“Good job, but Bulgarian”: Identifying “Bulgarian-ness” through cultural discourse analysis

ABSTRACT

By using cultural discourse analysis and ethnography, naturally occurring talk and interviews were examined for local constructions of “Bulgarian-ness” in order to formulate explicit and implicit cultural propositions about being “Bulgarian,” and cultural premises about being (“Bulgarian-ness” as problematic) and emotion (anger, frustration) as connected. This article illustrates the notion of the phrase as a local cultural symbol within Bulgarian discourse that evokes deep cultural meanings for a way of being (“Bulgarian-ness” and the West/East dichotomy), emotions (frustration, hopelessness), and a social world (the “Bulgarian situation”) as continuously negotiated in relation to conceptualizations of “Balkanism.”

KEYWORDS:

• Identity
• Bulgaria
• cultural discourse analysis
• post-socialism
• emotion

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nadezhda Sotirova

Nadezhda Sotirova is an Assistant Professor at University of Minnesota Morris. Nadezhda received her PhD from University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2015 and since then has published work on the cultural phenomenon of oplakvane (complaining, mourning). Her current ethnographic work focuses on public discourses of emigration, identity, and post-socialism in Bulgaria.