Janina Fenigsen | Brandeis University (original) (raw)

Papers by Janina Fenigsen

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, Apr 30, 2022

Pragmatics, Jul 5, 2022

, to two newspaper editors who have chosen to remain anonymous, and to the inhabitants of Arawak ... more , to two newspaper editors who have chosen to remain anonymous, and to the inhabitants of Arawak Hill who made this research possible. I wish to acknowledge Kristina Fenigsen-Zieba for her skill and commitment in transcribing interviews recorded in the summer 2002. I also thank the faculty at the Linguistics Program at the University of the West Indies, in particular, Hazel Simmons-McDonald, for help with many aspects of my fieldwork in 2002. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer of Pragmatics for close, critical and helpful reading of an earlier draft of this paper.

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 1998

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2021

Creole Language Library, 2011

Bajan, a Barbadian creole, has no standard orthography. It is written and published in a variety ... more Bajan, a Barbadian creole, has no standard orthography. It is written and published in a variety of spellings, and its readership and the generic scope remain limited. The reception of Bajan texts is regimented by the history of representational practices that used non-standard spelling as parody. Because within the cultures of script linguistic prestige depends on the existence of a robust range of written genres, this reception hinders the raising of the prestige of Bajan. The relationship between Bajan spelling and its prestige, then, comes around a full circle: the lack of standardized orthography reinforces the low prestige of Bajan that prevents its emergence. Because the low prestige restricts social mobility of lower-class Bajan speakers, it reinforces social hierarchies. Thus, the interpretive practices of the readers whose stance toward Bajan texts is not determined by spelling are particularly interesting. I consider such alternative readings and propose how to account for them.

The Routledge Companion to the Work of John R. Rickford, 2019

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Emotion

Ethos, 2016

This introductory essay defines " emotion pedagogies " by identifying their dis... more This introductory essay defines " emotion pedagogies " by identifying their distinctive qualities—an inclusive embrace of emotions often presented in the form of lists of emotion words to be spoken as part of " I-messages; " treating emotions as teachable skill bundles, like other sets of skills conveyed along the model of formal schooling and thus involving a high degree of curricularization; and finally, the spread of emotion pedagogies as reflections and facilitators of Charles Taylor's " subjective turn, " Foucault's " subjectification, " and a unique self-managed and self-responsible neoliberal selfhood. We introduce each of the articles in this special issue and conclude with reflections on the transformative potential of emotion pedagogies. Tassä artikkelissa " tunnepedagogiikat " (emotion pedagogies) määritellään ilmiöksi, jonka ominaislaatuihin ja tavoitteisiin kuuluvat 1) tunteiden kattava hyväksyminen esimerkiksi tunnesanalistan avustamana, joita voidaan kayttää myös osana " minä-viestejä " ja 2) tunteiden käsittäminen taitoina, joita voi oppia ja opettaa muodollisessa koulutuksessa kuten muitakin taitoja. Tunne-pedagogiikkojen leviamistä ja suosiota käsitellään Charles Taylorin subjektiivisen käänteen ja Foucault'n subjektifikaation näkökulmista sekä heijastumina neoliberaalista tavasta nähdä minus uniikkina ja itsen päätöksistä riippuvaisena. Johdannossa esitellään myös kaikki erikoisnumeron artikkelit, ja lopuksi pohditaan tunnepedagogiikkojen transformatiivista potentiaalia.

Varieties of English Around the World, 2005

Semiotica, 2015

(First two paragraphs) This essay is neither an exhaustive review of the literature on authentici... more (First two paragraphs) This essay is neither an exhaustive review of the literature on authenticity, authenticities, nor of various other approaches to de-essentializing authenticity. Instead, it focuses on major issues as we see them, in particular on strategies for de-essentializing authenticity and on how the four papers in this special issue embody those strategies. We approach authenticity as a metasemiotic frame and various modes of authentication as multiple framings (compare Turino 1999). Through metasemiotic processes that exploit several semiotically distinct mechanisms, these framings frequently sanction plural and at times conflicting authenticities. Because of the very nature of semiosis conceived in the Peircean tradition as a potentially infinite process where the sign at one order of signification may become an object at another (Silverstein 2003), that process alone may generate multiple standards for authenticity. Using “self-expressions” as an example, if one form stands in an object position to another subsequent form, the later sign’s success at standing for the earlier sign establishes a metasemiotic type – the type here being “authentic self-expression,” performatively entailing other specific self-expressions-as-objects to come. Thus, the use of non-indigenous language, Spanish, may identify text as authentically indigenous (Faudree, this issue) and the use of register invented by a psychotherapist as expressive of real self-hood become the sign of getting in touch with one’s real self (a communal self in the first example and a private individual self in the second). This particular metasemiotic frame – the peculiar authenticity that sets its stamp on modern human existence (Taylor 2007) – is, as this special issue shows, only one of many such possible frames.

Current Sociology, Nov 1, 2009

Current Sociology ✦ November 2009 ✦ Vol. 57(6): 925 © International Sociological Association SAGE... more Current Sociology ✦ November 2009 ✦ Vol. 57(6): 925 © International Sociological Association SAGE (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC) DOI: 10.1177/0011392109347117 ... John Corner John Downey Sarah Earle Janina Fenigsen Mike Gane Michael Gardiner Robert Hayden Bettina Hollstein John D Holst John Horrigan Bernard Hubert Roger Hurwitz Claus Jacobs Andrew Jakubowicz Pascal Kao Ravinder Kaur Ray Kiely Clinton Key Vladimir Kultygin Marie Lecomte-Tilouine Jamie Lorimer Ali Akbar Mahdi Paul McIlvenny

Recherches sémiotiques, Dec 10, 2014

Politeness and Face in Caribbean Creoles; Mühleisen, Susanne and Bettina Migge (eds.), John Benjamins, 2005

This article attends to the relationship between register choice and face-work within greeting pr... more This article attends to the relationship between register choice and face-work within greeting practices in Arawak Hill, Barbados. Drawing on this analysis, the article considers pragmatic functions of greetings and factors that figure in their construction. First, by showing that greeting routines through their intertextual links with past events, relations, and conversations can become a site of ideological contestation, I call into question the universal function of greetings as a "courteous indication of recognition" (Duranti 1997: 66). Next, by attending to contextual and intentional factors that motivate Barbadian register choices and their interpretations, I demonstrate that rhetorical inflections of voice and face-work are not always formally encoded. Without altering their formal properties, Barbadian greetings can serve a subversive, satirical purpose. This need to anchor voicing and its pragmatic meanings in interpretation and intentionality rather than in linguistic markers alone (Bakhtin 1981: 292; see also Woolard 1998), suggests important limits to formal analysis.

Book Reviews 2 s5 seem to parallel the repeated triadic structure in a famous creation chant dati... more Book Reviews 2 s5 seem to parallel the repeated triadic structure in a famous creation chant dating from 1886: "X [bird] copulated with Y [fish]: there issued forth Z [sun]." While Rongorongo makes only a modest beginning toward the decipher-ment of the Easter Island script no one who pursues this work in the future can proceed without consulting this remarkable work of prodigious scholarship. And scholars interested in other languages and scripts will find this book to be a veritable methodological Rosetta Stone. Documenting the eclectic fortunes of English in 20 British and American former colonies and zones of influence, this collection seeks to explain the spread of English in the contemporary world, and to challenge the perspective identifying that process with imperialist encroachments. The scope is impressive in 21 chapters, introduction, and substantive conclusions, the contributors develop the themes originally charted by Fishman, Cooper, and Conrad (The Spread of English: The Sociology of English as an Additional Language , Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1977), as well as attempt critically to engage more recent considerations of the language shift within a politically and critically informed framework. Two editorial queries have structured the contributions: one seeking to identify changes in the status of English in such domains as education, media, science, commerce, governmental operations , and informal usage; the other inviting the authors to respond to Robert Phillipson's (Linguistic Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992) approach to the spread of English as an imperialistic project. The case studies situated in settings as diverse as Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, Puerto Rico, Quebec, India, Sri Lanka, Mexico, and the European Union are, in my view, the most valuable contribution of the volume. In rich local detail, the studies depict a wealth of scenarios of the globe-wide fortunes of English. Al-Haq and Smadi show that in conservative Islamic circles in Saudi Arabia, the learning of English is considered instrumental in Islamic proselytizing and has become a religious duty. Mazrui and Mazrui detail how the dissimilar fates of English in Kenya and Uganda have stemmed from the synergies between the local inflections of British colonial policy and the distinct indigenous political systems. Tickoo tells the intriguing story of how the officially promoted English became an emblem