This book addresses the question of agency in the revitalisation of minoritised languages in Europe. 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.
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
This book addresses the question of agency in the revitalisation of minoritised languages in Europe. 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.
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.
Mary S. Linn is Curator of Language and Cultural Vitality at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Washington, DC, USA. Her primary research is in effective grassroots strategies in language reclamation and cultural sustainability, especially in small language communities. She directs the Language Vitality Initiative, which focuses on training, networking, innovation and advocacy, and she is on the curatorial committee of the annual Smithsonian Mother Tongue Film Festival. Alejandro Dayán-Fernández is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Glasgow. Grounded in critical sociolinguistics, his PhD research explored the role of language in diaspora community building processes based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Galicians in the UK. By combining his interdisciplinary background in political science, translation studies and sociolinguistics, his current research focuses on the use of language in processes of collective action among grassroots social movements and the instrumentalisation of minoritised languages for political gains by different ideological forces.
