Blue-collar workplace communicative practices: a case study in construction sites in Qatar

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the role of language in multilingual blue-collar workplaces by investigating how communication is realized in construction sites in Qatar. The State of Qatar offers a unique and, hence, very interesting setting for the linguistic investigation of migration-related issues, such as multilingualism (Pieti inen et al. in Sociolinguistics from the periphery: small languages in new circumstances, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2016), due to the fact that over 90% of its population consists of non-citizens (Ahmad, in: Kamrava, Babar (eds) Migrant labor in the Persian Gulf, Hurst & Company, London, pp 21 40, 2015). In addition, after its successful bid to host the World Cup 2022, the country is currently witnessing a rapid transformation of its landscape evident through its massive number of construction sites, where people of different national, ethnic and social class backgrounds from all over the world are hired to work together in developing the infrastructure that is part of the ambitious Qatar Vision 2030. Against this backdrop, the focus is on the sociolinguistic resources (Blommaert in The sociolinguistics of globalization, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010) mobilized in a construction site at a university in Qatar. The multilingual community of practice (Lave and Wenger in Situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge University Press, New York, 1991) investigated consists of blue-collar workers from India and their communication practices with their supervisors, who are project site engineers from all over the world. In such transnational fields, where effective communication is a sine qua non not only for the successful completion of the project or infrastructure itself but also, and perhaps most importantly, for the safety of everybody involved in the construction, multilingualism is the norm. It is argued that communication is realized through spatial repertoires (Canagarajah, in: Canagarajah (ed) The Routledge handbook of migration and language, Routledge, New York, pp 1 28, 2017), that are constructed and used as ingroup markers to facilitate communication among people from different nationalities, ethnicities and social classes. The ethnographic data, collected for almost 13 months, comprise voice-recorded interactions, field notes from on-site participant observation as well as ethnographic interviews with select blue-collar workers and their supervisors. The linguistic and exolinguistic analysis is contextualized in the broader socio-political and economic forces of Qatar (Fromherz in Qatar. A modern history, Georgetown University Press, Washington, 2012; Kamrava in Qatar: small state, big politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2015; chapters in Kamrava and Babar in Migrant labor in the Persian Gulf, Hurst & Company, London, 2015).Scopu

RSUME is implicated in tumorigenesis and metastasis of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors

The factors triggering pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (PanNET) progression are largely unknown. Here we investigated the role and mechanisms of the sumoylation enhancing protein RSUME in PanNET tumorigenesis. Immunohistochemical studies showed that RSUME is strongly expressed in normal human pancreas, in particular in β-cells. RSUME expression is reduced in insulinomas and is nearly absent in other types of PanNETs suggesting a role in PanNET tumorigenesis. In human pancreatic neuroendocrine BON1 cells, RSUME stimulates hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A), which are key components of tumor neovascularisation. In contrast, RSUME suppresses nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) and its target interleukin-8 (IL-8). Correspondingly, PanNET cells with RSUME knockdown showed decreased HIF-1α activity and increased NF-κB and IL-8 production leading to a moderate reduction of VEGF-A release as reduced HIF-1α/VEGF-A production is partly compensated by NF-κB/IL-8-induced VEGF-A. Notably, RSUME stabilizes the tumor suppressor PTEN, which is frequently lost in PanNETs and whose absence is associated with metastasis formation. In vivo orthotopic transplantation of PanNET cells with or without RSUME expression into nude mice showed that PanNETs without RSUME have reduced PTEN expression, grow faster and form multiple liver metastases. In sum, RSUME differentially regulates key components of PanNET formation suggesting that the observed loss of RSUME in advanced PanNETs is critically involved in PanNET tumorigenesis, particularly in metastasis formation.Fil: Wu, Yonghe. Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry; AlemaniaFil: Tedesco, Lucas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Kristin, Lucia. Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry; AlemaniaFil: Schlitter, Anna M.. Universitat Technical Zu Munich; AlemaniaFil: Monteserin Garcia, Jose. Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry; AlemaniaFil: Esposito, Irene. Universitat Technical Zu Munich; AlemaniaFil: Auernhammer, Christoph J.. Universitat Technical Zu Munich; AlemaniaFil: Theodoropoulou, Marily. Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry; AlemaniaFil: Arzt, Eduardo Simon. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Renner, Ulrich. Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry; AlemaniaFil: Stalla, Günter K.. Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry; Alemani

Translating the style of Aganaktismenoi(Indignants) on Facebook

The paper discusses translation challenges associated with the linguistic and multisemiotic stylistic ways (Kress 2010; Coupland 2007) Aganaktismenoi, the Greek indignants’ movement, employ to produce a digital sense of their community and subsequent identities. It argues for the transfer of the cultural and sociopolitical element as being the hardest to translate into languages other than Greek. In light of this challenge, it is suggested that a functional variationist translation model (Theodoropoulou 2007), which takes into consideration the general context and the functions of individual illocutionary acts (Austin 1962), i.e. intended meanings, performed digitally could remedy this weakness by yielding translations that do justice to the original utterances. This is also enhanced by the fact that a multisemiotic style, such as a picture posted on Facebook Wall, offers lots of background information (e.g., colors and facial expressions, to mention just a few), which act synergistically in the deciphering and consequent translation of the text. The expansion of the use of the aforementioned sociopragmatic model of translation into multisemiotic texts is made on the basis of linguistic and multimodal analysis of posts with pictures and text from the Aganaktismenoi pages on Facebook and their translation into English

Socio-historical multilingualism and language policies in Dubai

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the sociolinguistic research which has been and is currently being conducted in Dubai, and has been published in the English language. After providing a discussion of the mosaic of Dubai’s population, an attempt will be made to tap into the different and diverse areas of sociolinguistic research, while new directions for future research will be discussed as well. The three most important emerging strands include multilingualism, language policies, and the sociolinguistics of the Emirati dialect. After an overview of the most important research that falls under the scope of these three strands, suggestions for interdisciplinary (socio)linguistic projects will be made, which are in full alignment with the country’s attempt to become a knowledge-based economy, as is evident in the Dubai Vision 2021 and beyond

Nostalgic diaspora or diasporic nostalgia? Discursive and identity constructions of Greeks in Qatar

This paper deals with the discursive constructions of transformative, agentive and creative ethnolinguistic self-conceptualizations and positionings of some select members of the approximately 3000-member Greek diasporic community in the State of Qatar. It is a digital and linguistic ethnographic study focusing on the linguistic and semiotic ways whereby Greeks in Qatar negotiate, challenge, process and ultimately respond to the sociopolitical and cultural narratives that constitute "nostalgia," namely remembrance and homesickness for Greece. The main argument put forward is that multimodal and translanguaging group styling is employed for the construction of diasporic nostalgia discourse, and the assertion of nostalgic diasporic identities, which in unison construct community membership anew all the time. Nostalgia, as a constructed discourse with (in)authenticity-related spatiotemporal dimensions, and diaspora, as a web of creatively styled sociolinguistic and semiotic identities, are two concepts found in tension primarily due to the contextual precarity Greeks in Qatar live in. The paper contributes empirical and methodological knowledge to the field of language and identity in diaspora by focusing on an under-researched diasporic group, and by employing an emic ethnographic perspective in its discursive and sociolinguistic practices.A first draft of this paper was presented at the Liberal Arts International Conference 2019 at Texas A&M University of Qatar. I would like to thank the audience for their useful feedback. Also, thanks are due to Harris Kalogiannis and Caterina Vasilaki Vrettou for their help in the data collection process as well as to the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this work. This study was funded by Qatar National Research Fund with a Junior Scientists Research Experience Program Grant (JSREP 4-009-6-003 ). Any ideas expressed here and any potential inaccuracies are my own.Scopu

Humoristic Translanguaging in Intercultural Communication in Qatar: Merits, Limitations, and Its Potential Contribution to Policy Development

This paper deals with the merits and limitations of a pedagogical practice that has been developed in the context of teaching undergraduate sociolinguistics courses in a state tertiary education institute in the State of Qatar. This practice is called humoristic translanguaging, and it translates into the humoristic use of a diverse set of verbal, semiotic, and sociocultural resources that people know by degree and can use to enhance their linguistic input/output. Such an approach is practice-based, and the meanings that are shaped in the context of this interaction are created through an assemblage of diverse linguistic, semiotic, and sociocultural resources. Three major purposes of humoristic translanguaging have been identified in my datasets: the creation of classroom climate and efficiency of teaching, the breaking down of the rigidity of hierarchical structures by humanizing and personalizing interpersonal communication, and the delivery of sanctions and other necessary unpleasantries to students. Having provided evidence in favor of the idea that humoristic translanguaging can work successfully as a pedagogical strategy in the tertiary education classroom, I offer this as a suggestion of a strategy teachers but also students in TESOL can use as a resource to secure their autonomy and constant motivation to improve their respective teaching and learning performance

Politeness on Facebook: The case of Greek birthday wishes

Facebook forms one of the most widely used online social networks, through which people manage their communication with diverse contacts or 'friends', ranging from members of the family and schoolmates to work colleagues and popular cultural idols or other people, whom they admire. Hence, it can be seen as an integral part of people’s digital presence. Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to investigate the ways politeness is constructed in a context, in which it is not very typical to find politeness in the Western world: The reception of birthday wishes. The focus is on the (para)linguistic reception of birthday wishes on behalf of 400 native Greek users of Facebook, aged between 25–35 years old, as evidenced in the ways they respond to birthday wishes posted on their walls. By using a combination of interactional sociolinguistics, discourse-centered online ethnography and offline ethnographic interviews, I argue that native speakers of Greek do not just stick to the politic behavior found in other languages, like English, of personally thanking their friends for their birthday wishes; rather, they employ contextualization cues, such as shifts in spelling, emoticons and punctuation markers, in order to construct frames and footings of politeness by actually reciprocating the wishes they received from their friends. The value of this study lies not only in being, to my knowledge, the first description and interpretation of an important cultural phenomenon for Greeks, which is the exchange of birthday wishes, but also it contributes towards understanding politeness in online environments, such as Facebook, which in turn is used for establishment and maintenance of interpersonal relationships, hence it can lead to smooth communication

Semioscaping Eutopia: Qatar as a place in qatar airways advertisements

This paper deals with place branding as a multimodally constructed phenomenon in the digital semioscape of advertisements pertaining to the collaboration between Qatar Airways and FC Barcelona. Through its digital spatialisation, Qatar, and, by extension, Qatari leadership of the country, is argued to construct for and brand itself as an image of eutopia (i.e. a nice place to live) drawing on two techniques, inter-peopleisation and reterritorialisation. In this way, Qatar aims at engaging in controversially conveyed soft politics, whereby it can strategically secure its national sustainability by achieving recognizability, admiration and respect both inside and outside its borders. Qatar Airways' semioscape is also argued to be a visceral semioscape, whose analysis creates academic fetish, namely added value for Qatar in academic scholarship from a person who has been living and working in the country for nine years. It is important to have such emic reflections, in order to do justice to a country that is usually portrayed in very negative and distorted terms in world media, by people who do not have deep knowledge of the country and its people.This study has been funded with a Seed Funding Grant (CHSS-SF-14-7) from the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Qatar University, and a Junior Scientists Research Experience Program Grant (JSREP 4 -009 -6 -003) from Qatar National Research Fund. The opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this paper are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Qatar National Research Fund.Scopu

Sociolinguistic insights into chick lit: Constructing the social class of elegant poverty

Abstract Aiming at suggesting ways whereby the sociolinguistic paradigm can benefit from the analysis of chick lit, this paper explores the ways through which the social class of “elegant poverty” is stylistically constructed in Modern Greek chick lit texts. Although chick lit has been analyzed primarily in terms of gender identity construction, I argue that it can be also seen as a goldmine of styles pertinent to social class due to its rather extravagant but meticulous treatment of social class cultural models and the caustic stylistic representation thereof, both of which aim at increasing the sales of chick lit. More specifically, chick lit offers analytical insights into social classes that are powerful but are traditionally hard to get ethnographic access to, such as elegant poverty in Athens. Relatively recently formed, elegant poverty consists of primarily former wealthy northern Athenian suburbanites who due to the financial recession are characterized by the ownership of estate but absolute lack of cash. Drawing on excerpts from chick lit authored by Pavlina Nasioutzik, it is argued that in chick lit elegant poverty is represented as the amalgam of socioeconomic and cultural models, which are styled through irony, satire and code-switching