Self-Silencing Strategies in Casual Conversations about Politics in Rural Poland

Anna Malewska-Szałygin

doi:10.23858/ethp.2021.42.2677

Published: 2021-11-30

Vol. 42 (2021)

Self-Silencing Strategies in Casual Conversations about Politics in Rural Poland

Anna Malewska-Szałygin

Ethnologia Polona

Section: Articles

https://doi.org/10.23858/ethp.2021.42.2677

Abstract

Self-silencing can be a discursive strategy for presenting personal opinions in casual conversations about politics, especially when these take place in an unpredictable or hostile socio-political environment. In such situations, political identities may be performed through the use of inferred forms, such as allusion, irony or implicit suggestion. In this article, forms of muting one’s voice by using indirect speech are tracked in interviews conducted among villagers in the mountainous Nowy Targ county in southern Poland at the beginning of the 21st century. The aim in presenting these examples is to show that sometimes selfsilencing can serve to make an adversary’s voice more audible, to help avoid definitive judgement and to create space for an exchange of opinions.

Keywords:

silencing, discursive strategies, indirect speech, political opinions, Podhale, Poland

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Malewska-Szałygin, A. (2021). Self-Silencing Strategies in Casual Conversations about Politics in Rural Poland. Ethnologia Polona, 42. https://doi.org/10.23858/ethp.2021.42.2677

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