Identity and social conduct in a transient multilingual setting

Abstract

AbstractThis article focuses on the question of how systems of expectations for social conduct develop in a context characterized by diversity and transience. The empirical focus is a series of women's neighborhood meetings in a transient urban milieu in Indonesia. Drawing on work on semiotic register formation, I argue that expectations for social conduct within this neighborhood are constructed through the positioning of self and others in talk across speech situations. In doing so, I explore interdiscursive relationships between this conversational activity and more perduring signs of personhood and social relations. (Enregisterment, identity, Indonesia, migration, trust)*