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SUMMARY:Constructing identity/ies in Georgia's Greek multilingual communit
 y of linguistic practice - Concha Hoefler\, European University Viadrina\,
  Frankfurt/Oder
DTSTART:20130211T130000Z
DTEND:20130211T143000Z
UID:TALK43067@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Bert Vaux
DESCRIPTION:Even in ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous Georgia\, 
 the Greek multilingual community of linguistic practice sticks out due to 
 the intriguing way it fits its languages into the collective  identity it 
 construes for itself. Contrary to most current assumptions and intuitions\
 , my Georgian Greek informants claim that the languages they speak do not 
 determine their group identity. Linguistically\, this community may be div
 ided into to two subgroups: Pontic Greeks speak an older Greek variety\, w
 hereas Urum Greeks speak a variety of Turkish. The two varieties are mutua
 lly unintelligible\, so that community members speak Russian or Georgian t
 o communicate with each other. What unites this multilingual community is 
 its origins in the Pontus region on the southern coast of the Black Sea\, 
 its belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church\, the official classification a
 s “Greeks” in the Soviet Union\, mass emigration in the past 20 years 
 (mainly to Greece and Cyprus but also to other countries) and the convicti
 on of somehow sharing the same level of “greekness”.\nMy research inte
 rest centres on the roles language and the larger social context play in t
 he construction of collective identities in multilingual communities of li
 nguistic practice. Starting with the example of the Georgian Greek “mini
 mal pair”\, I analyse the following points:\n\n1. the roles of the relev
 ant varieties (Urum\, Pontic Greek\, Standard Modern Greek\, Russian\, Geo
 rgian\, Turkish) in identity construction within this multilingual communi
 ty of linguistic practice\;\n2. drawing of (linguistic) borders within (ru
 ral/urban\, Urum/Pontic divides) and between (“Greeks” vs. Georgian so
 cietal majority\, Armenian/Azeri minorities) the groups my informants make
  out as relevant for their social world\;\n3. Transformations due to profo
 und socio-economic changes (end of the Soviet Union\, mass migration to Gr
 eece)\; and finally\n4. the perspectives of self-identifying members of ou
 tside groups (Georgian societal majority\, Armenian and Azeri minorities).
 \nIn this talk I introduce the Georgian Greek multilingual community of li
 nguistic practice and outline my doctoral research and preliminary results
  of my MA work on the Urum Greek subgroup.
LOCATION:Keynes Seminar Room 2\, King's College\, Cambridge
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