Sandrizona X: Graduate Student Linguistic Anthropology Data Workshop and Scholarly Exchange

When

8 a.m., Feb. 18, 2017

 Where the Ocean Meets the Desert Spring 2017Nese Kaya Ozkan nesekaya@email.arizona.eduTime: 12-12:30Language ideologies of Hemshin language: racialization of Hemshinlis in Turkey  This study examines the racialized relationship between language ideologies and language use of Hemshin people living predominantly in the Northeast of Turkey. For this study, I analyze the written texts by Turkish nationalist people and Hemshin speakers in relation to the language policies of the Republic of Turkey which have been fed with the modernization and civilization discourses. This study is part of a larger MA thesis focusing on the history, culture and language of Hopa Hemshinlis. Hence, the data described in this article were generated in three months of staying in Hopa in 2013, during which I investigated everyday usage of Hemshin language, discourses about speaking Hemshin language and about being Hemshinli through participant observation and ethnographic interviews. Frequent visits with shorter times spent in Hopa followed my three-month stay in Hopa. And in addition to this, I had interviews with Hemshin people who live in Istanbul and participated in the activities organized by Hemshinli activists. I conducted interviews with 51 Hemshinlis whose ages differ from 18 to 84. The findings illustrate that reflecting the hegemonic modernization and civilization discourses of the Turkish nation state, Hemshin language as well as the way Hemshin people speak come out to be racializing signifiers stigmatizing Hemshin speakers with pejorative attributes and phenotypical bodily features and justifying social discrimination and inequality in Turkey. Nese Kaya Ozkan is a Linguistic Anthropology Ph.D. student from Turkey, where she completed her B.A. in Foreign Language Education at Bogazici University in 2008. She received her first MA degree at the same university in Linguistics Program in 2011 with a thesis focusing on the ethnic identity formation of second and third generation Cretan immigrants whose ancestors were subjected to a population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1920s. For her second M.A. degree, which she received from Sabanci University in 2014 in Cultural Studies, she studied the culture, history, and language of Hemshin people living in northeastern Turkey. For her Ph.D. research, she will focus on ethnic and linguistic identity formation of Hemshin people: the language ideologies they hold as well as recently emerging language activism and their impact on the preservation and continuation of Hemshin language.  Haleema Weljihwelji@ucsd.eduTime: 3:30-4 'Because God said So': Discipline and Ethics in the Socialization of Children in Amman, JordanAs a three-year-old girl kicks around lemons that have fallen from a tree, her mother scolds her to get her to stop. The mother does so by saying that “God is angry with her” over the way she treats those lemons. In this talk, I examine disciplinary practices and their link to authority used on young children in Amman, Jordan. This includes various discipline strategies used by Jordanian mothers, teachers, and grandmothers to guide, direct, and educate children in how to behave. In some cases, such as in the little girl’s attack on lemons, references to God are used to socialize both religiosity and socially sanctioned behavior. References to God also play an important role for the disciplinarian as a way of easing tension and frustration, and distancing their authority and agency from the disciplinary action. In other disciplinary strategies, children are asked to empathize with the speaker who has been harmed by their behavior. I look to see how disciplinary tactics use internal, external, and supernatural loci as part of the power dynamics of discipline. I ask: where is the disciplinary power located? In what contexts are different loci used? How do children react to discipline? I ground this investigation in ordinary ethics (Das 2010, Lambek 2010, Sidnell 2010), in the way that routine behaviors underlie messages about how to behave and how to be good. Through these methods, young children learn how to interact with others and culturally driven ideas about personhood (Lambek 2013). Haleema Welji is a PhD Candidate at UCSD in the linguistic anthropology program. Her dissertation is based on 18 months of fieldwork in Amman, Jordan. The dissertation, called “Learning to be ‘Good’: The Ethics of Socialization and the Socialization of Ethics in Amman Jordan,” focuses on the socalization of young children, specifically on moral and ethical education. She also looks at schools, families, and intergenerational homes to study ideologies of education and the role of religion and religious education in bringing up children. Haleema has a BA in Human Development from the University of Chicago, a Masters in Education from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, and an MA in Anthropology from UCSD.