POJAM IDENTEME U SEMIOLOGIJI, LINGVISTICI I SOCIOLINGVISTICI / THE CONCEPT OF IDENTEME IN SEMIOLOGY, LINGUISTICS AND SOCIOLINGUISTICS

Abstract

This paper introduces a new concept of identeme in the fields of semiology, linguistics and sociolinguistics. The term identeme is borrowed from the French psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Michel Neyraut (Neyraut, 2008) and given a new, different meaning. While Neyraut uses the term in a psychoanalytic sense, its meaning is expanded in this paper and applied to disciplines such as semiology and linguistics. Starting from the category of identity, a distinction is made between semiological, linguistic and so ciolinguistic identemes. Semiological identemes (identemes in the broader sense) are the smallest units of meaning and they convey belonging to a social group and/or differences in relation to a social group. Linguistic (interlinguistic) identemes refer to linguistic identity, and sociolinguistic (intralinguistic) identemes refer to sociolinguistic identity. The paper also discusses the notion of linguistic territoriality and focuses on demarcating identemes. These occur especially in multicultural environments and this is why the paper looks at many examples from the language(s) spoken in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in neighbouring countries that use a related idiom.