Abstract
Sardinian is spoken on Sardinia, the second largest of Italy's islands, and is one of a set of minority languages which are officially recognized according to Italian law. In recent years there have been attempts to codify Sardinian. These were presented as an important step towards language maintenance and revitalization at a time of visible decline in the use of, and competence in, the local varieties in competition with the national language, Italian. The process of normalization of written Sardinian, however, has not been smooth and it has led to a solution of compromise which is still the object of lively debate.
The article analyses the different levels at which language ideology has operated in the Sardinian context, focusing on the emergence of conflicting ideologies which have been promoted by the different agents of language policy, be they national and regional institutions, cultural operators, language activists or language actors. The analysis of the results of a recent sociolinguistic survey reveals that internalized discourses of “language rights” have gradually incorporated contrasting discourses of “language citizenship” (Stroud and Heugh 2004) in the ongoing debate on the role of Sardinian. Looking at the Sardinian case from this perspective contributes to a reassessment of the role of the language community, of policy makers and of educational establishments.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
