VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY Vilma Mikašytė RENAISSANCE
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VYTAUTAS MAGNUS UNIVERSITY THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES DEPARTMENT OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE Vilma Mikašytė RENAISSANCE OF THE SAMOGITIAN DIALECT AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF ITS SPEAKERS’ (IN)AUTHENTIC IDENTITIES Master of Arts Thesis Joint study programme “Sociolinguistics and Multilingualism”, state code in Lithuania 628Q10001 Study area of Linguistics Supervisor Prof. Dr. Jūratė Ruzaitė ________ _________ (signature) (date) Approved by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rūta Eidukevičienė ________ ______ (signature) (date) Kaunas, 2016 SUMMARY This master’s thesis discusses some indicators of the Samogitian Renaissance and analyzes the elements of the Samogitian identity as the former and the latter are portrayed on various Samogitian groups on Facebook. It reveals how a variety of modes enables portraying how Samogitians perceive what makes up a Samogitian identity. Moreover, since the dialect speakers in focus are a cybercommunity that participates in the Samogitian cultural movement which emerged bottom-up, their behavior as a cybercommunity is observed and examined as well. In addition, the content analysis also explains how Aukštaitians perceive Samogitiannnes, Samogitians, and their dialect. The objectives of the study are met by employing several approaches, including Language Maintenance, Cybercultures, the Theory of Commodification, and the Theory of Multimodality. The survey of the domains where the Samogitian dialect is present suggests that the interest in the dialect and its perceived value is gradually increasing. Furthermore, Samogitians actively participate in various discussions about different Samogitian (and other) topics. As the results show, the most essential element in the Samogitian identity and the unifying (as well as dividing) factor is the dialect. There is a tendency that Samogitians express considerably conservative views about the purity of their dialect. Samogitian self- perception as well as how others evaluate them is closely related to the dialect and the Lithuanian history. Interestingly enough, no discussions about the elements of the traditional Samogitian culture were noticed. Instead, there is a lot of emphasis on the Samogitian character or physical traits, which serves as encouragement for the Samogitians to be proud of their regional identities and cultural heritage. Rather unexpectedly, the majority of Aukštaitian visitors of the Samogitian Facebook group sympathize with Samogitians and their express positive attitudes towards the dialect. Despite this support online, in real life Samogitians still feel stigmatized and express their desire for Aukštaitians to see that Samogitian is as a ‘normal’ means of communication and self-expression as any other variety. 1 List of Pictures Picture 1. A Samogitian shop sign. 34 Picture 2. A Samogitian restaurant sign. 34 Picture 3. T-shirts with signs in Samogitian. 35 Picture 4. A Samogitian badge. 35 Picture 5. Samogitian sensitiveness about their dialect. 44 Picture 6. Public signs. 47 Picture 7. A public sign solely in Samogitian. 47 Picture 8. A strong Samogitian. 49 Picture 9. Samogitian muscles. 49 Picture 10. Samogitian character versus the indestructible Nokia. 50 Picture 11. Reactions to Samogitians. 50 2 Table of Contents SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................ 1 List of Pictures .................................................................................................................... 2 1.INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 5 1.1. The aim and scope of the thesis ....................................................................... 6 1.2. Data and methods ............................................................................................. 7 1.3. Organization of the thesis................................................................................. 9 2.AN OVERVIEW OF MULTIMODALITY...................................................................... 10 2.1. The need for multimodal discourse analysis .................................................. 10 2.2. Unity of text and image .................................................................................. 12 3.SOME POTENTIAL MEANS FOR LANGUAGE AND DIALECT PRESERVATION 14 3.1. Identities, cybercultures, and social movements ............................................ 14 3.2. Preservation of linguistic varieties via various forms of education ............... 17 3.3. Some potential benefits from commodification ............................................. 19 4.SAMOGITIANS AND THEIR DIALECT ....................................................................... 22 4.1. Samogitian as one of the dialects in Lithuania............................................... 22 4.2. Attitudes towards dialects in Lithuania .......................................................... 24 4.3. Public perceptions on Samogitian and Samogitianness ................................. 27 5.SAMOGITIAN RENAISSANCE ..................................................................................... 31 5.1. Some indicators of the Samogitian Renaissance ............................................ 31 5.2. Promotion of the Samogitian dialect via commodification ............................ 33 6.SAMOGITIANS IN THE CYBERSPACE ...................................................................... 36 6.1. Samogitians as a cybercommunity ................................................................. 36 6.2. Reactions to Samogitians and their dialect on Facebook ............................... 39 6.3. Samogitian pride in being Samogitian and ideas on the Samogitian identity 41 6.4. The key feature of the Samogitian identity .................................................... 43 6.5. Other Samogitian qualities ............................................................................. 48 6.6. General associations with the proper noun ‘Samogitia’ and why people love the region .................................................................................................................. 52 CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................................... 54 List of References ............................................................................................................. 56 APPENDIX A. The areal distribution of the ethnographic regions, dialects, and subdialects in Lithuania..................................................................................................... 64 3 APPENDIX B. Distribution of the events during the Year of the Ethnographic regions in Lithuania (2015) ................................................................................................................ 66 APPENDIX C. Some examples of the Samogitian dialect subdivision............................ 66 APPENDIX D. Attitudes towards Samogitians. ............................................................... 68 APPENDIX E. Some examples of the Samogitian dialect in the printed media. ............. 70 APPENDIX F. Some examples of the Samogitian dialect songs on YouTube and Facebook. .......................................................................................................................... 71 APPENDIX G. Some examples of the Samogitian presence on the radio. ...................... 74 APPENDIX H. Some examples of the Samogitian dialect presence on the television. ... 75 APPENDIX I. Some examples of the Samogitian dialect in miscellaneous domains. ..... 77 APPENDIX J. Some examples of the Samogitian dialect in public and semi-public events. 81 APPENDIX K. Pictures that are used for the content analysis. ........................................ 84 APPENDIX L. The associations with the proper name ‘Samogitia’ and reasons why people love Samogitia ....................................................................................................... 89 4 1. INTRODUCTION ‘We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.’ Maya Angelou Even though Maya Angelou tries to attract attention to the racial issues, her words fit perfectly when talking about linguistic diversity as well. All sorts of diversity are now being seen as a value, and much scholarly attention in the last few decades has been directed towards the preservation of the linguistic diversity in particular. The Ethnologue indicates that there are around 7 000 languages in the world and many more dialects. It is hard to estimate how many dialects are still spoken to this day because sometimes there is a controversy over classification as to what can be accounted for as a language or a dialect (Austin 2008). Many scholars predict that the present linguistic diversity might decrease by half in the next century (Nettle and Romaine 2000: 7; Grenoble and Whaley 2001: 466). However, it seems that while trying to stress the importance of saving threatened languages, some scholars do not emphasize enough that dialects can also be endangered and become extinct. Dialects are as important as languages themselves. Nettle and Romaine state that ‘every language has its own window to the world’ (2000: 14). The same can be applied to dialects because, very often, they differ from what is considered to be the standard not only in phonology or lexis, but the speakers also have a different culture and traditions.