This study examined the role of social categorization in the language attitudes process. Participants (N = 1,915) from three ethnolinguistic groups residing in the republic of Georgia-Georgians, Armenians, and Azerbaijanis-listened to a speaker reading a text in a Tbilisi-accented (standard variety) and a Mingrelian-accented (nonstandard variety) Georgian guise. We predicted that the three groups would vary in their ability to correctly categorize the two guises and that this intergroup variation in categorization accuracy would result in intergroup variation in language attitudes. These hypotheses were supported. Georgians were more accurate than Armenians and Azerbaijanis in their categorization of both guises. The Tbilisiaccented (Mingrelian-accented) guise was evaluated more (less) favorably when categorized correctly than when miscategorized. This resulted in intergroup variation in language attitudes: Overall, Georgians evaluated the Tbilisi-accented (Mingrelianaccented) guise more (less) favorably than Armenians and Azerbaijanis, due in part to Georgians' higher categorization accuracy of both guises.

After the Rose Revolution, President Saakashvili tried to move away from the exclusionary nationalism of the past, which had poisoned relations between Georgians and their Armenian and Azerbaijani compatriots. His government instead sought to foster an inclusionary nationalism, wherein belonging was contingent upon speaking the state language and all Georgian speakers, irrespective of origin, were to be equals. This article examines this nation-building project from a top-down and bottom-up lens. I first argue that state officials took rigorous steps to signal that Georgian-speaking minorities were part of the national fabric, but failed to abolish religious and historical barriers to their inclusion. I next utilize a large-scale, matched-guise experiment (n = 792) to explore if adolescent Georgians ostracize Georgian-speaking minorities or embrace them as their peers. I find that the upcoming generation of Georgians harbor attitudes in line with Saakashvili's language-centered nationalism, and that current Georgian nationalism therefore is more inclusionary than previous research, or Georgia's tumultuous past, would lead us to believe.

Two matched-guise studies examined language attitudes among Georgian youth toward two varieties of spoken Georgian: Tbilisi-accented Georgian (standard variety) and Mingrelian-accented Georgian (nonstandard variety). Study 1, conducted in Tbilisi, found that listeners (N = 106) attributed more status and solidarity to the standard variety, regardless of self-reported regional identity (Tbilisieli, Mingrelian, other). Study 2, conducted in Samegrelo, found that self-identified Mingrelians (N = 96) attributed more status and solidarity to the standard variety, regardless of language use at home. Together, these findings suggest that Mingrelians may be undergoing a generational shift in their language attitudes in favor of linguistic homogenization.

How do Georgian citizens of different nationalities evaluate people when they speak in different languages? This article presents the results of three sets of “matched-guise” experiments, a method long used by sociolinguists to evaluate attitudes to different language varieties and their speakers. The results are revealing of the language hierarchies that prevail in Tbilisi and in the southern border regions of Samtskhe-Javakheti and Kvemo Kartli (where Georgia’s Armenian and Azerbaijani populations are concentrated). Our results suggest that social rewards for linguistic assimilation from one national group to another are very low in both rural and urban parts of Georgia. These findings show that with linguistic assimilation unrewarded, contemporary language hierarchies leave room for Russian to be sustained as a bridge language between communities. The results also show that native speakers of English are afforded higher social status than native speakers of Russian in Tbilisi.

In the second half of the 1990s, the label "asymmetric" conflict rose to prominence among scholars and strategists, as a term for capturing the rising challenge that violent non-state actors posed to the liberal world order. However, the concept soon became a catchphrase for a range of disparate phenomena, and other buzzwords arose to describe the threats of concern to decision-makers. Conceptual confusion beset the field. This article dissects the notion of asymmetric conflicts, and distinguishes between asymmetries involving differences in (1) status, (2) capabilities, or (3) strategies between belligerents. It argues that "asymmetric" conflicts can take numerous forms depending on the combination of differences present, and offers a blue-print for keeping track of the meaning of this concept in the hope of bringing greater precision to future debates.