A materialist take on minoritization, emancipation, and language revitalization

Occitan sociolinguistics since the 1970s

Bibliographic Data

ID3643816
AuthorsJames Costa (0000-0002-2317-2804, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle/LACITO (UMR CNRS 7107) Paris France, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume27
Issue4
Pages327-344
Publication date2023-09-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Sociolinguistics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1360-6441 • E-ISSN: 1467-9841
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/josl.12618
OpenAlexW4324091111
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited20

This paper introduces and discusses Occitan sociolinguistics as it evolved from the 1970s onward as a theory of language contact as conflict. It was developed in conjunction with its Catalan counterpart and as a reaction to Joshua Fishman's allocational model of diglossia, and came as a response to conditions of swift social and linguistic change in Southern France after the Second World War. This model, proposed mainly at first by Robèrt Lafont in Montpelhièr, is strongly materialist in that it focuses on the material conditions of language production and replaces the language movement among other social struggles. This paper first explores the roots of the contemporary Occitan movement and its links with the birth of Occitan sociolinguistics. It then analyzes key concepts in Occitan sociolinguistics such as diglossic ideology as essential to understand processes of minoritization, linguistic alienation, and social domination. Finally, it looks at how this approach conceptualizes language revitalization not as a linguistic issue but as a social one and suggests that Occitan sociolinguistics provides an alternative to models of language loss and revival rooted in cultural and identity politics

Comprehension approach · Creole language · Diglossia · Language education · Linguistic anthropology · Linguistics · Neuroscience of multilingualism · Pidgin · Sociocultural linguistics · Sociolinguistics · Sociology · Sociology of language · Anthropology · Linguistic and Sociocultural Studies · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Medieval European Literature and History · Philosophy

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