• Overview
• Research Platforms
• Thematic Area A: Language, Identity and Culture
• European Level
• National Level
• Regional Level
• Thematic Area B: Language Policy and Planning
• Thematic Area C: Multilingualism and Education
• Thematic Area D: Language and Economy
• Communication, Management, Infrastructure, Training and Gender

Language and concepts of national identity

Rationale

Shifting and multiple identities are common in the new Member States — with some of them having been newly created or re-created since 1991-92. In many of these countries, nation-building and/or ethnic issues are still high on the agenda. The ideology of autonomous, national languages has been problematized by recent research on societal multilingualism, while national cultures are becoming increasingly multicultural and cultural differences between generations are becoming more pronounced. The changes occurring in former socialist, post-conflict societies, the transformation of their symbolic and communication spaces, the way in which they cope with the EU’s policy of cultural and linguistic diversity represent a challenge for the humanities and the social sciences.

Objectives

This WP examines the role of language in the present and past creation of national identities in Europe, and considers the ways in which language politics may sometimes reinforce national identity, or undermine the nation-state and the interconnections of national identity with other levels of collective identity. The principal aims of this work package are to enhance knowledge and understandings on the effects of contemporary politics of language on the politics of national identity in contemporary Croatia, Latvia and Hungary.

Description of work

Desk research in months 1-6 will overview scientific research on national identity, focusing on how politics of national identity affect linguistic and cultural identities, constructions of difference, inclusion and exclusion in national contexts as produced by population movements and transnational and diasporic communities. Different manifestations and symbolic representations of national identity and its intersections with other types of identity throughout European states will be analysed. Empirical research in months 7-12 will involve a comparative study of the interactive roles of language, ethnicity, culture, and institutions in the character and formation of nationalism and national identity in Latvia, Hungary and Croatia. The meaning of national identity in these countries in an historical context, and the effects of major social-cultural and political developments – whether prehistoric, historic or contemporary – upon national consciousness, imagination and identity will be explored. The role of specific political agendas and the state in the promotion of national identities and/or languages will be examined through respective national language policies. Special attention will be given to the languagerelated challenges that have arisen since independence in these countries, to ideologies of linguistic purism and to the status of the standard language as a constituent of national identity and as a means of social and cultural empowerment in relationship to other languages or varieties in each country. The use of a comparative approach will show to what extent the above interactive processes are contextually dynamic or how they reproduce themselves in similar ways in different countries. The research methods used here will be both critical discourse analysis and ethnographic interviews. Months 13-18 of the research process will be devoted to synthesis and the definition of new, strategic lines of research.