published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Also available in print.

abstract: ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore how LDS (Mormon) fans of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga make meanings from the text in the blogging community known as the Bloggernacle. It investigates how fans recognize, reflect, reinterpret, and resist meanings surrounding multiple Big "D" Discourses (Gee, 1999/2010; 2011) in and around the text. It examines the ways in which LDS fans (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) of the Twilight saga use language in order to signify membership in a particular Discourse. In addition, it seeks to understand how LDS fans use language to perform various identities and position themselves and others within the digital space. This dissertation study analyzes the threads of five blogs and three discussion forums using the combined methods of critical ethnography (Carspecken, 1996) and Gee's (1999, 2010;2011) discourse analysis. It concludes, that, while multiple Discourses are present within the conversational threads, mainstream Mormon Discourse remains dominant and normalized within the space, which both informs and limits the interpretations available to Mormon fans. In addition, identity performance is negotiated in the blogs, and members form specific sub-communities within the Bloggernacle so as to create a space for those with distinct ways of believing, valuing, knowing, and identifying. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2015

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-26T13:44:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 1091283 bytes, checksum: 3911d8a6958cd47611ff476ef8dbfa11 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-25 / The present research, based on theories of Conversation Analysis, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Membership Categorization Devices and Sociolinguistics, investigates talk-in-interaction during the occurrence of focus groups in order to discover, mainly through the analysis of the emergence of categories (Sacks, 1972), what students in the 9th grade of an Elementary School think about the Portuguese language. Data was collected in a public school, located in Minas Gerais, from the realization of three focus groups which occurred at this same school. The recordings amounted to a total of one hundred and thirteen minutes and ninety-two seconds of interaction and, after data collection, they were transcribed and analyzed from the perspective of Conversation Analysis. The data analysis was divided into five parts, according to the main topics discussed during the interactions: i) The language that I speak; ii) The rural speak: a stigmatized variety; iii) The role assigned to the teacher; iv) Language adequacy to speech situation and v) Linguistic insecurity. The data showed that participants have a very reductionist view of language and they consider it a set of predefined rules by traditional grammar. Linguistic diversity is disregarded once the natural changes in the language are understood as errors. Thus, as the participants do not master all of the rules imposed by the traditional grammar, they believe that they are not able to speak their mother tongue proficiently. / Esta pesquisa, fundamentada nas teorias da Análise da Conversa Etnometodológica, Sociolinguística Interacional, Categorização de Membros e Sociolinguística, investiga a fala em interação durante a ocorrência de grupos focais a fim de desvendar, principalmente através da análise da emergência de categorias (Sacks, 1972), o olhar de alunos do 9º ano do Ensino Fundamental em relação à língua portuguesa. Os dados foram gerados em uma escola pública localizada na Zona da Mata mineira, a partir da realização de três grupos focais, os quais ocorreram na própria escola. As gravações somaram um total de cento e treze minutos e noventa e dois segundos de interação e, após a coleta de dados, as gravações foram transcritas e analisadas a partir da perspectiva da Análise da Conversa Etnometodológica. A análise dos dados foi dividida em cinco partes, de acordo com os principais tópicos discutidos nas interações: i) A língua que eu falo; ii) O falar rural: uma variedade estigmatizada; iii) O papel atribuído ao professor; iv) Adequação da linguagem à situação de fala e v) Insegurança linguística. Os dados demonstraram que os participantes têm uma visão muito reducionista de língua, considerando-a como um conjunto de regras préestabelecidas pela gramática normativa. A diversidade linguística é desconsiderada, pois as mudanças naturais da língua são compreendidas como erros. Assim, como os participantes não têm domínio de todas as normas impostas pela gramática tradicional, eles acreditam que não sabem falar sua língua materna.

The intent of this study is to examine the trajectory of ideology regarding standard Japanese and dialects from the historical perspective, and also to discuss the cause of the post-war shift of the ideology. Before the war, the government attempted to disseminate hyojun-go aiming at creating a unified Japan in the time when many countries were developing to be nation states after industrial revolution. After the Pacific war, the less strict-sounding term kyotsu-go was more often used, conveying an ideology of democratization. Yet despite the difference in the terms, speaking a common language continues to play a role of unifying the country. Today there is great interest in regional dialects in Japan. Although kyotsu-go is the common language, most people, especially in urban areas, are familiar with (if not fluent in) kyotsu-go. Due to the development of media and mobilization there are few people who cannot understand kyotsu-go. However, until around the 1970s people were more likely to believe in the superiority of standard Japanese (hyojun-go). Standard language was believed to be superior as a result of language policy that had its origins in Meiji and lasted through WWII. This included education policy that required school children to learn hyojun-go. After the war, in a process of democratization there emerged greater acceptance of language variety: dialect. Thus, there has been a shift in language ideology in Japan, and the people's interests in dialects is one indicator of this. This shift is analyzed here from the perspective of Bourdieu's notion of social and linguistic capital, tying it to policy, historical events and societal change.

<p>Today’s highly globalized and mobile society can be characterized by constant interaction between dominant and minority groups in one space, where migrant communities manage multiple cultural and linguistic contexts, while remaining connected to their society of origin. While the field of transnationalism addresses both the behavioral (i.e., physical) and symbolic (i.e., emotional) ties to the origin community, the role that language plays in establishing and maintaining such transnational practices, and specifically symbolic transnationalism, is not well understood. Addressing this gap, the current project aims to investigate the interconnection between heritage language use and symbolic transnationalism through the analysis of 1.5 and 2^nd generation Cubans in Miami. </p> <p>The Cuban community in the US, and more specifically, in Miami-Dade County, Florida, represents a relevant case for in-depth investigation. While this population is comparable to other Hispanic groups in the US on many levels (Duany, 2011), the long-standing political opposition between the U.S. and Cuba have largely limited behavioral transnational practices (e.g., visits to the country of origin, sending goods and remittances) of the Cuban population. This broad lack of behavioral transnationalism in the Miami Cuban community provides a unique opportunity to examine symbolic transnational practices, effectively isolating two concepts that are traditionally combined in the literature (Duff, 2015; Reynolds, 2006).</p> <p>To investigate the relations between language use and symbolic transnationalism, a mixed methods study was conducted with 75 young adults of Cuban origin (1.5 and 2^nd generation), combining a quantitative questionnaire with face-to-face sociolinguistic interviews. Quantitatively, data analysis centered on the analysis of the degree of symbolic transnationalism and language use among 1.5 and 2^nd generation groups, as well as statistical correlations between sub-components of language use (history, proficiency, choice, and value) and symbolic transnationalism (ways of doing and ways of belonging). Qualitatively, a thematic analysis was conducted to distinguish the most prominent external factors in the process of symbolic transnationalism maintenance or development that surfaced in the discourse of the participants. Finally, discourse analysis was used to investigate how symbolic transnationalism was reflected in linguistic structures, such as deixis (i.e., terms indicating distance) and stance (i.e., expression of feelings, judgement, and appreciation). </p> <p>The analysis of the data provides strong evidence for overarching links between the level of symbolic transnationalism and language, such that greater affiliation with the culture of origin is related to a greater use and importance of the heritage language. In addition, qualitative results show that the external factors of the family domain, the Miami environment and ethnic community, and the use of the Spanish language in Miami, are among the most important for the maintenance and development of symbolic transnationalism. Finally, discourse analysis revealed that both 1.5 and 2^nd generation groups use deictic and stance markers to express personal and metaphorical proximity, as well as affect and appreciation of the ethnic community, Cuba as a land, Cuba of the past, and Cuban culture. In contrast, they express temporal and spatial distance as well as markers of judgement with respect to Cuba of the present and its current politics. </p> <p>This study systematically isolates the concept of symbolic transnationalism via a quantitative approach and investigates its connection with language. Their direct correlation, confirmed by the results, highlights symbolic transnationalism as a significant variable to consider in sociolinguistic research with migrant communities, and thus provides a solid theoretical base for bridging the disciplines of linguistics and transnationalism. Moreover, this work employs a structural linguistic approach (i.e., deixis and stance) to demonstrate how transnational ties may be represented through linguistic structures, and thus it provides new tools for understanding how minority communities express their transnational connections. </p> <p>On a practical level, this work emphasizes the importance of the context and cross-cultural awareness in language pedagogy. For heritage language learners, it underlines the bi-directional relationship: language maintenance for sustaining transnational ties, as well as development of heritage culture appreciation for more effective heritage language development. Moreover, the findings with respect to the interconnection between symbolic transnationalism and heritage language use, emphasize the role of such aspects as sense of belonging, ethnic community, family history and attitudes towards the country of origin on the process of heritage language maintenance and self-identification with the country and culture of origin. Finally, the findings of this work may be applicable to second language students as well, emphasizing the importance of a context-based approach to language acquisition, which plays a significant role in developing productive cross-cultural communication.</p>

Reviewing literature on the histories of and the attitude studies about transgender people, the use of ‘they’ as a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun, prescriptive grammar ideology, and aversive prejudice theory provides insight into how these topics are interrelated and relevant to current issues surrounding nonbinary transgender people. This review inspired my research study. My participants (n = 722) completed an online survey in which they reported demographic variables and answered scales that measured ‘they’ attitudes in generic and queer contexts, attitudes toward trans people, and prescriptive grammar ideology. I found that the majority of participants approved of using the singular ‘they’. Regression analyses revealed that in a queer context, negative attitudes toward 'they' were best predicted by trans prejudice, while in a generic context, both valuing prescriptive grammar and anti-trans prejudice similarly predicted 'they' attitudes. This indicates that negative attitudes toward the singular 'they' are not merely an issue of taking a principled stance against "improper grammar". Additionally, both sexual orientation and gender (trans vs. cisgender) moderate the relationship between prescriptive grammar ideology and 'they' attitudes. Age, sexual orientation, and education level also influenced my pattern of results such that older participants, queer people, and more highly educated individuals were more likely to have positive attitudes toward the singular ‘they’. These findings have implications for LGBTQ+ individuals’ relationships with cisgender and heterosexual people as well as for theories of prejudice, particularly with regard to the increasingly important area of attitudes toward people with diverse gender identities.

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