LANGUAGE AS AN ELEMENT OF THE POSTCOLONIAL OTHERNESS
Keywords:
Otherness, ethnic minority community, language, gender, higher education, Vojvodina, Serbia
Abstract
The aim of the paper is to present and explain the difficulties of students and teaching staff with Serbian, the majority language in the higher education system of Serbia, through the concept of Otherness, known from postcolonial theories. The paper is based on thirty-one semi-structured interviews conducted with Hungarian female and male teaching staff and students, who studied or worked at the University of Novi Sad or the University of Belgrade. In their narratives, ethnic minority women and men portray, explain, hide, or even emphasize their Otherness connected to language. The paper sheds light on the way in which language skill (majority or minority) is transformative; initially it is a disadvantage, but later it becomes an advantage during studies and also, in building university careers. The paper reveals through the concept of Otherness how students and university staff members of Hungarian ethnicity reflect on their experience with language difficulty, or how they have created an advantage thanks to their Otherness, or view their disadvantage through the prism of fate they cannot change.
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Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1985. The Rani of Sirmur: an essay in reading the archives. History and Theory 24 (3): 247–272.
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Székely, Gergő I.– Horváth, István. 2014. Diversity recognition and minority representation in Central and Southeast Europe: A comparative analysis. Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity 42 (3): 426–448.
Takács Zoltán. 2013. Felsőoktatási határ/helyzetek. Szabadka: Magyarságkutató Tudományos Társaság.
Vincze Enikő. 2012. Társadalmi kirekesztés és interszekcionalitás. Kultúra és Közösség 4 (3–4): 71–86.
Bene Annamária. 2000. Vajdaság, egyetem, kétnyelvűség. Iskolakultúra 10 (5): 3–13. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Brons, Lajos. 2015. Othering, an Analysis. Transience, a Journal of Global Studies 6 (1): 69–90.
Brubaker, Rogers. 1996. Nationalism reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the new Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Childs, Peter–Williams, Patrick. 1997. An Introduction to Post – Colonial Theory. London: Pearson Education Limited.
Csernicskó István. 2009. Az ukrajnai oktatáspolitika a nyelvi asszimiláció szolgálatá- ban. Korunk 20 (2): 33–40.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. 1989. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum. PhilPapers 140 (1): 139–167.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé. W. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review 43 (6): 1241–1299.
Crenshaw, Kimberlé W. 2004. Intersectionality: The Double Bind of Race and Gender. Sheila Thomas interjúja. Perspectives, tavaszi szám. http://www.americanbar. org/content/dam/aba/publishing/perspectives_magazine/women_perspectives_ Spring2004CrenshawPSP.authcheckdam.pdf., (2020. aug. 30.)
Esterberg G., Kristin. 2001. Qualitative Methods in Social Research. USA: McGraw- Hill Higher Education.
Fairclough, Norman. 1989. Language and Power. London: Longman.
Filipović, Jelena–Vučo, Julijana–Đurić, Ljiljana. 2007. Critical review of language education policies in compulsory primary and secondary education in Serbia. Current Issues in Language Planning. Channel View Publications 8 (1): 1–20.
Fishman, Joshua. A. 1991. Reversing language shift. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Göncz Lajos. 2004. A vajdasági magyarság kétnyelvűsége. Szabadka: Magyarságkutató Tudományos Társaság.
Jaspal, Rusi. 2009. Language and social identity: A psychosocial approach. Psych- Talk (64): 17–28.
Jensen, Sune Qvotrup. 2011. Othering, identity formation and agency. Qualitative Stu- dies 2 (2): 63–78.
Kontra Miklós. 2005. Tannyelv, (felső)oktatás, nyelvpolitika. In Sült galamb?: Magyar egyetemi tannyelvpolitika, szerk. Kontra Miklós 9–14. Somorja–Dunaszerdahely: Fórum Kisebbségkutató Intézet–Lilium Aurum Könyvkiadó.
Kovačević, Nataša. 2008. Narrating post/communism: colonial discourse and Europe’s borderline civilization. New York: Routledge.
Kóczé, Angéla–Popa, Raluca Maria. 2009. Missing intersectionality: Race/ethnicity, gender, and class in current research and policies on Romani women in Europe. Center for Policy Studies Working Papers. Budapest: Central European University.
Kymlicka, Will. 2007. Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Law, John. 2004. After Method: Mess in social science research. London–New York: Routledge.
Lendák-Kabók Karolina. 2016. Az interszekcionalitás vajdasági vonatkozásai. Létünk 46 (4): 73–87.
Lendák-Kabók, Karolina. 2017. Uticaj jezičke barijere na uspeh žena iz mađarske nacionalne zajednice u sistemu visokog obrazovanja Srbije. Temida 20 (1): 77–94.
Lendák-Kabók, Karolina–Lendák, Imre. 2017. Language barrier faced by Hungarian women students and teaching staff in the higher education system in Serbia. In Minority languages in education and langauge learning: Challenges and new perspectives, szerk. Filipović, J.–Vučo, J. 281–294. Belgrade: University of Belgrade.
Lendák-Kabók, Karolina. 2019. Status of Women from National Minorities in the Serbian Higher Education System – Focus on Women from the Hungarian National Minority. Doktori értekezés. Újvidék: Újvidéki Egyetem.
Lendák-Kabók, Karolina. 2020. Ethnic minority women in the Serbian academic community. European Journal of Women’s Studies (online first)
Lykke, Nina. 2010. Feminist Studies: A guide to intersectional theory, methodology and writing. New York: Routledge.
Love, Nigel–Ansaldo, Umberto. 2010. The native speaker and the mother tongue. Language Sciences 32 (6): 589–593.
Nađ, Imre. 2006. Nekoliko obeležja migracije vojvođanske elite. Zbornik Matice srpske za društvene nauke (121): 445–456.
Papp Z. Attila. 2015. Nyelvi-etnikai, nem bevándorló kisebbségi tanulók iskolai teljesítménye a PISA-felmérésekben. Educatio 24 (2): 51–64.
Papp Z. Attila. 2017. Változó kisebbség: Kárpát-medencei magyar fiatalok: A GeneZYs 2015 kutatás eredményei. Budapest: Mathias Corvinus Collegium – Tihanyi Alapítvány – MTA Társadalomtudományi Kutatóközpont Kisebbségkutató Intézet.
Saldana, Johnny. 2013. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Los Angeles: Sage publications.
Seid, yared. 2016. Does learning in mother tongue matter?: Evidence from a natural experiment in Ethiopia. Economics of Education Review 55 (1): 21–38.
Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove. 1981. Bilingualism or Not: The Education of Minorities. Cle- vedon, UK: Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1980. Revolutions that yet have no model: Derrida’s limited Inc. Diacritics 10 (4): 29–49.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1985. The Rani of Sirmur: an essay in reading the archives. History and Theory 24 (3): 247–272.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. Can the Subaltern Speak? In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, szerk. Nelson, Cary–Grossberg, Larry. 66–109. Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Székely, Gergő I.– Horváth, István. 2014. Diversity recognition and minority representation in Central and Southeast Europe: A comparative analysis. Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity 42 (3): 426–448.
Takács Zoltán. 2013. Felsőoktatási határ/helyzetek. Szabadka: Magyarságkutató Tudományos Társaság.
Vincze Enikő. 2012. Társadalmi kirekesztés és interszekcionalitás. Kultúra és Közösség 4 (3–4): 71–86.
