The socially minded linguistic study of storytelling in everyday life has been rapidly expanding. This book provides a critical engagement with this dynamic field of narrative studies, addressing ...long-standing questions such as definitions of narrative and views of narrative structure but also more recent preoccupations such as narrative discourse and identities, narrative language, power and ideologies. It also offers an overview of a wide range of methodologies, analytical modes and perspectives on narrative from conversation analysis to critical discourse analysis, to linguistic anthropology and ethnography of communication. The discussion engages with studies of narrative in multiple situational and cultural settings, from informal-intimate to institutional. It also demonstrates how recent trends in narrative analysis, such as small stories research, positioning analysis and sociocultural orientations, have contributed to a new paradigm that approaches narratives not simply as texts, but rather as complex communicative practices intimately linked with the production of social life.
Discourse and Identity Benwell, Bethan; Stokoe, Elizabeth
03/2006, Letnik:
v.Series Number 23
eBook
'Identity' is a central organizing feature of our social world. Across the social sciences and humanities, it is increasingly treated as something that is actively and publicly accomplished in ...discourse. This book defines identity in its broadest sense, in terms of how people display who they are to each other. Each chapter examines a different discursive environment in which people do 'identity work': everyday conversation, institutional settings, narrative and stories, commodified contexts, spatial locations, and virtual environments. The authors describe and demonstrate a range of discourse and interaction analytic methods as they are put to use in the study of identity, including 'performative' analyses, conversation analysis, membership categorization analysis, critical discourse analysis, narrative analysis, positioning theory, discursive psychology and politeness theory. The book aims to give readers a clear sense of the coherence (or otherwise) of these different approaches, the practical steps taken in analysis, and their situation within broader critical debates. Through the use of detailed and original 'identity' case studies in a variety of spoken and written texts in order, the book offers a practical and accessible insight into what the discursive accomplishment of identity actually looks like, and how to go about analyzing it.
Features:
*Accessible introduction to the study of discourse and identity across a variety of contexts.
*Interdisciplinary in scope, the book is relevant to a wide range of courses such as English language and linguistics, psychology, media, cultural studies, gender studies and sociology.
*Each chapter includes a critical overview of work in the area, original case studies, practical instruction for analyses, points for further discussion and suggested reading.
The popularity of interviewing as a method of data collection in the social sciences is a recognized fact. In their survey of qualitative research paradigms and methods, Denzin and Lincoln (2004:353) ...declare that “the interview is the favorite methodological tool of the qualitative researcher.” And, describing data-collection techniques in sociolinguistics and dialectology, Fuller (2000:388) argues that “much of the data in the field comes from interviews.” These assertions are hardly surprising given the central role that interviews have assumed as an essential part of the toolkit of the qualitative researcher since the early decades of the twentieth century (Fontana & Frei 2004). Interviews are the most common cross-disciplinary research instruments since they are widely used by investigators in fields as diverse as education, anthropology, sociology, social psychology, and social history, where they serve as vital research methods alone or in combination with other techniques such as participant observation. Given the centrality of interpretive and qualitative research paradigms in sociolinguistics, ethnography, linguistic anthropology, and narrative studies, the interview has acquired an even more prominent place for investigation in these disciplines. However, this research method and tool for collecting data has been the object of extremes of confidence and criticism. On one side there are those who try to erase the interactional context of the interview, believing that it is both possible and desirable to make participants forget about the event so that interviewers can access their “natural” behavior. On the opposite side there are those who argue that interviews are “inauthentic” and “artificial” contexts for data collection and therefore it is best to avoid them completely. In both extremes, the interview ends up being a problem to overcome. One unfortunate result of these attitudes has been that the interview as a real communicative event has been understudied. Our objective with this special issue is to contribute to redressing this tendency by drawing attention to the need for, and advantages of, the research interview as a legitimate interactional encounter, and taking narrative as our focus. In doing this we build on a small but significant cross-disciplinary body of mostly recent scholarship that has analyzed a variety of issues related to the use of semi-structured and open-ended interviews in qualitative research, and that has recognized the crucial importance of placing interview data in context.
Exploring (Im)mobilities Anna De Fina, Gerardo Mazzaferro / Anna De Fina, Gerardo Mazzaferro
2021, 2021-11-23, Letnik:
23
eBook
The impact of mobility and superdiversity in recent sociolinguistic research is well-established, yet very few studies deal with issues related to immobility.The chapters in this bookfocus on the ...sociolinguistic investigation of the dynamics between mobility and immobility as experienced by migrants, asylum seekers and members of minority or exploited groups. Central to the book is an exploration of how mobilities are affected by and in turn affect power relations and of the kinds of resources used by people to deal with (im)mobility processes. The book brings to light a new critical sociolinguistic imagination that is responsive to 21st century processes of (im)mobilities as socially, discursively and emotionally constructed and negotiated.
In the past twenty years the existence of a sense of ethnic belonging
among immigrant groups of European ancestry in the United States has
become the focus of frequent debates and polemics. This ...article argues
that ethnicity cannot be understood if it is abstracted from concrete
social practices, and that analyses of this construct need to be based on
ethnographic observation and on the study of actual talk in interaction.
This interactionally oriented perspective is taken to present an analysis
of how Italian ethnicity is constructed as a central element in the
collective identity of an all-male card playing club. Linguistic
strategies, particularly code-switching, are central in this construction,
but their role becomes apparent only when language use is analyzed within
significant practices in the life of the club. Code-switching into Italian
is used as an important index of ethnic affiliation in socialization
practices related to the game and in official discourse addressed by the
president to club members through the association of the language with
central domains of activity.I would like to
thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor of this journal, Barbara
Johnstone, for their insightful suggestions, which have substantially
contributed to the shaping of this article.
ABSTRACT Resistance has proven to be a hard concept to define. Debates about resistance in the sociological and sociolinguistic literature cover many aspects: from the degree to which resistance can ...be seen as related to established social groups (see Rampton 1996), to the level of agentivity and intention that is required for an action to be regarded as resistant, to the type of social behavior that qualifies. Thus, while some see resistance as based on actions, others see it as based on cultural appropriation (Hall & Jefferson 1976). In their comprehensive review of literature on the topic, Hollander & Einwohner (2004) conclude that resistance can be seen as consisting of action and opposition. In this paper, I analyze resistance from the point of view of opposition to ideas, social situations, institutional actions and processes that result or may result in discrimination or stereotyping of specific social groups, as negotiated in the digital sphere by migrant and non-migrant youth belonging to a school-based community. Indeed, it has been argued (Chiluwa 2012, Chibuwe & Ureke 2016) that digital environments constitute ideal arenas for the development of resistance thanks to their wide reach and their ability to mobilize people around common themes. However, much of the research in this area has targeted organized resistance fueled by political or ethnic groups. In this paper I argue that resistance is an emerging process that does not necessarily stem within political contexts or from open choice, but can develop within interactional exchanges focused on everyday life events. Thus, what I am interested in here is in how spontaneous acts and discourses of resistance emerge in the everyday exchanges of a diverse community that was not born around a particular social or political agenda. For this paper, I will examine exchanges that happen on the Facebook page of one of the members of the community. I will show how resistance takes many forms: from irony and jokes to the raising of serious topics, to the dissemination of information and through different discourse genres: from storytelling to the posting of pictures.
RESUMO A resistência provou ser um conceito difícil de definir. Debates sobre resistência na literatura sociológica e sociolinguística abrangem muitos aspectos: desde o grau em que a resistência possa ser vista como relacionada a grupos sociais estabelecidos (ver Rampton 1996), até o nível de agentatividade e intenção que é necessário para que uma ação seja considerada resistente, ao tipo de comportamento social que se qualifica. Assim, enquanto alguns veem a resistência como baseada em ações, outros a veem como baseada na apropriação cultural (Hall & Jefferson 1976). Em sua revisão abrangente da literatura sobre o tema, Hollander & Einwohner (2004) concluem que a resistência pode ser vista como constituída por ação e oposição. Neste artigo, analiso a resistência do ponto de vista da oposição a ideias, situações sociais, ações institucionais e processos que resultem ou possam resultar em discriminação ou estereótipo de grupos sociais específicos, conforme negociado na esfera digital por jovens migrantes e não migrantes pertencentes a uma comunidade escolar. De fato, tem sido argumentado (Chiluwa 2012, Chibuwe & Ureke 2016) que os ambientes digitais constituem arenas ideais para o desenvolvimento da resistência graças ao seu amplo alcance e sua capacidade de mobilizar pessoas em torno de temas comuns. No entanto, grande parte das pesquisas nessa área tem como alvo a resistência organizada alimentada por grupos políticos ou étnicos. Neste artigo defendo que a resistência é um processo emergente que não necessariamente se baseia em contextos políticos ou de escolha aberta, mas pode se desenvolver dentro de trocas interacionais focadas em eventos cotidianos. Assim, o que me interessa aqui é como surgem atos espontâneos e discursos de resistência nas trocas cotidianas de uma comunidade diversificada que não nasceu em torno de uma determinada agenda social ou política. Para este artigo, examinarei as trocas que acontecem na página do Facebook de um dos membros da comunidade. Vou mostrar como a resistência toma muitas formas: da ironia e das piadas à criação de temas sérios, à disseminação de informações e através de diferentes gêneros de discurso: da narrativa à postagem de fotos.
In this article, I investigate the construction of Latin@ identities within a Spanish language radio station broadcasting to a Latin American audience in the Washington-Baltimore area. I argue that ...ethnic media such as this radio station provide a channel for the enactment of interests and strategies at different local and translocal scales and that therefore the analysis of discourse and communication processes within such media provides a glimpse into the complexities that underlie identity construction among transnational communities. I focus on the contrast between top-down strategies used by the radio owners, advertisers and other agents to build a Latin@ identity and bottom-up processes of identity negotiation among hosts within the radio. While top-down strategies converge in proposing an image of local Latin@s as a homogeneous, culturally and linguistically united transnational community, concrete identity negotiations among hosts complicate this picture, illustrating potential divisions within such imagined community. I focus on exchanges involving English and Spanish by Spanish- or English-dominant hosts to illustrate diverging perceptions about the significance for identity claims of using hybrid English-Spanish talk and accented or unaccented varieties of English. Adapted from the source document
Storytelling in the Digital World explores new, emerging narrative practices as they are enacted on digital platforms such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
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