‘Language use and identity construction in a multicultural European context’
By Prof. Guus Extra (Babylon, Tilburg University, The Netherlands)

1pm, October 30, Room 431, Humanities Building 2, La Trobe University

Supported by the Innovative Universities European Union Centre and Linguistics, Educational Studies  and Spanish (with Portuguese, Catalan and Galician), La Trobe University

Guus Extra is one of Europe’s leading researchers on minority languages, including the languages of Europe’s increasing numbers of immigrants, and an advocate for their recognition in public and educational policy. He is the founder of the interdisciplinary ‘Babylon’ research and publication project on language and multicultural issues.

Abstract

The rationale of this talk derives from the spectrum of majority and minority languages as constituent properties of Europe’s identity. Section 1 deals with ways of referring to these languages. In section 2, my focus is on the concept and study of identity. Here the distinction between different types and elements of personal and group identities will be discussed, as well as the need for a multidisciplinary approach of identity constructs in a multicultural context of migration and minorisation. In section 3, the concepts of ethnicity, ethnic identity, and ethnic identification are focused upon, including the concepts of self-classification vs. other-classification and subscribed vs. ascribed identities. In section 4, I discuss the linkage between the concepts of language and identity, and the equalisation of language and national identity. This equalisation is challenged by the very existence of regional and immigrant languages across European nation-states and by the emergence of the concept of transnational identities. Section 5 goes into the European discourse on ‘foreigners’ and ‘integration’. In sections 6 and 7, criteria for the identification of population groups in a multicultural society are focused upon, in particular the criteria of nationality, birth country, ethnicity, and (home) language use. In section 8 conclusions are offered in retrospect.
 
Enquiries to Dr Uldis Ozolins, School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University