Project Map: Linguistic Anthroplogy, Subotica

8/10/2019 Project Map: Linguistic Anthroplogy, Subotica

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Project MapAndrew HodgesIntroduction Nov 14

Producing and contesting the 'national order of things': tracing how language

standardisation processes and 'state effects' configure (non)users near the

Serbian/Croatian border

Introduction

This project is a study of actions and practices through which subjects in Serbia come to identify

themselves with and position themselves with respect to a Croatian national tradition and

identity. The locus of the research is a primary school classroom as a key site in which such aprocess takes place, whilst the nexus of practice (Scollon and Scollon 2007) can be traced backto one particular action - the introduction of teaching in Croatian in certain schools in and around

Subotica, Serbia. By examining the historical trajectories and circumstances which gave rise to

this action, and through carefully considering ethnographically the consequences of this actionthrough classroom ethnography, this project hopes to cast light on the effects of this action on the

life courses and identifications made by those affected by it. This project therefore draws

extensively on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in one of the schools and surrounding areas

where such teaching was implemented, as well as on the state policy and academic linguistic

debates which resulted in the teaching being implemented and the form such implementation

took.

This is neither a study of cultural transmission in the classroom, nor of educational cultures. It

does not focus on elaborating cultural difference nor the problems that 'culture' creates for

students when engaging with the Croatian curriculum, or symbolic boundary work studentsengage in whilst constructing a national identity. This study, following Kuper's (1999) critique,avoids the analytical use of the culture concept, reserving its use as a noun for when it becameparticularly important for people with whom I spoke in the field. It therefore diverges from

Durantis (1997, 2) understanding of linguistic anthropology as the study of language as acultural resource and speaking as a cultural practice. Instead I prefer an understanding oflinguistic anthropology as the impact of language, linguistics and language policy on social life. More concisely, rather than elaborating linguistic dimensions of cultural difference, this study

examines the social and political dimensions surrounding the tension between a prescriptivismarising from narrow and often unfair conceptions of social inclusion and exclusion, and desires

and needs for at least some standardisation (Edwards 2009, 215).

In addition to possible linguistic effects on students' learning literacy skills, the action placed at

the centre of this study certainly had social and political effects on those living in Subotica as

well; as Davis (2012, 61) noted, 'schools have long been considered key sites for the construction

and negotiation of linguistic hegemonies'. The nature and extent of both linguistic and social

effectscategories this study asserts are fundamentally different kinds - will be considered,emphasising that language policy does not take place in a political vacuum and that extra-


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linguistic aspects of the context in which the decision to introduce teaching in Croatian took

place deserve urgent consideration. Possible linguistic effects will be examined through an

elicitation survey, examining the extent to which students have acquired standard Croatian

syntactic structures (Chomsky 2002). The social and political effects will be examined through

ethnographic fieldwork. Finally, whilst this study may be understood as linguistic anthropology,

it does not consider language in isolation from other social processes, notably the political

economy of the field context. As linguistic anthropologists such as James Costa have argued,

describing a social setting in term of 'speakers', 'signs' and 'language attitudes' draws attention

away away from a focus on historically changing social processes and of actors with particular

social, political and economic positions and strategies. This is important as:

Framing sociocultural issues in linguistic terms has a double effect: while it allows

otherwise socially condemned voices (Lafont 1971) to be heard on a national and

international scale, it also masks many other social issues at play; it also often serves to

reproduce structures of inequality both between and within social and cultural groups(Costa 2013, 318)

Whilst many of the recent changes to the Croatian standard have been motivated by a concern for

creating a new symbolic rather than communicative space, as the linguist kiljan (2000)observed, a sole focus on symbolic boundary construction (see Cohen 1985), draws attention

away from the political-economic changes and violence that have accompanied such processes.

The most interesting questions emerge, I assert, at the boundary between symbolic and other

dimensions. I therefore ask, under what political conditions do particular symbolic concerns

come to predominate? To what extent and in what ways is the classroom a privileged site for the

production of symbolic mythico-history? And perhaps most importantly, how have circulatingdiscourses and academic debate concerning language policy and standardisation, alongside

related political concerns, impacted on the ground, particular in the everyday life-worlds of those

living near boundaries, such as is the case in Subotica?

In the first chapterI situate this study with respect to US, UK and South-Eastern European

linguistic anthropological traditions, also discussing anthropological perspectives on cognitive

psychological approaches to the study of language acquisition and critical thinking, as well as

classroom ethnography. In the second chapterI focus on the specific anthropological concepts I

employ in my analysis. These are national mythico-history (Malkki 1995); state effects (Trouillot

2001); a focus on practices (Bourdieu 1990)especially standardising practices; discursivehegemonies (Roseberry 1994) and nexus analysis (Scollon and Scollon 2007). In the third

chapter I critically discuss a number of linguistic anthropological concepts, notably definitions

of a language/dialect, speech community, ethnolinguistic vitality, language prestige and the

category of the native speaker. In contrast to the concepts discussed in the second chapter, I

expect the majority of these concepts to have some currency in the context in which I am

working. Concomitantly, there is more of a focus on carefully defining the vocabulary I use in


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order to avoid making reifications of concepts such as community, native speaker and alanguagee.g. the English language which I find problematic, and of which there is noconsensus amongst linguists concerning their use. My decisions concerning the use (or not) of

such concepts, and when discarding them, finding suitable replacements, clearly positions me in

the field and Itherefore take some time to explain their relevance. In the fourth chapterImove to consider language ideologies (Woolard and Schieffelin 1994) in Croatia and Serbia in

the post-Yugoslav context, focusing on language endangerment and linguistic purism, as well as

public debate, outlining the arguments of Babi, Katii, Peti-Stanti, Kordi and Kapovi, aswell as situating my argumentswhich are closest to Kapovis, within this literature. Toconclude, in the fifth I describe the fieldwork planin detail, with sections included on the

Croatian and Bunjevac minorities in Serbia, teaching in Croatian in Serbia, practical detailsconcerning the nexus analysis methodology, a researcher timetable, research questions, ethical

issues and researcher self-positioning.


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Contents

Introduction 2

(i) Linguistics and Social Anthropology 4

(ii)US Linguistic Anthropology 6

(iii)UK and South-Eastern European Linguistic Anthropology 7

(iv)Cognitive Approaches to Language Acquisition 8

(v)Classroom ethnography and the anthropology of education 11

Chapter two: Social Anthropological toolkit 13

(i) Mythico-historical imaginaries 13

(ii) State effects in circulating discourses 16

(iii) State effects in the classroom: standardising practices 17

(iv) Discursive hegemonies 21

(v) Nexus analysis 21

Chapter three: Linguistic anthropological toolkit 22

(i)Languages, dialects and standards 22

(ii)the native speaker or proficient language user? 23


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(iii)Language and speech communities, communicative and symbolic spaces 25

(iv) Language prestige and status 26

(v) The linguistic marketplace 27

(vi) Linguistic and Learner Attitudes 28

(vii) Linguistic landscape and semiotic ecosystem 29

Chapter four: Language ideologies and minority rights discourses in Croatia and Serbia

30

(i)Language standardisation in the post-Yugoslav context 30

(ii)Language ideologies: language endangerment and linguistic purism 32

(iii) Language policy, minority rights and the 'liberal' state 39

(iv)Public debate over language and its connection with language ideologies 41

(a)Babi 41

(b)Katii 41

(c)Peti-Stanti42

(d)Kordi 44

(e)Kapovi 46

Chapter five: Entering the field 61


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(i) Croats and Bunjevci in Vojvodina 61

(ii) Teaching in Croatian in Serbia 68

(iii) Fieldwork: Introduction 71

(iv) Methodology: nexus analysis 71

(v) Researcher Self-positioning 73

(vi) Timetable 74

(vii) Research Questions 75

(viii) Interview Questions 75

Bibliography 75

Documents

Project Map: Linguistic Anthroplogy, Subotica