Untold stories and the construction of identity in narratives of ethnic conflict on the Polish–German border
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Dariusz Galasiński
Abstract
In this paper we are interested in the use of ‘untold stories’: parts of narratives which are implied rather than explicitly told by speakers. More specifically, we demonstrate how Polish informants from the towns of Gubin and Zgorzelec on the Polish–German border use untold stories as a means of situating themselves or other Poles in a position of advantage in conflictual situations between Poles and Germans. We demonstrate that our informants end the explicit parts of their narratives with markedly ambiguous utterances in order to imply a further part of the story with two interrelated goals: constructing the speakers (or other Poles) as direct ‘winners’ of the conflictual situation and positioning them as having the high moral ground in it. This, furthermore, had the global aim of positive self-presentation of their ethnic group (Poles) and negative presentation of the other ethnic group (Germans). Finally, we argue that the use of the untold stories is related to the particular social and political setting in which they occur, one in which our informants consistently positioned themselves as a ‘losing’, or ‘non-elite’ group being under political and economic ‘attack’ from their German neighbours.
© Walter de Gruyter
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- Book reviews
Articles in the same Issue
- Introduction: Silence in institutional and intercultural contexts
- ‘You do not have to say anything …’: Instructing the jury on the defendant’s right to silence in the English criminal justice system
- A fair share: Gender and linguistic space in a language classroom
- Silence as a means of preserving the status quo: The case of ante-natal care in Ireland
- Managing talk and non-talk in intercultural interactions: Insights from two Chinese–British business meetings
- Negotiating silence and speech in the classroom
- Untold stories and the construction of identity in narratives of ethnic conflict on the Polish–German border
- Busy saying nothing new: Live silence in TV reporting of 9/11
- Book reviews
