Ethnicity

Question 1

Ethnicity

Answer 1

Ethnicity is not race but a socially constructed category
- In south America the salient distinction is between indigenous people vs immigrants
For example US: latino, latinx, Hispanic, etc !!

Ethnicity can be enacted

Question 2

Ethnicity is contrastive

Answer 2

Ethnicity is a self and other […] dimension of culture. It is a dimension that deals with ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ and with ‘them’ vs. ‘them’. It is not necessarily a conscious, highlighted or salient dimension (…), but it is close to consciousness and contrastive experiences easily call it into consciousness.

Question 3

Carmen Fought’s “ethnicity”

Answer 3

Carmen Fought’s own identity as “Latina” or Hispanic: Carmen Fought: father Anglo- American, mother from Madrid – but would fit the US legal definition of Hispanic (All persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race)

• really happy that the Hispanic community in US she was working with allowed her to construct her identity as Latina even though she had never thought of herself like this

Question 4

Ethnicity is phenomenological

Answer 4

i. e. it is self-percieved/attributed
- exists only as human aggregates utilize it as a basis for aggregation and of sociocultural organization
- commonly recognized bodily, implemented behaviourally and evaluated emotionally
- has both inner/outer characteristics/consequences
- not a tidy natural science construct, but, rather, a SUBJECTIVE CULTURAL CONSTRUCT that fills and directs the hearts and minds and daily rounds of human beings and aggregative systems.

Question 5

Construction of ethnicity

Answer 5

• Everyone has an ethnicity. Describing someone as “ethnic” just means their identity is ‘other’ from the norm
• Exists in perceptions of contrast (us vs. them)
• culturally determined
• Complex interplay of factors: biological, sociocultural, linguistic, behavioural, emotional
• Increasingly complex with (post-)modernization: mass mobilization and global telecommunications

Question 6

Ethnic group

Answer 6

‘individuals who perceive themselves to belong to the same ethnic category’ (Giles, 1979)

Question 7

Ethnicity and language

Answer 7

• symbolised by language (+other things)
• variable according to salience/perspective/situation
• often a perceived moral basis for the link between language and ethnicity, e.g. Irish is ‘the bearer of an outlook on life that is deeply Christian’
• socially, historically and contextually CONSTRUCTED. It is very powerful and can be the basis for social action

Ethnicity is the ‘identificational dimension of culture’ (Fishman 1997

Question 8

Acts of identity

Answer 8

A form of linguistic behaviour “in which people reveal both their personal identity and their search for social roles through the linguistic choice they make.” (Romaine, 1988)

• bilinguals exploit code-switching as a way of making an act of identity

Question 9

Stigma

Answer 9

Sometimes being viewed as belonging to a particular ethnicity can carry stigma (– this is dependent on context):

1. Woman of Latin American and Japanese descent pretended not to know Spanish to avoid being classified as Latina (Bucholtz 1995)
2. Young Mexican-American informant interviewed by Fought asked her to keep this info. secret from his peers as his “whiteness” could be shameful (Fought 2006:15)

Question 10

African American (Vernacular) English AAE/AAVE

Answer 10

Distinctive phonology, grammar, vocabulary and interactional patterns (see Morgan, 2002, p. 77) (cause misunderstanding in the school context)
- AAVE varies regionally but has core shared features

Question 11

Inter-ethnic AAVE

Answer 11

Used by a several ethnic groups, (e.g. African Americans, Latinos, Whites) & influential in varieties used by other ethnic groups in the US, e.g. Lumbee Indians adoption of habitual be but extended to non-habitual contexts (Wolfram & Dannenberg, 1999) & slang use by Asian American teens (Reyes, 2005)
Ð e.g. She be studying (She is always studying)

Question 12

AAVE influences

Answer 12

• AAE has also influenced standard English in parts of US, e.g. in copula deletion (eg “she gone”) & non-rhoticity, e.g. car [kar] vs [ka:]
• Centre of a debate about education, e.g. ‘Ann Arbor Black English Case’ in 1979

Hip Hop
• Very powerful transglobal youth culture linked to musical style
• Commonalities in dress, dance, behaviour and language
• Evident in ‘rebellion spelling’ used on Internet, (da ‘the’; dat ‘that’) (Shaw, 2008; Sebba, 2003)

Question 13

Borrowing or crossing ethnicity: YORKVILLE CROSSING: Mike

Answer 13

mike
¥ Felt aligned to the culture of hip hop – a ‘commodified life-style choice’ to position himself as tough and a survivor.
¥ Mike did not attempt construction of AA identity or integration into AA peer group, he was “borrowing” elements of the AA experience through hip hop culture while maintaining an identity “in opposition to the black community” (Fought 2002: 455-456)
¥ Shows the use of an ethnically-defined variety to construct an identity with alignments to aspects of culture and history (e.g. survival, music)

Question 14

Language planning

Answer 14

Forming and implementing language policies which influence or prescribe the linguistic codes which are to be used and for what purposes (Wiley, 1996)
• For example which linguistic codes used in education, in the courts

Question 15

Status planning

Answer 15

involves determining the status of a language within a nation, e.g. official language/s, language/s of education
• The status of a language is directly related to the status, access and power of its speakers, which relates to ethnic groupings.
• In certain places a large group of people speak a language but it is not official language of the country

Linguistic diversity a threat to nation building – idea behind this. When nations were created people used to try stamp out regional dialects

Question 16

Mother tongues in Singapore

Answer 16

Four official languages:

1. Malay
2. Chinese (Mandarin)
3. Tamil (considered mother tongues)
4. English (‘neutral’ L2 - not considered mother tongue).

Bilingual education - ‘mother tongue’ + English

• Mother tongue is assigned according to father’s ethnicity, e.g. if father is ethnically Chinese, your mother tongue is Mandarin

The ‘proscriptive definition of bilingualism’ made it ‘more a policy about homogenization than heterogeneity, and more about linguistic purism than diversity’
e.g. only 0.1% of Chinese community spoke Mandarin but Mandarin prescribed for ethnic Chinese in bilingualism policy

Question 17

Speak Mandarin Campaign 1979

Answer 17

Three main arguments:

1. Educational – difficult for children to learn 2 languages at school if they speak dialect at home
2. Cultural – The dominance of English and the values associated with it threaten deculturalization and therefore Chinese Singaporeans need to be re-ethnicized through Mandarin to form a single Chinese community
3. Communicative – Chinese Singaporeans need a neutral lingua franca

Effects:

1. Since 1987 all schools have been English medium with ‘mother tongue’ taught as second languages
2. Shift away from Chinese dialects
3. Hua Yu Cool! (2004) – a campaign to encourage young people to use more Mandarin (and less English)
4. Speak good English movement

Question 18

Loss of language; loss of ethnic identity

Answer 18

• Of the 145 indigenous languages still spoken in Australia, 110 are critically endangered
• Only a handful still passed on to younger generations
• Australia - $9.3 million for indigenous languages - ‘Strengthening pride in identity and culture’