(Non)fuzziness of Identity in the Spanish-Portuguese Borderland: The Case of the Linguistic Community of A Fala de Xálima (Spain)
(Non)fuzziness of Identity in the Spanish-Portuguese Borderland: The Case of the Linguistic Community of A Fala de Xálima (Spain)

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses the social dynamics observable in a conversation with a minoritized language activist about the neighbouring speech communities. The study demonstrates that the local variety, along with its socially meaningful context, can be an important factor for the interactionally constructed local identity. The interviewee is a member of the community of practice of A Fala de Xálima, a Galician-Portuguese Romance minoritized language with about 5,000 speakers; they live in the Spanish province of Cáceres (on the border with Portugal). The analysis applies the ontological and epistemological principles of sociocultural linguistics in order to identify some indexical interactional orientations, such as stance and ideology.

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