968 resultados para Languages and Discourses


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This article analyses how speakers of an autochthonous heritage language (AHL) make use of digital media, through the example of Low German, a regional language used by a decreasing number of speakers mainly in northern Germany. The focus of the analysis is on Web 2.0 and its interactive potential for individual speakers. The study therefore examines linguistic practices on the social network site Facebook, with special emphasis on language choice, bilingual practices and writing in the autochthonous heritage language. The findings suggest that social network sites such as Facebook have the potential to provide new mediatized spaces for speakers of an AHL that can instigate sociolinguistic change.

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As wireless network technologies evolve towards an All-IP framework, Next Generation Wireless Communication Devices demand better use of spectral resources by employing advanced techniques of silence suppression. This paper presents an analysis of VoIP call data and compares the statistical results based on observed patterns of talk spurts and silence lengths to those achieved by a modified on-off voice model for silence suppression in wireless networks. As talk spurts and silence lengths are sensitive to varying word lengths, temporal structure and other prosodic aspects of speech, the impact of the use of various languages, dialects and gender of speakers on these results is also assessed.

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This article analyses the motivations for return migration among the Ecuadorians and Bolivians who, after living in Spain, returned to their countries of origin during the economic crisis that started in 2008. From the analysis of 22 interviews in-depth which took place in Ecuador and 38 in Bolivia to women, men and young people from migrant families, this decision-making process is shown to be embedded into a gendered dynamics of relationships. Particular detail is given to affective and economic elements that had an influence on the decision to return, as well as to the strategies deployed to project their readjustment back in origin. Males and females occupy differential positions within the family, work and social circle, their expectations being built in a gendered manner. Despite the fact migration has brought women greater economic power within the family group, their reintegration upon return redefines their role as main managers in the household and the dynamics that allow their social reproduction. Men, for their part, aspire to refresh their role as providers in spite of their frail labour position upon return. Social mobility for females is passed on through generations by a strong investment on education for their daughters and sons, while for males this mobility revolves around setting up family businesses and around their demonstrative abilities.

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It is not a prophecy to say that one of the most common concepts that those working on "Europe" would encounter at various points in different capacities would be "Europeanisation". This buzzword has also been crucial in understanding and explaining for Turkey's European orientation path, which acquired a new dimension and has been carried to a more substantive and institutional level with the Helsinki European Council in December 1999 when Turkey was granted formal candidacy status in its application to join the EU. Especially after this date, the concept of "Europeanisation" and the literature attached to it have almost automatically been employed to assess the relationship between Turkey and different aspects of European integration. For this aim, firstly, I present a tri-fold picture of the European studies. According to this categorisation, the studies dealing with the notion of „Europe‟ could be categorised into three groups: the studies which takes "Europe" as a fixed concept ("Europe-as-fixity"), those which subscribe to a notion of "Europe" solely as a construct ("Europe-as-construct") and the studies which take "Europe" as a contestation ("Europe-as-contestation"). After critically locating the Europeanisation literature within this categorisation, I argue that there is both a historical and epistemological need for the Europeanisation literature to address to the conflictual nature of the notion by focusing on how the discourses on "Europe" hegemonised the Turkish political terrain after 1999 and I introduce the notion of "Europe-as-hegemony". The overall argument is that the hegemony of "Europe" does not originate from the automaticity of the relationship between the European and domestic level as stipulated by the Europeanisation literature, but rather from the power of discourses on "Europe" and their ability to hegemonise the political realm. In this respect, this paper offers a novel approach to the Europeanisation literature with a particular focus on the Turkish context where the political is not only given and constructed but is also reflexive and open to contestation and negotiation.

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The purpose of this study is to explore attitudes and practices regarding their heritage language and the dominant English language among Korean American immigrant families. Using the framework of Language Ideology (Silverstein, 1979), I had three research questions: a) why do parents send their children to a Korean language school, b) what attitudes do immigrant parents and their children show toward Korean and English, and c) how are the parents and children involved in the practices of these two languages? I conducted a survey of parents whose children attended a Korean language school in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, where the number of Korean sojourners (temporary residents) exceeds that of Korean immigrants. Forty participant parents provided demographic information. They described their children's language-use patterns depending on interlocutors as well as their language proficiency in both Korean and English. The reasons for sending their children to the Korean language school were significantly different depending on the respondents' residential status. In comparison to the sojourners, immigrants tended to give more priority to their children's oral language development and Korean identity construction. I also conducted case studies of three Korean immigrant families with 3- to 5-year-old children, using interviews, observations, and photographs of children's work. The collected data were analyzed according to themes such as daily life, parental beliefs about two languages, practices in two languages, children's attitudes toward two languages, and challenges and needs. Despite individual families' different immigration histories, the three families faced some common challenges. Because of their busy daily routines and different lifestyles, the immigrant families had limited interactions with other Koreans. The parents wanted their children to benefit from two communities and build a combined ethnic identity as Korean Americans. I argue that a Korean language school should expand its role as a comfort zone for all Koreans and Korean Americans. This study explores the heterogeneity among Korean sojourner and immigrant families and their language use and identity construction.