ELL P2SB EXAMPLES AND CASE STUDIES A LEVELS NOTES

ELL P2SB EXAMPLES & CASE STUDIES Identity discourse: Of self ● Viven Burr, 2002: the modern conception of the individual regards it as defined by a fixed set of traits constituting his/her personality, as a Cartesian being whose actions are a result of rational deliberation, as someone who strives for moral integrity and is well separated from his / her group ● Zygmut Bauman, 2005: post-modern life is characterized by uncertainty, fracture, physical and social displacement, and the experience of flow and disunity As a social construction ● Butler, 1990: Gender identity cannot be defined in terms of a core of fixed common characteristics, but is a much more flexible construct ● (cont. from Butler) Identity is not something that one has, but rather something one ‘does’ or ‘performs’ and recreates through concrete exchanges, discourses and interactions between human beings ● Social reality does not exist as in independent entity but is socially constructed ● Hall, 2000: one should look at identity as a process rather than as an attribute or series of attributes ○ Through indexicality: when associations are created between a type of accent or the use of specific words and expressions and a certain kind of persona ■ 2008 presidential election, Sarah Palin (governor of Alaska) ’s language was used to depict her as an outsider to Washington politics, unpretentious, down to earth, ‘regular hockey mom’ → ‘hi, mom and dad’ / ‘can I call ya Joe?’ / ‘fersure’ ● Identities can be ascribed, rejected, and assumed ○ But not all identities can be easily negotiated as social agents are involved in power relations that may allow some to have a voice while denying this basic right to others ○ Allen, 1983: While the seeming purpose of a slur is to insult and injure, at an unconscious level it is an effort to control the behaviour of the disparaged group by imposing a negative social identity on them

Types of identities ➢ Individual - e.g., personal identities are constructs that may include not only sets of membership categories, but also moral and physical characteristics that distinguish one person from another ➢ Collective ➢ Social - large categories of belonging such as race, gender, political affiliati on (these may not have concrete, but rather abstract referents that are no associated w/ particular people) ➢ Situational - roles related to the specific context of interaction General e.gs of language influencing attitudes: ● Description of immigrants by political leaders ○ British Premier, David Cameron: swarm (of migrants crossing the Channel) ○ Northern League leader, Matteo Salvini: clandestini ■ Italian for ‘clandestine’ ○ V.s. refugee: means someone whose application has been granted, giving them specific rights and benefits. BUT also means someone who’s fleeing from war, persecution or natural disasters, regardless of whether they have applied for asylum ❖ Common collocation ➢ ‘Syrian refugee’ is constantly uttered in news media, which places an established identity and ethnic background to refugees. This has a potential effect of assuming all Syrians are displaced, or that all refugees are from a certain part of the world, thus undermining other crucial reasons and conflicts that drive people to flee their countries. ● Noun premodification to mark a certain aspect of someone ’s identity ○ Illegal immigrant [emphasizes the legal issue, nece ssitates and obligates the law to take punitive action against the people] ○ Muslim terrorist [ethnicity] ○ Male nurse / female doctor [gender] ● Study by Thibodeau and Boroditsky, 2011: participants favoured a punitive approach towards an increase in crimes when it was presented as a ‘beast preying’. A reformative approach was preferred when it was presented as a ‘virus infecting’ society instead ○ Material process of preying where the human Actors are likened to animals reduces their humanity, justifying harsher punishments for their blights on society

○ Contrasted to semantic field of medical science / illnesses → implies the fact that the issue is curable and has a remedy ● Singapore ’s ‘White Dot’ movement against homosexuality slogan: Let us protect our families from evil’ (**but can’t find this online so authenticity is not verified!!!) ● English word order is typically Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) ○ Syntactical pattern places emphasis on doer / action taker ● Fred Jant: about ⅓ of English sentences lack a subject, while about ¾ of Japanese sentences lack a subject ○ Thus, Eng speakers tend to say things like ‘John broke the vase’ ○ Japanese speakers would say ‘the vase broke’, ‘the vase was broken’ ● Caitlin Fausey, Stanford case study ○ Speakers of English, Spanish and Japanese watched videos of people popping balloons, breaking eggs and spilling drinks either intentionally or accidentally ○ When given a surprise memory test, Spanish & Japanese speakers did not remember the agents of the accidental events as well as the Eng speakers ○ Because for accidental events, Spanish and Jap speakers wouldn ’t normally remember the agents for them ● Newspeak: an FICTIONAL, extreme and unrealistic form of language policing / verbal hygiene in a dystopian society (from 1984 by George Orwell) ○ Joycamp: a forced-labour camp meant to isolate and punish those convicted of crimes against the Party ○ Minipax: Ministry of Peace, whose responsibility it is to wage war ○ Thoughtcrime: the crime of thinking anything that is unorthodox or outside of the Party’s position

Age discourse: ● Chinese neologism for Taiwanese people born in 1982 and beyond: strawberry generation ○ Now used to describe the younger generation as ‘soft’ and ‘fragile’ ● Time Magazine ’s May 2013 issue title “The ME ME ME Generation: Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents” ● Common collocations (pairing of words) ○ At risk youth ○ Juvenile delinquent → reflects common perception of teenagers ● Coinage of “ephebiphobia”- refers to the phobia of street culture, crime, gangs which are concepts closely associated with youths ○ 1998, England Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced the ‘Anti-Social Behaviour Order’ ○ Hoffman & Summers, 2001: ephebiphobia is an inaccurate, exaggerated, and sensational characterisation of young people ○ Further aggravated by 2011 London riots, as the media constantly portrayed the teenager looters as a source of destability and disruption to society ■ ‘Scums’ ■ Being ‘feral’ ● Pam Nilan and Carles Feixa, 2006: performative practices of cultural hybridity ○ Young people negotiate forms of personal and group identity in the modern world ○ Deliberately ‘Other’ themselves as part of their anti-hegemonic resistance ● (related) youth subculture is a place for youth to construct alternative identiti es to the largely adult-defined subject positions offered to them by schoolwork and class ○ Hip-hop culture propagated by African American population ● Young people coinages ○ Facepalm ○ YOLO ○ Tank ○ Dope ○ True story ○ OOTD ● Proverb: Youth hopes much, believes most and fears least. ○ Positive representation of young people ○ Attributes suggest they are active agents in determining favourable outcomes for their lives

○ Approaching of future with optimism ● In Singapore, youths are expected to be equipped to take on responsibilities in leading their own families, society and the country as they transition to adulthood ○ Hwa Chong ’s mission: To develop leaders for the nation ○ VJC: Visionary leadership ○ RI: Committed to developing leaders of the future steeped in character, confidence and commitment ● Representation of the elderly in Singapore ○ Silver tsunami ■ Suggests damage, danger, a destructive excess and infl