UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Pride and Pragmatism: Linguistic and Political Ambivalence in the Everyday Lives of Serbian Students and Teachers Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6kd5p20m Author George, Rachel Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Pride and Pragmatism: Linguistic and Political Ambivalence in the Everyday Lives of Serbian Students and Teachers A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Rachel L. George 2014 © Copyright by Rachel L. George 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Pride and Pragmatism: Linguistic and Political Ambivalence in the Everyday Lives of Serbian Students and Teachers By Rachel L. George Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor Alessandro Duranti, Chair This dissertation investigates the everyday lives and experiences of Serbian youth born amidst war and the breakup of Yugoslavia. It argues that historical and political events in Serbia have inspired widespread ambivalence about national pride and cosmopolitanism, how to restore Serbia’s international reputation, and the ability of citizens to enact societal change. Such ambivalence manifests itself through different genres of speaking and types of social encounters. The dissertation explores the ways in which a new generation takes up and reinterprets recent social upheaval amidst changing local, European, and global landscapes. The study draws upon one year of fieldwork in a prestigious high school in Belgrade, Serbia, where I recorded history, civics, and literature courses, videotaped and conducted participant-observation with students and their peers outside of class, interviewed students and teachers, examined textbooks and other school materials, and analyzed students’ interactions on ii Facebook. This ethnographic corpus offers rich insights into 1) Inter-generational constructions of histories and futures, both personal and collective; 2) Talk itself as simultaneously a symbol of futility and an instrument of political action; and 3) Social media as a site for youth to express their ambivalence, experiment with new connections between language and identity, and overcome feelings of isolation and stigma that still weigh on the previous generation. Analysis of the corpus suggests that ambivalence in Serbia is historically-grounded, is constructed through a range of linguistic features and types of interaction, and has been experienced as alternately constraining and empowering. Students and teachers oscillate between nostalgia and skepticism when recounting shared histories and use a range of linguistic features to ambiguously assert or downplay Serbia’s responsibility for past events. Teachers alternate between criticizing and participating in bureaucratic interactional routines with their students. Online, students mix politically-charged writing systems in novel ways that seem to redefine modern Serbian youth identity while reasserting the advantages of living between ‘East’ and ‘West.’ Overall, this study reveals ambivalence to be a pervasive cultural and political mood that can either lead to feelings of political and social paralysis or become a resource for new and creative forms of identification. iii The dissertation of Rachel L. George is approved. Adam Moore Paul Kroskrity Elinor Ochs Alessandro Duranti, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv Table of Contents LIST OF TRANSCRIPTION SYMBOLS..................................................................................... ix Abbreviations Used in Interlinear Glosses ..................................................................................... x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................. xi VITA ............................................................................................................................................ xiv CHAPTER ONE: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Goals ..................................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Why Serbia? Why Belgrade? Why High School Students? ................................................ 3 1.3 Why Focus on Ambivalence? ............................................................................................... 6 1.4 The Potential of Ambivalence for Linguistic Anthropological Study .................................. 8 1.4.1 Language Socialization .................................................................................................. 8 1.4.2 Language and Agency .................................................................................................... 9 1.4.3 Multivocality ................................................................................................................ 12 1.4.4 Language Ideologies .................................................................................................... 12 1.4.5 Ambivalence as Stance ................................................................................................ 14 1.5 Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Ambivalence ............................................................ 15 1.6 Chapter Breakdown ........................................................................................................... 19 CHAPTER TWO: Fieldsite, Data Collection, and Analysis ........................................................ 24 2.1 Prior Research ..................................................................................................................... 24 2.2 Entering the Field ................................................................................................................ 25 2.2.1 The School ................................................................................................................... 26 2.3 Conducting Research ......................................................................................................... 28 2.3.1 Participant-Observation and Video- & Audiorecording ............................................. 28 2.3.2 Interviews ..................................................................................................................... 30 2.3.3 Facebook as a Research Tool ....................................................................................... 33 2.3.4 Print and Visual Documentation .................................................................................. 35 2.3.5 Other Documentation ................................................................................................... 36 2.4 Challenges .......................................................................................................................... 37 2.4.1 The Politics of Scrutiny ............................................................................................... 37 2.4.2 The role of English....................................................................................................... 38 2.5 Transcripts, Research Assistance, and Friendship .............................................................. 39 CHAPTER THREE: Major Themes in the History of Serbia ..................................................... 41 3.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 43 3.2 A Basic Timeline ............................................................................................................... 44 3.3 Persistent Themes in Serbian History. ................................................................................ 47 3.3.1 Always In Between: Serbia’s Border Position............................................................. 47 3.3.2 “If It Were Good to Have a Brother, God Would Have One:” Ethnic Solidarity and Tension since the Nineteenth Century .................................................................................. 50 3.3.2.1 The Language Situation: ....................................................................................... 53 3.3.3 Sacrifice, Disappointment and Stigma: The Roots of Serbian Double Consciousness: ............................................................................................................................................... 58 v 3.3.3.1 Serbs and Unacknowledged Sacrifice ................................................................... 59 3.3.3.2 Disappointment as a Pervasive Historical Theme ................................................ 61 3.3.4 Yugo-ambivalence ....................................................................................................... 63 3.4 Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER FOUR: Treba Se Sna ći (‘You Have To Manage’): The Language of Agency, Futility, and Ambivalence ............................................................................................................. 68 4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 70 4.2 Language and Agency........................................................................................................