The Language of Othering in a Diverse Europe

Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-73911-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 44, 368 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Brill's Studies in Language, Cognition and Culture

This book explores how language is used to create division and discrimination in diverse European societies by emphasizing differences in ethnicity, race, national identity, beliefs, or appearance. The authors analyze how public discourse—particularly in political and media narratives—shapes and reinforces an “us vs. them” mindset. They examine words and expressions that denigrate or marginalize specific groups in Polish, German, Czech, Slovak, and Croatian, and observe how certain communities are also reclaiming terms that were once hurtful. The analyses of linguistic strategies employed in the process of othering demonstrate that the concept of othering can be effectively applied to linguistic data.

Contributors are: Dagmara Banasiak, Marta Chojnacka-Kuras, Marta Falkowska, Jadranka Gvozdanovic, Milena Hebal-Jezierska, Agnieszka Karlinska, Anna Kolos, Marie Koprivová, Marek Lazinski, Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz, Agnieszka Mikolajczuk, Iva Petrak, Jirí Rejzek, Lucie Saicová Rímalová, Lukasz Wnuk, and Magdalena Zawislawska.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Falkowska, Marta

Linde-Usiekniewicz, Jadwiga

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Psycholinguistik, Neurolinguistik, Kognition

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures and Tables

Notes on Contributors

Othering and Language: An Introduction Marta Falkowska and Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz

Part 1 Naming for Othering in a Diachronic Perspective

1 Othering Construed and Maintained in Discourse Jadranka Gvozdanovic

2 We are my ‘us’ and They are migranti ‘migrants’, emigranti ‘emigrants’, pristehovalci ‘immigrants’, uprchlíci ‘refugees’, and Others

Othering in the Context of Migration in Czech Lucie Saicová Rímalová, Marie Koprivová, and Jirí Rejzek

Part 2 Naming for Othering in an Identity Debate

3 Naming the Other in Croatian Purist Discourse: A Study of Croatian Online Forum Debates Iva Petrak

4 Polish Neologisms cebulak ‘onioner’ and fajnopolak ‘cool-o-Pole’ as Signs of Othering within the Polish National Community Dagmara Banasiak and Lukasz Wnuk

Part 3 Naming for Othering as a Strategy of Stigmatization

5 Ethnic Names in Translation as a Measure of Their Stigmatizing Potential in the Target Language

A Parallel Corpus Study Marek Lazinski

6 Teachers (on Strike) as “the Others” in Polish Media Discourse

Contempt Speech against Teachers in Media Articles and Accompanying Comments (Results of a Pilot Study) Agnieszka Mikolajczuk

7 Linguistic Strategies of Ethnic Othering and Exclusion on the Polish Social Networking Service Wykop.pl Anna Kolos and Agnieszka Karlinska

8 Troubled Neighborhood: Ethnophaulisms Referring to Ukrainian People in Contemporary Polish Marta Falkowska

Part 4 Naming for In-group Purposes

9 Marking a Difference vs. Naming for Othering: Marginalized Groups’ Terms for Dominant Majorities

The Case of Polish Deaf Writing about the Hearing Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz

10 I’m not Obese, I’m Fat! Reclamation of Words as a Strategy for Building Group Identity in the Polish Fat People Discourse Magdalena Zawislawska and Marta Chojnacka-Kuras

11 Naming the Sides of the Israel–Hamas Conflict in Czech, Slovak, and Polish Texts Milena Hebal-Jezierska

Afterword Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewicz and Marta Falkowska

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Marta Falkowska is an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Warsaw. Her research focuses mainly on lexical semantics and cognitive grammar. She coordinated the SEED4EU+ project “Naming for Othering in a Diversified Europe”. Her forthcoming monograph deals with the concept of EMPATHY in Polish.

Jadwiga Linde-Usiekniewiczis a professor of linguistics at the University of Warsaw. Lately, her research has focused largely on hate speech phenomena and non-discriminatory (inclusive) language, as well as sign language lexicology and lexicography.