Chapter published in:
The Politics of Multilingualism: Europeanisation, globalisation and linguistic governance
Edited by Peter A. Kraus and François Grin
[Studies in World Language Problems 6] 2018
► pp. 89–109

From glossophagic hegemony to multilingual pluralism?

Re-assessing the politics of linguistic identity in Europe

| University of Augsburg
The chapter assesses the politics of multilingualism in contemporary Europe by focusing on the role of options and ligatures in the framing of linguistic identities. Whereas nation-state construction mostly entailed the establishment of monolingual spaces that should make for a convergence of linguistic ligatures and linguistic options, the emergence of new transnational settings at different levels is contributing to an increasing disconnection between language-as-an-option and language-as-a-ligature that affects not only minority, but also majority, members. This dynamic may have important implications for how demands for linguistic recognition are articulated by different groups.
Keywords: Allardt, cities, complex diversity, Dahrendorf, diglossia, English, Fishman, glossophagia, Humboldt, identity, immigration, ligatures, linguistic identity, linguistic nationalism, migration, nation, nationalism, options, recognition, self-categorisation, Taylor
Published online: 10 September 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/wlp.6.05kra
References

References

Allardt, Erik
(1979) Implications of the Ethnic Revival in Modern, Industrialized Society. A Comparative Study of the Linguistic Minorities in Western Europe (Commentationes Scientiarum Socialium 12). Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict
(1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised edition. London: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Breton, Raymond
(1964) “Instititutional Completeness of Ethnic Communities and the Personal Relations of Immigrants”, American Journal of Sociology, 70 (2): 193–205.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Burke, Peter
(2004) Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Calhoun, Craig
(ed.) (1992) Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Calvet, Louis-Jean
(1974) Linguistique et colonialisme. Petit traité de glossophagie. Paris: Payot.Google Scholar
Cederman, Lars-Erik, and Peter A. Kraus
(2005) “Transnational Communication and the European Demos”, in: Robert Latham and Saskia Sassen (eds), Digital Formations: Information Technology and New Architectures in the Global Realm, pp. 283–311. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Coulmas, Florian
(1985) Sprache und Staat: Studien zur Sprachplanung und Sprachpolitik. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dahrendorf, Ralf
(1979) Life Chances: Approaches to Social and Political Theory. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Deutsch, Karl W.
(1966) Nationalism and Social Communication. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Deutscher, Guy
(2010) Through the Language Glass: How Words Colour Your World. London: William HeinemannGoogle Scholar
Eisenstadt, Shmuel N.
(1999) Fundamentalism, Sectarianism and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimensions of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fishman, Joshua A.
(1967) “Bilingualism with and without Diglossia; Diglossia with and without Bilingualism”, Journal of Social Issues, 23 (2): 29–38.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(1971) “The Sociology of Language: An Interdisciplinary Social Science Approach to Language in Society”, in: Joshua A. Fishman (ed.), Advances in the Sociology of Language, Vol. I, pp. 217–404. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
(1980) “Bilingualism and Biculturism as Individual and as Societal Phenomena”, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1 (1): 3–15.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Geary, Patrick J.
(2001) The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest
(1983) Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony
(1985) The Nation-State and Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen
[1962] (1990) Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit: Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, new edition. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Hroch, Miroslav
(1985) Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe: A Comparative Analysis of Patriotic Groups among the Smaller European Nations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
von Humboldt, Wilhelm
(1836) Über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluß auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechts. Berlin: Druckerei der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften.Google Scholar
Jacob, James E., and David C. Gordon
(1985) “Language Policy in France”, in: William R. Beer and James E. Jacob (eds), Language Policy and National Unity, pp. 106–33. Totowa NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.Google Scholar
Judis, John B.
(2016) The Populist Explosion. New York: Columbia Global Reports.Google Scholar
Kraus, Peter A.
(2008) A Union of Diversity: Language, Identity and Polity-Building in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2011a) “The Multilingual City: the Cases of Helsinki and Barcelona”, Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 1 (1): 25–36.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(2011b) “Neither United nor Diverse? The Language Issue and Political Legitimation in the European Union”. in: Anne Lise Kjær and Silvia Adamo (eds), Linguistic Diversity and European Democracy, pp. 17–33. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.Google Scholar
(2012) “The Politics of Complex Diversity: A European Perspective”, Ethnicities, 12 (1): 3–25.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kraus, Peter A., and Rūta Kazlauskaitė-Gürbüz
(2014) “Addressing Linguistic Diversity in the European Union: Strategies and Dilemmas”, Ethnicities, 14 (4): 517–538.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Laponce, Jean A.
(1987) Languages and their Territories. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Maas, Utz
(1989) Sprachpolitik und politische Sprachwissenschaft. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.Google Scholar
Mann, Michael
(2005) The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
May, Stephen
(2012) Language and Minority Rights: Ethnicity, Nationalism and the Politics of Language. Second Edition. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Patten, Alan
(2014) Equal Recognition: The Moral Foundation of Minority Rights. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Phillipson, Robert
(2003) English-Only Europe? Challenging Language Policy. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Lingxin Hao
(2002) “The Price of Uniformity: Language, Family and Personality Adjustment in the Immigrant Second Generation”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 25 (6): 889–912.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Spiegel Online
(2011) “1000 Fragen: Wie sterben Sprachen?”, available at: www​.spiegel​.de​/schulspiegel​/wissen​/0,1518,777771,00​.html, last accessed 6 September 2017.
Szeverényi, Sándor, and Beáta Wagner-Nagy
(2011) “Visiting the Nganasans in Ust-Avam”, in: Riho Grünthal and Magdolna Kovács (eds), Ethnic and Linguistic Context of Identity: Finno-Ugric Minorities, pp. 385–404. Helsinki: University of Helsinki/Finno-Ugrian Society.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles
(1992) Multiculturalism and “The Politics of Recognition”. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
(2016) The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Therborn, Göran
(1995) European Modernity and Beyond: The Trajectory of European Societies, 1945–2000. London: SAGE Publications.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Trabant, Jürgen
(2014) Globalesisch oder was? Ein Plädoyer für Europas Sprachen. Munich: Beck.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tully, James
(2008) Public Philosophy in a New Key, Vol. II: Imperialism and Civic Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Van Parijs, Philippe
(2011) Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vertovec, Steve
(2009) Transnationalism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Weber, Max
[1922] (1980) Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, 5th edition. Tübingen: Mohr.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by other publications

Kraus, Peter A, Vicent Climent‐Ferrando, Melanie Frank & Núria Garcia
2020. Governing complex linguistic diversity in Barcelona, Luxembourg and Riga. Nations and Nationalism Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 01 january 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.