Methods
The disperse map of minorities in Armenia, their rather heterogeneous typology, marked differences in self-perception and self-awareness, and the obvious indifference of the Armenian majority towards these minorities calls for a complex, multidisciplinary approach in order to survey their sociocultural and sociolinguistic features. A major task of this project is to retrieve and unveil aspects of self-perception. Within this framework, the tension between minority identity and citizenship is considered as an integral part of group and individual identity. Along with these lines, the basic attitudes of the different minorities will be cross-checked against the Armenian public's awareness of minorities and their perception which in turn may give hints at aspects of self-perception on a national layer.
In addition, these parameters will have to be accommodated to features related to the relevant 'control groups'. By the term 'control group' we refer to members of the Armenian majority, preliminarily categorized according to four types:
- Armenians in mixed-couple structures (minority/Armenian)
- Armenians living in structural/habitual co-existence with members of the minority
- Armenians living in the regional neighborhood and in permanent/occasional context with members of the minority.
- Armenians without contact with members of a minority.
The basic categories serve to formulate a preliminary set of descriptive and diagnostic parameters that can be grouped as follows:
Sociocultural parameters
Analytic |
Basic demographic data including information on general ethnic patterns in settlements, age distribution, sex, size and types of family |
Environmental data (type of habitat, economic patterns) | |
Genealogy (generations present in individual families) |
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Religion (type, degree of religious practices, loci of religious practices) |
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Power and solidarity (internal administrative organization, hierarchic structures, degree and structure of 'self-organization') |
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Behavioral patterns (marriage types, institutionalized social interaction, mobility, rituals, dances, songs, taboos) |
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Symbolic artifacts (traditional costumes, house types, furnishing, cuisine, specialized handicraft) |
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Interpretative |
Patterns of ethnicity (mono- vs. poly-ethnicity, transcultural features) |
Diaspora (collective memory of 'homeland') |
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Knowledge of local history (including ancestral practices) |
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Patterns of self-awareness and self-perception |
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Patterns of attitudes/relations towards the majority |
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Symbolic value / cultural landmarks (artifacts, patterns, traditions) |
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Special habits (festivals, socializing, games etc.) |
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Special behavioral norms |
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Sociolinguistic parameters |
Naming tradition
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Minority language |
Active language, 'language of ancestors', and concept of 'mother tongue' |
Symbolic value of minority language |
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Language acquisition |
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Literacy and degree of normalization |
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Minority language as a medium to transmit oral traditions, Types of oral tradition |
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Distribution of language knowledge/use (diastratic, age-/sex-patterns, patterns related to professions and subsistence economy, social roles, mobility, mass media) |
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Multilingualism |
Languages involved in the multilingual minority context (individual, group) |
Recollection of multilingual practices of ancestral groups |
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Diglossia (factors of language choice on the micro-level (addressee-based, context- based, topic-based, skill-based, work-based etc.) |
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Distribution of languages with respect to macro-level domains (e.g. religious ceremonies, working context, family discourse, public discourse, interethnic discourse) |
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Language management: Individuals or the group leadership engaged in regulating the use of language(s) in specific domains |
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Bilingualism without diglossia |
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Language prestige/ language attitudes |
Role attribution to languages relevant for a minority |
Prestige language and ranking in prestige |
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Dominant language (public, institutional) |
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Features of prestige (economic perspectives, modernism, intellectualism, conservativism etc.) |
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Language maintenance/ language loss |
Domain-stability and vitality/maintenance of the minority language |
Patterns of first/second language acquisition |
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Minority language teaching and modes of first language teaching |
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Linguistics practices in 'mixed families' |
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Language competence |
Speakers' self-assessment concerning their competence of minority/majority language |
Language contact |
Direction of language contact |
Structural domains of contact (phonology, morphosyntax, lexicon, pragmatics) Semantic domains |