Cover not available
Article published In:
Language and Dialogue
Vol. 9:3 (2019) ► pp.402–417

Stance-taking, accommodation, code switching and language crossing

A case study

| University of Mississippi (USA)

This study involves an in-depth analysis of a sociolinguistic interview between the researcher and a college student in his junior year, herein named “Alex”. Within the entirety of the transcription, I conducted a detailed investigation of the interviewee’s linguistic features and strategies. He attempted to achieve several communicative goals, such as streamlining the conversation by utilizing stance taking, communication accommodation, language crossing and code switching. In this paper, I elaborate on the specific linguistic strategies he used to take a stance and construct his identity through narrative. Specifically, he created the identity of a motivated, intelligent yet humble foreign language learner.

Keywords: stance-taking, accommodation, identity construction, code switching, personal narrative, language crossing
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Stance enactment and identity
  • 3.Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT)
  • 4.Code switching and language crossing
  • 5.Methodology
  • 6.Findings and discussion
    • 6.1Stance enactment and identity building
    • 6.2Communication accommodation
    • 6.3Code switching and language crossing
  • 7.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 29 October 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00049.zhu
References
Blom, Jan-Petter and John Gumperz
1972 “Social Meaning in Linguistic Structures: Code Switching in Northern Norway.” In Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by John Gumperz and Dell Hymes, 407–434. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Burkette, Allison
2013 “Constructing the (m)Other: A-Prefixing, Stance, and the Lessons of Motherhood.” Language in Society 421: 239–258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chandrasegaran, Antonia and Kah Mun Clara Kong
2006 “Stance-taking and Stance-support in Students’ Online Forum Discussion.” Linguistics and Education 171: 374–390. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coupland, Justine, Nikolas Coupland, and Howard Giles
1991 Contexts of Accommodation: Developments in Applied Sociolinguistics. New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas
2003 “Sociolinguistic Authenticities.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 71: 417–431. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, John W.
2007 “The Stance Triangle.” In Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Craig
2018 “Investigating ‘Care Leaver’ Identity: A Narrative Analysis of Personal Experience Stories.” Text and Talk 391: 25–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Farzadnia, Sina and Howard Giles
2015 “Patient–provider Interaction: A Communication Accommodation Theory Perspective.” International Journal of Society, Culture and Language 31: 17–34.Google Scholar
Gallois, Cindy and Howard Giles
2015 “Communication Accommodation Theory.” In The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction, ed. by Karen Tracy, Cornelia Ilie, and Todd Sandel, 1–18. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard and Tania Ogay
2007 “Communication Accommodation Theory.” In Explaining Communication: Contemporary Theories and Exemplars, ed. by Bryan B. Whaley and Wendy Samter, 293–310, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Giles, Howard
2009 “The Process of Communication Accommodation.” In The New Sociolinguistics Reader, ed. by Nikolas Coupland, and Adam Jaworski, 276–286. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giles, Howard and Jessica Gasiorek
2013 “Parameters of Non–accommodation: Refining and Elaborating Communication Accommodation Theory.” In Social Cognition and Communication, ed. by Joseph Paul Forgas, Orsolya Vincze and János László, 155–172. Abingdon, UK: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Kira and Chad Nilep
2015 “Code Switching, Identity and Globalization.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton, and Deborah Schiffrin, 597–619. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hozhabrossadat, Sepideh
2015 “Linguistic Identities: How Code-switching and/ or Code Crossing Help Constructing Solidarity or Otherness in Multilingual Societies.” International Journal of English Literature and Culture 3(6): 194–198.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara
2009 “Stance, Style, and the Linguistic Individual.” In Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, ed. by Alexandra Jaffe, 29–52. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kärkkäinen, Elise
2006 “Stance Taking in Conversation: From Subjectivity to Intersubjectivity.” Text and Talk 261: 699–731. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kiesling, Scott F.
1998 “Men’s Identities and Sociolinguistic Variation: The Case of Fraternity Men.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 21: 69–99. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 “Stances of Whiteness and Hegemony in Fraternity Men’s Discourse.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 111: 101–115. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 “Variation, Stance and Style: Word–final–er, High Rising Tone, and Ethnicity in Australian English.” English World-wide 26(1): 1–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009a “Style as stance: Stance as the Explanation for Patterns of Sociolinguistic Variation.” In Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, ed. by Alexandra Jaffe, 171–194. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kiesling, and Scott
2009b “Fraternity Men: Variation and Discourses of Masculinity.” In The New Sociolinguistic Reader, ed. by Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski, 187–200. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1972 Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Laury, Ritva
2012 “Taking a Stance and Getting on with it: The Form and Function of the Finnish Finite Clausal Extraposition Construction.” Text and Talk 321: 503–524. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Myers-Scotton, Carol
1983 “The Negotiation of Identities in Conversation: a Theory of Markedness and Code Choice.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 441: 115–36.Google Scholar
1993 Social Motivations for Codeswitching: Evidence from Africa. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
2009 “Code-switching.” In The New Sociolinguistics Reader, ed. by Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski, 473–489. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor and Lisa Capps
1996 “Narrating the Self.” Annual Review of Anthropology 251: 19–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben
1999 “Crossing.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 91: 54–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “Crossing, Ethnicity and Code–Switching.” In the New Sociolinguistics Reader, ed. by Nikolas Coupland and Adam Jaworski, 287–298. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wu, Ruey-Jiuan Regina
2003 Stance in Talk: A Conversation Analysis of Mandarin Final Particles. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins.Google Scholar