This paper is about the genesis of my PhD dissertation (Sokolija, 2001). Its subject was a multip... more This paper is about the genesis of my PhD dissertation (Sokolija, 2001). Its subject was a multiple level comparaison of slang as spoken in Sarajevo and Paris. Because of the specificity of that work done withih this project, I thought it might bi useful to young researchers if I describe briefly the creation of the thesis on which I worked for several years and which required a multidisciplinary approach. I talk about the the choice of the topic for my thesis, the methodology used in researching it, and the theoretical basis of my work. The questions that this paper adresses are: what is the social relevance of linguistic research, what paths should be followed in order to achieve the best results, how to make an organic whole of a multiplicity of data which sometimes interweave as in a patchwork. I hope this paper will provide answers to at least some of the questions facing young linguists working on a PhD. Key words: slang, linguistic work methodology, participant observation, Erving Goffman, William Labov, qualitative and quantitative approch in linguistics, sociolinguistics, back slang
Contemporary urban slangs come from the secret slangs that essentially meant the coded lexic of a... more Contemporary urban slangs come from the secret slangs that essentially meant the coded lexic of a language. These new slangs become registers and sociolects and they are especially related to cities even if a common trunk of the slang can exist on all the territory of a language. Partly inspired by our work on the slangs of Sarajevo and Paris (Sokolija-Brouillard, 2001), in this article we will discuss the slang formation and the processes that are present in both languages by expanding the corpus by lexicographical sources. Our goal is to show that the two slangs essentially use the same procedures with a few variations. We will also try to demonstrate the slang universals. Contemporary slangs are important because of the extent of the phenomenon that these linguistic facts are taking on the international scene, which is part of their new functions in modern society. Key words: Sarajevo slang, Paris slang, coded lexic, sociolects, slang word formation , slang universals
The paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmati... more The paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmatization illustrated through French and Bosnian languages and slangs (Paris versus Sarajevo). Through these two universal categories, we try to illustrate their linguistic issues in substandard language where they are well visible. Since the slang is a linguistic form which deals with social taboos and stigmatized categories of people, these topics are present and explicit in its forms while they are normally hidden in standard language forms. The theoretical frame for our stigmatization analysis is especially Erving Goffman’s book Stigma, while our taboo analysis comes out partially from our PhD thesis work on the comparison of French and Bosnian slangs, published in France. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multicultural country, taboo and stigmatization sometimes appear in the very complex patterns but these categories are nevertheless present even in French language and society in the very similar way. The subject itself deals also with cultural identity. The sacred and neuralgic topics are very similar in these societies which are visible by used linguistic stereotypes in many expressions. Nevertheless, while in French the religious taboo is a little bit more visible, religious taboos but also the taboo of family relationships are more present in Bosnian culture, where the place of mother as a central figure of the family stays as the sacred one. We will try to prove these claims by examples from substandard language where especially vulgarisms show this aspect of the universal linguistic expressions. In this paper we try to prove in which way our language reflects our unconscious part and in which way it reflects and betrays our most hidden impulses.
Abstract:
Starting from Goffman's (1959) theory of social life and interactions
as playing rol... more Abstract:
Starting from Goffman's (1959) theory of social life and interactions
as playing roles, we introduce the concept of identeme. We borrow this notion from
the French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Michel Neyraut (2008) giving it a new
and broader meaning here (semiotic, linguistic and sociolinguistic). We give different
examples of identemes. Speaking about the principle of linguistic territoriality, which
we introduce too, we differentiate in particular one type of sociolinguistic identemes
– the demarcation identemes and we insist on them. These identemes appear especially
in multicultural communities. That is why we take examples from the languages
spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in neighboring countries.
Keywords: drammaturgical theory of society, identity, identemes (semiotic, linguistic,
sociolinguistic), demarcation identemes
Some twenty years after the war, life goes on in Sarajevo in a quasi-normal way. People are left ... more Some twenty years after the war, life goes on in Sarajevo in a quasi-normal way. People are left with memories, explicit or silent. The perception of the war has not changed much. Has it evolved? It is hard to say. Rightly or wrongly the collective memory perceives and interprets certain events as acts of war and some others as treason, for the wounds are still fresh and open. The Bosnian war slang comprises euphemisms, taboos, circumlocutions and set phrases which are in many ways different from war slang in other languages, because a three-year siege is not the same as a war of the trenches. In the war in Bosnia the “others” were multiple – both enemies and traitors. This situation has generated a large number of slang expressions, which this paper tries to present on the basis of a historical field study.Vingt ans après la guerre, la vie s’articule plus ou moins à Sarajevo. Les souvenirs restent, explicites ou tus. La vision de cette guerre, vécue dans l’encerclement multiple, a ...
This paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmat... more This paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmatization illustrated through French and Bosnian languages and slangs (Paris versus Sarajevo). Through these two universal categories, we will try to illustrate their linguistic issues in substandard language where they are well visible. Since the slang is a linguistic form which deals with social taboos and stigmatized categories of people, these topics are present and explicit in its forms while they are normally hidden in standard language forms. The theoretical frame for our stigmatization analysis is especially Erving Goffman’s book Stigma, while our taboo analysis comes out partially from our PhD thesis work on the comparison of French and Bosnian slangs, published in France. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multicultural country, taboo and stigmatization sometimes appear in the very complex patterns but these categories are nevertheless present even in French language and society i...
Vingt ans après la guerre, la vie s’articule plus ou moins à Sarajevo. Les souvenirs restent, exp... more Vingt ans après la guerre, la vie s’articule plus ou moins à Sarajevo. Les souvenirs restent, explicites ou tus. La vision de cette guerre, vécue dans l’encerclement multiple, a changé un peu. A-t-elle évolué? Il est difficile de le dire. La mémoire collective perçoit et interprète toujours certains faits comme guerriers (à tort ou à raison), certains d’autres comme des traîtrises car les plaies sont encore fraîches et ouvertes. Les mots d’argot bosniens, utilisés dans cette guerre, possèdent leurs euphémismes, leurs tabous, leurs évitements, leurs universaux, mais ils sont aussi différents des argots de guerre dans d’autres langues parce qu’un siège de trois ans n’est pas la même chose que la guerre des tranchés. Dans cette dernière guerre en Bosnie, les « autres » étaient multiples - les ennemis autant que les traîtres. Il s’agit d’une situation « argotisante » par excellence. Nous essayons de l’éclairer à travers une analyse historique du terrain. Celle-ci est nécessaire pour une...
Journal of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo / Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Sarajevu, ISSN 2303-6990 on-line
Considering that this topic is partially neglected in foreign language teaching, which results in... more Considering that this topic is partially neglected in foreign language teaching, which results in a linguistic blockade of students when faced with spoken language, we wanted to facilitate their encounter with spoken French and point out some theoretical problems regarding differences between structures of the spoken and written French. Due to the scope of the paper, we limited ourselves to only some of the most important aspects. The starting hypothesis is that spoken and written French are partly two parallel systems, which, in addition to many overlaps in the structure, show differences at all levels of linguistic description: phonetic and phonological, morpho-syntactic and lexical. We consulted the works of French linguists and sociolinguists and also touched upon the issues of the relationship between the alphabet and the language, registers in language, and variation in French. The fruit of our research is the conclusion that the mentioned structures vary to a sufficient exten...
Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Romanica
L’objectif de cet article est de montrer un peu comment le langage de l’amour est articulé dans c... more L’objectif de cet article est de montrer un peu comment le langage de l’amour est articulé dans certains argots du monde. L’argot est souvent identifié comme peu tendre dans ses expressions d’amour, surtout celles qui concernent la sexualité. Cependant, la sexualité est perçue différemment suivant les cultures. Ce qui est considéré comme très vulgaire dans une langue et une culture est ressenti comme moins vulgaire dans les autres. Nous aborderons quelques langues culturellement éloignées en essayant de faire des parallèles. En partant de l’hypothèse que nous vivons dans des sociétés majoritairement patriarcales, certaines notions tabous liées à la sexualité restent les mêmes spécialement dans les cultures où le patriarcat est fortement prononcée. Cependant, notre attitude envers ces expressions qui dévoilent une partie intime et souvent inconsciente de nos vies reste non seulement collective (perception du vulgaire, par exemple) mais aussi profondément individuelle.
Key words: slang, Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis, linguistic relativism, linguistic uniformisation, the... more Key words: slang, Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis, linguistic relativism, linguistic uniformisation, the untranslatable, lexical holes, anglicisms, borrowings
Summary: This article deals with the subject of the language and cultural context on exemples from French and Bosnian slang. Starting from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on the linguistic relativity implying that our way of thinking is conditioned by language, hence important differerences on the lexical and semantic levels and also on the level of the linguistic structure, and, starting also from the hypothesis of the general uniformisation of languages (Hagège 2012) because of the supremacy of English in the world, we are trying to show how these claims are manifesting themselves in slang and in language in general. After a brief review of specificities in languages and after a chapter on some characteristics of slang, we pay special attention to the problems of the untranslatability of some slang expressions as well as to the lexical holes of these sociolects which owe their specificity to cultural, historical and socio-economic causes. In conclusion we juxtapose and we compare the antagoinsic features of languages which make them able to develop on their own way.
Some twenty years after the war life goes on in Sarajevo in a quasi-normal way. People are left w... more Some twenty years after the war life goes on in Sarajevo in a quasi-normal way. People are left with memories, explicit or silent. The vision of the war has not changed much. Has it evolved? It is hard to say. Rightly or wrongly collective memory perceives and interprets certain facts as military ones, some others as treason, for the wounds are still fresh and open. The memories of the French people with regard to Germans can still be easily awakened because of the multiple wars between the two nations, despite all the efforts of the pacifists (Cf. TV channel Arte). The Bosnian slang words used to talk about the war have their euphemisms, taboos, avoidances, universals, but they are also different from the war slang in other languages because a three-year siege is not the same as a war of trenches. In the latest war in Bosnia the “others” were multiple, both the enemies and the traitors. This situation generates a number of slang expressions. In the present paper we try to clarify it through a historical analysis of the terrain necessary for a semantic analysis of the slang lexemes created during this war.
Keywords: slang, siege of Sarajevo, intensification, euphemisms, linguistic taboo, reversal of realities
TABOOS AND STIGMATIZATION AND THEIR MANIFESTATIONS IN LANGUAGE AND SLANG , 2014
This paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmat... more This paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmatization illustrated through French and Bosnian languages and slangs (Paris versus Sarajevo). Through these two universal categories, we will try to illustrate their linguistic issues in substandard language where they are well visible. Since the slang is a linguistic form which deals with social taboos and stigmatized categories of people, these topics are present and explicit in its forms while they are normally hidden in standard language forms. The theoretical frame for our stigmatization analysis is especially Erving Goffman’s book Stigma, while our taboo analysis comes out partially from our PhD thesis work on the comparison of French and Bosnian slangs, published in France. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multicultural country, taboo and stigmatization sometimes appear in the very complex patterns but these categories are nevertheless present even in French language and society in the very similar way. The subject itself deals also with cultural identity. The sacred and neuralgic topics are very similar in these societies which are visible by used linguistic stereotypes in many expressions. Nevertheless, while in French the religious taboo is a little bit more visible, religious taboos but also the taboo of family relationships are more present in Bosnian culture, where the place of mother as a central figure of the family stays as the sacred one. We will try to prove these claims by examples from substandard language where especially vulgarisms show this aspect of universal linguistic expressions. In this paper we shall try to prove in which way our language reflects our unconscious part and in which way it reflects and betrays our most hidden impulses. We shell also try to enrich the paper with some examples/equivalents from the English slang and this might be interesting from the perspective of the contrastive analysis approach.
This paper is about the genesis of my PhD dissertation (Sokolija, 2001). Its subject was a multip... more This paper is about the genesis of my PhD dissertation (Sokolija, 2001). Its subject was a multiple level comparaison of slang as spoken in Sarajevo and Paris. Because of the specificity of that work done withih this project, I thought it might bi useful to young researchers if I describe briefly the creation of the thesis on which I worked for several years and which required a multidisciplinary approach. I talk about the the choice of the topic for my thesis, the methodology used in researching it, and the theoretical basis of my work. The questions that this paper adresses are: what is the social relevance of linguistic research, what paths should be followed in order to achieve the best results, how to make an organic whole of a multiplicity of data which sometimes interweave as in a patchwork. I hope this paper will provide answers to at least some of the questions facing young linguists working on a PhD. Key words: slang, linguistic work methodology, participant observation, Erving Goffman, William Labov, qualitative and quantitative approch in linguistics, sociolinguistics, back slang
Contemporary urban slangs come from the secret slangs that essentially meant the coded lexic of a... more Contemporary urban slangs come from the secret slangs that essentially meant the coded lexic of a language. These new slangs become registers and sociolects and they are especially related to cities even if a common trunk of the slang can exist on all the territory of a language. Partly inspired by our work on the slangs of Sarajevo and Paris (Sokolija-Brouillard, 2001), in this article we will discuss the slang formation and the processes that are present in both languages by expanding the corpus by lexicographical sources. Our goal is to show that the two slangs essentially use the same procedures with a few variations. We will also try to demonstrate the slang universals. Contemporary slangs are important because of the extent of the phenomenon that these linguistic facts are taking on the international scene, which is part of their new functions in modern society. Key words: Sarajevo slang, Paris slang, coded lexic, sociolects, slang word formation , slang universals
The paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmati... more The paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmatization illustrated through French and Bosnian languages and slangs (Paris versus Sarajevo). Through these two universal categories, we try to illustrate their linguistic issues in substandard language where they are well visible. Since the slang is a linguistic form which deals with social taboos and stigmatized categories of people, these topics are present and explicit in its forms while they are normally hidden in standard language forms. The theoretical frame for our stigmatization analysis is especially Erving Goffman’s book Stigma, while our taboo analysis comes out partially from our PhD thesis work on the comparison of French and Bosnian slangs, published in France. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multicultural country, taboo and stigmatization sometimes appear in the very complex patterns but these categories are nevertheless present even in French language and society in the very similar way. The subject itself deals also with cultural identity. The sacred and neuralgic topics are very similar in these societies which are visible by used linguistic stereotypes in many expressions. Nevertheless, while in French the religious taboo is a little bit more visible, religious taboos but also the taboo of family relationships are more present in Bosnian culture, where the place of mother as a central figure of the family stays as the sacred one. We will try to prove these claims by examples from substandard language where especially vulgarisms show this aspect of the universal linguistic expressions. In this paper we try to prove in which way our language reflects our unconscious part and in which way it reflects and betrays our most hidden impulses.
Abstract:
Starting from Goffman's (1959) theory of social life and interactions
as playing rol... more Abstract:
Starting from Goffman's (1959) theory of social life and interactions
as playing roles, we introduce the concept of identeme. We borrow this notion from
the French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Michel Neyraut (2008) giving it a new
and broader meaning here (semiotic, linguistic and sociolinguistic). We give different
examples of identemes. Speaking about the principle of linguistic territoriality, which
we introduce too, we differentiate in particular one type of sociolinguistic identemes
– the demarcation identemes and we insist on them. These identemes appear especially
in multicultural communities. That is why we take examples from the languages
spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in neighboring countries.
Keywords: drammaturgical theory of society, identity, identemes (semiotic, linguistic,
sociolinguistic), demarcation identemes
Some twenty years after the war, life goes on in Sarajevo in a quasi-normal way. People are left ... more Some twenty years after the war, life goes on in Sarajevo in a quasi-normal way. People are left with memories, explicit or silent. The perception of the war has not changed much. Has it evolved? It is hard to say. Rightly or wrongly the collective memory perceives and interprets certain events as acts of war and some others as treason, for the wounds are still fresh and open. The Bosnian war slang comprises euphemisms, taboos, circumlocutions and set phrases which are in many ways different from war slang in other languages, because a three-year siege is not the same as a war of the trenches. In the war in Bosnia the “others” were multiple – both enemies and traitors. This situation has generated a large number of slang expressions, which this paper tries to present on the basis of a historical field study.Vingt ans après la guerre, la vie s’articule plus ou moins à Sarajevo. Les souvenirs restent, explicites ou tus. La vision de cette guerre, vécue dans l’encerclement multiple, a ...
This paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmat... more This paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmatization illustrated through French and Bosnian languages and slangs (Paris versus Sarajevo). Through these two universal categories, we will try to illustrate their linguistic issues in substandard language where they are well visible. Since the slang is a linguistic form which deals with social taboos and stigmatized categories of people, these topics are present and explicit in its forms while they are normally hidden in standard language forms. The theoretical frame for our stigmatization analysis is especially Erving Goffman’s book Stigma, while our taboo analysis comes out partially from our PhD thesis work on the comparison of French and Bosnian slangs, published in France. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multicultural country, taboo and stigmatization sometimes appear in the very complex patterns but these categories are nevertheless present even in French language and society i...
Vingt ans après la guerre, la vie s’articule plus ou moins à Sarajevo. Les souvenirs restent, exp... more Vingt ans après la guerre, la vie s’articule plus ou moins à Sarajevo. Les souvenirs restent, explicites ou tus. La vision de cette guerre, vécue dans l’encerclement multiple, a changé un peu. A-t-elle évolué? Il est difficile de le dire. La mémoire collective perçoit et interprète toujours certains faits comme guerriers (à tort ou à raison), certains d’autres comme des traîtrises car les plaies sont encore fraîches et ouvertes. Les mots d’argot bosniens, utilisés dans cette guerre, possèdent leurs euphémismes, leurs tabous, leurs évitements, leurs universaux, mais ils sont aussi différents des argots de guerre dans d’autres langues parce qu’un siège de trois ans n’est pas la même chose que la guerre des tranchés. Dans cette dernière guerre en Bosnie, les « autres » étaient multiples - les ennemis autant que les traîtres. Il s’agit d’une situation « argotisante » par excellence. Nous essayons de l’éclairer à travers une analyse historique du terrain. Celle-ci est nécessaire pour une...
Journal of the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo / Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Sarajevu, ISSN 2303-6990 on-line
Considering that this topic is partially neglected in foreign language teaching, which results in... more Considering that this topic is partially neglected in foreign language teaching, which results in a linguistic blockade of students when faced with spoken language, we wanted to facilitate their encounter with spoken French and point out some theoretical problems regarding differences between structures of the spoken and written French. Due to the scope of the paper, we limited ourselves to only some of the most important aspects. The starting hypothesis is that spoken and written French are partly two parallel systems, which, in addition to many overlaps in the structure, show differences at all levels of linguistic description: phonetic and phonological, morpho-syntactic and lexical. We consulted the works of French linguists and sociolinguists and also touched upon the issues of the relationship between the alphabet and the language, registers in language, and variation in French. The fruit of our research is the conclusion that the mentioned structures vary to a sufficient exten...
Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Romanica
L’objectif de cet article est de montrer un peu comment le langage de l’amour est articulé dans c... more L’objectif de cet article est de montrer un peu comment le langage de l’amour est articulé dans certains argots du monde. L’argot est souvent identifié comme peu tendre dans ses expressions d’amour, surtout celles qui concernent la sexualité. Cependant, la sexualité est perçue différemment suivant les cultures. Ce qui est considéré comme très vulgaire dans une langue et une culture est ressenti comme moins vulgaire dans les autres. Nous aborderons quelques langues culturellement éloignées en essayant de faire des parallèles. En partant de l’hypothèse que nous vivons dans des sociétés majoritairement patriarcales, certaines notions tabous liées à la sexualité restent les mêmes spécialement dans les cultures où le patriarcat est fortement prononcée. Cependant, notre attitude envers ces expressions qui dévoilent une partie intime et souvent inconsciente de nos vies reste non seulement collective (perception du vulgaire, par exemple) mais aussi profondément individuelle.
Key words: slang, Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis, linguistic relativism, linguistic uniformisation, the... more Key words: slang, Sapir-Whorf’s hypothesis, linguistic relativism, linguistic uniformisation, the untranslatable, lexical holes, anglicisms, borrowings
Summary: This article deals with the subject of the language and cultural context on exemples from French and Bosnian slang. Starting from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on the linguistic relativity implying that our way of thinking is conditioned by language, hence important differerences on the lexical and semantic levels and also on the level of the linguistic structure, and, starting also from the hypothesis of the general uniformisation of languages (Hagège 2012) because of the supremacy of English in the world, we are trying to show how these claims are manifesting themselves in slang and in language in general. After a brief review of specificities in languages and after a chapter on some characteristics of slang, we pay special attention to the problems of the untranslatability of some slang expressions as well as to the lexical holes of these sociolects which owe their specificity to cultural, historical and socio-economic causes. In conclusion we juxtapose and we compare the antagoinsic features of languages which make them able to develop on their own way.
Some twenty years after the war life goes on in Sarajevo in a quasi-normal way. People are left w... more Some twenty years after the war life goes on in Sarajevo in a quasi-normal way. People are left with memories, explicit or silent. The vision of the war has not changed much. Has it evolved? It is hard to say. Rightly or wrongly collective memory perceives and interprets certain facts as military ones, some others as treason, for the wounds are still fresh and open. The memories of the French people with regard to Germans can still be easily awakened because of the multiple wars between the two nations, despite all the efforts of the pacifists (Cf. TV channel Arte). The Bosnian slang words used to talk about the war have their euphemisms, taboos, avoidances, universals, but they are also different from the war slang in other languages because a three-year siege is not the same as a war of trenches. In the latest war in Bosnia the “others” were multiple, both the enemies and the traitors. This situation generates a number of slang expressions. In the present paper we try to clarify it through a historical analysis of the terrain necessary for a semantic analysis of the slang lexemes created during this war.
Keywords: slang, siege of Sarajevo, intensification, euphemisms, linguistic taboo, reversal of realities
TABOOS AND STIGMATIZATION AND THEIR MANIFESTATIONS IN LANGUAGE AND SLANG , 2014
This paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmat... more This paper deals with two separate but related subjects: linguistic taboos and linguistic stigmatization illustrated through French and Bosnian languages and slangs (Paris versus Sarajevo). Through these two universal categories, we will try to illustrate their linguistic issues in substandard language where they are well visible. Since the slang is a linguistic form which deals with social taboos and stigmatized categories of people, these topics are present and explicit in its forms while they are normally hidden in standard language forms. The theoretical frame for our stigmatization analysis is especially Erving Goffman’s book Stigma, while our taboo analysis comes out partially from our PhD thesis work on the comparison of French and Bosnian slangs, published in France. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multicultural country, taboo and stigmatization sometimes appear in the very complex patterns but these categories are nevertheless present even in French language and society in the very similar way. The subject itself deals also with cultural identity. The sacred and neuralgic topics are very similar in these societies which are visible by used linguistic stereotypes in many expressions. Nevertheless, while in French the religious taboo is a little bit more visible, religious taboos but also the taboo of family relationships are more present in Bosnian culture, where the place of mother as a central figure of the family stays as the sacred one. We will try to prove these claims by examples from substandard language where especially vulgarisms show this aspect of universal linguistic expressions. In this paper we shall try to prove in which way our language reflects our unconscious part and in which way it reflects and betrays our most hidden impulses. We shell also try to enrich the paper with some examples/equivalents from the English slang and this might be interesting from the perspective of the contrastive analysis approach.
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Conference Presentations by Alma Sokolija
Key words: slang, linguistic work methodology, participant observation, Erving Goffman, William Labov, qualitative and quantitative approch in linguistics, sociolinguistics, back slang
Key words: Sarajevo slang, Paris slang, coded lexic, sociolects, slang word formation , slang universals
Papers by Alma Sokolija
Starting from Goffman's (1959) theory of social life and interactions
as playing roles, we introduce the concept of identeme. We borrow this notion from
the French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Michel Neyraut (2008) giving it a new
and broader meaning here (semiotic, linguistic and sociolinguistic). We give different
examples of identemes. Speaking about the principle of linguistic territoriality, which
we introduce too, we differentiate in particular one type of sociolinguistic identemes
– the demarcation identemes and we insist on them. These identemes appear especially
in multicultural communities. That is why we take examples from the languages
spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in neighboring countries.
Keywords: drammaturgical theory of society, identity, identemes (semiotic, linguistic,
sociolinguistic), demarcation identemes
Summary: This article deals with the subject of the language and cultural context on exemples from French and Bosnian slang. Starting from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on the linguistic relativity implying that our way of thinking is conditioned by language, hence important differerences on the lexical and semantic levels and also on the level of the linguistic structure, and, starting also from the hypothesis of the general uniformisation of languages (Hagège 2012) because of the supremacy of English in the world, we are trying to show how these claims are manifesting themselves in slang and in language in general. After a brief review of specificities in languages and after a chapter on some characteristics of slang, we pay special attention to the problems of the untranslatability of some slang expressions as well as to the lexical holes of these sociolects which owe their specificity to cultural, historical and socio-economic causes. In conclusion we juxtapose and we compare the antagoinsic features of languages which make them able to develop on their own way.
The Bosnian slang words used to talk about the war have their euphemisms, taboos, avoidances, universals, but they are also different from the war slang in other languages because a three-year siege is not the same as a war of trenches. In the latest war in Bosnia the “others” were multiple, both the enemies and the traitors. This situation generates a number of slang expressions. In the present paper we try to clarify it through a historical analysis of the terrain necessary for a semantic analysis of the slang lexemes created during this war.
Keywords: slang, siege of Sarajevo, intensification, euphemisms, linguistic taboo, reversal of realities
illustrated through French and Bosnian languages and slangs (Paris versus Sarajevo). Through these two
universal categories, we will try to illustrate their linguistic issues in substandard language where they are
well visible. Since the slang is a linguistic form which deals with social taboos and stigmatized categories of
people, these topics are present and explicit in its forms while they are normally hidden in standard language
forms. The theoretical frame for our stigmatization analysis is especially Erving Goffman’s book Stigma,
while our taboo analysis comes out partially from our PhD thesis work on the comparison of French and
Bosnian slangs, published in France. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multicultural country, taboo and
stigmatization sometimes appear in the very complex patterns but these categories are nevertheless present
even in French language and society in the very similar way. The subject itself deals also with cultural
identity. The sacred and neuralgic topics are very similar in these societies which are visible by used
linguistic stereotypes in many expressions. Nevertheless, while in French the religious taboo is a little bit
more visible, religious taboos but also the taboo of family relationships are more present in Bosnian culture,
where the place of mother as a central figure of the family stays as the sacred one. We will try to prove these
claims by examples from substandard language where especially vulgarisms show this aspect of universal
linguistic expressions. In this paper we shall try to prove in which way our language reflects our unconscious
part and in which way it reflects and betrays our most hidden impulses. We shell also try to enrich the paper
with some examples/equivalents from the English slang and this might be interesting from the perspective of
the contrastive analysis approach.
Key words: slang, linguistic work methodology, participant observation, Erving Goffman, William Labov, qualitative and quantitative approch in linguistics, sociolinguistics, back slang
Key words: Sarajevo slang, Paris slang, coded lexic, sociolects, slang word formation , slang universals
Starting from Goffman's (1959) theory of social life and interactions
as playing roles, we introduce the concept of identeme. We borrow this notion from
the French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Michel Neyraut (2008) giving it a new
and broader meaning here (semiotic, linguistic and sociolinguistic). We give different
examples of identemes. Speaking about the principle of linguistic territoriality, which
we introduce too, we differentiate in particular one type of sociolinguistic identemes
– the demarcation identemes and we insist on them. These identemes appear especially
in multicultural communities. That is why we take examples from the languages
spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in neighboring countries.
Keywords: drammaturgical theory of society, identity, identemes (semiotic, linguistic,
sociolinguistic), demarcation identemes
Summary: This article deals with the subject of the language and cultural context on exemples from French and Bosnian slang. Starting from the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis on the linguistic relativity implying that our way of thinking is conditioned by language, hence important differerences on the lexical and semantic levels and also on the level of the linguistic structure, and, starting also from the hypothesis of the general uniformisation of languages (Hagège 2012) because of the supremacy of English in the world, we are trying to show how these claims are manifesting themselves in slang and in language in general. After a brief review of specificities in languages and after a chapter on some characteristics of slang, we pay special attention to the problems of the untranslatability of some slang expressions as well as to the lexical holes of these sociolects which owe their specificity to cultural, historical and socio-economic causes. In conclusion we juxtapose and we compare the antagoinsic features of languages which make them able to develop on their own way.
The Bosnian slang words used to talk about the war have their euphemisms, taboos, avoidances, universals, but they are also different from the war slang in other languages because a three-year siege is not the same as a war of trenches. In the latest war in Bosnia the “others” were multiple, both the enemies and the traitors. This situation generates a number of slang expressions. In the present paper we try to clarify it through a historical analysis of the terrain necessary for a semantic analysis of the slang lexemes created during this war.
Keywords: slang, siege of Sarajevo, intensification, euphemisms, linguistic taboo, reversal of realities
illustrated through French and Bosnian languages and slangs (Paris versus Sarajevo). Through these two
universal categories, we will try to illustrate their linguistic issues in substandard language where they are
well visible. Since the slang is a linguistic form which deals with social taboos and stigmatized categories of
people, these topics are present and explicit in its forms while they are normally hidden in standard language
forms. The theoretical frame for our stigmatization analysis is especially Erving Goffman’s book Stigma,
while our taboo analysis comes out partially from our PhD thesis work on the comparison of French and
Bosnian slangs, published in France. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multicultural country, taboo and
stigmatization sometimes appear in the very complex patterns but these categories are nevertheless present
even in French language and society in the very similar way. The subject itself deals also with cultural
identity. The sacred and neuralgic topics are very similar in these societies which are visible by used
linguistic stereotypes in many expressions. Nevertheless, while in French the religious taboo is a little bit
more visible, religious taboos but also the taboo of family relationships are more present in Bosnian culture,
where the place of mother as a central figure of the family stays as the sacred one. We will try to prove these
claims by examples from substandard language where especially vulgarisms show this aspect of universal
linguistic expressions. In this paper we shall try to prove in which way our language reflects our unconscious
part and in which way it reflects and betrays our most hidden impulses. We shell also try to enrich the paper
with some examples/equivalents from the English slang and this might be interesting from the perspective of
the contrastive analysis approach.