Contested Languages
The hidden multilingualism of Europe
1st Edition
Published on 21. January 2021
277 pages
978-90-272-6038-3 (ISBN)
Description
This is the first volume entirely dedicated to contested languages. While generally listed in international language atlases, contested languages usually fall through the cracks of research: excluded from the literature on minority languages and treated as mere ensembles of geographically defined varieties by traditional dialectology. This volume investigates the nature of contested languages, the role language ideologies play in the perception of these languages, the contribution of academic discourse to the formation and perpetuation of language contestedness, and the damage contestedness causes to linguistic communities and ultimately to linguistic diversity. Various situations and degrees of language contestedness are presented and analysed, along with theoretical considerations, exploring potential roads to recognition and issues in language planning that arise from language contestedness. Addressing the "e;language vs dialect"e; question head on, the volume opens up new perspectives that are relevant to all students and researchers interested in the maintenance of linguistic diversity.
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Content
- Intro
- Contested Languages
- Editorial page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Table of contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. What are contested languages and why should linguists care?
- 1. What are contested languages?
- 2. Ausbau-centrism
- 3. What is the contribution of this volume?
- 4. The conclusion of an introduction
- References
- Section 1. The broader picture
- Chapter 2. Contested languages and the denial of linguistic rights in the 21st century
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The failure of ausbau-centric linguistics
- 3. Self-perception: A reliable taxonomical alternative?
- 4. Taking abstand seriously: The intelligibility criterion
- 4.1 Asymmetry, or "non-reciprocal" intelligibility
- 4.2 Attitudes and motivation
- 4.3 Intelligibility as a way forward
- 5. Conclusions
- References
- Chapter 3. Democracy: A threat to language diversity?
- 1. The difficult life of the objects of the third kind
- 2. The unstoppable aggrandisement of government
- 3. Language and welfare
- 4. Neutering diversity
- 5. Language-preserving boundaries?
- 6. Conclusions
- References
- Section 2. Identifying and perceiving contested languages
- Chapter 4. Mixing methods in linguistic classification: A hidden agenda against multilingualism? The contestedness of Gallo-"Italic" languages within the Romance family
- 1. Introduction
- 1.1 Geographical introduction
- 1.2 Problem statement. Two competing groupings for Romance varieties
- 1.3 Some representative contributions of the two competing traditions
- 1.4 Ausbau vs. Abstand
- 1.5 Classificatory criteria and distinct classifications
- 1.6 Possible causes for the disagreement between pro-Gallo- and pro-Italo- traditions
- 2. Issues with the "Mixed criterion tradition"
- 2.1 Scientific classifications
- 2.2 The ontological problem in Pellegrini (1975), 'The five systems of Italo-Romance'
- 2.3 Pellegrini and the exceptional "fragmentation" of Italo-Romance
- 2.4 The ad hoc problem in Loporcaro (2009), 'Profilo linguistico dei dialetti italiani'
- 3. Preliminary conclusions
- 4. Some considerations and questions for future research
- 4.1 Nationalist ideology
- References
- Chapter 5. The cost of ignoring degrees of Abstand in defining a regional language: Evidence from South Tyrol
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Sociolinguistic bilingualism: The South Tyrolean case
- 3. Bilingualism: Who is bilingual and when?
- 4. Measuring bilingualism: An empirical approach
- 5. First empirical study: Measuring intelligibility between Standard German and Bavarian
- 5.1 Design and procedure
- 5.2 Materials and stimuli
- 5.3 Participants
- 5.4 Results
- 5.5 Discussion and summary
- 6. Second empirical study: South Tyroleans' receptive language comprehension in German
- 6.1 Design and Procedure
- 6.2 Materials and stimuli
- 6.3 Participants
- 6.4 Results
- 6.5 Discussion and Summary
- 7. Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- References
- Chapter 6. Deconstructing the idea of language: The effects of the patoisation of Occitan in France
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Establishment of a dominance
- 3. History of the word patois and its application to Occitan
- 4. Socio-psychological effects on the Occitan community
- 5. Conclusion
- References
- Chapter 7. Surveying the ethnolinguistic vitality of two regional collateral languages: The case of Kashubian and Piedmontese
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Kashubian and Piedmontese: The sociolinguistic situation
- 2.1 Kashubian
- 2.2 Piedmontese
- 3. Survey objectives and methodology
- 4. Survey results and discussion
- 4.1 Self-assessment
- 4.2 Use
- 4.3 Transmission
- 4.4 Attitudes
- 4.5 Awareness
- 4.6 Stigma
- 4.7 General comments
- 5. Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- References
- Chapter 8. Contested orthographies: Taking a closer look at spontaneous writing in Piedmontese
- 1. Introduction
- 1.1 Piedmontese: A brief linguistic profile
- 2. Orthographies for piedmontese
- 3. Spontaneous writings in piedmontese
- 3.1 The corpus
- 4. What we can learn from spontaneous Piedmontese spelling choices
- 4.1 Synchronic and diachronic consistencies
- 5. Conclusions
- References
- Chapter 9. Revitalising contested languages: The case of Lombard
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Italian regional languages
- 3. Lombard
- 4. Lombard: One language? Many dialects?
- 5. Language planning
- 5.1 Corpus planning
- 5.2 Status planning
- 5.3 Acquisition planning
- 6. Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- References
- Section 3. Working with contestedness: Experiences from the field
- Chapter 10. Community-based language planning: Bringing Sicilian folktales back to life
- 1. Introduction
- 2. A reality called Sicilian
- 3. The language hierarchy market and language planning
- 4. Current initiatives of social development and linguistic documentation
- 5. Bringing Sicilian folktales back to life
- 6. Conclusions
- References
- Chapter 11. Teaching piedmontese: A challenge?
- 1. Historical survey: A prototypical contested language
- 2. Teaching piedmontese: Experiences in primary schools
- 3. The first university experiences: 2015-2016 and 2016-2017
- 4. Conclusion: Why and how to study Piedmontese in a university context?
- References
- Chapter 12. Publishing a grammar and literature anthology of a contested language: An experience of crowdfunding
- 1. Preamble
- 1.1 Piedmontese
- 1.2 Adult classes
- 1.3 The book project
- 2. Fund raising for the grammar publication
- 2.1 Crowdfunding
- 2.2 The campaign launch
- 2.3 The campaign management
- 2.4 The campaign conclusion
- 3. Conclusion
- References
- Chapter 13. Which Sardinian for education?: The chance of CLIL-based laboratories: A case study
- 1. Introduction
- 2. The standardisation of Sardinian and its impact in education
- 3. The setting of the case study
- 4. The sociolinguistic analysis
- 5. Sardinian in the classrooms
- 6. Concluding remarks and directions for further research
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
- Appendix
- Section 4. Beyond contested languages: When contestedness creeps in
- Chapter 14. Citizenship and Nationality: The situation of the users of revived Livonian in Latvia
- 1. Preliminaries
- 2. Early history
- 3. Doom
- 4. Resurgence
- References
- Chapter 15. The language ideology of Esperanto: From the world language problem to balanced multilingualism
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Is Esperanto a contested language?
- 3. The tradition of Esperanto: One language, several ideologies
- 4. Multilingualism and Esperanto: A complex relation
- 5. Esperanto and linguistic rights in the Digital Era
- 6. Concluding remarks
- References
- Index
