Ideological indeterminacy: Worker Esperantism in 1920s Sweden

This article investigates visions of Esperanto upheld in the Swedish labour movement during the 1920s. It offers an account of the linguistic–political practice of the Swedish Worker Esperanto Association (SLEA). The analytical focus is placed on SLEA's conceptualisation of Esperanto as an effective means for achieving social, political and communicative amelioration. The ideological open-endedness afforded by this idea is a particular point of interest. In SLEA's practice, Esperanto was regarded both as a means of overcoming and safeguarding linguistic heterogeneity. The ameliorative potential ascribed to Esperanto could be appropriated both by national and cosmopolitan imaginaries. The co-presence of these two visions points to a fundamental indeterminacy interwoven into a seemingly rigid ideology of language.
Source: Language and Communication - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research