AAA/SLA panel idea

[Rebecca Greene]

Hi, I am trying to organize a panel for the AAA meeting in New Orleans
November 17-21, on the theme 'Language, Ideology and Identity'.

People use language creatively in part to express a vast and rapidly
changing array of social identities, but these identities, however diverse
and changing, do not 'come out of nowhere'.  Rather, they seem to be
intimately related to our broader ideologies about the world, and the power
structures in society underlying those ideologies.  The study of how people
use and talk about language can inform and be informed by the study of what
is driving other human behaviors, including our interests, and the
constraints on our working toward those interests.

I am would like to to include:

--ethnographically-informed studies of language, identity and ideology in
particular contexts,

--studies that broach broader social theoretical questions regarding
identity, ideology, power, and language

--How might the different social identities that we observe in the world be
categorized in interesting ways (ex. 'oppositional', 'unmarked', 'dominant',
'teen', 'rural', 'modern', 'globally-oriented'), and how are these
similarities grounded in real-life circumstances of the world, and our
ideologies about?

--How do ideology and social identity function differently in dominant as
opposed to subordinated social groups?

--What sort of experiences do people have that drive them to construct
strong in-group identities?

--How does having a given social identity, or holding given ideologies, make
someone's life more manageable for them?