Search

Taiwan is populated by a multilingual community consisting of five major ethnic groups: Holo, Hakka, Mainlanders, Taiwanese aborigines and Taiwanese new immigrants. However, historic Mandarin-centric laws and policies detrimentally affected the identities and inheritance of local languages and cultures for almost four decades. This changed drastically, when Taiwan began to embrace two key emancipatory concepts after the abolition of Mandarin-centric rule: democratisation and the 'Taiwanisation' of language policy. Taiwanese adult learners have a number of perceptual uncertainties regarding their bilingual and multilingual repertoire in Taiwan's complex socio-political, cultural and linguistic context. The purpose of this thesis, therefore, is to explore how participants perceive linguistic value and culture, and how this perception has an influence on self-identity throughout the process of learning languages, while also giving due consideration to the symbolic power of language and language hierarchy. This thesis is embedded within a Bourdieusian inspired framework, in which the analysis focuses on how concepts such as cultural capital, cultural reproduction, habitus and field, social class, symbolic power, and the linguistic market all influence participants' linguistic identity and selves. Twenty one adult participants with different language learning experience were recruited. The participants were Taiwanese adults who were proficient in at least three of the following languages: Taiwanese heritage language, Mandarin, English or another foreign language. Data was collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews, with findings arrived at through thematic analysis. This thesis uncovered four findings: (1) Participants internalised perceptions of language status regarding their bi/multilingual linguistic capitals influence their linguistic identity and the construction of their subjective-selves. (2) Participants' selves oscillate dynamically due to continuous changes to their societal contexts, and their personal resilience, persistence and self-confidence. (3) Successful language acquisition is impacted by six interdependent factors: motivation; learning experience and confidence; curriculum and learning environment; linguistic identity; social norms; persistence and resilience. (4) Code switching between Mandarin, heritage languages and English is part of participants' linguistic habitus. These findings may not only help provide guidance to others who wish to become multilingual learners, but will also contribute to educational research by shedding light on the dynamic and intertwined state of language on one's identity. In other words, one's personal interpretation of the relationship between language and identity is in constant flux. Therefore, labelling people based solely on their original ethnicity or by the language they speak, might result in a misleading representation of one's true self-identity.

The turn to multilingualism due to the complex dynamics of globalization, global migration and multiculturalism has pushed postcolonial writers and theorists to begin taking into account the complicated facets of plurality, hybridity, and the multiplicity of language and language usage. Surpassing the pattern established in earlier phases of postcolonial thought of writing back to the empire or grabbing the center by adopting and adapting the language of the colonizer, contemporary writers and critics assess the problem of linguistic imperialism and the globalization of English that work to destabilize the cultural valency of indigenous languages. The plurality of languages in contemporary postcolonial spaces impels Anglophone native writers to examine the altering relations between language, power, epistemic violence and territory, and to question the hegemony of dominant national languages in the multilingual postcolonial society. Analyzed against the Spivakean theorization of articulation and representation of the other, postcolonial language theories and works reveal the complexity of speaking for/about the other in postcolonial multilingual space. Writing in a multilingual postcolonial space, Anglophone postcolonial writers either “speak for” or “speak about” the other, consequently silencing the voices of the marginalized language groups. However, a more expansive consideration of language and its uses suggests that the Anglophone literature produced in multilingual postcolonial countries has the potential to unfold a trajectory from “speaking for” to “speaking with” the other. In my dissertation, I explore the long-established debate around “speaking for/about” and to expand the alternative stance of “speaking with/to” (postulated by Spivak and Alcoff) as a means of transcending the limits of representation in previous attempts of articulation in the postcolonial subject. Studying postcolonial language theory, the concept of translation, strategies of transformation in postcolonial writing, and the idea of positionality and accountability of postcolonial writer, my work discusses the contemporary South African Anglophone texts that address the problematic concept of “speaking with/to” the other rather than “speaking about/for” them. While furthering the discussion on “speaking with/to,” this study aims to advance the debate on the articulation and representation of the other in multilingual postcolonial space.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this multiple-case study was to explore how four US-born Muslim college students spatialized their linguistic and cultural identities within and across their social, academic, and religious spaces. The data were collected through detailed and in-depth data collection methods involving multiple sources of information: observations in the above-mentioned spaces, focus group interviews, autobiographies, drawings, images, and narratives. The data were analyzed through spatial analytical perspectives. This study was drawn on Lefebvre's (1991) Spatial triad of perceived, conceived, and lived spaces, Soja's (1996) interpretation of spatiality and Thirdspace, and Bhabha's (2004) concept of Hybridity. This study presented how the US-born Muslim college students negotiate their collective and personal identities across these spaces. In the study, their schooling experiences were further analyzed to explore how they have nurtured their Muslimness. The study findings revealed that US-born Muslim college student participants of this study developed a sense of belonging to both Muslimness and Americanness and experienced otherness also in both Muslim and American spaces. The participants further developed linguistically and culturally hybrid identities and wholistic self-perception through the enunciation of their differences in both Muslim and American spatial practices. This hybrid and whole identity; in other words, the Thirdspace of Muslimerican identity was developed through the process of a constant negotiation of their spatial practices that disrupt norms that were socially and historically imposed across social spaces.

This dissertation is a collection of speculative essays (Schubert, 1991) that explore the multiplicity and intersectionality of Arab-American Muslims’ identity and its implications for their children’s experience of mainstream schooling in the United States. While most of the existing research literature has been on the multiplicity and intersectionality of Arab-American or Muslim-American’s identities, there is little on the particularity of this group’s identities. Building upon a wide array of theories related to the multiplicity and intersectionality of the Arab-American Muslim identities such as social identity theory (e.g., Tajfel, 1978a,b & 1986) and intersectionality (e.g., Crenshaw, 1991), my dissertation focuses on how the educational experience of students of the Arab-American Muslim minority group is influenced by the multiplicity of their identities (e.g., Cainkar, 2006 & 2008) including their ethnic identity (e.g., Naff, 1985; Haddad, 1994; Cainkar, 2008), cultural identity (e.g., Said, 1978; Malouf, 2000, 2012; Shaheen, 2002), religious identity (e.g., Haddad, 1997; Cainkar,1994; Said, 1997) and linguistic identity (e.g., Suleiman, 2003; 2004 & 2011). These aspects are better understood through the explanation of identity formation processes and the representations of this group. It is thus claimed that Arab-American Muslim students journey through American public schools with the understanding that their ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identities differ from hegemonic cultures that define and subtract their schooling experience. I attempt to offer an interpretation and personal explanation of the impact of this multiplicity of identities on the education of these minority group students. I sincerely hope that knowledge of the experience of Arab-American Muslim students will inspire educational policy makers, teachers, administrators, parents, and students to work together to create equal opportunities for all in hard times.

The European economic crisis has motivated the reform of some of the most important European regional television corporations, like Scotland’s BBC Alba, Wales’s S4C and Ireland’s TG4. This article analyses the situation of these regional TV operators, the fulfillment of their public service mission, funding, and governance, and then offers a comparison between these TV systems and Spain’s regional minority-language TV corporations: EITB, CCMA, RTVG, RTVA and IB3. The initial hypothesis of the study is that the reform of the Spanish system of regional television corporations should only adopt some aspects of the European regional television corporations, because the size and the public service mission of the former is greater those of the latter.

Los inmigrantes colombianos en España se encuentran con una variedad distinta de su propia lengua. Este encuentro hace a los hablantes reflexionar sobre el español y su diversidad. Este fenómeno metalingüístico va más allá del concepto de connotation autonymique de Rey-Debove y se debe a la necesidad o el deseo del hablante de intervenir explícita o implícitamente en su discurso y en la interacción. Además, este fenómeno subraya la importancia de la propia variedad lingüística para la creación de una identidad social. El análisis también permite discutir algunos aspectos del metalenguaje partiendo de datos reales. The Colombian immigrants in Spain meet with a different variety of their own language. This finding makes the speakers think about Spanish language and its diversity. This metalinguistic phenomenon goes beyond the connotation autonymique concept by Rey-Debove and it is due to the speaker’s need or desire of planning her discourse and interacting explicitly or implicitly in the communication process. Further, this phenomenon highlights how the own linguistic variety is important by creating a social identity. The analysis also allows to discuss some aspects of metalanguage taking account of real data.