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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 923

Part of Session 105: Language and Superdiversity (Other abstracts in this session)

Superdiverse Authenticities? The Complex Links of Social and Linguistic Categories in Contemporary Musical Scapes

Authors: Schneider, Britta
Submitted by: Schneider, Britta (Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Germany)

Global networks based on music are central in local spaces becoming nodes of transnational trajectories, and hence, becoming superdiverse. In many such networks, constructions of ethnic authenticity play a crucial, yet ambiguous role. One example for this is data from Communities of Practice based on Salsa. Here, non-native speakers of Spanish express their affiliation with an ‘other’ culture linguistically but this is not intended to construct membership to an ethnic group. Interestingly, linguistic expressions of ethnic authenticity interlink with other forms of value constructions, such as class status, local boundaries, or also, taking stances towards political discourses. References to constructions of ethnic identity via language to express different, multiplex types of affiliations are also found in many other transnational music styles, like Reggaeton, Bhangra, Tango or Hip Hop, where the use of particular languages can relate to local ties, national and transnational discourses or class structures at the same time.

Such observations show that indexicalities of Languages become multiplied and very complex in superdiverse environments. Through the mobility of discourses from different realms, which meet in local contexts, culturally constructed categories of Language can form multiple social boundaries and gain meaning in and through different spatio-temporal scapes.

Sociolinguistic methodology thus has to be aware that sociolinguistic economies can be very complex and, at the same time, very local. Due to this, speakers often have to negotiate meanings and thus have a heightened reflexivity regarding their language use. Modernist constructions of ethnic authenticity and their links to language do not necessarily dissolve but become interwoven with discourses of power of different types and from different spatio-temporal realms.

Theoretical and methodological questions that arise in this context are:

- Given the complexity of the field, should researchers preferably study environments they have known for a long time in order to be able to evaluate different discourses appropriately, and also, to ensure sufficient language competence? How important is the intuitive, unconscious knowledge of the researcher regarding linguistic detail and its connections to broader discourses?
- How relevant is quantitative information on the sociolinguistic stratification of a particular context? In how far would an analysis of local language use profit from a combination of statistical data and qualitative research?
- If we want to dissolve with an “‘onion model’ of the world, where the local and the national form the core and inner layer and the international and the global form the outer layers” (Beck & Sznaider 2006:9), how can we avoid to tacitly re-establish a binary structure of global vs. local in studying language use in transnational environments?

References:

Beck, Ulrich, and Natan Sznaider. “Unpacking Cosmopolitanism for the Social Sciences: A Research Agenda.” The British Journal of Sociology 5, no. 1 (2006): 1-23.

Blommaert, Jan, and Ben Rampton. "Language and Superdiversity. A Position Paper." Working Papers in Urban Language & Literacies 70 (2011): 1-22.