Volume 10, Issue 1

Since 9/11, Islamophobia has been gaining the attention of scholars, and, increasingly, it is perceived to be an integral part of the emerging zeitgeist of the 21st century. However, the term itself is much debated and little consensus exists as to what it means. Using data drawn from political debate on talk radio between Nick Griffin, Chairman of the British National Party, and Abdul, a Muslim from Manchester and membership categorisation analysis as a methodology, this paper aims to reveal the category-work by which Islamophobia is achieved as a members’ accomplishment. Findings indicate that two versions of Islamophobia are talked into being. On the one hand, Griffin “does” Islamophobia through the operation of an adversarial standard relational pair Islam/West which operates within a membership categorisation device “worlds”, and so he achieves exclusion through cultural incompatibility. On the other hand, Abdul uses the membership categorisation device “race” within which the adversarial standard relational pair Muslim/Asian-White British is operative, and so he ascribes overt racist attitudes to Islamophobes.

This article examines the discursive construction of Scottish and British- English national identities in the printed press within the context of the planned Scottish independence referendum. Using Critical Discourse Analysis and informed by sociological and anthropological research, the study uses a Corpus Linguistics approach to analyse newspaper texts from the Scottish and British printed media to define the strategies used in the construction and disarticulation of these identities and the ideologies behind them. The results of the analysis will show that the Scottish broadsheets use a staunchly Scottish rhetoric with frequent examples of nation flagging, showing the palpable struggle for power and a certain sense of inferiority. Inadvertently or otherwise, these newspapers engender a sense of separateness by employing techniques of positive in-group identification. The Scottish editions of UK broadsheets, on the contrary, hold a more Anglocentric perspective and their treatment of the referendum is more political than ideological, frequently attributing negative evaluations to the independence issue and engaging in the practice of “tartanisation”. To conclude, the UK broadsheets tend to provide a more balanced and objective point of view, thus being at the political centre of the social debate enacted by the referendum and the subsequent possible independence of Scotland.

This article involves a qualitative research undertaken to elucidate how Ukraine’s European identity is constructed by Carl Bildt, Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs. Specifically, the paper’s aim is to identify conceptual metaphors used by Carl Bildt in his political online discourse concerning Ukraine within the timeframe from 1 April 2013 until 1 April 2014. In addition to this objective, the article explores whether or not concepts SELF as the EU and OTHER as non-EU respectively are embedded in conceptual metaphors identified in Bildt’s discoursal space involving Ukraine’s European identity. Results of the data analysis reveal several types of conceptual metaphors which are present in the corpus of Bildt’s online discourse involving Ukraine: “EU as a Path”, “EU as a Nurturant Parent”, “EU as a House”, “Ukraine’s Politics towards EU as a Stock Market Crash”, “Ukraine’s Path to EU as Poland’s EU Path” and “The EU Flag as a Symbol of the Better Future”, respectively. These conceptual metaphors seem to be exacerbated by the presence of the concept SELF.

While empirical pragmatic research in the Spanish-speaking world has covered most of the Hispanosphere, Central America remains a very underrepresented region. This study serves to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing data collected from eighteen role-plays in Masaya, Nicaragua and Panama City, Panama. In the role-play situation, the interlocutor requests advice from the participant (her best friend) regarding a serious issue in her marriage. The advice-giving strategies are classified according to a categorization adapted from Blum-Kulka’s (1989) request strategy taxonomy, allowing for a pragmatic analysis using Spencer-Oatey’s (2005) Rapport Management approach. Results indicate strong similarities between participants from Nicaragua and Panama, both electing to respect all components of the association principle and to violate the equity principle, especially its autonomy control component. In this advice-giving context between best friends, both groups prefer to impose their opinions and suggestions rather than respect the person’s right to be treated fairly, as well as to maintain a rapport-enhancing orientation rather than preserve their right to associate with others. The results show similarities with other research on directives in the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Venezuela and Spain, cultures typically associated with less mitigation, positive politeness, conventional indirectness and high involvement

The main goal of this study was to identify factors motivating pragmatic transfer in advanced learners of English. Based on a cross-cultural comparison of requesting behavior between Koreans and Americans, this study determined the impact of individual subjective motives on pragmatic language choice. Two different groups of subjects participated in this study: 30 Korean participants (KK) and 30 American college students (AE). Data were collected by using a Discourse Completion Task (DCT). Korean (KK) participants provided the data for Korean (KK) and English versions of DCT (KE). Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with 13 Korean ESL learners who showed the most and least amount of pragmatic transfer. Findings showed evidence of pragmatic transfer in the request responses given by Korean ESL learners in their requestive strategies, level of directness, and perspectives of head acts. The interview data revealed that Korean students were conscious of differing rules for making requests. Learners’ judgment of L2 pragmatic norms, perception of their own language, and their attitudes of the target language influence language use. Furthermore, findings showed that purpose of learning English, different types of motivation, and the length of intended residence contribute to the extent of pragmatic transfer

The aim of this paper is to show the importance of intercultural competence for identity construction in a globalized world. Pedagogical, as well as methodological approaches are given to show how intercultural competence is implemented by Ethnologie in Schule und Erwachsenenbildung, a Germany-based NGO.