Narrative coaching - Towards personal and social meaning-making

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reinhard Stelter
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Meaning

scholarly journals Ethnographic accounts of linguistic issues in the Yugoslav successor states: An introduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roswitha Kersten-Pejanić
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Great Influence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Ethnography ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Linguistic Means

Doing ethnographic linguistics (or linguistic ethnography) in the area of what used to be Yugoslavia is both a challenging and a promising undertaking. Challenging, in that there are so many ideological traps to take into consideration. Promising, in that there are so many complex matters to take a closer look at. These matters, even when exclusively realized in linguistic means, may have great influence on people’s everyday political, cultural, and social meaning-making. Especially so, as indexical relations and the ideological premises and effects of choosing to use one linguistic realization over the other, has played an important role for all speech communities in the region.

scholarly journals “It’s more fashionable to speak it badly”: indexicality and metasemiotic awareness among users of English from the Spanish-speaking world

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonia Morán Panero
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Native English Speakers ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Expanding Circle ◽  
English Language Teachers ◽  
Contextual Variability

Abstract As ELF scholars warn us against treating linguistic productions of “non-native” English speakers as “errors” when they are sociolinguistically driven variation, it is necessary to investigate how speakers in Expanding Circle settings conceptualise, label and experience such uses themselves. This paper reports a qualitative study of the metalinguistic and evaluative practices of university students in Chile, Mexico and Spain. It explores how they ascribe (un)desirable meanings to different ways of speaking English as an additional language (i. e. indexical relations), whether these symbolic associations are seen to influence students’ own linguistic use, and the extent to which such indexical relations are theorised as inherent in language form or as symbolic and negotiable (i. e. metasemiotic awareness). The analysis of more than 53 hours of elicited interview talk reveals a complex web of available social meaning relations and multidirectional accounts of the effects that such meanings have on students’ linguistic and semiotic practices. Although many students display awareness of the contextual variability of social meaning-making processes (Coupland. 2007. Style: Language variation and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), only a minority were able to directly challenge dominant indexical associations and stereotypical trait attributions. The findings underscore the need for English language teachers to understand their students’ semiotic goals and interpretative repertoires, firstly to avoid discriminating against sociolinguistically motivated variation in students’ English use and secondly, to provide them with additional tools to negotiate their position as speakers of English as an additional language. The paper also reflects on the implications that these findings have for how we explain variation and attitudinal ambivalence in ELF research.

scholarly journals The Social Meaning Potential of the Global English Based on Data from Different Communities

2020 ◽  
pp. 183-208
Author(s):  
Loreta Vaicekauskienė
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Global English ◽  
First Order ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
Expanding Circle ◽  
Social Associations

This paper describes the social value of the global English language as identified in the investigations of various communities worldwide and shows how the social meanings of English relate to each other in a broader ideological field universal for today’s locally global world. The notions of indexical field (Eckert 2008) and bivalent indexicality (Cotter, Valentinsson 2018) are applied in the analysis. The aim of the study is to synthesize results obtained by different researchers from different ideological and communicative contexts and to explore the indexical potential of English, including its local varieties and mixed speech styles. The study is based on a qualitative analysis of a corpus of secondary sources, consisting of a total of 74 scholarly publications from the Expanding Circle communities, which were published in English in 1990–2020 (most of them during the second decade of the 21st century).In total, more than 50 social meanings of the global English language have been identified. It is likely that the abundance of social associations with English is due to the strong first-order indexes. Hence, the social meanings were grouped into the following nine indexical categories based on the presumed first-order sociocultural indexicalities: British and American culture; International sphere; Technologies, science and education; Economic and social status; Personal capital; Youth; Popular culture and media; Urban sphere; and Male. Positive social meanings dominate the indexicalities, but for some of them, bivalent indexicality (presence of contradictory positive and negative values) has been recorded. Although there is much overlap between these relative categories, the constellation as a whole is interpreted as a complex of several separate and multivalent indexical fields. It is to be hoped that this study not only illustrates that the notion of indexical field is applicable for analysis of the imagined global community of users of English, but also provides a broader ideological context for further research of the social meaning-making potential of the global English language.

scholarly journals Social meaning in the mirror of political correctness

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-399
Author(s):  
Valeria E. Chernyavskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Correctness ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Embeddedness ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Socially Disadvantaged ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Meanings ◽  
The Usa

The article addresses two central notions, namely social meaning and political correctness. The concept of social meaning is well known in “third wave” sociolinguistics, which connects patterns of language variation with the wider social world, in metapragmatics after Michael Silverstein, language ideology research and discourse analysis. The analysis is in line with these research approaches and also reflects back the pragmatic interpretation of social meanings. It is presumed that the social meaning of a word or an utterance is indexical in its nature and conveys information about the social context of language use. Social meaning of an utterance reflects its social embeddedness. In this respect, the perspective of political correctness reflects the discursive process of social indexicality and social meaning making. The article examines modern cases of political correctness (PC) in the USA (2017–2020) to show the effects of discursive pressure on interpretation frames. PC is discussed as a controversial practice and it is aimed at avoiding expressions or actions that can be perceived to marginalize or insult socially disadvantaged and discriminated people. At the same time, it can overpoliticize issues and act as a struggle against implicit meanings and implicatures.

scholarly journals Hvor begripelige er egentlig lovtekster? En metode for å undersøke leseforståelse

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pia Farstad Eriksen ◽  
Henning Fjørtoft ◽  
Gunhild Åm Vatn
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Text Structure ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Social Strategies ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Legal Advice ◽  
Interview Session ◽  
The Social ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
General Experience

Som en del av det overordna prosjektet Klart lovspråk er det gjort en leseundersøkelse av fire innbyggerretta lover for å finne ut hvordan ulike lesere tolker og bruker lovtekster. Ved å intervjue profesjonelle brukere og innbyggere som berøres av lovenes virkeområde, får man vite hvordan ulike grupper forstår innholdet. Undersøkelsen viser blant annet at mange ord og uttrykk i lovene er vanskelige å forstå, og at setnings- og tekststrukturen oppleves som tung. En slik leseundersøkelse er en metode som kan benyttes på alle typer tekster for å få tilgang til hvordan ulike lesere oppfatter dem. SummaryUnderstanding the language of the law can be challenging. As a part of the national ‘Klart lovspråk’ project, a group of researchers inquired into the participants’ general experience of legal texts, their ability to make sense of excerpts together, and their ability to reflect upon the social meaning-making processes of the interview session. A key finding from the study was that archaic words and expressions, long sentences and poor text structure were obstacles to comprehension. Another finding was that professional users rely primarily on text-based meaning-making strategies, attempting to make meaning by consulting other texts. Most citizens, however, make meaning through social strategies, e.g. by asking friends, relatives or public officials for legal advice. This method of studying reading comprehension can also be applied to all types of texts to ascertain how people perceive them.

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