‘People here speak five languages!’: The reindexicalization of minority language practice among Carinthian Slovenes in Vienna, Austria

Abstract

This article investigates the transformation of minority language practice in the light of changing European language ideologies. Following a group of young Carinthian Slovenes from their rural hometowns to the capital of Vienna, this article analyzes their metadiscursive commentary about place and language in order to show how local language ideologies structure the indexical orders under which these individuals learn to assign meaning to linguistic practice. The data I present illustrates that these young members of a rurally stigmatized linguistic minority experience a transformation of their language-associated personhood in Vienna. There, their bilingualism allows them to be cosmopolitan participants in a European vision of mobile multilingual citizenship, while simultaneously troubling the language hierarchies erased by European language ideologies. (Linguistic minority, language ideology, indexical order, chronotopes, multilingualism, Carinthian Slovenes, Austria, Europe)

Individual language management and language strategies of Hungarian students in Bratislava

“…A. Weichselbraun (2014) sa zaoberá reindexikalizáciou jazykovej praxe používania menšinového jazyka 3 (v tomto prípade slovinčiny u študujúcich vo Viedni) vo svetle jazykových ideológií. Sleduje študujúcich z Korutánska, ktorí navštevovali gymnázium s vyučovacím jazykom slovinským, počas ich vysokoškolského štúdia vo Viedni.…”

Modeling language shift

“…Historical rural-urban migration rates of Slovenian speakers might shed some light on this; while looking to the future, a recent sociolinguistic study suggests that social identity and perceived status will be key to the fate of Slovenian in predominantly German-speaking towns and cities. Where multilingualism is a sign of cosmopolitanism, young people brought up bilingual more willingly maintain and display their breadth of language skills (23). Prochazka and Vogl's (7) results emphasize the importance of a motivated community of speakers if an endangered language is to survive: use it, or lose it.…”