“No One Will Do This For Us”.  Open Access

The Linguistic and Cultural Practices of Young Activists Representing European Linguistic Minorities

by Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska (Author)
©2020, Monographs, 392 Pages
Linguistics
Open Access

Series: Sprach- und Kulturkontakte in Europas Mitte, Volume 14

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This book presents a portrait of actively engaged young people representing four linguistic minorities in Europe: the Kashubs (in Poland), the Upper Sorbs (in Germany), the Bretons (in France), and the Welsh (in the United Kingdom). In numerous statements cited in the book, drawn from interviews conducted by the author, young people speak for themselves and serve as guides to their minority cultures. They draw attention to the difficulties and challenges they encounter in their day-to-day life and activism. Based on their statements, the book examines the sociolinguistic situation of each of the minorities, the prevailing linguistic ideologies and the role of minority education; it also distinguishes different types of minority language speakers. The analysis focuses on the cultural and identity-forming practices of young people in the context of different forms of community life and their different pathways to becoming engaged representing their cultures and languages.

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Table of Contents
  • Acknowledgements
  • Introduction: Studying young people engaged in revitalizing minority languages in Europe
    • Scope of research and methodology
    • Theoretical inspirations
    • Structure of the book
  • Chapter 1: The sociolinguistic situation and language practices of young people
    • The sociolinguistic situation of the four minorities
      • Kashubia: diminished home transmission
      • Brittany: in the shadow of trauma and the language revival of the 1970s
      • Upper Lusatia: impending language change
      • Wales: language communities and a territorial community
    • Language ideologies, symbolic violence and discrimination
      • Kashubia – language ideologies in the eyes of the young
      • A dead language, a rural language
      • Welsh – a non-progressive language
      • Speaking a minority language as an expression of nationalism
      • Lusatia – from quiet discrimination to overt hostility
    • State protection and language policy
      • The Kashubian language – change in status and prestige
      • Brittany – unappreciated state aid
      • Lusatia – a defensive stance
      • Wales – application of the model language policy
      • Effects of language policy in the perception of the young
  • Chapter 2: Institutionalized transmission of minority languages
    • Types of education offered to minorities
    • Can schools save minority languages?
    • The role of teachers…
    • … and the role of parents
  • Chapter 3: Young speakers of minority languages
    • Problems concerning the modernization and standardization of minority languages
      • Dialectical vs. literary forms of a minority language
    • “Ideal types” of young users of minority languages
      • “Native speakers”
      • “Learners”
      • “New speakers”
  • Chapter 4: How young people construct language identities
    • Language vs. identity
    • Language as an ethnic boundary
    • Language vis-a-vis belonging to a minority
  • Chapter 5: Community life in the eyes of young people
    • Minority culture as a community – a paradise lost?
    • Minority identity as an option
    • Identification with a minority as a continuous struggle for identity
    • Towards a new type of relation
  • Chapter 6: Community and language practices of the young
    • Formation and role of interest groups focused on minority issues
    • From interest groups to activity-oriented communities
    • Eisteddfod – reinforcing a sense of belonging to a community through cultural practices
    • Minority communities of practice: language, education, identity
    • Online media: real vs. virtual communities
  • Chapter 7: Towards activism
    • Participation in minority culture
    • Early stages of engagement
      • Parents
      • School
      • Cultural activities
      • Friends, activists
      • Chance/coincidence
      • Finding one’s own place
      • Parting from family and location
      • Becoming involved with preservation of the minority language
    • Engagement
    • Activism
      • Types of activism
      • Attitudes towards activism
      • Activist profiles
      • Subjective perception of benefits of activism
      • The world of activists as they view it
  • Chapter 8: Between tradition, folklore and modernity
    • Upper Sorbian culture – rites and folklore
    • Kashubia – from folklorization to modernity
    • Brittany – from community customs to invented tradition
    • Welsh culture – between everyday practices and festivities
    • In search of ethnic boundaries in the transcultural world
  • Conclusions: Discourses of endangerment and responsibility
    • The discourse of endangerment
    • The discourse of benefits of multilingualism
    • Quasi-political discourse
    • The discourse of responsibility
    • Epilogue
  • Bibliography
  • Subject index
  • Name index
  • Series index
Pages:
392
Year:
2020
ISBN (HARDBACK):
9783631827758 (Active)
ISBN (EPUB):
9783631827864 (Active)
ISBN (PDF):
9783631827857 (Active)
Open Access:
CC BY
Language:
English
Published:
Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2020. 392 pp.

Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska is an anthropologist, sociolinguist, and professor at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. Her work focuses on the transmission and revitalization of endangered languages and on the relation between using a minority language and maintaining cultural consciousness.

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