The Serbs of Bela Krajina: Language Ideology in the Process of Language Shift

“The Serbs of Bela Krajina: Language Ideology in the Process of Language Shift”, a monograph of Tanja Petrović recently published by the Institute for Balkan Studies, deals with the Serbs of Bela Krajina, one of the many local ethnolinguistic communities undergoing the process of language shift as a consequence of major changes in their way of life brought about by modernization and industrialization. It was written with the aim of pointing to the significance and implications of the process of language shift both in a particular social, historic, and geographical context (South-East Europe, the former Yugoslavia, Republic of Slovenia, Bela Krajina), and in relation to broader social processes.
The monograph attempts to look at the language ideology of the Serbs of Bela Krajina as part of a broader discursive universe, and to highlight ideological aspects common to the local community members and outside elites, as well as mechanisms through which ideological nodes constructed outside the community become adopted by its members and employed in redefining and negotiating relationships and roles inside the community. Those processes reveal the dynamics of social and linguistic changes and their interconnectedness, and show how deep the link is between the state/national and the local, between broader social processes and the ways in which local communities and their particular members rationalize, negotiate and justify their positions, roles and strategies.