Gabriella Modan | Ohio State University (original) (raw)

Books by Gabriella Modan

Discourses of Identity in Liminal Places and Spaces, 2019

Articles and Book Chapters by Gabriella Modan

City & Society, Jan 1, 2008

The rise of the commodified city has encouraged new attention to the symbolic systems that struct... more The rise of the commodified city has encouraged new attention to the symbolic systems that structure our understandings of difference and inequality in urban areas. This paper analyzes one of those systems, namely discourse. I examine how the term diversity has developed multiple meanings over the past 10 years in Mt. Pleasant, a gentrifying neighborhood in Washington, DC, and I trace these developments and their connections with changes in the local economy, politics, and demographics. In the mid-1990s, diversity indexed community discourses about social justice and equal opportunity. Later, diversity began to signify a commodified resource. As real estate prices drastically rose, the term's meaning became associated with the "lifestylization" of urban space: Diversity has come to reference stimulating cultural experience, and is used to promote commercial investment in the neighborhood and sell upmarket real estate. Analyzing such shifts in discourse illuminates the micro-mechanics of how local visions of multicultural urban spaces can lose their focus on justice and equality. [

With the ever-increasing accessibility of new communications media, there has been growing discus... more With the ever-increasing accessibility of new communications media, there has been growing discussion among ethnographers about how new media data such as e-mails, SMS/texts, blogs, news article comment sections, or community group websites have impacted the practice of ethnography. Generally, questions center around the characteristics of the data itself. Less often discussed is the effect of new communications media on relationships between ethnographers and members of the communities they study. This article explores what happens when social media becomes a channel through which researchers interact with informants both during fieldwork and between fieldsite visits. I examine how new formats of quick and often casual written communication influence the development of ethnographer–informant relationships over time. These technologies make contact with some informants (but not others) easier and more frequent, and, particularly because they bring written language into a relationship that often privileges spoken interaction, they may allow different facets of identity to emerge, reconfigure a researcher's network of relationships in the fieldsite, or change the personal-professional divide.

Advance Care Planning (ACP) remains extremely low in the US, due to numerous institutional and cu... more Advance Care Planning (ACP) remains extremely
low in the US, due to numerous institutional and
cultural barriers and discomfort in discussing
death. There is a need for guidance about how
patient and healthcare providers can effectively
engage in ACP discussion. Here we analyze the
linguistic strategies that focus-group participants
use when discussing ACP in detailed ways. Prevalent
linguistic structures in effective ACP discussions
were loved ones’ end-of-life narratives, hypothetical
narratives, and constructed dialogue.
In elucidating spontaneous, unprompted approaches
to effective discussion of end-of-life issues,
such research can help to dislodge communicative
barriers to ACP so that more people are
prepared to engage the process.
Keywords: advance care planning; constructed
dialogue; end-of-life; hypothetical narrative; narrative;
reported speech; quotatives

In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non-Ch... more In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non-Chinese owned chains, use Chinese-language signs as design features targeted towards people who neither read nor have ethnic ties to Chinese. Using this neighborhood as a case study, we advocate a contextualized, historicized and spatialized perspective on linguistic landscape which highlights that landscapes are not simply physical spaces but are instead ideologically charged constructions. Drawing from cultural geography and urban studies, we analyze how written language interacts with other features of the built environment to construct commodified urban places. Taking a contextually informed, qualitative approach, we link micro-level analysis of individual Chinese-language signs to the specific local socio-geographic processes of spatial commodification. Such a qualitative approach to linguistic landscape, which emphasizes the importance of sociohistorical context, and which includes analysis of signage use, function, and history, leads to a greater understanding of the larger sociopolitical meanings of linguistic landscapes.

The structure and function of a sociolinguistic interview sets up a context that affords informan... more The structure and function of a sociolinguistic interview sets up a context that affords informants the opportunity to achieve their own goals. We examine how an informant manipulates the reception format of the speech event, using embedded orientation to characterize information as alternately given or new, and the interviewer consequently as an insider or outsider. Whereas previous analyses have examined how embedded orientation highlights or sheds light on information in complicating action clauses, we posit that the content of embedded orientation clauses is important in and of itself. Rather than serving as simply background information, embedded orientation can do important ideological work. In the case here, embedded orientation introduces into the narrative traces of a local story-the history of local Fascism, a topic that is rarely discussed in the teller's community. (Embedded orientation, narrative, sociolinguistic interview)

Linguistic landscape in the city, Jan 1, 2010

Journal of Sociolinguistics, Jan 1, 2009

In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non-Ch... more In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non-Chinese owned chains, use Chinese-language signs as design features targeted towards people who neither read nor have ethnic ties to Chinese. Using this neighborhood as a case study, we advocate a contextualized, historicized and spatialized perspective on linguistic landscape which highlights that landscapes are not simply physical spaces but are instead ideologically charged constructions. Drawing from cultural geography and urban studies, we analyze how written language interacts with other features of the built environment to construct commodified urban places. Taking a contextually informed, qualitative approach, we link microlevel analysis of individual Chinese-language signs to the specific local sociogeographic processes of spatial commodification. Such a qualitative approach to linguistic landscape, which emphasizes the importance of sociohistorical context, and which includes analysis of signage use, function, and history, leads to a greater understanding of the larger sociopolitical meanings of linguistic landscapes.

Journal of Planning Education and …, Jan 1, 2005

B usiness improvement districts (BIDs) are proliferating across the United States, hailed as an e... more B usiness improvement districts (BIDs) are proliferating across the United States, hailed as an effective economic development and "revitalization" strategy not only for downtowns but also for residential city neighborhoods. As they transform urban landscapes and reconfigure the meaning and uses of public space, BIDs frequently spawn struggles over what it means to act like a "good citizen" and use public space "appropriately." However, the very struggles which BIDs often bring to the surface in neighborhood interactions are often obscured in the institutional processes of developing and implementing neighborhood revitalization projects.

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Jan 1, 2001

White. These ascriptions complicate the binary discourse of ethnicity found in much recent resear... more White. These ascriptions complicate the binary discourse of ethnicity found in much recent research and in public discourse in Washington, D.C.

Journal of Sociolinguistics, Jan 1, 2002

This paper explores the dialectic of place and community identity in Mount Pleasant, a multi-ethn... more This paper explores the dialectic of place and community identity in Mount Pleasant, a multi-ethnic and multi-class U.S. neighborhood where de®nitions of place are hotly contested among its residents. In a grant proposal for public toilets, Mount Pleasant writers use linguistic strategies such as presupposition, deixis, and contrast, coupled with discursive themes of ®lth and geography, to construct a core of the Mount Pleasant community. The writers place themselves and people who share their values in that core, and immigrants at the margins. These strategies serve as a discursive type of spatial puri®cation practice (cf. Sibley 1988) through which the grantwriters set up a moral and spatial order where they and other core community members are deemed to use space`appropriately', and thus inhabit positive moral positions, while immigrant community members' imputed`inappropriate' use of space is used to construct negative moral positions for them.

WORKING PAPERS ON …, Jan 1, 1996

Discourses of Identity in Liminal Places and Spaces, 2019

City & Society, Jan 1, 2008

The rise of the commodified city has encouraged new attention to the symbolic systems that struct... more The rise of the commodified city has encouraged new attention to the symbolic systems that structure our understandings of difference and inequality in urban areas. This paper analyzes one of those systems, namely discourse. I examine how the term diversity has developed multiple meanings over the past 10 years in Mt. Pleasant, a gentrifying neighborhood in Washington, DC, and I trace these developments and their connections with changes in the local economy, politics, and demographics. In the mid-1990s, diversity indexed community discourses about social justice and equal opportunity. Later, diversity began to signify a commodified resource. As real estate prices drastically rose, the term's meaning became associated with the "lifestylization" of urban space: Diversity has come to reference stimulating cultural experience, and is used to promote commercial investment in the neighborhood and sell upmarket real estate. Analyzing such shifts in discourse illuminates the micro-mechanics of how local visions of multicultural urban spaces can lose their focus on justice and equality. [

With the ever-increasing accessibility of new communications media, there has been growing discus... more With the ever-increasing accessibility of new communications media, there has been growing discussion among ethnographers about how new media data such as e-mails, SMS/texts, blogs, news article comment sections, or community group websites have impacted the practice of ethnography. Generally, questions center around the characteristics of the data itself. Less often discussed is the effect of new communications media on relationships between ethnographers and members of the communities they study. This article explores what happens when social media becomes a channel through which researchers interact with informants both during fieldwork and between fieldsite visits. I examine how new formats of quick and often casual written communication influence the development of ethnographer–informant relationships over time. These technologies make contact with some informants (but not others) easier and more frequent, and, particularly because they bring written language into a relationship that often privileges spoken interaction, they may allow different facets of identity to emerge, reconfigure a researcher's network of relationships in the fieldsite, or change the personal-professional divide.

Advance Care Planning (ACP) remains extremely low in the US, due to numerous institutional and cu... more Advance Care Planning (ACP) remains extremely
low in the US, due to numerous institutional and
cultural barriers and discomfort in discussing
death. There is a need for guidance about how
patient and healthcare providers can effectively
engage in ACP discussion. Here we analyze the
linguistic strategies that focus-group participants
use when discussing ACP in detailed ways. Prevalent
linguistic structures in effective ACP discussions
were loved ones’ end-of-life narratives, hypothetical
narratives, and constructed dialogue.
In elucidating spontaneous, unprompted approaches
to effective discussion of end-of-life issues,
such research can help to dislodge communicative
barriers to ACP so that more people are
prepared to engage the process.
Keywords: advance care planning; constructed
dialogue; end-of-life; hypothetical narrative; narrative;
reported speech; quotatives

In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non-Ch... more In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non-Chinese owned chains, use Chinese-language signs as design features targeted towards people who neither read nor have ethnic ties to Chinese. Using this neighborhood as a case study, we advocate a contextualized, historicized and spatialized perspective on linguistic landscape which highlights that landscapes are not simply physical spaces but are instead ideologically charged constructions. Drawing from cultural geography and urban studies, we analyze how written language interacts with other features of the built environment to construct commodified urban places. Taking a contextually informed, qualitative approach, we link micro-level analysis of individual Chinese-language signs to the specific local socio-geographic processes of spatial commodification. Such a qualitative approach to linguistic landscape, which emphasizes the importance of sociohistorical context, and which includes analysis of signage use, function, and history, leads to a greater understanding of the larger sociopolitical meanings of linguistic landscapes.

The structure and function of a sociolinguistic interview sets up a context that affords informan... more The structure and function of a sociolinguistic interview sets up a context that affords informants the opportunity to achieve their own goals. We examine how an informant manipulates the reception format of the speech event, using embedded orientation to characterize information as alternately given or new, and the interviewer consequently as an insider or outsider. Whereas previous analyses have examined how embedded orientation highlights or sheds light on information in complicating action clauses, we posit that the content of embedded orientation clauses is important in and of itself. Rather than serving as simply background information, embedded orientation can do important ideological work. In the case here, embedded orientation introduces into the narrative traces of a local story-the history of local Fascism, a topic that is rarely discussed in the teller's community. (Embedded orientation, narrative, sociolinguistic interview)

Linguistic landscape in the city, Jan 1, 2010

Journal of Sociolinguistics, Jan 1, 2009

In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non-Ch... more In Washington DC's newly gentrified Chinatown, recent commercial establishments, primarily non-Chinese owned chains, use Chinese-language signs as design features targeted towards people who neither read nor have ethnic ties to Chinese. Using this neighborhood as a case study, we advocate a contextualized, historicized and spatialized perspective on linguistic landscape which highlights that landscapes are not simply physical spaces but are instead ideologically charged constructions. Drawing from cultural geography and urban studies, we analyze how written language interacts with other features of the built environment to construct commodified urban places. Taking a contextually informed, qualitative approach, we link microlevel analysis of individual Chinese-language signs to the specific local sociogeographic processes of spatial commodification. Such a qualitative approach to linguistic landscape, which emphasizes the importance of sociohistorical context, and which includes analysis of signage use, function, and history, leads to a greater understanding of the larger sociopolitical meanings of linguistic landscapes.

Journal of Planning Education and …, Jan 1, 2005

B usiness improvement districts (BIDs) are proliferating across the United States, hailed as an e... more B usiness improvement districts (BIDs) are proliferating across the United States, hailed as an effective economic development and "revitalization" strategy not only for downtowns but also for residential city neighborhoods. As they transform urban landscapes and reconfigure the meaning and uses of public space, BIDs frequently spawn struggles over what it means to act like a "good citizen" and use public space "appropriately." However, the very struggles which BIDs often bring to the surface in neighborhood interactions are often obscured in the institutional processes of developing and implementing neighborhood revitalization projects.

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Jan 1, 2001

White. These ascriptions complicate the binary discourse of ethnicity found in much recent resear... more White. These ascriptions complicate the binary discourse of ethnicity found in much recent research and in public discourse in Washington, D.C.

Journal of Sociolinguistics, Jan 1, 2002

This paper explores the dialectic of place and community identity in Mount Pleasant, a multi-ethn... more This paper explores the dialectic of place and community identity in Mount Pleasant, a multi-ethnic and multi-class U.S. neighborhood where de®nitions of place are hotly contested among its residents. In a grant proposal for public toilets, Mount Pleasant writers use linguistic strategies such as presupposition, deixis, and contrast, coupled with discursive themes of ®lth and geography, to construct a core of the Mount Pleasant community. The writers place themselves and people who share their values in that core, and immigrants at the margins. These strategies serve as a discursive type of spatial puri®cation practice (cf. Sibley 1988) through which the grantwriters set up a moral and spatial order where they and other core community members are deemed to use space`appropriately', and thus inhabit positive moral positions, while immigrant community members' imputed`inappropriate' use of space is used to construct negative moral positions for them.

WORKING PAPERS ON …, Jan 1, 1996

Journal of Planning Education and Research, Dec 1, 2007

The first two chapters set the conceptual tone of the book. The first chapter by the editors prov... more The first two chapters set the conceptual tone of the book. The first chapter by the editors provides an introduction to the issues of inclusion and exclusion and gives an overview of the New Delhi forum. The second chapter by Laquian out-lines the concept of poverty and the linkage ...

Blackwell Publishing Ltd eBooks, Feb 11, 2008

Routledge eBooks, Sep 29, 2017

Strategic Direction, 2011

PurposeReviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implic... more PurposeReviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approachThis briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.FindingsGetting the right balance between short and longer‐term goals is critical for the well‐being of any business organization. For some, delivering success in the here and now is all that matters. However, concentrating almost exclusively on a quick fix or two is a dangerous game to play. Glory is likely to be fleeting at best when such an outlook prevails. Creating anything to endure demands a focus that extends well beyond the present. Companies shouldn't simply leave everything to chance, though. As US computer scientist Alan Kay once remarked, “the best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Succession planning is fundamental to any such philosophy. Obviously no one can kn...

Linguistic landscape, Sep 1, 2022

Discourses of Identity in Liminal Places and Spaces, 2019

Linguistic Landscape in the City, 2010

The exact precession frequency of a freely-precessing test gyroscope is derived for a 2 + 1 dimen... more The exact precession frequency of a freely-precessing test gyroscope is derived for a 2 + 1 dimensional rotating acoustic black hole analogue spacetime, without making the somewhat unrealistic assumption that the gyroscope is static. We show that, as a consequence, the gyroscope crosses the acoustic ergosphere of the black hole with a finite precession frequency, provided its angular velocity lies within a particular range determined by the stipulation that the Killing vector is timelike over the ergoregion. Specializing to the 'Draining Sink' acoustic black hole, the precession frequency is shown to diverge near the acoustic horizon, instead of the vicinity of the ergosphere. In the limit of an infinitesimally small rotation of the acoustic black hole, the gyroscope still precesses with a finite frequency, thus confirming a behaviour analogous to geodetic precession in a physical non-rotating spacetime like a Schwarzschild black hole. Possible experimental approaches to detect acoustic spin precession and measure the consequent precession frequency, are discussed.

The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and the City, 2018

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 2016

With the ever-increasing accessibility of new communications media, there has been growing discus... more With the ever-increasing accessibility of new communications media, there has been growing discussion among ethnographers about how new media data such as e-mails, SMS/texts, blogs, news article comment sections, or community group websites have impacted the practice of ethnography. Generally, questions center around the characteristics of the data itself. Less often discussed is the effect of new communications media on relationships between ethnographers and members of the communities they study. This article explores what happens when social media becomes a channel through which researchers interact with informants both during fieldwork and between fieldsite visits. I examine how new formats of quick and often casual written communication influence the development of ethnographer–informant relationships over time. These technologies make contact with some informants (but not others) easier and more frequent, and, particularly because they bring written language into a relationship that often privileges spoken interaction, they may allow different facets of identity to emerge, reconfigure a researcher's network of relationships in the fieldsite, or change the personal-professional divide.

The American journal of managed care, 2016

The process of planning for end-of life decisions, also known as advance care planning (ACP), is ... more The process of planning for end-of life decisions, also known as advance care planning (ACP), is associated with numerous positive outcomes, including improved patient satisfaction with care and improved patient quality of life in terminal illness. In this study, we sought to test a novel personal health record (PHR)-delivered ACP framework through a small-scale randomized trial of usual care practices versus PHR-delivered ACP. Randomized controlled pilot intervention. A novel PHR-ACP tool was tested using data and feedback collected in a randomized controlled pilot intervention (n = 50). Participants in the control group received standard care for ACP conversations while participants randomized to the intervention group received a novel ACP framework through the electronic health record. The pilot study testing the ACP framework found that its use resulted in improved ACP documentation rates (P = .001) and quality (P = .007) compared with usual care. Tethered PHR use as an initial ...

The American journal of managed care, 2016

End-of-life planning, known as advance care planning (ACP), is associated with numerous positive ... more End-of-life planning, known as advance care planning (ACP), is associated with numerous positive outcomes, such as improved patient satisfaction with care and improved patient quality of life in terminal illness. However, patient-provider ACP conversations are rarely performed or documented due to a number of barriers, including time required, perceived lack of skill, and a limited number of resources. Use of tethered personal health records (PHRs) may help streamline ACP conversations and documentations for outpatient workflows. Our objective was to develop an ACP-PHR framework that would be for use in a primary care, outpatient setting. Qualitative content analysis of focus groups and cognitive interviews (participatory design). A novel PHR-ACP tool was developed and tested using data and feedback collected from 4 patient focus groups (n = 13), 1 provider focus group (n = 4), and cognitive interviews (n = 22). Patient focus groups helped develop a focused, 4-question PHR communica...