Volume 2022, Issue 274 - Special Issue: Language Making; Issue Editors: Philipp Krämer, Ulrike Vogl and Leena Kolehmainen

This article introduces a new concept called “Language Making”. The term covers all kinds of processes in which speakers or non-speakers collectively conceptualize linguistic entities. Such processes are usually perpetual, they operate based on language ideologies and attitudes, and they bring about functional and structural norms which determine the boundaries of linguistic entities such as languages, dialects or varieties. The article discusses the significance of standardization, language policy and planning, and of stakeholders and agency for processes of Language Making. Raising the question as to why a new concept is needed in the first place, the article concludes with a demarcation of Language Making from opposite processes which may be called “un-Making” of Languages.

This article deals with the powerful role of metaphors in the process of Language Making throughout the history of linguistics. It departs from the assumption that metaphors play an essential role both in the formation of scientific theories and in common conceptions of language. We want to illuminate to what extent metaphors are involved in language ideologies, and we investigate their role in linguistic theory formation. After introducing different approaches to metaphor theory, we show how metaphorization in linguistics can lead to biological, territorial and liquid concepts of language. Finally, we discuss the need for a re-evaluation of language concepts within the discipline.

This article investigates Language Making processes in multilingual postcolonial societies where Creole languages are spoken. It raises the question whether or not Language Making in these settings differs from other contexts given the historical preconditions and social, economic, or political inequalities which persist after the colonial period. The paper discusses the potentials of Language Making to support or impede efforts of decolonization. With the help of examples from several Creole-speaking societies, it shows different approaches to conceptualizing Creole languages as linguistic entities with the creation or emergence of norms, different naming strategies or through language policy and planning. It examines the potential contribution of different agents of Language Making and illustrates cases in which Language Making is countered or languages are un-made. As a conclusion, the article shows that the concept of Language Making may need further expansion or nuancing in order to avoid a “Northern” or “Western” bias.

This article examines the processes of Language and Speaker Making in the revitalization context of the Basque Country. The focus is on a group of new Basque speakers who, as active agents, engage in grassroots Language Making by literally making their own variety of colloquial Basque for their intragroup use. Due to a tradition of speaking the minority language in tight-knit communities, the Basque community places a high value on local solidarity. The Basque standard Batua and new speakers of Basque are not considered as authentic as the traditional speakers and their local vernaculars. The new Basque speakers described in the article are language activists who, conscious of the perceived formality of Batua, construct their group register mixing and matching resources from Spanish, Basque dialects and the Basque standard. They flaunt their verbal dexterity in performative language play, yet at the same time pay respect to the Basque tradition of local linguistic practice. In this process, they combine old and new values of being euskaldun, and claim their identity as new and urban, yet full speakers of Basque.

The aim of this article is twofold: first, we apply the concept of “Language Making” – which is introduced in this thematic issue – to the domain of foreign language learning and teaching. More specifically, we investigate the role of teachers, as well as other social actors in the domain of foreign language education, in the making of foreign languages, i.e., their role in selecting varieties and forms that they deem appropriate to be learned. We assess how they justify their selections and which language ideologies inform their choices. A specific focus is on how these “foreign Language Makers” construe their linguistic expertise: how do they argue for the legitimacy of their “foreign Language Making”? Second, we argue that present day conceptions of the “ideal language teacher” have their roots in the past. Therefore, we include two case studies: our first case study zooms in on the Early Modern period and draws on introductions to foreign language textbooks from the 16th and 17th centuries. Our main sources are the multilingual textbooks of the Colloquia, et dictionariolum as well as the work of Gerard De Vivre, a language teacher and textbook author from Ghent who published French language textbooks for Dutch- and German-speaking learners in the second half of the 16th century. The second case study focuses on present-day teachers who teach Dutch as a foreign language at universities outside of the Dutch-speaking language area. For this analysis, we make use of data from qualitative interviews with 20 teachers, collected in 2015. We analyse, contrast and compare these cases, thereby taking into account the dynamics of socio-political and language ideological changes of the past centuries.

In this article, we analyse translation in the context of revitalisation from the point of view of Language Making. Both translation and revitalisation are based on the idea of languages as distinct entities, and together they are doubly inclined to draw clear-cut borders between languages. The data come from a series of translation courses targeted at speakers and learners of Karelian, a critically endangered Finnic language spoken in Finland and Russia. By analysing the reflective assignments of the translation course participants and focusing on how they report on encountering and overcoming lexical gaps, we examine a very concrete case of Language Making: the creation of new lexical items for Karelian for the purposes of a translation task. Since coining neologisms in our data is mostly based on borrowing or calquing, the data illustrate how the participants perceive language boundaries and the connections between Karelian and other languages. Contrary to what the intersection between translation and revitalisation suggests, a rather flexible view on linguistic borders is displayed. Participants fill in lexical gaps by drawing on all linguistic resources available to them: mainly Finnish and Russian, but also “international” resources and occasionally other languages or other Karelian dialects. To a lesser extent, the data also display the participants’ competing and conflicting ideologies of what is Karelian, what belongs to it and on which or whose model to base the neologisms.

This article focuses on the concept of globalization and its effect on linguistic and cultural identities. Modern migration patterns related to globalization generally provide migrants with increased access to resources, while at the same time placing them in a multiplicity of sociocultural encounters within numerous and diverse linguistic contexts. In this article, I turn to the concept of superdiversity to analyze the Korean community’s transformation from a traditional and homogeneous generation to one that is characterized by transnational mobility; economic fluidity, both local and global; issues of multiple linguistic and ethnic belongingness; and dynamic social connections in Paraguay. I also demonstrate that identity construction of contemporary migrants is a unique and complex process that emerges from individualized experiences.