Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 211-221) Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR29529

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Catholic University of America, 1945. / Bibliography: p. 156-161.

The Volga Germans assert a particular ethnic identity to articulate their complex history as a multinational community even in the absence of traditional practices in language, religious piety, and communal lifestyle. Across multiple migrations and settlements from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the Volga Germans' self-constructed group identity served historically as a tool with which to navigate uncertain politics of belonging. As subjects of imperial Russia's eighteenth-century colonization project the Volga Germans held a privileged legal status in accordance with their settlement in the Volga River region, but their subsequent loss of privileges under the reorganization and Russification of the modern Russian state in the nineteenth century compelled members of the group to immigrate to the Midwest in the United States where their distinct identity took its full form. The Volga Germans' arrival on the Great Plains coincided with an era of mass global migration from 1846 to 1940, yet the conventional categories of immigrant identity that subsumed Volga Germans in archival records did not impede their drive for community preservation under a new unifying German-Russian identity. A contingent of Midwest Volga Germans migrated in 1881 to Albina, a railroad town across the Willamette River from Portland, Oregon where the pressures of assimilation ultimately disintegrated traditional ways of life--yet the community impulse to articulate its identity remained. Thus, while Germans are the single largest ethnic group in the U.S. today numbering forty-two million individuals, Portland's Volga German community nevertheless continues to distinguish itself ethnically through its nostalgia for a unique past.

In this sociolinguistic study, qualitative interviews were used in examining discursive identity construction among Russian Germans. The interview group was composed of Russian German university students attending different universities in Germany. Based on the sociocultural perspective on language and identity, content analysis, turn-internal pragmatic and semantic as well as interactional approaches are used in the thesis. This thesis covers two major questions: What attitudes toward food Russian Germans construct during conversational interaction and what are the major linguistic resources and discursive strategies that these participants use to construct their cultural identities and how the attitudes towards the linguistic and social practices reflect German Russian identity and a particular Russian German space in German cities. The special situation of Russian Germans, that being the initial alienation in Russia due to their ethnic origin, followed by the attitude of local Germans towards Russian Germans after they relocated back to Germany, led to the situation where many of them feel to be in the position of ‘in-between’ (Kaiser 2006: 34). Due to the complexity of this special cultural position of Russian Germans, observations of how individuals negotiate Russian and German cultural spaces and construct their own space in everyday life provide insight to the research of cultural identity. At the same time, the creation of the Russian-German space by means of positioning also reveals the constructed identity of Russian Germans, which they create in discourse. The focus of the thesis lies on one particular practice, namely eating habits as a cultural practice. The analysis of food attitudes with the help of linguistic methods will contribute to the culture identity and the construction of a particular cultural space of Russian Germans. The interviews show how the attitudes towards food preferences and cooking habits serve as a basis for identity construction. By positioning themselves with the help of their attitudes towards eating habits, the participants create certain cultural spaces in German cities. Several domains of life such as private and public spheres, where the participants positioned themselves slightly differently from one another by drawing on different indexical meanings are covered in the interview. The work begins with the history of the Russian German migratory and studies made in relation to Russian Germans and their identity. It is followed by theoretical and methodological approaches. Content analysis, turn-internal pragmatic and semantic as well as interactional approaches are used in the thesis. The main body is devoted to the analysis of the qualitative interview data with the help of the theory and methodology described in the preceding section. In the end of the thesis the summary of the findings and the suggestions for the further research are presented.

In this sociolinguistic study, qualitative interviews were used in examining discursive identity construction among Russian Germans. The interview group was composed of Russian German university students attending different universities in Germany. Based on the sociocultural perspective on language and identity, content analysis, turn-internal pragmatic and semantic as well as interactional approaches are used in the thesis. This thesis covers two major questions: What attitudes toward food Russian Germans construct during conversational interaction and what are the major linguistic resources and discursive strategies that these participants use to construct their cultural identities and how the attitudes towards the linguistic and social practices reflect German Russian identity and a particular Russian German space in German cities. The special situation of Russian Germans, that being the initial alienation in Russia due to their ethnic origin, followed by the attitude of local Germans towards Russian Germans after they relocated back to Germany, led to the situation where many of them feel to be in the position of ‘in-between’ (Kaiser 2006: 34). Due to the complexity of this special cultural position of Russian Germans, observations of how individuals negotiate Russian and German cultural spaces and construct their own space in everyday life provide insight to the research of cultural identity. At the same time, the creation of the Russian-German space by means of positioning also reveals the constructed identity of Russian Germans, which they create in discourse. The focus of the thesis lies on one particular practice, namely eating habits as a cultural practice. The analysis of food attitudes with the help of linguistic methods will contribute to the culture identity and the construction of a particular cultural space of Russian Germans. The interviews show how the attitudes towards food preferences and cooking habits serve as a basis for identity construction. By positioning themselves with the help of their attitudes towards eating habits, the participants create certain cultural spaces in German cities. Several domains of life such as private and public spheres, where the participants positioned themselves slightly differently from one another by drawing on different indexical meanings are covered in the interview. The work begins with the history of the Russian German migratory and studies made in relation to Russian Germans and their identity. It is followed by theoretical and methodological approaches. Content analysis, turn-internal pragmatic and semantic as well as interactional approaches are used in the thesis. The main body is devoted to the analysis of the qualitative interview data with the help of the theory and methodology described in the preceding section. In the end of the thesis the summary of the findings and the suggestions for the further research are presented.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (sites viewed on July 25, 2006). PDF text: [vi], 385 p. : ill., maps ; 2.09Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3205391. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm, microfiche and paper format.

Exploration of the familial power women possess is growing as sociologists and anthropologists recognize the legitimacy of power internal to the family. The focus of this research was to uncover the forms of power German-Russian women held as they operated in the private sphere of the family. Attention also focused on the transference of women's power, and the family power dynamics unique to farm families. Members of three generations of one German-Russian farm family were interviewed. The results indicated German-Russian women operated from bases of power derived from their roles as farm wives who contributed to family sustenance, and as caretakers and kinkeepers, maintaining family cohesion. While male power is largely public and formal, women's reliance on the bonds of familial relationships across generations lend them greater power in that realm.