engleski

Students’ Language Identity and School Linguistic Landscape

The Croatian educational system encompasses different languages: the Croatian standard language and minority languages as languages of schooling, foreign languages as languages in schooling, and students’ vernaculars as their active idiolects (Turza Bogdan & Cvikić 2017, Turza Bogdan, Cvikić & Leško 2017). For that reason, the Croatian educational system should be considered a multilingual environment (UNICEF 2012). Linguistic landscape is defined as a visibility of a particular language or languages in a public space, and it can provide us with valuable information on the social status of a language and its functions. Especially important is research on school linguistic landscape or schoolscape (Brown 2012). Namely, the existence of a particular language or vernacular in a school reflects the attitudes of teachers and school authorities toward the language, while at the same time shapes students' attitudes (Landry & Bourhis 1997). This paper deals with schoolscapes in primary schools in Medjimurje county, Republic of Croatia. It is a multilingual environment with the majority of inhabitants being Croatian native speakers whose vernacular is the Kajkavian dialect, and minority inhabitants being speakers of Boyash Romanian, one of the vernaculars of Roma minority in Croatia. In order to explore whether the schoolscape reflects the language identity of its students, the representation of the Croatian standard language, non-standard dialects (Kajkavian, Boyash Romanian), and foreign languages (English, German) will be investigated. The research will be conducted in various primary schools in Medjimurje, using mixed method: a quantitative analysis of students’ language profiles (ratio between majority and minority language speakers) and a qualitative analysis of language representation in school spaces used by students. Based on the obtained results it will be discussed how schoolscape might contribute to language maintenance and the achievement of students’ multilingualism.

linguistic landscape, multilingualism, minority language, vernaculars.

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