Crimean Rhetorical Sovereignty: Resisting a Deportation of Identity
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University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2013 Crimean Rhetorical Sovereignty: Resisting A Deportation Of Identity Christian Berry University of Central Florida Part of the Rhetoric and Composition Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STARS Citation Berry, Christian, "Crimean Rhetorical Sovereignty: Resisting A Deportation Of Identity" (2013). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 2839. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/2839 CRIMEAN RHETORICAL SOVEREIGNTY: RESISTING A DEPORTATION OF IDENTITY by CHRISTIAN C. BERRY B.A. Florida Christian College, 1996 M.A. Lincoln Christian Seminary, 2001 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Writing and Rhetoric in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Summer Term 2013 © 2013 Christian C. Berry ii ABSTRACT On a small contested part of the world, the peninsula of Crimea, once a part of the former Soviet Union, lives a people who have endured genocide and who have struggled to etch out an identity in a land once their own. They are the Crimean Tatar. Even their name, an exonym promoting the Crimeans’ “peripheral status” (Powell) and their ensuing “cultural schizophrenia” (Vizenor), bears witness to the otherization they have withstood throughout centuries. However, despite attempts to relegate them to the history books, Crimeans are alive and well in the “motherland,” but not without some difficulty. Having been forced to reframe their identities because of numerous imperialistic, colonialist, and soviet behavior and policies, there have been many who have resisted, first and foremost through rhetorical sovereignty, the ability to reframe Crimean Tatar identity through Crimean Tatar rhetoric. This negotiation of identity through rhetoric has included a fierce defense of their language and culture in what Malea Powell calls a “war with homogeneity,” a struggle for identification based on resistance. This thesis seeks to understand the rhetorical function of naming practices as acts that inscribe material meaning and perform marginalization or resistance within the context of Crimea-L, a Yahoo! Group listserv as well as immediate and remote Crimean history. To analyze the rhetoric of marginalization and resistance in naming practices, I use the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA) to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) within recently archived discourses. Ruth Wodak’s DHA strategies will be reappropriated as Naming Practice Strategies, depicting efforts in otherization or rhetorical sovereignty. iii I lovingly dedicate this to my wife, Elvira, a Crimean Tatar, who supported me each step of the way, and to my children, Leo, Levi, Lily, Landen, and Leila, who patiently waited for dad as he spent countless hours studying and writing. Omuriniz Krimda Parlak Olsun. Isa Kolay Ketersin. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my thesis chair Stacey Pigg for the immense help comments, remarks, and engagement through the learning process of this master thesis. Furthermore I would like to thank her for introducing me to the many rhetorical concepts that make this thesis possible. Also, I would like to thank Angela Rounsaville and Pavel Zemliansky, who willingly read my thesis, even in their time off during the summer, and who provided excellent guidance throughout the whole project. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................... ix LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................... x INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Dominance and Marginalization ............................................................................................................... 1 Naming Practices as Polemics .................................................................................................................. 3 Otherization and Russian Colonialism ................................................................................................. 4 Naming Practices as Rhetorical Sovereignty ............................................................................................ 8 “Aliens” ................................................................................................................................................ 9 “Special Settlers” ................................................................................................................................ 10 “Minority” versus “Indigenous” ......................................................................................................... 11 “Tatar” ................................................................................................................................................ 13 CHAPTER TWO: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND NAMING PRACTICES IN CRIMEA-L ..................................................................................................................................................................... 17 Critical Discourse Analysis and Naming Practices ................................................................................ 18 Different Approaches within CDA ......................................................................................................... 20 Naming Practices are Semiotic Encounters ....................................................................................... 25 Crimea-L: The Site ................................................................................................................................. 26 Site Sample ......................................................................................................................................... 27 Study Site Procedures and the Need for a Case Study ........................................................................... 31 CHAPTER THREE: OF EMAILS, THREADS, AND NAMING PRACTICES ACROSS CRIMEA-L . 33 Understanding and Assembling Discourses of Naming ......................................................................... 34 Thread-Indexing ................................................................................................................................. 36 vi Example Thread Reassembly ............................................................................................................. 37 Inter-threaduality .................................................................................................................................... 40 CHAPTER FOUR: NAMING PRACTICES IN DETAIL ......................................................................... 43 The Reassembled November Crisis ........................................................................................................ 45 The November Crisis Interthread ........................................................................................................... 49 Otherization and Rhetorical Sovereignty in the Interthread ................................................................... 52 Strategy of Predication ....................................................................................................................... 53 Samozaxvat ....................................................................................................................................................................... 53 Strategy of Intensification/Mitigation ................................................................................................ 55 Qirim ................................................................................................................................................................................. 55 Strategy of Perspectivation/Framing .................................................................................................. 56 Minority ............................................................................................................................................................................ 56 Aq-Mescit ......................................................................................................................................................................... 58 Cossacks ............................................................................................................................................................................ 59 Strategy of Referential/Nomination ................................................................................................... 60 -ev, -ov, etc. ...................................................................................................................................................................... 61 aga, -cigim, bey ................................................................................................................................................................. 62 Strategy of Argumentation