Unit 3

Discourse is a form of action because we can represent groups of people through discourse, for example, by representing college students as consumers. People represent a group of people by the way they talk about them. In the 18th C, literary discourse represented women as vulnerable, hiper emotional, but in the late 18th C Jane Austin and Virginia Woolf came and introduced another discourse, therefore, the representation of women changed towards women being as smart as men, financially skillful. Also, another example of discourse as a form of action is the fact that it can be used to legitimize a political claim, decision, a policy, a government. Another forms of action: storytelling

Identities are constructed differently at different points in history and the place of birth influences one´s identity. Being born a woman in Poland in the 1940s would make you automatically someone who desires to be married, a mother of a large family, follow your husband´s steps. But being born a woman in Buenos Aires in 2023 would make you free to choose to maary or not, to have children or not, and at any age. Being born in BS AS in 2023 will help in constructing sb as a free woman.

People construct their identities in relationship with others. Also, through the image you construct through performance (wearing make up, way of speaking, language variety, clothing, following fashion or not, etc)

Individuals index an identity through the PRACTICES they habitually carry out. For example, speaking in "su", writing poetry in Spanish in poetry notebooks, exchanging photographs, being quiet INDEX sureña identity/indicates AFFILIATION with sureña gang, and disaffiliation with norteñas gang.

Language is a means to construct social meaning. How social groups use language differently reflects the idea that membership in a social category is correlated with language use

Macro-level: for ex demographic identities (gender, sex, age, racial categories) used to identify ourselves in official contexts.
Local identities: ethnographic emergent cultural position, which is specific to the setting and the situation and are locally defined, for example, at schools we can find gangs, populares, "chetos"
Micro-level: temporary and interactionally specific stances (positions regarding what is being said) and situational roles (evaluator, engaged listener, identities which are embedded in the particular, ongoing interaction). Stance: that level of identity that is constructed and negotiated which projects a given identity for the text producer, for example, stance against immigration

Linguistic means of constructing identities: Using a particular language is done to claim one´s identity and challenge other, e.g., Spanish is linked to being Mexican, switching from English to Spanish (code choice) to make explicit one is Mexican (Use of Spanish to perform Mexican identity). Also, people use PRONUNCIATION in stance-taking to construct an identity, for example, choosing to pronounce a Spanish name with a Spanish pronunciation or anglicize it shows identity.

Identities are relational, people construct identities in relation to other people and they vary with the relationships co-constructed in interaction. 3 particular relations in identity construction:
- Similarity/difference: for example a research showed how dominican adolescents used of AAVE, which simultaneously enacts similarity to African Americans and difference from White Americans. In other cases, they constructed difference between themselves and African Americans by using Spanish, while also expressing similarity to Dominicans by using a Dominican variety of Spanish.
- Authenticity/artifice: for example by challenging other people´s identity, like saying sb is not a latinx because he only hangs out with whites.
- Authority and delegitimacy: use of positions of power in the construction of identities, for ex, claiming to be more Mexican than other person based on Mexican citizenship.

Identities are fluid, varied, hybrid and multiple, and people perform them in different contexts. People´s identities can also include mutually exclusive categories that vary situationally, such as national identities in the sense that people within the same nation may not identify with their national identity at all but rather with a regional or local identity. Our multiple identities interact and intersect (INTERSECTIONALITY)

Sometimes we are, sometimes we are not. Altough we speak of choosing specific languages, linguistic features, and social practices to enact an identity, this does not mean we are consciouss of these choices and their social meanings, and also, we are influenced by IDEOLOGIES without necessarily understand what these ideologies are, and we are constrained by the opinions of others as well.

Multilingual practices, such as code switching and translanguaging, are resources for constructing and performing identity. For example, in Carranza´s two way immersion classroom research, in child to child interactions, code switching to English is done to index peerness, it is a way of indexing afiliation to the group since English is the in-group variety. Another example is the combination of English and Spanish to construct a dual or hybrid identity, which results in a Spanglish

Yes, because members of this groups have to remember these practices and pass them to younger members of the gangs, generations to generations, and in this way, they contribute to maintaining the memory of the gangs.

Yes, there is always a dialectical relationship between speaking and thinking because discourse reflects and reproduces worldviews/ideologies. For example, mock spanish reflects and reinforces a racist worldview, which in turn influences physical reality. When a White American uses mock spanish, that reveals their prejudice about Latinxs, which in turns reinforces racism and negative stereotyping towards latinxs in the physical reality.

Mock Spanish index meanings since it points to particular identities, in other words, using mock spanish indexes being White, and Anglo identity, and social attributes (being humorous).
Direct indexicality: the meanings acknowledged, such as being humorous, cosmopolitan, authentic.
Indirect indexicality: meanings not acknowledged, such as negative racializing ideas about Latinxs and Chicanos.

The relationship between language and reality is mediated by our ideas and conceptualizations about that physical reality. Our language conditions our conceptualizations, which in turn influence how we perceive that physical reality. In turn, the physical reality conditions our conceptualizations, which are then expressed in the language.

RAE´s prescriptive discourse reflects language ideologies about correctness, appropiateness, standardness, which in turn influences the social reality such as the creation of dictionaries, the design of the curricula and student assessment.
The nationalist discourse in the USA reflects the monolingualism/one country one language ideology, which in turn influences the social reality, for example, the proposition 227 resulted in the elimination of bilingual classes in California.
Bonvillian; Language and Gender: The English language (semantic derogations, female words with negative connotations, female/male differences encoded in words) creates and reinforces cultural models of gender (worldview of women as inferior beings) that maintain the social privilege of males and udermine the status and self worth of females (social reality).

UKIP´s European campaign: The anti immigration discourse found in the multi-modal texts of the campaign reflects and reinforces their xenophobia/anti-immigration worldview, which in turn influenced social reality: the Brexit applied in 2019 (this example is my deduction)

- Mock Spanish
- Gender bias in discourse in the content, sentence structure, genres
- Storytelling
- etc

- Social identities
- Social relations
- Social reality
Partly constructed in discourse and partly not constructed in discourse

The stimulus in contexts and situations where those uses do not get penalized, meaning the White public space, because a white would not get away with those uses in a Latinx fest

It means different elements intersect, for ex, Norteñas and Sureñas enact identity of teenager, gang member, Mexican?

No. It is socially conditioned by culture, historical time, the people we are addressing, for ex, in a job interview we enact a different identity from the identity we enact with our friends

Mock spanish: index whiteness and differentiation from Latinxs
Gang´s semiotic practices index cohesion/afiliation or disafiliation

Because memory is the only thing that gives COHESION to a group/ a way to establish union generation after generation