Excerpt 1Footnote ³

The distinction between the two groups is expressed first in lines 1–2. The doubling of the term German in reference to Germans from Germany (by contrast with Volksdeutsch in line 2) is an example of contrastive focus reduplication, which is used in English to contrast a more authentic form of something with a less authentic one (Ghomeshi et al. 2004). In this case, the more authentic form is German German and the less authentic form is volksdeutsch. The effect of this contrast is that it establishes the Germans from Germany as the center, that is, the more authentic members of the community, while moving the Germans from speech islands toward the periphery. This effect is further reinforced in Viola's following turn, in which she repeats the term volksdeutsch and punctuates it with laughter, possibly indicating her nervousness around the term in general, a nervousness that is also indicated through her hesitation (the repeated you know and the pauses) in using the term in lines 1–2. She then goes on to make yet another contrast between the two groups, stating that it is the more authentic Germans who look down on the less authentic Volksdeutsche. Characterizing the group of Germans from Germany as Germans has a similar effect to the prior contrastive focus reduplication, that is, it conveys that their ethnicity is somehow more authentically German than that of their speech island counterparts.

In Viola's final turn, then, she ties this distinction directly to the construction of space by specifying that particularly in Canada the hierarchy between these groups is relevant. This conversational move transports the historical and European-specific concepts of Germans from Germany and Germans from speech islands to the Canadian context and relabels them as something specific to German-speaking Canada, thereby connecting the horizontal dimension of these outdated terms as a part of European history with the vertical dimension of a hierarchical distinction in the German-Canadian space that is still very relevant today. Also of interest in terms of the construction of space is the use of the descriptive terms in their adjectival forms German German and volksdeutsch rather than the equivalent noun forms. By phrasing the distinction this way, Viola can position these groups as tied not to any one particular place, but solely to German ethnicity, which is not place-of-origin-specific.

Viola, therefore, never explicitly names places of origin of immigrants, but instead implicitly distinguishes between two kinds of places linked to her use of terminology: those outside of Germany and Germany itself. By contrast, a different immigrant, Gerda, in her interview with the Waterloo interviewer (IntW), begins the next excerpt by mentioning the role of place in constructing degrees of authenticity in German ethnic identity (and in turn the center and periphery of the German space). Gerda is of retirement age and immigrated to Canada from Berlin when she was 35 years old.

Excerpt 2

Gerda:

1 ja es sind viele die nicht richtig deutsche sind die sind zugereist von rumänien

yeah there are a lot who are not really germans who came here from romania

2 oder eh you know from different [countries

or uh

IntW:

Although she does not label them, Gerda first evokes the category of Germans from speech islands in the first three lines by referencing their place of origin, and it is this place of origin that is said to imply that they are less authentic (not really Germans). Yet it is not just the past that is affected by this place of origin, but also the present, since through the use of the present tense this group is described as being not only less authentically German originally but also still less German now. As in excerpt 1, this formulation has the additional effect of placing them further toward the periphery of the German-Canadian space today. It also taps into the horizontal dimension of space in that it conveys the way past trajectories still influence present identities.

However, in the next few lines, this distinction becomes more complex. It is the interviewer who first introduces the term Volksdeutsche into the conversation, but Gerda's repeated yes confirmations in line 5 leaves no doubt that it is in fact the speech-island group that Gerda had been referring to. In lines 2 and 11, she connects this group directly with what defines them as less authentically German in the Canadian context, that is, a place of origin that is outside of Germany and a trajectory that still influences the current construction of a German-Canadian space. However, by using the English paraphrase from different countries to refer to the Germans from speech islands in line 2 (which she reinforces again in line 11), she both avoids the problematic term Volksdeutsche and more strongly ties this construction to the way immigrants are routinely described in a primarily English-speaking space.

In line 7, Gerda sets Germans from speech islands against the category to which she belongs: that of Germans from Berlin, and, by implication, that of Germans from Germany. She describes this group as the local minority, with the majority group consisting of northern and southern Germans, and those with places of origin in other countries. By doing this, she not only projects the European space onto the German-Canadian space, but also devises hierarchies within the latter that are largely based on numbers. In line 31, however, language becomes an issue. When she talks about the two groups’ differing dialects, both Gerda's verb choice (suggesting that the Germans from speech islands have dialect as a sort of cultural possession) and the use of the demon-strative pronoun die—which automatically sets up a contrast with the opposing group: the Germans from speech islands “have dialect,” but her own group does not—have the effect of constructing Germans from speech islands as less authentically German and relegating them to the periphery of the community.

Excerpt 3

Nino:

1 well there's a GERMAN from russia historical society (.) meeting at uh,

2 saint uh, young lutheran church in the basement.

((lines omitted))

At the beginning of the excerpt, Nino volunteers the information that they regularly go to the German from Russia Historical Society. In line 8, however, he uses the formulation German from overseas, which seems to refer to the same society. There are two possible interpretations of this. First, by equating these two, he may be implying that only Germans from Russia are from overseas, thereby positioning them as more foreign than other German groups and thus further from the center. Second, he may be aligning with the Canadian perspective and defining all European Germans as Germans from overseas. In either interpretation, however, he is distancing himself from these groups. This corresponds to his more direct positioning of himself outside of the group of Germans in line 9, when he is quick to point out that he is not German himself, and the readiness with which he does this suggests that he does not want to be considered German in any way. By formulating his ethnic identity in terms of nationality rather than the language he speaks or his ancestry he leaves open the possibility that he is not part of a German national group even though he speaks German.Footnote ⁴ This challenges his wife's construction of a German space in Canada as resulting from multiple European places of origin but unified largely through a common ethnicity (and perhaps a common language). In justifying his non-Germanness, Nino refers to Hungary and Vienna as the places where he grew up. Within a construction of German space that rests largely on language as a unifying feature, these are places that could just as easily be used to argue for rather than against Germanness since both Austria and the Hungarian-German speech island are German-speaking. Nino, however, rejects language as a basis for a common ethnicity, and by associating himself with places outside of Germany also rejects the label of German for himself.

Starting with line 14, then, his German connection is discursively constructed by both Ulla and the interviewer. To position him within the German group, Ulla reminds him of his German ancestry by using time and a presumed, but not formulated, German place of origin clearly referencing the immigration out of the original European German space. While he admits to this ancestry, Nino makes it a matter of history long past and distances himself from this group through deixis in line 16 by saying they came. This has the effect of foregrounding the outdatedness of his German connection and gives preference to time over place in the construction of a German space in Canada. In doing so he is contesting the ideology according to which one finds his or her roots in the place of origin of his or her ancestry, an ideology that potentially allows the construction of any space on the basis of the place of origin by assuming travelling identities. Rather, Nino is arguing that the origin is outdated and that place relates to a temporary space limited by the time frame of the self-experienced place of living. Based on that construction, Nino is Hungarian and Austrian. In line 17, the interviewer rejects Nino's argument by positioning him as authentically German by ancestry as his wife had done before, although her laughter suggests that she does this not in an entirely serious way. His wife then provides another factor for positioning him as authentically German by reminding him of his German name in line 18. Since she formulates this in the past tense, he may have given up his German name when coming to Canada, a further indication that he does not want to be associated with Germanness in Canada.

In excerpt 4 below, place is again an important factor in the construction of identity through positioning. Here, however, it is used in a very different way from Nino's constructions of place of living versus place of origin. In addition, a hierarchical relationship between Germans from speech islands and Germans from Germany is created in excerpt 4 through the formulation of stereotypical images and their construction by different generations. The Waterloo interviewer is talking to Sven here, who is of retirement age. He was born in Canada to parents who immigrated in the late 1920s from the Ukraine and Siebenbürgen, an area located in Romania and Hungary.

Excerpt 4

In lines 4–5, Sven cites his mother's negative stereotypical image of Germans from Germany.Footnote ⁵ He then provides his own examples that reflect this same image. He also indicates the importance of the group distinction by interrupting the flow of his turn in line 18 to point out that a very important relationship of his father's was not with a German from Germany. Thus, while he attributes these images to the previous generation in order to create a hierarchy (see lines 23–24, 26, and 28), he uses them himself to construct an outgroup that is essentially distinguished only by place—Germans from Germany—and which he relegates to the periphery of the German space in Canada.

In contrast to Nino in the previous example, when Sven is asked about his heritage and that of his group in lines 32–34, he rejects any connection to the non-German part of his parents’ preimmigrant places of living: The customs, that is, cultural practices, of the German enclave are constructed as German rather than Romanian. This has the effect of constructing his family's place of origin, which is outside of Germany, as part of the German space in Europe, and therefore as equally authentically German. Sven first includes himself as part of the referenced heritage group through the “we” in line 35. He then shifts to more distancing formulations such as German enclave in line 38 and their cooking in line 39. He positions himself even further away from this group by formulating who they are in line 41 and, by implication, what he is not: they considered themselves german. Through the use of the past tense, he assigns the immigrant generation a space of the past, and through pronoun deixis, he positions himself outside of that group.

Eventually, he presents this immigrant generation in line 43 as divorced from his own generation by defining his own contrastive group in terms of a different perspective: that's what we felt they were as well. Although the reference for we is not stated explicitly, it seems to index his own second generation of immigrants by contrasting them with a different group. Here, again, he uses the past tense in we felt they were instead of we feel they are. This indicates that he delineates the “German-Canadian” space along different generations and wants to see himself as separate, though the images and hierarchies are still projected by him as well.

Excerpt 5

IntW:

1 halten sie sich mehr an deutsche oder mehr an kanadische (feiertage)

do you stick more to german or more to canadian (holidays)

Hans:

2 well also an die feiertage drehen sich alles um die kirche und und weil wir zur

well well when it's the holidays everything is about churchand and because we

3 deutschen gemeinde gehören nicht wahr alles deutsche leute

belong to a german congregation right it's all german people

In line 3, in response to a question about German or Canadian holidays, Hans describes both his church and the people who belong to it as German. Then he states that these German people come from 13 different countries of Europe, thereby creating a common space of authentic German ethnicity for this group of people in Canada, even though their places of origin in Europe are different. By indexing this diversity, Hans draws attention to the process by which a unified authentic German-Canadian space is constructed in this church. After all, if different places are considered as contributing to differences in identities, the mention of this relatively large number of places demands respect by the listener, and if Hans has successfully constructed the unity-through-diversity of the community, this indicates that he takes a certain pride in this process and in the diversity. In this group description, such a large number of countries must include people from German speech islands and not just Germany, but Hans does not articulate this distinction. Instead of being indicative of differences in authenticity, the places of origin are simply indications of different trajectories and have no further value for Hans in this new space in Canada.

In disregarding the distinction between Germans from Germany and Germans from speech islands, he also essentially disregards the distinction between a center and periphery. Rather, he makes the whole of Europe the reference point for Germanness, that is, the center. Constructing the space this way has an impact on Hans’ own positioning. With Poland as his own place of origin, that country is included among the 13 countries of Europe that he mentions. Hans is, therefore, able to position himself alongside those from the other 13 countries in the new space he is constructing, all of which are equally authentically German in a Canadian context. Since there is no distinction between center and periphery, he is able to position himself undeniably as an equal, and as authentically German.

Besides place of origin, in lines 13–14 Hans mentions another criterion that makes this group of German people diverse: they speak different dialects. However, in line 16 Hans is quick to unify this diversity again by adding their common ethnic Germanness once more: but all German. It is striking here that he does not use an adjective to designate the ethnic Germanness of the language or the people but uses instead a general description referring to some kind of ethnic Germanness that does not specifically say what or who is all German. By doing this, he creates a general space of authentic Germanness in which, again, he is able to include himself by disregarding a center and a periphery among the local German community.Footnote ⁶

The final example also comes from the Waterloo corpus, and it also provides evidence for the unity-through-diversity construction of the German space in Canada that Hans evokes in excerpt 5. Excerpt 6 comes from an interview with a retirement-age immigrant named Franz. He belongs to the 1.5 generation because he came to Canada with his parents at the age of 7.

Excerpt 6

At first glance, similarly to Hans in excerpt 5, Franz makes the distinction between Germans from Germany and Germans from speech islands relevant by constructing a unified authentic German space in Canada rather than emphasizing the distinctions within that space. However, numerous nuances suggest that the matter is somewhat more complicated than he initially lets on. For example, through the passive voice in line 3, everybody was painted the same color with the same brush, he conveys the lack of importance of the distinction as originating not within the German community but outside of it, with the external authoritative voice of English-speaking Canadians who gave all Germans the same label. In line 11, then, Franz evokes the different places of origin of community members as one reason for why it did not make a difference: If absolutely everyone was from different places, then the distinction between Germans from Germany and Germans from speech islands could not actually lead to differences in authenticity within the community. To underscore this point, he then elaborates further on what exactly unified this diverse group of people: their connection to Germany (lines 15, 17–18). At the point where he evokes the concept of a speech-island German category most strongly, he does so with the voice of an imaginary outsider (lines 24–26), that is, with the voice of someone who did not actually say these things to him. Even there, this voice does not tell him what he is, but what he is not. All this seems to suggest that Franz is constructing this community as one without differences, and by doing so he constructs a general authentic German space emerging from multiple places of origin, which is only possible in an immigrant context.

Although Franz consistently characterizes the community as unified, this characterization becomes more complex starting in line 36. He begins by using Austrians as an example of a group that might speak differently but states that this difference did not matter either to Austrians or to other groups, such as the Swiss or Hungarians. Yet, in lines 46–47, Franz conveys that once you get in contact with people, these people let on that their identity is more complex than just German. More contact, therefore, produces a more nuanced picture of people's identities and thus a more diversified German space. Interestingly, Franz does not portray himself as the author of the contributions from the Germans from speech islands in lines 46–47, but merely as their animator, expressing these people as saying we are hungarians, we are yugoslavians and we are czech, and in doing this, he uses the noun forms that are simultaneously laden with connotations of national origin and ethnic origin. The use of these nation-specific ethnic identity terms could be interpreted as denying the Germans from speech islands a German connection, but the apparent incongruity of those terms and the Germanness he is attributing to them does not occur to Franz. This only lends weight to his construction of a specifically Canadian authentic German space with multiple European places of origin.

In fact, within the unity Franz constructs, specific places of origin have no importance in evaluating degrees of authentic ethnic identity. The commonality, despite different places of origin in Europe, is a certain tie to Germanness—a tie that is very broadly conceived, since even Austria becomes part of this authentic German space merely because of the German language. Franz seems to be assuming that there is a common German space in Europe that is similar to the ways that he constructs a German space in Canada: The place of origin does not matter; what counts is the German connection. This space is not lost even when a non-German national identification (Czech, Hungarian, etc.) is assigned as the main identification of Germans from speech islands: they are still part of the German space. This effect of this construction is twofold. Consciously or not, Franz gives precedence to Germanness as a national and linguistic space over the place or non-German nationalities and possibly languages. Thus, he recreates a German space in Europe that is more historical than current, and, in fact, conflicts with current notions of Germanness and national boundaries. For his own personal positioning, this implies that he can always claim German ancestry (and an authentic German identity) for himself, no matter where he grew up.