2,264 research outputs found
Creating a ‘new space’: code-switching among British-born Greek-Cypriots in London
This paper, located in the traditions of Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz 1982) and Social Constructionism (Berger and Luckmann 1966), explores code-switching and identity practices amongst British-born Greek-Cypriots. The speakers, members of a Greek-Cypriot youth organization, are fluent in English and (with varying levels of fluency) speak the Greek-Cypriot Dialect. Quantitative and qualitative analyses of recordings of natural speech during youth community meetings and a social event show how a new ‘third space’ becomes reified through code-switching practices. By skilfully manipulating languages and styles, speakers draw on Greek-Cypriot cultural resources to accomplish two inter-related things. First, by displaying knowledge of familiar Greek-Cypriot cultural frames, they establish themselves as different from mainstream British society and establish solidarity as an in-group. Secondly, by using these frames in non-serious contexts, and at times mocking cultural attitudes and stereotypes, they challenge and re-appropriate their inherited Greek-Cypriot identity, thereby constructing the identity of British-born Greek-Cypriot youth
Code-switching ‘in site’ for fantasizing identities: A case study of conventional uses of London Greek Cypriot
Sociolinguistic studies of minority languages and bilingualism have increasingly moved away from a singular emphasis on issues of ethnicity that poses direct links between the use of a language and an ethnic or cultural identity towards exploring the construction of identities that are not firmly located in category-bound descriptions. In this paper, we draw on these latest insights to account for processes of identity construction in a bilingual (in Greek Cypriot and English) youth organization group based in
North London. Our main data consist of the audio-recorded interactional data from a socialization outing after one of the groups meeting but we also bring in insights from the groups ethnographic study and a larger study of the North London Cypriot community that involved interviews and questionnaires. In the close analysis of our main data, we note a conventional association between the London Greek Cypriot (henceforth LGC) variety that is switched to from English as the main interactional frame and a set of genres (in the sense of recurrent evolving responses to social practices) that are produced and taken up as humorous discourse: These include narrative jokes, ritual insults, hypothetical scenarios, and metalinguistic instances of mock Cypriot. We will suggest that the use of LGC demonstrates a relationship of ambivalence, a partly ours partly theirs status, with the participants carving out a
different, third space for themselves that transcends macro-social categories (e.g. the Cypriots, the Greek-Cypriot community). At the same time, we will show how the discursive process of choosing language from a bi- or multi-lingual repertoire does not only create identities in the sense of socially and culturally derived positions but also identities (sic (dis)-identifications) in the sense of desiring and fantasizing personas
A Stabilization Mechanism of Zirconia Based on Oxygen Vacancies Only
The microscopic mechanism leading to stabilization of cubic and tetragonal
forms of zirconia (ZrO) is analyzed by means of a self-consistent
tight-binding model. Using this model, energies and structures of zirconia
containing different vacancy concentrations are calculated, equivalent in
concentration to the charge compensating vacancies associated with dissolved
yttria (YO) in the tetragonal and cubic phase fields (3.2 and 14.4% mol
respectively). The model is shown to predict the large relaxations around an
oxygen vacancy, and the clustering of vacancies along the directions,
in good agreement with experiments and first principles calculations. The
vacancies alone are shown to explain the stabilization of cubic zirconia, and
the mechanism is analyzed.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures. To be published in J. Am. Ceram. So
A model for time-dependent grain boundary diffusion of ions and electrons through a film or scale, with an application to alumina
A model for ionic and electronic grain boundary transport through thin films,
scales or membranes with columnar grain structure is introduced. The grain
structure is idealized as a lattice of identical hexagonal cells - a honeycomb
pattern. Reactions with the environment constitute the boundary conditions and
drive the transport between the surfaces. Time-dependent simulations solving
the Poisson equation self-consistently with the Nernst-Planck flux equations
for the mobile species are performed. In the resulting Poisson-Nernst-Planck
system of equations, the electrostatic potential is obtained from the Poisson
equation in its integral form by summation. The model is used to interpret
alumina membrane oxygen permeation experiments, in which different oxygen gas
pressures are applied at opposite membrane surfaces and the resulting flux of
oxygen molecules through the membrane is measured. Simulation results involving
four mobile species, charged aluminum and oxygen vacancies, electrons, and
holes, provide a complete description of the measurements and insight into the
microscopic processes underpinning the oxygen permeation of the membrane. Most
notably, the hypothesized transition between p-type and n-type ionic
conductivity of the alumina grain boundaries as a function of the applied
oxygen gas pressure is observed in the simulations. The range of validity of a
simple analytic model for the oxygen permeation rate, similar to the Wagner
theory of metal oxidation, is quantified by comparison to the numeric
simulations. The three-dimensional model we develop here is readily adaptable
to problems such as transport in a solid state electrode, or corrosion scale
growth
A Response to Harel, Hope, and Schwartz
A seminar held in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in December 2012 discussed critical comments by Alon Harel, Simon Hope, and Daniel Schwartz on themes and theses in Human Rights and Common Good, volume III of Collected Essays of John Finnis (Oxford University Press, 2011). Revised versions of these comments, and of the response I gave at this seminar, are now published in the Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies. The Response retains the informal and engaged character of this very good academic occasion. Section I considers Harel’s thesis that judicial review of legislation can be defended because my “in-authenticity” critique of it (in the Maccabaean Lecture 1985) applies a fortiori to the legislative articulation of human rights. Section II considers Harel’s thesis that my account of punishment is a “consequentialism” of “harmony”. Section III considers Schwartz’s thesis that the principle of subsidiarity is an insufficient restraint on governmental action. Section IV considers Harel’s and incidentally Hope’s theses on sex ethics (particularly their thesis that same-sex relations and marriage are morally acceptable), an ethics of fundamental and great importance for social-political life and theory. Section V considers Hope’s thesis that our understanding of basic human goods cannot be disentangled from the local morality or moralities in which we grew up – or at least, cannot be disentangled sufficiently to provide us with moral guidance
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