Language attitudes and language shift among ethnic migrants in Khartoum

This paper investigates language attitudes among ethnic migrant groups in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan. A questionnaire was used to collect data on language preference, language parents prefer their children to learn, and reasons for language preference. Results suggest that while positive attitude played a significant role in learning Arabic among some of the groups under investigation, it proved to be of no help in maintaining the groups’ ethnic languages. Arabic was reported as very important for education, religious activities, economic privileges and social interaction. Ethnic languages, on the other hand, were preferred for purely symbolic reasons (symbolizing groups’ ethnic identity).

Thematic and Situational Features of Chinese BBS Texts

This study adopts the framework of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG; Halliday, 1994/2000; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) to investigate thematic features in messages sent to an electronic bulletin board system (BBS) in mainland China. As a concept derived from the Prague School, theme in SFG has been identified as “the point of departure of the message; it is that which locates and orients the clause within its context” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 64). Thematic features in the Chinese data are found to relate to the situational features of the BBS, the analysis of which is based on the frameworks of Biber (1988) and Herring (2007). The relevant situational features are further generalized into the three components of context: field, tenor, and mode (Halliday & Hasan, 1985) in order to examine the relation between thematic features and situational features. The study’s findings show that thematic features are more closely related to the field (nature of the activity) than to the mode, contrary to Halliday’s (1978/2001) claim that theme, as a realization of the textual meaning, is determined by the mode (medium). In concluding, this discrepancy is explored.

Guest Editorial: Racial and Ethnic Conflict and Violence

Racial and ethnic violence takes many forms. Genocides, ethnic cleansing, pogroms, civil wars, and violent separatist movements are the most obvious and extreme expressions, but less organized violence such as rioting, and hate crimes by individuals or small groups are products of racial and ethnic conflict as well. Also, the distribution of criminal violence within societies, which may or may not be aimed at members of another group, is in some places a by-product of ongoing conflicts between superior and subordinated racial or ethnic groups. Although estimates of the number of deaths attributable to ethnic violence vary widely, range of eleven to twenty million given for the period between 1945 and the early 1990s show the gravity of this type of conflict (Williams 1994, 50). So it comes as no surprise that scholars have paid increasing attention to such conflicts over the last decades.

Chinese Internet language: A sociolinguistic analysis of adaptations of the Chinese writing system

This paper examines the adaptations of the writing system in Internet language in mainland China from a sociolinguistic perspective. A comparison is also made of the adaptations in mainland China with those that Su (2003) found in Taiwan. In Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), writing systems are often adapted to compensate for their inherent inadequacies (such as difficulty in input). Su (2003) investigates the creative uses of the writing system on the electronic bulletin boards (BBS) of two college student organizations in Taipei, Taiwan, and identifies four popular and creative uses of the Chinese writing system: stylized English, stylized Taiwanese-accented Mandarin, stylized Taiwanese, and the recycling of a transliteration alphabet used in elementary education. According to Coupland (2001; cited in Su 2003), stylization is “the knowing deployment of culturally familiar styles and identities that are marked as deviating from those predictably associated with the current speaking context”. Within this framework and drawing on the data in previous publications on Internet language and online sources, this study identifies five types of adaptations in mainland China’s Internet language: stylized Mandarin (e.g., 漂漂 piāopiāo for 漂亮 ‘beautiful’), stylized dialect-accented Mandarin (e.g., 灰常 huīcháng for 非常 ‘very much’), stylized English (e.g., 伊妹儿 yīmèier for ‘email’), stylized initials (e.g., bt 变态 biàntài for ‘abnormal’; pk, short form for ‘player kill’), and stylized numbers (e.g., 9494 jiùshi jiùshi 就是就是 ‘that is it’). The Internet community is composed of highly mobile individuals and thus forms a weak-tie social network. According to Milroy and Milroy (1992), a social network with weak ties is often where language innovation takes place. Adaptations of the Chinese writing system in Internet language provide interesting evidence for the innovations within a weak-tie social network. Our comparison of adaptations in mainland China and Taiwan shows that, in maximizing the effectiveness and functionality of their communication, participants of Internet communication are confronted with different language resources and situations, including differences in Romanization systems, English proficiency level, and attitudes towards English usage. As argued by Milroy and Milroy (1992), a weak-tie social network model can bridge the social class and social network. In the Internet community, the degree of diversity of the stylized linguistic varieties indexes the virtual and/or social status of its participants: the more diversified one’s Internet language is, the higher is his/her virtual and/or social status.

Etiology of ethnic differences in childhood spirometry

OBJECTIVES Age- and height-adjusted spirometric lung function of South Asian children is lower than those of white children. It is unclear whether this is purely genetic, or partly explained by the environment. In this study, we assessed whether cultural factors, socioeconomic status, intrauterine growth, environmental exposures, or a family and personal history of wheeze contribute to explaining the ethnic differences in spirometric lung function. METHODS We studied children aged 9 to 14 years from a population-based cohort, including 1088 white children and 275 UK-born South Asians. Log-transformed spirometric data were analyzed using multiple linear regressions, adjusting for anthropometric factors. Five different additional models adjusted for (1) cultural factors, (2) indicators of socioeconomic status, (3) perinatal data reflecting intrauterine growth, (4) environmental exposures, and (5) personal and family history of wheeze. RESULTS Height- and gender-adjusted forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expired volume in 1 second (FEV1) were lower in South Asian than white children (relative difference -11% and -9% respectively, P < .001), but PEF and FEF50 were similar (P ≥ .5). FEV1/FVC was higher in South Asians (1.8%, P < .001). These differences remained largely unchanged in all 5 alternative models. CONCLUSIONS Our study confirmed important differences in lung volumes between South Asian and white children. These were not attenuated after adjustment for cultural and socioeconomic factors and intrauterine growth, neither were they explained by differences in environmental exposures nor a personal or family history of wheeze. This suggests that differences in lung function may be mainly genetic in origin. The implication is that ethnicity-specific predicted values remain important specifically for South Asian children.

The Han Minzu, Fragmented Identities, and Ethnicity

This paper focuses on the majority population in the People’s Republic of China—the Han—and their various collective identities. The Han play a pivotal role in consolidating the Chinese territory and the multiethnic Chinese nation. Therefore, the governments in the twentieth century have invested substantial efforts in promoting a unitary Han identity. In spite of that, powerful local identities related to native place, occupation, and family histories persist. This essay traces these identities and analyzes their intertwinement. Further, it discusses the question of ethnicity of both the Han and local identity categories, and concludes that while Han enact ethnicity in their relations to other minzu, local identity categories are more social than ethnic. It further posits that moments of confrontation, “degree” of ethnicity, scales of categorization, and relationality of identities are notions that should be given particular attention in the studies of ethnicity in China and elsewhere.