TYPES OF STRATEGIES OF THE SOUTHERN DIALECT SPEAKERS

Abstract

The paper focuses on the Southern Serbian dialect speaker linguistic strategies in everyday interactions, with emphasis on the academic setting. Building on the findings of the qualitative research (in-depth interviews), a possible classification of the Southern speakers (standardizing, non-standardizing and eclectic group) is proposed. The analysis of these groups and their linguistic strategies (convergence/ assimilation, divergence/dissimilation and maintenance) is conducted in an interdisciplinary manner, interfacing the Bourdieusian theoretical framework with the key concepts from the Communicative Accommodation Theory (CAT). In addition to contributing an authentic approach to studying and understanding language-based stigma, and the power relations underlying it, the goal of this paper is to point out the potent alleys for future research.