engleski

Linguistic diversity and power relations

The European discourse on diversity linked to the celebration of multilingualism is shaped by language ideologies which reveal its complex nature and contradictory discourses emerging from the power relations between communities at subnational, national and supranational levels. Backed up by widespread standardization ideology the prevailing concept of multilingualism has hegemonic effects on language users excluding numerous non-standardized varieties or variable and partial proficiencies in multiple languages. The paper examines how at the regional level the articulations of these different discourses are reflected on commonsense knowledge, attitudes and practices of people living in the Croatian region of Istria, mediated by cultural legacies, economic factors and language proficiencies. The data explored are based on both quantitative (questionnaires on language attitudes and use in a representative sample of high-school students) and qualitative (in-depth interviews with various interlocutors) methodology. The analysis demonstrates that the opposing political implications are manifested by both horizontal (regionalization and nationalization) and vertical polarizations (elites/non-elites) that reflect relationships of power and unequal position of various groups in Istria. The emerging regional identity is characterized linguistically by persistence of the regional codes (of Croatian and Italian varieties) and bilingual practices in everyday life, and by resistance against hegemony and symbolic domination of the standard languages. At the same time, this imagined regional identity based on shared economic concerns is localized, personalized, and conceived in terms of the emotional appeal of autochthony. These claims of autochthony seek to establish a primordial right to belong to Istria and emphasize the paradoxical outcome that, while subverting the official nationalist ideology through vernacular understandings and multilingual practices, simultaneously create new borders shaped by the same exclusionary discourses. The tensions also emerge between the policies at both regional and national levels and the multilingual European ideal, as they concern only the standard varieties of Croatian and Italian, neglecting alternative cultural identities and other configurations of speaking, which renders the recognition of plural forms of existing linguistic diversity difficult.

linguistic diversity; power relations; Istria

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