Croatian Language Standardization and the Production of Nationalized Political Subjects through Language? Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities

Hodges, Andrew; Abercrombie, Amelia; Balažev, Marina; Costa, James; Kapović, Mate; Marković, Jelena; Petrović, Tanja; Spasić, Ivana

doi:10.15378/1848-9540.2016.39.01

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…This raises questions of why a Romani standard is necessary, and how language intersects with ethnicity and class. If class is prioritised over ethnic allegiance, minority groups are able to improve their situation economically via the majority language (Hodges 2016). While minority language recognition may be important, the skill of having a good command of the right variant of the dominant language is far more important in negotiating scarce employment opportunities.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language purism and social hierarchies: Making a Romani standard in Prizren

Abercrombie

2018

Lang. Soc.

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This article takes an ethnographic approach to language standardisation. My research focuses on Romani language use in Prizren, Kosovo, which has a tradition of multilingualism. Moving away from approaches to standardisation that focus only on linguistic processes, I look more broadly at the social processes behind language standardisation. I explore discussions, debates, and attitudes towards me as a language learner to show how a Romani standard is being produced and legitimised in Prizren. Applying theories of purism and standardisation, I examine how certain speech practices are made inferior and how social hierarchies legitimise this. I relate this more broadly to the politics of Romani language and to theories of sociolinguistics and anthropological linguistics. (Romani, Kosovo, standardisation, purism, language ideology)*

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language purism and social hierarchies: Making a Romani standard in Prizren

Abercrombie

2018

Lang. Soc.

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“…The identification effect pertains to "a realignment of the atomized subjectivities along collective lines within which individuals recognize themselves as the same." This was evidenced by the Bunjevac teacher's normalization of the Serbian program at the parents' evening, Serbian was the unspoken, "anonymous" default standard, an observation also made by Balažev (Hodges et al 2016) on the basis of her long-term engagement in teaching Croatian in Vojvodina. Furthermore, a variety of Bunjevac with inflected Serbian Ekavian features that was closer to the Serbian standard was called "prisni bunjevački" (polite Bunjevac).…”

Section: Identification Effectmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…In contrast, standard Serbian and Croatian are imbued with the value of anonymity, of a "view from nowhere" (Nagel 1986). However, in Vojvodina, that view from nowhere was Serbian, while Croatian-as Marina Balažev (Hodges et al 2016) noted, was often perceived as foreign.…”

Section: Tensionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Returning to Brubaker’s (2004) concept of “groupness,” this activist viewed the lack of Croatian groupness as a problem, and proposed certain interventions (including the promotion of teaching in standard Croatian) as a solution. In the school environment, the promotion of a more homogenous Croatian group identity was attempted by those activists who strongly emphasized standard Croatian in a prescriptivist manner, as discussed elsewhere (Hodges et al 2016, Vuković 2010). At the metapragmatic level, such promotion frequently involved activists using tropes of “caring for and preserving Croatian identity” in a referential manner, while on a practical day-to-day level, this involved the promotion of cultural activities and teaching in Croatian that could be unambiguously identified as Croatian, such as promoting the use of standard Croatian in the classroom and minority media.…”

Section: Promoting Croatian “Groupness”: Activist Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Producing and Maintaining Minority “Groupness” through State Effects: Teaching in Croatian in Serbia

Hodges

2018

Nationalities Papers

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This article ethnographically examines the situation surrounding the teaching of Croatian in Serbia. It analyzes the discourses and efforts of minority activists in promoting Croatian culture and language in various ways, specifically drawing on fieldwork conducted in a school where three mutually intelligible language varieties—Serbian, Croatian, and Bunjevac—were taught. Instruction in Croatian has been offered in Serbia since 2002 through a minority rights framework. However, prior to the wars of Yugoslav succession in the 1990s, those identifying as Croat were not considered a minority in [the] Socialist Yugoslavia, as it was a South Slavic federation. The number of children enrolling in Croatian minority programs in Serbia is small, and of those who attend them, a significant number do not come to identify as Croatian, a fact that many minority activists consider to be a problem. The article is organized in four parts. First, the context and various perspectives are introduced through an ethnographic vignette. Second, the research context and legal and institutional framework are introduced. Activist perspectives are then discussed, including tensions present. Finally, Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s concept of “state effects” is presented and elaborated with respect to the case study, and the various efforts of activists in trying to promote and/or maintain Croatian “groupness” are evaluated.

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“…The harsh critique from linguists opposing the declaration shows how the topic still evokes animosity. 2 Language and linguistics, as the discipline offering expert opinion and guidelines on how to use it, has arguably played a significant role in the violent wars in former Yugoslavia (Bugarski 2001;Hodges 2016). Clearly, Croatia has been in the focus of many different accounts of showing the involvement of linguists in nationalist meaning-making.…”

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confidence: 99%

Ethnographic accounts of linguistic issues in the Yugoslav successor states: An introduction

Kersten-Pejanić

2019

awpel

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Doing ethnographic linguistics (or linguistic ethnography) in the area of what used to be Yugoslavia is both a challenging and a promising undertaking. Challenging, in that there are so many ideological traps to take into consideration. Promising, in that there are so many complex matters to take a closer look at. These matters, even when exclusively realized in linguistic means, may have great influence on people’s everyday political, cultural, and social meaning-making. Especially so, as indexical relations and the ideological premises and effects of choosing to use one linguistic realization over the other, has played an important role for all speech communities in the region.

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Croatian Language Standardization and the Production of Nationalized Political Subjects through Language? Perspectives from the Social Sciences and Humanities

Cited by 4 publications

References 26 publications

Language purism and social hierarchies: Making a Romani standard in Prizren

Language purism and social hierarchies: Making a Romani standard in Prizren

Producing and Maintaining Minority “Groupness” through State Effects: Teaching in Croatian in Serbia

Ethnographic accounts of linguistic issues in the Yugoslav successor states: An introduction

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