"Because here we live in the Netherlands": Languagecultural politics of belonging in a supermarket

L.C.S Thissen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This article unravels how people construct belonging to places through languagecultural practices (Cornips et al. 2012). The tactics of intersubjectivity (Bucholtz and Hall 2004) serve as analytical tools to explain how people justify their belonging through languagecultural ideologies while challenging other people’s belonging. Furthermore, the article scrutinises how nativeness and new speakerness (O’Rourke and Pujolar 2013) manifest themselves within daily practices. Rather than focusing on "old" and "new" speakers, this article perceives nativeness and new speakerness as constructs that can be given meaning by anyone. In this article, I analyse an interaction in a small supermarket that is illustrative of the construction of belonging to places and which in turn exemplifies the dynamicity of new speakerness.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)195-216
Number of pages22
JournalApplied Linguistics Review
Volume6
Issue number2
Early online date28 May 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2015

Keywords

  • place
  • belonging
  • languageculture
  • new speakerness
  • tactics of intersubjectivity

Cite this