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Thurlow, C. (2001, in press). Language and the Internet. In R. Mesthrie & R. Asher (Eds), The concise encyclopedia of sociolinguistics. London: Elsevier Science. Introductory paragraph: Weblish, netlingo, e-talk, tech-speak, wired-style, geek-speak, netspeak, and so on. These are all terms used popularly to describe the sort of language and communication in the different channels (or 'niches') of the internet (or net): emails, chatrooms, bulletin boards, newsgroups, websites, and 'virtual worlds'. Representing one of the newest subject areas within the field, and as a sub-field of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC), what interests sociolinguists most are the particular forms and functions of netlingo or netspeak, and whether they are sufficiently different from other varieties of language to justify such distinctive labels. Thurlow, C. (2001). Naming the 'outsider within': Homophobic pejoratives and the verbal abuse of lesbian, gay and bisexual high-school pupils. Journal of Adolescence, 24(1), 25-38. ABSTRACT Few studies have looked explicitly at the use of homophobic pejoratives among young high-schoolers - not always an easy group to access, nor a comfortable subject to discuss. In this study, 377 14-/15-year-olds listed the pejoratives they heard at school and identified the ones they considered most taboo. As some of the most vitriolic items reported, homophobic pejoratives accounted for 10% of the 6,000 items generated. Significantly, however, homophobic verbal abuse was rated much less seriously than either racist abuse or other taboo slang. Boys reported more homophobic pejoratives than girls, but rated them more seriously. As further evidence of the increasingly well-documented daily assault on the psychological health of young homosexual people, this study confirms the prevalence of homophobic verbal abuse in high schools, its particularly aggressive nature, and the relative disregard with which it is used. As a contribution from Language and Communication Research, directions are offered for both sex(uality) education and language education. Thurlow, C. (2001). Talkin' 'bout my communication: Communication awareness in early adolescence. Language Awareness, 10 (2&3), 1-19. ABSTRACT What do young people actually know about communication? What do they think communication involves? How do they perceive their own communication practices? To what extent can they articulate this understanding and awareness? At first glance, these are strikingly simple questions, but ones which instance a line of investigation that more prescient writers have suggested for some time might be worth pursuing. According to Sypher & Applegate (1984), for example, we need to understand how young people think about communication if we are to understand the way they behave in communication. This is not to mention the transformative and educational potential inherent in their reflecting on their own communication practices, much as colleagues propose in the context of Language Awareness. In this regard, I start the current paper by affirming, and elaborating, the natural position of Language Awareness in relation to this line of questioning. I then report selected findings from an empirical study in which I have started to tap the 'communication awareness' of 460 young Welsh and English people. In doing so, and with particular reference to noticeable sex differences, I also indicate some practical (i.e. pedagogical and applied) ways in which these findings may be both revealing and useful. Teenage's social-type labelling and crowds Thurlow, C. (2001). The usual suspects? A comparative investigation of crowds and social-type labelling among young British teenagers. Journal of Youth Studies, 4(3), 319-334. ABSTRACT In the USA, reputation-based crowds (as opposed to interaction-based cliques) are a widespread, and widely reported, dimension of adolescent peer relations. To date, there is no such British literature. As part of a larger study, some 460 British high-schoolers were asked to identify major groupings at school. Crowds accounted for almost half of all the groupings reported. While there was evidence of the usual panoply of these social-type labels reported in the USA, such as Populars, Brains, and Toughies, there were also clear differences, not only between British and US crowds (e.g. a noticeable absence of Jocks and Outcasts) but also between schools, with some very distinctive, highly localized social-identification units. With some evidence of ethnically-orientated affiliations, these seemed to be more at the level of cliques than crowds and were very much less prevalent than anticipated by existing literature. Young people's ideas about culture Thurlow, C. (2001). "I don't have one - it's just normal." Young teenagers' ideas about 'culture': Critical transcultural communication awareness and the exoticisation of Self. In D. Killick & M. Parry (Eds), Mapping the territory: The poetics and praxis of languages and intercultural communication (pp. 111-125). Glasgow: Glasgow French & German Publications. ABSTRACT In British high schools, responsibility for teaching about culture and cultural difference falls mainly to teachers of foreign languages, alongside subjects like Religious Education or Personal & Social Education (PSE). Elsewhere, many academic writers are rightly critical of traditional, essentializing notions of culture; these are ideas which need to be addressed by teachers. There is, however, also a need to recognise the sometimes sizeable gap which opens up between lay and academic conceptualisations of this important cultural key-word. Largely data-driven, this paper considers the reactions of 462 14-year-old high-schoolers to the idea of culture. As well as revealing important lay-academic differences, these young people's ideas also point to the 'absent centre' in the thinking of Ethnic Majority pupils, and the self-evident relegation of the Ethnic Minority to that of exclusively cultured Other. On this basis, the paper proposes Critical Culture Awareness and the Exoticization of Self as important steps towards more critical approaches to teaching about culture and cultural difference in high schools. Intercultural awareness and education Thurlow, C. (2002). In the eye of the beholder: Representations of 'intercultural' communication among young 'multicultural' teenagers. In D. Killick & M. Parry (Eds), Revolutions in consciousness: Local identities, global concerns in languages and intercultural communication. Glasgow: Glasgow French & German Publications. ABSTRACT As part of a larger study, 462 Welsh and English 14-year-olds were asked for their attitudes to, and representations and experiences of, intercultural communication. The most striking pattern to emerge in their responses was the consistent and significant positivity of the participants from multi-ethnic schools. It is on this basis that I position, or ground, my participants' ideas about 'communication across cultures' in relation to existing social psychological theories; in particular, the central arguments of the Contact Hypothesis, and the theory of Uncertainty and Anxiety Reduction. Whether as a result of daily contact with cultural Other and/or a concomitant reduction of anxiety/uncertainty in intercultural communication, I propose that any existing mindfulness on the part of some young people is an important consideration, and offers a useful resource, for intercultural education. A snapshot of teenagers' peer orientations Thurlow, C. (2002). High-schoolers' peer orientation priorities: A snapshot. Journal of Adolescence, 24. ABSTRACT This short paper reports a set of qualitative research findings which reveal something of the peer orientation priorities of 462 British high-schoolers (14-year-olds) - who they hang out with and why. Offering a snapshot of young people's current social and relational priorities these data point to their over-riding concern for mutuality and 'hanging' itself (e.g. 'having a laugh'); boys' single-minded preference for sport (and computers); girls' consistent attunement to pleasant, caring interactions; and the relative unimportance of ethnically-based affiliation. Young people and new communication technologies Thurlow, C. & McKay, S. (2003). Profiling 'new' communication technologies in adolescence. Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 22(1). ABSTRACT In an overview of some of the central issues concerning the impact and effects of new technology in adolescence, this paper starts by questioning the reality of the ‘net generation’ before considering the interplay of new and old technologies, the internet as both communication and lifestyle resource, and newer technologies like text-messaging and webcams. The paper ends by proposing four indicative themes for future research. Teenagers in and on communication Thurlow, C. (in press, 2003). Teenagers in communication, teenagers on communication. Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 22(1). ABSTRACT With adolescents commonly depicted by adults as communication ignorant and/or inept, this paper discusses the need to find out what young people actually understand by, and know about, communication. In this vein, the paper reviews two pieces of research which have investigated ‘communication awareness’ in adolescence and then points to ideas for further research in the area. The sociolinguistics of text-messaging Thurlow, C. (2003). Generation Txt? The (socio-)linguistics of young people’s text-messaging. Discourse Analysis Online. ABSTRACT The so called ‘net generation’ is popularly assumed to be naturally media literate and to be necessarily reinventing conventional linguistic and communicative practices. With this in mind, this paper reports the analyses of qualitative data arising from a investigation of 159 older teenagers’ use of mobile telephone text-messaging - or SMS (i.e. short-messaging services). In particular, I examine the linguistic forms and communicative functions in a corpus of 544 of participants’ actual text-messages. While young people are surely using their mobile phones as a novel, creative means of enhancing and supporting intimate relationships and existing social networks, widespread claims about the linguistic exclusivity and impenetrability of this particular technologically-mediated discourse appear greatly exaggerated. Representation of local languages in television holiday programmes Jaworski, A.; Thurlow, C; Ylänne-McEwen, V. & Lawson, S. (forthcoming, 2003).The uses and representations of local languages in tourist destinations: A view from British television holiday programmes. Language Awareness. ABSTRACT Television travel programmes are a popular and entertaining source of information on holiday destinations. This paper analyses the instances of the use and representation of local languages (other than English) in the British TV holiday shows Holiday (BBC) and Wish You Were Here (ITV). The data come from 106 episodes and cover 34 countries/regions as travel destinations. In many of these locations English holds no official or ‘special’ place. Although most hosts/locals featured in the holiday programmes use English to communicate with the travelling journalists, regardless of the official status of English in their territories, it is not uncommon for the presenters to initiate interaction with the locals in their native language, to quote ‘foreign’ language phrases in their commentaries/narratives, or to make metalinguistic and metapragmatic comments about these languages. Occasionally, the presenters elicit words or phrases in the host language from the locals. Overall, the uses of languages other than English in the data are fairly limited, although their examination offers an interesting ideological gloss on the politics of non-English language use by tourists. Generally, the ethos of the programmes positions English as a global language, with the local languages reduced to the status of a handful of fixed phrases found in guide-book glossaries and exoticised linguascapes. The predominant pattern of non-English language use in these programmes is through the instances of language crossing, which allows the presenters of the programmes to orient to their TV audiences through a performative frame as a group of (implied) tourists whose default identity resides firmly within the national and linguistic boundaries of their Britishness/Englishness. Young people in and on communication Thurlow, C. (in press, 2003). Teenagers in communication, teenagers on communication. Journal of Language & Social Psychology, 22(1). ABSTRACT With adolescents commonly depicted by adults as communication ignorant and/or inept, this paper discusses the need to find out what young people actually understand by, and know about, communication. In this vein, the paper reviews two pieces of research which have investigated ‘communication awareness’ in adolescence and then points to ideas for further research in the area. Global communication and inflight magazines Thurlow, C. & Jaworski, A. (2003). Communicating a global reach: Inflight magazines and globalizing genres in tourism. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 581-608. ABSTRACT Like most multinational or international corporations, marketing for airlines hinges on careful strategies of differentiation, positioning, promotion and what is known as ‘brand equity’. Part of this brand equity relies on standard assurances of safety and cost; however, it seems that an increasingly important part of the way airlines are able to achieve the kind of competitive brand they require is to position themselves as ‘global’ – to promise their passengers the kudos of being global citizens and travellers. It is in this way that globalization can be seen to be not just about economic reordering, but also strategic commercial rebranding; globalisation is both cultural discourse and identity resource. This is embodied in the 72 inflight magazines we examine here, and achieved by a series of discursive strategies such as their cashing in on the global cachet (or ‘worldliness’) of English; their drawing on metonymic repertoires of global cities/destinations and celebrities; and their striking displays of ‘global’ route-maps regardless of actual network. At the epicentre of tensions between the national (state-oriented) and the global (worldwide), and needing to find a balance between the two, so called ‘flag-carriers’ brand themselves global in an effort to extend their globalist reach and to project national-commercial interests onto a global field. Inflight magazines are both ‘global’ medium (or genre) in themselves and carry global messages; in doing so, they epitomize a post-modern tendency towards the globalization of nationality in much the same way that pre-modern notions of ethnicity were once nationalized by emerging nation-states. Autobiography and teaching about difference Thurlow, C. (2005). Relating to our work, accounting for our selves: The autobiographical imperative in teaching about difference. Language and Intercultural Communication, 4(3). ABSTRACT The central thesis in this essay is the need to get more personal and more political in our thinking and especially our teaching about interculturality. Offering a ‘radical’ critique of the agenda of conventional Intercultural Communication scholarship, I draw my inspiration from the conceptual and philosophical roots of the field, while also proposing political and pedagogical routes for the future. In addition to ideas from feminist literary theory, philosophy, modern history, and psychoanalysis, I am especially concerned to exploit the striking points of contact between the field of Intercultural Communication, critical pedagogy and progressive theology. The stance I take towards interculturality upholds the role of the experiential and autobiographical (i.e. the local and personal) in engaging, both as scholars and as everyday communicators, with a more broadly, critically conceived notion of difference. Host-tourist postcard 'communication' Thurlow, C; Jaworski, A. & Ylänne-McEwen, V. (2005 in press). ‘Half-hearted tokens of transparent love’? ‘Ethnic’ postcards and the visual mediation of host-tourist communication. Tourism, Culture and Communication, 5(2). ABSTRACT One negotiation site of heavily mediated, indirect, and usually inadvertent, communication between hosts and tourists is the picture-postcard rack. As ‘hegemonically-scripted discourses’ [Mellinger, 1994: 776], postcards make important assumptions about the tourist’s touristic experience, as well as the image of that experience she/he will want to communicate to others ‘back home’. Of more importance, however, are the assumptions being made in postcards about the people actually represented in them. Certainly, postcard images of local people (locals rather than necessarily hosts) are often designed specifically to communicate their ambassadorial hospitality - their host-like qualities - and to promote the kind of ethnotourism discussed widely in the tourism literature. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the postcard images of local ethnic minority people such as the Zulus in South Africa and the Sámi in Finland. In these two instances of intense exoticization and commodified cultural representation, and in stark contrast to postcard images of the Welsh in Britain, we are interested in exploring the ways in which both the ‘represented host’ and ‘consumer tourist’ understand and view these visual representations. In this programmatic paper, we therefore report our initial analyses of three distinctive sets of postcards as a means for discussing how research might seek to situate and, thereby, complicate assumptions inherent in these ‘ethnic’ postcards about both the traversed, mediatised Other, and the constantly directed tourist gaze.
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© 2000 Published and copyrighted by Crispin Thurlow (Thurlow@u.washington.edu) Please let me know if you discover any broken links. Thank you. |
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