“Good job, but Bulgarian”: Identifying “Bulgarian-ness” through cultural discourse analysis

ABSTRACT By using cultural discourse analysis and ethnography, naturally occurring talk and interviews were examined for local constructions of “Bulgarian-ness” in order to formulate explicit and implicit cultural propositions about being “Bulgarian,” and cultural premises about being (“Bulgarian-ness” as problematic) and emotion (anger, frustration) as connected. This article illustrates the notion of the phrase as a local cultural symbol within Bulgarian discourse that evokes deep cultural meanings for a way of being (“Bulgarian-ness” and the West/East dichotomy), emotions (frustration, hopelessness), and a social world (the “Bulgarian situation”) as continuously negotiated in relation to conceptualizations of “Balkanism.”