Culture as accent: The cultural logic of hijabistas
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Jan Blommaert
Jan Blommaert (b. 1961) is a professor at Tillburg University 〈j.blommaert@tilburguniversity.edu〉. His research interests include sociolinguistics, superdiversity, and linguistic inequality. His publications includeGrassroots literacy (2008); andEthnography, superdiversity, and linguistic landscapes: Chronicles of complexity (2013).
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Piia Varis
Piia Varis (b. 1978) is an assistant professor at Tillburg University 〈P.K.Varis@tilburguniversity.edu〉. Her research interests include digital culture, globalization, and superdiversity. Her publications include “Superdiversity on the Internet: A case from China” (with Xuan Wang, 2011); and “Culture as accent” (with J. Blommaert, 2012).
Abstract
This paper shows how we manufacture authenticity by blending a variety of semiotic resources, some of which are sufficient (“enough”) to produce a particular targeted authentic identity, and consequently enable others to identify us as “authentic” members of social groups within different “micro-hegemonies.” In contexts of rapid sociocultural change (for instance in the case of migration in the present-day superdiverse conjuncture), we can expect enoughness to gain increasing importance as a critical tool for identity work. We propose the framework outlined here will enable us to engage with the complexities of contemporary identity practices and the complex field of authenticity.
About the authors
Jan Blommaert (b. 1961) is a professor at Tillburg University 〈j.blommaert@tilburguniversity.edu〉. His research interests include sociolinguistics, superdiversity, and linguistic inequality. His publications include Grassroots literacy (2008); and Ethnography, superdiversity, and linguistic landscapes: Chronicles of complexity (2013).
Piia Varis (b. 1978) is an assistant professor at Tillburg University 〈P.K.Varis@tilburguniversity.edu〉. Her research interests include digital culture, globalization, and superdiversity. Her publications include “Superdiversity on the Internet: A case from China” (with Xuan Wang, 2011); and “Culture as accent” (with J. Blommaert, 2012).
©2015 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Munich/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Linguistic and literary aspects of perspectivity
- Introduction: Linguistic and literary aspects of perspectivity
- Context-dependent vantage points in literary narratives: A functional cognitive approach
- Authorial intention and global coherence in fictional text comprehension: A cognitive approach
- The role of perspectives in various forms of language use
- From trace to topical field: Toward a linguistic definition of point of view
- Indexicals, fiction, and perspective
- Why do we accept a narrative discourse ascribed to a “third-person narrator” as true? The classical, and a cognitive approach
- De-essentializing authenticity: A semiotic approach
- Introduction: De-essentializing authenticity: A semiotic approach
- Culture as accent: The cultural logic of hijabistas
- Why X doesn’t always mark the spot: Contested authenticity in Mexican indigenous language politics
- The semiotics and politics of “real selfhood” in the American therapeutic discourse of the World War II era
- Inauthentic authenticity: Semiotic design and globalization in the margins of China
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Linguistic and literary aspects of perspectivity
- Introduction: Linguistic and literary aspects of perspectivity
- Context-dependent vantage points in literary narratives: A functional cognitive approach
- Authorial intention and global coherence in fictional text comprehension: A cognitive approach
- The role of perspectives in various forms of language use
- From trace to topical field: Toward a linguistic definition of point of view
- Indexicals, fiction, and perspective
- Why do we accept a narrative discourse ascribed to a “third-person narrator” as true? The classical, and a cognitive approach
- De-essentializing authenticity: A semiotic approach
- Introduction: De-essentializing authenticity: A semiotic approach
- Culture as accent: The cultural logic of hijabistas
- Why X doesn’t always mark the spot: Contested authenticity in Mexican indigenous language politics
- The semiotics and politics of “real selfhood” in the American therapeutic discourse of the World War II era
- Inauthentic authenticity: Semiotic design and globalization in the margins of China
