European Pluricentric Languages in Contact and Conflict

by , ,

Download Abstract as PDF

Preface This volume comprises 16 papers. Twelve of them were presented at the “6th World Conference of Pluricentric Languages and their non-dominant Varieties”. The overall theme of the conference was “Pluricentric Languages in Europe in Contact and Conflict”. It was held at the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra (Slovakia) on June 21–23 2018. Five […]

Keywords: ,

Language(s) dealt with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Details

published by Peter Lang Verlag (Wien/Frankfurt a. M. et. al.)

April 2, 2019 | 280 pages | ISBN ISBN: 978-3-631-80309-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/b16182

Preface

This volume comprises 16 papers. Twelve of them were presented at the “6th World Conference of Pluricentric Languages and their non-dominant Varieties”. The overall theme of the conference was “Pluricentric Languages in Europe in Contact and Conflict”. It was held at the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra (Slovakia) on June 21–23 2018. Five additional papers of this volume come from authors who worked in the field of the main theme of the conference. In addition to the 16 papers of this volume another 19 papers presented at the conference will be published in a second volume under the title “The pluricentricity of Hungarian in Language and Literature” and for the first time give an overview about the complex situation of this language. The conference focused on pluricentric languages in Europe and pursued several objectives.

At the centre of the conference was the objective “to get exhaustive reports of the situation in pluricentric languages and non-dominant varieties in Europe where there are conflicts of any kind.” Another important objective was “to get exhaustive reports of the situation of as many pluricentric languages and non-dominant varieties in Europe as possible and in particular of lesser known and researched ones”. The editors are happy to say that the objectives of the conference have been well achieved.

The authors of the papers of this volume come from 10 countries and cover 30 European pluricentric languages or national varieties of pluricentric languages. The first section of the book comprises three papers that are directly related the overall theme “contact and conflict and human rights in pluricentric languages in Europe”. The paper by Rudolf Muhr gives an extensive overview about PLCLs in Europe. The study finds 27 pluricentric languages and 65 national varieties of PCLs in Europe. A total of 30 languages where there are some conflict related issues or special types of pluricentricity are covered and discussed in detail. The paper also presents an overview about all languages that presently are used on the European continent (283) and offers a new approach to define the term “language”. Reglindis de Ridder deals with the aspect of dominance in the codification of Dutch which is now moving away from an asymmetric to a more symmetric pluricentricity and shows that there are still obstacles to achieve this valuable goal.

The second section of the book comprises three papers about pluricentric languages in contact and conflict at the Iberian Peninsula. Two papers concern Catalan. Josep Àngel Mas Castells profoundly describes the connection between language and identity in Catalan. The author gives insight into the political struggles that accompany the codification and language policy that surround Catalan in general and Valencian in particular. Quite in this vein is the paper about Valencian by Gerhard Edelman who reflects on the question whether Valencian can be considered a language of its own. Aitor Carrera deals with Occitan and shows a language where the fragmentation and opposing approaches have complicated the codification and even the survival of the language.

The third section is about pluricentric languages on the British Isles that show some phenomena of conflict. Raymond Hickey deals with the pluricentricity of English in Ireland. The author gives an in depth overview about the development of English in Ireland and of the features of Irish English both in the Southern and in the Northern part of the Island. Andreas Weilinghoff goes into the particular linguistic situation of Scotland where Scottish Gaelic, Scots and Scottish English show a complex cohabitation. The author also argues that British English in itself is pluricentric.

The fourth section of this book comprises papers about languages whose status as PCL is disputed. The papers by Tomislav Stojanov and Mate Kapović deal from different perspectives with the four languages – Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian – that developed out of Serbo-Croatian after the split of Yugoslavia. Albana Muco discusses the reluctance of the political and cultural elites to accept the pluricentric status of Albanian, who advocate a strong one nation – one language concept. In the fifth section, there are two papers that discuss the pluricentricity of Finno-Ugric languages, which is a novelty. Jack Rueter and Mika Hämäläinen go into the difficult situation of the highly fragmented Sami languages. Rebeka Kubitsch/Zoltán Németh find evidence for the pluricentricity in Udmurt by dealing with politeness strategies connected with the use of evidential forms. The sixth chapter comprises the papers of Olga Goritzka about Belarusian Russian and Vica Katona about Russian in Estonia. Both papers show that the pluricentricity of Russian is under development. In the final chapter Jutta Ransmayer and Elen Shirlina discuss the situation of Austrian German which is under pressure from the dominant variety German German. The editors would like to thank the reviewers for their effort and their valuable input that helped to improve the publication.

 

Rudolf Muhr, Josep Àngel Mas Castells, Jack Rueter

Graz, Valencia and Helsinki in May 2019