Search

A closer interdisciplinary engagement by geographers, ethnographers and sociolinguists has resulted in new thematic issues being investigated and more sophisticated methodological approaches being adopted. The development of advanced IT and AI capabilities, particularly the wider adoption of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), has opened up new means of exploring and representing aspects of human behaviour. Of particular note is the appreciation by sociolinguistics of the various spatial perspectives currently being utilised in sub-disciplines such as studies of the interactions within metropolitan multilingual contexts, linguistic landscapes, new speaker research and applied language policy. This paper calls for a greater mutual reciprocity and syncretic interpretation of several key issues and promising methodologies. It also indicates how sociolinguists can contribute to significant societal debates on language policy and planning as part of social planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the long history of mutual language contact, Slavic languages have had a considerable influence on German and attitudes towards multilingualism in Austria. With regard to the multilingual setting in the Habsburg state and its repercussions to this day, this article outlines the basic assumptions, the methodological toolkit as well as the main general findings of the special research programme "German in Austria. Variation – Contact – Perception", especially its task cluster on language contact. The opinion paper concludes with an overview of the methodological lessons learnt and the possible implications for further sociolinguistic research in historical contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay reviews some of the changes engendered by the digital turn in language attitudes and language behaviour. It compares the current nexus of technology and language with that of print capitalism and examines the dimensions of digital society that have been affected particularly strongly, paying special attention to social practices, Bourdieu's notion of "legitimate language", legal issues, and our general understanding of how language works. It concludes by proposing a new research agenda in the form of a list of topics that sociolinguistics should address in the future, in particular the role of language institutions in cyberspace, the future of multilingualism, and a reinterpretation of Bourdieu's notion of "legitimate language". The paper is intended as a contribution to the ongoing and increasingly urgent discussion about the nexus of cyberspace, deliberative democracy, and multilingualism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociolinguistica is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Luxembourgish is a Germanic language in Western Europe situated on the Germanic-Romance language border. The centuries-long multilingualism, that has included German and French as main contact languages, has led to much variation on all linguistic levels, yielding lexical doublets – contact-induced synonym pairs. The study presents the results from the online Lëtzebuerger Futtballsprooch 'Luxembourgish football language' survey (n = 1189 participants), set up to analyze the distribution of the variants of lexical doublets in the special language of football in order to exemplify the mechanisms of contact-induced lexical variation in Luxembourgish as a whole. The variation is correlated with sociodemographic and language biographical factors (quantitative analysis, beta regression). The study also introduces linguistic orientation as an overarching factor for the individual language biography that is useful to model the positioning of individuals in relation to the contact languages involved in a complex multilingual society. The results reveal a societal trend towards Germanic variants linked to the linguistic orientation of the participants towards German, mirroring sociolinguistic dynamics and changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is devoted to several ways in which the language of instruction in Czech universities is managed. One of the key issues in this context is the fact that programs accredited in the Czech language are tuition-free, while those in foreign languages are paid. On the one hand, it is deemed desirable by certain actors to integrate greater numbers of students from abroad, conform to the discourse of internationalization, and even earn money through courses in English. On the other hand, it is also viewed as necessary by other actors to cultivate the Czech language and provide a solid education for local students. These multiple and often opposing interests, as well as a number of language ideologies, guide individual management acts. Utilizing the language management framework (Jernudd/Neustupný 1987; Fairbrother/Nekvapil/Sloboda 2018), I explore three selected examples of the management of the language of instruction. In the first, I show how many Czech university programs are accredited in the Czech language, but offer many classes in English. In the second, I examine one case of financial motivation for foreign-language courses through university teaching development projects. In the third, I point to the differences between the language of accreditation of some Ph.D. programs and the languages actually used in their realization. Finally, I consider the fact that all of these cases of management involve some sort of compromise between the interests of certain groups, which means that the only way forward is an increased awareness of all aspects of the management processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I zoom in on linguistic justice for language groups who do not enjoy either local territorial dominance or equality with other language groups within the state. My question is: is there a separate linguistic justice category for such language groups whose recognition is 'subordinate' to that of other language groups? Does subordinate linguistic justice exist? A positive answer would mean that groups who belong to the category would not necessarily want to look at territorial dominance or equality as the proper ideal of linguistic justice: subordinate linguistic justice would not be an oxymoron. The answer I develop is indeed positive; it is possible for language groups to be in such a position of subordination while justice is fulfilled, but only under certain conditions. Nonfulfillment of one of these conditions generates reasons of justice for such groups to emancipate themselves from the position of subordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on language standardization witnessed remarkable progress over the past two decades. Building on the strong foundations laid by Einar Haugen, the scholarly canon on the topic was renewed, while also addressing a number of shortcomings of earlier theory building. As historical sociolinguistics gained momentum, standardization history faced the challenge of including 'voices from below' as they appeared in new and socially inclusive corpora of egodocuments from the past centuries. This implied an increased focus on the formerly overlooked role and presence of non-standard varieties, but also on the ideological driving factors behind many standardization efforts. The article makes a case for specific and ongoing attention to the implementation phase of standardization measures, as well as for the study of language conflicts from times past to help prevent imminent geopolitical struggles (or, for worse, to inform our understanding of these conflicts in the near future). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The various collections of language biographies starting in the 1990s have given rise to a new field of investigation in sociolinguistics. The interest in the very individual, autobiographical viewpoint on languages in speakers' own repertoires offers new insights for macrosociolinguistic research. These detailed corpora also provide data for microanalytical investigations into the specificity of autobiographical narrations, i.e. how speakers construe their language repertoires in the narrative interview setting. This contribution seeks to depict how the interest in LB emerged and subsequently describes the most important developments in LB research, which to date is still limited to the European arena. Since the field is still growing and is in need of formalization, this overview must remain incomplete. Finally, the contribution warns of pitfalls and highlights some fields where LB has provided important input, from language didactics to neurolinguistic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The decades around 1800 saw the rise of standard language ideology in the Northern Netherlands, and its almost immediate implementation in concrete policy measures. For the first time, the national government initiated official spelling and grammar regulations (1804, 1805). Policy measures were also taken to reorganize and nationalize the field of education. The language and education policies were part of a wider range of measures aimed at the formation of a Dutch nation-state. One of the control mechanisms introduced in this period was a national school inspection system. In this paper, we discuss school inspection reports of the first half of the nineteenth century, focusing on the way language planning and multilingualism interacted. In particular, we want to find out whether school inspectors and teachers actively promoted the officially codified variety, and to what extent this implied discouragement of the use of other varieties of Dutch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of language contact in the ancient world has been an area of huge growth over the past ten years. However, in areas of the ancient world where sources are more limited, scholars have been more hesitant to make sweeping claims about the nature of language contact, even in communities where societal bilingualism is likely to have existed for many centuries. Languages only attested in fragmentary epigraphic corpora are considered the ultimate "bad data" and have not always received a great deal of attention in historical sociolinguistics, despite these texts representing our best evidence of many of the communities across the ancient Mediterranean. In response to this problem, this article asks how we should go about interpreting the evidence of ancient language contact in small or fragmentary corpora of texts. This article uses the Oscan corpus from Southern Italy (Lucania, Bruttium and Messina) c. 400--50 BCE as a case study for examining bilingualism in a fragmentary corpus. It outlines the data gathered from a range of different text-types from Southern Italy, the different kinds of contact phenomena which have been found in these texts, and whether there are any discernible patterns in the data. It argues, because of the fragmentary state of the Oscan corpus, that there is little clear evidence of chronological or geographic differentiation in levels of bilingualism. Rather, the evidence shows that in this corpus some text-types are more likely than others to contain contact phenomena. With this in mind, this paper proposes a new model which includes consideration of text-type for the interpretation of language contact and bilingualism in fragmentary corpora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on multilingualism in language contact, language use, and language planning. Topics discussed include historical sociolinguistics and language variation in culture; language planning and its phrases for historical linguistics; sociolinguistic identity; and school inspection. It further includes settings in historical multilingualism, language varieties in text fragments for multilingual experience, official announcements for promoting the same, and standards in language ideology.

Copyright of Sociolinguistica is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The world is connecting in many complex ways, driven by the globally integrated nature of technological innovation and human mobility across continents. Never before have so many different speakers and languages existed side by side in the OECD countries as they do today. This reality has placed multilingualism in the spotlight. Increased migration and transcultural flows across borders in Europe have highlighted the urgency for research on multilingualism in the individual and society. Academic institutions have recognized the necessity for such knowledge and research centers have evolved to meet this challenge (cf. Obermayer et al. 2014). MultiLing - the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan is a research center aimed at academic excellence and financed by the Research Council of Norway through its Center of Excellence scheme. MultiLing is hosted by the Department of Linguistics and Scandinavian Studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Oslo in Norway. It opened in June of 2013 and is currently in its first five-year period of operation. The main goal of the Center is to generate state-of-the-art scientific knowledge on individual and societal multilingualism across the lifespan that will address the challenges and potentials multilingualism poses for the individual in the family, school, other institutions, and society in general. Moreover, the Center aims at providing research-based knowledge on multilingualism to central policymakers and stakeholders. Language planning and the standardization of languages are some of the Center's key research foci and are indeed vital issues today at the top of the agenda for policymakers. The Center's vision is to contribute to how society can deal with the challenges of multilingualism through increased knowledge, promoting agency for individuals in society, and a better quality of life, no matter what linguistic and social background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociolinguistica is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Author-supplied Abstracts.)

The article attempts to analyze how well schools in the sixteen different states in Germany are fulfilling the goals of the language policy of the European Union that each student should be proficient in three languages. The author points out that the German law called the Hamburger Abkommen of 1964 required that all secondary pupils must learn English, and that later standards in some German states also explicitly require the learning of French. Also discussed is the great variety of foreign languages offered in German schools, although the largest percentage of pupils graduating from schools of all levels have proficiency in the English language, which is seen as a gateway to learning other languages.

The article discusses foreign language education in Hungary, examining policies on language education, Hungarian laws which effect minority education and the effect of the European Union's program which encourages students in all member-states to learn three languages. The author discusses the ethnic composition of Hungary, the Hungarian language, also known as Magyar, and the prevalence of monolingualism and multilingualism in the country. The author examines data from the 1990s which indicates a foreign language deficit in the country and looks at controversies related to the number of teaching hours, the Matura exam, and continuity in language instruction in secondary schools.

The article discusses foreign language provisions in secondary schools in Luxembourg, a member-state of the European Union (EU), and looks at how the Luxembourgish school system reflects EU language policies. The author examines the use of the three languages officially recognized under Luxembourg law, French, German, and Luxembourgish, as well as instruction in the languages most widely spoken by resident foreigners, Portuguese and Italian. Information is provided on competency under the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), English language instruction, and the use of French and German as a medium of instruction.

The article presents information about relations between multilingualism and speakers of both standard language and dialects. Dialect-standard competency is discussed in terms of its presence in German areas of Switzerland. It is described as a form of bilingualism in two related languages or language varieties, often found in children who absorb both the standard language and its regional dialect during their speech-learning process. Results are included from a study seeking to determine whether inhabitants of provincial areas with dialect-standard competency more easily learn foreign languages than speakers of pure standard language or pure dialect.

This article discusses the role of English in the European Parliament. The author describes how the more democratic role that Europe has embraced has advanced the role of languages at the national level, but has some trouble balancing all twenty-three official languages at the "supranational" level. The members of parliament must face this difficulty, and the author presents their experiences. The experiences that native English and French speakers have formed into two categories of those that are pedantically monolingual, and those who try to engage with members of other languages. Members from other European Union countries and their competencies in English and other foreign languages are presented.