Maria del Puy Ciriza
UIUC
 
 
1. Introduction
This research examines the linguistic devices involved in the construction of Basque national identity and specifically in argumentative discourse, as a way to enter into the individuals’ subjective opinions, emotional attitudes and beliefs towards Basque nationalist ideology.Several studies have attested a common trend in the choice of linguistic resources shared by all the codes of nationalist discourses. These linguistic devices are not only pervasively employed in different discursive context i.e., from parliamentary debates to group discussions, and private conversations (De Cillia et al.; Grad and Martín-Rojo) but also in the discourses of different nationalist countries (Fishman) and by different types of nationalism -i.e. ‘ethnic’ and ‘civic’ nationalisms (Grad and Martín-Rojo).In this research I will focus not only on the use of these common ‘linguistic trends’ in the argumentative discourse about Basque nationalism, but also on the differences that arise in the discourses of different types of Basque ‘nationalized individuals’ (i.e. who have a feeling of belonging to the Basque nation) with different degrees of membership towards the in-group.The basic purpose of this research is to compare how different types of subjects (all of them Basque nationalists and who feel Basque) build in different fashion the common idea of ‘our nation’ and ‘our nationality’. The differences between these subjects are based by an atypical social variable: the place of birth of the subjects’ parents, in other words the degree of autochthony of the individual (I will explain the importance of this variable later on).

The following research is based on the idea that individuals –as carriers of different social characteristics and as interpreters of their own situation as member’s of the in-group— will base the construction of their identities in different terms, emphasizing the aspects that legitimise their position as ‘nationalized subjects’.
 
2. Historical context: the renaissance of Basque Nationalism
The death of Franco and the end of an authoritarian regime brought a new democratic constitution which delegated many powers to the Autonomous Basque Government, including the administration of justice, culture police and education. The new democracy and the granting of new rights revitalized the sentiment of ethnic identification on young Basques which was hibernating during Franco’s regime. In fact during the last thirty years, sociological surveys about ethnic identity (Clark, Linz, Ramirez) have observed that there is tendency of younger generations to more strongly define themselves within Basque identity.

However, national identity in the Basque Country is not internalized by all members of the community in the same way. While many members of the community identify themselves as Basques others ascribe themselves to “compound identities” i.e. identities that incorporates in variable proportions the regional identity (Basque) with the national identity of the Spanish state (Moreno et al.). Thus, in the Basque Country one can either identify themselves as equally Basque and Spanish; as more Spanish than Basque; as more Basque than Spanish; or as only Spanish or Basque.

It is important to mention that the use of “compound identities” by new generation Basques could be due to the fact that Basques are not an homogeneous social group vis-a-vis lineage or genealogy (Linz, Moreno et al.). Many of the parents of Basque-born young generations were immigrants who came during the 1960s’ and 1970s’ from regions of Spain, whereas others have a longer lineage or tradition of Basque autochthony. Linz has argued that the duality on Basque national identity has its primordial origins in the familiar background of the subject. According to Linz survey on national identity in the Basque Country, subjects who have both parents Spanish tend to feel “Basque”, those who have either their mother or father immigrant tend to feel “Basque and Spanish”.

The large proportion of immigrants from other Castilian regions of the State to the Basque Country is a factor that differentiates the Basque phenomenon from other bilingual or bi-national European countries. In countries such as Switzerland or Belgium the majority of the population of diverse linguistic areas come from the part of the confederation with the same language, or in the case of Belgium were it exists a great linguistic homogeneity. In France, the different regions with linguistic personality are economically depressed areas and therefore they never became immigrant receptors.

In the Basque Country, the large waves of immigration that the Basque Country experienced at the beginning of the XIX century and during the 1960’s and 70’s was the main factor that gave birth to Basque nationalism as a reaction against the loss of Basque identity. The presence of a large number of immigrants in certain areas (even its predominance over Basque natives in certain areas) brought about a drastic socio demographic change in the Basque Country. By the end of the second industrial boom in the Basque Country, Basque natives were a minority in their own country. In raw numbers according to Jauregui 320,000 immigrants came to the three Basque provinces. In the 1970’s Spanish census about 35% of the Basque population was born outside the Basque region. Many of these immigrants came from poorer parts of Spain (Old Castile, Extremadura, Leon, Andalusia and Galicia) searching jobs in the steel industry. The integration of the first immigrant communities was never an easy task in Basque cities and towns due to the lack of infrastructures, mainly housing shortages, and hostilities between Basques and immigrants. Immigrants were often referred as “maketos” (a derogatory word for foreigners), and they were in an ambivalent position: on one hand, they were regarded as being part of the colonialist and repressive Spanish state, on the other hand they formed part of a lower cultural class who could neither speak the Basque language, nor participate in the local traditions of the Basque society (Ibañez-Angulo).

Nowadays, many children of immigrant parents are integrated within the community not only at a “social level” (based on where they live and work) but also in a “symbolic-cultural level” since they have developed a cultural taste for Basque cultural performances and language (Ibañez-Angulo). Children of immigrant parents feel Basque, yet due to their Spanish family background they tend to regard themselves as bi-ethnic (i.e. equally Basque and Spanish) and root their claims of basqueness in terms of birth-place (Linz). Children of Basque-born parents situate Basque identity based on lineage, cultural traditions and language; and therefore, consider Spanish and Basque identities mutually exclusive. This proves the difficulty to define who is Basque in the Basque Country, with regards to the primordial characteristics i.e., origin, language and culture
 
3. The place birth of the parents as a dependant variable
This hybridism in the national in-group —by which different members ascribe themselves to Basque nationalism for different criteria— has created new discursive argumentations in order to legitimise the different positions of the members. The variable ‘place of birth of their parents’ is the operative system of differentiation between the subjects. The main differences between both types of subjects are:

a) Basque subjects whose parents are immigrants are less attached to certain cultural aspects and practices (for example they don’t speak the Basque language at home or with their peers, although they might have learnt it in the school system) than those whose parents are autochthonous (Ramirez-Goicoechea; Hendry).

b) Those individuals whose parents are autochthonous have inherited not only community of custom but also the same political aims and ideologies of their parents since as Park claims.

the family is an important network of interpersonal relations to communicate political messages in nationalized societies. (67)

c) Basque individuals whose parents are autochthonous have in their emotional baggage the stories that the members of their family told them about the civil war and the Franco era, which makes them the legitimate carriers of the ‘collective history’ of the Basque nation.

This study will take “place of origin of the parent” as the primary social factor. A study carried out by Echeverria shows that there are other social factors significant to better understand and contextualize the different conceptualizations that young Basques have about their ethnic identity. Echeverria (ibid.) wanted to analyze the impact that schooling had on the students’ attitudes towards their ethnic identity and their learning of Basque.

In order to investigate this, she carried a survey centered on questions about the respondents’ background along with in-depth interviews with the students about the importance of speaking Basque and their conceptualization of their ethnic identity. In the survey, Echeverrria controlled certain social factors in order to better contextualize the students’ responses. This survey focused on four sets of questions: (1) a demographic questionnaire in which students’ were asked about their birth-place and those of their parents and those of their grandparents; (2) questions focusing on the respondent’s language usage at home, specifically with their father and mother; (3) questions focusing on the linguistic model of the school i.e. language in which students were educated¹; (4) questions aimed at identifying the subjects’ ethnic label with which they most identified: Basque, Spanish, Equally Basque and Spanish, more Basque than Spanish, more Spanish than Basque. From the survey results, Echeverria demonstrated that there were significant patterns in the responses of the subjects. Basques who attended Basque-immersion schools (Model D) overwhelmingly identified themselves as Basque; in contrast, Spanish-schooled students (Model A) most often chose “Equally Basque and Spanish”.

The author did not correlate factors such as “place of origin of the parents” and “schooling”; however in her interviews she focused on getting students whose parents were from disparate places of origin: either both parents who were born in the Basque Country; or only one parent who was born in the Basque Autonomous Community; or both parents who were born in other parts of Spain. Her interviews showed that Basques whose parents are born in the Basque Country (or at least one of the parents) and attend Model D schools tended to choose Basque as their ethnic identity. These students linked Basque identity mainly with the Basque language, traditions, costumes and descent; and they denied the importance of birthplace to Basque identity. Students from Model A school programs with immigrant parents did not consider the Basque language to be a crucial part of Basque identity and chose birthplace as the main reason for their ethnic origin. In fact, Model A students identify themselves as “equally Basque and Spanish” and reject the idea that Basque identity is in opposition with a Spanish one.

Echeverrria’s research provides insights on how certain social factors correlate with different argumentations about the subject’s ethnic identity. Her study focuses on the impact of the language choice in education and “ethnolinguistic pedagogy” .Her main discovery is that Model D students (i.e. those who study most of their courses in Basque) naturalise the linking of Basque identity with speaking Basque through the schooling process.

Therefore we can conclude from this study, that the linguistic policies in the Basque Country have contributed to a diversity of views toward who is Basque in the Basque Country nowadays. Moreover as Hendry claims:

linguistic policies have fostered a marginal, second-class or transitional sense of Basque identity. (225)

This ‘transitional sense of identity’ is particular of: (a) older immigrant people who didn’t have the opportunity to study the language, and (b) young people who studied and learned the language, but who show a feeling of inferiority for not being autochthonous native-speakers. However, the language revitalization movement has served second generations of children from immigrant parents to associate ‘learning Basque = becoming Basque’ thus, creating a new generation of Basque speakers who feel that Basque identity is their righteous identity.

This research will focus on young university students. I have considered that studying university students is a logical point of departure for investigating ethnic identity, as integration to higher education is often a marker of social stratification. By mapping the linguistic variables onto the socio-cultural, educational, and ethnic delineations observed by Echeverria the proposed study will tied together (and explain with linguistic evidence), the findings from other studies (Linz, Ramirez-Goicoechea) concerning different types of national identities in the Basque Country .
 
4. Basque national identity
Ethnic nationalism is defined in terms of common descent, traditions and language. Moreover, ethnic nationalism is normally based on a situation of inequality as it is constantly seeking jurisdictional autonomy and self determination to the state which is in power (i.e. the Basque Country from Spain). As Grad and Martín-Rojo claim:

in ethnic nationalism it becomes difficult to hold different identities (e.g. Basque and Spanish) because they are perceived as mutually contradictory. (205)

During the last thirty years, various authors have shown (Shaffir; Conversi) that most people in the Basque country subscribe to a civic understanding of Basque identity in which a citizen forms part of the nation regardless of ethnicity and lineage. “Civic nationalism” defines nationhood in terms of citizenship and political participation, consequently as Bayck argues:

outsiders can become members of the civic community only by participating in the practices of the local community and by slowly adopting the customs and the modes of reflexive criticism thereof. (8)

Studies show that in the Basque Country most people believe that those “who live and work in the Basque Country” are considered to be Basque and that “the will to be Basque” is the most important factor in considering oneself really Basque (Linz). Thus, civic nationalism “facilitates internal diversity” and the integration of out-group members in the in-group” (Grad and Martín-Rojo 234).
 
5. The discursive context
The discursive context that I will be employing in this study will be “argumentative discourse”. I decided to employ this type of discursive context since as Zammuner claims:

argumentative discourse gives the possibility to explain to an audience their attitudes i.e. beliefs feelings and action orientation that people hold about certain social object. (411)

In this type of rhetoric the speaker might deal with the potential conflict arising from his/her ideas and other world-views. Based on the premise that Basque national identity is internalized in different ways depending on the social background of the subject, my goal in this study is to analyze the ways both types of subjects (Basques whose parents are immigrants and Basques whose parents are non-immigrants) differ in the modalization of their speech. I will take argumentative discourse as a point of departure, as it is the genre in which the speaker’s point of view is expressed, and it entails the modalization of discourse at a global level (Dressler and Merlini-Barbaresi).
 
6. Methodology
The research was conducted in Bilbao as it is the most important urban center in the Basque Country and the population is rather diverse. Subjects came from homes where only Spanish is spoken or at least one parent is born outside the Basque Autonomous Community or both of the parents are Basque. The population pool was 12 university students all Basque-born, studying in different universities of the Basque Country. Subjects were 6 women and 6 men from the ages of 19-25. All participants completed two different tasks: a demographic survey and topic oriented interview.

The survey (Appendix A) was based on Echevarria’s demographic survey already mentioned. Thus, (1) I solicited information about the students’ birthplace and those of their parents and grandparents in order to trace back the genealogy of the subject to better control the factor “place of birth of the parents”. (2) Parent’s occupation and parents’ level of studies was also included as a determinant markers of social stratification (3) Since speaking Basque is an important aspect in Basque identity, I also asked questions on language spoken at home (4) Language model of schooling and institution was also considered. (5) Last but not least, I also asked students to choose the ethnic label which they most identified with: Basque; Spanish; equally Basque and Spanish; more Basque than Spanish; more Spanish than Basque (see Appendix A for survey’s text).

Subjects will therefore differentiated in terms of subjects’ whose parents are immigrants and subjects whose parents are non-immigrants , parents’ occupation and parents’ level of studies, linguistic model on which they have studied, language they speak at home, and ethnic labeling of the subject.

In order to obtain argumentative discourse, topic-oriented qualitative interviews were be carried. The interviews followed a protocol in which the questions were grouped around several thematic areas following De Cillia et al. methodological approach to national discourse in Austria. This methodological approach has been pervasively employed in sociolinguistic research, since according to De Cillia et al.:

this open method of questions allow the interviewee to elaborate lengthy narratives which could capture the subject’s feelings and attitudes. (123)

 
6.1 Methodology the questionnaire
The different set of questions (Apendix B), were based on questions already proposed by De Cillia et al. and on questions modified to fit the context of Basque national identity. In order to organize these questions I will employ the different thematic areas proposed by De Cillia et al.

The first set of questions was centred on the idea of “self-identity”. Based on the authors these questions aimed at activating the attachment or affection that the subject had towards their land, the idea of the biographical genesis of their identity and the behavioural dispositions of the Basque man (i.e. the psychology).

1. Do you consider yourself Basque?
2. What makes you Basque?
3. Do you have a different perspective of your identity when you are abroad? (according to De Cillia et al. subjects tend to activate the attachments and affections towards their nation when they are abroad)
4. From your point of view, is there any difference between a young man of Granada and a young man from the Basque Country? (according to Turner and Tajfel) in the construction of national identity, the construction of the “self” it is as important the construction of “the other”).

The second set of questions aimed at activating the “collective memory” of he nationalized individual. According to Halbwachs “collective memory” is different from individual memory as it shared, passed on and also constructed by the national group.

6. Could you tell me a story that your grandmother told you about the war?
7. Does you mum have any story about the dictatorship?

The last set of questions dealt with the “construction of the nation” and the sense of belonging to a community.

8. Which images come up to your mind when you think about the Basque Country?
9. What do you think about the fact that all the players of the Athletic (Basque soccer team) are Basques while the other teams of Spain have players from all over even foreign?
10. How do you see the situation of the Basque Country in Europe?
11. Which is the future of the Basque Country in Europe?
 
7. Analysis
The analysis was based on the linguistic devices already mentioned by previous authors (Grad and Martín-Rojo 40): 1.The personification of a place by means of metonymy (Spain) 2.The use of nominal phrases formed by possessive (our) or demonstrative (this) 3.Adjectives + abstract nouns referring to territorial (land), social (people) or political (country) units 4.The inclusive use of the pronoun (us) 5. The impersonalization in the representation of the social actors in i.e., to linguistic objectify the social actor (normally a politician) and replace him/her through the metonomy of the ‘country’ (e.g., Spain should solve this).

The main objective of this research is to parse the discursive differences that revealed how both, B.A and B.I construct their national identity. We expect to find dissimilarities between both due to the different positions they occupy in the ethnic in-group. In the subsequent I will focus on a concrete methodology to parse deixis and symbolic hedging in Spanish in discourse.
 
7.1 Modality: hedging
In my data I found that subjects instead of responding to a question directly “You are not right” they respond using vague/fuzzy/subjective. They did this by colouring the utterance with hedges: e.g., “I would say that you are not right”, “It seems to me that it is not right” or “Probably/possibly/perhaps this is not right”.

According to (Markannen and Shröeder) hedges aim at ‘soften’ or ‘temper’ the form of the presentation of the proposition of an utterance. Lakoff defines them as:

a word or phrase whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy. (195)

According to Prince et al. there are two types of hedges: (a) those that affect the truth-conditions of propositions. These are called ‘approximators’ (e.g. his feet were sort of blue) and (b) ‘shields’ i.e., which do not affect the truth conditions but reflect the degree of the speakers commitment to the truth-value of the whole propositions (e.g. I think his feet were blue). Moreover according to Hübler hedges can be also classified as ‘intensifiers’ or ‘detensifiers’ depending if the speaker’s aim is to strength or to weaken the force of the utterance.

The most important concept that cuts across the area of hedges is that of modality. According to Stubbs it is possible to indicate the degrees of commitment to the truth of a proposition (i.e. modality), by the use of three kinds of linguistic items: propositions, illocutionary forces and individual lexical items. Stubbs’ view of modality allows even the inclusion of linguistic items and structures like logical and pragmatic connectors, past tense when use hypothetically, and passivization. Considering that ‘hedging’ can vary from language to language, for the purposes of this paper I will use Ballesteros classification for the study of Spanish hedging. He distinguishes between lexical and syntactic hedging.

 

 

Lexical Markers	Syntactic markers
1. Courtesy expressions: Podrías apagar el cigarro por favor Can you please go to the store?	1. Interrogative sentences: ¿Puedes cuidar a los niños esta semana? Can you clean the kitchen this week?
2. Consultation: ¿Sabe usted si podrían dejarme el libro? Could I get a ride with you?	2. Interrogative negative sentences: ¿No te has dado cuenta que está prohibido fumar? Didn’t you know they were going to do some work on the street?
3. Mitigations: ¿Puedes ir al supermercado en un momento y comprarla? The smoke bothers me a bit	3. Negation preparatory conditions: Supongo que no les importará que vaya con ustedes en su coche I am sure you would not mind if I go with you in the car
4. Indefinite expressions: Me podría dar alguna bibliografía sobre el tema. The smoke from your cigarette is kind of bothering me so if you don’t mind putting it out	4. Hypothetic presentation of facts: Sería bueno que guardes la cinta It would be great if you could sep the tape
5. Improbability expressions: ¿Venía a ver si por un casual me podrían acercar a casa Do you think I could possibly get a ride with you?	5. Subjuntive mood: Quisiera, si es posible, que limpiaras la cocina I would like if it is possible, that you clean the kitchen today
6. Staggerings: Excuse me, madam, I was, um, wondering, well. I really enjoyed the class and the topic we covered today	6.Epistemic modality marker: Quizás deberían darme más información. You perhaps might give me more information.
7. Tag question: ¿No les importaría que vaya con ustedes en su coche, verdad? Excuse me, this is a non-smoking car. See?	7. Past Tense: Quería preguntarles si me podrían llevar a casa. I wanted to know if they could give me more information about this topic
8. Subjective expressions of opinion: Me temo que tienes que volver a casa I am afraid you have to move the car	8. Impersonlization: Se debe hacer lo que se tiene que hacer One has to do what it has to be done
9. Harmonizers: Les importaría apartar su coche? Más que nada por las obras, ¿sabe? (S4. Cuest.7) I don’t mean to bother you, but would you mind not smoking? You see, the smoke bothers me a bit

Figure 1: Taxonomy of  Hedging Spanish(Ballesteros 23)

 
8. The data: hedging

The first set of questions in my interview dealt with the association and images related to the concept of the Basque Country. Virtually all the interviewee’s answers related an ‘idyllic’ landscape of the Basque Country or to politically topics such as its independence, and uniqueness.

B.A.1: Las ideas que se me vienen a la cabeza cada vez que pienso en el País Vasco son ideas relacionadas con el paisaje verde de las montañas y los árboles, no sé por qué es quizás porque es lo primero que veo cuando me asomo a la ventana […] aunque luego si pensara más por supuesto me vendrían más a la cabeza todos los símbolos y por supuesto la ikurriña que es la bandera nuestra[…]
B.A.1: “The ideas that come up to my mind when I think about the Basque Country are ideas related to the green landscape of the mountains and trees, I don’t know it might be because is the first thing that I see when I see through the windows […] although may be if I think more, of course more things will come up to my mind all the symbols and of course the ikurriña which is our flag”

B.I.1: Buah! No sé yo lo veo como progresista, diferente, independiente. No lo sé más que nada independiente
B.I.1: “Buah! (Interjection) Idon’t know I see it as progressive, different, independent. I don’t know but more than anything else independent.

In these passages, the use of hedging is more pervasively employed by the B.I.1 than by the B.A.1. Not only B.A.1 made a use of interjections (buah!) expressing his/her difficulty at answering the question, but also he/she uses subjective expressions of opinion (‘no sé, yo lo veo’; ‘I do not know I see it’) which diminish the assertive strength of the assertion. On the other hand B.A.1 employs more the declarative mood and intensifiers (‘por supuesto’; ‘of course’) which help the message to be carried out in a more assertively and therefore a more ‘powerful’ voice.

Moreover, due to most B.I s’ lack of argumentation, the interviewer had to set more questions to obtain more references to B.Is’ ideas, however most of the time a continuous use of hedging produced a breaking of the conversation’s collaborative floor.

I: ¿Me podrías dar una definición del País Vasco?
B.I.2: Yo creo que es un, no sé es que no sé, pues eso más o menos una autonomía diferente y es un trocito de un país que quizáno tenga que ver con lo que el resto del país piensa…es que es super complicado
I: ¿Pero te consideras vasca?
B.I.3: Sí, no entiendo mucho la verdad pero, yo creo que uno tiene como que un poco, como que defender lo suyo, simplemente serun poco nacionalista no en plan muy brutamente o sea yo creo, que sí que es algo bueno. No veo nada negativo con eso.

I: ¿Could you please give me a definition of the Basque Country?
B.I.2: I think that is a, I don’t know, Idon’t know, well it is more or less a different autonomy and a small piece of a country that might not have anything to do with what the rest of the country thinks…this is super complicated.
I: But do you consider yourself Basque?
B.I.3: Yes, I don’t understand very well but I think that one has to like a little bit, like defend what is yours, to be a little bit nationalist not very brusquely, I think that it is something good. I don’t see anything negative about it.

In B.I.2 two examples of ‘subjective expressions’ i.e., ‘no sé’ (‘I don’t know’) appear along with ‘indefinite expression’ ‘más o menos’ (‘more or less’), which serve to diminish the potential effect that a more precise expression would cause. Moreover in the same sentence the subject uses ‘quizá’ an ‘improbability expression’ that marks a less authoritative knowledge of the speaker about what is been said (Ballesteros).

The subjective expression ‘yo creo’ (‘I think’) is frequently used all throughout all the interviews (look at example B.I.3) in both B.A and B.I. According to Stteward the use of ‘yo creo’ is a hedge which serves to exploit two implicatures, simultaneously, a ‘powerful’ i.e., one implicating ‘I with my authority, experience’, and a powerless face that is merely the speaker’s view alone. In most cases pragmatic rather than linguistic factors end up giving a ‘powerless’ or ‘powerful’ reading to the utterance. In the case of B.I.3, the utterance ‘yo creo’ is surrounded by a cluster of hedges which emphasizes the speaker non assertive voice and reduces the voice of ‘yo creo’.

In the set of questions related to the construction of a ‘common culture’ subjects were asked about their families personal stories during the Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship. In most of the interviews this topic presented vivid, dramatic stories on B.A and less argumentation and impersonalization on the case of B.I.4.

I: ¿Me puedes contar una historia que tu madre o padre te hayan contado sobre el franquismo?
B.I.4: La verdad es que nunca me contaron historias acerca de eso porque ellos no lo vivieron porque no eran de aquí pero no sé¿sabes? Creo que Franco era un opresor una persona que no dejaba expresarse libremente. Posiblemente todo hubiera ido mejorpara el País Vasco si Franco no habría vivido tanto tiempo,

I: Could you tell me a story that your mum or your dad told you about Franco?
B.I.4: The truth is that they never told me stories about that because they never lived it because they weren’t from here but I don’t know ¿You know? I think that Franco was an oppressor a person who didn’t let us express freely. It is possible that everything would have been better for the Basque Country if Franco had not survived as long as he did.

This extract illustrates the position of a B.I in relation to the ‘common history’ of the Basque country, as a non receptor or carrier of this ‘common history’ of the nation due to the place of birth of his/her parents ‘nunca me contaron historias […] ellos no eran de aquí’ (‘they never told me stories they weren’t from here’). This is expressed by a higher use of epistemic modality and therefore hedging. We find a cluster of hedges in the form of ‘expressions of subjective opinion’ such as ‘no sé’ (‘I don’t know’), and the harmonizer ‘¿Sabes?’. As Ballesteros claims ‘harmonizers’ serve to establish or restore the harmony between interlocutors risked due to the previous or following utterance (i.e. in this case the fact that the subject didn’t know any story). Moreover, the use of the conditional mood introduces a remote and hypothetic sense to the issue in this case Franco’s death and its repercussions for the Basque Country. In contrast, let’s observe the response of a B.A.2:

I: ¿Tú sabes algo de la experiencia de tus abuelos en la guerra?
B.A.2: Yo sé que mis abuelos antes no sabían hablar en castellano. Mi abuela ni mi abuelo. Una vez mi abuela tuvo que ir a Madrid a un viaje de escuela o algo así y que no entendía nada el castellano y que pasó mucha vergüenza y entonces siente que sus hijostenían que saber castellano, siempre les han enseñado a mis padres castellano y ahora mis padres saben muy bien […].

I: Do you now something about the experience of your grandparents during war?
B.A.2: I know that my grandparents they didn’t know how to talk in Spanish before. My grandmother and my grandfather. Once my grandmother had to go to Madrid to an school trip and she didn’t know understand at al Spanish and she was really embarrassed, then she started to feel that her kids had to learn Spanish and she has always taught Spanish to my parents and right know my parents know it very well

In this case not only there is less hedging but there also more use of the indicative mood, ‘sabían’ (‘knew’ imperfect aspect), ‘entendía’ (‘understood’ imperfect aspect), ‘siente’ (‘feels’), ‘saben’ (‘know’) due to the fact that the subject is using a narrative in which the deictic center to whom she is referring to is their grandmother and their parents, therefore an experience which is not hers but which was vividly retold by a member of her family.

The discursive construction of difference emphasizes primarily the difference between Spain and The Basque Country. B.Is tended to obscure their positions and presented this difference as being ‘non absolute’.

I: Is there any difference between the Basque Country and the rest of Spain?
B.I.5: Bueno tampoco creo que sea totalmente diferente, quizás es diferente, bueno yo creo que lo único diferente que hay aquíquizás lo único diferente que veo aquí es que como que aquí se piensa, bueno entre comillas “de una manera diferente” bueno pero que hay bastantes movimientos […]

I: Is the difference between the Basque Country and the rest of Spain absolute?
B.I.5: Well I don’t know I don’t think it is totally different, maybe it is different, well I think that the only difference here is maybe, the only difference that I see here is that here people here think, well between inverted comas “in a different way” well but there are a lot of movements[…].

As we can observe, the beginning of this passage contains many fragmented sentences and hedges in the form of expressions of subjective opinion and mitigations, which not only indicate the difficulties in articulating statements, but also the tabooed and delicate nature of the topic for these subjects. This attitude illustrates B.Is position in terms of their ‘national identity’ which remains on an intermediate position between their parents’ identity and their Basque identity.

On the contrary, B.As are more absolute and radical in terms of the difference between Spain and the Basque Country.

I: Crees que existe una diferencian entre España y el País Vasco? ¿Cómo explicarías tú la diferencia?
B.A.3: Pues, no sé la diferencia entre el País Vasco y España es toda la cultura. En todo, todo tenemos diferente, el paisaje la forma de vivir los deportes típicos, que tenemos aquí bueno ahora se hace de todo, la música, los instrumentos, la txalaparta² todas las cosas son diferentes.

B.A.3: Well, I don’t know the difference between the Basque Country and Spain it is all the culture. In everything, everything is different, the landscape, the way of living the typical sports that we have here well nowadays people do whatever but the music, the sports, the instruments, the txalaparta, all things are different.

Although we can find one use of an expression of subjective opinion i.e., ‘no sé’ (‘I don’t know’) there is a consistent pattern on the use of intensifiers in the form of indefinite expressions such as ‘en todo’ (‘in everything’) which emphasizes the author’s message which serve to increase the form of the statement.

To sum up, the finding indicates that B.Is employ pervasively a ‘hedgy language’ which reflects a lack of dogmatic points of view in their ideas about their national identity. On the other hand B.As do not exhibit these features, they are more assertive and authoritative. Can we therefore claim that B.As hold the ‘authoritative’ voice in the construction of Basque identity?.

 
9. The data: deixis and hedging

In this section of my essay I would refer to deixis as:

those linguistic items relate the utterance to the spatio-temporal coordinates of the act of utterance (Lyons 636).

I have to remark that will also considered as hedges impersonal pronouns. The following texts show the difference in the use of deictic elements between B.As and B.Is.

I: ¿Piensas que la actitud que tienes sobre tu “ser vasco” es diferente a través de las generaciones?
B.I.6: Yo creo que a ver eres vasca pues sí sin más, pero yo creo que antiguamente hace unos años cuando había muchísima más represión y el ser vasco era como ¿sabes? Si hablabas en euskera no podías pues porque estaba Franco y todo eso ¿no?, pero yo creo que la gente que se sentía vasco era como, estaba como muchísimo más orgullosa y luchaba muchísimo por eso. Por ejemplo yo ahora pues sí sin más. Antes cuando en aquellos años tú decías eres vasco es como ¡ostras!, ¿sabes?

I: Do you think that the attitude that you have about your ‘being Basque’ is different between generations?
B.I.6: I think that let’s see are you Basque yes, but I think that years ago when there was more repression being Basque was like you know? If you spoke in Basque you couldn’t because Franco was there and all that stuff ,no? but I think that people felt Basque it was like, as if they were more proud and they fought a lot against that. For example me right now yes and nothing else. But in those times if you said that you were Basque was like, you know?

In this ‘tú’ (‘you’) case refers to an unspecified human agent or to a vague group of people, however we can still have some flavor of the subject participating or feeling himself as part of this vague group. The subject moves from ‘you’ to the use of the non-deictic ‘uno’ (‘one’) which is slightly more vague than you (Quirk) placing the deictic center further away from the subject’s experience. We can therefore conclude the perceived incongruity of ‘you’ (as he/she did not experience the facts) leads the speaker to opt for a more generic value.

However in B.As examples not only we can observe a clear tendency to non-impersonal deictic center (as normally either they refer to a personal experience or to a family’s experience) but also a pervasive use of ‘symbolic deixis’ by which the subject creates a relationship between the deictic center and a subjective symbolic element (the culture, the country or the customs).

I: ¿Qué es para ti ser vasco?
B.A.4: Para mí ser vasco no sé es sentirse de aquí, vasco lo relaciono mucho con nuestra cultura, con nuestro deporte, el idioma aunque creo que el idioma no es crucial […] pero sí para mí ser vasco es ser de aquí y no sé es el sentimiento de pertenecer a esta tierra.

I: What does it mean to be Basque for you?
B.A.4: For me being Basque is feeling that you are from here, I relate Basque with our culture, our sports, our language, although I think that the language is not crucial, because I think that my mother […] for me being Basque is the fact of coming from here and I don’t know, is the feeling of belonging to this land.

Another B.A responded:

B.A.5: Es una persona que defiende su tierra, que esta a gusto en ella, ahora claro como estamos, España.

B.A.5: It is a person who defends his land, who feels comfortable in it, but right now since we are in Spain.

According to Levinson this type of deixis:

is different from gestural deixis as it requires for their interpretation only knowledge of (in particular) the basic spatio-temporal parameters of the speech event (but also on occasion, participant-role and discourse parameters). (Levinson 65)

In the previous example, the subject uses two cases of symbolic deixis, on one hand personal deixis ‘nuestra cultura’ (‘our culture’) ‘nuestra tierra’ (‘our land’) by which he tries to link the nation into a single community. On the other hand he employs spatial deixis by which he links ‘esta tierra’ (‘this land’) not only with the spatial reference of the Basque Country, but also with his subjective feelings. The usage of symbolic deixis is more ‘neutral’ in B.Is.

B.I.7: Claro es que eso es super complicado a ver no le tienes que explicar nada, a ver sólo le tienes que decir que cuando una persona siente, pues eso una cultura unas costumbres diferentes y algo así pues que ya es ser vasco.

B.I.7: Well, the thing is that it is super complicated let’s see you don’t have to explain anything, you only have to tell him that when a person feels, a different culture, different customs and something like that, that already means to be Basque.

The other most frequent use of symbolic deixis is the personal use of the inclusive ‘we’, by which the speaker emphasizes the idea of a homogeneous community, in this case a community which shares the same character and personality.

B.A.5: Somos personas reservadas al principio pero luego ya conociendo pues se abre la gente, pero en un principio cuando viene gente aquí si que les parece que somos un poco cerrados, esto solamente al principio.

B.A.5: We are reserved people at the beginning but then people open up, but in the very beginning when people come here they think that we are reserved, but this is only at the beginning.

Last but not least, symbolic deixis can be also associated with other type of pronouns like the possessive ‘you’.

B.A.5: Pero creo que el ser vasco es eso sentirte muy identificado[…] llevar tus símbolos colgando, sentir que te gusta pues ir a ver los deportes

B.A.5: Well I think that being Basque is to feel very identified […] to have your symbols hanging, to feel that you like to watch the sports

 
10. Conclusion

The material collected in these interviews throw light on how patterns of national identification are expressed by Basque nationalized individuals. Moreover it helps tracing the imaginary discursive line between those Basque subjects whose parents are immigrants and those whose parents are autochthonous.

However, the conclusions and consequences to the findings of this research have to be carefully delimited due to the problems on data collection. These problems were mainly of two types: on one hand, the difficulty of subjects to understand specific questions of the interview protocol and on the other hand, the delicate topic of the interview which caused potential subjects to refuse the involvement in the research. These issues resulted in a non-response bias which, in the future, can be solved by a more careful design of the questionnaire.

Besides this, the linguistic analysis per se showed that B.As present a more authoritative and lengthy argumentative discourse on what it means ‘to be Basque’ for them. This can be due to the fact that their families have been an important referent to their political ideologies. Moreover, the practice of Basque certain cultural activities alongside with the fact that they speak the Basque language confers them a deeper ideological baggage.

B.Is national identity discourse is less elaborated and authoritative. We found a pervasive use of language with hedging suggesting the idea that B.I.s are in a not very define position between the ideological universe of their parents, and the values that link them to Basque nationalism such as their own place of birth (something that their parents lack) and their knowledge (as new bilinguals) of the Basque language.

However, these conclusions remain questionable. As I have mentioned before, it could be due to the questionnaire since B.Is didn’t find their space to contribute with ideas that could legitimize their discourse. Moreover, ‘hedging’ is a fuzzy concept which don’t determine exact dichotomies i.e., authoritative versus non-authoritative. As Markannen and Shröeder argue hedges can be the consequence of other phenomena such as the fact that certain cultures are more hedgy than the others. Nevertheless, these questions open a new door to a deeper study of how subjects who hold different positions in the national in-group build their ethnic identity discourse.
 
 
Notes

¹MODEL A: Spanish is the language of instruction, Basque is just a subject; MODEL B: Both Basque and Spanish are used as the medium of instruction; MODEL D: Basque is the language of instruction, Spanish is just a subject MODEL X: Everything is done in Spanish, Basque is not studied at al. There are also IKASTOLAS i.e. immersion schools in the Basque language.

²The ‘txalaparta’is a musical instrument used in Basque music.
 
 
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APPENDIX A
SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC DATA

A. Write the answer

Age:
Sex:
Place you were born:
Place of residence in the Basque Country:

B. Write the answer to this questions

1. Place of birth of your mother:
2. Place of birth of your father:
3. Place of birth of your father’s mother:
4. Place of birth of your father’s father:
5. Place of birth of your mother’s mother:
6. Place of birth of your mother’s father:
7. Mother’s occupation
8. Father’s occupation
C. Mark with a circle your response

1. Language(s) spoken at home (mark the language with a circle)
Basque
Spanish
Both
Others

2. Which languages do you speak at home to your mother or father? (mark the language with a circle)
Father:     Basque     Spanish     Both     Others ——
Mother:     Basque     Spanish     Both     Others ——-

3. Where have you studied? (mark the type of school with a circle and the linguistic model)
Private school Model:     A     B     D
Public School Model:     A     B     D
Ikastola (Basque immersion school)
Others

4. How do you consider yourself? (mark your response with a circle)
Basque
More Basque than Spanish
More Spanish than Basque
Equally Basque and Spanish
Spanish