Other

Our previous studies showed that expression patterns of X-linked genes in cultured cells are different from those of their tissues of origin. This investigation analyses the transcription pattern of the X-linked genes BIRC4, GAB3, MECP2, RPS4X, SLC25A6, and XIST in bovine in vitro matured oocytes and in vitro fertilized embryos, and their in vivo counterparts. In vitro-derived pools of mature oocytes and pre-attachment embryos were obtained by: (a) TCM-199/serum with bovine oviductal epithelial cells as co-culture, and (b) synthetic oviductal fluid/BSA. Pools of in vivo-derived morulae and blastocysts were provided by a commercial embryo transfer operation. Total RNA was extracted for quantification of gene-specific transcript levels using real-time quantitative PCR. Statistical analysis was performed using a mixed model factorial ANOVA with α = 0.05. The effect of the in vitro environmental conditions on X-linked gene transcription was most evident during the fourth cell cycle, at the period of activation of the embryonic genome, and seemed to be less pronounced at later developmental stages, with the exception of BIRC4. The levels of X-linked genes transcripts in in vivo-derived embryos were lower relative to their in vitro counterparts for all genes tested. Finally, the pattern of expression of XIST in bovine oocytes and embryos was similar to that reported in humans. These results highlight the possibility that X-linked gene expression analysis is a useful tool to monitor the impact of reproductive biotechnologies on the developmental potential of embryos and aid in their improvement. Mol. Reprod. Dev. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Three lines of commercialYorkshire pigs with defined SLA-DRB1 alleles were developed at the University of Guelph for xenotransplantation and immune response studies. Two of the SLA-DRB1 alleles have been previously reported (SLA-DRB1*0502 and *0701), whereas the third one is a new allele. The influence of defined SLA-DRB1 alleles on transcriptional patterns of immune-related genes in blood mononuclear cells (BMCs) of pigs was explored using cDNA microarray. Microarray analysis showed significant differential expression of inflammatory genes in association with the various SLA-DRB1 alleles. A better understanding of the association between SLA genotypes and gene activity can increase the knowledge of the function of these molecules, as well as define new strategies to control animal health and optimize animal production.

"This paper explores the challenges that neoliberalism and the globalized new economy present to the politics of linguistic minority movements by ethnographically examining language policy as a discursive process, rooted in political economy. Following the post-WWII period, as most Western States restructured from welfarism to neoliberalism, there was a shift away from minority (language) rights towards economic development. In Canada, where State policy maintains a French–English "linguistic duality", francophone regions outside Quebec became sites of discursive struggle, following the collapse of the old economy, between (1) a focus on the collective reproduction of "community" (maintaining language, culture and identity), and (2) the State’s focus on facilitating individual economic reproduction. What emerges is an attempt by the State, and certain community actors to save the traditional francophone minority collectivity by focusing on the "community economic development" of rural bastions, rather than the economic integration of individual francophones living in diverse, urban areas.

Keywords: Linguistic minorities, Neoliberalism, Globalization, Political economy, Francophone Canada, Ethnographic sociolinguistics"

While classrooms remain the de facto space for formal instruction of Portuguese language and culture, there is no doubt that extra-curricular activities held by or in conjunction with "Lusophile" university student associations also serve as dynamic spaces where knowledge of the Portuguese language and Lusophone cultures are constructed, deconstructed, shared and possibly even contested. That said, the situation and challenges of these student associations has gone largely overlooked in academic discussions of language instruction. This paper seeks to address this gap by focusing on two Portuguese-Canadian university student associations in southern Ontario.

This critical sociolinguistic paper adopts a materialist view of how multiple languages and identities are negotiated in an effort to re-examine multilingualism and why people invest in certain sociolinguistic practices. The focus is on the social and linguistic resources and performances of Portuguese–Canadian youth in student cultural associations or clubs in Toronto. The sociolinguistic work carried out in these Portuguese clubs provides a rich context in which to explore diverse linguistic repertoires and trans-local identities which are the hallmark of a postmodern, globalised world. These student associations are flexible transnational spaces where young people should be free to construct their multiple sociolinguistic identities as they see fit. They should be able to assert their creative agency without the constraints of traditional ethnolinguistic gate-keepers like Portuguese teachers, parents or community leaders who can impose homogenised or ‘legitimate’ ways of speaking and being Portuguese. Yet, this hypothetical freedom and flexibility are not easily achieved and they often come at a cost. At issue are questions surrounding authenticity, legitimacy, dominant linguistic and nationalist ideologies, and access to material and symbolic capital that structure the Portuguese–Canadian community as a market and position some people as ‘heroes’ of the Portuguese cause, and others more like ‘zeros’.

[ABSTRACT:} This paper traces the legacy of ideological constructions of “legitimate” social and linguistic capital that stratify Toronto’s Portuguese-Canadian community. It explores how tensions surrounding the definition of legitimate Portuguese language and identity are also about competition over limited and unequally distributed resources in the (trans)national and diasporic markets of Portugal and Canada. In these spaces, internal divisions among the Portuguese are ignored or essentialized in an effort to (re)produce the homogenizing linguistic ideology of the nation-state and to manage multicultural difference along ethnic and working-class lines. The result is that the Portuguese-Canadian market is divided between a minority of Mainland Portuguese, whose standard language and dominant habitus afford them positions of power, and a majority of Azorean Portuguese, who are marginalized by their delegitimized habitus. This division is based on historical differences in Portugal that are reproduced in Canada. Although the location and the meaning of the differences changed through migration, their legacy remains productive in the local Toronto market. How do the traces of this legacy impact the Canadian-born Portuguese descendents who are discursively positioned as the inheritors and future investors of the diasporic ethnolinguistic market? What do they stand to gain or to lose?
    The data presented focuses on the life trajectories of three young Portuguese-Canadians and their (un)successful negotiations of language, identity and space. This ethnographic and critical sociolinguistic analysis (Heller 2002) explores how their performances of portugueseness challenge or reproduce the dominant discourses, while examining how language reveals and constrains social positioning (Gumperz 1982, Bourdieu 1982).
"

This paper challenges the normalised view that immigrant communities, like language and identity, are natural and depoliticised social realities. They are, in fact, carefully constructed social projects structured by people with multiple positionings who compete over unequally distributed resources. A critical and ethnographic sociolinguistic analysis reveals Toronto’s Portuguese-Canadian community as a market where internal group divisions along linguistic, regional and generational lines are masked in order to appeal to the homogenising discourses of Canadian multiculturalism and Portuguese nationalism. The market is thus divided between a minority of Mainland Portuguese, whose standard language variety and dominant cultural habitus afford them positions of power, and a majority of Azorean Portuguese, whose ways of being and speaking Portuguese are delegitimised. Qualitative research methods, including semi-structured interviews and participant observation, suggest that the Canadian-born inheritors of this market navigate discursive spaces which largely remain monolingually and monoculturally Portuguese and that are filled with contradictions marginalising most young people for lacking the “right” linguistic or cultural capital.

This dissertation demonstrates that notions of language and identity are not entirely about personal characteristics (what a person is born with, what is “in his blood”), nor are they entirely about agency (how a person chooses to present herself). Instead, they are largely about markets and about the multiple positionings of social actors within markets that are structured by ideologies of the nation state, immigration and the globalized new economy. This critical perspective challenges the normalized view that immigrant (diasporic) communities are simply natural social groupings or depoliticized transplantations of distinct ethnolinguistic units from their “homeland”. They are, like language and identity, carefully constructed and managed social projects that are shaped by forces from within and from without.

In Canada, the conditions for the institutionalization and (re)production of ethnolinguistic differences, which also make and mark class relations, are strengthened by the state’s multiculturalist policy. The Portuguese-Canadian community is one such ethnolinguistic market and the goal of this research is to examine which forms of portugueseness dominate the market, why and with what consequences for whom. Building from an ethnographic and critical sociolinguistic approach (Bourdieu 1977, Heller 2002), the qualitative data behind this research was produced through a two-year ethnography, participant observations and semi-structured interviews drawing primarily from six second-generation Portuguese-Canadians and members of their social networks. 

The findings suggest that the kind of portugueseness that dominates the Portuguese-Canadian market is one from Mainland Portugal; one that is folklorized, patriarchal, and that promotes (Mainland) Portuguese monolingualism and false cultural homogeneity. A consequence of this sociolinguistic structuration is a division between Azoreans and Mainlanders who make up two parts of the same Portuguese market; partners in conflict over the legitimacy and value of their linguistic and social capital. Furthermore, the inheritors of this market, the second and subsequent generations, navigate discursive spaces filled with contradictions that often marginalize them. Their experiences highlight strategic mobilizations of Portuguese language and identity, as well as the consequences of having delegitimized cultural and linguistic capital. In short, this dissertation highlights the productive tensions between structure and agency, between uniformity and variability, and between exclusion and inclusion.

[I organized the following panel at the SS20]
Diasporic discourses on multilingualism and performativity: Portugueseness across time and space

[Panel abstract]
By problematizing the polycentricity of language and the multiple positionings of social actors, the papers in this colloquium explore the sociolinguistic trajectories and the discursive tensions that exist around identity and language within Portuguese-speaking diasporic (emigrant) communities in North America, Western Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Protectorate of the Channel Islands. A critical and ethnographic analysis of multilingual and multivocal performances across different geographical, social and political spaces reveals the complex and unequal ways in which social actors mobilize the symbolic and material capital of language and identity across trans-local markets. How are the social and linguistic boundaries of these diasporic communities structured (between pressures of uniformity and diversity) and with what consequences for whom? How do Portuguese-speaking migrants and their descendants of Mainland European, Azorean and Madeiran heritage negotiate, reproduce or challenge different ideologies of legitimate or authentic “portugueseness” (ways of being and speaking Portuguese)? In order to explore these questions of structure, agency, time and space, among others, the papers in this colloquium draw from critical discourse analysis, critical interactional sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. The data analyzed present a broad range of linguistic and identity performances spanning from political discourses, comedy sketches, personal narratives, and everyday interactions. In addition to examining the specificity of each particular sociolinguistic context, the papers also speak to the larger impact that globalization, transnational mobility and post-nationalism have had on traditional representations of language, identity and other social categories. 

[Invited panelists]

Sandi Michele de Oliveira (University of Copenhagen)
Title: 40 years later: Discourses of the Revolution and the construction of identity in the Portuguese diaspora.

Jaine Beswick (University of Southampton)
Title: Sou Madeirense, embora pertenço a esta ilha: Multifaceted identities of the Madeira-Portuguese on Jersey, The Channel Islands.

Michele Koven (University of Illinois) and Isabelle Simões Marques (Universidade de Coimbra)
Title: Contesting emigrants' "portugueseness" on YouTube: The case of Ro et Cut's Vamos a Portugal.

Emanuel da Silva (University of Toronto)
Title: Mobilizing linguistic marginality: Humour, youth and azoreanness in Toronto’s Portuguese market.

[Invited discussant] Marilyn Martin-Jones (University of Birmingham)