Herrera, Eduardo Chávez (2019) Semioticians' glassy essence : the discursive construction of semiotics through the eyes of its practitioners. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis offers insights into the under-researched area of semiotics scholars’ identity construction, which it examines by focusing on their narratives, produced in a particular setting. I address this topic by using research interviews and a linguistic analysis of unfolding interactions. The analysis is informed by a toolkit that consists of different strands of narrative positioning theory (Bamberg, 1997; Wortham, 2000, Søreide, 2006; De Fina, 2013; and Deppermann, 2015).

For this, I draw on an oral corpus composed of 40 research interviews with respondents from 12 countries (Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Bulgaria, Germany, Mexico and the US) conducted in three languages: English, French and Spanish. This study explores locally coconstructed narratives in order to explain how respondents take on multiple acts of positioning and negotiate different aspects of their identity with me, the interviewer.

The findings reveal that respondents do not adhere to a single identity, but rather represent themselves by choosing from within an inventory of identity affordances that either intersect or contradict with each other according to the moment of the interaction. At some moments, and in a more coherent way, they coalesce around a particular subject’s position or around macro-discursive contexts in order to enact stronger identity claims.

In addition to the above arguments, I account for the existence of a prevailing discourse that intends to convey the scholars’ own subjective experiences of working in a marginalised field. This study, therefore, helps in our understanding of how semioticians interact and negotiate their academic identities and how they struggle to achieve recognition for their field, despite the institutional constraints of their domestic academic systems.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Semioticians.
Official Date:	June 2019
Dates:	Date Event June 2019 UNSPECIFIED
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for Applied Linguistics
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Angermuller, Johannes, 1973- ; Wharton, Sue
Sponsors:	European Research Council ; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Mexico)
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	ix, 284 leaves : illustrations (some colour)
Language:	eng

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