Faculty
John Shaun Nolan

Course Coordinator
Katrine Ravn Jørgensen

This elective is a super structure to the course Enhed og mangfoldighed - sprog og kulturer i Europa (2. sem. Europæiske studier). However any student with an interest in European studies and other interested parties may join.

Rationale

If one were to create a map of Europe with borders established according to linguistic and cultural limits, it would look entirely different from the political map we have today. Indeed, it would be impossible to establish such frontiers with any real certainty and certainly not without some controversy. From a linguistic perspective, Europe’s contemporary political manifestation is in stark contradiction with its linguistic and cultural reality and yet, language and culture have been vital to its political development. In many respects, language and culture are at the heart of nationalism and the elevation of languages or varieties of language to the status of ‘national language(s)’ have been essential to the development of modern Europe.

This elective proposes a study of Europe as a sociolinguistic entity with a focus on language policy and language planning. There will be an examination of how language has been used as a political tool in the formation of contemporary European states and is a central problem in the continued evolution of the European Union.

Themes, theories and methods, and competencies

The students will be introduced to the studies of language policy and language planning, language attitudes and sociology of language and their place within what has become the overarching and very wide discipline of sociolinguistics. They will be made familiar with the sociolinguistic understanding of the primary socio-political conceptualizations of the group e.g. State, nation, ethnicity, identity, and the core concept of language in its various forms and its politicisation.

Through a presentation of theory (e.g. Acts of identity, Bourdieu’s Market Model, top down and bottom-up language policy models), and a description of sociolinguistic methodology, they will be provided the skills to analyse society from a politico-linguistic perspective. Additionally, the students will be presented with a new theoretical view of socio-political and linguistic analysis developed in other Nordic countries, namely language emancipation, which is founded in the conceptualization of late modernity. Students will be actively encouraged to critically examine all of these themes.

Pedagogical approach

Sociolinguistics is exactly that, linguistics in its societal context and a clear understanding of any theme, theory and method can be best understood when placed in context. Examples will be amply applied during teaching to help students better understand concepts which are introduced to them. Example cases will show how the theories used here can be applied and will show the effectiveness and ineffectiveness of language policy and planning. These cases will be based on EU nations, regions and the institutional EU itself. Students will be provided time in class and encouraged to ask questions for a deeper understanding of teaching themes and also encouraged to comment and criticise the themes that come up during teaching to further their understanding of language in society.

During this course, students will receive a thorough foundation in sociolinguistic concepts, theory and methodology, and will gradually develop scientifically sound approaches to understanding the role of language in society. This will provide students with the tools which they can use to better understand and apply to practical historic and contemporary example cases of language policy and planning in action at different levels of European society. EU language policy and instruments of language policy will also be presented. Students will be provided with a focussed selection of primary and secondary texts which will accompany teaching and will be encouraged to both critically analyse these texts and the teaching themes as course advances.

The course exam is a written home paper (see below). In order to achieve the grade 12, the student must show a clear critical understanding and ability to apply the theories, concepts and methods introduced during the course.The written home paper must be based on a question (problemformulering) formulated by the student that is appropriate to the course’s content and takes into account the qualities of description, analysis and evaluation. In answering this question, the focus is on how the student applies the taught material. For instance, relating theory to verifiable examples, or reflecting on the quality of various theories and methods in the understanding of how language is used in society from a socio-political viewpoint.

Written home paper exam (max 10 pages). No second examiner.The student may write their exam in Danish, English or French.A mark is given according to the 7-point scale. Re-examinations are conducted in the same way as ordinary exams.