THOMAS LUCKMANN AND HUBERT KNOBLAUCH
Language and Communication in the Construction of Personal, Ethnic and National Identity
Introduction
Language is a potent medium of the awareness of groups and societies as communities of fate. It is a reminder of the past and an instrument of day-to-day practical activities. -The implication of language in the formation of collective identities, in particular of national identities, seems to be universal. Typically, language is one of the constitutive elements of personal, subjective consciousness as well as of the awareness of collective identity. Under certain historical circumstances such consciousness takes the form of national consciousness. The intimate connection between language, culture, and national identity is not inexplicable, and substantial research has already been devoted to this issue.' In our contribution we shall be concerned with the theoretical problem of the link between personal identity and language in general; an outline of the communicative processes involved in identity formation will serve to provide the context for some considerations about ethnic and national components of personal identities, followed by a short comparison of the German and Slovenian case.
Just as the concept of "institution", a key term of social theory, did not receive a universally accepted definition, so is another important term, "personal identity". interpreted and applied in rather different, usually misleadingly psychologizing ways. We begin therefore with a brief statement of our assumptions about the nature of personal identity.'
The Evolutionary Emergence of Personal Identity as a Historical Form of Life
Personal identity is the specifically human form of the organization of life. It emerged from older forms of life as a result of a series of phylogenetic developments. In contradistinction to the "personality" of other species, it is characterized by "excentricity".' This involves central, conscious, long-range control over its behaviour by individual organisms. The potential for such control developed slowly in consequence of the interaction of the anatomical and physiological evolution of the human body, the evolution of human consciousness, and the correlative
' The besl known «wicni«lic ucitnicm ol Ihc luur by • poUtiml Ibcorot b Karl W Deuudi. VanWiim and Sotial Ccmmiuucalioii An tngury <nto ihf foimdaaoiaofNiuumaltD.. C>nibrid|!e/ Mass I»«. (Ut ed. 195J) In the woolog» of lingiuge it wm Joshu« A Fnhimn »ho dckutcd much o( his reseirch to ihb m»iict. Cf.. t. %.. hi» Lanfrngf and Saaona-lism. Rowley/ Mass 1972. Thr Risr and Fall of thf Ethnic Rnival. BeiUn' Ne« Yotk 1985
' These rental ks are based on previous work and publicalions on pervmal idenlily O. Thomas Lockmann. "Pers^mal Idcnlily as an Evolulionary and Historical Problem", in: M von Cranadi el al (eds ). Human Elholaty. Clami and Limia of a New DacipUnt. Cambridge 1979. pp 56-74, and "Remarks on Personal Identity: Inner, Soaal and HislotKal Time", in: AmiaJacob5on-Widding(ed.).;<fr(i(>ry. Pm«iw/W.5ocio.Cul(imiZ, t'ppsala 1984. pp 67-91. from whkh many of the following passages are uken For bibliographical references we may relet to these papers
' a. Helmulh Plessner, his Die Snifen da Orj[«i<5<-*«i und der Mrmch. Berlin 1975 (1st ed : 1928).
evolution of social organization. It seems highly plausible to assume that one of the most important factors in this complicated process was the increasing individualization of social relations. That, of course, was only possible in a species with extraordinarily high intra-specific behavioral variability. Conversely, it seems highly implausible that language, technology, and culture could have evolved without increasing conscious control of individual behaviour in social interaction.
The evolution of personal identity also presupposed that individual organisms could manage a considerable degree of detachment from their situational "here and now". Personal identity, although it must not be confounded with selfcon-sciousness, does indeed rest upon the kind of reflective consciousness which begins with a certain degree of situational detachment. One of the main conditions for such detachment is that the organism should be able to experience the environment through a rich variety of senses as a reasonably stable and predictable structure of objects and events, so that the individual becomes capable of integrating sequences of typical situations into a "history" of events. The evolution of such faculties was the necessary condition for the ability to delay responses to immediate situational stimuli and, eventually, to suppress some responses altogether for the sake of fictively anticipated and volitionally projected ends transcending the immediate situation. The "excentric" ability of the individual to locate himself in a "historical" world transcending his immediate environment enabled him to engage collectively in actions over long and discontinuous sequences of overt behaviour.
The detachment from the immediacy of one's own experiences rests on atten-tiveness to others and the ability to assess the reflections of one's own actions in the actions of others. Protracted and intensive attention to the behaviour of other individuals and a reasonably coherent assessment of their reactions emerged in societies which were based on highly individualized and thus already somewhat "historicized" relations among the members of a group. The most important circumstance contributing to this development was very probably the long dependence of the child on the mother in the higher mammals. The evolution of long-term centralized control by the individual over his behavior and the evolution of traditional structures of individualized social interaction are mutually dependent processes. Together they are responsible for the change of individual con.scious-ness as well as of social organizations from "natural" to "historical" entities.
Evolution in the strict sense of the term ceased to determine human life as subjectively and collectively meaningful existence extending over and beyond an individual's span of life. Social interaction, beginning with face-to-face encounters, continuing with the complex patterns of life in relatively small groups and societies all the way to the bureaucratized political economy of modern industrial societies and nation-states, is "externally" regulated by social in.stitutions rather than genetic codes.' Since institutionalization occurs whenever there is a reciprocal typification of habitualized actions by types of actors, the functioning of institutions presupposes the existence of individual actors who live in a historical worid, that is to say, actors whose actions have motives and goals that are neither bound and limited to concrete, immediate situations nor to the individual organism. An individual is - and is held - responsible for past actions and oriented toward future actions. Thus, to say that personal identity is a temporal structure is to say that it is a moral one.
' Cf Arnold Ochkn. Vrmrmch und SpHkubur. Fnnklutt/Main. 'l»7!( (' 1956) 7 1 7 Tcori|i in pf»kM, kl. 30. « 7-8. Mubljina 1993
The Social Construction of Personal Identity
The human child is born with a body that is the result of phylogenesis. It is born with a phylogenetically determined potential for the development of elementary structures of consciousness ranging from basic emotions to a certain level of "intelligence". It is also born with a set range of social requirements and inclinations. In other words, the child's ontogenesis has a natural history. But although this determines the "nature" of its life, in some respects inexorably, and in others as a limit to alternative possibilities, it does not directly determine the course of its life. The course of human life is not simply a sequence of open possibilities resting upon a genetic infra-structure. There is a second, a socially superimposed level of existential determination which is a product of history.
The individual course of human life is determined by the fact that a historical socialization of the individual is superimposed upon the maturation of the organism. The relation between individual and society is established in a process in which the individual organism acquires a historical personal identity in a social process that presupposes both phylogenetic and historical structures.
A historically specific social structure and a historically specific world view influence the course of human life by way of institutional "norms". Individual action and orientation is geared to these "norms" as the individual comes to know them, and he comes to know them in communicative and, most importantly, symbolic processes which are based upon the acquisition and use of a language.
The norms of a historical social structure and world view determine the character of the primary social relations into which the child is placed from its birth. They define the child's kinship position and its legal status and they influence its survival chances. These norms shape the way in which the child is likely to be treated, and they are translated into direct injunctions. An historical social structure and a historical world view thus shape the most intricate aspects of the social relations in which the child matures. At the same time, a world of typical objects and events, and of significant connections between them, is being established in these relations in a transition from primitive "action-dialogue" to genuine, language-based dialogue.' Except for bodily functions, the individual does not experience himself directly; what is given to him in immediate experience is a structured and changing environment of which other individuals are an essential part. Their bixlies are experienced as expressing their feelings, moods, intentions, and projects. Inasmuch as fellow human beings experience an individual as a significant part of their environment, the individual experiences directly another's experience of him. Thereby he comes to experience himself indirectly. Personal identity is thus a result of an intersubjective (pre-linguistic as well as linguistic) communicative process. Cooley's" metaphor of the "l<x>king-glass effect" aptly represents the process in which one individual is reflected in another's experience. In face-to-face encounters the experience (and not. to begin with, the more complex reflective consciousness) of one's self is built up in experiences of another.
Reciprocal mirroing is an elementary condition for the formation of personal identities. But reciprocal mirroring in the here and now of face-to-face encounters is only a necessary but not sufficient condition. A second condition is the mutual
' We are rcfenng (o a concept formulated by Jerome S BruiKr in his analvsis o{ mother-child interaction. Cf. his ChMs M/Jk Lmnuig lo Vu Unfuate. New York 198}
' a. Charles H.Cooley. Hume/1 \iirurrofirf(V.So«WOr<fer. New York'19M ('1902)
recollection of the actions of the other in past face-to-face situations and the reciprocal imposition of responsibility for past actions. The alter ego in today's encounter is the same one as in yesterday s, and the ego can see conversely that he is perceived as the same one by alter ego. Personal identity originates in the reciprocity of face-to-face encounters. As the individual matures from »within«, moral identity is imposed from »without« in collective memory.'
Intersubjective "mirroring" is a concept which refers to the formal properties of a process which in fact is the enounter of physically and historically concrete individuals. The alter egos involved in the earliest social relations of the child have formed personal identities in their own earlier and earliest social relations which apin were with historically unique, socially typical individuals. A historical worid view, i.e., s particular sediment of past interpretations of reality, mediated through language, shaped their knowledge of the worid. and a historical social structure with specific institutions and "norms", i.e.. the sediment of a particular enchainment of past actions, influenced their own actions.
Of course, personal identities are not clo.sed and definitive. Although the most important elements of personal identity are established in these early phases of socialization, later social interactions, from face-to-face encounters to purely symbolic and mediated forms of "mirroring", support, reinforce, modify, or threaten personal identities.
To sum up: Personal identity emerges in intersubjective experiences whose (moral) meaning is mediated throuhg social interaction embedded in a historical social structure. Social interaction presupposes (and modifies and. originally, constructs) shared social knowledge and an awareness of others as being part of the "We" of the "They". Thus the formation of personal identity may include a salient ethnic dimension.' All these processes depend upon the typifications of self and others embodied in a language.
Language and Social Reality
A concrete social structure and a historical world view determine the processes of intersubjective mirroring, and thus of the formation of personal identity, directly by way of the perstjnal identities of the adults who come into contact with the child in its first social relationships. As genuine, language-based dialogue is slowly superimposed in the socialization process upon the "action dialogue" in which the earliest of these relationships arc constituted, social structure and world view begin to enter into the development of personal identity in still another way. They are the reference points of the symbolic forms of language which, first acquired in the "primitive" forms of action-dialogue, are used with increasing complexity in processes of self- and other-typifications, in the symbolic construction of a historic "We".
Languages embody specific world views. The internal structure of a language objectivâtes the fundamental set of taxonomies of reality, orientations, and values. The typical experiences of physical and social problems in the hfe of earlier gener-
' Inicrnlingly. ihU » a pomi only ngucly lowhcd upon by Mauncc Halbwichs (tui mtmatrr eottrcnvt. Para 1950) in his ucauncni of ihe hnka between 'auioNopaphic" and "coUective" memory (CI eipedally pp 35 (f ).
• For a receni Irealmenl ol coneeptio« ol ethnic identity ch. Richard D Alba. Elhnir Idnlin. Ne» Haven and London 1990. 21H
ations, along with appropriate social "solutions", are stored in and locked into the syntactical structure and semantic inventory of a language.'
Language is the main medium for the social construction of reality. It is also the most important medium for the social transmission and subjective internalization of such realities.'" Next to its primary communicative and interactive function, the most important social function of language is its role in stabilizing subjective systems of pragmatic and moral orientation. It may be said that for the human species, the achievement of stabilized signification in a language represents an evolutionary "leap". It is an indispensable condition of normal human existence."
The mošt important process in the social construction of reality is the objecti-vation of problems and of solutions to problems in everyday life. It is most important because the objectivations come to form a system that is a phonetic-semantic-syntactic whole which refers to a wide variety of divergent realities - past, present, and potential. These range from a socially pre-defined topography of the world (from botanical taxonomies to kinship terminologies) to a "vocabulary of motives"'^ and a "logic" and "rhetoric" of action."
The reality-building function of language joins the individual speaker to a historical community, or even sets of historical communities as may be the ca.se with bilinguals. For the individual, language is not only the condition of normal social interaction, it also helps to shape his subjective experience. Of course it is not language in the abstract but a concrete historical language. (The actual use of language is determined by communicative matrices that are embedded in - and socially controlled by - institutions, groups, classes.) In addition to the reality-building function, language is the most important instrument in the legitimation of symbolic universes. As a moral rhetoric, language is a partial guarantee of the socially constructed normal worlds of entire societies, nations, classes, and social groups.
Whereas the main function of language consists in signification, it fulfills two more functions: language is indicative: individual styles of speech, linguistic repertoires. prosodical features indicate the personal identity of the speaker: moreover, as MalinoNv-ski noted, language has a "phatic" function: Speaking places the speaker within a social structure by means of identification, solidarity and rapport, or by distinction, difference and distance."
Commimicauon and the Basis of Nationality
As an objectivated system of meaning, language is the most stabilized medium of communication. At the same time it is a system of knowledge as well as a system
* Some o( Ihe fofmuUHom »hkh follow are taken from Tboma-s Luckroann. "Elemenn of a Soaal Theory of Cominunication". in: Thomas Luckmann. Ufr- WorU md Social Hralinn, l.ondon 19«3. pp AÄ-9I
Cf. Lev S-V«olsk) . -Thoughl and Speech", in t^ychiary. 2 (IM9). and Michael A K llallidav. Expkinuiaia ,n the Funcnom of tMfiutgt. lauSon 1973.
" Human etperience and action are structured by prevkws experiences and actions: the «hemes of esperience and action are "solutioos" to recurring problems, problems which emerge subjeetiveh in ecologically, insitutionally. and culturally determined contots Solutwns ol prolems of more than individual relevance are formulated m language Cf. Peter Hailmann. Die Sprache aU Farm. The Hague 1959
" C. Wnght MUls. "Situated Actions and Vocabulanes of Motive", in: American Softofojric«/ Äene». 5 (1940) " Cf. Kenneth Burke. A Crammar of .Moava, Berkeley and tXM AngeleVCal. 1969
a Bronislaw Malinuw^ki. The problem ol meanmg in pnmitise Unguages. in: Chartes K Ogilen and J A Richards (ed».). The Mratunf of Meanmg, New York 1923
of action. As knowledge it is unevenly distributed in society; as action it is realized within concrete social situations. Language, the main medium in the construction of social reality, is also the main medium of its transmission. And, of course, the process of transmission is Ihe process of "social communication".
Social communication has been considered by Kari Deutsch as the functional basis of nationality: "Membership in a people essentially consists in wide complementarity of s<Kial communication. It consists in the ability to communicate more effectively, and over a wide range of subjects, with members of one large group rather than with outsiders." The primary basis of the national group alignment is the "complementarity of communication habits"". Whereas Deutsch understood communication habits in terms of information theory, recent sociolin-guistic research has pointed to the concrete formation of such habits in "speech communities".
A speech community can be defined as any human aggregate based on regular interaction and sharing certam communicative conventions which guide these interactions and the reciprcKal interpretations of their meaning. Speech communities do not only differ with respect to lexical and syntactical aspects of language, Ihe choice of registers, rhetorical devices, conversational rituals (such as greeting and saying g<xidbye), and communicative genres. Communicative conventions also include prosodical markers, paralinguistic tokens such as tempo and pausing, code-selection, formulaic expressions as well as eye-gaze", gestures and other non-verbal conventions."
Speech communities can be said to have a "budget" of such communicative means shared by the members of the community. The communicative budget comprises the different means of communication used in specific situations, milieus, and social groups. The knowledge of prosodic features in service encounters is as much part of that "budget" as it the knowledge how to handle a job interview. This "budget" also includes the knowledge which communicative acts are to be performed within specific social settings, and between what categories of actors."
Shared communicative conventions arise in the communicative matrices of social networks (groups, milieus, institutions). The specific conventions are learned, performed and come to be expected in regular patterns of social interaction. Such networks may overiap situationally: thus instead of caste lines of division in India, Gumperz finds situationally varying rules of caste-linked code-switching." In a study of an Austrian town. Gal describes how macrostructural changes, such as industrialization, urbanization and political centralization, changed the evaluation of the local languages-Hungarian and German-and di.s-rupled social networks that had required members to show solidarity through the
" Dcuiuh. op. nl. »7
" r Iinckson and J l .Shulu. (,c dcmonnralcd Ihc dillcrrni inlcfactivc mc ,ind wcial mcaninf of c)«.|atc in job i-ounwllinj inicfvKKt heiwccn Black American» and Whiln THr Courutlar <u Gauknptr Sacul and Cultural Urganizad-on of Communuanon in Cnunselint Inirnmx N«» ^ otk 19«2.
' • At early as ihe 1 y4(K David Eflon descnbed ihe nonverbal gestures of American Jews and Aractxan Italians, and he demonstrated the merging of these gestures as a consequence of the cultural contact betvi'een these groups Gcnurr. Ract and Culluit. The Hague 197:
" Folloomg Oell llvmcs. such knowledge »as termed ' comniunieative competencc" by John J Gumperz and defined in interactiimal terms as "the kmmledge of lragui.stlc and related communicative conventXHts that speakers must have to create and sustain cnnversational cnopcralion" John J Onimperz. Ducounr Slralrgirs. Cambridge 19(12. 209.
72 I Teoriia in prakia. let .V>. It 7-8. LjuWiana 199.1
use of the local variety.'" Different communicative conventions mark different social networks for their members - and. of course, for the analyst. Thus Milroy showed how the complex social networks in Belfast enforce the use of phonological variants and constrains the social meaning of those variants."
Within a given speech community social networks may provide the basis for a structure of commonality which allows for routine interaction and communication. Thus social networks within a speech community bear a striking conceptual similarity to what Deutsch called a people: its members "are united by more intensive social communication, and are linked to these centers and leading groups by an unbroken chain of communications..."" And, indeed, as sociolinguistic research shows, ethnicity may be said to form a "boundary" marked by common linguistic usage, e. g. in the form of dialectical varieties" or speech styles. Ethnicity is a category which can become situationally relevant by communicative marks and by a process of linguistic sorting."
Social networks, however, cannot be simply conflated with "ethnic groups"; there are identity categories other than ethnic ones (such as class, gender or age) which can become relevant in social interaction. What, then, makes for the specific social relevance of ethnic or national identities?
The Symbolic Construction of Ethnic and National Identities
According to Weber, an ethnic group is one whose members "entertain a subjective belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or both, or because of memories of colonization and migration."" In addition to the basic interactive formation of an ethnic group which is distinguished from another by its similarities of habits, communicative conventions and overlapping networks, there is. as Hechter stresses" a second basis of ethnicity: reactive group formation whereby an ethnic group reasserts its historically established distinctions from other groups within a common national polity. Thus ethnicity can also be considered an "artificial" (Weber) "community of the mind"" based on a subjective belief, "no matter whether or not an objective blood relationship exists"»
It may be that the social relevance of ethnicity becomes particularly salient under conditions of social and geographical mobility. In fact, the structure of ethnicity may have begun to change significantly. The "old ethnicity" was a "community of the ground";'* it was supported both regionally and interpersonally through reinforced local social networks which joined people through clusters of occupational, neighborhood, familial, and political ties"» To the degree that eth-
» Suun G»l. Lantuatr Shid. Ne» Vcwk 197» " LcsIk Milroy. Lm%uafr and Soda! Strworki. Bjllimorc 19»n " Deuuch. op. Ol.
" J. Gumpen in«) Jenny Cook-Gumpen. Iniroduetion. in. iMtiuigt anä Social tjmaiy. C'jmhrulgc 1982. I, " F. Birth. IniraductKm. in: Elknir Croups und Bimäana. 0»lo 1969. 9-JS " M« Weber. Economy and Socitty. New York 196«. 389
Miehjel Hechlet. Nauomlism n Group Solidarity. in: ElhnK and Racwl Smdin 10. * (1987). 415-426. " Emertch K Frwcu. Inurethnic Rtliuions An Eisat In Saciolapeal Throry. New York 1976 " Webet. Inc. dt
" John J.Gumpen. Theoty and melhod m plurigloisia: The inlerpretivc analyti»ol lanjuage uje. in: R Gusmani (ed.). Aiptm nulodolofid e uond ndlf ricmhr lulpluritinguamn nti tttnloti deC Alpt-Adrta. Udme (in preis) Gumpen/Cook Gumpen (1982). S
nie groups become mobile, and especially if they disperse in consequence of mobility, or to the degree as hitherto separate groups are brought together by other ways (such as mediated communication), ethnicity comes to depend less on face-to-face relations and more upon a different kind of communication network. The "new ethnicity depends less upon geographic proximity and shared occupations and more upon the highlighting of key differences separating one group from another.""' Instead of being purely instrumental, this kind of ethnicity tends to be ascriptive, resembling what Herbert Gans calls "symbolic ethnicity"." It is constituted by regular communication conventions as well as by ideologically motivated loyalty to a speech variety. On the basis of the development of political and social institutions, it may be oriented towards political and sixrial support in the pursuit of common interest." To the same degree as communicative processes may come to symbolize a shared culture, language is the symbol system most likely to embody a whole ethnonational constellation." Therefore, within the social network considered as a communicative matrix, language itself is predestined to become an ideological rallying point for whatever elites are involved in the social communication of nationhood: The bourgeoisie, certain parts of the aristocracy, the clergy, various parts of the intelligentsia, the military." How important its role is in the formation and maintenance of such consciousness depends on the salience of other constituent elements." Among them are the history of an ethnically and linguistically distinct group as an administrative - not necessarily autonomous-entity, as in the case of Quebec, in comparison with, e.g., the Bretagne, the presence or absence of religious homogeneity, as in the contrast between Poland and Germany, the presence or absence of a linguistic, ethnic, or racial "foil" (what a difference in this regard between insular and homogeneous Japan and the multilingual, multiethnic Balkans!). Within a society the vernacular of the more powerful groups gains greater legitimacy, authority and prestige than the language of the subordinated; the use of minority languages may function as a "language of solidarity" allowing for economic claims among the co-ethnics.
To repeat: The implication of language in the formation of collective identities in general, and national identities in particular, seems to be universal. If language did not play a decisive role in the creation of feudal and eariy modem "nation-states" such as France, it was anything but a negligible factor in the maintenance of its cultural and, at least indirectly, political coherence. In the case of the preparation of later national states, as in the instance of Germany, the "delayed nation"", it played a more substantial role. Not surprisingly, however, language tended to be still more important in the case of smaller, ethnically and linguistically "beleaguered" peoples which either once had a sovereign state of their own
" Ciumpcr//Cook-Oiunpcn(l9«2). 5
" llcrbcn Guns. SymholK F.thnkity The (uiuic of cihnic group» und cultures in Ametici. in: Eihmc and Racial Studln. 2(1979). 1-20.
" Cf G Carin Bcnllcy. Ethnicity and PractKc. In: Compatauvc Studin in SocKty and History (1987). 24-55.
Cf. Joshua A. Fishman. Language and culture, in: A.Kupcr. J Kuper (eds.). Thf Social Sctmcf Encyclopedia. London 198S
" Thus, nationality "means an akgnmcnt of Urge numbers of individuals from the middle and lower classes linked to regional centers and leading social groups by channels of social communication and economic imercourK. both indirectly from link to link and directly with the center." Oeutsch, op. at. 101.
^ The political participation in democratic communication is only one possible modem although historically not necessary condition Jürgen Habermas. Staaisburgcrschalt und nationale Identität Überlegungen lur europatschen Zukunft Sankt Gallen: Erker 1992. 9(f seems to think differently
" Cf Helmuth Plessner. Dit vmpimt Sation. Stuttgart 1969.
and lost their independence after an extended period of time (as in Armenia. Lithuania, and Poland - Ireland represents a somewhat different case as the language was largely lost in everyday use although not in its |X)tency) or achieved some sort of independence only after the First World War and lost it again after the Second (as in the case of Latvia) or never had a sovereign state of their own in the strict sense of the term, but developed a sense of nationhood as part of larger political units (as did the Slovenes in Carniola and Styria, first in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.)
In the German case language played a most important, albeit diffuse role in the formation of national identity. After the "kleindeutsche" solution by Bismarck, a national political identity was superimposed on the romantic notion of commun-ality by the "pluricentric" language" (which, however, continues to function as a diffuse criterion of "ethnic Germanhotnl " to this day. e.g. in identifying " Russian Germans").
Given a low degree of national identity in pre-unification '■West-Germany"'*, the unification itself promted the necessity of a redefenition of national identity. Since this coincided with the increase of immigration, the lack of familiarity of East-Germans with immigrants as well as the fear of a simultaneous status loss, racial antipathy among the ranks of this CJerman variety of "poor white trash" should have been foreseeable.
The communicative construction of ethnicity is marked by its symbolic representation." If we look at ethnic nationalism in its most pertinent expression, the skinheads ("Ich bin deutsch"). the symbolic emblems hint at surprising features. Instead of a commonality of descent, we find an emblematic eclecticism and ritualization. which, rather than being based on ethnic or national culture, mixes elements of American and British youth culture (baseball bats. DocMarten shoes, Jeans) with provocative, morally laden icons of German niizism." And their social structure (still) seems to be that of modern tribalism'- rather than that of an ethnically based, national organization. Instead of symbolizing an autochtonous ethnic tradition, this form of nationalism seems to be a symbolic "mise-en-scene" of a supranational "Western" opposition to the intrusion of the Second and Third World. Slovenian national identity, to take an entirely different example, seems to be tied in a particularly intimate and powerful fashion to the Slovenian language. Nowhere did language play a comparably important part in the articulation of ethnic and national identity as in those post-Herderian, romantic social constructions of nationhood that had to fall back upon a readymade theory of the linguistic "essence" of the "soul" of a people. In the case of Slovenia a fortunate historical circumstance, the Bible translation into the vernacular by Luther's contemporary. Primus Trubar, provided a document of national-linguistic continuity which only needed to be resurrected from its Counterreformation oubli. Thus the personal identities of the members of Slovenian cultural proto-elites and elites which have
^ Cf. Michact OyiK. iMnfuaitf and Soaen in Iht Gfrman-SpfaiinK Cituntnes. Cambridge 198V.
* In international comparnon. "natkmal pride" has bccn low in West Germanv. and therc was a low affective rclation to thc tepublic Cf Bettina Westle. Strukturen nationaler Identität in Ost. und Westdeutschland, in Kitlnti Ztiechhfi für Soziologie und So:uilpiycholoiiir J (1992). 4(.l-4«8. 466
^ Cf. Hans-Georg Socffncr. Amlegung des AlUags - der Alltag der Äialegung; 2. Ordnung der Rituale, frankfun 1992 (im Ed.)
" Cf. Burkhard Schröder. Rechte Kerle. Skinheads. Faschos. Hooligans. Reinbek 1992. (On ritualuaiion esp pp 100 IT.).
" Cf- Maffesoli. U lempj des mbus, Pans 1988
strong roots in their national identity also have a conspicuous linguistic component.
The conscious articulation of links between language, culture, society and the individual began to take shape in the 19. century among those not insubstantial parts of the Slovenian clergy whose emerging national awareness was mediated through their languageconsciousness. The articulation of these links became the key component of the self-awareness of the Slovenian people, continued through many ups and downs to this day. The "lllyrian" option of Southern Slavic linguistic merger was considered seriously by parts of the Slovenian literary intelligentsia of the second half of the 19. century. The "Yugoslav" fusion, however, was rejected by the overwhelming majority of clerical, liberal, and, remarkably communist intellectuals in the kingdom-phase and after the Second World War in the new republic. The present generation of Communist. ex-Communist. non-Communist and anti-Communist intellectuals rearticulated these links programmati-cally in its demands for linguistic, cultural, and political autonomy in the iis face of the many real (and possibly some imagined) threats against these dimensions of human self-determination which are perceived as essential by them. What happened after the refusal of the Serb national bolshevik clique around MiloSevié and CosiC to consider anything but Serb and party hegemony, is common knowledge.
725 Tcohia in pniui. k1. 30. it. 7-8. MuMjuu 1993