Turning Recognition into Imposition

In linguistics, the idea of a close connection between language and identity is widely accepted, conceiving language use and its metadiscursive negotiations as acts of identity to align with or distance from social groups. In what at first sight appears to be a similar argument but is mainly oriented towards national standard languages, conservative and right-wing political actors see language as the main foundation of cultural identity. This contribution shows how the language ideological linking of standard language and cultural identity is used to impose hegemonic notions of order in political discourse. By the examples of debates on migration politics and gender-sensitive language in the German- speaking countries, it is shown how in metapragmatic discourse a defensive stance is taken towards supposed attacks against standard language, so that standard language ideologies prove to be a driving force of the mimicry of marginality.