Public Discourse of (De)legitimation: The Case of South Estonian Language

Abstract

This paper focuses on two different argumentative strategies for dealing with a regional variety of Estonian, one of which may discourage the use of South Estonian in favor of Estonian, while another legitimates the lesser-used regional variety. These argumentative strategies are studied by critical discourse analysis (CDA) of six articles in Estonian language newspapers and magazines published in 2004–2005. The use of South Estonian is discouraged by presenting real or imagined threats that it will undermine Estonian. This discourse also parallels the Estonian-Russian majority-minority discourse of recent years by employing zero-sum arguments of the Estonian language losing to Russian as a consequence of the recognition of South Estonian. Language ideologies, which also construct some varieties worthier than others, re-enforce an essentialist representation of separate languages. This representation will work toward suppressing linguistic variation.