Dissertation: Linguistic Negotiation of Gender, Difference and Power by Israeli and Palestinian Women Activists

本文由一位人类学语言学家进行研究，研究了犹太和巴勒斯坦、以色列和约旦河西岸的妇女、和平和政治活动家所使用的语言。虽然这些言论呼吁性别团结，但建立联盟的实际做法揭示了群体内部和群体之间的不平等分歧。研究的重点将是人们如何操纵特定的语言结构(如何说事情)，而不仅仅是语义内容(说了什么)，以协商身份和目标。学生将在组织会议和公共活动中录制演讲，并单独或以小组形式采访活动人士，以收集人口统计信息、性别和国家意识形态。她将测试以下假设：妇女创建一个有凝聚力的妇女活动家社区的努力如何与她们在以色列希伯来语和巴勒斯坦阿拉伯语中最大化性别语言实践的能力相关；以及如何利用代码转换(在两种或两种以上语言或方言之间切换)来实现个人和政治目标。这项研究将增进我们对语言结构和实践如何影响政治活动的理解，并将进一步加深我们对以色列和巴勒斯坦妇女和平与民族活动家如何将和平条约和全球女权主义等国际现象转化为建立或未能建立跨越差异边界的桥梁以实现共同目标的当地现实的理解。此外，它还将增加我们对世界这一重要区域的了解

This dissertation research by an anthropological linguist studies the language used by Jewish and Palestinian Israeli and West Bank Palestinian woman peace and political activists. While the rhetoric used appeals to gender unity, the actual practices of coalition building reveal divisions of inequality both within and between groups. The focus of the research will be on how people manipulate specific linguistic structures (how things are said) and not simply semantic content (what is said) in order to negotiate identities and goals. The student will record speech in organizational meetings and public events, as well as interview activists, individually and in small groups, to gather demographic information, gender and national ideologies. She will test hypotheses concerned with how women's attempts to create a cohesive women's activist community correlate with their ability to maximize gendered language practices within Israeli Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic; and with how code-switching (switching between two or more languages or dialects) is used to attain personal and political goals. The research should advance our understanding of how linguistic structure and practice affects political activity and will further our understanding of the ways in which Israeli and Palestinian women peace and national activists translate international phenomena, such as peace treaties and global feminism, into local realities of building or failing to build bridges across boundaries of difference to achieve common goals. In addition it will add to our knowledge of this important region of the world