Diverse interest in language, pedagogy, identity and community has found expression through online interaction, networking and connectedness in the discourses captured in this book, Language, Culture and Social Connectedness. Issues surrounding language use in spoken, written and multimedia forms and in sociocultural responses, indigenous knowledges and ethnic perspectives are currently expanding, with consequential transnational implications for pedagogy in higher education. Language education is no longer oriented towards grammar, memorization and learning by rote, but rather using language and cultural knowledge as a means to communicate and connect to others around the globe. Geographical and physical boundaries are being transcended by technology as students learn to reach out to the world around them. This book explores the intricate relationships between language, culture and social connectedness in our diverse local and transnational communities. In a period of challenge in our history, there are tensions that connect and others that tend to disconnect endeavours across the social landscape. ‘Connectedness’ includes relationships both formal and informal and the benefits those relationships bring to the individual as well as to society. ‘Social connectedness’ describes the level of engagement and trust an individual has with others in their community and the roles they take on, their friendships and participation in different activities. People who feel socially connected also contribute towards building communities and society. They help to create social capital as networks that promote effective social functions.

"Twenty-four articles representing a diversity of interests and approaches have been brought together in this revised collection intended to define and develop topics of central interest to language, culture, and society. Opening pieces include enduring, classic writings by Boas, Sapir, Whorf, Mead, and others, giving the volume an important historical orientation. These contributions form the ground-work for the wide sampling of more recent and contemporary works that follows." -- Back cover.

The dynamics of language, culture and identity are a major focus for many linguists and cognitive and cultural researchers. This book explores the inextricable connection that language has with cultural identity and cultural practices, with a particular emphasis on how they contribute to shaping personal identity. The volume brings together selected peer-reviewed papers from the 7th International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind with other specially commissioned chapters. Like the conference, this book aims to enhance mutual understanding among researchers from diverse disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, offering a wealth of insights to a wide range of readers on recent culturally oriented cognitive studies of language.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Social Informatics, SocInfo 2020, held in Pisa, Italy, in October 2020. The 30 full and 3 short papers presented in these proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected from 99 submissions. The papers presented in this volume cover a broad range of topics, ranging from works that ground information-system design on social concepts, to papers that analyze complex social systems using computational methods, or explore socio-technical systems using social sciences methods.

Using data from cultures and languages throughout the world to highlight both similarities and differences in human languages, Language, Culture and Communication, Eight Edition, explores the many interconnections among language, culture, and communicative meaning.

Deepening our understanding of the social context of interpersonal interaction, this book examines the communication practices through which members of a particular culture construct and maintain their relationships. The author presents an ethnographic case study of urban, largely middle-class Colombians, taking a close look at interactional practices and speech patterns in a range of everyday settings--from schools, workplaces, and social service agencies, to gatherings of family and friends. In focusing on a context outside of North America and Europe, the book sheds light on cultural assumptions about personhood, relationships, and communication that often remain unexamined in the literature. A compelling epilogue offers a more personal glimpse of Colombian culture and probes both the rewards and the limitations of the ethnographic approach.

This state-of-the-art exploration of language, culture, and identity is orchestrated through prominent scholars’ and teachers’ narratives, each weaving together three elements: a personal account based on one or more memorable or critical incidents that occurred in the course of learning or using a second or foreign language; an interpretation of the incidents highlighting their impact in terms of culture, identity, and language; the connections between the experiences and observations of the author and existing literature on language, culture and identity. What makes this book stand out is the way in which authors meld traditional ‘academic’ approaches to inquiry with their own personalized voices. This opens a window on different ways of viewing and doing research in Applied Linguistics and TESOL. What gives the book its power is the compelling nature of the narratives themselves. Telling stories is a fundamental way of representing and making sense of the human condition. These stories unpack, in an accessible but rigorous fashion, complex socio-cultural constructs of culture, identity, the self and other, and reflexivity, and offer a way into these constructs for teachers, teachers in preparation and neophyte researchers. Contributors from around the world give the book broad and international appeal.