"Language as Cultural Practice: " Mexicanos en el Norte offers a vivid ethnographic account of language socialization practices within Mexican-background families residing in California and Texas. This account illustrates a variety of cases where language is used by speakers to choose between alternative self-definitions and where language interacts differentially with other defining categories, such as ethnicity, gender, and class. It shows that language socialization--instantiated in language choices and patterns of use in sociocultural and sociohistorical contexts characterized by ambiguity and flux--is both a dynamic and a fluid process.
The study emphasizes the links between familial patterns of language use and language socialization practices on the one hand, and children's development of bilingual and biliterate identities on the other. Using a framework emerging from their selection of two geographically distinct localities with differing demographic features, Schecter and Bayley compare patterns of meaning suggested by the use of Spanish and English in speech and literacy activities, as well as by the symbolic importance ascribed by families and societal institutions (such as schools) to the maintenance and use of the two languages.
"Language as Cultural Practice"
*provides a detailed account of the diversity of language practices and patterns of use in language minority homes;
*offers educators detailed information on the language ecology of Latino homes in two geographically diverse communities--San Antonio, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area, California;
*shows the diversity within Mexican-American communities in the United States--families profiled range from rural families in south Texas to upper middle class professional families in northern California;
*provides data to correct the prevalent misconception that maintenance of Spanish interferes with the acquisition of English; and
*contributes to the study of language socialization by showing that the process extends throughout the lifetime and that it is an interactive rather than a one-way process.
This book will particularly interest researchers and professionals in linguistics, anthropology, applied linguistics, and education, and will be useful as a text in graduate courses in these areas that address language socialization and learning.

"Language as Cultural Practice: " Mexicanos en el Norte offers a vivid ethnographic account of language socialization practices within Mexican-background families residing in California and Texas. This account illustrates a variety of cases where language is used by speakers to choose between alternative self-definitions and where language interacts differentially with other defining categories, such as ethnicity, gender, and class. It shows that language socialization--instantiated in language choices and patterns of use in sociocultural and sociohistorical contexts characterized by ambiguity and flux--is both a dynamic and a fluid process.
The study emphasizes the links between familial patterns of language use and language socialization practices on the one hand, and children's development of bilingual and biliterate identities on the other. Using a framework emerging from their selection of two geographically distinct localities with differing demographic features, Schecter and Bayley compare patterns of meaning suggested by the use of Spanish and English in speech and literacy activities, as well as by the symbolic importance ascribed by families and societal institutions (such as schools) to the maintenance and use of the two languages.
"Language as Cultural Practice"
*provides a detailed account of the diversity of language practices and patterns of use in language minority homes;
*offers educators detailed information on the language ecology of Latino homes in two geographically diverse communities--San Antonio, Texas, and the San Francisco Bay Area, California;
*shows the diversity within Mexican-American communities in the United States--families profiled range from rural families in south Texas to upper middle class professional families in northern California;
*provides data to correct the prevalent misconception that maintenance of Spanish interferes with the acquisition of English; and
*contributes to the study of language socialization by showing that the process extends throughout the lifetime and that it is an interactive rather than a one-way process.
This book will particularly interest researchers and professionals in linguistics, anthropology, applied linguistics, and education, and will be useful as a text in graduate courses in these areas that address language socialization and learning.

Description

LIVES WITHIN A LIFE is a novel chronicling the onset and progression of schizophrenia upon the central character. The complexities and symptoms of the disorder are described with great clarity as more and more of the character's mind and ensuing behaviour are affected. Relationships and their significance are explored during the evolution of a spiritual journey, culminating in a cataclysmic finale.

Creative release, taking in the visual, literary and musical arts, illuminates the narrative. These elements and their influence convey the hidden beauty and compassionate nature of the lost and forlorn. The multi-layered intricacies of psychosis reveal an individual experiencing the truly extraordinary.

As the illness gains momentum, all aspects of its effects on the inner psyche become apparent in a uniquely descriptive manner. An existence encompassed by nightmares and demons, a life bringing new trials, which unearths the essence of the human condition, and the instinct to survive. The climax has its own twist and play on the perception of reality, bringing the novel to a powerful and inspiring conclusion.

ALL AUTHOR PROFITS FROM THIS PUBLICATION WILL GO TO SUPPORT SANE - A CHARITY THAT HELPS THOSE WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA AND OTHER SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS.

About the Author

Robert Bayley is a writer, composer and artist. For most of his adult life he has lived with paranoid schizophrenia. This has resulted in long periods of hospitalisation as the illness has ravaged his life. The persecutory voices and visions bombard his every day existence, causing him to descend into the hell of paranoiac despair. A myriad of medicinal treatments have been tried to keep the symptoms under some form of control, with the archaic major tranquillizers bringing horrendous side effects, to the current use of atypical neuroleptics. These work with greater precision, and so contribute some relief. This allows the author to capitalise on periods of positive and intense creativity. He has studied the visual arts, incorporating film, photography, ceramics and art history. He is a multi-instrumentalist, and composes and records music combined with spoken prose that conveys the horror of psychotic bombardment.

His creative endeavours are a method of coping with disorder and extremes, and his work, in whatever genre, attempts to articulate this. To tap into, and extract the profound nature of suffering, is what motivates Robert. His desire is to describe and transform that torment into constructive and inspiring realms. The words, chords and imagery are his tools.

This introductory text celebrates another dimension of diversity in the United States Deaf community -- variation in the way American Sign Language (ASL) is used by Deaf people all across the nation. The different ways people have of saying or signing the same thing defines variation in language. In spoken English, some people say "soda," others say "pop," "coke," or "soft drink; " in ASL, there are many signs for BIRTHDAY, HALLOWEEN, EARLY, and of course, PIZZA. What's Your Sign for PIZZA derives from an extensive seven-year research project in which more than 200 Deaf ASL users representing different ages, genders and ethnic groups from seven different regions were videotaped sharing their signs for everyday vocabulary. This useful text and its accompanying CD begins with an explanation of the basic concepts of language and the structure of sign language, since sign variation abides by the rules governing all human languages. Each part of the text concludes with questions for discussion, and the final section offers three supplemental readings that provide further information on variation in both spoken and signed languages. What's Your Sign for PIZZA also briefly sketches the development of ASL, which explains the relationships between language varieties throughout the country.

The culmination of a seven-year project, this volume provides a complete description of American Sign Language (ASL) variation. For four decades, linguists have studied how people from varying regions and backgrounds have different ways of saying the same thing. Noted scholars Ceil Lucas, Robert Bayley, and Clayton Valli led a team of exceptional researchers in applying techniques for analyzing spoken language variation to ASL. Their observations at the phonological, lexical, morphological, and syntactic levels demonstrate that ASL variation correlates with many of the same driving social factors of spoken languages, including age, socioeconomic class, gender, ethnic background, region, and sexual orientation. Internal constraints that mandate variant choices for spoken languages have been compared to ASL as well, with intriguing results. Sociolinguistic Variation in American Sign Language stands alone as the new standard for students and scholars committed to this discipline.