Using data from two ongoing projects on Web 2.0 environments (posted data and online commentary on "Stuff White People Like" and "PostSecret"), I explore indeterminacy as it relates to stancetaking. I focus first on the structural conditions, semiotic resources and discursive practices that make stance indeterminacy possible and what kinds of social and ideological purposes its maintenance serves. Secondly, I use these case studies to reflect on how the "constellation of ideologically related meanings" that constitute the indexical field (Eckert 2008) get ordered and activated in specific instances of discourse: that is, what processes of sociolinguistic (and semiotic) regularization can be seen at play, and how both processes of situational adjustment and regularlization are enabled or inhibited by social and linguistic hierarchies or ideologies.

Speakers have resources for indicating that it is relevant for recipients to produce particular responses. By using these resources, speakers make it relevant for recipients to display their interpretations of what speakers were doing and what they have called for in return. Speakers can thus arrange to receive evidence of their impact on others. In doctor-patient encounters where the primary activities are diagnosing and recommending treatment for illness, there are certain environments (phases of medical inquiry) where it can be interactionally problematic for patients to arrange to receive evidence of their impact on doctors. In this talk, I will focus on sequences where patients offer causal explanations for their symptoms. I will describe some practices patients use to manage the response relevance of these explanations and display their recognition of the contingencies that surround the production of a response, as well as how doctors respond. These practices, and doctors' responses, generate interactions with distinctive qualities. In some cases, patients arrange to receive (and do receive) evidence that doctors heard them to be proposing causal explanations, as well as whether and how they influenced doctors' interpretations of their symptoms. In others, patients do not. The analysis contributes to an understanding of patient agency as a member's issue and a matter of concrete, collaborative practices of action. It also reveals some challenges the participants face in regard to legitimizing the patient's "voice" in medical encounters, and it points to some ways this can be addressed.

Language ideologies can be defined as perceptions of language constructed in the interest of specific social groups. Previous research on language ideologies in English language teaching (ELT) has often shown how the language is ideologically connected to economic success in the global economy. Research on ELT within English-speaking countries has additionally explored ideologies that privilege monolingualism and linguistic standardization. However, few studies have examined how English teachers position themselves and their work amidst ideological debates. This talk draws on a Bakhtinian perspective to analyze and interpret ethnographic data on English teacher identity collected in both California and Chile in 2005-2006. In Chile, English teaching has been promoted in tandem with the nation's export-oriented economic policies, while in California, English instruction is most often viewed as a means to assimilate the state's growing immigrant population. In both contexts, English is a language of economic power, and this necessarily shapes how teachers think about their work. However, this connection between English and economic power, while widely cited by teachers, does not represent their final word on the question. From the perspective of Bakhtin (1981), we (as social individuals, including teachers) are constantly in process of "ideological becoming," that is, "assimilating our consciousness to the ideological world." In this process, we position ourselves between the "authoritative discourses" that are dominant in society, and the "internally persuasive discourses" by which we interpret our own experiences. In this paper, I connect "ideological becoming" to cultural identity development, the process through which individuals construct a sense of belonging (or not belonging) to particular social groups that share perspectives and practices. Specifically, I present data on how English language teachers in California and Chile construct cultural identities through synthesizing and identifying with competing ideologies in the field of English language teaching.

The requirement of "boa aparencia" (good appearance) has a long history in Brazil, particularly in the context of job ads, where it is commonly recognized as an implicit request for whiteness. One's whiteness is defined not only by white skin, specific facial features, and straight hair but also by bodily comportment including one's dress, language, and behavior. I suggest that "boa aparencia" underlies the construction of all racial meaning in Brazil, such that the blackness of bodies must be continuously managed by individuals, either through attempts to minimize its presence or maximize its positive associations with First World modernity. In this talk, I describe the daily regimens of bodily discipline and patterns of consumption that hip hop affiliated youth in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil engage in to manage their own racial appearance through the construction of a "modern blackness." These regimens include the quoting of rap lyrics in daily conversation, a linguistic practice that offers audible evidence of one's consumption of hip hop style. I explore the critical role consumption has come to play in constructing a "modern blackness" for poor, dark-skinned shantytown youth. I suggest that patterns of language and consumption constitute possible manipulations to the body, offering an "alleviation of African traits" that are negatively associated with blackness.