Snježana Kordić

Snježana Kordić (born 29 October 1964) is a Croatian linguist.

In addition to her work in syntax, she has written on sociolinguistics.

Kordić is known among non-specialists for numerous articles against the puristic and prescriptive language policy in Croatia.

Snježana Kordić obtained a degree from Osijek University (1988) and an M.Sci. in Linguistics from the Faculty of Philosophy at the Zagreb University (1992).

From 1990 to 1991 she was an assistant at the Osijek University, and from 1991 to 1995 she was an assistant at the Zagreb University.

Kordić ascertains that since 1990, purism and prescriptivism have been the main features of language policy in Croatia.

A ban on certain words perceived as "Serbian" (which were for the most part merely international) and the idea that a word is more "Croatian" if fewer Croats understood it, resulted in the widespread impression that no one but a handful of linguists in Croatia knew the standard language.

With a plethora of quotations from German, French, Polish, and English linguistic literature, Kordić demonstrates that the language of Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins is a polycentric language, with four standard variants spoken in Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These variants do differ slightly, as is the case with other polycentric languages (English, German, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, among others), but not to a degree which would justify considering them as different languages.

This fact suggests by no means a re-establishment of a common state, since standard variants of all other polycentric languages are spoken in different countries, e.g. English in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada, German in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland.

The above examples demonstrate that the pluricentricity of language does not imply linguistic unification.

Each nation can codify its variant on its own.

Kordić criticizes a romantic view of language and nation, which is very widespread in Croatia.

She earned her Ph.D. in Zagreb (1993).

Then she moved to Germany and was a lecturer at the Bochum University from 1993 to 1998.

She later served as an associate professor at the Münster University from 1998 to 2004.

In Germany she obtained a habilitation in Slavic philology (qualification at professorship level) from the University of Münster in 2002.

Kordić taught and conducted research at a number of Croatian and German universities.

After that, she was a visiting professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin from 2004 to 2005.

From 2005 to 2007 she was a lecturer at the Frankfurt University.

Snježana Kordić's main focal points in research and teaching are grammar, syntax, text linguistics, textual cohesion, pragmatics, lexicology, corpus linguistics, quantitative linguistics, sociolinguistics and language policy.

She has authored over 150 linguistic publications, among which are a textbook, a grammar book, and three monographs, which have been translated into English, German or Spanish.

Each of her books on syntactic issues has gotten more positive reviews from around the world than any other linguistic book published in Croatia.

Her first monograph on relative clauses was well received.

Many reviewers commented favourably on it.

Ian Press wrote:"This comprehensive study of relative clauses in Serbo-Croatian is a model of scholarly thoroughness and intellectual balance. [...] The work as a whole is most highly to be recommended to anyone studying relative clauses."

Hans-Peter Stoffel underlined:"This excellent and informative monograph should form part of the personal library of all those interested in this field. The book answers questions which have always been asked but to which one never seemed to obtain a satisfactory answer. Kordić's book fills this lacuna in a commendable way."

In her second monograph, which has also been reviewed with approval, Snježana Kordić examines Serbo-Croatian words that oscillate between having a full lexical status and a functional grammatical status, a factor that has complicated their lexicographic and grammatical description in dictionaries and grammars.

These are mainly lexemes which have a high frequency usage and are used in many different ways.

The monograph provides information on the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of the usage of selected pronouns, nouns, particle, conjunctions and verbs.

Matthew Feeney concluded his review by saying: "Kordić provides much new information about the selected forms. This work will be of use to those who write in Croatian and Serbian, those who are writing grammars of the language, lexicographer, translators, students and teachers of the language, Slavic linguists and general linguists."

Peter Herrity emphasised that:"In all the chapters of this book the author has thoroughly researched the existing literature on the points covered and provided a conclusion on modern usage which will be invaluable for grammarians and lexicographers who often treat these subjects in a cursory fashion. This book will be a welcome addition to the field of Serbo-Croatian scholarship."

Wayles Browne, an American expert on relative clauses, commented both of the books.

He noted that Kordić's first book on relative clauses is: "a valuable and thorough study of the grammar of relative constructions, drawing theoretical-linguistic inspiration from a number of sources and citing statistical results based on a large representative corpus."

In the same review article, Browne pointed out that Kordić's second monograph"shares the virtues of her work on relative clauses, being empirically well supported and making references to a variety of traditions in linguistics. One is impressed to see, on its pages, apposite quotations from independently developed German, Russian, Polish, Czech, and English-American scholarship converging on similar views."

Snježana Kordić's third monograph deals with sociolinguistic topics, such as language policy in Croatia, theory of pluricentric languages, and how identity, culture, nation, and history can be misused by politically motivated linguists.

Her 2010 book on language and nationalism popularises the theory of pluricentric languages in the Balkans.

The romantic idea that the nation and the language must match has its roots in 19th century Germany, but by the middle of the 20th century, the scientific community abandoned that idea.

She also argues against political interference in linguistics.

As regards the name of the language, Kordić discusses only the name to be used in linguistics, leaving non-linguists to name the language any way they prefer.