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Language Biographies and Identity Issues on the Example of the Croatian Minority in the Austrian Province of Burgenland

In the course of the 16th century a large number of Croats from Croatia and northern parts of Bosnia immigrated to Austria, Slovakia and northern Hungary. Their descendants occupy these areas to the present day. This presentation concentrates on the Croatian minority living in Burgenland in Austria. Despite more than five hundred years long striving to preserve the culture, language and tradition of their “ old homeland” , intensive contacts with Austrians and various social and political circumstances left traces on their language as well as on their way of life. Burgenland Croats retained čakawian dialect, which now abounds with German, e.g. Austrian loan words. We will deal with language issues and issues of identity based on interviews and language biographies. When choosing informants, we paid attention to their gender, age and level of education. We also wanted to examine how the individuals articulate their reflections on the language attitudes, their experiences and identity. Our analysis deals primarily with individual case studies, which may enable us to identify common traces in language biographies that may indicate collective consciousness of the examined community.

language biography; narrative interview; identity; Burgenland Croats

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