The Matter Of Language Hierarchy And Language Attitude In The Georgian Political Discourse

Abstract

This research aims to study the matter of language hierarchy and language attitude through examining code-switching used by Georgians in Georgia, in the context of current political situation depicted in media discourse. Code in this research may refer to a language, a register and style. The study investigates 1. how language hierarchy is constructed and reconstructed by examining CS in political discourse; 2. how a change in audience/addressee influences CS; 3. how CS as a naturalistic and interactive phenomenon in spoken discourse is used to project speakers’ identity and their affiliation to their community. The three aims, being mutually inclusive, are explored in connection to intraspeaker CS in the interactional construction of identity. In particular, emphasis is placed on how speakers perform, project and negotiate their different personae at the individual or collective level. Data presented in this research was collected over a period of 12 months (July, 2023–July, 2024). 3210 videos were found from various internet media sources: TVFormula; MtavariTV; BM.GE; Rustavi2TV; ImediTV; and RadioTavisupleba. Out of which we randomly picked 400 videos. Out of which we grouped 55 example of style-shifting, 46 examples of register-switching and 14 examples of code-mixing; 5 examples of code-switching. These are the primary results; We are in the process of conducting matched-guise test (questionnaire) by using the collected examples.