Metaphors for language contact and change

Abstract

Abstract This chapter analyses the discursive construction of Croatian language identity and demonstrates that figurative language plays a crucial role in the process of national and linguistic (dis)identification. The ideological nature and complexity of nations and languages make both concepts highly susceptible to figuration. Based on an analysis of ninety-seven sociolinguistic texts authored by influential social actors, published from 1995 up to the present day, I propose a schematic scenario – an unacceptable language phenomenon is a danger to the nation – that both underlies puristic language ideology and indirectly sustains the status of the Croatian language as a national emblem. Conceptualizations of language contact and change in terms of drowning, colonization, illness, and poisoning constitute the core of the metaphor-based scenario, discursively construing danger to the language and nation.

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