Migration, Minorities and Multilingualism: Language Ideologies in Europe

Abstract

For scholars of language-in-context, the terms ‘language, Europe and future’ participate in what many are calling language ideologies. That is, they label cultural ideas, presumptions and presuppositions with which different social groups name, frame and evaluate linguistic practices. My experience as a scholar made language ideologies impossible to ignore. For over thirty years I have thought I was writing about language in Europe . But in a certain sense I was not. The parts of the world I have written about most — Austria and Hungary — have only recently been admitted to the lofty regions that officially call themselves ‘Europe’. From another perspective, however, belonging to Europe has a complex history in the east of the continent that long predates the current insti­tutional arrangements of the European Union. If the definition of Europe changes with the perspective of the definer, it deserves analysis as an aspect of language ideology. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.