The introductory article provides a brief description of the contents of the thematic issue on multilingualism in Europe

Marácz László

English

This is introduction to the the special issue on multilingualism in Europe

Marácz, L.

International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion online publications

Preface to the special issue on multilingualism in Europe

Hrčak - Portal of scientific journals of Croatia

                 26313.2 (2012): 263-268      László Marácz University of Amsterdam     Preface to the special issue on  multilingualism in Europe   Between June 9-11, 2011 the International Standing Group on European Multi-lingualism (ISGEM) organized its third conference in Pécs (Hungary) and Osi-jek (Croatia). The idea was to organize a conference on several aspects of multi-lingualism in Europe in the border-region of South-Hungary and Northern-Croatia (Slavonia). This region is characterized traditionally by various forms of multi- and plurilingualism. In this border area, there always has been and there is already a vivid cross-border cooperation in which the universities of the area, i.e. the University of Pécs and the University of Osijek play an important role. These universities have a number of common programs to exchange students and staff. Actually, this cooperation is already anticipating Croatian’s accession to the European Union in 2013. It is to be expected that quickly after the joining of Croatia to the Union this border that traditionally has been ‘transparent’ be-fore the twentieth century in the framework of the Habsburg Empire will be also a transparent border in the framework of the new Europe, the Schengen-regime.   The conference on ‘Concepts and Consequences of Multilingualism in Europe 3’ was organized by the University of Pécs, the University of Osijek, the Insti-tute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb and the University College of In-ternational Relations and Diplomacy in Zagreb. The organizers, Goran Bandov (University College of International Relations and Diplomacy in Zagreb), Mirna Jernej (Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb), László Komlósi (Uni-versity of Pécs), László Marácz (University of Amsterdam), Marija Omazi (University of Osijek), Željana Pancirov Cornelisse (University of Zagreb) and Petar Vukovi (University of Zagreb), express their gratitude to both the Univer-sity of Pécs and the University of Osijek for hosting the conference; and to the LANCI – ARTICLES – ARTIKEL      264László Marácz:  Preface to the special issue on multilingualism in Europe mayor of the city of Pécs, Zsolt Páva, for providing logistic assistance for the participants to cross the border by bus from Pécs to Osijek. The organizing committee was also deeply honoured by the fact that the presidents of the both hosting countries, the President of the Republic of Croatia, Ivo Josipovi, and the President of Hungary, Pál Schmitt, granted their support to the committee of recommendations of the conference. More than thirty papers were presented in six scientific panels, four in Pécs and two in Osijek. Further, in Osijek a public forum was held in which also representatives of the civil societies and policy-makers both from the Hungarian and Croatian local and national authorities par-ticipated in order to discuss the intensification of cross-border contacts and co-operation and multilingualism in the border area in the future.   In this special issue of Jezikoslovlje, twenty papers of those that were present-ed in Pécs and Osijek have been included after a peer-review procedure. This in accordance with the regular policy of the journal. As a guest editor of this spe-cial issue, I would like to thank the 37 peer-reviewers for the work they have done in order to lift the level of the papers. In the peer-review procedures I could rely on the following scholars, including Florim Adjini (South East European University Tetovo), Ewa Chylinski (European Centre for Minority Issues, Flensburg, Germany), István Csernicskó (Transcarpathian Hungarian College Beregovo, Ukraine), Zsuzsa Csergo (Queen’s University), Magdalena Dembinska (University of Montreal), Attila Demeter (Babes-Bolyai University), Rias van de Doel (University of Utrecht), Emese Fazakas (Babes-Bolyai Uni-versity), Viktória Ferenc (University of Pécs), Rita Franceschini (University of Bolzano), Susan Gal (University of Chigago), Durk Gorter (University of San Sebastian), Eric Hoekstra (Frisian Academy), István Horváth (The Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities), Peter Houtzagers (University of Groningen), Rudi Janssens (University of Brussels), Osman Karatay (Ege Uni-versity Izmir), Bart Karstens (University of Leiden), Zsuzsanna Kiss (University of Szeged), Barbara Klen (Zagreb), Galina Korshunova (University of Amster-dam), Kemalettin Kuzucu (Trakya University Edirne), Krisztina Lajosi (Univer-sity of Amsterdam), Virginie Mamadouh (University of Amsterdam), László Marácz (University of Amsterdam), Jacques Maurais (Conseil de la langue française Quebec City), Pieter van der Plank (University of Amsterdam), Tünde Puskás (Linköping University), Mireille Rosello (University of Amsterdam), Lucija Šimii (Institute for Anthropological Research, Zagreb), Zoltán Szász (Babes-Bolyai University), István Székely (Central European University, Buda-pest), Jan ten Thije (University of Utrecht), Tibor Tóro (Sapientia Hungarian                  26513.2 (2012): 263-268 University Transylvania), Sanda-Lucija Udier (University of Zagreb), Eva Vet-ter (University of Vienna) and Tomasz Wicherkiewicz (University of Poznan).   The papers in this volume can be grouped around three topics: multilingual-ism in historical perspective reflecting on the policy and practices in the Habs-burg and Ottoman Empires; actual language variants due to multilingualism in the European Union and multilingualism in the Europe of regions, especially in the regions of Central Europe and South Eastern Europe.   In the historical section, we find seven papers reflecting on the topic of multi-lingualism in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and one paper on multilingualism in the Ottoman Empire. László Marácz discusses the language policy in the Transleithanian part, i.e. the Hungarian kingdom that became equal to the Cisleithanian part of the Dual Monarchy, i.e. Austria with the Ausgleich of 1867. To solve the issue of linguistic diversity in this part of the Habsburg Em-pire the Hungarian language was declared the official language by law. The pa-per discusses the consequences of this decision for the educational system and the struggle over the introduction and use of the Hungarian language in national-ity schools between the Hungarian State and the representatives of the non-Magyar nationalities, the Slovaks and the Romanians. Lelija Soanac focuses on the language policy in Croatia under the Habsburg regime and the legal regula-tions that made possible the introduction of the Croatian language in the official contexts, like courts and schools. Due to this Croatian was used next to German, Italian and other languages. The author points out that the state of multilingual-ism in Croatia in the late Habsburg Monarchy has not been guaranteed in state formations that have succeeded the Habsburg era.   Mirna Jernej, Zrinjka Glovacki-Bernardi and Anita Sujoldži discuss in their paper instances of language contact that developped by the end of the eighteenth century and in the nineteenth century when in the Northwestern part of Croatia the Kajkavian viariant of the Croatian language and the German language were used in settings of social bilingualism. These resulted into all sorts of linguistic and non-linguistic borrowings. The authors stress that this Habsburg legacy is still present in the culture of everyday in Northwestern Croatian urban spaces.   In the late Habsburg Empire, the discussion of multilingualism in the institu-tions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was set on the agenda, especially in the Austro-Hungarian Army and the educational institutions. Livia Kardu and Bruno Korea Gajski focus on the language of command in the Austro-Hungarian Ar-     266László Marácz:  Preface to the special issue on multilingualism in Europe my. The language of command was originally German but in the late Habsburg Empire the Hungarian nationalists aggressively claimed an official status within the army for the Magyar language. By pursuing this policy the relation with the Emperor Francis Joseph and the other nationalities in the Hungarian kingdom came under pressure. Pieter van der Plank argues that although education was meant to develop supranational elites supporting the Austro-Hungarian Monar-chy this led in fact to its decomposition. The reason for this was that the lan-guages of the nationalities were allowed to be used in their schools. This conclu-sion strengthens the contributions of Marácz and Kardum and Gajski that the in-troduction of linguistic diversity into the institutions of the Dual Monarchy led to a weakening of those institutions in the Habsburg Empire. The nationalities became bilingual and could lobby more effectively for their political rights than the unilingual Austro-Germans and Magyars.   Kristian Novak discusses in his contribution the reconstruction of the lan-guage biographies of the members of the Illyrian movement. This movement was active in the emancipation of the Croatian national language. Interestingly, most of the members of the Illyrian movement were bilingual publishing both in German and Croatian. Vesna Deželjin demonstrates in her paper how the Habs-burg legacy of multilingualism continues to be present in the literary work of contemporary Triestine writers. Fahri Türk demonstrates in his paper to this spe-cial issue that the nationalist policy of the modern Turkish State after Atatürk did away with the rich multilingual and multicultural structure of the city of Edirne. This development can be seen in a number of European national states in the twentieth century when the ‘one-state-one nation-one language’ became the leading political and social paradigm.  Two papers investigate the contemporary effects of globalization processes and the rise of ‘English-as-a-lingua franca’ (ELF). ELF is not identical with the standard British variant of English but it has a number of variants and hybrid forms. Christian Forche discusses in his paper whether the emergence of Euro-English is possible, i.e. a potential European variety of English. Such a variety would stress the European identity against the identities based on other varieties of English. Forche examines his hypothesis by testing the knowledge, attitudes and skills of Erasmus students. Željana Pancirov Cornelisse studies in a slightly provocative paper the question whether the influence and dominance of ELF is strong enough to diminish the role of Dutch spoken by 23 million people world-wide. Although Pancirov Cornelisse observes that English is threatening Dutch                  26713.2 (2012): 263-268 in certain domains Dutch has still enough actual and historical resources to es-cape language death.  The third part of this special issue is on multilingualism and multiculturalism in the regions of national states where minority languages are spoken, especially in Central European regions within Austria, Croatia and Serbia, and South East-ern European regions within Romania and Macedonia. Anita Skelin Horvat and Vesna Muhvi-Dimanovski examine the concept of ‘mother tongue’ among bi-lingual speakers of Croatian and Italian in Istria. They demonstrate that speakers perceive the identity connected to their mother tongue depending on various forms of contextualizations. Aleksandra Šukanec concludes in her paper that the language of the Burgenland Croats in Austria is still an important factor in determining their identity. Ljubica Kordi explores in her contribution to this volume the position of minority languages in the Croatian primary schools in the Hungarian-Croatian border area, especially in the municipality of Darda. This municipality has a mixed ethnic population consisting foremost of Croats, Serbs, Hungarians and Roma. The author uses a questionnaire in order to determine the attitudes of minority-language speakers towards their own mother tongue and the Croatian language as the official language of the state. This provides some insight into the ethno-linguistic vitality of the multilingual community.  Mónika Balla, Sandra Buljanovi and Marija Ili examine in their paper the domains of Hungarian language use in Belgrade. They conclude that due to the policy of the Serbian state to promote the Serbian language only the Hungarian language is especially used in the informal settings. Krisztina Rácz argues in a critical paper that the practices in the multilingual and multicultural “model” re-gion Vojvodina is very different from the conceptual framework and regula-tions. The position of the Hungarian minority simply does not equal the Serb majority in Vojvodina, even though the legal framework favours minority rights and multilingualism. Csaba Máté Sarnyai and Tibor Pap analyze the education strategy of the National Council of the Hungarian Ethnic Minority in Vojvodina. What strategy have the representatives of Hungarian minority education to fol-low in order to achieve multilingual education in this region. Eszter Gábrity’s paper focuses on the linguistic identity and ideology of Hungarian commuters from Vojvodina to Hungary. These commuters have a multilayered Serbian-Hungarian identity as opposed to the linguistic environment to where these commuters migrate and travel, i.e. Hungary that has basically only one identity. These ethno-linguistic identity encounters often result in hybrid identities switching back-and-forth between both of the values. Zsuzsanna Dégi investi-     268László Marácz:  Preface to the special issue on multilingualism in Europe gates in her contribution the types of multilingualism in the Transylvanian Hun-garian school context. The paper tries to lay bare how students and other stake-holders perceive the multilingual educational programs.  The last two papers of the volume are dealing with multilingualism in Mace-donia, and especially focus on the facilities the Albanian minority has within the multilingual Southeast European University (SEEU) to promote its own lan-guage and culture. Hamit Xhaferi and Mustafa Ibrahimi argue that the situation of the Albanian language has not radically improved in recent years, although the authors note that the establishment of SEEU is a positive development for the status of the Albanian minority language and multilingual education. Brikena Xhaferi and Gëzim Xhaferi discuss the perception of their own multi-lingual education and program at SEEU. The teachers’ perception of their own multilingual educational environment demonstrates that the multilingual educa-tion at SEEU is moving into the right direction.   

Preface to the special issue on multilingualism in Europe

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion online publications

International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion online publications

Hrčak - Portal of scientific journals of Croatia

NARCIS

Search4Dev