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Languages And Postmodern Ethnic Identities, Livia Käthe Wittmann

Ethnic Studies Review

Specific discourses of our mother tongue (which is not always our mother's tongue) are supposed to decisively constitute our subjectivity. These discourses which are constituting us and are available to us offer possible identities. These identities carry ethno-culturally-specific meanings, which are symbolised within and by spoken, written, and non-verbal language/s. Are languages given the same relevance when giving meaning to postmodern ethnicity, if one understands postmodern ethnicity as a "stance of simultaneously transcending ethnicity as a complete, self-contained system but retaining it as a selectively preferred, evolving, participatory system?" Multilinguality, as it may correspond with aspects of postmodern ethnicity, seems …