Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Filters

2007 - 200912010 - 20161

Settings

Subject: search.filters.subject.Sociolinguistics

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    "Eating alone is painful" : an interdisciplinary and ethnographically inspired sociolinguistic investigation into Vietnamese mealtime ritual invitations : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2016) Dang, Thi Mai Duyen
    Invitations are a commonplace part of language ritual at meals in Vietnamese culture. They are verbal and non-verbal signals extended around everyday meals and interpreted as offers or invitations for food and/or company at meals. These invitations form communal and familial bonds and serve as a means to maintain hierarchical order. However, the commonly-held misperceptions of these invitations include them being explicitly verbalised, occurring only at meal-starts, and being specific to regions and people groups. Previous studies discussed the language of invitations from a narrow linguistic perspective which led to limited understandings of their nature and of how contextual and social factors govern their usage. My research examines linguistic and cultural perceptions and usage of Vietnamese mealtime ritual invitations (VMRIs) by about 350 native speakers of Vietnamese in New Zealand and Vietnam. My study draws on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork data, including participant observations, informal talks, diaries, video-recordings, and interviews. This is an interdisciplinary study drawing upon theoretical ideas from Sociolinguistics and Cultural Anthropology to analyse and interpret the data. The main findings are from two perspectives. From a linguistic perspective, VMRIs exhibit several features. Firstly, their linguistic variants are diverse. Secondly, particular linguistic features can express formality, politeness, hierarchical respect, and communicative conventions. Thirdly, key sociocultural variables (age, gender, familiarity, perception, and socio-family status) appear to influence usage. From an anthropological perspective, VMRIs are daily-life ritual practices manifesting the value of food in Vietnamese socio-cultural and historical context of food insecurity, the significance of family meals and meal manners, and the role of women. This study on Vietnamese mealtime ritual invitations expands the conceptual boundaries of invitations as multiplex discourses by showing how context (food and family meals) and other factors (status, familiarity, age, gender, and perception) generate and constrain language use. It also highlights the interrelationship between language and behaviour, the ritual practice of familial bonding during mealtimes, and the role of women in Vietnamese society. The findings emphasise the importance not only of taking account of speakers and hearers’ identities and discursive contexts when interpreting contextual language use but also of identifying those contexts.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Is wantokism a form of social capital? : comparative study of two communities in Oro Province, PNG : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2007) Manuda, Tony
    Social capital is an important prerequisite for development however the form it assumes is one which has to be understood well by development practitioners. A lot of interest in social capital has been generated recently particularly in the Pacific as social relations in between people and various societal institutions in these islands are in many ways influenced by ethno linguistic affiliations. Only when these relationships between development agents and beneficiaries are understood in their local context can one truly appreciate it as a form of social capital. Hence, the term 'wantokism' which relates to social relations between people sharing similar ethno linguistic ties becomes an interesting topic of discussion in especially in the heterogeneous Melanesian countries of the Pacific. This subject is discussed in this thesis through comparing social relations between actors in two separate communities in Papua New Guinea. The Buna community school project and Kokoda hospital project in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea are examples of projects that involved a wide variety of people from all sectors of the community. The Kokoda project funded jointly by the Papua New Guinea and Australian government under the Australian War Graves office was successfully completed and is fully operational while the Buna project funded by the Japanese government under its Japanese International Cooperation Agency program was not completed. In a society where trust and cooperation among wantoks is expected to a higher degree this research explores this issue in both this projects and whether or not the lack of it or abundance in one may have contributed to its failure or success. Through consultation with project board members, community members, provincial and district government personnel at both these locations this research raises the question of whether there is trust and cooperation between project boards and the wider community prior to and during the project work. More importantly it raises the question of whether there is trust and cooperation on the basis of wantokism. This thesis shows that the strong bonding social capital inherent in wantokism is clearly exemplified in both communities. However, there was minimal trust among board members and the local community, and a lack of bridging social capital in particularly Buna which affected its ability to access resources from outside sources. In contrast, there was a higher level of bridging social capital, and better trust and cooperation between board members and the local community at Kokoda. Drawing together from firstly, a theoretical analysis of social capital, ethnicity and wantokism and secondly, from qualitative and quantitative research in these two communities, it reaches conclusions about the extent to which wantokism could be a form of social capital.