Language, Chronotope, Other Spaces and Times, and Identity

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to explore the intricate relationship between the spatial dynamics of real and imagined spaces, and to understand how language and identity evolve and emerge within these spaces. To do so, both face-to-face and digital conversations from an intensive three-month-long ethnographic research in Bangladesh, in which 29 participants took part, are analyzed with reference to Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope. The analysis reveals that while participants engage in conversation within the contextual realities and spatial dynamics, they also equally refer to other spaces and times. These spaces work as reference points that enable the participants to bring extra layers of meaning to the meaning-making processes of their language practices. The participants also approximate or transgress the linguistic and cultural boundaries within the social and spatial realities of the present with reference to the socially and culturally appropriate norms and propriety of other spaces. The paper hence concludes that the spatial contextualization of language and the negotiation of identity are relational, very much in an organic relationship with other spaces and times, both imaginary and concrete, and fluid and fixed. Thus, the paper contributes to the recent development in sociolinguistics research that strongly suggests including space as an important dynamic of language, its meaning-making processes, and individual and collective identity.