400 Sprache, Linguistik
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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).
This paper discusses contemporary societal roles of German in the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania). Speaker and learner statistics and a summary of sociolinguistic research (Linguistic Landscapes, language learning motivation, language policies, international roles of languages) suggest that German has by far fewer speakers and functions than the national languages, English, and Russian, and it is not a dominant language in the contemporary Baltics anymore. However, German is ahead of ‘any other language’ in terms of users and societal roles as a frequent language in education, of economic relations, as a historical lingua franca, and a language of traditional and new minorities. Highly diverse groups of users and language policy actors form a ‘coalition of interested parties’ which creates niches which guarantee German a frequent use. In the light of the abundance of its functions, the paper suggests the concept ‘additional language of society’ for a variety such as German in the Baltics – since there seems to be no adequate alternative labelling which would do justice to all societal roles. The paper argues that this concept may also be used for languages in similar societal situations and, not least, be useful in language marketing and the promotion of multilingualism.
Zum Geleit
(2016)
Dieser Band ist in mehrerlei Hinsicht außergewöhnlich. Einerseits ist er die diesjährige und damit 21. Ausgabe des seit 1994 erscheinenden Jahrbuches Triangulum und steht damit in der Tradition, der Germanistik im Baltikum ein Sprachrohr zu geben. Im Gegensatz zu früheren Jahren ist dieser Band jedoch noch viel mehr: Als Dokumentation des 10. Nordisch-Baltischen Germanistentreffens (NBGT), das vom 10. bis zum 13. Juni 2015 von der Germanistik der Universität Tallinn ausgerichtet wurde, bündelt er eine Vielzahl der Vorträge, die im Rahmen der Tagung gehalten wurden.