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Connecting Micro and Macro Sociolinguistic Processes through Narratives. A

Glotopolitical Gaze

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Development Manuscript DOI: 10.1080/01434632.2019.1621876

Connecting Micro and Macro Sociolinguistic Processes through Narratives. A

Glotopolitical Gaze

Yvette Bürki

Institut für spanische Sprache und Literatur, Universität Bern, Switzerland

[email protected]
Connecting Micro and Macro Sociolinguistic Processes through Narratives. A
Glotopolitical Gaze1

This contribution examines the linguistic perceptions and ideologies of an

individual of Latin American origin, Jorge, based in the German-speaking
region of Switzerland through the methodological instrument of narratives
to analyse how pre-existing normative linguistic discourses influence
(linguistic) identities. The study is set in a wider project that surveys, from
a glotopolitical perspective combined with theoretical tools from the field
of cognitive sociolinguistics, the relations between (linguistic) identities
and linguistic ideologies in individuals of Latin American origin
established in German Switzerland. Connecting the micro-level of Jorge's
narrative to the macro glotopolitical level is a way of showing how
languages are charged with different values and are arranged
hierarchically, proving that they respond to an ideological framework in
which purist ideologies of national and colonial discourses are interwoven
with other discourses that reveal the influence of late capitalism. Thanks to
these linguistic values, Jorge is able to position himself closer to certain
ethnic groups than to others. Thus, through the languages in question –
German, Swiss German, English (and French) – Jorge reveals an identity
that draws him towards the German collective, distancing him not only
from the Swiss German collective but also from his own Latin American
collective, over which he stands. This also demonstrates that the Latin
American ethnic category cannot be analysed as a homogeneous group,
and that in order to understand the identity dynamics of this group in
Switzerland we must necessarily address their own life histories. Hence,
this study is understood as one of the pieces in a mosaic of voices that
must be compiled and analysed in order to be able to apprehend how Latin
American identities are recontextualised in the social space of German
Switzerland.

1
I would like to thank the anonymous reviewer for his/her relevant and constructive suggestions
for improving the article.
 Keywords: Latin American; German Switzerland; identity; linguistic
ideologies, narratives

Introduction

This article forms a part of a broader investigation that studies the relations between

(linguistic) identities and linguistic ideologies in individuals of Latin American origin

established in the German-speaking region of Switzerland from a glotopolitical

perspective combined with the theoretical tools of cognitive sociolinguistics.

As an analytical perspective, glotopolitics explores the relations between language and

politics, placing special emphasis on the historically contextualised analysis of the

representations of language ‒ above all, those that reveal their ideological condition ‒

and on the role that these play in the establishment of regimes of normativity and power

relations (see Del Valle and Narvaja de Arnoux 2010; AGlo 2017). In this framework,

what interests us here is how the ideological representations of language can be

organised as indexes of identity. From this perspective, languages are enlisted to

advance towards or move away from different ethnic and national groups. In my

analysis of how language can become a vehicle for the mobilisation of linguistic

ideologies I shall use narratives as a methodological tool (Bamberg 1997; Deppermann

2000; De Finna & Perrino 2011, among others).

Similarly, in this paper the ethnic category of Latin American is deconstructed,2

proving, as several authors have already pointed out (see for instance Block 2017, 135;

Faist 2000, 37; Scollon, Scollon and Jones 2012, and Patiño and Márquez Reiter 2018,

12), that (linguistic) identities aren't homogeneous, but depend on sociolinguistic life

trajectories, and on the social conditions of their spatio-temporal insertion in their host

2
On this ethnic category, see the section of Methodology.
country. These are two defining factors for the renegotiation of local linguistic ideologies

that are hegemonic in their daily practices and in the influence that this renegotiation can

have on their (linguistic) identities. Hence, we take a dynamic concept of identity that

contemplates the very agency of individuals, 'as the product of situated social actions'

(Bucholtz and Hall 2004, 376), so that we understand identity as a category exposed to

change according to social contexts, as indeed occurs in situation of migrations.

I also adopt an emic approach that takes into consideration the perspective of the

speaker. This approach is essential for explaining the relations between linguistic

practices at a micro-level with phenomena at a macro-level. Following this perspective,

in this article I shall focus my analysis on perceptions and linguistic ideologies of an

individual of Latin American origin through his narratives in order to explain how pre-

existing normative linguistic discourses, the product of certain linguistic ideologies,

influence (linguistic) identities.

Ideologies in Context

Human mobility necessarily implies a translocation that, over and above what is purely

physical, is sociopolitical and cultural. In order to understand this translocation in

sociocultural, sociopolitical and socio-economic terms we must understand the

(linguistic) ideologies that come into play at a macro-level: broadly speaking, the

ideology of the nation state, on the one hand, and the ideology of late global capitalism,

on the other.

The ideology of the nation state – rooted in an iconic relationship between a

territory and an ethnic group – and of a language has a strong centripetal and therefore

monocentric component. As a result, the linguistic ideology of the nation state is clearly

monoglot, and conceives the national language as a culturally agglutinative centre,

situating it at the peak of the national linguistic hierarchy. This is precisely why being in
possession of the national linguistic standard doesn't only enable ascending social

mobility but also appears as an introduction letter of integrated migrants.

The strongly nationalist events of recent times reveal how alive the ideology of

the nation state still is and which, in structural terms, is crystallised in border control, the

promulgation of laws and, as regards language, in proficiency requirements in the national

language. 3 Generally, all these processes are designed to restrict the access and

permanence of migrant collectives, though not in equal terms, as we shall explain further

down.

On the other hand, late capitalism is characterised by a centrifugal ideology that

breaks away from the conceptual borders of the nation state, because it extends its

networks of economic transaction in supra and transnational terms. This context sees the

development of the linguistic ideology of late capitalism, based on linguistic skills

susceptible of commodification; in other words, on the acquisition of languages that may

be economically capitalised (Heller 2010; Heller and Duchêne 2012). Consequently, the

linguistic ideology of late capitalism favours plurilingual policies, that is, the acquisition

of several languages in their standard varieties that imply, for individuals, a cultural

capital susceptible of being reversible in economic terms. However, given that English

has imposed itself today as a global language, it now occupies the highest rank in the

system of languages introduced and controlled by late capitalism, superimposing itself on

the languages of nation states (see infra).

3
One example of this is the US bill RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong
Employment Acts) of February 2017, which provides a language test for foreigners wanting
to enter the US labour market to ensure a high level of proficiency in English.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/02/us/politics/trump-immigration.html). On language
tests as indicators of integration willingness, see also Piller (2001).
 But it would be simplistic and reductionist to conceive these two ideologies and

their domain4 of action as strictly separate; the relationship between these two opposing

ideologies should be understood as a dynamic, porous and multidimensional network

rather than a strictly hierarchical and rigidly defined structure, as we shall demonstrate

starting from the data provided by the narratives we shall be analysing (cf. Analysis).

Perception and Ideologies

Having said that, individuals do not naturally make use of their linguistic

repertoires due to rational decisions they take that are directly related to macro-social

processes. Rather, these repertoires obey predispositions to act that have been shaped and

internalised in specific spheres of interaction – at the micro-level of daily social practices

– thanks to the linguistic perception of individuals, and that are disseminated reticularly.

This is how linguistic habits are formed. At this point we should remember that perception

isn't a merely cognitive process but that it implies a subjective and agentive practice,

driven by attitudes and, more broadly, ideologies (Narvaja de Arnoux and Del Valle 2010,

3-4) which, in turn, have been acquired, strengthened or modified intersubjectively

throughout life trajectories (Caravedo 2015, 48). These are the subjectivities that shape

linguistic representations, with the evaluative charge of what is linguistically good, nice,

correct, desirable or otherwise. These linguistic subjectivities linked to linguistic

repertoires and specific domains of interaction reflect the macro-social processes and

ideologies that guide them because, as pointed out by Park and Wee (2012, 36), it is the

speakers' practices of meaning making – how they attribute value and indexical meaning

to linguistic forms, how they consider language as a mediator of their own position in

4
The term domain is adopted from Spolsky 2004, who defines it as follows: 'any defined or
definable social or political or religious group or community, ranging from a family
through a sports team or neighborhood or village or workplace or organization or city or
nation state or regional alliance' (Spolsky 2004, 40).
society, how they situate these relations within everyday experiences in terms of

adaptation, affectivity, correction, etc., morality and adaptation, etc. – that determine how

speakers behave in their daily communicative practices and that, in turn, shape them.

The Sociolinguistic Situation in Switzerland and the Latin American

Collective

Switzerland is officially a multilingual state whose linguistic policy is based on a

strictly territorial principle. The four national languages ‒ German, French, Italian and

Rhaeto-Romance ‒ are official in different regions of the country, but German is not

only the territorial and linguistically most widespread language, but also that of the

economically and politically strongest cantons. Another distinctive feature of the

linguistic panorama of German-speaking Switzerland is the existence of dialects or

Mundarten, linguistic variants of the communicative proximity and group solidarity that

coexist with standard Swiss German. These local forms of speech have a huge symbolic

capital as markers of ethnic identity (Watts 1999, 69). Given that Swiss German is a

variety of regional and local forms of speech that lacks a writing system (which is

precisely for what standard Swiss German is used), Swiss German dialects are acquired

in the family, in close communication circles and contexts, therefore non-Swiss

Germans find them difficult to learn because, besides learning standard German in their

everyday lives they encounter dialects whose intelligibility isn't guaranteed by the

learning of standard Swiss German.

As to the Latin American collective in Switzerland, we should point out that it is

relatively new, as the diversified migration of this group, which is not associated with the

intellectual or economic elites or caused by political exile, only began in the mid-nineteen

nineties. This collective, however, is still quite small for it only amounts to 3% of total

migration to Switzerland, which is led by the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Chile
(in that order).5 The figures are probably higher due to so-called illegal immigration and

to the fact that Latin American can travel on either Swiss or European Community

passports. Two further aspects help us understand the migratory dynamics of the Latin

collective in Switzerland: in the first place, it's a type of migration that follows the patterns

of step migration and usually reaches Switzerland via another European country such as

Spain or Italy (where migrants are able to obtain European Community passports);

secondly, as we discover in other migrant collectives today (see Schmalzbauer 2008;

Tolstokorova 2012), it is chiefly a feminine migration required in the service sector (care

and attention to children, the elderly and cleaning services, for instance).

Methodology

As mentioned in various sociolinguistic studies (see supra, Introduction), macro-social

categories like nationality or ethnic group are too indiscriminate and their use in

qualitative and micro-surveys runs the risk of obscuring the huge variety that exists in a

given collective.

This is why the works dedicated to examining identity have privileged another category

of analysis, the practice community, whose homogeneity is less distorted than macro-

categories like ethnic group or nationality. In this project, however, I take the macro-

category of ethnic group in order to challenge in, because pan-ethnical categories (see

supra, Introduction), like Latin American, conceal differences in socio-economic

position and status, as well as demographic differences inside groups. This is why I

have used categories based on profession and occupation, types of migration

(transnational or otherwise) and ties with the Swiss collective (Latin American couples

5
Data provided by the Bundesamt für Statistik (2016a).
in binational relationships).6

In all cases I have taken the places and dates of migrants' arrival in Switzerland,

their places of residence (urban, peri-urban or rural) and their condition as transnationals

or otherwise.

Following the indications of Patiño and Márquez Reiter (2018; p. 2 and n. 1), as

representatives of the Latin American category I take individuals from Spanish-speaking

Latin American countries which do share, broadly speaking, similar history and similar

cultural traits such as religion, customs and culinary habits.

To date, my corpus consists of 30 semi-conducted interviews of roughly one hour

in length with first-generation Latin Americans (18 women and 12 men) resident in the

cantons of German-speaking Switzerland.

As regards the interviews, we agree with Rosina Márquez Reiter 2018 (see also

De Fina and Perrino 2011) that 'interviews constitute situated social encounters and a

social practice in and of itself. They are understood (…) as dynamic sites where

ideologies, conscious or unconscious normative beliefs about an individual, a group or a

society can be formed, reconfigured, reinforced and circulating discourses contested or

endorsed'. On the other hand, in keeping with post-structuralist and constructionist

positions, we don't consider life stories existing per se, but as they gradually emerge and

are constructed throughout the interaction. This is a key point in studies focused on

ideological aspects, as what matters is the stance the speakers adopt throughout the

interaction and how this allows us to grasp their perceptions and ideologies.

This study examines the narratives produced by Jorge in an interview situation

with a researcher of Latin American origin. The narratives are key instruments in the

study of identity and its relationship with pre-existing hegemonic ideologies and

6
The design of the methodology is explained in Bonomi and Bürki 2018.
normative discourses, because they allow us to establish connections between the micro-

level of the interaction and the macro-level of social constructs (Bamberg and

Georgakopoulou 2008: 385). In my analysis of Jorge's narrative I applied the positioning

method as described by Bamberg (2004). Thus, according to Bamberg (2004), three levels

of positioning are distinguished:

1. At the first level, I examine the ways in which interviewees linguistically

construct and position the characters in their story in relation to themselves.

2. At the second level, the analysis focuses on the work accomplished by

participants, both interviewed and interviewees, in the interactive setting. To

quote Bamberg, 'How does the speaker position him- or herself to the

audience?' (1997: 337).

3. At the third level, I analyse how by describing others (level 1) and talking to

others in the here and now (level 2), narrators adopt positions in relation to

any pre-existing normative discourses, in this specific case, in connection with

the construction of language normativity.

Jorge's narrative is especially worthy of analysis because it evinces the

interweaving of linguistic ideologies and perceptions of 'the Other' in the expression of

identity. Before beginning the analysis, I shall provide some biographical data on Jorge.7

A Cuban aged 34 when the interview was held, and currently in possession of Swiss

citizenship, he arrived from Cuba with a degree in Art History after having married a

Swiss with whom he confessed he had been having an affair since his teenage years. Jorge

had to certify his university studies and began to read Iberian Romance languages at the

University of Zurich, where, having obtained an MA, he is currently preparing his

7
Fictitious name.
doctoral thesis in Latin American Literature and works as a scientific assistant. Jorge still

maintains scientific connections with the University of Havana, which he visits regularly.

Analysis

Level 1

I shall focus here on the first level of positioning, in other words, on the analysis of how

Jorge positions himself and the other characters in his narrative.8

(1)

54 Y: So how did you end up in

55 Switzerland?
56 J: I married. I married:
57 Er: my boyfriend: I think that
58 since I was an adolescent
59 ((long pause)) and: I came to live
60 here. That is to say, at some
61 point we had the: the: the
62 question of well, what can we do.
63 I was studying in Cuba and
64 wanted to complete my degree and
65 so he'd always go [to Cuba]. He'd always
66 go because I could never come
67 because Switzerland always

69 as if to say NOT as boyfriends.

70 Y: ((laughter))
71 J: Because it was also like:
72 of course, the typical young, single
73 at the time and: Cuban, hence a
74 potential migrant. However much
75 I told the people at
76 the embassy: 'Look, I have a
77 degree to complete'.
78 I must have been in my fourth academic year
79 when we began our relationship. 'Look,
80 after having studied for four years I don't think
81 I'm going to give up to go and
82 work at McDonalds in
8
The interview was conducted in Spanish. For reasons of space, only the English translation of
is included, for which I thank Josephine Watson. I also thank Diana Teixeira Coelho for the
formal work on the transcripts.
 83 Switzerland, I don't think so'.
84 Y: ((laughter))
85 J: But no one understood,
86 until we decided
87 'Well look, as I've completed
88 my studies,
89 we'll get married'. And
90 that's how it happened. That's how::
91 how I got there.

This excerpt reveals the two main characters in the narrative: Jorge as the leading figure

and the Swiss, who are clearly perceived as 'the Other'. But moreover, from lines 74 to

83 we discover an identity trait of Jorge's that will be a constant feature in his account:

the fact that he should distinguish himself from those he considers to be common or

stereotypical Latin American migrants who come to Switzerland to work as unqualified

labour.

This stance gains force thanks to the fact that Jorge uses a direct style to recreate

a discussion at the Swiss Embassy between himself and a Swiss civil servant (ll. 76-83):

'However much I told the people at the embassy: "Look, I have a degree to complete".

[...] "Look, after having studied for four years I don't think I'm going to give up to go and

work at McDonalds in Switzerland, I don't think so".'

His differences with the mass of possible Latin American migrants is also clear in

this second excerpt:

(2)

92 Y: And then you:: had already

93 completed your degree in Cuba.
94 So how did you reintroduce yourself
95 into Swiss university life?
96 J: It took about two years. Let's
97 see, I arrived with the idea of,
98 of continuing my studies. [...]
99 so that was it. I arrived [...]
100 here and the first thing I had to do was
101 learn German. I didn't speak
102 a word. Not a word.
103 Er:: learn to speak German,
 104 I learnt it quite quickly. By
105 three months or so I
106 was already able to hold a basic
107 conversation. Then work, which
108 was striking because I
109 hadn't worked in my life and
110 in Cuba it's not common to study
111 and work. Now it is, but
112 not ten years ago. If people,
113 if people decide
114 to study in Cuba it's because
115 they have a family that::
116 Y: [that can support
117 J: [that can support their
118 studies. Then to come here and
119 work for the first time in a
120 country that isn't even my own was
121 very hard. To work in the jobs they
122 allow you to work in when
123 you arrive here as an immigrant,
124 with no professional training:
125 let him devote himself to other
126 areas, right? But when you come
127 from the intellectuality and
128 need to work to earn
129 money, all you can do is work
130 in the service sector, because it's
131 the only area that can be
132 more flexible as regards the training
133 you've received. [...]

After proving that he learnt German very quickly (lines 99-107), Jorge related his

traumatic experience at having to work in Switzerland (ll. 107-108). For two reasons: in

the first place, being a member of the student class in his own country, he had never

needed to work, as in those days students didn't work in Cuba (ll. 110-118), besides

having parents who were able to support his studies; and secondly, because he found it

striking to have to accept an unqualified job in the service sector coming as he did from

an intellectual environment (ll. 118-130). In this way, Jorge positioned himself again as

different from what he perceived as the stereotypical Latin American immigrant he had

described in the first excerpt we commented on previously, defining himself as an

intellectual. Furthermore, in this excerpt once again he clearly describes his condition as

a foreigner in a country not his own: 'To come here and work for the first time in a country

that isn't even my own was very hard', emphasising the 'isn't even' (ll. 119-121). Once

more, he voices the antagonism between the Swiss and himself through the deictic

comparison of they and you: 'Work in the jobs they allow you to work in when you arrive

here as an immigrant, with no professional training.' (ll. 121-123). Note that you is used

as a self-referential form of the self with the intention of embracing the interlocutor in a

personal and affective way (Calsamiglia and Tusón 2008, 139), which leads us to the

second level of positioning, that of the actual interaction between the participants in the

interview.

Level 2

The second level of positioning operates on the interactional plane, that is, it concerns

the position of the narrator before his interlocutor(s) in the place story-telling world. In

other words, at this level the self that the narrator wishes to show his sus interlocutors is

revealed.

As pointed out by Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann (2000), both the pre-

communicative situation of narrator and researcher and the first contact, the negotiation

of aims and rules influence the way in which the interaction develops. Indeed, the fact of

having introduced myself to Jorge, before meeting up for the interview, as a Latin

American university professor who arrived in Switzerland 25 years ago and is carrying

out a research project on Latin American identities in German Switzerland for both

personal and scientific reasons places us both – him as interviewee and me as interviewer

– in the same domain of Spanish university studies in German Switzerland, and creates a

certain complicity between people of similar life trajectories. This complicity between

equals is reflected in excerpt 1, lines 72-74, where Jorge, introducing his statement with
the discursive marker of course that signals the evidential value of shared knowledge

(Fuentes Rodríguez 2009, s.v.), declares that what he will go on to say corresponds to a

typical situation among Latin Americans: 'of course, the typical young, single at the time

and: Cuban, hence a potential migrant'.

The same situation appears in the next excerpt, headed by a question of mine

triggered by the fact that, several times during his story, Jorge confesses to having more

German than Swiss friends:

(3)

137 Y: Er: and you say that,

138 that you have more German than
139 Swiss friends, that most of your
140 friends are German. Why?
141 I mean, why do you think you
142 have more German friends? Why
143 did you prefer to frequent
144 more: Germanic circles?
145 J: Well: immigrants are drawn to
146 one another.
147 E: Mm.
148 J: And even if the culture
149 is Germanic and the
150 language is German, they
151 are immigrants just like me.
152 Y: Mm.
153 J: Then the Other's
154 ((unintelligible)), processes,
155 Y: [Mm.
156 J: [don't come from power.
157 They don't come from power. [...]
158 We're dealing the whole
159 time with stereotypes,
160 in other words,
161 Germans are very authoritarian
162 in many aspects, but
163 here they're not in in their own country,
164 their own country. So: there's
165 a certain level of understanding
166 there (.) Er: I find them much
167 more open people (.)[…]

In his first answer, Jorge speaks of the category of migrants that makes them equal

(ll. 148-151), for in spite of also being of Germanic culture and speaking a Germanic
language like Swiss German, Germans aren't in their own country — they're immigrants

like him. But then Jorge mentions an element of German identity that separates them from

the Swiss, who are again positioned as the Others: that he perceives them as being more

open in comparison with the Swiss, thus positioning himself closer to the German than to

the Swiss collective. Interestingly, Jorge doesn't mention any friend of Latin American

origin, only Germans. In this way he seems to distance himself from the Latin American

collective and draw closer to a prestigious collective in German Switzerland, that of the

Germans, people who – broadly speaking – come to Switzerland to perform highly

qualified or mid-level jobs.

In the following excerpt, 4, Jorge describes himself as an individual excluded from

the Swiss collective and, in contrast, describes the Swiss as a collective that will always

consider him an immigrant:

(4)

179 Y: And which have been your most

180 positive and most negative experiences
181 in Switzerland?
182 J: [...] Well it's as if there was a
183 balance that you always have to
184 learn to live with and the rest. (.)
185 Let's see, it's always very
186 difficult to say which
187 positive experiences you've had
188 in Switzerland and what I like
189 or what I don't like, because
190 you end up being:: part of
191 a sort of enigma. I'm never going
192 to be from here, regardless of whether
193 or not I'm nationalised,
194 blah-blah, but I'm never going to
195 be from here because people never
196 consider me to be from here (.)
197 They'll never consider me as being from
198 here, because of my physical features,
199 my communicational features,
200 and you can't expect to be considered
201 as being from here because otherwise
 202 you suffer. You end up frustrated
203 and you suffer. That's why the
204 best way to learn to live is
205 to realise, 'Well look, that's
206 the price you have to pay for
207 living (.) For living where you
208 decided to live'. In other words,
209 well look, you'll never be from
210 here and you'll never again be from
211 there. [...]

Note the reiteration of the adverb never in relation to the phrase 'to be from here'

('I'm never going to be from here, regardless of whether I'm nationalised or not, blah-blah,

but I’m never going to be from here because people never consider me to be from here

(.) They'll never consider me as being from here' (ll. 191-197). This exclusion that Jorge

perceives is due, as he tells us, to both phenotypic and communicative reasons — suffice

it to remember here that Jorge perceives the Germans to be more open than the Swiss.

Jorge also says that it's better to accept this condition, which is the price we have to pay

to live where we want to live, as otherwise not being accepted by the people where we

choose to live will make us suffer. 'In other words, well look, you'll never be from here

and you'll never again be from there' (ll. 208-211). Nevertheless, given the emphatic

reiteration of the statement 'You'll never be from here', what seems to cause Jorge more

difficulty is the fact of perceiving that he will not be accepted by the members of the

national collectivity of the country where he now lives.

Level 3

I will connect the micro-level of the narrative to a macro-level that will show Jorge's

position regarding systems of linguistic normativity monitored either by the ideology of

global capitalism or by that of nation-state nationalism, and how these linguistic

ideologies permeate his identity.

 We've seen that throughout the interaction Jorge adopts the stance of an immigrant

who isn't the prototypal unqualified Latin American immigrant. Jorge distinguishes

himself as an intellectual, an elite immigrant, thereby distancing himself from the

immigrants who arrive as unqualified labour and drawing closer to the German collective.

Furthermore, Jorge also considers his position before the Swiss to be negative: on the one

hand, he feels excluded, perceiving that he isn't accepted, both on phenotypic grounds

and for reasons of communicative pragmatism which, once again, lead him to feel closer

to the German collective yet, funnily enough, not to the Latin American collective, which

he doesn't mention.

Let's now move on to the question of languages. Throughout the interview, Jorge

refers to the languages in which he is fluent — French and English, that he had even learnt

in Cuba, and German. I then ask Jorge about the advantages he has obtained by speaking

all these languages in Zurich, a city where English, for financial reasons and because of

its huge expat community, is even more important than the second Swiss national

language, French:

(5)

213 Y: [...] In other words, you

214 had already learnt French and
215 English in Cuba, hadn't you? And
216 then, er: English for you ->
217 how have you benefited from the fact that
218 people here prefer to speak
219 English to French HERE in
220 Zurich, although French is the
221 national language, is it not?
222 J: It has given me the advantage of
223 being able to talk to them
224 and show them that their English is
225 very poor. What I find,
226 what I find, let's say,
227 is that every day I arrive
228 at a place and say: 'Good morning,
229 I don't speak Swiss German'. I
 230 don't speak it, I don't like it,
231 I don't see any benefit in
232 speaking a dialect; there are about
233 fifteen different dialects, so
234 I would have to learn something
235 like fifteen different languages.
236 And it's hard for me. [...] and
237 then I arrive at a place and
238 speak in high German, um: either
239 they DON'T understand me, or
240 pretentiously they begin to speak
241 English. At first it bothered me.
242 I'd say to them, 'speak to me in
243 German'. Until later on I became
244 snide and sarcastic. So
245 now when people speak to me in
246 English, I respond in English. I
247 don't speak American English.
248 I speak British English, so
249 I answer them in the
250 most old-fashioned English, and
251 they immediately have to change
252 language, they can't stand it. Five
253 minutes later they have to take a step down
254 to German or Swiss German or
255 whatever.

Jorge responds on lines 222 to 225 that it has given him the advantage of being

able to talk to the Swiss and show them that their English is very poor. At the micro-level

of the interaction, once again we note the antagonism between Jorge and those he terms

'them' – the Swiss – and in this case the object of the polarisation are languages. On line

225 Jorge opens up a narrative space in which from line 226 onwards he recreates in

direct style situations that he experiences daily in connection with the language of

communication: 'What I find, let’s say, is that every day I arrive at a place and say: "Good

morning, I don't speak Swiss German".' (ll. 226-229). Jorge complains that he isn't

understood when he speaks in German and when he says he doesn't speak any dialect,

that he doesn't like them or see any use for them from an arrogant position that disregards

his command of German, the Swiss even prefer to speak to him in English. That's when
Jorge is able to prove his superiority over them, because, by speaking to them in a perfect

British English, he demonstrates with his example that the English spoken by the Swiss

is very poor. In this way, languages iconise Jorge's identity, that emerges during his

narrative: an intellectual and multilingual immigrant who distinguishes himself from the

stereotype of the Latin American immigrant who comes to Switzerland as unqualified

labour that he seems to embody and which is the image that also seems to prevail among

the Swiss (remember the scene in the Swiss Embassy in Cuba). On the contrary, Jorge is

even able to show his superiority through his command of a perfect British English that

obliges the Swiss to take a step down the language ladder and speak to him in German,

Swiss German or whatever: 'So I answer them in the most old-fashioned English, and

they immediately have to change language, they can't stand it. Five minutes later they

have to take a step down to the German or Swiss German or whatever'. (ll. 248-255).

On the other hand, his ignorance of Swiss German and his refusal to learn it reflect

precisely that tension that appears throughout the interview between Jorge and them, the

Swiss: Jorge has lived in Switzerland for eleven years, he's married to a Swiss and has a

Swiss passport, but he doesn't have the feeling of forming a part of that national collective.

On the contrary, he feels rejected, just as he himself rejects Swiss German.

However, if we now take the macro-level, that of dominant discourses, and in this

specific case, that of linguistic ideologies, Jorge's position reflects an obvious linguistic

system based on standard languages. Jorge recognises the linguistic capital of

plurilingualism, understood not as heteroglossic practices but as the differentiated

treatment of standard languages. Swiss German, due to its condition of dialects that are

only learnt in communicational proximity, isn't only of no use to Jorge but is found at the

lowest level of the linguistic hierarchy. We also show Jorge's position in the face of the

varieties of English reflects a purist discourse that places British English above American
English and, of course, above more or less mixed varieties used by most non-native

English speakers, including the Swiss. This dimension of his linguistic ideology is quite

interesting and reveals how former purist linguistic ideologies are recontextualised in the

framework of the linguistic ideologies of today's late capitalism, that promote

multilingualism as cultural capital and instrument of social mobility. In his argument

Jorge resorts to the ideologeme of the purism of the original mother tongue as opposed to

the more spurious forms that constitute the variants derived from a mother tongue (see,

for instance, Calvet 1974). This ideologeme, by the way, is widely popular in Spanish-

speaking Latin American countries, where for centuries peninsular Spanish has enjoyed

an absolute supremacy in terms of linguistic value, precisely due to a purist and culturally

colonial discourse that from the top down has considered purity and legitimacy to be

closely linked to the origin of language (see Lastra 1993).

Conclusions
After analysing at levels 1 and 2 of positioning how Jorge perceives himself and

other collectives, such as those of Latin Americans, Swiss Germans and Germans, at level

3 these perceptions have been related to pre-existing normative linguistic discourses, the

product of different ideologies that are interwoven in Jorge's narratives and that prove –

as I pointed out earlier (cf. Perception and Ideologies) – that the relationship between

opposing ideologies should be understood as a dynamic porous and multidimensional

network, rather than as a strictly hierarchical and rigidly defined structure.

Languages, indeed, constitute an essential element in Jorge's identity that

crystallises during the interaction. At levels 1 and 2, Jorge perceives himself as an

intellectual, distancing himself, on the one hand, from the stereotypical unqualified Latin

American immigrant he seems to embody, and on the other, from the Swiss German

collective, and feels more identified with the German collective whose members are
migrants like him but are more open than the Swiss. A key aspect that emerges in Jorge's

narrative is his lack of acceptance by Swiss Germans, which he believes is due to

phenotypic and communicative issues. The communicational factor seems to point to two

elements: the pragmatic element, a less direct and less open way of communicating, and

the sociolinguistic element, for Jorge doesn't speak any dialect, finding no use for such

varieties, despite having a perfect command of the standard German that the Swiss regard

as neither an ethnic variety nor a representation of group solidarity.

Level 3, where the narratives of the other two levels are connected to pre-existing

normative discourses, in this specific case to systems of linguistic normativity, offers

quite a clear outline of the role of languages and systems of normativity in Jorge's identity.

His intellectual identity is reflected in his command of several languages: German, French

and English. Precisely these linguistic skills seem to distinguish him from the

stereotypical unqualified migrant from Latin America. As to the local collective that Jorge

systematically positions as 'the Others', his explicit rejection of German Swiss indexes

both the distance that he feels separates him from this collective, and the distance that he

perceives the local collective establishes between itself and him. His rejection of German

Swiss, a variety he finds no use for and which, from the point of view of systems of

normativity is subordinated to the standard variety of German, iconises his greater sense

of identity with the Germanic collective.

Particularly remarkable is the role played by British English. On the one hand,

Jorge places this variety, that reflects the ideology of late capitalism like the one at the

apex of linguistic hierarchy, above standard German; on the other, clearly influenced by

a purist ideology, he places it at the top of Anglo-Saxon linguistic hierarchy. By means

of this linguistic condition of British English, Jorge expresses his (linguistic) superiority

and his elitist condition as opposed to the local collective. Thus, his system of linguistic
normativity acts as a mechanism to draw closer to collectives with which he feels more

identified, and distance himself from others. It is also a way of strengthening his self-

esteem in a social space that is different to his, a space where he doesn't really feel

accepted. Moreover, from an analytical point of view, it is interesting to observe how

purist ideologies are recontextualised and the roles they play. Therefore the ideologeme

that the purest variety is the mother of all varieties, which is widespread in Latin America

in connection with European Spanish or Castilian and its American variants, is redefined

in a context of migration in which the command of a globally prestigious variety enables

Jorge, a Latin American migrant in Switzerland, to consider himself superior to the local

collective, from which he feels rejected.

In short, the analysis of Jorge's narratives reveals that languages play a key role

in how he constructs his identity throughout them. It is through languages that Jorge feels

closer to some ethnic groups and further away from others, which do not only include

Swiss German, by the way, but also the Latin American collective. Indeed, it is precisely

thanks to his command of languages – standard German, British English and French –

that he portrays himself as above both the stereotypical Swiss and the Latin American

migrant. Over and above the labels that can be assigned to this collective in

macrosociological terms, the narratives reveal the importance of examining the

subjectivity of subjects as social actors.

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