Language policy and ‘new speakers’: an introduction to the thematic issue (original) (raw)
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New Speakers in the Context of the Minority Languages in Europe and the Revitalisation Efforts
Treatises and Documents, Journal of Ethnic Studies, 2019
Until recently (socio)linguistic studies concerned with minority languages and efforts at their revitalization focused chiefly on native speakers. By contrast this paper concentrates on new speakers as a relevant current sociolinguistic phenomenon and on postvernacular languages or xenolects formed on this basis. The text examines definitions of new speakers and connected terminology; moreover, it deals with a typology of postvernacular languages , with questions of legitimacy and authenticity, or a possible integration of both groups of users. Prospects of these topics are outlined. Micro case studies on the current situation of new speakers in three small vernaculars of Central Europe (Sorbian, Wilamowicean and Huncokár German) are used as comparative material.
Activating new speakers: research among Spain's historic linguistic minorities
When, why, and how do people who regularly speak a majority language decide to become speakers of the minority language where they live? How do we understand their motivations, challenges, and behaviors? And how do these experiences vary across diverse sociolinguistic and political contexts? In the last two decades, the phenomenon of 'new speakers' of minority languages has achieved greater visibility and prominence in Europe, prompted in part by the avid interest of minority language advocates who see the growth of new speakers as necessary to ensuring the continuity of their languages. Research on new speakers has been unfolding at a fast pace with the support of a variety of local, regional and European research grants 1 which has spurred international conferences, intensified documentation, comparative studies, theoretical exploration and a relevant number of key publications. In this Special Issue, we present some of the latest work on new speakers carried out in Spain's historical linguistic minority regions of Aragon, the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia, with the added distinction of including work that looks at new speakers of Basque who reside in both France and Spain. 2 New speaker research has been exceptionally active in the Spanish state. Indeed, some of the theoretical questions, concepts, and methodological proposals that we see today in new speaker researche.g. the notion of 'muda' and questions exploring new speakers' sense of authenticity and legitimacywere initially addressed in the Spanish context and extrapolated to other territories and languages (e.g. Smith-Christmas et al. 2018). The prominence of the Spanish context is rooted in particular historical, material and political factors that made its minoritized language regions fertile ground for new speaker research. Below, we provide an overview of the historical and variable sociolinguistic contexts that have shaped language revitalisation and therefore new speaker research in each of the areas. Although located within the same state (with the exception of the Northern Basque Country), the sociolinguistic contexts of these cases are quite different. Bringing them together makes salient the variability of the Spanish context and also gives us a window into some of the conceptual, practical and political challenges that are likely to be on the agenda for new speaker research elsewhere. If the past decades of research sought to document the trends in numbers, demographic profiles, and subjectivities of new speakers, the current papers show us a concerted interest in better understanding the problematic of trying to become an active speaker of a minority language. Key questions that are emerging: What are the conditions, spaces, and ideological stances that facilitate and explain the usage of the minority language in new speakers' everyday lives? Which theoretical and methodological tools are best suited to the study of this process of linguistic conversion? And how can research itself become a tool in this process of speaker 'activation'?
‘New speakers’ and language policy research: thematic and theoretical contributions to the field
Language Policy, 2019
In this article, we reflect on the extent to which ‘new speaker’ research feeds into recent theoretical discussions in language policy scholarship, especially in con‑nection to the discursive and ethnographically oriented perspectives which of late have become increasingly prominent. We begin with a brief overview of the ‘new speaker’ concept, its theoretical and empirical origins, and then we situate the dis‑cussions on ‘new speakers’ against the background of traditional language policy research. Thereafter the bulk of the article is dedicated to developing two main argu‑ments: first, we provide an overview of the language policy themes that are already present in ‘new speaker’ research; and secondly, we elaborate on how ‘new speaker’ studies can contribute to current discussions in the field of language policy. We conclude with a short overview of future research directions that, in our view, can strengthen the link and the mutual benefits of the connection between ‘new speaker’ and language policy scholarship.
Journal of Language Policy, 2023
Language Policy and the New Speaker Challenge traces the emergence of the new speaker phenomenon as a focus of academic interest. Initially, the concept referred to speakers who learn a minoritised language outside of the home and face specific challenges to incorporate it in all domains of life. Later, the concept was extended to migrant, transnational, and refugee speakers who have to learn a nation-state language under the language regimes of a new polity. Addressing the conundrum faced by policy-makers to translate research on new speakers into mainstream policy, the monograph argues that research-led evidence provided by the COST action IS1306 new speakers network (2013-2017) has not sufficiently engaged with the policymaking domains the COST action sought to influence. Due to the fuzziness of the concept, Williams argues in the introductory chapter that academics should further concretise it for policy-makers so the latter can more easily integrate it in prospective public policy strategies. In Chap. 2, key opportunities and challenges of new speaker research are assessed with a view to increasing policy impact as well as advocating for more efforts to further explore the migrant and refugee spectrum deemed understudied. The author then examines the following minority language jurisdictions as case studies in subsequent chapters: Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the Basque Autonomous Community and Navarre, Catalonia and Galicia. Chapter 3 extensively addresses the Welsh context by exposing policy stakeholders' scepticism about new speakers as a clear-cut category needing specific policies. Chapter 4 offers a fine-grained analysis of the polarising dynamics of the Scottish gaelic context characterised by persisting frictions between the divergent but unequivocally urgent needs to preserve fragile traditional communities and integrate new speakers to ensure the very survival of the language, all the while government agencies take a rather lukewarm approach.
In this article we use Moscovici's (1976) notion of active minorities as a framework to explain the linguistic practices and motivations behind linguistic change amongst new speakers of Galician. Revitalization policies since the 1980s brought about changes in the symbolic and economic value of Galician on the linguistic market. However, this has not been significant enough to change the rules of social mobility and Spanish has continued to be the language of prestige. Despite this, neofalantes ‘new speakers of Galician’ have opted for linguistic change and engage in the process of majority language displacement. We argue that this displacement can at least in part be explained by a move away from functionalist models of language contact and shift and towards an understanding of these processes from a language conflict perspective. This allows us to explain the practices of neofalantes as not simply deviations from the sociolinguistic “status quo” but as reactions to it and as proponents of social change. To explore the behavioural styles and practices of neofalantes as an active minority, we analyse the discourses which emerge from discussion groups involving twelve new speakers of Galician about their sociolinguistic practices.
Competing ideologies of linguistic authority amongst “new speakers” in contemporary Galicia
While in many indigenous minority language situations traditional native speaker communities are in decline, at the same time, “new speakers” are emerging in the context of revitalization policies. Such policies can however have unforeseen consequences and sometimes lead to tensions between newcomers and existing speakers over questions of ownership, legitimacy and authenticity. This paper examines these tensions in the case of Galician in north-western Spain, where “new speakers” have emerged in the context of revitalization policies since the 1980s. The subsequent spread of the language outside traditional Galician strongholds and into what were predominantly Spanish spaces, complicates the traditional ideology about sociolinguistic authenticity and ownership and raises questions about who are now the legitimate speakers of Galician, who has authority and the potential tensions that such questions generate. To illustrate the tensions and paradoxes which “new” and “native” speakers face in this post-revitalization context, we draw on qualitative data generated from three discussion groups made up of sixteen young Galicians.
Language Policy
This paper explores the intersection of new speakers in conditions of globalisation led mobility and it investigates the implications the phenomena may have for language policy making. It first describes two historical phases in language policy development that are closely related to a sociolinguistics of stability. In this, it criticises how present-day language policy is attached to specific time and space constraints whose focus is a by now outdated concept of language and of speaker as its prescriptive objects-thus leading institutional language policies to not being 'in sync' with contemporary new speakers' socio-and geo-political movements and developments. This proposition is illustrated in two case studies, both located in the Netherlands and dealing with the language practices and connected policies of two types of new speakers. The first case deals with the experiences of asylum seekers being engaged with 'techno-literacies'. That is asylum seekers being part of ICT assisted classes for civic integration through the learning of Dutch (new speakers of a new language, learning through new means of language learning). The second case deals with Chinese students who are fully proficient in Dutch, attending language heritage classes for learning Mandarin through book based lessons (new speakers of an old language, learning through old means of language learning). In both cases, the observed language practices and meta-pragmatic judgements of the individual language users elect them as initiators of bottom-up sociolinguistic change that, while offering grassroots solutions for local challenges, also plays a role as local evidence for informing future top-down language policy development.