Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T08:04:14.427Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Simultaneity and the refusal to choose: The semiotics of Serbian youth identity on Facebook

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2019

Rachel George
Rachel George*
Affiliation:
Whitman College, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Rachel George, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Ave., Walla Walla, WA99362, USA[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the importance of linguistic simultaneity has long been recognized (Woolard 1998), the concept is underexamined in recent analyses of language use in globalized, digital contexts such as social media. Drawing from an analysis of everyday Facebook posts from youth in Belgrade, Serbia, the article proposes that recognizing four types of simultaneity—of linguistic features, indexical operations, effects, and scale—is key for making sense of social media utterances in political and historical context. On Facebook, Serbian youth mix languages and writing systems in complex ways, adhering to dominant ideologies of language and identity in some ways and flouting them in others. Using the Serbian case as a springboard, along with the four types of simultaneity proposed, I suggest a framework for analyzing language and identity on social media. (Serbia, indexicality, simultaneity, social media, superdiversity, bivalency, youth)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , June 2020 , pp. 399 - 423
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article benefitted from funding from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) International Institute, the Department of Anthropology at UCLA, and the Whitman College Sabbatical program. I am indebted to Alessandro Duranti, Elinor Ochs, Paul Kroskrity, and Adam Moore for extensive comments on various drafts of the article as well as to Rachel Flamenbaum, Amy Malek, Jan Hauck, Janet McIntosh, Marija Canković, Edwin Everhart, Sonya Rao, Rosalie Edmonds, Jenny Walton-Wetzel, and John Gahbauer for providing feedback and talking through ideas. I am also grateful to graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars at the UCLA Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture (CLIC) for their input and to my anthropology colleagues at Whitman for their insight and support. Finally, the article benefitted from extensive, thoughtful comments from two anonymous reviewers. All remaining errors are my own.

References

REFERENCES

Agha, Asif (2005). Voice, footing, enregisterment. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15(1):38–59.10.1525/jlin.2005.15.1.38CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agha, Asif (2007). Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Agha, Asif (2011). Commodity registers. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 21(1):22–53.10.1111/j.1548-1395.2011.01081.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, Ronelle (2006). Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a grammar: With sociolinguistic commentary. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Alim, H. Samy (2009). Hip Hop Nation Language. In Alessandro Duranti (ed.), Linguistic anthropology: A reader, 272–89. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis (2000). Non-standard spellings in media texts: The case of German fanzines. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4(4):514–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnaut, Karel, & Spotti, Massimiliano (2014). Superdiversity discourse. Tilburg Papers in Culture Studies 90:1–15.Google Scholar
Austin, John L. (1962). How to do things with words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1981). Discourse in the novel. In Bakhtin, Mikhail, The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin, 259–422. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bakić-Hayden, Milica, & Hayden, Robert M. (1992). Orientalist variations on the theme ‘Balkans’: Symbolic geography in recent Yugoslav cultural politics. Slavic Review 51(1):1–15.10.2307/2500258Google Scholar
Balkan Insight (2012). Half of Serbia now on Facebook. Balkan Insight, September 28, 2012. Online: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/half-of-serbs-are-on-facebook.Google Scholar
Barrett, Rusty (2017). From drag queens to leathermen: Language, gender, and gay male subcultures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, Alan (1984). Language style as audience design. Language in Society 13(2):145–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan (2013). Citizenship, language, and superdiversity: Towards complexity. Journal of Language, Identity & Education 12:193–96.10.1080/15348458.2013.797276Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan (2015a). Chronotopes, scales, and complexity in the study of language in society. Annual Review of Anthropology 44:105–16.10.1146/annurev-anthro-102214-014035CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan (2015b). Commentary: Superdiversity old and new. Language and Communication 44:82–88.10.1016/j.langcom.2015.01.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan, & Rampton, Ben (2011). Language and superdiversity. Diversities 13(2):1–21.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1977). The economics of linguistic exchanges. Information (International Social Science Council) 16(6):645–68.10.1177/053901847701600601CrossRefGoogle Scholar
boyd, Danah (2011). It's complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, & Hall, Kira (2004). Language and identity. In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology, 369–94. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cabrić, Nemanja (2012). Serbia's disgruntled voters make fun of elections. Balkan Insight, May 7, 2012. Online: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/serbians-make-light-out-of-the-elections.Google Scholar
Connor, Alan (2014). Crossword blog: Shizzle in the crosswizzle. The Guardian, April 28, 2014. Online: https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2014/apr/28/crossword-blog-snoop-dogg-slang.Google Scholar
Danet, Brenda (2001). Cyberpl@y: Communicating online. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Dragović-Soso, Jasna (2002). Saviours of the nation: Serbia's intellectual opposition and the revival of nationalism. Montreal: McGill-Queen's Press.Google Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro (1993). Truth and intentionality: An ethnographic critique. Cultural Anthropology 8(2):214–45.10.1525/can.1993.8.2.02a00050CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duranti, Alessandro (2012). Anthropology and linguistics. In Fardon, Richard, Harris, Olivia, Marchand, Trevor H. J., Nuttall, Mark, Shore, Cris, Strang, Veronica, & Wilson, Richard (eds.), The SAGE handbook of social anthropology, vol. 1, 12–23. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.10.4135/9781446201077.n3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(4):453–76.10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00374.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (2012). Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of sociolinguistic variation. Annual Review of Anthropology 41:87–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, Tom (1984). Loyalist alternatives in the early Ch'ing. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 44(1):83–122.10.2307/2719095CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, Rachel L. (2014). Pride and pragmatism: Linguistic and political ambivalence in the everyday lives of Serbian students and teachers. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles dissertation.Google Scholar
George, Rachel L. (2020). ‘Allies always used us’: Agency, futility, and ambivalence in talk about Serbian history. Language, Culture and History 1, to appear.Google Scholar
Glenny, Misha (2000). The Balkans, 1804–1999: Nationalism, war and the great powers. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1981). Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles, & Goodwin, Marjorie H. (2004). Participation. In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology, 222–44. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Jessica (2011). On the road to normal: Negotiating agency and state sovereignty in postsocialist Serbia. American Anthropologist 113(1):88–100.10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01308.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, Robert D. (2004). Language and identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croatian and its disintegration. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hillewaert, Sarah (2015). Writing with an accent: Orthographic practice, emblems, and traces on Facebook. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 25(2):195–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hymes, Dell (1972). On communicative competence. In Pride, J. B. & Holmes, Janet (eds.), Sociolinguistics: Selected readings, 269–93. Harmonsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Ivković, Dejan (2013). Pragmatics meets ideology: Digraphia and non-standard orthographic practices in Serbian online news forums. Journal of Language and Politics 12(3):335–56.10.1075/jlp.12.3.02ivkCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacquemet, Marco (2005). Transidiomatic practices: Language and power in the age of globalization. Language and Communication 25:257–77.10.1016/j.langcom.2005.05.001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jansen, Stef (2009). After the red passport: Towards an anthropology of the everyday geopolitics of entrapment in the EU's ‘immediate outside’. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15:815–32.10.1111/j.1467-9655.2009.01586.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara; Andrus, Jennifer; & Danielson, Andrew E. (2006). Mobility, indexicality, and the enregisterment of ‘Pittsburghese’. Journal of English Linguistics 34(2):77–104.10.1177/0075424206290692CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara, & Kiesling, Scott (2008). Indexicality and experience: Variation and identity in Pittsburgh. Journal of Sociolinguistics 12(1):5–33.10.1111/j.1467-9841.2008.00351.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Graham M., & Schieffelin, Bambi B. (2009). Talking text and talking back: ‘My bff Jill’ from boob tube to YouTube. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14(4):1050–79.10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01481.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jørgensen, J. Normann (2008). Polylingual languaging around and among children and adolescents. International Journal of Multilingualism 5(3):161–76.10.1080/14790710802387562CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koonz, Claudia (2003). The Nazi conscience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kroskrity, Paul (2018). On recognizing persistence in the indigenous language ideologies of multilingualism in two Native American communities. Language and Communication 62:133–44.10.1016/j.langcom.2018.04.012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kulick, Don (2003). No. Language & Communication 23:139–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Lamarre, Patricia (2014). Bilingual winks and bilingual wordplay in Montreal's linguistic landscape. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 228:131–51.Google Scholar
Leppänen, Sirpa; Kytölä, Samu; Westinen, Elina; & Peuronen, Saija (2017). Introduction: Social media discourse, (dis)identifications and diversities. In Leppänen, Sirpa, Westinen, Elina, & Kytölä, Samu (eds.), Social media discourse, (dis)identifications and diversities, 1–16. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Luk, Jasmine (2013). Bilingual language play and local creativity in Hong Kong. International Journal of Multilingualism 10(3):236–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McIntosh, Janet (2010). Mobile phones and Mipoho's prophecy: The powers and dangers of flying language. American Ethnologist 37(2):337–53.10.1111/j.1548-1425.2010.01259.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendoza-Denton, Norma (2011). The semiotic hitchhiker's guide to creaky voice: Circulation and gendered hardcore in a Chicana/o gang persona. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 21(2):261–80.10.1111/j.1548-1395.2011.01110.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor (1992). Indexing gender. In Duranti, Alessandro & Goodwin, Charles (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon, 335–58. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor (1996). Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. In Gumperz, John J. & Levinson, Steven (eds.), Rethinking lingusitic relativity, 407–37. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peirce, Charles Sanders (1932). The icon, index, and symbol. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce 2:156–73.Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben (2003). Hegemony, social class and stylisation. Pragmatics 13(1):49–83.10.1075/prag.13.1.03ramCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seargeant, Philip, & Tagg, Caroline (2014). Introduction: The language of social media. In Seargeant, Philip & Tagg, Caroline (eds.), The language of social media: Identity and community on the internet, 1–22. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9781137029317CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherzer, Joel (2002). Speech play and verbal art. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication 23:193–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simić, Andrei (2008). Serbia, betwixt and between: Culture, politics and images of the West. Anthropology of East Europe Review 26(2):93–100.Google Scholar
Spiloti, Tereza (2019). From transliteration to trans-scripting: Creativity and multilingual writing on the internet. Discourse, Context, and Media 29:1–30.Google Scholar
Squires, Lauren (2014). From TV personality to fans and beyond: Indexical bleaching and the diffusion of a media innovation. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 24(1):42–62.10.1111/jola.12036CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinberg, Marc (2004). When politics goes pop: On the intersections of popular and political culture and the case of Serbian student protests. Social Movement Studies 3(1):3–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Su, Hsi-Yao (2007). The multilingual and multiorthographic Taiwan-based internet: Creative uses of writing systems on college-affiliated BBSs. In Danet, Brenda & Herring, Susan C. (ed.), The multilingual internet: Language, culture, and communication online, 64–86. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195304794.003.0003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Summerson Carr, E., & Lempert, Michael (2016). Introduction: Pragmatics of scale. In Summerson Carr, E. & Lempert, Michael (eds.), Scale: Discourse and dimensions of social life, 1–24. Oakland: University of California Press.10.1525/luminos.15Google Scholar
Tagg, Caroline, & Seargeant, Philip (2014). Audience design and language choice in the construction and maintenance of translocal communities on social network sites. In Seargeant, Philip & Tagg, Caroline (eds.), The language of social media: Identity and community on the internet, 161–87. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thurlow, Crispin (2012). Determined creativity: Language play in new media discourse. In Jones, Rodney (ed.), Discourse and creativity, 169–90. Harlow: Pearson.Google Scholar
Varis, Piia, & Blommaert, Jan (2015). Conviviality and collectives on social media: Virality, memes, and new social structures. Multilingual Margins 2(1):31–45.Google Scholar
Varis, Piia, & Wang, Xuan (2011). Superdiversity on the internet: A case from China. Diversities 13(2):71–83.Google Scholar
Vertovec, Steven (2007). Super-diversity and its implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30(6):1024–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn (1998). Simultaneity and bivalency as strategies in bilingualism. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 8(1):3–29.10.1525/jlin.1998.8.1.3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn, & Nicholas Genovese, E. (2007). Strategic bivalency in Latin and Spanish in early modern Spain. Language in Society 36(4):487–509.10.1017/S0047404507070418CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Živković, Marko (2007).‘Mile vs transition’—A perfect informant in the slushy swamp of Serbian politics? Social Identities 13(5):597–610.10.1080/13504630701580266CrossRefGoogle Scholar