ERIC Number: EJ1032908
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 23
Abstractor: As Provided
Reference Count: 57
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0143-4632
Linguistic Landscapes in Southern Carinthia (Austria)
Rasinger, Sebastian M.
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, v35 n6 p580-602 2014
This paper explores the linguistic landscape (LL) in the southern Austrian province of Carinthia, which is home to an autochthonous Slovene minority. Following several decades of political and legal debate known as the "Ortstafelstreit" ("dispute of topographic signs"), recent legislation has strengthened the status of Slovene by requiring municipalities with a considerable Slovene population to set up bilingual German-Slovene topographic signs marking their municipal boundaries. However, this is juxtaposed with a longstanding decline in use of the Slovene language amongst the autochthonous Slovene population. This qualitative analysis of the LL of three frames, the civic, the commercial and the church, shows a heterogeneous picture, but one that is generally strongly skewed towards monolingual German. It suggests that Slovene is assigned a comparatively low sociosymbolic value. This can be, at least in part, attributed to the selective manner in which municipalities are awarded legal bilingual status, leading to a lack of linguistic cohesion in the area and its LL. A marked exception to this is the church frame, whose LL is characterised by a relatively balanced use of both German and Slovene.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, German, Slavic Languages, Qualitative Research, Language Minorities, Rural Areas, Linguistics, Signs, Equipment, Bilingualism, Monolingualism
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: Austria

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