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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
[Review Of] H. Samy Alim And Geneva Smitherman. Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, And Race In The U.S., Lisa Doris Alexander
[Review Of] H. Samy Alim And Geneva Smitherman. Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, And Race In The U.S., Lisa Doris Alexander
Ethnic Studies Review
In his introduction to Articulate While Black Michael Eric Dyson frames Barack Obama as the Orator-in-Chief and the authors would certainly agree with that assessment. Alim and Smitherman argue that in order to have an open and honest discussion about race in the United States, we must look at its linguistic dimensions; we need to language race, to view the racial politics of the United States through the lens of language (xviii). This book seeks to untangle how we talk about race and what assumptions are being made based on a speaker's use of language.
Pachucos, Chicano Homeboys And Gypsy Caló: Transmission Of A Speech Style, Maryellen Garcia
Pachucos, Chicano Homeboys And Gypsy Caló: Transmission Of A Speech Style, Maryellen Garcia
Ethnic Studies Review
The term caló is well-known within many Mexican American communities as a bilingual slang that is one of several speech styles in the community repertoire, closely associated with Pachuco groups of the U.S. Southwest that came to prominence in the 1940's. But the term caló predates its introduction to the U.S. by many decades. With roots in a Romany-based germanio of the 16th century, from the speech of immigrant gypsies evolved a new Spanish-based argot, the result of language shift from Romany to Spanish over centuries. By the 19th century, caló referred to a Spanish-based criminal argot called "caló jergal" …
Tongues United: Polyphonic Identities And The Hispanic Family, José Medina
Tongues United: Polyphonic Identities And The Hispanic Family, José Medina
Ethnic Studies Review
In this paper I will use the Bakhtinian notion of polyphony,1 of a choral dialogue of multiple and heterogeneous voices, to elaborate a pluralistic account of cultural identity in general and of Hispanic identity in particular. I will complicate and further pluralize the Bakhtinian notion by talking about the overlapping and criss-crossing dialogues of heterogeneous voices that go into the formation of cultural identities. My pluralistic view emphasizes that cultural identity is bound up with differences and opposes those homogeneous models that try to impose a unique articulation of collective identity on the members of a group. Although I will …
"No Opportunity For Song:" A Slovak Immigrant's Silencing Analyzed Through Her Pronoun Choice, Danusha V. Goska
"No Opportunity For Song:" A Slovak Immigrant's Silencing Analyzed Through Her Pronoun Choice, Danusha V. Goska
Ethnic Studies Review
I can't tell the most frightening story I know, because stories are made of words, and once I was without them. I was trekking in Nepal and ended up with amnesia. Later I stumbled into a mission hospital with a bruised jaw. A bad fall? I can't say. I had no words. No words for this thing that was wrenching and crying, in which "I" - a bundle of terror - seemed trapped. No words for where I began, stopped, or the mud stubble terrace on which I sat. No words to map, no words to define, no words to …
[Review Of] Robert Utley, Battlefield And Classroom: An Autobiography Of Richard Henry Pratt, Sarah R. Shillinger
[Review Of] Robert Utley, Battlefield And Classroom: An Autobiography Of Richard Henry Pratt, Sarah R. Shillinger
Ethnic Studies Review
Battlefield and classroom is an important book that looks at a crucial era in American Indian history. Robert Utley's notes have done an excellent job in making Richard Pratt and his motivations and impact on American Indian tribal life accessible to the average reader while retaining the book's value as a scholarly work. It is a must read for those attempting to understand the importance of the boarding school era. With this book, Utley has successfully reopened the debate that has surrounded Richard Pratt and his motives.
The Suppression Of Diversity, Adrian J. Lottie, Phyllis A. Clemens Noda
The Suppression Of Diversity, Adrian J. Lottie, Phyllis A. Clemens Noda
Ethnic Studies Review
Is it a systematic strategy or a mutation of millennial ferver that drives the escalating challenges to the civil rights of this nation's racial, linguistic, and national origin minorities? Increasing juridical, legislative, and popular assaults on affirmative action policies coupled with the sometimes less heralded emergence of a de facto U.S. language policy are sweeping through the states. These activities draw on a consistent repertoire of approaches from the invocation of the very language and concepts of the civil rights movement to the isolationist "buzz-words" of early twentieth century advocates of "Americanization." In an effort to legitimize their efforts this …
From Cousin Joe To The Comoros: Orthography And The Politics Of Choice In Africa And African America, Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer
From Cousin Joe To The Comoros: Orthography And The Politics Of Choice In Africa And African America, Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer
Ethnic Studies Review
This paper explores issues of orthographic representation in two different projects, in two different locations, and draws some general conclusions about the role of an outsider linguistic anthropologist in working with individuals and their data. One project involved helping Cousin Joe, a blues singer from New Orleans, to edit his autobiography for publication. The other project involved developing a bilingual, bidirectional, Shinzwani-English dictionary for the Comoro Islands. Each project required an awareness of-and sensitivity to-the cultural and political implications of orthographic decisions.
Ethnicity And Unemployment In Finland, Jan Saarela, Fjalar Finnäs
Ethnicity And Unemployment In Finland, Jan Saarela, Fjalar Finnäs
Ethnic Studies Review
This research note provides the general findings from a research project analyzing the reasons behind the lower unemployment rate of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, compared with the Finnish-speaking majority. The main conclusion is that the unemployment gap cannot be attributed to ethnic-group differences in age, education, place of residence, or industrial structure. We believe that two latent factors are highly relevant in this context: language proficiency and social integration, although no data presently available provides information about such issues.
Languages And Postmodern Ethnic Identities, Livia Käthe Wittmann
Languages And Postmodern Ethnic Identities, Livia Käthe Wittmann
Ethnic Studies Review
Specific discourses of our mother tongue (which is not always our mother's tongue) are supposed to decisively constitute our subjectivity. These discourses which are constituting us and are available to us offer possible identities. These identities carry ethno-culturally-specific meanings, which are symbolised within and by spoken, written, and non-verbal language/s. Are languages given the same relevance when giving meaning to postmodern ethnicity, if one understands postmodern ethnicity as a "stance of simultaneously transcending ethnicity as a complete, self-contained system but retaining it as a selectively preferred, evolving, participatory system?" Multilinguality, as it may correspond with aspects of postmodern ethnicity, seems …
[Review Of] America Rodriguez. Making Latino News: Race, Language, Class, M. L. (Tony) Miranda
[Review Of] America Rodriguez. Making Latino News: Race, Language, Class, M. L. (Tony) Miranda
Ethnic Studies Review
This is an excellent book. In the writing of this edition the author has left little to be criticized. The only criticism that could be made is that most of her analysis focuses on Latino media in Los Angeles and Miami and glosses over other U.S. cities with large Latino populations, however she provides valid reasons for this.
Politics Of Language: The California Bilingual Education Initiative, Amara Holstein
Politics Of Language: The California Bilingual Education Initiative, Amara Holstein
Ethnic Studies Review
This essay examines issues of power and multiculturalism in relation to the education of children through debate over monolingual versus bilingual education and how language is a source of power.
Ebonics: The Debate Which Never Happened, Barbara Birch
Ebonics: The Debate Which Never Happened, Barbara Birch
Ethnic Studies Review
The thesis of this paper is that no substantive and impartial debate about the pedagogical value of using Ebonics in the classroom could be held in the United States media because America's prescriptive attitude towards Ebonics does not allow fair and objective consideration of the issue. In presenting this theme I will discuss language ideologies in general and prescription in particular as a common attitude towards language. Prescription with respect to Ebonics usually takes the form of language prejudice. I will conclude with an introduction to one area of language planning, status planning, in which language planners try to improve …
[Review Of] Toyotomi Morimoto. Japanese Americans And Cultural Continuity: Maintaining Language And Heritage, Kumiko Takahara
[Review Of] Toyotomi Morimoto. Japanese Americans And Cultural Continuity: Maintaining Language And Heritage, Kumiko Takahara
Ethnic Studies Review
Japanese language schools in California are chronicled from the early twentieth century until the eve of World War II based mainly on the UCLA Japanese American Research Project Collections, Japanese language newspapers, and literatures by Issei (first generation Japanese immigrant) educators. Chapters two through five which follow a brief overview of the ethnic language schools of various immigrant groups illustrate Japanese immigrants' effort in transmitting their linguistic and cultural heritage to Nisei (American-born) children by supplementing their public school education with a Japanese language school curriculum in a hostile socio-political climate. The thematic coherence of the book is disrupted unfortunately …
[Review Of] Lean'tin L. Bracks. Writings On Black Women Of The Diaspora: History, Language, And Identity. Crosscurrents In African American History, Vol I, Helen Lock
Ethnic Studies Review
In her "Preface" to this study, Lean'tin Bracks describes her purpose as being "to describe a model which may provide for today's black woman a means to take control of her destiny by retrieving her Afrocentric legacy from the obscured past" (xi). This model, which she applies through discussions of The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (1831), Toni Morrison's Beloved (1988), Alice Walker's The Color Purple (1982, and Paule Marshall's Praisesong for the Widow (1984), is tripartite: "historical awareness, attention to linguistic pattern, and sensitivity to stereotypes in the dominant culture" (xi).
[Review Of] Flore Zephir, Haitian Immigrants In Black American: A Sociological And Sociolinguistic Portrait, Aloma M. Mendoza
[Review Of] Flore Zephir, Haitian Immigrants In Black American: A Sociological And Sociolinguistic Portrait, Aloma M. Mendoza
Ethnic Studies Review
Zephir explores Haitians' identification with Americans through the transitional nature of Haitians' ethnicity, roles of languages, the roles of bilingual educational programs, the generational transmission of Haitian ethnicity, and Haitians' and Black Americans' relationships. For historians and sociologists who are unfamiliar with the history of Haiti and Haitians in American, this book is informative and insightful, especially because of its useful maps and tables. Scholars interested in migration and adaptation are provided with helpful demographic information on Haitians' immigration and settlement in America. Very relevant is a critical discussion of Haiti's history and the resulting effects in the behavior and …