Ein Mischmasch aus Deutsch und Französisch
Ideological tensions in young people’s discursive constructions of Luxembourgish
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.34809Keywords:
Luxembourg, language policy, metalinguistic comments, ideology, discourseAbstract
Luxembourg has often been classi?ed as a ‘triglossic’ country in sociolinguistic literature, due to Luxembourgish being used predominantly for spoken functions and French and German for written functions. However, language use in late modern Luxembourg is characterized by increased levels of spoken French coupled with the growing presence of written Luxembourgish in the public sphere, thus altering certain long-standing patterns of language use. In this context, Luxembourgish is often framed as an important marker of authenticity and national identity in language ideological debates. At the same time, the ideological positioning of Luxembourgish as the national language stands in tension with varying levels of uncertainty regarding writing conventions in Luxembourgish, particularly in more formal contexts. Based on the analysis of metalinguistic comments from focus group data, this article examines how the participants discursively construct Luxembourgish in their negotiation between positioning Luxembourgish as the national language whilst also describing it as not being a fully ?edged standardized language. On a broader scale, this paper contributes to language ideological research that explores the construction of national languages as well as the relationship between the standard language ideology and the one-nation one-language ideology.
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Belling, L. and de Bres, J. (2014) Digital superdiversity in Luxembourg: The role of Luxembourgish in a multilingual Facebook group. Discourse, Context and Media 4(5): 74–86. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2014.03.002.
Bourdieu, P. (1991) Language and symbolic power. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Davies, W. (2012) Myths we live and speak by: Ways of imagining and managing language and languages. In M Hüning, U. Vogl and O. Moliner (eds) Standard Languages and Multilingualism in European History 45–69. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Deumert, A. (2004) Language Standardization and Language Change. The Dynamics of Cape Dutch. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.19.
Fishman, J. (1972). The Sociology of Language. An interdisciplinary Social Science Approach to Language in Society. Rowley: Newbury House.
Gal, S. (2018) Visions and Revisions of Minority Languages Standardization and Its Dilemmas. In P. Lane, J. Costa and H. De Korne (eds) Standardizing Minority Languages. Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity in the Global Periphery 222–242. New York and London: Routledge.
Gilles, P. (2015) From status to corpus: Codification and implementation of spelling norms in Luxembourgish. In W. V. Davies and E. Ziegler (eds) Language Planning and Microlinguistics: From Policy to Interaction and Vice Versa 128–149. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Gilles, P. and Moulin, C. (2003) Luxembourgish. In A. Deumert and W. Vandenbussche (eds) Germanic Standardizations: Past to Present 303–330. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Horner, K. (2007) Language and Luxembourgish national identity: Ideologies of hybridity and purity in the past and present. In S. Elspaß, N. Langer, J. Scharloth and W. Vandenbussche (eds) Germanic Language Histories from Below (1700–2000) 363–378. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Horner, K. (2015) Language regimes and acts of citizenship in multilingual Luxembourg. Journal of Language and Politics 14(3): 359–381. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.3.03hor.
Horner, K. and Weber, J.-J. (2008) The language situation in Luxembourg. Current Issues in Language Planning 9(1): 69–128. Doi: https://doi.org/10.2167/cilp130.0.
Horner, K. and Weber, J.-J. (2010) Small languages, education and citizenship: The paradoxical case of Luxembourgish. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 205: 179–192. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl.2010.045.
Horner, K. and Kremer, J. (2016) Contesting ideologies of linguistic authority: Perspectives ‘from below’ on language, nation and citizenship in Luxembourg. In G. Rutten and K. Horner (eds) Metalinguistic Perspectives on Germanic Languages: European Case Studies from Past to Present 239–260. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Johnstone, B. (2013) Speaking Pittsburghese: The Story of a Dialect. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199945689.001.0001.
Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A.D. (2007) ‘Disinventing and reconstituting languages’. In S. Makoni and A.D. Pennycook (eds) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages 1–41. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Mémorial: Journal Officiel du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg/Memorial: Amtsblatt des Großherzogtums Luxemburg. Recueil de Législation. B-No 68. 16 novembre 1975 : 5–22.
Mémorial: Journal Officiel du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg/Memorial: Amtsblatt des Großherzogtums Luxemburg. Recueil de Législation. A-No 16. 27 février 1984 : 191–205.
Mémorial: Journal Officiel du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg/Memorial: Amtsblatt des Großherzogtums Luxemburg. Recueil de Législation. A-No 158, 27 octobre 2008: 2221–2227.
Milroy, J. and Milroy, L. (2012) Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English (4th ed.). London: Routledge. Doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203124666.
Official Portal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (2016) Multilingualism in the Grand Duchy and its advantages. Retrieved on 19 March 2016 from http://www.luxembourg.public.lu/en/le-grand-duche-se-presente/langues/multilinguisme/index.html.
Ries, N. [1911] (1920) Essai d’une pyschologie du peuple luxembourgeois. Diekirch: Impimerie J. Schroell.
Schieffelin, B. B., Woolard, K. and Kroskrity, P. (eds) (1998) Language, Ideologies, Practice and Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Statec. Le Portail des Statistiques Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (2017). Retrieved on 7 July 2017 from http://www.statistiques.public.lu/fr/index.html.
Unger, J. W. (2013) The Discursive Construction of the Scots Language: Education, Politics and Everyday Life. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.51.
Wagner, M. and Davies, W. (2009) The role of World War II in the development of Luxembourgish as a national language. Language Problems and Language Planning 33(2): 112–131. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.33.2.02wag.
Weber, J.-J. (2009) Constructing lusobourgish ethnicities: Implications for language-ineducation policy. Language Problems & Language Planning 33(2): 132–152. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1075/lplp.33.2.03web.
Weber, J.-J. and Horner, K. (2012) The trilingual Luxembourgish school system in historical perspective: Progress or regress? Language, Culture and Curriculum 25(1): 3–15. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2011.653054.
Wodak, R., De Cillia, R., Reisigl, M., Liebhart, K., Hirsch, A., Mitten, R. and Unger, J. W. (2009) The Discursive Construction of National Identity (2nd ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Woolard, K. (1998) Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In B. B. Schieffelin, K. Woolard and P. Kroskrity (eds) Language, Ideologies, Practice and Theory, 3–47. New York: Oxford University Press.
Woolard, K. (2016) Singular and Plural. Ideologies of Linguistic Authority in 21st Century Catalonia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190258610.001.0001.
Published
2019-05-02
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Bellamy, J., & Horner, K. (2019). Ein Mischmasch aus Deutsch und Französisch: Ideological tensions in young people’s discursive constructions of Luxembourgish. Sociolinguistic Studies, 12(3-4), 323-343. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.34809
