Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

This paper explores the meaning of language as cultural capital. It digs into the experience of proper use of language as cultural capital and the impact that the abuse of language by the establishment has on its quality as capital. The core hypothesis builds on surveys proving the degradation of the use of national language in the national media by high-positioned representatives like politicians, members of parliament, government officials, and even analysts. It has been the subject of severe criticism in the past decade in Bulgaria by academics, but also ordinary citizens. These findings are backed up with observations of people’s anxieties, expressed in various media. Primary research in the form of semi-structured interviews looks at the attitude of people to this phenomenon and the essence of their concerns in an attempt to discover the significance and value that it has for them. Theoretically, interpretation is searched of the long-term consequences of this trend for the cumulative cultural capital in the country on the one hand, and for the role of good use of language as a component of individual cultural capital, and in particular the perspectives of possible capitalization of linguistic competence. As any given cultural competence derives a scarcity value from its position in the distribution of cultural capital and yields profit of distinction for its owner, the research question is what will be the likely impact of this negative trend in the longer-term perspective.