Search

We investigated whether expression of social meaning operationalized as individual gender identitity and politeness moderated pitch range in the two languages of female and male Japanese-English sequential bilinguals. The bilinguals were resident in either London (UK) or Tokyo (Japan) and read sentences to imagined addressees who varied in formality and sex. Results indicated significant differences in the pitch range of the two languages of the bilinguals, and this was confirmed for female and male bilinguals in London and Tokyo, with the language differences being more extreme in the London bilinguals than in the Tokyo bilinguals. Interestingly, self-attribution of masculine gender traits patterned with within-language variation in the English pitch level of the female bilinguals, whereas self-attribution of feminine gender traits patterned with within-language variation in the English pitch level of the male bilinguals. In addition, female and male bilinguals significantly varied their pitch range in Japanese, but not in English, as a function of the imagined addressees. Findings confirmed that bilinguals produce pitch range differently in their languages and suggest that expression of social meaning may affect pitch range of the two languages of female and male bilinguals differently.

Do accent biases observed half a century ago (Giles 1970) and 15 years ago (Coupland and Bishop 2007) still hold in Britain today? We provide an updated picture of national attitudes to accent labels by replicating and extending previous studies. Mean ratings and relative rankings of 38 accents for prestige and pleasantness by a large representative sample of the British population (N = 821) attest to a remarkably stable, long-standing hierarchy of accent status. We find little evidence of demotion of conservative prestige varieties or reranking of accents, although we do observe a slight improvement in lower rankings. We focus in detail on age and life stage, finding that most of the age patterns observed in earlier studies were in fact instances of age-grading (lifespan effects), not real-time change in attitude. The midlife phase of life corresponds to conservative shifts in the perception of global, migrant-heritage, and stigmatised varieties. Our findings add change in speech evaluation to the growing body of research on lifespan change in speech production. Finally, although effects of ethnicity, social class, regional self- and other-bias, and age remain firmly in place, earlier gender differences in respondent behaviour have more or less disappeared.

Note: This talk has not gone through a process of peer review, and findings should therefore be treated as preliminary and subject to change. SOAS Linguistics Webinars:Accent Bias and Fair Access in Britain April 28, 2021 Erez Levon Professor of Sociolinguistics,University of Bern Abstract:Accent is one of the most salient signals of social background in Britain,yet its role in unequal professional outcomes remains under-examined. Inthis talk, I present results from a set of recent studies conducted to examineaccent bias in Britain: 1) a nationwide survey of attitudes to accent concepts(labels), 2) a nationwide survey of attitudes to accent variation in speech, and3) a specialist survey of accent attitudes among legal professionals. Togetherthe studies show continuing bias in Britain, particularly against working-classaccents, but also incremental attenuation of bias by context. I discuss theimplications of these findings for the role that accent bias might play in impeding social mobility and professional advancement in the UK, and Imention possible interventions and policy initiatives that could help inovercoming the negative effects of accent bias.

This article seeks to partly redress the ways in which sexuality has been overlooked in multilingualism scholarship, especially in the Nordic countries. We do so by queering multilingualism in contexts of migration in two seemingly different contexts, Denmark and Israel, which however share a commonality: they are both widely recognized as ‘liberal’ countries with regard to sexuality. Through analysis of an eclectic corpus of data encompassing news reports, educational material and documentaries, we illustrate problematic language ideological ties that link certain languages – Danish and Hebrew – to notions of sexual liberation and freedom while associating other languages such as Arabic with intolerance and sexual backwardness. We also show the existence of sexual double standards: Denmark has a self-perception as being a nation that safeguards sexual tolerance. However, there are compulsory courses in Danish sexual morality for migrants. Taught in Danish, these courses are based on the belief that there are special rules for sexuality, which migrants must learn to demonstrate that that they ‘fit in’. Similarly, Israel has important legislation that recognizes the rights of sexual minorities and has succeeded in marketing itself as an attractive LGBT tourist destination. However, this alleged paradise of sexual liberation is not equally accessible to all who identify as queer. Paradoxically, queer Palestinian men from the West Bank are forced to hide themselves in the gay bubble, Tel Aviv. https://doi.org/10.33063/diva-434156

This chapter discusses the relationship between language and sexual politics. It focuses on the ways language is used to police membership in different gendered and sexual groups, to construct self and others along gendered and sexual lines, and to negotiate belonging in different communities and institutions. The first half of the chapter summarizes prominent research in this area. Topics covered include struggles over labeling practices, discursive constructions of sexual authenticities, and the role of language and sexuality in the creation and reproduction of national ideologies. The second half turns to a detailed case study of language and sexual politics among lesbians in Israel. The chapter describes how the women in question use particular linguistic practices, such as variation in Hebrew gender morphology, to construct distinct sexual selves, and, in the process, challenge prevailing sexual norms in Israel. The discussion also highlights future directions for language and sexuality research, focusing on the importance of an adequate theory of power.

The main argument of this article is that Israel seeks to govern its expat citizens not so much through the mobilisation of their ‘rational capacities to evaluate truth claims but through affects’ (Isin, 2004:225). Such viscerality of Israeli nationalism can be seen in the ways in which specific emotions – mourning, shame, guilt and fear of loss – are activated through particular semiotic choices. These affective resources, in turn, are marshalled together in order to create a sense of nostalgia, a desire to return ‘home’, which is deeply imbricated with processes of territorialisation of Israel as the Jewish homeland par excellence, and consequently engenders a problematic regime of identities – Israeli Jewish versus Diasporic Jewish. By exploring an example of how national (be)longing is activated through the circulation of emotions across texts and spaces, the article not only seeks to contribute to current discussions about affect in linguistic landscape scholarship, but also offers a fresh perspective on critical sociolinguistic work on nationalism.