Aspects of Multilingualism in European Language History


Book Description

This volume gives an up-to-date account of various situations of language contact and multilingualism in Europe especially from a historical point of view. Its ten contributions present newly collected data from different parts of the continent seen through diverse theoretical perspectives. They show a richness of topics and data that not only reveal numerous historical and sociological facts but also afford considerable insight into possible effects multilingualism and language contact might have on language change. The collection begins its journey through Europe in the British Isles. Then it turns to northern Europe and looks at how multilingualism worked in three towns that are all marked by border and contact situations. The journey continues with linguistic-historical and political-historical visits to Sweden and to Lithuania before the reader is taken to central Europe, where we will deal with the influence of Latin on written German.As far as southern Europe is concerned, the study continues on the Iberian peninsula, where the relationship between Portuguese and Spanish is focused, to be followed by Sardinia and Malta, two islands whose unique geohistorical positions give rise to some consideration of multilingualism in the Mediterranean.




Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies


Book Description

The 25 contributions of this volume represent a selection from the more than 120 papers originally presented at the International Conference on “Multilingual Individuals and Multilingual Societies” (MIMS), held in Hamburg (October 2010) and organized by the Collaborative Research Center “Multilingualism” after twelve years of successful research. It presents a panorama of contemporary research in multilingualism covering three fields of investigation: (1) the simultaneous and successive acquisition of more than one language, including language attrition in multilingual settings, (2) historical aspects of multilingualism and variance, and (3) multilingual communication. The papers cover a vast variety of linguistic phenomena including morphology, syntax, segmental and prosodic phonology as well as discourse production and language use, taking both individual and societal aspects of multilingualism into account. The languages addressed include numerous Romance, Slavic and Germanic varieties as well as Welsh, Hungarian, Turkish, and several South African autochthonous languages.




Uniformity and Diversity in Language Policy


Book Description

This book brings together current research by leading international scholars on the often contentious nature of language policies and their practical outcomes in North America, Australia and Europe. It presents a range of perspectives from which to engage with a variety of pressing issues raised by multilingualism, multiculturalism, immigration, exclusion, and identity. A recurrent theme is that of tension and conflict: between uniformity and diversity, between official policies and real day-to-day life experiences, but also between policies in schools and the corporate world and their implementation. Several chapters present research about language policy issues that has previously not been fully or easily available to an English-language audience. Many of the chapters also provide up-to-date analyses of language policy issues in particular regions or countries, focusing on recent developments.




The Golden Mean of Languages


Book Description

In The Golden Mean of Languages, Alisa van de Haar sheds new light on the debates regarding the form and status of the vernacular in the early modern Low Countries, where both Dutch and French were local tongues. The fascination with the history, grammar, spelling, and vocabulary of Dutch and French has been studied mainly from monolingual perspectives tracing the development towards modern Dutch or French. Van de Haar shows that the discussions on these languages were rooted in multilingual environments, in particular in French schools, Calvinist churches, printing houses, and chambers of rhetoric. The proposals that were formulated there to forge Dutch and French into useful forms were not directed solely at uniformization but were much more diverse.




Language, Borders and Identity


Book Description

Identifying and examining political, socio-psychological and symbolic borders, Language, Borders and Identity encompasses a broad, geographically diverse spectrum of border contexts, taking a multi-disciplinary approach by combining sociolinguistics research with human geography, anthropology and social psychology.




The Aesthetics and Politics of Linguistic Borders


Book Description

This collection showcases a multivalent approach to the study of literary multilingualism, embodied in contemporary Nordic literature. While previous approaches to literary multilingualism have tended to take a textual or authorship focus, this book advocates for a theoretical perspective which reflects the multiplicity of languages in use in contemporary literature emerging from increased globalization and transnational interaction. Drawing on a multimodal range of examples from contemporary Nordic literature, these eighteen chapters illustrate the ways in which multilingualism is dynamic rather than fixed, resulting from the interactions between authors, texts, and readers as well as between literary and socio-political institutions. The book highlights the processes by which borders are formed within the production, circulation, and reception of literature and in turn, the impact of these borders on issues around cultural, linguistic, and national belonging. Introducing an innovative approach to the study of multilingualism in literature, this collection will be of particular interest to students and researchers in literary studies, cultural studies, and multilingualism.




Managing Plurilingual and Intercultural Practices in the Workplace


Book Description

The contributions in this volume stem from different lines of research and represent both a continuation and an advancement of the European DYLAN project. The book addresses the meanings and implications of multilingualism and plurilingual repertoires as well as the ways in which cultural diversity is managed in companies and institutions in Switzerland. Characterised by official quadrilingualism, but also by new dimensions of multilingualism resulting from massive immigration, important workforce mobility and increasing globalisation, Switzerland offers an ideal laboratory for studying phenomena linked to multilingualism and cultural diversity. On the one hand, a special focus is put on the best practices of diversity management and language regimes with particular attention paid to the interplay between official languages and English, and to ways of leveraging diversity awareness, fostering cultural inclusiveness and enhancing intercultural learning in vocational education and training. On the other hand, the chapters examine at close range the way actors' plurilingual repertoires are developed and how their use is adapted to particular objectives and specific conditions. Being observed in several types of multilingual professional settings, the plurilingual strategies, including English as lingua franca, are particularly examined in terms of power relations and processes of inclusion or exclusion.




French Language Policies and the Revitalisation of Regional Languages in the 21st Century


Book Description

This edited volume presents an analysis of the evolution of French language policies and their impact on French regional languages and their communities. It gathers studies on language revitalisation from several territorial minority languages (Breton, Alsatian, Catalan, Occitan, Basque, Corsican, Francoprovençal, Picard, Reunionese) and evaluates the challenges and opportunities that they face in the 21st century. The chapters tackle different aspects of language endangerment and language planning and adopt varied theoretical and methodological approaches. The first section of the book reconsiders the difficulties in establishing linguistic boundaries and classification for some regional languages. The second section examines the important theme of the new generation of speakers with issues of transmission and identity formation and the changes they can bring to traditional communities. The third section highlights new developments in the context of new technologies and the heightened visibility of regional languages. Finally, the last section presents an overview of the contemporary situation of minority language revitalisation in France and synthesises the key trends identified in this volume: from the educational domain to the European Charter for Minority and Regional languages. This book will appeal to students and scholars of the sociology of language, sociolinguistics, language policy, minority languages and language endangerment.




The Position of the German Language in the World


Book Description

The Position of the German Language in the World focuses on the global position of German and the factors which work towards sustaining its use and utility for international communication. From the perspective of the global language constellation, the detailed data analysis of this substantial research project depicts German as an example of a second-rank language. The book also provides a model for analysis and description of international languages other than English. It offers a framework for strengthening the position of languages such as Arabic, Chinese, French, Portuguese, Spanish and others and for countering exaggerated claims about the global monopoly position of English. This comprehensive handbook of the state of the German language in the world was originally published in 2015 by Walter de Gruyter in German and has been critically acclaimed. Suitable for scholars and researchers of the German language, the handbook shows in detail how intricately and thoroughly German and other second-rank languages are tied up with a great number of societies and how these statistics support or weaken the languages’ functions and maintenance.