Download This Paper'Language Nationalism' vs. 'Language Cosmopolitanism': Divisions in the Attitudes Towards the Relation between Language and National Identity
In: (I. Spasić, P. Cvetičanin, eds.) Us and Them – Symbolic Divisions in the Western Balkan Societies. Belgrade: Centre for Empirical and Cultural Studies of South-East Europe / The Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of the University of Belgrade. p. 165-177, 2013, ISBN 978-86-89079-03-6
14 Pages Posted: 11 Jul 2014
Date Written: July 9, 2014
Abstract
The paper analyses the attitudes of the students of the University of Nis related to the strength of the link between language and national identity (at the collective and individual leveIs), that is, the possible dependence of these attitudes on a number of demographic variables, such as the participants' education and vocational orienentation, sex, etnnicity, their place of birth, the education of their parents, and their degree of religiousness, The research instrument used in this study was a designed questionnaire, distributed to the students during the 2011/2012 spring semester at four faculties of the University of Nis. The aim was to inivestigate which attitude or orientation towards the relation between language and national identity would be identified as predominant in the student population: "linguistic,nationalism" or "linguistic cosmopolitanism", The statistical analysis of the data showed that the most influential demographic variable was the participants' degree ofr eligiousness, as well as, to some extent, the participants' education and vocational training.
Keywords: language, natio~, identity, language nationalism/language cosmopolitanism, attitudes towards the relation between language and national identity
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation