Post-National Acts of Identity? Language Ideologies in Multilingual Belize

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Britta Schneider
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2013 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 247944918

The study focuses on symbolic functions of language in the era of globalisation. Through processes of global integration, they are becoming more diverse and complex; and yet, the traditional predominance of linguistic nationalism - the assumed congruence between a people and a language - has hindered the understanding of the multiple symbolic meanings of languages in multilingual settings. The Central American country of Belize is the focus of this study. Due to the high number of languages spoken, also on the individual level, Belize represents an extreme case of linguistic diversity, making it an excellent environment for studying post-national sociolinguistic trends. Key questions of the study are: What are the symbolic meanings of language choice or language mixing? With which other societal or political discourses are such meanings interwoven? How does governmental language policy react to complex linguistic milieus? Does the complexity affect the discursively constructed category of language?The study will conduct qualitative analysis of language ideologies in Belize. An overview of the country's sociolinguistic economy will be provided on the basis of historical, scholarly and governmental texts, and, secondly, grounded on an analysis of popular cultural discourses in public media. That forms the background to two other domains in which language ideologies will be studied: a discursive analysis of governmental language policies and a linguistic ethnography of the language practices of a Belizean school class.The documented social meanings of language choice and their relations to local, national or transnational discourses map out the complexity of language ideologies in multilingual societies. The consequences are discussed in relation to applied contexts such as school curricula, national language policies and the constitution of community in contemporary society, and in their significance for (socio)linguistic theory.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants