engleski

Borders of the Croatian Language: Between coflict and resolution

The lecture outlined the importance of the notion of borders, both in historical and in contemporary perspective, for the formation of Croatian standard language. Starting from the notion that all borders are to some extent constructed, the author first discussed the notion of borders in political geography, then proceed to the notion of borders in historical or diachronic linguistics and in sociolinguistics. In doing so, she followed the theoretical approaches delineated in Anderson (1991) and Bourdieu (1991), and sort out three sets of oppositions that have shaped the relationship of contemporary Croatian society towards its language: 1. naturalness/constructedness ; 2. inclusiveness/exclusiveness ; 3. broadness/narrowness. All three oppositions are involved in the differentiation between the two relevant types of language communities – the speech/dialect community and the literary/standard language community. The officially accepted borders of the Croatian language community are still seen as checkpoints, and there is little questioning of their validity, despite the many instances when these linguistic borders are actually crossed, both in everyday life and in official contexts. In an attempt to offer scholarly criteria for the perception and interpretation of real-life linguistic phenomena, the author investigated the role of historical factors in the establishment of both types of language community, especially the literary/standard language community.

borders; Croatian language; language policy; conflict; resolution

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