The Bounday-Turn Reflections on Language, Culture and Identity through the epistemological lenses of...
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The Bounday-TurnReflections on Language, Culture and Identity through the epistemological
lenses of time, space and social interactions in the 21st century
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Professor ChairAcademy HumES, Humanities, Social Sciences & Education
Research group KKOM-DS, Communication, Culture & Diversity-Deaf Studies
‘Cultural Education and Civil Society: How can languages contribute?’European Expert Seminar
Leeuwarden/Ljouwert, Fryslân, The Netherlands
25-27 May 2011
Sweden
European expert seminar policy?
• …language?
• …identity?
• …culture?
• …discipline?
• (inter)state=European?
• (inter)national?
Seminar behaviours & backgrounds
• multilanguages
• multiliteracies
• multimodalities
• multidisciplinary
• multisites & multimobility
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Sweden
2
WE (the experts)
• Linguistics/sociolinguistics
• Anthropologists
• Educationists
• Computer analysts
• Cognitive scientists
• Sociologists
• European (?) languages
• Etc, etc, etc
• Different departments/institutions
Common grounds for social scientists & humanists today?
• post-structuralist?
• non-modernist?
• non-positivist?
• non-ethnocentric?
• non-eurocentric?
• non / post / fluid…
• non-conformist?
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 3
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 4
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Theoretical frameworks Methodologies
Theoretical-methodological harmony
Assumptions Natural sciences paradigms dominate?
5
Situated nature of meaning
• Seminar?• Conference?• Workshop?• Symposium?
• Language-in-action
• Real-life-ways-with-words
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 6
A cow produces about 18 liters of milk per 24 hours.
How much milk does the cow produce during one week?
Kalle goes to school and on an average he has 7 lessons a day.
How many lessons does he have per week?
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 7
How many days are there in a week?
A cow produces about 18 liters of milk per 24 hours.
How much milk does the cow produce during one week?
Kalle goes to school and on an average he has 7 lessons a day.
How many lessons does he have per week?
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 8
Language comes to life in the real world and changes from words and sentences into discourse
(Agar, 1994:6)
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 9
Fluidity, Languaging, Translanguaging, Continnua, ChainingDimensions of the Boundary-Turn
The vast majority of studies that focus languages at best analyse what has happened and fail to highlight that social interaction in itself is a meaning making enterprise wherein human realities and identities are co-created.
The far majority analyze either ‘idealized data in the form of isolated, fabricated sentences’ or discourses about attitudes or what human beings think about their language practices through interview and narrative based studies.
(Bagga-Gupta, 2007)
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 10
Fluidity of language identifications across time and space the example of Englishes
• Different “recognized” English languages, British-English, American-English, Indian-English, Australian-English, etc
– Distinct and are not considered different dialects of English
– Different English dictionaries as well as the different English correction possibilities available in digitalized word programs
• Annual ritual of the commonest used new words at the end of the year, “twitterati”, “unfriend/defriend”, “Youtube”, “Facebook”, “Spillcam”, “Vuvuzela”
– These are not accredited as English language words by digitalized computer programs at the beginning of 2011
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 11
The horizontal division: language classification in syllabi
• Swedish (first compulsory language)
• Swedish as a second language
• Swedish for immigrants
• Swedish for the deaf/hard of hearing
• English (second compulsory language)
• Swedish Sign Language
• Swedish Sign Language for hearing
• Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic (neighbour languages)
• French, German, Spanish (foreign languages)
• Turkish, Arabic, Finnish, etc. (home languages)
• Nationally recognised minority languages
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 12
The horizontal division: language classification in syllabi
• Swedish (first compulsory language)
• Swedish as a second language
• Swedish for immigrants
• Swedish for the deaf/hard of hearing
• English (second compulsory language)
• Swedish Sign Language
• Swedish Sign Language for hearing
• Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic (neighbour languages)
• French, German, Spanish (foreign languages)
• Turkish, Arabic, Finnish, etc. (home languages)
• Nationally recognised minority languages
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 13
A woman’s father ”is Sami” and lives in Jockmock in the Arctic region that lies in the far north of Sweden. The woman’s mother ”is Swedish”, spent her childhood in Teheran, Iran and the mother has lived for the last 30 years in Stockholm in the east coast of central Sweden. The woman, who grew up in Jockmock has lived in a university city in central Sweden for the last three decades, is married to a man who grew up in west Sweden and whose father “is Swedish” and mother “is Norwegian”. The woman and her husband have three children who are today young adults. All three children were born and furthermore spent their growing up years in central Sweden.
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 14
A woman’s father ”is Sami” and lives in Jockmock in the Arctic region that lies in the far north of Sweden. The woman’s mother ”is Swedish”, spent her childhood in Teheran, Iran and the mother has lived for the last 30 years in Stockholm in the east coast of central Sweden. The woman, who grew up in Jockmock has lived in a university city in central Sweden for the last three decades, is married to a man who grew up in west Sweden and whose father “is Swedish” and mother “is Norwegian”. The woman and her husband have three children who are today young adults. All three children were born and furthermore spent their growing up years in central Sweden.
The woman and her family hold Swedish passports and “are white, blond, middle-class” citizens of Sweden.
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 15
Fluidity – Identifications of human beings and cultural connections
A woman’s father ”is Sami” and lives in Jockmock in the Arctic region that lies in the far north of Sweden. The woman’s mother ”is Swedish”, spent her childhood in Teheran, Iran and the mother has lived for the last 30 years in Stockholm in the east coast of central Sweden. The woman, who grew up in Jockmock has lived in a university city in central Sweden for the last three decades, is married to a man who grew up in west Sweden and whose father “is Swedish” and mother “is Norwegian”. The woman and her husband have three children who are today young adults. All three children were born and furthermore spent their growing up years in central Sweden.
The woman and her family hold Swedish passports and “are white, blond, middle-class” citizens of Sweden.
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 16
www.oru.se/humus/Sangeeta_Bagga-Gupta 17
The horizontal division: language
classification in syllabi
Swedish (first compulsory language)Swedish as a second languageSwedish for immigrantsSwedish for the deaf/hard of hearing
English (second compulsory language)Swedish Sign LanguageSwedish Sign Language for hearing
Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic (neighbour lang)French, German, Spanish (foreign language)
Turkish, Arabic, etc. (home language)Nationally recognised minority languages
The vertical division: explicit or implied learner
category
Ethnic Swedish pupilsEthnic minority or immigrant pupilsAdult immigrantsDeaf & heard of hearing pupils in special schools
All pupilsDeaf & Hard of Hearing pupils in special schoolsHearing pupils in “regular” schools
All pupilsAll pupils
Ethnic minority or immigrant pupilsPupils who can make a claim to a nationally recognized minority language
Languages and learner-categories in the Swedish education landscape
SWEDEN
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Language
18
Identity
Culture
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Language
19
Identity
CultureFluidity, Languaging, Translanguaging,
Continnua, Chaining
The ”doing of” cultures, identification processes
Dimensions of the Boundary-Turn
Observing & analyzing human behaviour
TRANSCRIPTION AND INTERACTION ANALYSIS
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• A child is born with 100 languages & we take 99 away from it
• ”I am because I communicate”
• ”There is no no communication”
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Adult-children ASL—English signed communication (Padden, 1996:92)
Line i. Adult
B-A-K-I-N-G S-O-D-A, B-A-K-I-N [while
pointing to words on overhead projection],
THAT SAME [picks up box of baking soda
and points to <baking soda> on box while
mouthing “baking soda”].
(Now baking soda, baking – right here on the
screen is the same thing as this box in my
hand.)
Adult-teenagers SSL—Swedish signed communication (Bagga-Gupta, 2004:193-4)
Line i. Pupil
HOW SPELL A-U-T [pause]
(Official public authority A-U-T what?)
Line ii. Adult
MEAN A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-Y PUBLIC
AUTHORITY A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-Y [looks
questioningly]
(Do you mean public authority?)
Line iii. Pupil
[Nods] A-U-T-H [pauses, looks questioningly]
(yeah, A-U-T-H, it is spelled?)
Line iv. Adult
A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-Y <AUTHORITY>
PUBLIC AUTHORITY [points to what she has
written on the board]
(It is spelled A-U-T-H-O-R-I-T-Y; this is how it is
written; this is how it is signed)
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 22
Adult Edo-English oral communication (Kamwangamalu in Sridhar 1996:57)
Dial enumber naa, n’uniform’en Mr. Oseni
eghe a approve encontracti nii ne. But
khamma ren ighe o gha ye necessary n’o
submit-e Photostat copies oghe estimate n’o ka
ya apply a ke pay era. You understand?
(Dial this number, and inform Mr. Oseni that
we approved the contract already. But tell him
that it will still be necessary for him to submit
Photostat copies of estimate that he first
applied with before we pay him. You
understand?)
Adult Hindi-English oral communication (Bagga-Gupta 1995:103)
Hum logoko arrival ka time staff attendance register
me likhna pardta hai
(We are required to write down our time of arrival in
the staff’s attendance register)
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 23
Who owns the problem when we analysts zoom into human language behaviors?
• Whose logic?
• Convenience?
• Tradition?
– Quantification/measurement
• Etc
• Purist position
• Homogenizing position
• Protectionist position
• A political position
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
communication24
Central concepts & assumptions
Language: meaningmaking/wayswithwords
Culture: waysofbeing/communitiesofpractice
Identity: communitiesofpractice/waysofbeing
Learning: socialisation/meaningmaking
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Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Curse of language teaching
the assumption that language must first be developed before it can be used is one of the curses of language instruction, because it results in that … language instruction primarily becomes a matter of the development of skills and because the communicative linguistic actions and the pluralistic meanings that could be enabled in educational situations are left untouched
(Tornberg, 2000:265, my translation)
26
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Communication = Culture = Learning = Identity
• Communication
• Learning & meaning makingin mundane everyday activities inside & outside classrooms (not just in reporting)
• ”We are because we communicate”
• Not language categories
• Not learning & individual development
• Not merely ”how”
• Not categories based on traits
27
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Understanding complex communication
Focusing upon how experienced members of different settings shows that meaning making processes rely upon the use of bridges, connections, chaining in the fluidity between different modalities, codes, etc.
The doing of communication, culture & identities
28
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Paradox: democracy & equity
The paradox of language policy
The paradox of cultural policy
The paradox of equity in civil societies
29
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 30
Illustration of ethnocentric monolingual labels for multilingual communities
“Indish/Indiska” = The myriad of mutually unintelligible languages spoken and written with different orthographic systems
Swedish, Danish, Finnish, English = Labels used for some other languages
Swedish: “svenska”
“pakistanish/ pakistanska”-Pakistan, “Spanish”-Mexico = other nation-states where multilingualism is accorded recognition both politically and culturally
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta 31