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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 113

Thematic Session (Papers belonging to this Thematic Session)

“Medium-sized” languages and the city: Contexts and practices, current challenges and future possibilities.

Authors: Soler-Carbonell, Josep; Boix-Fuster, Emili; Bastardas-Boada, Albert
Submitted by: Soler Carbonell, Josep (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)

In an attempt to capture the nature and the complexity of present-day linguistic diversity, some experts (De Swaan 2001, Calvet 1999) have offered descriptive models based on a galactic and gravitational metaphor in which the languages of the world occupy a range of positions depending on their centrality and weight, from hyper-central to peripheral. Despite the attractiveness of these models and the fact that they are neatly explained by their authors, they do not seem to fully fit the more complex contexts where ‘middle-way’ situations exist. Some of these contexts that are particularly telling, from our point of view, can be found in societies with a more advanced socio-economic level. Geographically speaking, the area we have in mind, more than any other, is post-industrial Europe, where one could group together a significant number of languages with a similar demo-linguistic weight that share important common features, such as the necessity by their native speakers to effectively acquire second or foreign languages, while at the same time retaining the capacity to index identity and symbolic traits in their own.

The research group based at CUSC-UB (Center of Sociolinguistics and Communication, University of Barcelona) leading the research on ‘medium-sized’ language communities has further defined this concept and suggested that these are those languages ranging from one million to 25 million speakers in contexts as the ones like those mentioned in the paragraph above, such as, to name but a few, Catalan, Danish, Czech, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish or Dutch. In their work, they have undertaken a comparative analysis between several of these cases to find out more about the situation and challenges of these languages, how they have managed to survive until nowadays and what are the crucial factors affecting their most immediate contexts.

Relating it with the central theme of the Symposium, this panel wants to focus on the policies and practices characteristic in urban concentrations, large or medium-sized, where this type of languages occupy an undeniable position in the everyday lives of their inhabitants. What features do these urban indexical fields have? How do the instrumental factors interact with the symbolic ones, both for the L1 ‘medium-sized’ language communities and the rest? How are these multilingual sites being affected by the globalizing tendencies of our era and, particularly, what are the most visible consequences for ‘medium-sized’ language communities? How do these languages manage to attract new speakers, either newly-arrived immigrants or former allophone communities they have been historically in contact with?

In focusing on these and other important questions relating to politics and practices among these communities, this panel will offer case studies of issues of language, nation, identity and policy that are relevant across Europe, framing the discussion in terms of current challenges and future possibilities for the analyzed communities. The panel will include scholars at various stages of their careers with a focus on sociolinguistics, language anthropology, language sociology, and language policy, with papers contributing with both empirical research (quantitative and qualitative) and theoretical reflections.