Standardizing Minority Languages (Open Access)
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Standardizing Minority Languages This volume addresses tensions that are born of the renewed or continued need to standardize ‘language’ in the early 21st century acround the world. The case studies collected here go beyond the traditional macro/micro dichotomy by foregrounding the role of actors as they position themselves as users of standard forms of language, oral or written, across sociolinguis- tic scales. By considering the perspectives and actions of people who partici- pate in or are affected by minority language politics, the contributors aim to provide a comparative and nuanced analysis of the complexity and ten- sions inherent in minority language standardization processes. This volume provides new insight into how social actors in a wide range of geographical settings embrace, contribute to, resist and also reject (aspects of) minority language standardization. Pia Lane is a professor in multilingualism at the Centre for Multilingual- ism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing) at the University of Oslo, where she is PI of the project Standardising Minority Languages. Recent publications on standardization include: Lane (2015). Minority language standardization and the role of users. Language Policy, 14, 3, 263–283 & Lane (2016). Standardising Kven: Participation and the role of users. Socio- linguistica 30, 105–124. James Costa, previously a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Oslo, where he worked on the standardization of Scots as part of the STAN- DARDS project directed by Pia Lane, is currently a lecturer at Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris, where he teaches sociolinguistics, linguis- tic anthropology and semiotics. He is also an affiliate of Lacito, a CNRS, Sorbonne Nouvelle and Inalco research unit. His current research seeks to understand how a nationalist, post-referendum public space is being con- structed in Scotland and how the standardization of the vernacular (Scots), or its rejection, has effects on who gets to be included or not in the public debate. He is the author of a monograph based on previous work on lan- guage revitalization in Provence, Revitalising Language in Provence (2017). Haley De Korne is a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Multilingual- ism in Society across the Lifespan at the University of Oslo. She conducts research, teaching, and advocacy in relation to minoritized language com- munities, multilingual education, and language politics. She has participated in Indigenous language education projects in a variety of contexts, in par- ticular in Oaxaca, Mexico. She teaches in the ‘Critical Language Education’ program at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca. Routledge Critical Studies in Multilingualism Edited by Marilyn Martin-Jones MOSAIC Centre for Research on Multilingualism, University of Birmingham, UK Joan Pujolar Cos Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Spain For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com 6 A Sociolinguistics of Diaspora Latino Practices, Identities, and Ideologies Edited by Rosina Márquez Reiter and Luisa Martín Rojo 7 Language, Literacy and Diversity Moving Words Edited by Christopher Stroud and Mastin Prinsloo 8 Global Portuguese Linguistic Ideologies in Late Modernity Edited by Luiz Paulo Moita-Lopes 9 Language and Learning in a Post-Colonial Context A Critical Ethnographic Study in Schools in Haiti Marky Jean-Pierre 10 Multilingualism in the Chinese Diaspora Worldwide Transnational Connections and Local Social Realities Edited by Li Wei 11 Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities Religion in Young Lives Edited by Vally Lytra, Dinah Volk and Eve Gregory 12 Entangled Discourses South-North Orders of Visibility Edited by Caroline Kerfoot and Kenneth Hyltenstam 13 Standardizing Minority Languages Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity in the Global Periphery Edited by Pia Lane, James Costa, and Haley De Korne Standardizing Minority Languages Competing Ideologies of Authority and Authenticity in the Global Periphery Edited by Pia Lane, James Costa, and Haley De Korne First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis. com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution- Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-12512-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-64772-2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents Acknowledgements vii 1 Standardising Minority Languages: Reinventing Peripheral Languages in the 21st Century 1 JAMES COSTA, HALEY DE KORNE, AND PIA LANE 2 Basque Standardization and the New Speaker: Political Praxis and the Shifting Dynamics of Authority and Value 24 JACQUELINE URLA, ESTIBALIZ AMORRORTU, ANE ORTEGA, AND JONE GOIRIGOLZARRI 3 On the Pros and Cons of Standardizing Scots: Notes From the North of a Small Island 47 JAMES COSTA 4 Legitimating Limburgish: The Reproduction of Heritage 66 DIANA M. J. CAMPS 5 Negotiating the Standard in Contemporary Galicia 84 BERNADETTE O’ROURKE 6 Language Standardisation as Frozen Mediated Actions: The Materiality of Language Standardisation 101 PIA LANE 7 Language Standardization in the Aftermath of the Soviet Language Empire 118 LENORE A. GRENOBLE AND NADEZHDA JA. BULATOVA 8 Standardization of Inuit Languages in Canada 135 DONNA PATRICK, KUMIKO MURASUGI, AND JEELA PALLUQ-CLOUTIER vi Contents 9 “That’s Too Much to Learn”: Writing, Longevity, and Urgency in the Isthmus Zapotec Speech Community 154 HALEY DE KORNE 10 Orthography, Standardization, and Register: The Case of Manding 175 COLEMAN DONALDSON 11 Beyond Colonial Linguistics: The Dialectic of Control and Resistance in the Standardization of isiXhosa 200 ANA DEUMERT AND NKULULEKO MABANDLA 12 Visions and Revisions of Minority Languages: Standardization and Its Dilemmas 222 SUSAN GAL List of Contributors 243 Index 247 Acknowledgements This volume emerged from two conference panels. It began at the 20th Sociolinguistic Symposium in Jyväskylä in 2014, and we are particularly grateful to Monica Heller, who acted as a discussant and whose insight- ful and to-the-point comments helped us refine our ideas and move the project forwards. Some of the authors met again the following year at the Sociolinguistics of Globalization: (De)centring and (De)standardization conference in Hong Kong and had the opportunity to present and get feed- back on preliminary versions of their chapters. The editors and authors based at the Centre for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing) had the opportunity to partici- pate at various seminars and workshops organised at the centre. These events provided arenas for discussion and reflection and have been of key importance to the volume, as have conversations with our colleagues at the centre. This volume is the main outcome of the project Standardising Minority Languages—STANDARDS, directed by Pia Lane under the auspices of MultiLing and financed by the Research Council of Norway (2012–2017), and the book has benefited from project seminars with Diana Camps, James Costa, Haley De Korne, Elina Kangas and Pia Lane. We are particularly grateful to Sue Gal who, at the first seminar of the STANDARDS project in 2013 gave very insightful comments on the ini- tial outlines for the team members’ individual projects. Several of the authors participate in the COST Action IS1306 entitled “New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges” and have ben- efited from the ongoing discussions facilitated by this network. We are grateful for all these opportunities and for all the stimulating conver- sations they inspired and thank the contributors for engaging with the over-arching theme of this volume, their patience and their commitment to the project. We would like to thank Hanne Grønbech and André Nilsson Dannevig for proof-reading and Mina Finstad Berg for assistance with the index. The series editors Marilyn Martin-Jones and Joan Pujolar have helped us refine our ideas in the initial phase and supported us throughout the process, and viii Acknowledgements we extend our thanks to them and also to Alexandra Simmons and Elysse Preposi at Routledge for their patient guidance and prompt replies to our many queries. Finally, we are indebted to all those involved in minority language promotion and standardisation processes and who have lent their voices to the various projects which are described in this volume. 1 Standardising Minority Languages Reinventing Peripheral Languages in the 21st Century James Costa, Haley De Korne, and Pia Lane 1. Introduction This book addresses a crucial, yet often overlooked dimension of minority language standardisation, namely, how social actors engage with, support, alter, resist and even reject standardisation processes. We look at standardi- sation processes as a political domain where social actors use standards as semiotic