Date of Award

Fall 1-1-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Wilkinson, Steven

Abstract

How does language, used as an everyday nation-building tool, influence individual political behavior and preferences? In addressing this question, my dissertation demonstrates that language serves not only as a medium of communication but also as an instrument for asserting the dominance of a nation's core ethno-linguistic group and signaling the state’s support for this group (Part 1). Thus, it shapes preferences regarding national identity and nationalism among subnational language groups (Part 2), and communicates the ideological affiliations of political actors (Part 3). In part 1, I advance a theory of 'everyday imposition:' a nation-building strategy employed by state elites to promote national languages through routine interactions with citizens. I argue that the resulting hierarchical ordering of languages has affective and material consequences for citizens belonging to subnational groups. I examine the phenomenon and consequences of everyday imposition in India, where the state has promoted Hindi, an ethnic language associated with the core ethno-linguistic group, and English, an economically dominant but ethnically neutral language, as the national languages. Through an in-person audit experiment in public banks (n=1,080) in the non-Hindi state of Karnataka, I demonstrate that the Indian state prioritizes Hindi and English in routine citizen interactions, creating a hierarchy where the local language is marginalized. This language hierarchy has significant affective consequences that vary by class and type of national language: individuals associated with higher class are largely insulated from language-based discrimination, whereas those of lower class report more negative affect when interacting in the local language compared to Hindi but not English. These findings highlight that the impact of national language imposition on subnational groups is shaped by both the ethnic and class components of language. Thus, I introduce and develop a novel concept of everyday imposition as a nation-building strategy, demonstrating its mechanisms and consequences through routine state-citizen interactions. In part 2, I examine how exposure to national languages influences the political identities and preferences of subnational language groups. I analyze how exposure to Hindi and English, India's national languages, shapes the political identities of locals in the non-Hindi states of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Drawing on social identity theory, I argue that exposure to national languages fosters stronger identification with the Indian nation by encouraging individuals to distance themselves from lower-status subnational identities. A survey experiment (n = 4,578) that randomizes exposure to national versus local languages offers mixed evidence for this claim. Exposure to national languages fosters a fractured nationalism: strengthening national identification while simultaneously intensifying local nativist sentiment toward other groups within the nation. This suggests that individuals perceive status through a multi-dimensional lens, navigating both national and local levels in shaping their political preferences. Further, I elucidate the mechanism by showing that these effects hold consistently across both Hindi-bilingual and non-bilingual respondents, suggesting that the influence of national language exposure is driven more by its symbolic status associations than by the cognitive benefits of language proficiency or the material disadvantages associated with a lack of proficiency. In part 3, I argue that everyday language use can convey ideological cues, focusing on the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. First, through an analysis of Madras legislative debates during the Anti-Hindi Movement of the 1930s, I demonstrate how Tamil, the local language, and Hindi, the national language, became associated with distinct political values, particularly in relation to federalism and social justice, including caste and racial hierarchies. By process-tracing political developments in language policy thereafter, I illustrate the enduring influence of these ideological associations on political contestation in Tamil Nadu. Second, I conduct a behavioral test using an audit experiment involving local politicians (n=1,374). Results indicate that politicians respond more favorably to greetings in Tamil than in Hindi, irrespective of the language used for a claim or the linguistic identity of the claimant. Additionally, local politicians are less responsive to Hindi religious greetings and more likely to engage with Tamil nationalist greetings, consistent with the historical bundling of these languages with ideologies. These findings indicates that everyday language serves as a means of signaling ideological affiliations that individuals interpret and respond to.

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