Local actors in promoting multilingualism
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Brigitta Busch
Abstract
Although language policy formally remains a nation state domain, in the process of glocalisation other actors gain in importance. Local authorities – closer to the daily life of the citizens than the central state authorities – are only beginning to realise their role in the field of language policy. Confronted with the multilingual realities of everyday urban life, language policies in cities cannot ignore the challenges of the heterophonia and heteroglossia of urban societies. This chapter focuses on a local institution that follows a policy of linguistic diversity. The analysis of the language regime negotiated between the institution (the main public library in Vienna) and the users draws on topological approaches developed within the ‘spatial turn’ in cultural studies and on recent explorations in linguistics concerned with the relation between space, place and linguistic practice.
Abstract
Although language policy formally remains a nation state domain, in the process of glocalisation other actors gain in importance. Local authorities – closer to the daily life of the citizens than the central state authorities – are only beginning to realise their role in the field of language policy. Confronted with the multilingual realities of everyday urban life, language policies in cities cannot ignore the challenges of the heterophonia and heteroglossia of urban societies. This chapter focuses on a local institution that follows a policy of linguistic diversity. The analysis of the language regime negotiated between the institution (the main public library in Vienna) and the users draws on topological approaches developed within the ‘spatial turn’ in cultural studies and on recent explorations in linguistics concerned with the relation between space, place and linguistic practice.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of appendices, tables and figures vii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xiii
- Testing regimes 1
- Fortress Europe? 15
- Language tests for immigrants 45
- Language, migration and citizenship 61
- Being English, speaking English 83
- Language, citizenship and Europeanization 109
- Local actors in promoting multilingualism 129
- Language tests and social policy 153
- Index 165
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of appendices, tables and figures vii
- Notes on contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xiii
- Testing regimes 1
- Fortress Europe? 15
- Language tests for immigrants 45
- Language, migration and citizenship 61
- Being English, speaking English 83
- Language, citizenship and Europeanization 109
- Local actors in promoting multilingualism 129
- Language tests and social policy 153
- Index 165
