Voices of English: Language and the construction of religious identity amongst Ismaili Muslims in Pakistan and Tajikistan

Abstract

This paper brings together notions of heteroglossia and religious identity to explore how English becomes indexical of Ismaili distinction in local communities in Pakistan and Tajikistan. Adopting a heteroglossic approach to language provides a perspective which is epistemologically compatible with notions of religion as social, human and interactional, as intricately connected to power, and as both reflecting and being shaped by perspective and positioning. In the paper, I use a "discourse analysis beyond the speech event"approach to engage with data collected during ethnographic fieldwork (qualitative interviews, focus group discussions, fieldnotes) amongst Ismailis in Hunza, northern Pakistan and Khorog, eastern Tajikistan. In analyzing these examples, I attempt to illustrate how ideologies of English become sites for the negotiation of religious distinction.