Troubling Talk: A Politics and History of Indistinction in the Upper Sorbian Community
Keywords:
language endangerment, globalization, ethnography
Abstract
The article focused on the cultural processes that affect speakers of Upper Sorbian, an endangered Slavic community in Eastern Germany. Through an anthropological approach, language choices emerge as a complex negotiation of linguistic identity evidenced in critique of other Sorbs and language use as well as choosing to distance oneself from the community.
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References
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– –, 2009: Crying Shame: Metaculture, Modernity, and the Exaggerated Death of Lament. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Arzoz XABIER (ed.), 2008: Respecting Linguistic Diversity in the European Union. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Alexei YURCHAK, 2008: Necro-Utopia: The Politics of Indistinction and the Aesthetics of the Non-Soviet. Current Anthropology 49/2, 199–224.
Sara AHMED, 2010: The Promise of Happiness. Durham: Duke University Press.
Mikhail BAKHTIN, 1981: Discourse in the Novel. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin. Michael Holquist, ed. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist, trans. Austin: University of Texas Press. 259–422.
Gregory BATESON, 1935: Culture, Contact, and Schismogenesis. Man 35, 178–183.
Lauren BERLANT, 2011: Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.
Niko BESNIER, 2009: Gossip and the Everyday Production of Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Jan BLOMMAERT, 2004: Rights in Places: Comments on Linguistic Rights and Wrongs. Language Rights and Language Survival: Sociolinguistic and Sociocultural Perspectives. Jane Freeland and Donna Patrick, eds. Manchester UK: St. Jerome Publishing. 55–66.
Pierre BOURDIEU, 1984: Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Richard Nice, trans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Cambridge University Press.
– –, 1991: Language and Symbolic Power. John Thompson, ed. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson, trans. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Peter BROCK, 1969: Smoler’s Idea of Nationality. Slavic Review 1, 25–47.
Jillian CAVANAUGH, 2009: Living Memory: The Social Aesthetics of Language in a Northern Italian Town. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Richard CREECH, 2005: Law and Language in the European Union: The Paradox of "United in Diversity." Groningen: Europa Law.
Nancy DORIAN, 2001: Surprises in Sutherland: Linguistic Varaibility amidst Social Uniformity. Linguistic Fieldwork. Paul Newman and Martha Ratliff, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 133–151.
Alexandre DUCHÊNE, Monica HELLER, 2007: Discourses of Endangerment: Sociolinguistics, Globalization and Social Order. Discourses of Endangerment: Ideology and Interest in the Defense of Languages. Alexandre Duchêne and Monica Heller, eds. London: Continuum. 1–13.
Jack FRIEDMAN, 2007: Shame and the Experience of Ambivalence on the Margins of the Global: Pathologizing the Past and Present in Romania’s Industrial Wasteland. Ethos 35 (2), 235–264.
Jane HILL, Kenneth HILL, 1986: Speaking Mexicano: Dynamics of Syncretic Language in Central Mexico. Tuscon, AZ: The University of Arizona Press.
Jane HILL, 2002: “Expert Rhetorics” in Advocacy for Endangered Languages: Who Is Listening, and What Do They Hear? Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 12/2, 119–133.
Katherine HOFFMAN, 2008: We Share Walls: Language, Land, and Gender in Berber Morocco. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Martin KASPER (ed.), 1987: Language and Culture of the Sorbs throughout their History. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Peter KUNZE, 1995: Kurze Geschichte der Sorben. Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag.
Konrad KÖSTLIN, 2003: Lust auf Sorbischsein. Im Wettstreit der Werte: Sorbische Sprache, Kultur und Identität auf dem Weg ins 21. Jahrhundert. Dietrich Scholze, ed. Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag. 427–445.
Daniel NETTLE, Suzanne ROMAINE, 2000: Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World’s Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Edmund PECH, Dietrich SCHOLZE, eds. 2003: Zwischen Zwang und Beistand: Deutsche Politik gegenüber den Sorben vom Weiner Kongress bis zur Gegenwart. Bautzen: Ludowe Nakładnistwo Domowina.
Nancy REIS, 1997: Russian Talk: Culture & Conversation during Perestroika. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Leoš ŠATAVA, 2005: Sprachenverhalten und ethnische Identität. Budyšin (Bautzen), Germany: Domowina-Verlag.
Dietrich SCHOLZE, 1999: Die Sorben in Deutschland. Görlitz, Germany: Maxroi Graphics.
– –, 2003: Einleitung: 50 Jahre sorabistische Forschung in Bautzen (Zawod: 50 lět sorabistiske slědźenje w Budyšinje). Wettstreit der Werte: Sorbische Sprache, Kultur und Identität auf dem Weg ins 21. Jahrhundert, Dietrich Scholze, ed. Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag. 15–20.
Tove SKUTNABB-KANGAS, 1996: Educational Language Choice: Multilingual Diversity or Monolingual Reductionism? Contrastive Sociolinguistics. Marlis Helliger and Ammon Ullrich, eds. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 175–204.
Niamh NIC SHUIBHNE, 2002: EC Law and Minority Language Policy: Culture, Citizenship and Fundamental Rights. The Hague: Kluwer Law International.
Elka TSCHERNOKOKOSHEWA, Marija JURIĆ-PAHOR, 2005: Auf der Suche nach hybriden Lebensgeschichten; Theorie, Feldforschung, Praxis. Münich: Waxmann.
Pawoł VÖLKEL (ed.), 1969: Die Sorben: Wissenwertes aus Vergangenheit und Gegenwart der sorbischen nationalen Minderheit. Bautzen: Nowa Doba, Druckerei der Domowina.
Michael WALSH, 2005: Will Indigenous Languages Survive? Annual Review of Anthropology 34, 293–315.
James WILCE, 1998: Eloquence in Trouble: The Poetics and Politics of Complaint in Rural Bangladesh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
– –, 2009: Crying Shame: Metaculture, Modernity, and the Exaggerated Death of Lament. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Arzoz XABIER (ed.), 2008: Respecting Linguistic Diversity in the European Union. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Alexei YURCHAK, 2008: Necro-Utopia: The Politics of Indistinction and the Aesthetics of the Non-Soviet. Current Anthropology 49/2, 199–224.
Published
2020-10-22
How to Cite
Spreng E. (2020). Troubling Talk: A Politics and History of Indistinction in the Upper Sorbian Community. Slavia Centralis, 6(1), 5–17. https://doi.org/10.18690/scn.6.1.5–17.2013
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