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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 1129

Part of Session 172: Urban Language Conflict (Other abstracts in this session)

Re-defining language conflict – challenges and options

Authors: Vetter, Eva
Submitted by: Vetter, Eva (university of vienna, Austria)

This contribution starts out from one of the central assumptions of the session, i.e. that the concept of conflict seems not to be in the centre of recent research in urban multilingualism. It will contrast language conflict with recently emerging concepts and suggest some lines for further discussion against the background of the discrepancies between conflict and younger concepts. In doing so, the present contribution will proceed in four steps.

In a first step, some important characteristics of influential conceptualisations of conflict within Catalan and Occitan sociolinguistics as well as within more recent adaptations of language conflict will be compared and discussed. To give an example, these characteristics are the temporal, spatial and mobile possibilities of language/s  in models of language conflict,  the ideological foundation of these concepts or  the understanding of “language” and “languages” with respect to conflict.

In a second step multilingualism in urban space will be described against the background of recent concepts such as heteroglossia, translanguaging or metrolingualism. It will be asked in which contexts these concepts have emerged and which components of urban multilingualism are particularly focussed upon when adopting these conceptual frames. Moreover, their ideological underpinning will be discussed. A particular focus will be on their critical stance with respect to languages as clearly separable and countable entities.

In a third step the in/compatibility between language conflict and concepts such as heteroglossia, translanguaging or metrolingualism will be discussed. European multilingualism will serve as the socio-political and –linguistic background. The discrepancies with respect to the ideological underpinnings of the different concepts are particularly evident when talking about ‘culture’, ‘community’ and ‘minority’.  It will further be asked why conflict is actually (not) helpful for understanding important aspects of multilingualism in urban spaces.

The last step consists in suggesting two lines for further discussion: First, questioning the monoglossic ideological basis can be an important step towards re-defining language conflict. Second, it will be asked in how far conflict can be linked to local (also urban) linguistic practice.

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