Preliminary communication

LOCAL GREAT POTENTIALS IN CRITICAL INTERPRETATION

Gordana Čupković orcid.org/0000-0001-8591-6357 ; Odjel za kroatistiku i slavistiku, Odsjek za hrvatski jezik i književnost, Sveučilište u Zadru, Zadar

Abstract

This paper presents a critical interpretation of newspaper articles from a regional newspaper. The articles deal with the everyday life in the neighborhoods of a Croatian Mediterranean city. They address topics common in a society faced with neoliberal capitalism, including civic issues, public spaces, character traits and social traits, spatial boundaries. The aim of atypical topics is to create a (pseudo)sensation (ghost) or to subtly point to legends (the werewolf) or historical memory (mentioning defensive walls and a foreign flag). They illustrate an original form of resistance in the mental landscape of the local community; resistance to assimilating the local within the global, which is projected from reality to a collective story functioning as a new old identity. The space of power is characterized by boundaries (real obstacles, social exclusion as well as integration) and the contemporary other is in a superior position, being the representative of global capital. Polyphonic communication between investors and local voices is characterized by monologic production and dialogic support or by deconstructing preferred meanings. Possible resistance is articulated through local outbreaks which reject the global equation of the non-existence of commercial facilities with the non-existence of public facilities and with existential emptiness.

Keywords

critical linguistics; semantics; public space; identity; memory

Hrčak ID:

93662

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/93662

Publication date:

14.12.2012.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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