|
|
 E-mail this message to a friend
|
|
Title:
|
Immigrant Identities: A discourse analysis of narratives told by Mexicans in the U.S.
|
|
Author:
|
Anna De Fina
|
|
Email:
|
click here to access email
|
|
Degree Awarded:
|
Georgetown University
, Department of Linguistics
|
|
Degree Date:
|
1990
|
|
Linguistic Subfield(s):
|
Discourse Analysis
|
|
Director(s):
|
Deborah Schiffrin
|
|
|
Abstract:
|
|
The study presented explores the relationship between migration and identity, looking at the discourse construction of the self by Mexican immigrants within narrative talk about the experience of immigration. The data come from sociolinguistic interviews with fourteen Mexican immigrants, most of whom are undocumented. The question of identity is analyzed from a discourse analytic perspective examining the relationship between linguistic choices, story worlds represented and the interactional worlds in which the narratives are told. The aspects of identity analyzed are social orienation, agency, self- and other-identification. In the case of social orientation, pronominal choices are analyzed; in the case of agency the analysisi is focused on reported speech acts and their attribution to self and others; in the case of self and other-identification ehtnic labeling onb orientation clauses is studied.
It is argued that the meaning of the linguistic phenomenaanalyzed cannot be fully understood without making reference to wider social processes that frame the immigration experience. Storytelling is seen in the dissertation as a type of social practice since when immigrants tell narratives, they create new meanings by building and communicating images of themselves and others, interpretations of the migration process and their roles in it. Thus narratives are seen as both reflecting and constituting social reality.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Page Updated: 28-Nov-2009
Please report any bad links or misclassified data
LINGUIST Homepage | Read
LINGUIST | Contact us
While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed
on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.
|
|
