Situating Oplakvane in Bulgarian Discourse As a Cultural Term for Communicative Practice
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses August 2015 “OF ALL, I MOST HATE BULGARIANS”: SITUATING OPLAKVANE IN BULGARIAN DISCOURSE AS A CULTURAL TERM FOR COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE Nadezhda M. Sotirova University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the International and Intercultural Communication Commons Recommended Citation Sotirova, Nadezhda M., "“OF ALL, I MOST HATE BULGARIANS”: SITUATING OPLAKVANE IN BULGARIAN DISCOURSE AS A CULTURAL TERM FOR COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 407. https://doi.org/10.7275/6961394.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/407 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “OF ALL, I MOST HATE BULGARIANS”: SITUATING OPLAKVANE IN BULGARIAN DISCOURSE AS A CULTURAL TERM FOR COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE A Dissertation Presented by NADEZHDA M. SOTIROVA Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2015 Department of Communication © Copyright by Nadezhda M. Sotirova 2015 All Rights Reserved “OF ALL, I MOST HATE BULGARIANS”: SITUATING OPLAKVANE IN BULGARIAN DISCOURSE AS A CULTURAL TERM FOR COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE A Dissertation Presented by NADEZHDA M. SOTIROVA Approved as to style and content by: _________________________________________________________ Donal Carbaugh, Chair _________________________________________________________ Benjamin Bailey, Member _________________________________________________________ Emily West, Member _________________________________________________________ Denise Ives, Member _______________________________________________________ Erica Scharrer, Department Head Department of Communication DEDICATION To my lovely mother, Neli: I love you more than you can imagine, you are my best friend, my pride, and my strongest pillar! To my darling stepdad, Kiro: I am so happy you are part of our family! I could not have asked for a better father, friend, and guardian! To my dear dad, Mihail: I will always love you, tati! And, finally, to papi, my darling cuddly pup. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Carbaugh, Dr. Bailey, Dr. West, and Dr. Ives for their extreme patience in my journey. I would like to thank my fellow grad students— those who have moved on, those still in the valley, and those just beginning—for their support, feedback, and friendship. I would like to thank the staff at UMass for the last minute favors, copies, and attention to my crazy emails. I would like to thank the new professors for sharing their dissertations and employment wisdom. I would like to thank my friends for the numerous hours spent discussing, doing oplakvane , and sharing fantastic food and wine. I could never have gotten here without them. I would like to thank my lovely family for taking the blows and giving me every single opportunity and emotional support to accomplish so much! I would like to thank Brian Myers, and Liene Locmele for their feedback on various aspects of this project as well as their immense patience with listening to my own frequent oplakvane . Thank you! v ABSTRACT “OF ALL, I MOST HATE BULGARIANS”: SITUATING OPLAKVANE IN BULGARIAN DISCOURSE AS A CULTURAL TERM FOR COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE MAY 2015 Nadezhda Sotirova, B.A., BRIDGEWATER COLLEGE M.A., VIRGINIA POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Donal Carbaugh The following dissertation raises these questions: how do people talk about their communication, and what role does this play in constructing a widely used cultural resource? The specific data concerns oplakvane, referring both to a key cultural term and a range of communication practices in Bulgaria. This term, and these practices are explored through the theoretical and methodological frame of cultural communication (Philipsen, 1981-87), ethnography of communication (Hymes, 1962), and cultural discourse analysis (Carbaugh, 1992, 2007a, 2010). The analyses demonstrate how oplakvane, which can loosely be translated as “complaining” and “mourning”, functions as a deeply shared cultural resource for communication (Carbaugh, 1989a) and as a system of deeply rooted communication practices. These practices often occur in a cyclical form and in a ritualized manner (Philipsen, 1987), that, when enacted, pay homage in re-constructing a sacred object, a particular Bulgarian identity. Through and within oplakvane practices, a specific cultural “reality” connected to the larger narrative of the Bulgarian “situation” is reconstituted, with radiants of meaning being activated for identity, elaborated vi through its deep sense of dwelling, related emotions, and habits of routine action. The findings, therefore, offer an understanding of oplakvane as a Bulgarian way in which communication constitutes culture, and works as a discursive resource for the management and recreation of the Bulgarian cultural landscape. Discussion of the findings demonstrates how the study enriches the ethnography of the communication field substantively, theoretically and methodologically. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................................................... v ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ vi LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................... xv LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................................. xvi CHAPTER 1.“NICE WORK, BUT BULGARIAN’ .................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 Research Questions ....................................................................................................................................... 8 Theoretical orientation ............................................................................................................................. 12 Ethnography of Communication...................................................................................................... 15 Cultural Communication and Cultural Discourse Theory ..................................................... 19 Terms for Talk ......................................................................................................................................... 22 Cultural Discourse Analysis ............................................................................................................... 24 Other relevant concepts ...................................................................................................................... 28 Literature on Bulgarian identity and culture ............................................................................. 29 2. SIX MONTHS AND A LIFE IN BULGARIA ................................................................................ 38 Methodology ................................................................................................................................................. 38 Data Collection ............................................................................................................................................. 39 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................................................. 47 Data Transcription...................................................................................................................................... 52 3. THE BULGARIAN CONTEXT: CHARTING THE BULGARIAN DISCOURSE BROADLY THROUGH ITS OWN TERMS AND EVENTS ............................................ 54 viii History and politics .................................................................................................................................. 54 The Turkish Influence ............................................................................................................................. 55 Socialism/communism and identity ................................................................................................. 61 The “Transition” ........................................................................................................................................ 63 The “Behaviors” ......................................................................................................................................... 66 The villages .................................................................................................................................................. 78 An event ........................................................................................................................................................ 82 Setting