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Language, Ethnicity, and the State: Minority Languages in the EU

Language, Ethnicity, and the State: Minority Languages in the EU. Ch7: When Language Does Not Matter: Regional Identity Formation in Northern Italy By Jaro Stacul. Introduction. Both factual circumstances and opinions about the importance of language for nationalism vary

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Language, Ethnicity, and the State: Minority Languages in the EU

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  1. Language, Ethnicity, and the State: Minority Languages in the EU Ch7: When Language Does Not Matter: Regional Identity Formation in Northern Italy By Jaro Stacul

  2. Introduction • Both factual circumstances and opinions about the importance of language for nationalism vary • Nations can no longer be defined economically or linguistically • Regional identity may become more important in a Europe without borders

  3. Regional identity in Northern Italy • 1990s Lega Nord -- regionalist political movement predicated on economic success and local culture, but not on language, since N Italy encompasses many dialects while its public language is not different from S • Trentino province shares history and legal culture with German-speaking South Tyrol -- both were part of Austro-Hungary, and Habsburgs did not enforce Germanization; both regions were integrated into Italy

  4. A ”European” region? • Since the advent of EU, regionalism has challenged the definition of the nation-state, and the definition of who belongs to a regional group has changed as well: anybody in S Tyrol can be a S Tyrolean, whether or not they speak German • It became advantageous to strive for a combined S Tyrol + Trentino as a distinctive province of Italy, and a region of Europe, and historical figures previously associated with Austria have been coopted for Trentino identity -- this was done without using a language (German) as an identifier

  5. Local identity and language • Trentino has an array of various Italian dialects, with islands of Ladin and German -- in short, there is no linguistic unity in Trentino, so regional identity must be drawn from history and place • However, local dialect is important in regional identity

  6. We and ”the Italians” • In Trentino outsiders are referred to as ’taliani (seen as intrusive, wealthy, corrupt), and traveling south is described as ’going to Italy’ • Locals can become ”Italian” if they move or take on ”Italian” ways -- this is not dependent on language • Widespread diglossia -- Italian H vs. dialect L -- Italian H must be acquired to succeed • Trentinos feel themselves to be ”Austrian” even though they do not use German

  7. We and ”the Italians”, cont’d. • When language cannot be used as a distinctive marker (as is the case in Trentino), ”territory becomes the main focus of attachment” • Attachment to dialect implies not a local identity so much as a conceptual failure to join the nation • ”The construction of political and regional identities may take place without language playing a pivotal role”

  8. Conclusions • Identities can be manipulated for political aims • Europe now stresses regional identities, but also multiculturalism and the obsolescence of national boundaries • Varieties of categorization: • Uniform nation-state vs. ethnolinguistic minorities vs. new, transnational, regional identities based on place

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