“New Speakers” in the Context of Minority Languages in Europe and Revitalisation Efforts

• Authors: Šatava Leoš

Title variants

CS

„Noví mluvčí“ v kontextu menšinových jazyků v Evropě a revitalizačních snah

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Until recently the (socio)linguistic studies concerned with minority languages focused chiefly on “native speakers”. Equally, the (ethno)linguistic revitalisation efforts tried to strengthen or reinstall the intergenerational language transmission. Currently, however, a change is occurring within the context of the phenomenon of “new speakers”, i.e. persons who have acquired the language in a way different from their family background, or that of “postvernacular languages” or “xenolects” formed on this basis. The increase in the significance of (activist) “new speakers” (in many cases outnumbering the traditional users of the language) has become so important since the turn of the 21st century that at present the research on this phenomenon ranks among representative branches of the ethnolinguistic revitalisation issues. Despite the shift under discussion, the given framework still contains a number of yet unsolved and open levels, e.g. in connection with the flexibility and fluidity of the linguistic field´s boundaries, which seemed to be fixed until recently, with questions of legitimacy and authenticity of various types of the language, or a possible bridging of the dichotomous gap and the integration of both groups of the users.

Keywords

EN

Minority languages; linguistic assimilation/revitalization traditional speakers; “new speakers“; linguistic authenticity and legitimacy.

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: The National Institute of Folk Culture
• Journal: Národopisná revue (Journal of Ethnology)
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 322 - 330

Contributors

author

Šatava Leoš