Page 76 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol. 4(1) (2016)
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hod of researchstudia universitatis her editati, letnik 4 (2016), številk a 1 76Linguistic, historical and ethnic backgrounds
There are plenty of examples of methodological of Pula and Zadar
backgrounds described in recent literature re-hereditati In order to understand the present cultural and
garding discourse analysis, specifically conver- linguistic situation of the two cities, we have to
sation analysis17 and interactional sociolinguis- take into consideration their linguistic, ethnic
tics. 18As they are all interdisciplinary in nature, and cultural history. Over the centuries Pula
most of them use similar methodologies, usual- and Zadar have mainly trodden the identical lin-
ly defined by discourse analysis, trying to ana- guistic, cultural and historical paths even thou-
lyze the most spontaneous speech and obtain gh, due to differences in geographical position
less contaminated results. Even if their method- and political importance, their paths diverged
ologies slightly differ (the first using the inter- at times. They share the same ancient linguistic
pretation of the speaker as grounds for analysis history and cultural unity created on the Adria-
and the second not assuming that the research- tic coast by the Romans somewhere in the mid-
er needs to consult the participants in conver- dle of the 2nd century BC. Thereafter their his-
sation or members of their speech communi- tories grew apart only to be reunited at the end
ty), the method of research will generally follow of the 6th century when they shared the destiny
their bases. Many studies use telephone record- of Slavic invasions. The invasions not only bro-
ed conversation (which obviously shows a differ- ught the Slavic language but also caused lingu-
ent strategy or style of talking due to the lack of istic fragmentation and stratification.19 During
nonverbal signs). However, we will record spon- the creation of Slavic settlements in both areas,
taneous, face to face conversation (occurring be- while Pula was firstly under the Lombards' and
tween two or more people) and all the data will afterwards mostly under the Franks' reign, Za-
be drawn exclusively from talk-in-interaction. dar in Dalmatia adopted the Croatian spirit,
The next step will be the analysis of the structur- culture and language especially during and af-
al linguistic specifics of the performance groups ter the formation of the Croatian Kingdom in
followed by the analysis of paralinguistic (con- 925. In Zadar, this was the period of the most
textual) cues, specifically pauses and overlaps. intense development of Dalmatian – Romance
language from vulgar (spoken) Latin mainly in
For the purpose of structural analysis we the city centres and in Pula the same was happe-
will use traditional methods when necessary. In ning with the Istriot language. While the Croa-
order to avoid all possible variations that could tians were very influential in Zadar, bearing im-
be caused by different situational cues (age, gen- portant titles, in Pula and in other parts of Istria
der, informal or formal conversation, less or they were mostly farmers. In this aura of the rise
more involvement, educational background, re- of the feudal system in Istria and of prospero-
laxed or serious topic) we recorded spontane- us development in Dalmatia both cities were fa-
ous conversations taking into account all of the cing the near arrival of Venice. Although Vene-
above. tian linguistic and cultural influence started in
the 9th century and ran parallel with the rise of
17 Harvey Sacks, Emanuel A. Schegloff and Gail Jefferson, “A simp- Dalmatian and Istriot Romance languages, Pula
lest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversati- officially became a part of the Republic of Veni-
on,” Language, 50 (1974): 696-735; Maxwell J. Atkinson and John ce only in 1331 and Zadar in 1409 when Ladisla-
Heritage, Structures of Social Action: Studies in conversation us of Naples sold his rights to Dalmatia for a pal-
Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Stivers try sum of 100 000 ducats. Venetian economical
et al, “Universals and cultural variation in turn taking in conversati-
on.” 19 Michael Metzeltin, “La Dalmazia e l'Istria,” in L'italiano nelle re-
gioni. Lingua nazionale e identità regionali, ed F.Bruni (Torino:
18 John J. Gumperz, Discourse Strategies. Studies in Interactio- UTET, 1992), 316-335.
nal Sociolinguistics 1(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1982); Deborah Tannen, “Language and culture,” in An Introducti-
on to Language and Linguistics, eds. R.W. Fasold and J.C. Linton
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 343-372.
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