The metalinguistic prophecy on the decline of the Greek language: its social function as the expression of a crisis in Greek national identity

Abstract

A current evaluative description of the language Situation in Greek society presents the Greek language as impoverished, polluted by foreign words, defective [in] linguistic quality, and thus in danger of extinction. The phenomenon under investigation in this paper is the impressive speed and extent ofthe acceptance ofthis alleged decline ofthe Greek language, as well as of the remedy proposed: the teaching of Ancient Greek at the compulsory-education level An analysis of the metalinguistic discourse on language decline shows that it usesfive language forms classified as features of ideological discourse: redundancy, evaluation, amalgam, euphemism, dichotomy, and self-evidence. In the texts studied, these features contribute to producing latent messages concerning a negative evaluation of Greek national identity. The paper concludes that acceptance of the languagedecline position is an expression of a crisis in national identity, brought about inter alia by the participation of Greece in the European Union.