In the years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union Central Asia has experienced wide-reaching and ongoing social change. The structures and values of all social strata have been questioned and re-evaluated in a continuing exploration of what it means to be part of the post-Soviet space. Within this space, identity formation and reformation has been a pre-eminent process for individuals, for groups of all kinds and for the newly emerging states and their leaders. Through the analysis of individual interviews and selected newspaper extracts and government policy documents this study explores the ways in which ethnic and state identities are being negotiated in Kazakhstan. Using the social identity theory framework it investigates the value and content of these identities by examining the state ideologies of language and the policies which are their expression as well as the discourses of language and identity engaged in by individuals and in the media. There is an exploration of common and conflicting themes referred to as aspects of these identities, of outgroups deemed relevant for comparison and of the roles of Kazakh and Russian in particular, alongside other languages, in relation to these identities. The study focuses on the availability to an individual of multiple possible identities of differing levels of inclusiveness. The saliency of a particular identity is demonstrated to vary according both to context and to the beliefs and goals of the individual concerned. The importance of discourse to processes of identity formation and maintenance is also described and the interaction between discourse and social context is highlighted. The ongoing construction of a Kazakhstani identity is described and the importance of group norms of hospitality, inclusiveness and interethnic accord observed. The sense of learning from other cultures and of mutual enrichment is also demonstrated. However, these themes exist in tension with those of Kazakhstan as belonging primarily to Kazakhs and of cultural oppression and loss. The multi-dimensional nature of ethnic identity is highlighted as is the difficulty, experienced by some, in maintaining a positive sense of ethnic group identity. Perceptions of the importance of language in the construction of ethnic and state identity are explored as are the tensions created by the ideological and instrumental values adhering to different languages in use in Kazakhstan.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University of Pennsylvania. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.) in History--University of Maine, 2008. / Includes vita. Abstract, table of contents in French and English. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 320-360).

Poles comprise the largest group of migrants in Scotland. The Scottish Government’s plan has been to attract and retain them to counter the issues of Scotland’s aging population and insufficient labour force, as well as to promote cultural diversity and tolerance (Scottish Government, 2013). However, research on Polish migrants’ experiences suggests that there is a discrepancy between the rhetoric of retaining migrants in a tolerant and inclusive society and the reality, in which Poles tend not to integrate with the local communities and to work below their skill-set and education level (Kobialka, 2016). This is clearly detrimental to the aforementioned government goal of ensuring their emotional and financial well-being and sense of belonging. The existing, and predominantly sociolinguistic, research attributes these issues almost exclusively to the migrants’ “little knowledge of English” (Weishaar, 2008: 1252), whilst overlooking findings from social psychology that suggest that there is more to a person’s ‘relationship’ with the language than just proficiency. These findings suggest that one’s self-concept, or the sum of beliefs about him/herself, is strongly connected to language and may influence his/her everyday decisions and behaviour (Rubio, 2014). Thus, this current study investigated the experiences of Polish migrants in Scotland from this under-researched perspective, focusing on the relationship between the migrants’ self-concept and the English language, referred to as English Language Identity (ELI), as a concept potentially playing a central part in the migrants’ experiences. Gaining an understanding of the migrants’ ELI was believed to be crucial, in order to determine ways of preparing future learners of English to face their potential migration experience with confidence and high self-esteem. In this longitudinal mixed methods study, 20 Polish migrants were interviewed twice and they each submitted electronic journals, in which they reflected on their language-related experiences. Additionally, the findings were validated through a structured questionnaire completed by 378 respondents in the final stage of the study. The data analysis revealed that the participants’ ELI was a dynamic relationship manifested during social encounters in which they made evaluations of how successfully they managed to express their ‘desired self’, or self-concept, and based these evaluations on their perceptions of the ‘ascribed selves’. The perceived communication failure or success, resulting respectively from discrepancy or match between these selves, influenced the participants’ self-esteem, which, in turn, had an impact on their future behaviour and a range of decisions, including the decision of whether or not to remain in Scotland. This dynamic interplay between the desired and ascribed selves that essentially defined the participants’ ELI was influenced by their self-assessed English competence, beliefs about other people’s perceptions of migrants and their general beliefs about the language and its speakers. The latter, based on the assumption that Native English Speakers (NESs) are linguistic experts and ‘owners’ of the language, influenced the participants’ understanding of communication success/failure and of linguistic ‘correctness’, as well as their self-assessed English competence. These findings, coupled with findings from the fields of social psychology, sociolinguistics and English Language Teaching (ELT), were used to make suggestions for English language classrooms and for general pedagogy in Poland and Scotland to reconsider its content, in order to foster the learners’ self-growth, build their self-esteem and prepare them to recognise and address various forms of prejudice and stereotyping.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington State University, August 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jan. 13, 2009). "Department of Teaching and Learning." Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-61).

Master of Arts / Department of Modern Languages / Earl K. Brown / This paper reports on a study that analyzes how a sequential bilingual speaker (L1 Mexican Spanish, L2 American English) uses stylistic phonetic variation in different speech types during an interview (short answer, spontaneous speech, dramatic anecdote, reading) to construct a dynamic gay persona. There are many stylistic variables that can interact when an individual is creating a persona in an interaction, and this becomes even more complex when analyzing L1 speech as well as L2 speech as there are two collections of stylistic phonetic variables (indexical fields) interacting from two different cultural ideologies available to the interlocutors. It is problematic to assign one distinct variable to an identity, such as gay, as it homogenizes a diverse social group of individuals and underestimates members' ability to manage perceptual salience of their identity as a gay individual based on context and social pressure(s). While the field of Lavender Linguistics (language use associated with the LGBTQ community) has shown that there are many resources that can be used to "sound gay," this case study focuses on how a speaker stylistically creates a gay persona throughout the interview through stylistic variation of two principle variables: 1) word-final /s/ duration, and 2) center of gravity of word-final /s/.

The primary purpose for this research is to examine and identify the social functions of Limón Patwa, a closely related language to Jamaican Patwa spoken by the Afro-Caribbean community of Costa Rica. There is a unique relationship regarding the language contact between Spanish and LP, where the maintenance of this English based language can certainly be complicated by a Spanish language dominant environment. Studying the historical migration of this Afro-Caribbean population to Costa Rica in the 1800s sheds light on the systemic oppression and the lack of integration into Costa Rican society that Afro-Costa Ricans faced in the midst of their arrival to Puerto Viejo (“the old port”). I conducted 8 sociolinguistic interviews with Limón Patwa speakers with efforts to better understand the usage of Limón Patwa, along with valuable information about being of African descent and living in Costa Rica. In addition to interviews with Patwa speakers, a matched guise audio survey was elicited to that involved listening to speakers of Patwa vs speakers of Spanish along with one audio recording of a Patwa speaker using Spanish. A Likert scale was used for participants to rate these voices as trustworthy, intelligent, and friendly, for example, in order to analyze how Patwa speakers are perceived by the general population. Furthermore, this research gives insight to where negative ideologies surrounding Limón Patwa and its speakers may stem from and how it influences the usage of LP. This study takes into consideration the issues of political power and the aspects of language identity, calling to attention the importance of efforts to maintain this minority language among an underrepresented community.

The aim of thesis is to analyze the relationship between language planning policies and nation building process in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. The language planning policies in Kazakhstan aim to raise the status and role of Kazakh language in political and social contexts (status planning), develop Kazakh language as the medium of administration, education, media and science (corpus planning), and spread the use of Kazakh language (acquisition planning). However, given the demographic conditions, heterogeneous and multilingual ethnic composition of Kazakhstan, the desired progress has not been achieved. The main argument of the thesis is that so long as Kazakhstan cannot develop comprehensive, well-integrated language planning policies with suitable short-, medium- and long-term targets it cannot be expected to have success in their desire to make Kazakh the state language. The reason lies in the fact that Kazakhstan consist of a sizeable Russian minority and an ethnic nation building process takes place in the country. Thus, the existing language planning policies cannot respond to the needs of the society. The thesis examines factors and reasons affecting this process. To this end, the thesis shall cover an analysis language policies and nation building policies within a historical context.