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31. Micro level factors leading to a migratory decision: Migrant groups in the Czech Republic

Author:
Zivka Deleva and Antonin Mikes
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
Multidisciplinary work has yielded a variety of attempts to formulate unified theoretical frameworks to aid our understanding of the complex flow of individuals under the rubric of migration. While these attempts have greatly enhanced our understanding of determi- nates of aggregate flows comparatively little is known about remigration trends, second generation returnees or migrant resettlement during multistage migratory phases. Taking into account the reality that migrant itineraries are continuously under development and are subject to change, this work seeks to clarify our understanding of migratory flows into the Czech Republic with a particular focus on highly educated migrants2. This has been made possible by analysis of the responses collected from a snowball sample of migrants in the Czech Republic3. In the interest of developing a better understanding of the complex web of flows and micro flows within and across the target region the researchers have targeted several dis- tinct migrant groups. These groups have been divided into distinct linguistic groupings; Slovak speakers, Russian speakers (including Ukrainians and Belarusians) and English Language speakers (from a variety of source countries)
Topic:
Migration, Immigrants, Language, Identity, and Microaggression
Political Geography:
Europe and Czech Republic

32. Public and Private Hate Speech in Poland

Author:
Magda Stroinska and Grażyna Drazazga
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Warsaw East European Review (WEER)
Institution:
Centre for East European Studies, University of Warsaw
Abstract:
“W ords can be like tiny doses of arsenic: they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all,” wrote Vic- tor Klemperer in his study of the language of the Third Reich (Klemperer 1946/2000: 15- 16). The importance of language for effective persuasion has been acknowledged by the teachers of rhetoric and orators since the age of antiquity. In modern times, there were both politicians who practiced deception through language for political or other gains, and also those who studied the effects of language-based manipulation. Among the most profound research on the mechanisms and effects of propaganda, one could name the writings of George Orwell, Friedrich Hayek, or Michał Głowiński. In this paper, we focus on one particularly disturbing aspect of propaganda: the use of hate speech. The reason for this choice of topic is the unprecedented explosion of populism all over the world, and the spread of perhaps its strongest weapon – hate through political and social fearmongering and use of what Klemperer referred to as ‘poisonous language’. Both political discourse in general and political propaganda in particular, tend to use a number of linguistic mechanisms in order to maximize the way they affect their target audiences and stir up hostility towards certain minorities. The most effective techniques, proven throughout history, include stereotyping for the purpose of singling out individu- als or groups as the proverbial “other” and, making that “other” out to be the scapegoat (cf. Stroińska 1998), as well as ad hominem attacks and redefining the meaning of certain keywords.
Topic:
Minorities, Discrimination, Language, Hate Speech, and Speech
Political Geography:
Europe and Poland

33. Policy Briefs: National Minorities in Political Processes – Engagement for a Better Future

Author:
Fagan Abbasov, Orkhan Pirverdiev, Rima Marangozyan, Amaliya Babayan, Margarita Khasanshina, Lilit Karakhanyan, Zakir Aivazov, Katya Mosoyan, Varduy Kurginyan, and Heydar Aliyev
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Georgian Foundation for Strategic International Studies -GFSIS
Abstract:
The Policy Paper Series include policy briefs developed within the framework of the National Minorities in Political Processes – Engagement for a Better Future project. The papers were elaborated by the ethnic minority youth from Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli for whom it was their first attempt to work on an analytical document. The papers address the challenges and solutions for the engagement of ethnic minorities in the political, economic or social life of Georgia. The project was implemented by the Rondeli Foundation with the support and active participation of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (OSCE HCNM). The project aims to increase the political and social inclusion of ethnic minorities and facilitate a healthy policy debate on the issues of national minorities among the political parties, thus overall contributing to good governance practices. Within the framework of the multi-component project, members of Tbilisi-based political party youth organizations, young people living in Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli and active representatives of the local community attended various thematic seminars. The project also included thematic meetings of representatives of political parties and government agencies with the representatives of national minorities, the preparation of TV programs and organizing internships in political parties for young people representing ethnic minorities.
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Government, Minorities, Elections, Youth, Language, and Economic Development
Political Geography:
Eurasia, Caucasus, and Georgia

34. Attitude of Students of Gedu College of Business Studies Towards Reading Dzongkha

Author:
Chencho Wangchuk
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Bhutan Studies
Institution:
Centre for Bhutan & GNH Studies (CBS)
Abstract:
This study examined the attitude of Gedu College of Business Studies towards reading Dzongkha, their reading choice between Dzongkha and English, and attitudinal difference between the two groups. Descriptive analysis of the survey responses found respondents’ attitude positive towards reading Dzongkha. No statistically significant attitudinal difference was observed between the two groups, however. In contrast to their positive attitude towards reading Dzongkha, majority of the respondents’ preferred choice of reading was English owing to reasons such as access to and availability of reading materials, employability, and its widespread usage as a lingua franca. The mismatch observed between attitude and reality implies a need to increase both accessibility and availability of Dzongkha reading resources in school libraries. One way to fulfil them could be reintroduction of teaching subjects such as environmental studies and Bhutan history in Dzongkha. Enforcing a requirement to produce Dzongkha proficiency test results, like the ones in English, for any scholarship and employment purposes could possibly increase usage and assist in promoting Dzongkha as the national language. Otherwise, excessive usage of and reliance on English may result in loss of Bhutan’s ethno-linguistic and socio-cultural attributes which are symbolisms of her sovereignty.
Topic:
Education, Sovereignty, Culture, Language, and Students
Political Geography:
Bhutan

35. Regional Development Performance in Council Areas of Scotland with the Highest Percentage of Gaelic Speakers

Author:
Craig Willis
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI)
Abstract:
Research on Gaelic language in Scotland has increased substantially in recent decades, as has Scottish regional development programmes following devolution. However, the overlapping of these two aspects remains limited, particularly in the context of regional development data available on regions where Scottish Gaelic speakers mostly reside. This Research Paper uses the OECD Regional Wellbeing index as a framework to measure regional development in Scotland at the level of council area, comparing this with its percentage of Gaelic speakers. Equivalent data for eight of the eleven OECD topics is analysed and the focus is placed on the three council areas with significant Gaelic speaking populations – Argyll and Bute, Na h-Eileanan Siar and Highland. The results show that these three regions consistently perform average or good across the eight topics measured, in comparison to the national average in Scotland. This demonstrates that Gaelic language is not a hindrance to development and the three regions perform comparably to other remote council areas such as the Orkney and Shetland Islands.
Topic:
Development, Minorities, Language, Regionalism, and Identity
Political Geography:
Britain, United Kingdom, Europe, and Scotland

36. Language Change in Progress: Chinese Internet Lexicon and the Symbolic Meaning in the Harmonious Society

Author:
Ting-Yu Lee
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Nowa Polityka Wschodnia
Institution:
Faculty of Political Science and International Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Abstract:
Globalization and communication on the internet poses challenges to sociolinguistics. China is one of the engines of economic in the world. Since the Internet service started in 1994, it has been developing rapidly. The rapid development of Internet communication in China has created huge impact on the Chinese language and society. According to Yates (1996), a new medium of communication such as the Internet not only draws upon existing linguistic practices, but also generates new forms of Chinese Internet lexicon. The rapid diffusion of the Internet has prompted developments in the variety and creativity of language use. Internet users often create new words or appropriate the meanings of existing words. The resultant “Internet language” has unique lexical and discourse features. Li (2002) and Ma (2002) confirmed that Internet lexicon has brought the tremendous impact and spread to everyday usage in Chinese society. In 2006 National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Graphic Media Center has released the first time an annual report of Inventory of Chinese Language (汉语盘点 Hanyu pandian). Since 2011 ten most popular Internet hot words have been released annually by National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Graphic Media Center. This research is aimed to discusses the emergence and use of most popular Chinese Internet vocabularies in the recent 10 years. Based on the data from National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Graphic Media Center, the most popular Chinese Internet words and phrases(2011–2019) are analyzed and summarized into twelve categories. The implication and findings of the symbolic meaning embedded in the Chinese internet lexicon are analyzed. This study sets out to examine the transformation of internet lexicon in China and to argue the equivalent relation between symbols, language and popular culture.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Internet, Language, and Society
Political Geography:
China and Asia

37. Language and Politics in India and China: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study

Author:
Daniel Komarzyca and Janina Fras
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:
Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:
This paper provides insights into the relationship between language and politically relevant aspects of culture in India and China which are as follows: attitude toward revolution and tradition, the domination of politics over religion or vice versa, and a concern for the liberty of the individual. The paper introduces a novel approach to the comparative study of civilizations by advancing the political-linguistic explanation. In so doing, it combines Hajime Nakamura’s hypothesis of the strict connection between language and culture (understood as a way of thinking) with Samuel P. Huntington’s emphasis on the impact of cultural differences on the political dimension of society – so that our explanatory model can be expressed as follows: language→culture→politics. As far as language is concerned, the focus is on the basic structure of Sanskrit and Chinese; besides, special attention is given to Indian and Chinese philosophies of language. Culturally, the most relevant schools of Hindu philosophy may be called “ultraconservative” since they tend to ground unchanging meaning firmly in metaphysics and rely on the supreme authority of ancient religious texts. In contrast, the Chinese typically considered language a social mechanism for shaping our behavior (so the relation of language and society is the most crucial); they also expressed clearly divergent views on naming. In short, at least four distinctive perspectives are essential: (1) conservative Confucianism, (2) anti-traditional and highly authoritarian Legalism, (3) egalitarian and linguistically skeptical Laozian Daoism, (4) nonconformist and proto-libertarian Zhuangzian Daoism.
Topic:
Politics, Culture, Philosophy, Language, and Identity
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

38. Gendered Language

Author:
Pamela Jakiela and Owen Ozier
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Languages use different systems for classifying nouns. Gender languages assign nouns to distinct sex-based categories, masculine and feminine. We construct a new data set, documenting the presence or absence of grammatical gender in more than 4,000 languages which together account for more than 99 percent of the world’s population. We find a robust negative cross-country relationship between prevalence of gender languages and women’s labor force participation and educational attainment. We replicate these associations in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa and in India, showing that educational attainment and female labor force participation are lower among those whose native languages use grammatical gender.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Language, Masculinity, and Femininity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

39. Enhancing Young Children’s Language Acquisition through Parent-Child Book-Sharing: A Randomized Trial in Rural Kenya

Author:
Heather A. Knauer, Pamela Jakiela, Owen Ozier, Frances Aboud, and Lia C.H. Fernald
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Worldwide, 250 million children under five (43 percent) are not meeting their developmental potential because they lack adequate nutrition and cognitive stimulation in early childhood. Several parent support programs have shown significant benefits for children’s development, but the programs are often expensive and resource intensive. The objective of this study was to test several variants of a potentially scalable, cost-effective intervention to increase cognitive stimulation by parents and improve emergent literacy skills in children. The intervention was a modified dialogic reading training program that used culturally and linguistically appropriate books adapted for a low-literacy population. We used a cluster randomized controlled trial with four intervention arms and one control arm in a sample of caregivers (n = 357) and their 24- to 83-month-old children (n = 510) in rural Kenya. The first treatment group received storybooks, while the other treatment arms received storybooks paired with varying quantities of modified dialogic reading training for parents. Main effects of each arm of the trial were examined, and tests of heterogeneity were conducted to examine differential effects among children of illiterate vs. literate caregivers. Parent training paired with the provision of culturally appropriate children’s books increased reading frequency and improved the quality of caregiver-child reading interactions among preschool-aged children. Treatments involving training improved storybook-specific expressive vocabulary. The children of illiterate caregivers benefited at least as much as the children of literate caregivers. For some outcomes, effects were comparable; for other outcomes, there were differentially larger effects for children of illiterate caregivers.
Topic:
Children, Language, Rural, Parenting, and Reading
Political Geography:
Kenya

40. Learning Equity Requires More than Equality: Learning Goals and Achievement Gaps between the Rich and the Poor in Five Developing Countries

Author:
Maryam Akmal and Lant Pritchett
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for education include the goal that “all youth...achieve literacy and numeracy” (Target 4.6). Achieving some absolute standard of learning for all children is a key element of global equity in education. Using the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) data from India and Pakistan, and Uwezo data from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda that test all children of given ages, whether in school or not, on simple measures of learning in math, reading (local language), and English, we quantify the role of achieving equality between the richest 20% and the poorest 40% in terms of grade attainment and learning achievement toward accomplishing the global equity goal of universal numeracy and literacy for all children. First, excluding Kenya, equalizing grade attainment between children from rich and poor households would only close between 8% (India) and 25% (Pakistan) of the gap to universal numeracy, and between 8% (Uganda) and 28% (Pakistan) of the gap to universal literacy. Second, children from the poorest 40% of households tend to have lower performance in literacy and numeracy at each grade. If such children had the learning profiles of children from rich households, we would close between 16% (Pakistan and Uganda) and 34% (India) of the gap to universal numeracy, and between 13% (Uganda) and 44% (India) of the gap to universal literacy. This shows that the “hidden exclusion” (WDR, 2018) of lower learning at the same grade levels—a gap that emerges in the earliest grades—is a substantial and often larger part of the equity gap compared to the more widely documented gaps in enrollment and grade attainment. Third, even with complete equality in grade attainment and learning achievement, children from poor households would be far from the equity goal of universal numeracy and literacy, as even children from the richest 20% of households are far from universal mastery of basic reading and math by ages 12-13. Achieving universal literacy and numeracy to accomplish even a minimal standard of global absolute equity will require more than just closing the rich-poor learning gap, it will take progress in learning for all.
Topic:
Development, Education, Sustainable Development Goals, and Language
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Kenya, Africa, Middle East, India, Asia, and Tanzania