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‘I'm Mexican, remember?’ Constructing ethnic identities via authenticating discourse 1
Author(s) -
Shenk Petra Scott
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of sociolinguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9841
pISSN - 1360-6441
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9841.2007.00318.x
Subject(s) - ethnic group , ideology , nationality , friendship , sociology , identity (music) , casual , linguistics , relation (database) , gender studies , immigration , aesthetics , anthropology , history , political science , politics , art , philosophy , social science , computer science , archaeology , database , law
This paper examines how an ideology of cultural authenticity emerges in the casual but playful conversations of a bilingual Mexican American friendship group. Authenticating discourse, as illustrated here, is part of an ongoing, ordinary interactional routine through which speakers take overt (authentication) stances, which I call authenticating moves , to display, impugn, vie for, and enact forms of ethnic identity. In the data, issues of authenticity in relation to Mexicanness emerge as a result of the interactional exploitation of three ideological constructs: purity of bloodline, purity of nationality, and Spanish linguistic fluency.