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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 844

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

Language conflict and the negotiation of a new urban linguistic identity

Authors: Van Mensel, Luk
Submitted by: Van Mensel, Luk (Université de Namur, Belgium)

With processes of globalisation and urbanisation causing shifts in the status and power of ‘traditional’ language communities, we can expect members of linguistic elites belonging to these communities to look for new ways of maintaining their status. One way of doing this is through a “celebration of fusion and hybridity” (Heller 2001), which (perhaps only superficially) stands in opposition to a monolingual ideology. However, other members of the existing elite may deny the legitimacy of this linguistic hybridity, and conflict may thus arise not only between but also within established language groups.

In Brussels, the capital of Belgium, which is officially bilingual but effectively multilingual (Janssens 2007), French is still used as a lingua franca, but its status has declined in favour of English and Dutch. The opposition between the two official language communities - French and Dutch - remains strong in politics and the media, and it is still institutionally enshrined. But although Brussels has turned into a multilingual city, it appears a difficult endeavour for its inhabitants to avoid being categorized into one of the pre-defined linguistic groups.

In this paper, I will illustrate this through a detailed analysis of a narrative by a Francophone informant living in Brussels, in which he reports on the difficulties he experiences in claiming a (linguistically) hybrid identity for himself and his children. Adopting a discourse analytical approach, I aim to show how in this case, conflict is lived out within the individual on two levels: on the level of the in-group vs. the out-group, i.e. monolingual Flemish vs. monolingual French, on the one hand, and on the level of the Francophone group itself on the other. In this way, language conflict appears to reflect a struggle between competing discourses on language rather than between languages. A theory of language conflict should, in my view, take these issues into account, and I would argue in favour of a qualitative approach which focuses on how social actors deal with competing language ideologies, in order to uncover the complexities of language conflict as it emerges in contemporary urban settings.