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This thesis describes the role of Spanish as a common language in the construction of social networks among the diverse Spanish-speaking population of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Analysis of the data confirms the low public visibility of the community observed initially, despite the even larger numbers of Spanish speakers living in the city than initially estimated. The communitys relatively low level of coherence and its minimal presence in the public sphere can be explained by two main factors: an exceptional degree of diversity among members (described in terms of national, religious, political, socio-economic and ethnic variations), and a set of ambivalent attitudes regarding the relative value of Hispanic culture. This communitys public anonymity is also discussed as related to the larger realities of Canadas official policy of multiculturalism and popular discourses of Hispanidad in Anglo-Canadian mainstream culture.

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Orientador: Anna Christina Bentes da Silva / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T17:59:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Mira_CaioCesarCostaRibeiro_M.pdf: 775823 bytes, checksum: fa993fc31a66e71fb79d556a64f9cadb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: As práticas interativas do Centro de Convivência dos Afásicos, (doravante, CCA) constituem um locus bastante interessante para análise da relação entre linguagem, cognição e vida social. O CCA, que funciona no Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem da UNICAMP, é um espaço de interação entre afásicos e não afásicos que procura, metodologicamente, evocar em encontros semanais, rotinas significativas de vida em sociedade, o que envolve variados processos de significação (verbais e não verbais) e diversas práticas de linguagem, que mobilizam recursos pragmáticos, textuais e discursivos. Diante deste cenário, este trabalho procura analisar e descrever as práticas de linguagem do CCA segundo as propriedades do conceito de comunidade de práticas (Wenger, 1998), a saber: i) o engajamento mútuo (que diz respeito a uma interação regular, cotidiana); ii) o empreendimento conjunto (que diz respeito não a um objetivo compartilhado a priori, mas a um empreendimento negociado que envolve complexas relações de mútuos ajustes e acordos); iii) o repertório compartilhado de recursos conjuntos para a negociação do sentido social. Para tal tarefa, iremos pontuar os contrastes do conceito de comunidade de práticas em relação a um conceito metodológico amplamente difundido na literatura sociolingüística: o conceito de comunidade de fala. Pretendemos a partir da análise de fragmentos de interação entre sujeitos afásicos e não afásicos, salientar o ganho que o conceito de comunidade de práticas agrega para análise das interações no campo da Sociolingüística e os desdobramentos da caracterização do CCA como uma comunidade de práticas para algumas questões específicas do campo da Neurolingüística / Abstract: The interactive practices of the Aphasic Social Centre (henceforth, CCA), constitute a matter, which is rather interesting for the analysis of the relation among language, cognition and social life. CCA, which is in the Institute of Language Studies at UNICAMP, is an area of interaction between aphasic and non-aphasic people, which aims to, methodologically, evoke in weekly meetings, significant routines of life in society, which involves several signification processes (verbal and non-verbal) as well as many language practices, that mobilize pragmatic, textual and speech resources. Throughout this view, this work aims to analyze and describe the CCA language practices according to the community of practice concept properties (Wenger, 1998), hereafter: i) the mutual engagement (which is about a regular, routine interaction); ii) the joined enterprise (which is not about a shared aim in the beginning, but to a negotiated enterprise that involves complex relations of mutual adjustments and deals); iii) the joined resource shared report for the negotiation of the social view. For such task, we will mention the contrasts of the community of practice concept related to a methodological concept which is widely spread in the sociolinguistic literature; the concept of speech community. We intend, through an analysis of the fragments of interaction between aphasic and non-aphasic subjects, emphasize the gain that the community of practice concept aggregates for the analysis of interactions in the field of Sociolinguistic and the expanding of CCA characterization as a community of practices for some specific questions in the field of Neurolinguistic / Mestrado / Mestre em Linguística

In this thesis, I examine the practical challenge of constructing communication at the Arabic Translation Service (ATS) of the UN through the process of translation. Unlike in English in which "communication" has only one equivalent, in Arabic it has many depending on the context. My analysis focuses on analyzing the occurrence of two translation equivalents, namely ittissal and tawassul given that their use in translation sometimes proves to be cultural. I conducted participant observation over the course of a two-month internship at the UN Headquarters in New York. Using grounded theory, I pieced together insights from a database of occurrences of the term "communication," interviewed staff members about their opinion about previous translations of "communication," witnessed staff interactions during their weekly meetings, and participated in a communication framework to create closer relationships between the ATS and other duty stations outside the UN. The way this framework is designed helps define how communication is understood as both theoretical concept and word used for translation purposes. Adopting an ethnography of communication approach, I illuminate the cultural differences involved in translating the term "communication" into Arabic in UN documents by an Arab multicultural team. By means of exploring translation issues, I aim at defining the prominent model of communication in the UN ATS community, and showing how this community's talk reflects tensions between different culturally embedded models. My conclusion is that ittissal is preferred over tawassul, the first involving more technical meaning and less contact among people. Some translators disagree with some translations. The UN ATS has its own language, given that it communicates to particular audiences. I aim at finding out why ittissal is the preferred term, why is standard Arabic not used for communication among the staff, and what aspects during translation are cultural.

My diploma thesis shows patterns of alternation by bilingual children between their two mother tongues, Czech and English. The patterns are studied in two different types of language alternations; code-switching, meaning switching between language codes in whole ideas and discussed topics, and code-mixing, meaning inserting a word or phrase in language A into speech in language B. The code-switching and code-mixing types and patterns were studied on basis of 12 recordings and observations of a class of pre-school children during one morning of English school activities per week and 14 recordings and observations of a following year class of first-year school children during their after-school English activities. All children attended state education, pre-school nursery and the following year Czech state primary schools. Most of the children's parents are a combination of a Czech and an immigrant from an English-speaking country (with three exceptions) and they both speak with the children exclusively in their respective native languages. By studying the patterns of children's alternation between the languages, I also analyse how socialisation through the use of two languages influences social competences. The rules of the speech community, the school, as well as the family speech communities are...

The Bo-Kaap is traditionally a Cape Muslim Afrikaans-speaking community, and sociohistorically it is particularly relevant to the development of Afrikaans at the Cape (Davids 2011, Mahida 1993). The Cape Muslim Afrikaans spoken in the Bo-Kaap is a sub-variety of Standard Afrikaans (Kotzé 1989, Davids 2011) and is distinguishable by its retained lexis (Mesthrie and Bhatt 2008) from languages historically spoken by slaves at the Cape, such as Malay, Arabic, Gujarati, and Konkani. Over time a number of socio-cultural, geographic, and historical factors have introduced the use of South African English alongside Cape Muslim Afrikaans in this speech community. The goal of this study was to provide insight into the nature of bilingual talk in the Bo-Kaap community, and to make a useful contribution to the growing body of codeswitching1 (hereafter CS) research generally. Based on natural language data collected during group interviews with members of the community, the study explored the language contact situation in the Bo-Kaap today, taking the viewpoint that what is occurring presently may be considered CS Three aspects of the CS documented were analysed and quantified. Specifically, the study investigated language interaction phenomena (Myers-Scotton 1995, Deuchar et al 2007) triggers (Clyne 1987) and directionality (Muysken 1997, Deuchar et al 2017, Çetinoglu 2017). A quantitative approach was taken to the data analysis. The interview audio files were downloaded and transcribed in ELAN. (Max Planck Institute). The annotations2 produced in ELAN were organised in a spreadsheet for analysis, resulting in a data set comprised of 356 annotations. The full data set was divided into subsets and tagged for language interaction phenomena, triggers, and directionality. These data sets were then sorted and quantified to identify trends in these three areas of interest. The study found Intra-sentential switches to be the most common type of language interaction phenomenon in the CS of this speech community, being present in 79% of the sampled annotations. Results from other CS studies echo this finding in other speech communities (Al Heeti et al 2016, Koban 2012, Falk 2013). The most common trigger for Intra-word switching in this corpus was in the head of the past tense Verb Phrase. Out of 27 occurrences of Intra-word switching, 16 were of this nature. In all of those an English verb head was housed within an Afrikaans past tense structure. No exceptions were observed in the data set, a strong indicator of the relationship status of the two languages involved. Cape Muslim Afrikaans almost certainly playing the role of the Matrix language, with South African English embedded. In terms of directionality, switching from Cape Muslim Afrikaans into South African English was by far the most common, at 85%. This further supports what the findings on triggers suggest about the hierarchy between these two languages.

This research investigates how the speech community living in Maputo city uses language in relation to HIV/AIDS and studies related stigmas which impede women's access to HIV/AIDS counselling services. My hypothesis is that frequent use of gender stereotypes in AIDS discourse aims at stigmatising women as AIDS propagators, while minimizing male sexual transgressions in the AIDS crisis. Interpretation of primary data collected via focus group discussions and interviews is done with five different approaches that study respectively: social meanings and representations of AIDS embedded in context, the stigmatising process correlating gender stereotypes and discrimination against women, stereotypical speech attitudes and speech mechanism as well as the functions and effects of stereotyping. My conclusion is that deeply rooted gender barriers are to be removed in order to combat the social plague of AIDS and that ethnography of communication offers interesting models for development projects that can initiate behavioural changes through speech. / Linguistics / M.A. (Sociolinguistics)

The initial purpose of this study was to describe and analyse the language situation at Baragwanath Hospital. This was seen as a microcosm of the language situation in urban South Africa. As such, this study set out to identify problems and offer suggestions in resolving the difficulties experienced in communication in this hospital as well as in other medical institutions in the rest of the country. Before attempting such an investigation, a sound theoretical framework had to be established. In order to gain familiarity with the research field, concepts on sociolinguistics had to be researched and described. In order to apply particular concepts to the situation under investigation, the concepts had to be defined and interpreted first. This study has made a contribution to the theoretical debate regarding various sociolinguistic concepts, in that it has shown how these concepts apply to the South African situation. The next step in the research process involved making a decision about which method would be most appropriate for collecting data. Therefore, various approaches were investigated in order to find the appropriate one. The techniques of data collection and the recruitment of respondents had to be refined before the main data collection process could begin. Then began the journey of discovery. The detailed description of the language situation at Baragwanath Hospital presented in chapter 3 forms the crux of this study. This is the first time that such a comprehensive, qualitative description of the entire language situation in this hospital has been done. An appropriate method for data analysis had to be devised. This entailed various levels of analysis and interpretation. A description of the language situation at Baragwanath Hospital would have been incomplete without presenting a few of the various scenarios that took place in this hospital. Many important conclusions were reached during the course of the research. The most important of these were: 1. A huge communication problem exists at Baragwanath Hospital. 2. Either interpreters will have to be hired to overcome this problem; or nurses will have to be paid more for their interpreting services. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil.

This research investigates how the speech community living in Maputo city uses language in relation to HIV/AIDS and studies related stigmas which impede women's access to HIV/AIDS counselling services. My hypothesis is that frequent use of gender stereotypes in AIDS discourse aims at stigmatising women as AIDS propagators, while minimizing male sexual transgressions in the AIDS crisis. Interpretation of primary data collected via focus group discussions and interviews is done with five different approaches that study respectively: social meanings and representations of AIDS embedded in context, the stigmatising process correlating gender stereotypes and discrimination against women, stereotypical speech attitudes and speech mechanism as well as the functions and effects of stereotyping. My conclusion is that deeply rooted gender barriers are to be removed in order to combat the social plague of AIDS and that ethnography of communication offers interesting models for development projects that can initiate behavioural changes through speech. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Sociolinguistics)