Minority Language Planning and Micronationalism in Italy

Minority Language Planning and Micronationalism in Italy
Author: Paolo Coluzzi
Publisher: Peter Lang
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2007
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 9783039110414

Issues of language planning and minority nationalism or «micronationalism» are becoming increasingly important in a globalized world. Yet minority language planning in Italy and its relation to minority nationalism has so far attracted relatively limited academic attention, despite the particularly interesting changes that have taken place since Law 482 on the protection of minority languages was passed in 1999. This book presents the situation in Italy in three case studies and compares them with similar cases in Spain: Friulian (compared with Galician), Cimbrian (compared with Aranese) and Western Lombard (compared with Asturian). Analysis of these case studies is preceded by a clear and thorough introduction to terminology, legislation in the two countries, nationalism, the discipline of language planning and bilingual education, both in general terms and with specific reference to the Italian and Spanish cases. This first part introduces and defines the crucial distinction between minority and regional languages, between macro and micronationalism, both in their conservative and progressive strands, and between majority and minority language planning, among other things.

Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape

Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape
Author: D. Gorter
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2011-12-13
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0230360238

Providing an innovative approach to the written displays of minority languages in public space this volume explores minority language situations through the lens of linguistic landscape research. Based on very tangible data it explores the 'same old issues' of language contact and language conflict in new ways.

The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities

The Palgrave Handbook of Minority Languages and Communities
Author: Gabrielle Hogan-Brun
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 614
Release: 2018-12-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1137540664

This Handbook is an in-depth appraisal of the field of minority languages and communities today. It presents a wide-ranging, coherent picture of the main topics, with key contributions from international specialists in sociolinguistics, policy studies, sociology, anthropology and law. Individual chapters are grouped together in themes, covering regional, non-territorial and migratory language settings across the world. It is the essential reference work for specialist researchers, scholars in ancillary disciplines, research and coursework students, public agencies and anyone interested in language diversity, multilingualism and migration.

Ethnic Groups of Europe

Ethnic Groups of Europe
Author: Jeffrey E. Cole
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 544
Release: 2011-05-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

This comprehensive survey of ethnic groups of Europe reveals the dynamic process of ethnic identity and the relationship of ethnic groups to modern states. Part of a five-volume series on ethnic groups around the world, Ethnic Groups of Europe: An Encyclopedia provides detailed descriptions of more than 100 European ethnic and national groups. Each entry provides an overview of the group as well as in-depth information on the group's origins and early history, cultural life, and recent developments. Among the information presented for each group are global and national population figures and accounts of geographical distribution, diaspora populations, the group's historic homeland, predominant religions and languages, and related groups. The entries also highlight places, people, and events of particular importance to each group, and sidebars introduce related topics of interest. Throughout the text, special attention is focused on the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism. An explanation of the methodology used for selecting the ethnic groups in the encyclopedia is also provided, as is an introductory essay on the topic of ethnicity in Europe.

The Grecanici of Southern Italy

The Grecanici of Southern Italy
Author: Stavroula Pipyrou
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2016-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812248309

In this groundbreaking ethnography of "fearless governance", Stavroula Pipyrou shows how Grecanici—the Greek linguistic minority of Calabria, Southern Italy—have crafted the means to invert hegemonic culture and participate in the power games of minority politics on local and national scales.

Freedom in Practice

Freedom in Practice
Author: Moises Lino e Silva
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2016-11-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317415485

‘Freedom’ is one of the most fiercely contested words in contemporary global experience. This book provides an up-to-date overview from an anthropological perspective of the diverse ways in which freedom is understood and practised in everyday life, including the emergent relationships between governance, autonomy and liberty. The contributors offer a wealth of ethnographic insight from a variety of geographic, cultural and political contexts. Taken together the essays constitute a radical challenge to assumptions about what freedom means in today’s world.

Contested Languages

Contested Languages
Author: Marco Tamburelli
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2021-01-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027260389

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 “language vs dialect” question head on, the volume opens up new perspectives that are relevant to all students and researchers interested in the maintenance of linguistic diversity.

The Friulian Language

The Friulian Language
Author: Rose Mucignat
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2014-06-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1443861022

Are minor languages the lifeblood of cherished local identities or just passports with restricted validity, serving no purpose in today’s transnational, global world? Italy’s north-eastern region of Friuli is a case in point: in this area, around half a million people speak Friulian, a Romance language of the Rhaeto-Romance family, which is attested to in written texts since 1150 and acquired official minority language status in 1999. Geographically and politically off-centre, Friuli remained isolated for a long part of its history and developed a unique language that sustained a distinctive identity and culture. Starting from the nineteenth century, large-scale migration towards Northern Europe and the Americas brought Friulian into contact with other languages and contexts of use. The Friulian Language: Identity, Migration, Culture is the first comprehensive study in English of this little-known language to consider its history and the variety of its cultural manifestations from antiquity to the present day. The volume gathers together the work of ten contributors who are specialists in the fields of history (Fulvio Salimbeni), law (William Cisilino), linguistics (Paola Benincà, Franco Finco, Fabiana Fusco and Carla Marcato), literary studies (Rosa Mucignat and Rienzo Pellegrini), and migration (Javier P. Grossutti and Olga Zorzi Pugliese). The focus of the book is on Friulian, its varieties, its linguistic characteristics and its use in literature from fourteenth-century ballads to Pier Paolo Pasolini, and more recent poetry by Novella Cantarutti and others. Equal attention is given to the Friulians themselves, the social and political transformations of the region, and the experience of migration, in particular the case of high-skilled mosaic craftsmen from the Alpine foothills. Thanks to its multidisciplinary approach, the book sheds light on the questions of why Friulian has developed the way it has, what its significance as a minor language is, and how it can negotiate its relationship to other languages on a global scale.

Writing and Society

Writing and Society
Author: Florian Coulmas
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2013-02-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1139619675

How does writing relate to speech? What impact does it have on social organisation and development? How do unwritten languages differ from those that have a written form and tradition? This book is a general account of the place of writing in society. Drawing on contemporary and historical examples, from clay tablets to touchscreen displays, the book explores the functions of writing and written language, analysing its consequences for language, society, economy and politics. It examines the social causes of illiteracy, demonstrating that institutions of central importance to modern society are built upon writing and written texts, and are characterised by specific forms of communication. It explores the social dimensions of spelling and writing reform, as well as of digital literacy, a new mode of expression and communication posing novel challenges to the student of language in society.

Uncertainty in deliberate lexical interventions

Uncertainty in deliberate lexical interventions
Author: Mélanie Maradan
Publisher: Frank & Timme GmbH
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2020-12-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3732906906

Language managers in their different forms (language planners, terminologists, professional neologists …) have long tried to intervene in the lexical usage of speakers, with various degrees of success: Some of their lexical items (partly) penetrate language use, others do not. Based on electronic networks of practice of the Esperanto speech community, Mélanie Maradan establishes the foundation for a new method to extract speakers’ opinions on lexical items from text corpora. The method is intended as a tool for language managers to detect and explore in context the reasons why speakers might accept or reject lexical items.