. This study employed visual analysis of the data to determine the program effects on parent and child outcome variables. Results indicated that the program was effective in increasing the mothers' use of comments and high-level questions, but not recasts, when reading to their children. The program had a positive effect on the children's number of inferences, different words, and conversational turns, but not on the mean length of utterances. Findings indicate that FRILLS may be effective at extending and enriching the language environment that low-income children who are culturally and linguistically diverse experience at home. Three results with important implications for those who implement, develop, or examine family literacy programs are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Speech and Hearing Science 2015

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study explores Mobility, Identity and Localization of Language in Multilingual Contexts of Urban Lusaka. By examining data from different sites of language practices of Lusaka urbanites, that include, casual and formal conversations, Zambian popular music, computer mediated discourses and advertisements; the study shows how interlocutors creatively draw on their extended communicative repertoire to make meaning, transform social structures/roles and stylize modern identities. Accordingly, the study consolidates the recent sociolinguistic theoretical position that views language as social practice and privileges speakers as social actors in shaping and recreating language. In this regard, the study foregrounds language as localized social practice and argues against the idea that language is homogenous and a bounded system. In doing so, the study adds to recent sociolinguistic theorizing calling for a paradigm shift to language studies. Therefore, the main research question that the study addresses, relates to how Lusaka urban dwellers achieve their mediated agency, voice and actorhood through linguistic choices during interactions in various social contexts of modern Lusaka. In turn, the question relates to how urbanites use language as localized social practice to maintain, transform and reproduce social structures/roles and identities in modern Lusaka. Owing to the type of data the study collected, a multifaceted methodological and analytical approach was employed for both data collection and analysis. Informed by a descriptive research design, the study used focus group discussions and individual key-informant interviews to collect data from casual and formal conversations. Data from Zambian popular music were purposively sampled from Youtube.com and music CDs. In addition, group/individual interviews with musicians were conducted in order to supplement data collected from music CDs and video sources. Data from online discourses were collected from the Facebook platform and from two Zambian based online news blogs, while data from print advertisements were collected through the capturing of images on billboards around Lusaka city as well as advertisements from newspapers and internet sites. Television and radio advertisements were recorded from the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation TV and radio channels. All the data collected from these sources were generally analyzed using Conversational Analysis, Facework Negotiation Theory, Multimodal Discourse Analysis and its cognate analytical tools such as Resemiotisation, Semiotic Remediation, Intertextuality, Multivocality and Dialogism. The study shows that message consumption is not a function of isolated semiotic resource but a combination of semiotic material drawn from semiotics that people are familiar with. The study thus argues that social meaning is steeped into social and cultural experiences of the speakers and that any study of language practices in such contexts should take into account the multifaceted nature of human communication. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that given the advancements in communication technology and mobility of semiotic resources across modes which have largely contributed to a reconceptualization of the nature of human language, any study of language in social contexts ought to account for other meaning making semiosis in both methodological and approaches to data collection and analysis, respectively. The study further shows how interactants in late modern settings of Lusaka stylize their multiple identities by dissolving the traditional linguistic boundaries through use of the extended linguistic repertoire. In this vein, the study demonstrates that social identity is a dynamic aspect of social life which is actively negotiated and performed through speakers' linguistic choices. In this respect, the study finds that speakers simultaneously stylize translocal hybrid identities which include urban versus rural, modern versus traditional, African versus Christian (Western fused) as well as gendered ones, through their use of different linguistic choices. Furthermore, the study finds that language borders and domains of language use are permeable. In this regard, the study demonstrates how Lusaka urban speakers use localized language forms to colonize the formal spaces thereby challenging the dominant ideologies about language as a fixed, impermeable and a bounded system. In the process of colonizing formal spaces using localized language forms, the study shows how speakers perform acts of humour, role play, face saving, identity and meaning enhancement. In turn these localized repertoires are drawn upon as resources to accomplish different tasks which would not be accomplished if only a 'single' language were to be used. In this regard, the study views language as a resource that transcends the role of meaning making. In addition, the study shows how, through the use of localized repertoires in formal spaces, speakers transform traditions and modernity into a hybrid space which identifies them as having multiple identities. This demonstrates that speakers in such modern settings use language as a resource to accomplish several things at once. It also highlights speakers’ agency in recreating language as well as transforming their social spaces. The findings of the study entail contributions to recent arguments on language that view it not as an autonomous system but rather as embedded in people’s social interactions. It demonstrates that languages have no clear-cut borders.The study also contributes to methodological and analytical approaches to the study of language in recent times. In addition, the study adds new knowledge to our understanding of identity as a performative act which is actively negotiated for as people interact in different social contexts. This implies that identity is not a fixed thing as traditionally conceived. Ultimately, the study calls for a rethinking of our conception of language and identity considering modernity practices.

Notre travail de recherche essaie de répondre à la problématique suivante : « En quoi une approche sociodidactique peut-elle éclairer les interactions verbales en classe de langue, dans une tâche collaborative ? ». Il veut souligner l’importance de mettre en valeur des pratiques langagières sociales des apprenants dans une situation didactique. Pour cette approche typiquement sociodidactique et à travers un corpus complexe composé d’interactions verbales enregistrées dans la société et la classe algérienne, nous mettons en comparaison des tâches collaboratives sociales, des interactions-cours ordinaires et des tâches collaboratives scolaires réalisées par des apprenants de français de 4ème année moyenne en Algérie, du point de vue des actes de langage, des interactions, des rôles discursifs assumés par les acteurs. Notre étude voudrait montrer que des habitudes linguistiques et culturelles manifestées par les apprenants durant une activité qui relève de la pédagogie participative sont ancrées dans leurs pratiques sociales et populaires. Ces habitus seraient les indices d’une compétence acquise hors de la classe dans leur vie sociale et formeraient ainsi des moyens importants pour développer des compétences linguistiques et communicatives en langue cible. / Through our research, we have tried to answer the following question : "How can a sociodidactic approach enlighten verbal interactions, in a collaborative task, during the class of language ? ". It wants to emphasize the importance of highlighting the social language practices of learners in a didactic situation. Our complex corpus, composed of verbal interactions recorded in the Algerian society and in Algerian classrooms, has been analyzed through a typically sociodidactic approach : we compare social collaborative tasks, ordinary interactions and collaborative school tasks, carried out by 4th AM French learners in Algeria, from the point of view of speech acts, interactions, discursive roles.Our study should have shown that language and cultural habits, exhibited by learners during a participative pedagogy activity, are rooted in their social and popular practices. These habitus which are competences acquired out of the class, in their social life, should thus form important means to develop linguistic and communicative skills in the target language.

Notre recherche s’est concentrée sur les jeunes des cités urbaines précarisées, issus de l’immigration, et évoluant de ce fait dans un environnement plurilingue et pluriculturel.Le parler de ces jeunes suscite l’intérêt des sociolinguistes depuis un certain temps. La notion de parler jeunes ou de pratiques langagières des jeunes a émergé dans les représentations du grand public et dans le champ de la sociolinguistique dans les années quatre-vingt. De nombreux sociolinguistes ont consacré leurs études au parler des jeunes dans les groupes de pairs d’adolescents entre 9 et 18 ans. Cet âge est donc considéré comme le plus productif pour l’utilisation de vannes et d’insultes.En France, l’utilisation des vannes commence à se répandre après les deux grandes vagues d’immigration du Maghreb et de l’Afrique subsaharienne dans les années soixante et quatre-vingt. Ce phénomène peut être expliqué par le fait que les vannes traduisent un partage de valeurs, de codes linguistiques et comportementaux et sont ainsi une trace des cultures d’origine et des insultes à parenté des pays d’Afrique du Nord ou d’Afrique Subsaharienne.Les vannes peuvent paraître assez déstabilisantes pour un auditeur non averti. D’une part, elles expriment la culture des rues : les activités délictueuses, les conduites addictives, la sexualité, les relations interethniques et les conflits. D’autre part, elles sont ludiques, initiatiques, cryptiques et souvent obscènes. Le contenu des vannes concerne souvent les membres de la famille, en particulier la mère.Le corpus présenté dans la thèse constitué à partir d’enquêtes de terrain réalisées entre 2012 et 2014, illustre la pratique des échanges de vannes au sein de groupe de pairs de jeunes de 14 à 28 ans, appartenant à différents groupes sociaux. Il reflète ce mode de communication de la culture des rues contemporaine et montre que la pratique des vannes occupe une place essentielle dans la vie quotidienne de ces jeunes. / This research looks into the language practices of young people in the multilingual and multicultural context of the urban sensible suburbs of the Paris area.Young people’s language has interested linguists and sociologist for a long time. The first sociolinguistic studies emerge around 1980 in the United States. Many sociolinguists were studying young people`s language in peer groups of 9 to 18 years old teenagers. Sociolinguists consider this age range to be more productive for digs and insults.In France, the use of digs begins to be diffused with the first emigration wave from the Maghreb in the 1960s and the second one in the 1980s. This phenomenon can be explained because of the tradition in the use of digs in many north-African countries.The use of digs out of peer groups is always very destabilizing for an uninformed listener. Firstly, digs show the character of the street culture. Secondary, they are playful, initiatory, cryptic and very often obscene. The digs contents affect family members, especially the mother.The corpus presented in the thesis is formed from interviews conducted between 2012 and 2014. It shows the practice of digs in the peer groups of 14 to 28 year-old teenagers, belonging to different social groups. It reflects this mode of communication of the contemporary culture of streets and shows that the practice of digs plays an essential role in the daily lives of these young people.

Today’s globalised world calls for a multilingual workplace, with employees who can communicate effectively and efficiently with colleagues and clients around the world. Communication, both in the sense of actual language use and of language management, is an important but often forgotten part of productivity and performance in multinational corporations. This exploratory study aims to investigate how language is used and managed in two Swedish companies with English as at least one of the official languages. By using in-depth ethnographical interviews and a short analysis of the companies’ language policies from the view of centricity, present study is focused on the employees’ perceptions of the day-to-day language use and the company’s language management. It can be concluded that English is the main language used for written communication while both Swedish and English are used in spoken interactions. Language is negotiated through a set of variables and is thus determined by the people involved in the interaction, the function of the interaction and the medium of communication. Although some strains and difficulties did emerge in the interviews, both informants are positive towards the use of English. It is hoped that this small study will contribute to a better understanding of language use and language management in multinational companies in Sweden.