Full Description
A unique focus on the issue of agency in minority language revitalisation in Europe.
This book addresses the question of agency in the revitalisation of minoritised languages in Europe, with each chapter presenting an ethnographic account of how language policy operates in a specific linguistic context. The chapters investigate how grassroots actors shape revitalisation, and how individuals and groups negotiate historical factors, motivations, and institutionalised initiatives and policies in a variety of efforts.
Between them the chapters address both contexts where social actors have gained and exerted agency in their revitalisation efforts, and contexts where issues of authority, authenticity and lack of engagement plague efforts; these chapters provide insights into how social actors work within and against social conventions and strictures.
This book is available Open Access under a CC BY ND License.
Contents
Contributors
Preface and Acknowledgements
Mary S. Linn and Alejandro Dáyan-Fernández: Introduction: Sustaining Minoritised Languages in Europe: An Agentive Perspective on Social Actors and Language Revitalisation
Part 1: Building Agency
Chapter 1. Cassie Smith-Christmas and Orlaith Ruiséal: Tús Maith: Empowering Children's Agentive Role in Language Revitalisation
Chapter 2. Bernadette O'Rourke and Alejandro Dayán-Fernández: Sowing the Seeds at Semente: Urban Breathing Spaces and New Speaker Agency
Chapter 3. Nicole Dołowy-Rybińska and Cordula Ratajczak: The Dynamics of a Triangle of Agency: Sorbian Language Policy
Tadhg Ó hIfearnáin: Commentary: Language Conflict and the Contextual Nature of Agency
Part 2: Rethinking Possibilities in Agency
Chapter 4. Manuela Pellegrino: I Was There: Agency, Authority and Morality Among the Griko Linguistic Minority of Southern Italy (Apulia)
Chapter 5. Lena Terhart, Femmy Admiraal and Nils Langer: Which North Frisian Should Be Maintained? Exploring Language Attitudes and Agency of Speakers and Non-Speakers
Chapter 6. Sara C. Brennan: Reconsidering Agency in 21st-Century Language Revitalisation: Insight from the Occitan Context
Lenore A. Grenoble: Commentary: Rethinking Agency
James Costa: Conclusion: Final Thoughts on Agency and Affects
Index
