230217 Borders and Identity Construction I (BS) (SoSe 2016)

Research on the construction of social identities through language has traditionally focused on categories such as gender, social group and ethnicity while other socially relevant factors such as nationality, mobility and borders have received comparatively little focused attention (but see Omoniyi 2004, Watt & LIamas 2014 in relation to borders). In this seminar we will explore the notion of borders from a variety of perspectives (geographical, symbolic, socio-political etc.) and investigate how such borders shape language practices and construction of social identities. The seminar will examine research in both monolingual and multilingual communities in Europe as well as outside of Europe. It will consider both qualitative and quantitative approaches and argue that only triangulation of both types of data including socio-historical data will shine a light on the complexity of the issues involved in the construction of social identities in borderlands.