1 Brigitta Busch, University of Vienna From bilingualism to heteroglossia: changing paradigms in sociolinguistic research Presentation at the seminar Gränser.

1

Brigitta Busch, University of Vienna

From bilingualism to heteroglossia:

changing paradigms in sociolinguistic research

Presentation at the seminar “Gränser förr och nu”, Helsinki 25/10/2010

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Brigitta Busch, Department of Linguistics, University of Vienna

2


I. The territorial approach: languages as categories

II. The speaking subject: experiencing language and the representation

of heteroglossic repertoires

III. Heteroglossic spaces: linguistic practices and local language

regimes

3


The territorial approach: languages as categories

Linguistic minorities in different situations:

•minorities with a kin state - without a kin state

•minorities within one single state - in several states

•minorities with in a compact settlement area - in dispersed settlement

•with recognized status - without official status

•forming regionally/locally a majority

• ...

4


The territorial approach: languages as categories

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Art. 1 a and b)

a."regional or minority languages" means languages that are:

i. traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State's population; and

ii. different from the official language(s) of that State;

a."territory in which the regional or minority language is used" means the geographical area in which the said language is the mode of expression of a number of people justifying the adoption of the various protective and promotional measures provided for in this Charter;

5


Minority with a kin state: the Austro-Slovenian border region

1918 drawing of the border → minorities on either side; two centres with their standard; the option of Windisch as a ‘mixed’ dialect

1945 border between two different ideological systems; dialects seen as ‘Carinthian’, standard as nationalist and communist

1980s increasing transborder contacts, economic interests, increasing number of learners of Slovenian

1990s arrival of refugees from former Yugoslavia, later also from other countries, linguistic diversification

2004 Slovenia joins the EU; German and Slovenian official languages in the EU (Schengen border until 2007)

6


Decreasing number of speakers - increasing number of learners

Percentage0% - 5%05% - 10%10% - 20%20% - 30%>30%

Census 2001

year

1975/76 13%

1985/86 22%

1995/96 26%

2005/06 41%

2007/08 44%

children in bilingual classes

year

1910 66.463

1934 24.857

1939 43.179

1951 42.095

1981 16.552

2001 12.554

number of speakers

7


Territorial concept

• linked to the notion of a (homogenous) autochthonous ethnic group

• speakers within this group divided into a core and a marginal circle

• orientation towards two competing centres (conflict of loyalty)

– from the perspective of the centres: suspicion of linguistic equivocation

undermining the monolingual paradigm; outpost defending (cultural / territorial)

claims based on linguistic belonging

– from the perspective of the periphery: fear of being monopolized and abandoned by

the respective centres

• on the linguistic level:

– languages seen as bounded units (language ideologies)

– bilingualism seen as ‘additive monolingualism’

– dichotomy pure - impure

– the ideal of the unattainable native speaker across the border in the ‘motherland’

– deficit oriented view

8


Deterritorialisation (language under the condition of globalisation)

• speakers on the move:

– migration and mobility also as a temporary phenomenon

– multiple local affiliations,

– translocal links ...

• minority language speakers beyond the ‘bilingual area’ (especially in urban centres)

• linguistic diversification of the ‘bilingual area’

• ‘new’ speakers of minority languages (‘non-ethnic’)

9


I. The speaking subject: experiencing language and the representation of

heteroglossic repertoires

Multimodal biographic approach:

de-constructing preconceived

linguistic categories and dichotomies

10


Language portrait: exploring the entire linguistic repertoire as a resource

One leg is German (my father) and one leg is

Slovenian (my mother), these are the two pillars. In

these there is also the Selsko (Slovenian) dialect and

the Carinthian dialect and these are actually more

important.

In my head German prevails, because in Carinthia

almost everything is German, the media and so on.

Therefore I mainly think in German, unfortunately.

On my shoulders I have Italien and English (learnt in

school). This rucksack I can unpack when I need it,

but it is also a burden on the shoulders.

Podjunsko dialect I speak with my cousin to tend him

my hand.

Imitations (parody) and my own mixtures and

creations, the open space is for things to come. Roman, 17 yrs.

11


Experiencing heteroglossia: a multimodal approach

Research group ‘Spracherleben’University of Vienna www.cis.or.atKrumm 2001Busch 2006, 2008

Motives

•deconstructing categories conceiving language as split into bounded and countable units

•overcoming the concept of a mono- or bilingual ‘norm’ biography

•exploring the complexity of heteroglossic biographies and Life-Worlds

•exploring dispositions, experiences, practices and desires linked to language

•valorizing the entire language repertoire

http://www.cis.or.at/

12


‘New’ speakers of the minority language

German

Slovenian

“po domače”

English

French

Italian (right arm)

Evi began to learn Slovenian after her marriage 20

years ago, studies now Slovenian at university

... , dass ich zuerst den gailtaler dialekt kennengelernt hab

und dann auf der andere seite durch freunde sozusagen auf

der italienischen seite den dialekt, das ist auch eine

slowenische minderheit noch, das ist der uggowitzer dialekt

und d‚ie zwei kann ich also sehr gut. (...) wenn ich switche,

dann zwischen deutsch, slowenischen dialekt, uggowitzer

dialekt und zwischen der slowenischen hochsprache. Ich find

das eigentlich sehr spannend, dass, dass es/ im kopf, da

gehen sie schon ein bisschen ineinander über.

..., that I learnt first the gailtal dialect and then on the other

side through friends so to say, the dialect of the italian side,

there is another slovenian minority, the uggowitz dialect

and these two I do speak really well. (...) when I switch,

then between german, slovenian dialect, uggowitz dialect

and the slovenian standard language. I think this is really

interesting, that, that this/ in the head, there they are

already blending a little.

13


‘New’ speakers of the minority language

SerbocroatianRussianEnglishSlovenianGerman

Ljubo came as a refugee in the 1990ies from Bosnia,

learnt first Slovenian and then German

meine ersten kontakte mit der slowenischen sprache waren

in XXX, wo ich mit den einheimischen/ oder besser gesagt,

wo die einheimischen mit uns hauptsächlich im slowenischen

dialekt kommuniziert haben, weil wir kein deutsch konnten.

my fist contact with the slovenian language was in XXX,

where I communicated/ or rather where the locals

communicated with us mainly in the slovene

dialect, because we did not speak german.

in diesem land durch die deutschkenntnisse ist das schon ein

schutz. ja, weil jeder, der die sprache nicht so gut bewältigen,

wird diskiminiert.

in this country through the knowledge of geman is a

protection. yes, because everyone who cannot speak the

language well, is being discriminated.

14


Valorising linguistic resources

Tim attended bilingual primary and secondary school

Eine Zeit lang hab ich sehr versucht, mich zu identifizieren mit

dem Slowenischen. (...) Und da hab ich mir auch immer

gewünscht, dass ich den Dialekt könnte und --- Verstehen

können hab ich ihn gut, aber wenn ich probiert hab ihn zu

reden, bin ich eher belächelt worden.

For some time I tried hard to identify with Slovenian. (...) And

then I always wanted to know the dialect and --- I could

understand it well, but when I tried to speak it, I was smiled at.

Dann haben wir unsere komplett eigene slowenische Sprache

entwickelt. Und da hat dann Dialekt keine Rolle gespielt. Und

--- eeh, --- also das war eine Sprache, die nirgends irgendwie

gesprochen wird sonst. Das war wirklich nur für uns aus der

Klasse und die Parallelklasse. Man hat problemlos

codegeswitcht.

Then we developed our completely own Slovenian

language.And then the dialect did not play a role anymore.

And --- eeh, --- yes, this was a language which was nowhere

else spoken. That was only for us in our class and for the

parallel class. We code switched without any problems.

German SlovenianFrenchEnglishSwedishLatinMalagasySpanish

15


Concept of linguistic/communicative repertoire

•marks a change in perspective from particular languages/varieties to groups of speakers and their linguistic choices (Charles Ferguson & John Gumperz, 1960)

•designates the totality of linguistic and communicative possibilities that speakers can refer to in

specific contexts

•includes registers, styles, dialects etc. as well as the pragmatic knowledge of their adequate use

•refers to Husserlʼs phenomenological approach which foregrounds the notions of »experience«

(Erleben) and »lifeworld« (Lebenswelt)

•brings back the speaking subject into linguistics

»What is needed is a sociolinguistics of speech and of resources, of the real bits and chunks of

language that make up a repertoire, and of real ways of using this repertoire in communication.«

(Dell Hymes 1996)

16


Heteroglossic repertoires

evolves by experiencing language in interaction on a emotional and cognitive level

•draws on a broad range of earlier voices, discourses and codes (heteroglossia, Mikhail Bakhtin)

•it is not only a cognitive phenomenon but is inscribed into the body (corporal memory, Maurice

Merleau-Ponty)

•corporality includes traces of hegemonic power relations (habitus, Pierre Bourdieu)

•reverts back to the conditions of its evolution and forward to a contingent space of potentialities

including imaginations and desires (Claire Kramsch, Rita Franceschini)

17


Problems in connection with biographic narratives

• driven by genre expectations and conventions of narration (linear, time axis, retrospective, dramatization ...)

• autobiographic accounts linked to ‘techniques of the self’ (Foucault): confession as the expression of a deep ‘inner self’; construction of diachronic continuity and synchronic coherence

• the narrative is not the reconstruction of a life history but a situational presentation of self (Goffman)

• the narrative reverts to other texts and discursive constructions in order to relate the narrated biography to a larger (social) context, reinterpret and legitimize it

• foregrounds the subject and not the interaction in which positioning is realized

18


Expanding the biographic approach

combining biographical narratives with:

•ethnographic observation to understand to relate the narrative form of sense-making

with practices of acting in specific contexts

•critical discourse analysis to understand how personal narratives are related to or

shaped by discourses structuring the public realm

•narration analysis to understand how the narrative evolves in the interaction between

(present and absent) participants

•creative visualizations to supply a mode of sense-making less linked to genre

expectations and conventions

19


III. Heteroglossic spaces: linguistic practices and local language

regimes

Linguistic landscape Slovenian secondary school Klagenfurt / Celovec

20



21



22


Local language regimes (interactional regimes, communicative regimes)

A language regime can be described as a set of constraints on individual language choices. As I

understand the term, it consists of habits (Oakeshott 1991), legal provisions (Gauthier et al.

1993), and ideologies (Kroskrity 2000). These three components interact in complex ways.

Coulmas (2005: 12)

By interactional regime, we understand minimally a set of behavioral expectations regarding

physical conduct, including language. (...) Some of these regimes are elaborations of

longestablished ‘old’ regimes, which have been challenged by conditions of ethnolinguistic

diversity. (...) Other regimes have surfaced locally as a direct result of contact (...) They often

originate exclusively in practice, in the sense that they are quite removed from state-supported

institutions with an official language policy. (...) We insist on using the term ‘regime’ in order to

emphasize not only a condition, a normative, taken-for-granted dimension which regiments

situated understandings of language, but also the importance of inequality of resources and

power. Regimes involve the production of subjectivities and may be transitory.

Blommaert, Collins, Slembrouck (2005: 211f)

23


Local language regime

relies on:

frames and frame analysis (Irving Goffman) for the analysis of interactional regimes

understanding spaces as interactional arenas of (organized) activities unfold

Interactions follow certain scripts (parts, routines) in which the kind of exchange that is taking

place is constantly negotiated and renegotiated

Frame analysis allows to understand interaction by distinguishing between

dominant/subordinate, frontstage/backstage, focused involvement/loose co-presence etc.

concept of language ideologies:

“for linguistic anthropology it is increasingly important to understand how microprocesses and

their analysis (speech events, sequencing ...) are related to political-economic macroprocesses.

(...) Regime evokes the display of political domination in all its many forms, including what

Gramsci distinguished as the coercive force of the state and the hegemonic influence of the

state-endorsed-culture of society.”

Paul Koskrity (2000: 3)

“Ideology is discovered in metalinguistic and metapragmatic discourse, in linguistic practice

itself and in the regimentation of of language use through more implicit metapragmatics that

indicate how to interpret that language-in-use.”

Kathryn Woolard (1998: 9)

24


Language and space

Linguistic market - value attributed to codes, languages ...; space constituted by symbolic power

(Pierre Bourdieu 1982)

Place and non-place - anthropological places as “formed by individual identities, through

complicities of language, local references, the unformulated rules of living know-how (...) defined

as relational, historical and concerned with identity". Non-places, in contrast, "a world

surrendered to solitary individuality, to the fleeting, the temporary and ephemeral" while they

“create solitary contractuality" (Marc Augé 1995)

Power geometries of space - feminist perspective; notion on “Out of place” - disturbing

practicies (Doreen Massey)

Heterotopia - is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several

sites with their respective discursive practices, that are in themselves incompatible; a

kind of counter-space (Michel Foucault 1984)

25


Nexus of practice

“We will use the term 'nexus of practice' to focus on the point at which historical

trajectories of people, places, discourses, ideas, and objects come together to enable

some action which in itself alters those history trajectories in some way as these

trajectories emanate from this moment of social action.”

Scollon & Scollon 2004

26


Heteroglossic space

in the Bakhtinian sense:

•Heterogeneity of individual voices (social background, age, gender, style, self-

representation ...)

•heterogeneity of discourses (linked to social movements, music scenes, commercial

enterprises, ethnic organizations with their geographic referential contexts ...)

•heterogeneity of linguistic practices (language purism, standard languages, jargons,

language crossing ...)

1 Brigitta Busch, University of Vienna From bilingualism to heteroglossia: changing paradigms in sociolinguistic research Presentation at the seminar Gränser.

Documents

university of vienna

brigitta busch

university of vienna

minority language speakers

charter slide

slovenian official languages

number of speakers

territorial approach