Areas of National Identity and Linguistic Realizations

Appendix 1: Semantic Macro- Areas of National Identity and Linguistic Realizations Semantic Macro-Areas of National Identity (1) The discursive construction of a common past and history including (a) myths of an ancient origin that indicates not only the uniqueness and purity but also continuity and timelessness of the nation (Hall, 1992), (b) shared memories of tragic but proud past experiences and also shared memories of a glorious past, (c) a common political history. (2) The discursive construction of a collective and shared present and future. This includes expressions of “ ‘citizenship,’ ‘political achieve- ments,’ ‘present and future political virtues/values’ ” (de Cillia et al., 1999, p. 159). (3) The discursive construction of national symbols and “invented tra- ditions” (Hobsbawm, 1988). These include national symbols such as national anthems, flags, maps, rituals, and public ceremonies, all of which “make historical confusion and defeats understand- able; they transform disorder into community” (Wodak et al., 2009, p. 24). (4) The discursive construction of a common culture which encompasses various aspects of a community’s life such as religion, arts, music, sports, and everyday culture such as clothing and food.Under the heading “a common culture,” Wodak et al. (2009) include language. However, since language plays such a central role in defining Kurdish identity, I have treated language under a separate heading. (5) The discursive construction of a common language. Discursive practices under this heading could include several features such as: (a) the ways that languages or speech varieties of a nation are labeled so as to signal the recognition of language diversity or suppress such reali- ties; (b) the ways that language or languages are used with respect to vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar (e.g., practices of language purification, standardization and homogenization). A nationalist discourse often attempts to suppress language diversity among a people 188 APPENDIX 1 but at the same time aims for widening the gap between languages, between one’s national language and others’. (6) The discursive construction of a common territory. In addition to a clearly defined homeland, a nationalist discourse also encompasses particular physical aspects of the territory such as landscapes (e.g., mountains), architecture, and nature, in general, particular features of the physical landscape such as mountains, architecture, historical sites, and so forth. Linguistic Realizations Naming Practices Different names, titles, and labels given to people, objects, and concepts, indicate the attitudes and beliefs of the speakers and writers towards them (Fowler et al., 1979). Names not only identify but they could also define things and people; they not only indicate the degree of intimacy with but also distance from people, places, and things. Studying the use of naming in the addresses to the nation in Poland, Galasiński and Skowronek (2001) observe that the practice did not only enable politicians and religious lead- ers refer to places and persons, rather the speakers used specific naming “to construct an ideologically preferred reality. Proper names were used to serve the political purpose of the day” (p. 63). When it comes to the discourse of national identity, naming the nation and what is believed to be national characteristics and symbols are among the prime naming practices. Billig (1995) says, “[s]omehow, in ways diffi- cult to articulate, the magic of ‘our’ name matters to ‘us’ deeply, whichever nationality ‘we’ are: it indicates who ‘we’ are, and, more basically, that ‘we’ are. In the secular age, the name of the nation is not to be taken in vain” (p. 73, emphasis in original; see also Shnirelman, 2006; Nicolaisen, 1990). For Bourdieu (1991), naming oneself is “the typically magical act through which the particular group—virtual, ignored, denied, or repressed—makes itself visible and manifests, for other groups and for itself, and attests to its existence as a group that is known and recognized” (p. 224). Clearly, naming practices have been indispensable parts of discourses of nationalism. Discussing naming practices in the nationalist discourses of the Québécois and Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Jenson (1993) states, “[n]ationalist movements are social movements involved in the definition of a collective identity; they make choices about names” (p. 337). Pronouns As Fowler et al. (1979) suggest, “personal pronouns always deserve notice” (p. 201; see also Wodak et al., 2009; Higgins, 2004); personal pronouns have proven very fruitful in analyzing discourses of national identity. Billig (1995) observes that “nationalism is, above all, an ideology of the first person plural. APPENDIX 1 189 The crucial question relating to national identity is how the nation ‘we’ is construed and what is meant by such construction” (p. 70). Tense Another central component of the modal function of language is tense (Fowler et al., 1979). Different uses of tense are neither arbitrary nor neutral; they indicate different orientations toward the phenomena that are talked or written about. For example, present tense “signals certainty, unquestionable- ness, continuity, universality” (p. 207). Fairclough (2001), in a similar vein, suggests that the simple present tense form “is one terminal point of expres- sive modality, a categorical commitment of the producer to the truth of the propositions” (p. 129). Dunmire (1997) cites Fleischman asserting that “the greater the likelihood that a situation will be realized, i.e. the closer to ‘reality’ the speaker perceives it as being, the closer to ‘now’ (=present) will be the tense used to represent it” (p. 234). In contrast, the past tense will be used when things are desired to remain in the past and not to be of current concern. As Fowler et al. suggest, “Temporal ‘distance’ nearly always conveys modal ‘distance’ ” (1979, p. 207). Metaphors According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), “the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (p. 5, see also Fairclough, 2001, p. 119). For example in the sentence, he spends time with her family, English speakers understand the importance of time in terms of their common understanding of the value of money, which can also be spent, saved, or wasted. A crucial point to be raised here is that there is no apparent connection between time and money, but what brings them together is the perception that is based on cultural assumptions and also feelings that are mostly shared between humans from the same culture. On the importance of metaphor in our discursive practices, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) state that, “Since much of our social reality is understood in meta- phorical terms, and since our conception of the physical world is partly meta- phorical, metaphor plays a very significant role in determining what is real for us” (p. 146). In other words, we understand the world and conceptualize reality in part in terms of metaphors. As Wodak et al. (2009, p. 44) illustrate, metaphors play an important role in “the mental construction of nation” by implying in- group “sameness and equality,” on the one hand, and out- group differences and inequality, on the other. Finally, it is also important to note that metaphors are context and culture-sensitive. For example, the expres- sion time is money might be quite alien to another culture where people are less preoccupied with time. The cultural and context sensitivity of metaphors have implications for the study of the discursive construction of national identity. Metaphors that contribute to the formation of imagined communi- ties could be different from one context to the next. 190 APPENDIX 1 There are different kinds of metaphors one of which is personification. According to Wodak et al. (2009), “[p]ersonification attributes a human form to an abstract entity and thus constitutes a widely- used mean of real- izing a constructive strategy, demanding, for example, identification with an anthropomorphized nation” (p. 43). Drawing on Billig (1995), Chouliaraki (1999) observes that “[p]ersonification and the concomitant attribution of intense human feelings to the nation metaphorize relations within the nation as relationships of kinship, of family, thus further forging a sense of imagined community among its members” (p. 49). The family metaphor has been fruitful to construct and reinforce not only solidarity and in- group unity but also out- group differences and distancing. Bloor and Bloor (2007) contend that, “[l]exical items are important here [e.g., brother, children, sister, father, mother] because their use trigger[s] conceptual image: the family as a self- contained group of loving and mutually supportive members united against the outside world” (p. 77). Presuppositions A presupposition is “a proposition that is tacitly assumed to be true for another proposition to be meaningful” (van Dijk, 1993, p. 251). A presupposition is an assertion that is implied rather than explicitly and overtly stated. Consider this example from van Dijk (1993), which had originally appeared in a British paper: “we have to be more brisk in saying no, and showing the door to those who are not British citizens and would abuse our hospitality and tolerance” (p. 256, my emphasis). In this example, it is presupposed that the British are “hospitable” and “tolerant,” therefore, claims of mis- treatment that might be put forward by minorities become irrelevant and unfounded. In situations

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