Reading between the lines: Hegemonic favouring within language-related communities

Abstract

Based on the assumption that a struggle to protect the interests of dominant groups exists in all communities, this qualitative study investigates hegemonic favouring in two language-related speech communities. Through the perspectives of focus group participants, the article reports on the discourses in Flemish and Afrikaans communities where certain ideas are presented as a matter of course -as though no alternative exists. In the Flemish focus group discussion, silences surrounding diversity issues were revealed, indicating that a healthy, diverse society where people learn from one another was not yet part of the Flemish psyche. Flemish monolingualism serves as a vehicle for stereotyping the linguistically dissimilar, and is used to maintain hegemonic practices. Demythologisation of Afrikaans history and Standard Afrikaans as undisputed norm freed the language of its previous apartheid enclaves. The pain of coloured speakers of Afrikaans having to dissociate with their home language was foregrounded in the discussion, as well as the fact that there are still many instances where whiteness is the norm against which other ethnic positions are contrasted. Setting the stageSeeing is always cultured seeing. What we see, is simply what we (think) we know, as knowledge is the result of the socially structured world we live in (Baldwin, Longhurst, McCracken, Ogborn, and Smith 2004). What happens in that socially constructed world seems normal to its inhabitants and therefore needs not to be questioned by them (Montgomery 2005;Chandler 2014).This article departs from the assumption that communities protect the interests of the dominant group in order to maintain the social structure they desire (Blommaert 2005;Chandler 2014). Many scholars believe that language forms part of such cultural and socio-political power struggles and that emphasis on language issues is often based on hidden agendas about power and control (Blommaert and Van Avermaert 2008;Van Elst and Prinsloo 2011). Hegemonic favouring, as a result of this, then presents itself through normality thinking or common-sense knowledge (Gramsci 1971) when certain perceptions are presented as normal and matter of course, while in actual fact it is only true in some cases and in some contexts (Balwin et al. 2004;Chandler 2014). Identification of hegemonic practices reveals the ideological way in which 'we' think about 'ourselves' and about 'the other', which is the aim of this article.Another assumption that this article departs from, is the fact that communities know 'the other' only in comparison to themselves and to the extent to which others are similar or different from them as the norm (