Most recent papers:

• The Failing Body: Narratives of Breastfeeding Troubles and Shame.
  Linnea Hanell.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 11, 2017
  This article explores the relationship between discourse and experiences of ill health. Drawing on narratives, it shows how a mother who is experiencing difficulties with breastfeeding embodies sentiments of shame over what she perceives as a failure to perform motherhood. The notions of interdiscursivity and the historical body are employed to ground the individual's experience in discursive practices, and to propose that shame is a sentiment that arises in deviations from the biopolitical ideologies that are produced and reproduced through those practices. Expressing shame becomes a resource for assuming responsibility for failed motherhood; and, at the same time, it appears to obstruct recovery to smoothly functioning breastfeeding. Den här artikeln utforskar förhållandet mellan diskurs och erfarenheter av ohälsa. Med hjälp av narrativa data visar artikeln hur en mor som har problem med amningen förkroppsligar skamkänslor över vad hon uppfattar som ett misslyckande att performera moderskap. Begreppen interdiskursivitet och historisk kropp används för att förstå hur individens erfarenheter relaterar till diskursiva praktiker, samt för att föra fram tesen att skam är en känsla som uppstår i disharmoni med biopolitiska ideologier som konstrueras i dessa praktiker. Att uttrycka skam blir en resurs för att ta på sig ansvaret för det misslyckade moderskapet, samtidigt som det förefaller förhindra återgången till en fungerande amning.

  August 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12158   open full text
• Inventing Postcolonial Elites: Race, Language, Mix, Excess.
  Angela Reyes.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 11, 2017
  This article illustrates how semiotic processes that form and circulate ideologies about race, language, and the elite are central to questions of coloniality. Considering the historical and contemporary context of the Philippines, I examine how notions of linguistic and racial “mix” and “excess” get linked to elite social figures and how one elite figure in particular—the “conyo elite”—is reportedly heard and seen by a private school–educated listening subject that is constituted, in contrast, as “middle‐class elite.” I consider how iconizations of mixedness and excessiveness invent distinctions among Philippine elite types, producing an “elite bifurcation” that recursively constitutes colonial hierarchies: positioning conyo elites as acting as colonists whose supposedly mixed and excessive qualities are regarded as immoral, overly modern, and a national betrayal.

  August 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12156   open full text
• Shadow Subjects: A Category of Analysis for Empathic Stancetaking.
  Maisa C. Taha.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 11, 2017
  This article analyzes conversational and material data collected during 12 months of fieldwork at a secondary school in southeast Spain. I focus on the cultivation of stance positions—particularly around gender equality—involving “shadow subjects”: imagined discursive figures that both prompt and constrain empathy for others whose rights have been violated. Within this multicultural context, Moroccan immigrant youth get positioned as defenders of outdated patriarchal mores. I argue that the semiotic burdening and elaboration of stance on behalf of shadow subjects makes this possible and points to inherent biases in operationalizing “universal” egalitarian values among ideologically and experientially diverse communities.

  August 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12157   open full text
• The Politics of Commiseration: On the Communicative Labors of “Co‐Mothering” in El Alto.
  Stephen Kingsley Scott.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 11, 2017
  In El Alto, Bolivia, the communicative and affective capacities of local neighborhood women are often valorized as strategic sites for circulating governmental discourses across ethnolinguistic boundaries. Nowhere is this more evident than in the domain of public health. As this article explores, municipal health projects in El Alto increasingly cast neighborhood women in para‐governmental roles, hoping to tap into the networks of community‐based belonging they create and maintain through their everyday communicative labors. By focusing on the work performed by an often‐overlooked genre of gendered discourse—comadreando, or “co‐mothering” speech—this article calls attention to the concrete semiotic forms that mediate this kind of local governmentality. As I argue, everyday events of comadreando enact rituals of commiseration that build mutual trust and sympathy (confianza) between women and the households they head. But when figured in public health projects, they become vehicles of a broader politics of commiseration, one that aims to forge reliable channels of trust, goodwill, and sympathetic understanding between neighborhood actors and the state. However, as I also argue, the mobilization of such forms can open up such governmental strategies to unanticipated reappropriations, as the affective and communicative labors of women are diverted to more ambiguous ends.

  August 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12151   open full text
• The Kitchen, the Cat, and the Table: Domestic Affairs in Minority‐Language Politics.
  Kathryn E. Graber.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 11, 2017
  This article examines ideological constructions of the domestic sphere in metalinguistic commentary about loss in Buryat, a contracting language of Siberia whose speakers are shifting to Russian. Although calling Buryat “just a kitchen language” suggests that the kitchen is linguistically devalued, a popular joke told among bilingual speakers and its use‐in‐context show that kitchens can also be invoked to positively demarcate an inner sphere of comfortable, “offstage” interaction, to authenticate otherwise derided ways of speaking, and to build solidarity. The kitchen emerges as a complex discursive resource for commenting on—and for re‐creating—pragmatic rules for the use of different codes and registers. Этa cтaтья paccмaтpивaeт идeoлoгичecкиe кoнcтpyкции дoмaшнeй cpeды в мeтaлингвиcтичecкиx кoммeнтapияx o пoтepe нa бypятcкoм языкe, cyжaющийcя язык Cибиpи, чьи нocитeли пepexoдят к pyccкoмy языкy. Xoтя нaзвaниe бypятcкoгo языкa “пpocтo кyxoнный язык” пpeдлaгaeт, чтo кyxня лингвиcтичecки oбecцeнeнa, пoпyляpнaя шyткa, paccкaзaннaя cpeди двyязычныx нocитeлeй, вмecтe c ee иcпoльзoвaниeм в кoнтeкcтe пoкaзывaeт, чтo кyxни тaкжe мoгyт быть вызвaны пoзитивнo paзгpaничивaть внyтpeнний миp кoмфopтнoгo “зaкyлиcнoгo” oбщeния, ycтaнaвливaть пoдлиннocть иным cпocoбoм ocмeянныx пyтeй oбщeния и cтpoить cплoчeннocть. Taким oбpaзoм, кyxня выcтyпaeт кaк кoмлeкcный диcкypcный pecypc для кoммeнтиpoвaния, тaкжe для вoccoздaния пpaгмaтичecкиx пpaвил для иcпoльзoвaния paзныx кoд и peгиcтpoв. Tyc үгүүлэлдэ бypяaд xэлэнэй үгы бoлoжo бaйhaн тyxaй xөөpэлдэxэдэ гapaдaг гэp зyypын үзэл hypтaл тyxaй бэшэгдэнэ. Һүүлэй үeдэ бypяaд xэлэ мэдэдэг, xэлэдэг зoнoй тoo үcөөpжэ, мүxэжэ бaйhaн xэлэнэй тooдo opohoниинь. Бypяaд xэлыe oлoн xүн “кyxнийн xэлэн” гэжэ дopoмжoлoн haгaд нэpлэдэг бoлoбoшьe, гaл тoгooн гээшэмнaй бahaл aлибaa xүнэй зүpxэ cэдьxэлдэ түpэжэ өөдөө бoлohoн гэpтэй xoлбooтoй нэгэл oльhoтoй дyлaaxaн мэдэpэл түpүүлдэг, мүн дүтын зoн xoopoндoo ямapшьe haaдгүйгөөp xapилcaxa opшoндo бэe бэeтэeэ yлaм дoтoнo, cэдьxэлээpээ дүтэ бoлoxo гэhэн мэдэpмжэ үгэдэг юм. Энэ yдxaapaa гaл тoгooн бoлбoл бэeэ яaжa aбaжa ябaxa, xүнтэй яaжa xөөpэлдэxэб гэhэнhээ эxилээд xapилcaaнaй элдэб түxэл янзa зoxёoн бaйгyyлxa үүpгэтэй, oлoн тaлahaaнь шyдaлxaap opёo үзэгдэл бoлoнo.

  August 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12154   open full text
• Grading Qualities and (Un)settling Equivalences: Undocumented Migration, Commensuration, and Intrusive Phonosonics in the Indonesia‐Malaysia Borderlands.
  Andrew M. Carruthers.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 11, 2017
  Undocumented migrants’ bodies are typically assumed to exhibit signs of their so‐called “illegal” status. In the absence of phenotypic, linguistic, or religious diacritics of categorical outsidership, however, how are migrants made legible and policed? How might they navigate state surveillance by exploiting their perceived equivalences with members of a host community? Indonesians were long encouraged to informally emigrate to neighboring Malaysia because they readily assimilated as Malay‐speaking Muslim members of the greater “Malay race.” More recently, however, they have figured in countervailing narratives as a parasitic and frustratingly elusive presence in need of expulsion. This article outlines how Indonesian migrants and Malaysian citizens are responding to these developments by jointly reevaluating their qualitative equivalences. First, it sketches how “diasporic infrastructures” linking Indonesia and Malaysia have enabled the conditions of possibility for the production of equivalences between migrants and hosts. Second, it sketches a semiotics of “grading” (a process whereby agents discern and evaluate qualitative intensities), examining how equivalences between these commensurate collectivities are settled, indicated, and framed along gradations of more‐or‐less‐ness. Third, it assesses how sonically graded differences in embodied qualities of talk can unsettle equivalences between migrants and citizens, potentially putting migrants at risk.

  August 11, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12153   open full text
• Documenting an Endangered Language: The Inclusive First‐Person Plural Pronoun Kākou as a Resource for Claiming Ownership in Hawaiian.
  Scott Saft.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 07, 2017
  This study employs tape‐recorded data from interviews with elder speakers of Hawaiian conducted in the year 1970 to describe how a specific feature of the Hawaiian language, the first‐person inclusive plural pronoun kākou, may be used in discourse as a resource for making claims of ownership on behalf of Hawaiians. To do so, the analysis first invokes Hanks's (2005) notions of deixis and deictic field to show how kākou can create a sense of community among speakers of Hawaiian. Insights from membership category analysis (Sacks 1992; Sacks and Schegloff 1979; Schegloff 2007) are then drawn on to demonstrate how kākou can be interpreted in interaction as a reference to the category of “Native Hawaiian” and how that category can be used to construe specific natural resources, activities, and forms of language as part of a Hawaiian identity. Discussion of the analysis centers on the status of Hawaiian as an endangered language in the midst of a revitalization movement where language and culture have been points of contestation. Usage of kākou to claim ownership is seen as a resource that can allow speakers of Hawaiian to work through the language itself to negotiate what it means to be “Native Hawaiian.”

  May 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12144   open full text
• Castilian Takes Backstage in the Balearic Islands: The Activation of Catalan Standardization Recursions in Facebook.
  Lucas Duane.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 07, 2017
  This article explores the ideological consequences of recent language policy changes in the Balearic Islands, where Catalan and Castilian are the official languages. It will approach the intersection between minoritized language contexts and ideologies of standardization, focusing on negotiations of linguistic authority and linguistic differentiation at the individual level. In the frame of intense language ideological debates in the archipelago, I examine the interactions between members of two large Facebook communities to show how the ideological frame shifts toward one in which the relationship between Balearic varieties and the Catalan standard becomes central, and in which Castilian is only implicitly addressed.

  May 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12141   open full text
• Gaza at the Margins? Legibility and Indeterminacy in the Israel‐Palestine Conflict.
  William M. Cotter.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 07, 2017
  Despite prominent attention to the nature of the state in the social sciences, the place of language in creating and maintaining the state remains an emerging area of research. The analysis that follows investigates indeterminacy and illegibility in messages disseminated by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip. This analysis highlights the ways in which linguistic indeterminacy is used as a tool by the state in controlling populations at its margins, while investigating the role of language in reproducing the state through the circulation of texts.

  May 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12147   open full text
• Native California Languages as Semiotic Resources in the Performance of Identity.
  Jocelyn Ahlers.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 07, 2017
  Research on language endangerment and revitalization suggests that in many communities, even token uses of endangered heritage languages serve important semiotic functions. This paper proposes that semiotic processes allowing language, and particular uses of language, to serve as indices of identity rely on intertextual relationships to past linguistic usages and to sociocultural knowledge surrounding those past uses. A focus on the use of endangered Native California languages shows how situations of language endangerment have an effect on intertextual processes underlying semiotic uses of language in identity performance. Sometimes, the shared history tying communities whose heritage languages are endangered together serves as an additional resource in developing intertextual relationships which can then be used when heritage languages are deployed semiotically in identity performance. Alternatively, there are times when the disruption of knowledge transmission creates gaps in intertextual relations that can be difficult to bridge.

  May 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12142   open full text
• Democracy Is a Blessing: Phatic Ritual and the Public Sphere in Northeast Brazil.
  Aaron Ansell.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 07, 2017
  This paper analyzes the political importance of a rural Brazilian blessing ritual performed by transgenerational kin in order to question the assumption that a democratic public sphere presupposes the exclusion of familial obligations from civil talk and impartial governance. By analyzing several folk models of blessing behavior that inhabitants of the rural northeastern backlands (sertão) use to interpret blessings, I argue that hierarchical genres of family communication can serve as models for civility and impartiality among non‐kin. This analysis illuminates the discursive processes by which sertanejos dismantle illiberal features of their political culture, including clientelist forms of resource distribution.

  May 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12148   open full text
• How do you speak Taíno? Indigenous Activism and Linguistic Practices in Puerto Rico.
  Sherina Feliciano‐Santos.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 07, 2017
  This paper analyzes emergent speech practices among Taíno activists in Puerto Rico. While historical narratives of the Caribbean and conventional knowledge have largely presumed that the Taíno, an indigenous population of the Caribbean, have been extinct, several persons in Puerto Rico are actively identifying with and mobilizing around this ethnic category. One of the Taíno‐identified challenges in such mobilization is that the Taíno language is no longer spoken and there is very little documentation from which to reconstruct it. Within this context, I consider the myriad ways in which Taíno activists understand what constitutes speaking Taíno and how this becomes emblematic of Taínoness. Such practices range from a reliance on speaking in what is understood by many Taíno as a Taíno style of Spanish to some Taíno organizations’ attempts at reconstruction through their studies of still spoken Arawakan languages.

  May 07, 2017   doi: 10.1111/jola.12139   open full text
• The National Anthem in Warao: Semiotic Ground and Performative Affordances of Indigenous Language Texts in Venezuela.
  Juan Luis Rodriguez.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. December 20, 2016
  This paper analyzes how the translated text of the Venezuelan national anthem from Spanish to Warao has been put to new uses in Venezuela. It focuses on publicly available videos and written versions of the lyrics to understand how indigenous leaders and nonindigenous Spanish speakers use the anthem for new purposes. By analyzing the anthem as a text‐artifact, I argue that translation produced a change on the semiotic ground of interpretation for the anthem that also resulted in a break between types and tokens of the oral and written versions of the text. This break gave the anthem new performative affordances making possible new and sometimes contradictory ways of using it. Este artículo analiza como el texto traducido del español al warao del himno nacional de Venezuela ha sido usado en nuevas formas. Se enfoca en videos públicos y las versiones escritas de la letra del himno para comprender como lideres indígenas y hablantes de español no‐indígenas usan el himno con propósitos nuevos. Analizando el himno como un artefacto textual yo argumento que la traducción produjo un cambio en el basamento de interpretación semiótica del himno, que resulto también en la quiebra de la relación entre tipos generales y particulares de las versiones orales y escritas del texto. Esta quiebra dio al himno nuevas posibilidades performativas e hizo posible formas contradictorias de usarlo.

  December 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12129   open full text
• Loaded Speech: Between Voices in Indigenous Public Speaking Events.
  Stephen K. H. Peters.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. December 20, 2016
  This paper explores public podium addresses involving identified Indigenous speakers within the context of eco‐Indigenous alliances. In Montreal, the field site, Indigenous podium talk takes place with impressive frequency. These kinds of reflexive, discursive productions are part of a larger trend in staging ethnically reflexive voices in public discourse. Indigenous podium talks serve as important sites for Indigenous communities to engage and seek beneficial relationships from various Canadian publics. Yet, insofar as speakers speak from an identified cultural identity, perennial quandaries around the presentation of the “other” persist. In this article, I examine Indigenous podium talk as a discourse genre through which Indigenous identities and social issues are made recognizable and brought to the attention of non‐Indigenous publics. Through an in‐depth analysis of a single speaking event, focusing on reported speech and pronomial deixis, the interactional demands and possibilities of podium presentations are investigated and related to both the genre and the tar sands dispute that has brought the participants together. Analysis shows the fraught footings available and the sheer delicacy through which speaker and collective voices are presented and aligned to audience and issue, as speakers speak both as and for Indigenous people within the terms of podium talk. Cet article s'intéresse aux discours pléniers publics dans lesquels des conférenciers autochtones dans le cadre d'alliances éco‐autochtones s'adressent à un public non‐autochtones. Dans la ville de Montréal, terrain où les données de recherches ont été recueillies, il y a une forte fréquence de ces échanges entre autochtones et non‐autochtones. Ces échanges font partie intégrante d'une mise en scène réflexive des voix ethniques dans l'espace public. Ces discours plénières autochtones constituent des sites essentiels permettant aux communautés autochtones d'entrer en contact et de créer des relations positives avec des auditoires canadiens divers. Or, dans la mesure où le conférencier s'adresse à l'auditoire en incarnant une culture bien définie, les dilemmes perpétuels concernant la présentation de « l'autre » persistent. Dans cet article, j'analyse le discours plénier autochtone comme genre de discours réflexif par lequel les identités et les problématiques sociales autochtones sont exprimées et portées à l'attention de publics non‐autochtones. A travers une analyse approfondie d'un seul événement ciblant en particulier la parole rapportée et le deixis pronominal, j'explore les exigences interactionnelles et les possibilités offertes par des discussions publiques. Celles‐ci sont mises en relation avec le genre discursif ainsi qu'avec les différends environnementaux ayant réuni les participants. L'analyse révèle combien ce discours est chargé de tensions identitaires posées par les positionnements disponibles à la conférencière aussi bien que l'extrême sensibilité dont elle représente sa voix individuelle et une voix collective, tout en les alignant avec le public et la problématique du discours.

  December 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12130   open full text
• Phatic Violence? Gambling and the Arts of Distraction in Laos.
  Charles H. P. Zuckerman.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. December 20, 2016
  “Tempted,” as he put it, by the “demon of terminological invention,” Malinowski first coined the term “phatic” as one half of a two‐word compound, “phatic communion.” Since Malinowski, “phatic” has often been used to imply a semiotic equation where mere communicative contact automatically produces positive social relations among those communicating. This article explores a genre of “trash talk” on the pétanque gambling courts of Luang Prabang, Laos to challenge this assumption and clarify multiple senses of “phaticity.” With close attention to talk used not for positive communion but for distraction, I argue that communicative contact as a technical phenomenon must be separated from communicative contact as a sign of other kinds of meaning.

  December 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12137   open full text
• Rap as Korean Rhyme: Local Enregisterment of the Foreign.
  Jonghyun Park.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. December 20, 2016
  This article investigates how a “foreign” register of rap is emerging among South Korean rappers through debates and experiments. It focuses on a dispute about the essentiality and translatability of rhyming, a novel verbal‐artistic device, and traces how rhyme has become understood as a defining feature of the register of Korean rap. Korean rappers have grappled with metapragmatic definitions of the semiotic linkage between rhyme and rap and the realization of rhyme at a pragmatic level, performatively bringing into being new forms of rhyming, based on their knowledge of local registers and of the linguistic differences between Korean and English. This ongoing pragmatic/metapragmatic practice contributes to the register‐formation of Korean rap as a dynamic process that remains open to the creation of new strategies for realizing “Korean rhyme” in its genre‐history. 본 논문은 한국의 래퍼들이 논의와 실험을 통해 랩이라는 “외래의” 레지스터를 어떻게 형성하여 왔는지에 대한 연구이다. 특히 랩에서 라임이라는 낯선 언어예술 기법의 필수성 및 번역가능성을 두고 이루어진 논쟁에 초점을 두면서, 한국어 랩이라는 레지스터의 핵심 특성 중 하나로 라임이 이해되어가는 과정을 살핀다. 한국어 랩 화자들은 지역의 레지스터들 그리고 한국어‐영어 사이의 언어(학)적 차이에 관한 지식을 바탕으로, 라임과 랩의 기호적 연관에 대한 메타‐화용적 정의, 그리고 화용적 층위에서의 라임의 실현을 두고 씨름해 왔으며, 이러한 화두들을 연행적으로 라임의 새로운 형태에 반영하여 왔다. 지속되는 화용적/메타‐화용적 실천들은 (장르의 역사 안에서 “한국어 라임”을 실현하려는 여러 새 전략들에 열린) 하나의 역동적 과정으로서 한국어 랩 레지스터가 구축되는 데 기여하고 있다.

  December 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12135   open full text
• “Tapwaroro is true”: Indigenous Voice and the Heteroglossia of Methodist Missionary Translation in British New Guinea.
  Ryan Schram.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. December 20, 2016
  In the semiotic ideology of many Christian discursive practices, it is assumed that any language can convey the same message of salvation, and any person is capable of true belief, no matter how it is expressed. Evangelism, especially by Western missions, thus centers on translating Christian texts into vernacular languages. This article considers these understandings and practices by examining the written discourse of Australian Methodist missionaries in the early colonial period in New Guinea. These missionaries desired an encounter with heathens in an unevangelized field, but they operated in a colonial terrain defined by the politics of past encounters between Australians and Melanesians. In their writings, missionary authors parody the voices of indigenous speakers and present a world in which missionary and native cannot arrive at a shared understanding of religion. Their parody usually involves quoting one term, taparoro, as a word used by natives for the mission and its activities. Having presented a world defined by a persistent gap in understanding, missionaries appropriate this particular sign of their own otherness to others as a basis for a new mission register into which they can translate Christian ideas. In so doing, they do not simply impose one dominant code as a metalinguistic standard, but fashion a new discourse out of available materials in a complex field of interlingualism.

  December 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12138   open full text
• Ain't Dere No More: New Orleans Language and Local Nostalgia in Vic & Nat'ly Comics.
  Katie Carmichael, Nathalie Dajko.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. December 20, 2016
  As “local,” “authentic,” “working class,” “white,” “urban,” and “salt of the earth” characters, Vic and Nat'ly, the protagonists of Bunny Matthews's classic comic strip, embody all of the stereotypes of a New Orleans–based “Yat” identity. In this paper, we examine written representations of Yat English in Vic & Nat'ly strips, analyzing these results in comparison with current linguistic data from actual New Orleans English speakers and contextualizing our interpretation in terms of social and historical changes within post‐Katrina New Orleans. We find that many of the linguistic features exaggerated in the comic (e.g., oil as “erl”) have been stigmatized almost to the point of nonexistence in the speech of working‐class whites today, such that the characters Vic and Nat'ly do not accurately represent any current group of native New Orleanians, despite being held up as quintessential New Orleanians imbued with local authenticity. While Vic & Nat'ly comics celebrate a New Orleans identity that is increasingly dear to Yat and non‐Yat residents alike, we argue that the representation is based more in nostalgia than faithful rendering of the current sociolinguistic landscape, and that commodification based on this nostalgia in some ways erases the realities of modern New Orleans, in particular the role that black New Orleanians play in representations of authenticity.

  December 20, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12128   open full text
• “One does not say Moien, one has to say Bonjour”: Expressing Language Ideologies through Shifting Stances in Spontaneous Workplace Interactions in Luxembourg.
  Anne Franziskus.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 24, 2016
  Drawing on both a language ideological framework and the concept of stancetaking (Jaffe 2009), this article analyzes how different language ideologies are constructed, shared, contested and reproduced in spontaneous interactions in multilingual Luxembourg. The analysis focuses on two conversations recorded in two multilingual workplaces in Luxembourg. In the first one, staff members from an IT company discuss the status of written Luxembourgish. In the second, several employees from a supermarket debate the appropriateness of different greeting routines in the local context. In both of these interactions, participants take up different stances towards Luxembourgish as a legitimate code and towards monolingual ideologies. The findings show that the different stance‐taking moves of the participants reflect their positions as either ‘insiders’ or ‘outsiders’ to this ideologically charged setting and are reminiscent of some broader societal stances in relation to language. The findings highlight three positions in particular: There is the long‐term resident who alternately takes an expert stance towards the local language and distancing himself from it to create solidarity with his work colleagues. Then there is the cross‐border worker, a relative newcomer, who is still in the process of ‘making his way’ into the sociolinguistic context by adopting greeting routines. And finally, there is the young Luxembourger whose stances are reminiscent both of the need for the local population to adjust to an increased number of newcomers and their sometimes conflicting ideological stances and of the generational shift in the use of Luxembourgish. En s'appuyant sur le cadre théorique des idéologies linguistiques et sur le concept de stance (Jaffe 2009), cette contribution analyse la manière dont différentes idéologies linguistiques sont construites, véhiculées, contestées et reproduites dans des interactions spontanées entre des employés de deux lieux de travail au Luxembourg. L'analyse se focalise sur deux interactions en particulier. Dans la première, les employés d'une entreprise informatique débattent si le luxembourgeois est une langue écrite ou non. Dans la deuxième conversation, plusieurs collègues de travail dans un supermarché échangent leurs points de vue à propos des routines de salutation appropriées au Luxembourg. Dans les deux interactions, les participants adoptent des positions divergentes par rapport à la langue luxembourgeoise. L'analyse suggère que leurs positionnements interactionnels différents reflètent leurs statuts de novice ou d'initié. En deuxième lieu, ils rappellent des positionnements sociaux plus larges vis‐à‐vis l'usage des langues au Luxembourg. Trois positions émergent de l'analyse. La première est celle du migrant de longue date qui alterne entre un positionnement d'expert de la langue locale et un distanciation vis‐a‐vis de cette langue qui montre sa solidarité avec ses collègues francophones. Deuxièmement, celle de l'ouvrier « frontalier » récent, qui est en train de négocier sa place au sein du contexte local en adoptant par exemple l'usage des routines de salutation en luxembourgeois. Et finalement, celle d'une jeune Luxembourgeoise dont les positionnements interactionnels évoquent un besoin de la part de la population locale de s'adapter au nombre croissant de nouveaux arrivants et leurs positions idéologiques (contradictoires) et mettent en relief des mutations idéologiques générationnels.

  August 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12124   open full text
• On the Iconization of Simplified Chinese.
  Andrew D. Wong.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 24, 2016
  Although iconization is widely recognized as a crucial process through which linguistic differences are accorded social significance, we know little about how iconic linkages travel across time and space. This article highlights the processual nature of iconization and reveals recontextualization as an important mechanism for the transformation of indexical signs into icons. Focusing on a well‐known poem that purportedly encapsulates the defects of the simplified Chinese script used in mainland China, this study shows how its recontextualization in Hong Kong's print and social media between 2000 and 2015 helped construct simplified Chinese as defective and map its “defects” onto mainlanders. 圖符化雖被廣泛認為是語言差異被賦予社會涵義的關鍵過程,但我們目前對於圖符連結如何穿越時間和空間所知甚少。本文著重圖符化的過程性,並視重新脈絡化為將指示性符號轉化為圖符的重要機制。以一首據稱概括中國簡體字之缺陷而著名的詩,本文展現2000至2015年間香港的報章及社會媒體如何藉由重新脈絡化,將簡體字建構為有缺陷的,進而將簡體字的「缺陷」影射到來自內地的中國人。 图符化虽被广泛认为是语言差异被赋予社会涵义的关键过程,但我们目前对于图符连结如何穿越时间和空间所知甚少。本文着重图符化的过程性,并视重新脉络化为将指示性符号转化为图符的重要机制。以一首据称概括中国简体字之缺陷而着名的诗,本文展现2000至2015年间香港的报章及社会媒体如何藉由重新脉络化,将简体字建构为有缺陷的,进而将简体字的「缺陷」影射到来自内地的中国人。

  August 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12122   open full text
• Standardization, Racialization, Languagelessness: Raciolinguistic Ideologies across Communicative Contexts.
  Jonathan Daniel Rosa.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 24, 2016
  This article examines the racialized relationship between ideologies of language standardization and what I term “languagelessness.” Whereas ideologies of language standardization stigmatize particular linguistic practices understood to deviate from prescriptive norms, ideologies of languagelessness call into question linguistic competence–and, by extension, legitimate personhood–altogether. Throughout the article I show how these ideologies interact with one another, and how assessments of particular individuals' language use often invoke broader ideas about the (in)competence and (il)legitimacy of entire racialized groups. I focus specifically on dimensions of the racialized relationship between ideologies of language standardization and languagelessness in contemporary framings of U.S. Latinas/os and their linguistic practices. I draw on a range of evidence, including ethnographic data collected within a predominantly Latina/o U.S. high school, institutional policies, and scholarly conceptions of language. When analyzed collectively, these sources highlight the racialized ways that ideologies of language standardization and languagelessness become linked in theory, policy, and everyday interactions. In my examination of these data through the lens of racialization, I seek to theorize how ideologies of language standardization and languagelessness contribute to the enactment of forms of societal inclusion and exclusion in relation to different sociopolitical contexts, ethnoracial categories, and linguistic practices. Este artículo examina la relación racializada entre las ideologías de estandarización lingüística y lo que llamo “languagelessness.” Mientras que las ideologías de estandarización lingüística estigmatizan prácticas lingüísticas específicas consideradas como ajenas a normas preceptivas, las ideologías de languagelessness ponen en duda la competencia lingüística – y por extensión, la persona legítima – por completo. A lo largo del artículo, se muestra cómo estas ideologías interactúan entre sí, y cómo las evaluaciones de la práctica lingüística de ciertas personas proyectan a menudo ideas más generales sobre la (in)competencia y la (i)legitimad de grupos racializados. El artículo se focaliza en ciertas dimensiones de la relación racializada entre las ideologías de estandarización lingüística y de languagelessness en los marcos contemporáneos de l@s Latin@s y sus prácticas lingüísticas. Para esto, este trabajo se basa en un corpus que incluye datos etnográficos recogidos en un instituto estadounidense predominantemente Latin@, programas institucionales, y teorías académicas del lenguaje. Al analizarlos conjuntamente, estos datos resaltan la manera racializada en que las ideologías de estandarización lingüística y de languagelessness se relacionan con los ámbitos de la teoría, la política, y las interacciones diarias. Al examinar estos ejemplos mediante el concepto de la racialización, se pretende teorizar cómo las ideologías de estandarización lingüística y de languagelessness contribuyen a la reproducción de formas de inclusión y exclusión social en relación con distintos contextos sociopolíticos, categorías etnoraciales, y prácticas lingüísticas.

  August 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12116   open full text
• Code‐Mixing among Sakha–Russian Bilinguals in Yakutsk: A Spectrum of Features and Shifting Indexical Fields.
  Jenanne K. Ferguson.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 24, 2016
  In this article, I examine language mixing among Sakha–Russian bilinguals in Yakutsk, the largest city in the Republic of Sakha–Yakutia in the far northeastern region of the Russian Federation. Since the end of the Soviet era, the increasing movement of Sakha‐speakers from rural areas to the city has been shaping the language practices of bilingual speakers there, creating opportunities for Sakha usage outside of the home in settings formerly dominated by Russian. Through a discussion of language contact between Sakha and Russian, and of the borrowing or copying process through which Russian words enter into the Sakha lexicon, I consider the ways in which purist language ideologies and indexical meanings shape the spectrum of feature choices that bilinguals navigate when speaking Sakha. I also describe a syncretic speech style that is beginning to undergo enregisterment (Agha 2003) in the urban space of Yakutsk, showing how certain features that display varying degrees of bivalency play a particularly important role in this process.

  August 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12123   open full text
• Coming in First: Sound and Embodiment in Spelling Bees.
  Shalini Shankar.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. August 24, 2016
  The increasingly intense level of competition of the National Spelling Bee in recent years suggests that this “brain sport” has become a complex site for the politics of language standardization, media, and childhood competition. In this article I delve into this nexus to explore its heart: sound. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted at spelling bees and with spellers, families, officials, and media broadcasters, I examine how spellers experience the word as a mélange of sounds, the embodied processes that inform their orthographic choices, and how this sensory process made viewable for media audiences who may know little about orthography. Employing what Steve Feld (2015) has called “acoustemology,” I analyze competitive spelling through the lens of “firstness,” a concept the philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1955) identified as a mode of being replete with unmediated feelings and qualities. Two‐minute spelling bee turns serve as ethnographic examples of language materiality that reveal the complex routines that spellers undertake in each spelling bee round. This onstage sensorium also provides a basis upon which media broadcasters create metasemiotic frameworks through which to observe and understand the complexity this sensory activity. Video abstract: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TOnAokn96E

  August 24, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12117   open full text
• The Difference Language Makes: The Life‐History of Nahuatl in Two Mexican Families.
  Magnus Pharao Hansen.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 16, 2016
  In this article, I describe two families from two different Mexican communities where the Nahuatl language is spoken. In both families the parental generation speaks Nahuatl as a first language, but the way that the adult children use and relate to the language varies widely between the families and between the individual siblings within a family. Some master the language and have made the language an important source of identity and livelihood, whereas others have all but abandoned it. I describe how this variation in linguistic outcomes is related to the children's life histories, including the influence of significant life events and educational experience, which are in turn tied to political changes in Mexican society. I show how the Nahuatl language has been a source of different options and obstacles in their lives. I propose that a life‐history perspective on language transmission anchored in a phenomenological semiotics will enhance our understanding of the relation between language ideology and agency. En este artículo describo las historias de vida de los miembros de dos familias que viven en dos distintas comunidades nahua‐hablantes en México. En ambas familias la generación parental habla el náhuatl como primera lengua, pero en cada familia hay diferencias significativas en la forma que los hijos se relacionan con la lengua, y como la usan. Algunos de los hijos dominan la lengua indígena y lo usan como una fuente importante de identidad y como un instrumento importante en su vida profesional o religioso, mientras otros lo abandonaron buscando su vida en contextos donde no es de utilidad, y algunos de ellos simplemente nunca aprendieron la lengua. Describo como las diferencias en los resultados lingüísticos se relacionan con las historias de vida de los hijos, incluyendo la influencia de eventos significativos, experiencia educativa y cambios políticos en la sociedad mexicana. Demuestro que la lengua náhuatl ha representado diferentes opciones u obstáculos en sus vidas individuales. Propongo que cuando estudiamos procesos de transmisión lingüística, podemos mejorar nuestro entendimiento de la interrelación entre ideologías de lenguaje y agencia individual, si tomamos una perspectiva desde la historia de vida en combinación con una teoría semiótica fenomenológica. Itech inin amatlakuilolle nikihtos kenin onemihkeh in chanehkawan itech ome chantli tlen powi intech ome masewalaltepeme mexihko. Se techan katka itech altepetl Hueyapan Morelos, iwan in okse itech altepetl Tlaquilpa, Veracruz katka. Itech in nowan techanwan tlapowah nawatl in tenan iwan in tetah, san sikimeh impilwan noihki ihkion tlapowah, iwan oksikin ayakmo tlapowah nawatl, ok sikimeh yon ahmo omomachtihkeh nawatlapowaskeh. Siki inimeh telpokameh iwan ichpokameh oyahkeh wehkah kanin amika tlapowah nawatl san pinotlahtol. Oksiki omokahkeh itech imaltepechan iwan omochiwilihkeh tlamachtianimeh ipan in masewaltlamachtiloyan UVI. Noso ok sikimeh okineltokakkeh se tlaneltokilistli tlen ik masewaltlahtol tlahtolxitinihtikateh. Nikihtoa ma tehwan in titlahtoltlamachtihkeh tikittaskeh kenin masewaltlahtol kimpalewia telpokameh iwan ichpokameh kichiwaskeh tlen insesen kinekih itech in innemilis. Ahmo san se tlamantle nemilistle: siki masewaltih kinekih wehkah yaskeh, iwan siki kinekih mokawaskeh imaltepechan – siki kinekih tlapowaskeh nahuatl iwan oksiki ahmo. Tla tiknekih tikmatiskeh tleka siki telpokameh iwan ichpokameh ahmo momachtiah masewaltlahtol, noso tleka ahmo masewaltlahtoltlapowah, moneki achto tikmatiskeh kenin innemilis, innemiyan. Itech inin amatlahkuilolle nigihtos kenin opanoh itech inemilishuan in chanehkauan itech ome chantli non onkateh ipan ome maseualaltepeme, mexihko. Se chantli onkah Hueyapan Morelos, iuan in okse onkah Tlaquilpa, Veracruz. Itech inon ome kaltih tlatlahtoah nauatl in pale iuan male, iuan sigi impilhuan noihki ihkion tlahtlatoah. Maski oksigin akmo tlatlahtoah nauatl ipampa ogiskeh uehka, iuan oksigin ahuel nauatlatoah ipampa ahmo okimmachtihkeh impalehuan. Sigi inimeh telpogameh iuan ichpogameh ogiskeh uehkah kanin amiga tlatlahtoah nauatl, san nochi kaxtiltlahtol. Oksigi omogahkeh itech imaltepeuan iuan omomachtilihkeh ipan kaltlamachtiloyan kanin se momachtiah iga nauatl. Noso oksigin ogahsikkeh se tlaneltogilistli non tlahtolmoyauatiga iga nauatl. Nigihtohtiga man tehuan in tlahtoltlamachtihkeh tigittaskeh kenin kimpaleuia telpogameh iuan ichpokameh in nauatl, para man kichiuaskeh kenin yehuan kinegih. Ahmo san se tlamantle in yolilistle. Sigi nauatlagah kinekih kisaskeh uehkah, iuan sigi kinegih mogauaskeh imaltepechan – sigi kinegih tlapouaskeh nauatl iuan oksiki ahmo kinegih. Tla tiknegih tikmatiskeh tlega se telpogatl noso ichpogatl kema tlatlahtoa nauatl momostlan, noso tlega ahmo tlahtlatoa ihkon, kinegi achtopa tikmatiskeh tlonon opanoh itech inemilis iuan kenin axan kinegi man nemis.

  May 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12115   open full text
• Truth and Stories.
  David W. Samuels.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 16, 2016
  This essay attempts to account for a shift, over the past century, in the narrative particle used in San Carlos Apache storytelling. Early text collections feature a verb of speaking. More recent storytellers tend to use a particle glossed variously as a received wisdom particle, a remote past particle, or, most productively, a deferred realization particle. Drawing on Zygmunt Bauman, I argue that the collective administrative agendas of government, education, military, and religious personnel on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, orbiting around the conjoined metapragmatics of modernity, Christianity, and literacy, help to explain the social life of these narrative particles. I focus particularly on the role of Lutheran missionaries in San Carlos in supporting the idea of an increased reliability accruing to the deferred realization of writing and reading.

  May 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12107   open full text
• Snack Sharing and the Moral Metalanguage of Exchange: Children's Reproduction of Rank‐Based Redistribution in Senegal.
  Chelsie Yount‐André.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 16, 2016
  Adults in Senegal explain children's snack sharing practices as the product of gender and age differences in children's temperament, describing older girls as better behaved and thus better suited to divvy up food. But close examination of children's language practices while sharing food reveals the nuanced semiotic strategies they draw on to negotiate rights to material resources. This article builds on Judith Irvine's research into the intersections of language and material exchange, to shed light on the ways children participate in the reproduction of linguistic forms that mediate material circulation. Analysis of snack sharing between siblings in Dakar illustrates how children embody contrasting semiotic practices linked to caste‐based modes of behavior. I argue that the semiotic resources children use to negotiate obligation and entitlement while sharing food can illuminate the naturalization of morally charged forms of language materiality that underpin material circulation according to asymmetrical, but complimentary social roles. Les adultes au Sénégal expliquent que le partage alimentaire par les enfants est le résultat des différences de tempérament,​ selon le sexe et l’âge des enfants. Ils considèrent que les filles plus âgées sont plus sages et donc mieux disposées à la tâche de division de l'alimentation dans un groupe d'enfants. Mais, l'examen attentif des pratiques linguistiques des enfants pendant qu'ils partagent la nourriture nous révèle des stratégies nuancées, employées pour négocier les droits aux ressources matérielles. Cet article suit le courant d'analyse établi par Irvine au carrefour entre la langue et l’échange matériel, afin d’éclaircir les manières dont les enfants participent à reproduire des conventions linguistiques qui organisent la circulation matérielle. L'analyse du partage alimentaire entre des frères et sœurs à Dakar montre la manière dont les enfants assument des pratiques contrastées, liées aux comportements de caste. Je suggère que les ressources sémiotiques utilisées par les enfants, en négociant leurs obligations et leurs droits dans les moments de partage alimentaire, peuvent éclairer la naturalisation des formes de matérialité de la langue qui sont chargées moralement, qui étayent la circulation matérielle selon des rôles asymétriques mais complémentaires.

  May 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12108   open full text
• Hunting for “Racists”: Tape Fetishism and the Intertextual Enactment and Reproduction of the Dominant Understanding of Racism in US Society.
  Adam Hodges.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 16, 2016
  The dominant racial ideology in US society narrowly conceptualizes racism as individual bigotry. This conception is enacted and legitimated through a type of language game that recontextualizes prior words to invoke evidence of an individual's racist credentials. This paper examines the way CNN journalists engage in this language game as they recontextualize the 911 call made by George Zimmerman before he killed Trayvon Martin in 2012. The analysis illustrates how the recontextualization works to enact and reproduce the dominant ideological perspective on racism by establishing intertextual authority and engaging a wider audience in the “hunting for ’racists’” language game. Dans la société américaine, l'idéologie dominante conceptualise le racisme comme bigoterie individuelle. Le ’jeu de langage’ qui soutient et légitime cette conceptualisation consiste à évoquer et recontextualiser des énoncés antérieures en tant que preuve du racisme du locuteur. Cet article examine comment des journalistes CNN emploient ce jeu de langage en recontextualisant l'appel d'urgence que George Zimmerman a fait avant de tuer Trayvon Martin en 2012. L'analyse montre comment la recontextualisation promulgue et reproduit l'idéologie dominante en établissant l'autorité intertextuelle et engageant un public plus large dans le jeu de langage qui s'appelle « la chasse aux racistes. »

  May 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12106   open full text
• Taku River Tlingit Genres of Place as Performatives of Stewardship.
  Christine Schreyer.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 16, 2016
  This paper examines how the members of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation are using genres of place such as place names, maps, land policies, and language curricula as performatives of stewardship. Within the political context in Canada, negotiations over land, such as the land claims process, have become prioritized over negotiations over language use, resulting in an ideology where land has often become iconic of First Nation identity. For the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, Tlingit language both indexes the land as a resource of that land, but is also used in genres of place, which stand as icons of their lands and territory. Cet article analyse l'emploi, par les membres de la nation autochtone Tlingit de Taku River des « genres de lieu » (genres of place), tels que les noms de lieux, les cartes, les politiques d'aménagement du territoire et le curriculum langagier, en tant qu'actes d'intendance. Au Canada, les négociations avec l’État ont eu tendance à privilégier le territoire, comme dans le cadre des revendications territoriales, plutôt que les pratiques langagières. Il en découle une idéologie qui représente le territoire comme icône de l'identité autochtone. Pour la nation Tlingit de Taku River, la langue tlingit est une ressource qui indexe le territoire tout en y étant issue et comprend l'emploi des genres de lieu qui agissent comme icônes de leurs terres et de leur territoire.

  May 16, 2016   doi: 10.1111/jola.12109   open full text
• Linguistic Relativity and Dialectical Idiomatization: Language Ideologies and Second Language Acquisition in the Irish Language Revival of Northern Ireland.
  Olaf Zenker.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 22, 2014
  A considerable number of Irish Catholics in West Belfast, originally native English speakers, have started learning the Irish language throughout the Northern Irish conflict in order to feel more Irish. Many of these have developed a strong conviction that the Irish language contains a different worldview from the one embodied in English. However, rather than constituting a plausible representation of relevant differences embodied in the languages themselves, this article puts forward the hypothesis that such a neo‐Whorfian endorsement of linguistic relativity might rather be the product of dialectical idiomatization, following from the interplay of prevailing language ideologies and effects of second language acquisition.

  May 22, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jola.12037   open full text
• From TV Personality to Fans and Beyond: Indexical Bleaching and the Diffusion of a Media Innovation.
  Lauren Squires.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 22, 2014
  This article focuses on the role of indexical social meaning in the adoption, circulation, and diffusion of a mass media innovation. The analysis is a case study of the phrase “lady pond,” a euphemism for women as objects of desire. The phrase's use was popularized by a television personality on the cable network Bravo and has spread beyond those who demonstrate recognition of its media origins. Through a detailed analysis of the phrase in use on Twitter, I investigate the properties of the phrase as it “travels” from Bravo to Bravo fans and beyond. I show that the phrase is used with the same form and meaning as on Bravo, and it is semantically and stylistically integrated into users' repertoires. However, it loses its indexical links to Bravo through “indexical bleaching,” which I argue is an outcome of the phrase's recontextualized circulation and a facilitator of its further diffusion.

  May 22, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jola.12036   open full text
• Anthropological Idiolects and Minoritizing Translation in Galician Ethnography.
  Sharon R. Roseman.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 22, 2014
  The challenge of translation has been an important area for discussion and debate in anthropology since the emergence of the centrality of fieldwork conducted in a myriad of languages. This article explores what I learned about writing and translation through the process of producing the 2008 Galician‐language book O rexurdimento dunha base rural no concello de Zas: O Santiaguiño de Carreira. I explore the significance of anthropological idiolects and argue that ethnographers writing in any language can benefit from explicitly employing techniques that parallel the translation theorist Lawrence Venuti's idea of “minoritizing translation.” 

  May 22, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jola.12035   open full text
• From Paris to Pueblo and Back: (Re‐)Emigration and the Modernist Chronotope in Cultural Performance.
  David Divita.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. May 22, 2014
  In this article I examine ethnographic data collected during the rehearsals and performance of a play created by a group of Spanish seniors at a social center near Paris. The play recounts a Spanish immigrant's return to her pueblo from France after years of living abroad. Drawing on Bauman's (1992, 2011) notion of “cultural performance,” I approach the play as a reflexive event that stages the most significant meanings of the community by and for whom it is created—meanings that include the modernist chronotope that dominates it. This particular chronotope—in which France is associated with progress and sophistication, and Spain is associated with backwardness and provincialism—serves as an organizing framework for the community as they represent and make sense of their experience of migration. On an individual level, however, the narrative of return does not necessarily manifest this particular chronotopic structure. To illustrate this divergence, I present Fina, an actor in the play and the author of an autobiographical monologue included therein. By juxtaposing these distinct articulations of the same narrative—one communal, one individual—I show how processes of identification may be linked to chronotopic variation depending on the scale at which they occur.

  May 22, 2014   doi: 10.1111/jola.12034   open full text
• Method in Anthropological Discourse Analysis: The Comparison of Units of Interaction.
  Susan Philips.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. June 19, 2013
  Following the very well‐attended Presidential Panel “Frontiers in Methodology in Linguistic Anthropology,” organized by Diane Riskedahl and chaired by Barbra Meek at the November 2012 American Anthropological Association meeting, we are inaugurating a new forum for essays and commentary on linguistic anthropological methods and analysis in this issue. We are very pleased to have Susan Philips's essay as our first piece, and are confident that it will be a valuable resource and will prompt lively discussion. Authors who would like to contribute an essay or brief commentary to this forum should contact either one of us to discuss the specific proposal.

  June 19, 2013   doi: 10.1111/jola.12011   open full text
• Reality Television and the Metapragmatics of Racism.
  Rebecca Pardo.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. June 19, 2013
  In the contemporary United States, racism is commonly thought to be located in the hearts and minds of a particular negatively valorized social figure: the “racist.” Racist discourse is often implicit and indexical, and interracial interactions may be overdetermined by mutual “racial paranoia” (Jackson 2008) about interlocutors' true thoughts. In this paper I argue that the reality television genre has a unique engagement with tropes of authenticity and intentionality that exploits this dynamic of suspicion. I take as an example a conflict that occurred on an episode of Survivor around comments made by a White southern man to an African American woman. In the scenes analyzed, racial paranoia is itself mobilized as a narrative hook. Participants prod each other to reveal the indexical meaning that they suspect is underlying each other's utterances, showing a perceived incongruence between language and intention. Casting, production, and editorial practices contribute to the dramatization of racism as interpersonal conflict. I show that interventions like sound mixing, the use of testimonial interviews, and the editorial placement of reaction shots reinscribe broader cultural oppositions between “authentic” mental states and “false” performed identities.

  June 19, 2013   doi: 10.1111/jola.12007   open full text
• Boiling Down to the M‐Word at the California Supreme Court.
  Hadi Nicholas Deeb.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. June 19, 2013
  This article examines oral arguments in a seminal case before the California Supreme Court about same‐sex couples' right to marry. Working with video of the proceeding, from which I captured images and made transcripts, I propose that participants used certain pragmatic displays—in particular, gesture, metaphor, and prosody—as metapragmatic devices simultaneously to advance their shared task of legal categorizing and to position themselves and one another as winners, losers, and bystanders. Participants integrated these displays multimodally with their words in order to make arguments as well as to repurpose arguments made in preceding turns. The article contributes to the literature on stance‐taking and format‐tying techniques and also contributes to the literature on the construction of social identity through courtroom interaction. In particular, it demonstrates that the deployment of this repertoire to help achieve stances inside the courtroom also helped project those stances outward to competing social views on sexual orientation.

  June 19, 2013   doi: 10.1111/jola.12004   open full text
• The Politics of Names among Chinese Indonesians in Java.
  Benjamin Bailey, Sunny Lie.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. June 19, 2013
  Many Chinese Indonesians under the age of 45 in Java have names that are instantly recognized by Indonesians as distinctively Chinese Indonesian. Such names, e.g., Nick Wijaya, commonly consist of a first name that is English or European and a family name that “sounds Indonesian,” was coined after 1965, and contains a syllable from a traditional Chinese surname. Distinctively Chinese Indonesian names are explained in terms of state and ethnic politics in Indonesia during the second half of the 20th century. A specific attribute of proper names that we call their “duality of meaning”—they are fixed to a person like a label at the same time that they continue to signify as more general linguistic signs—makes them particularly potent for social‐identity negotiations. Giving Western first names and using newly coined surnames containing Chinese elements has served both as a form of resistance to discriminatory Indonesian state assimilation policies and as a form of boundary‐marking for ethnic Chinese, who make up less than four percent of the Indonesian population. Western names connote cosmopolitan educational and socioeconomic aspirations for many Chinese Indonesians, characteristics that they value highly and perceive as distinguishing themselves from many other (non‐Chinese) Indonesians.

  June 19, 2013   doi: 10.1111/jola.12003   open full text
• No Magic Tricks: Commodity, Empowerment, and the Sale of StreetWise in Chicago.
  Kenneth McGill.
  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology. June 19, 2013
  Use‐value and exchange‐value are pragmatic features of commodity exchange which are apparent from the careful study of specific interactions, as well as from the viewpoint of economic processes at large. While Marx's well‐known attempt to describe this pair of concepts in Capital (2001) takes the latter tack, I attempt here to take the former—i.e., to approach the composition of the commodity from the point of view of the pragmatics of interaction. In doing so, I offer a semiotic model of the valuation of commodities which differs from accounts given by Kockelman (2006) and Agha (2011). The ethnographic object at stake in this essay is StreetWise, a Chicago street newspaper said to have “empowering” effects on its vendors.

  June 19, 2013   doi: 10.1111/jola.12009   open full text