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Latvia
(2019)
This chapter deals with current issues in bilingual education in the framework of language and educational policies in Latvia, and also outlines similarities or common tendencies in the two other Baltic states, Estonia and Lithuania. As commonly understood in the 21st century, the term ‘bilingual education’ includes ‘multilingual education, as the umbrella term to cover a wide spectrum of practice and policy’ (García, 2009: 9).
Deutsch in Sprachkontakten
(2021)
Das vorliegende Heft vereint Beiträge zu Kontakten des Deutschen mit verschiedenen Sprachen nördlich, östlich und südlich des deutschsprachigen Kerngebietes. Sprachkontakt wird dabei aus unterschiedlichsten Perspektiven erfasst; die Aufsätze behandeln einzelne strukturelle Sprachebenen ebenso wie pragmalinguistische, historische, soziolinguistische und translatologische Themen. Die Ausgabe vereint damit Untersuchungen zu Sprachkontakten in der Vergangenheit (Saagpakk/Saar, Plaušinaitytė), zum Gebrauch in spezifischen Textsorten (Mencigar, Földes), bis hin zu Sprachgebrauchsphänomenen im Kontext von Covid-19 (Geyer). Andere Beiträge fokussieren auf die Entwicklung sprachlicher Kompetenzen in Abhängigkeit von Kontakteinflüssen (Tibaut, Ščukanec/Durbek) oder dem Einfluss der Medien (Mack/Vollstädt/Vujović) oder diskutieren das Zusammenwirken von Sprachpolitik und Sprachgebrauch (Marten). Das Heft schließt mit mehreren Rezensionen und Projektberichten ab; insgesamt wird damit ein wesentlicher Ausschnitt aus der Bandbreite der germanistischen Sprachkontaktforschung in der Region von Estland bis Montenegro aufgezeigt.
This special issue of the Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe (JEMIE) brings together some of the participants of the symposium Political and Economic Resources and Obstacles of Minority Language Maintenance organized by the Language Survival Network ‘POGA’ at Tallinn University, Estonia, in December 2010. More than 20 scholars representing linguistics, anthropology, social sciences and law participated in the symposium, to present papers and discuss questions related to minority language loss, maintenance and revitalization. The six case studies contained in this special issue look at different minorities and regions in the European Union, Russia and the US. The linguistic communities discussed are the Russian-, Võru/Seto- and Latgalian-speaking minorities of Estonia and Latvia; the Welsh- and Breton-speaking communities of the Celtic language; the Russian Finno-Ugrian people with regional autonomies; and the native American groups of the Delaware/Cherokee and the Oneida. The reader will find articles relating to interdisciplinary research approaches in and on minority languages and minority language communities.
Thema der 59. Jahrestagung des Leibniz-Instituts für Deutsche Sprache war vom 14. bis zum 16. März 2023 erstmals nach mehreren Jahrzehnten wieder die Orthografie des Deutschen, und zwar „in Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft“. Einen unmittelbaren Anlass dafür bildete der bevorstehende Abschluss der siebenjährigen Arbeitsphase des Rats für deutsche Rechtschreibung Ende 2023, dessen Tätigkeit das IDS seit seiner Gründung wissenschaftlich begleitet. Aber auch die Orthografieforschung selbst hat sich seit der Rechtschreibreform im Jahr 1996 in einer Weise entwickelt, dass die Wahl dieses schriftlinguistischen Querschnittsthemas angezeigt erschien.
When we first started the project of looking at minority languages through a linguistic landscape lens, we felt that the visibility of minority languages in public space had been insufficiently dealt with in traditional minority language research. A linguistic landscape approach, as it had developed over the last years, would constitute a valuable path to explore, by looking at the ‘same old issues’ of language contact and language conflict from a specific angle. We were convinced that fresh linguistic landscape data would be able to provide innovative and useful insights into ‘patterns of language […] use, official language policies, prevalent language attitudes, [and] power relations between different linguistic groups’ (Backhaus 2007, p. 11). The linguistic landscape approach, as presented by the different authors in this volume, has clearly proven to be a heuristic appropriate and relevant for a wide range of minority language situations. More specifically, the ideas and analyses in the different chapters do contribute to a further understanding of minority languages and their speakers. They deepen our comprehension of language policies, power relations and ideologies in minority language settings.
This paper focuses on language change based on shifting social norms, in particular with regard to the debate on language and gender. It is a recurring argument in this debate that language develops "naturally" and that "severe interventions" - such as gender-inclusive language is often claimed to be - in the allegedly "organic" language system are inappropriate and even "dangerous". Such interventions are, however, not unprecedented. Socially motivated processes of language change are neither unusual nor new. We focus in our contribution on one important political-social space in Germany, the German Bundestag. Taking other struggles about language and gender in the plenaries of the Bundestag as a starting point, our article illustrates that language and gender has been a recurring issue in the German Bundestag since the 1980s. We demonstrate how this is reflected in linguistic practices of the Bundestag, by the use of a) designations for gays and lesbians; b) pair forms such as Bürgerinnen und Bürger (female and male citizens); and c) female forms of addresses and personal nouns ('Präsidentin' in addition to 'Präsident'). Lastly, we will discuss implications of these earlier language battles for the currently very heated debate about gender-inclusive language, especially regarding new forms with gender symbols like the asterisk or the colon (Lehrer*innen, Lehrer:innen; male*female teachers) which are intended to encompass all gender identities.
Aims and objectives:
Language debates in Latvia often focus on the role of Latvian as official and main societal language. Yet, Latvian society is highly multilingual, and families with home languages other than Latvian have to choose between different educational trajectories for their children. In this context, this paper discusses the results of two studies which addressed the question of why families with Russian as a home language choose (pre)schools with languages other than Russian as medium of instruction (MOI). The first study analyses family narratives which provide insight into attitudes and practices which lead to the decision to send children to Latvian-MOI institutions. The second study investigates language attitudes and practices by families in the international community of Riga German School.
Methodology:
The paper discusses data gathered during two studies: for the first, semi-structed interviews were conducted with Russian-speaking families who choose Latvian-medium schools for their children. For the second study, a survey was carried out in the community of an international school in Riga, sided by ethnographic observations and interviews with teachers and the school leadership.
Data and analysis:
Interviews and ethnographic observations were subjected to a discourse analysis with a focus on critical events and structures of life trajectory narratives. Survey data were processed following simple statistical analysis and qualitative content analysis.
Findings/conclusions:
Our data reveal that families highly embrace multilingualism and see the development of individual plurilingualism as important for integration into Latvian society as well as for educational and professional opportunities in the multilingual societies of Latvia and Europe. At the same time, multilingualism and multiculturalism, including Russian, are seen as a value in itself. In addition, our studies reflect the bidirectionality of family language policies in interplay with practices in educational institutions: family decisions influence children’s language acquisition at school, but the school also has an impact on the families’ language practices at home. In sum, we argue that educational policies should therefore pay justice to the wishes of families in Latvia to incorporate different language aspects into individual educational trajectories.
Originality:
Language policy is a frequent topic of investigation in the Baltic states. However, there has been a lack in research on family language policy and school choices. In this vein, our paper adds to the understanding of educational choices and language policy processes among Russian-speaking families and the international community in Latvia.