Q) What are the two main theories of nationalism and language? Which of these theories can find inspirations from the idea of linguistic relativity? Eve Haque states that the two most recurrent schools of thought on nationalism in conventional scholarship is primordialism and modernism. While describing primordialism, she mentions how language is a central element around which the... Continue Reading →
Q) Does technology (the medium of interaction) affect communication? Describe debates on this issue. Give examples of how people creatively use and interpret messages from different media. In her article, Tracy LeBlanc-Wories describes presents debates on whether technology, the medium of interaction, affect communication (2015). She states that scholars before the 1990s mostly neglected the potential community aspects of the internet. In... Continue Reading →
Q) What is language socialization and how is it studied? Can the studies of color categorization be part of language socialization research? Why or why not? Amy L. Paugh states that language socialization research looks into how children and other novices are socialized via language, and how they socialize with others, as they learn to use languages through interactions with relatives... Continue Reading →
The nervousness about speaking for others grows out of the introspections induced in anthropologists by the massive decolonization after the Second World War. That most of the classic field studies were carried out in colonial or semi-colonial settings, settings in which being white and Western conferred in itself a certain privilege and involved, willy-nilly, a... Continue Reading →
Q) What is language ideology and what are its main features? What kind of linguistic ideologies are at play in the debates about New Chinglish? Paul V. Kroskrity defines “language ideologies” as the “beliefs, feelings, and conceptions about language structure and use, which often index the political-economic interests of individual speakers, ethnic and other interest groups, and the nation-state." (2015,... Continue Reading →
Q) What is a community of practice? How can the framework of a community of practice be applied to the studies of gender and the studies of swearwords? The concept of ‘community of practice’ was first introduced to language and gender research by Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnel-Ginet (Pichler 2015, 196) who define it as “an aggregate... Continue Reading →
I would like to start with the question: Can there be multiple truths? Or is truth supposed to be one, as in 'The Truth'? Well, according to cultural anthropology, your truth is not the only truth. What I consider as true, moral or taboo could be completely different from your understanding. And so many factors... Continue Reading →
If we ask the question “How would a society’s happiness be maximized?”, John Stuart Mill, an advocate of utilitarianism, would answer “by defending personal freedom of the individuals”. In fact, his commitment to following a utilitarian approach to forming an ideal society is the reason for his attempts of defending individual liberty in his book... Continue Reading →
We all know that phrases such as “Artificial Intelligence”, “Machine Learning” and “Data Science” have become buzzwords thrown in every corner. Surely today is the era of Artificial Intelligence with the emergence of Big Data and with the leap in computation power. Perhaps, we are going through a revolution, a technical revolution, that will be... Continue Reading →
(Originally written in November 6, 2019) Chunking Mansions... A place so crowded yet so lonely in middle of Tsim Tsa Tsui. It is crowded because a lot of people from South Asia and Africa, whether Hong Kong citizens, asylum seekers or illegal workers, strive to make a living. It is lonely because it is, in... Continue Reading →
