Description
In this talk, I would like to pitch an idea for my next research project. The project aims to explore linguistic practices of LGBTQ+ speakers of minority languages and gender and sexuality narratives in minority languages in Europe. With almost no previous research on these topics (except for Walsh 2019 and an edited volume currently being prepared), it combines various research themes and approaches, most notably studies on new speakers of minority languages and on gender and sexuality vocabularies, discourses, narratives. The project ventures out to ask:1) what are minority language LGBTQ+ speakers’ everyday multilingual practices?
2) is there LGBTQ+ terminology being developed in minority languages, and what does this process look like?
3) do minority languages offer gender-equal and non-binary ways of speaking and if yes, what do they look like, who uses them and what do they accomplish?
‘New speaker’ is a term used in language revitalization literature to refer to a person who has learned or is learning a minority language outside of the family, usually within formal, institutionalized education settings (Hornsby 2009, O’Rourke & Walsh 2015, Jaffe 2015, Ó Murchadha et al. 2018). The language they acquire is often relatively standardized compared to local varieties spoken by those who learned it through intergenerational transmission. While some new speakers may be quite fluent, more so than some “native” speakers that have shifted to a majority language during their lifetime, their relationship to the notion of “authenticity” and local identity is complicated; their way of speaking is unmarked, anonymous. This means that the phenomenon of new speakers disrupts (queers!) common beliefs about what it means to be a native speaker, which has become a contested concept in the field (Piller 2002, Davies 2003).
Another site of tension is created by the fact that new speakers are often urban, middle class, well educated, while minority languages are associated with rural “heartlands”, tradition, conservatism (references). This tension is expected to be even more pronounced in the case of new speakers identifying as LGBTQ+. While the new speaker concept is already queer, as it questions, challenges and disrupts established linguistic categories mentioned above and many others (Walsh 2019), there are virtually no studies on the intersection of gender/sexual identity and linguistic/national identity.
In case of interest in this project please e-mail me at [email protected].
| Period | 2-Oct-2023 |
|---|---|
| Held at | Center for Language and Cognition (CLCG) |
| Degree of Recognition | Local |