Going for Wombat — Transformations in Wirangu and the Scotdesco Community on the Far West Coast of South Australia

ABSTRACT Becoming an object of touristic interest is only one of a series of ways that Aboriginality is being transformed in contemporary Australia, as the space opens up for individuals and groups to reposition themselves as Aborigines within the nation, with a distinctive culture in various forms. The nation's appetite for Aboriginal ‘culture’, within desirable limits (Povinelli 2002) and energised by a sentimental politics (Cowlishaw 2010), continues to grow. There is, however, a destructive flip side to the politics of difference being played out within Aboriginal societies. This is evidenced by the many battles for access to or control of ‘cultural’ resources for their commercial benefits or collective survival value. In many places communities or groups are faced with the terrible choice of distinction or extinction (Comaroff & Comaroff 2009). That is, they must find, and make alienable, something distinctive about themselves or face collective extinction. How one Aboriginal community is responding to these threats and challenges is the subject of this paper. This paper also adds to the growing literature on ethno‐commercialisation by focusing on the central role of language in these processes.     

Diverse unity: creole contributions to interethnic integration in Guinea‐Bissau

The paper explores how creole categories of people who have constituted a small but influential minority in Guinea‐Bissau for centuries contributed to a countrywide, integrated national culture since the eve of independence in 1974. Since independence, several cultural representations previously exclusive to creole communities have been – driven by the nationalist independence movement and the early postcolonial state – transformed into representations of a new national culture, crossing ethnic and religious boundaries. The fact that creole identity and culture had been transethnic – i.e. creole identity brings together individuals of heterogeneous cultural, ethnic and geographic descent – during the colonial period, has fostered in postcolonial times the countrywide spread of previously exclusively creole cultural features. I argue that this ‘transethnicisation’ of creole cultural representations has unified Bissau‐Guineans across ethnic lines, causing a strong commitment with their nation ‘from below’.     

A question of national identity or minority rights? The changing status of the Irish language in Ireland since 1922

When the Irish Free State was founded in 1922, the Irish language was a substantial feature of the politics that led up to this event. Subsequently the language was recognised as the national and first official language of the Irish Free State. Since then, the de jure position of Irish appears to have evolved. Most recently, legislation was introduced in the Republic of Ireland, and statutory duties were placed upon certain public bodies with regard to the Irish language in Northern Ireland. This article examines this historical shift in the status of Irish in the two political jurisdictions in Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland [as a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK)], and explains its significance.     

提高学生兴趣 学好高中物理

激发学生学习物理的兴趣是提高教学质量的关键。在物理教学中,教师应该尽自己最大的能力把物理课题以新奇的方式揭示在学生面前,能使课堂气氛活跃、引入入胜,从而培养学生的学习兴趣,并在乐趣中获得知识、巩固知识。     

浅谈新课程对农村中学外语教学所形成的挑战与思考

农村中学外语教学在新课程中将面临一系列新的挑战,如何认识与应对这些挑战,走出应试教学的阴影,适应课改新形势的发展需要,全面推行素质教育,大面积提高农村中学英语教学质量,有若干问题需要思考与解决。     

谈高中语文兴趣教学

在新课改背景下,身处新课改第一线的语文教学工作者,只有不断更新语文教育理念,主动融入语文新课改的潮流,充分利用课堂教学这块天地,激发学生语文学习的若趣,调动学生的参与意识,培养学生的问题意识,发展学生的创造性思维,构建起崭新的语文课堂,才能为我们举步维艰的语文教育改革注入新鲜的血液,开创语文教学的一片新的天地。     

Talking class,talking race: language,class, and race in the call center industry in South Africa

Against a backdrop of declining manufacturing employment, this article uses a study of the call center industry to argue that English language proficiency is central to new service jobs in post-apartheid South Africa. Drawing on research in Durban, we in this study show that access to call center work—especially the highest paid niches—is heavily mediated by English language skills generally attainable only at the most elite high schools. In doing so, we argue that access to English-medium education can challenge racial disadvantage, but simultaneously that English can help to consolidate white privilege through the continued association of a ‘prestigious’ accent with whiteness. The study accordingly reveals the importance of language in the changing intersectionality of race and class and, in doing so, underlines the value of social and cultural perspectives in labor geography.     

The Linguistic and Rhetorical Legacy of the Prague Spring: Reading the Czechoslovak Communist Party Daily,Rudé právo,from the Late 1980s

This study uses a corpus-informed lexicological approach to analyse texts published in the Czechoslovak Communist Party daily Rudé právo during the final years of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia. The analysis aims to uncover how far such texts represented a departure from or a reaffirmation of the norms of the pre-Gorbachev era and, in particular, the role that they played in the Party’s attempt to control interpretations of the 1968 Prague Spring. The investigation also considers ways in which the texts sought to construct a ‘new’ reality in the light of the changes in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. The article maintains that the ‘authoritative discourse’ model represents an especially useful analytical framework for evaluating the impact of ideological language in the context of the Communist system. The model both helps to explain the relative acquiescence of most of the population, and also to track the extent to which the ‘coded’ message of the approved discourse was successful in slowing the demise of the regime.     

The Study of Chinese Internet Slang from the Perspective of Sociolinguistics

网络语言是随着互联网的风靡而兴起的一种新的交际语言。网络语言也以其简约的语风、独特的语法构造、朗朗上口的特点广为流传。本文从社会语言学理论出发,从语言变体、言语社区、以及语言变化的社会语言出发深入浅出的分析网络语言的构成及其稳定性。