Edited by Dr Mary Linn and Dr Alejandro Dayán-Fernández, Agency in the Peripheries of Language Revitalization: Examining European Practices on the Ground (also available open access here) is the result of the research programme SMiLE (Sustaining Minoritized Languages in Europe, 2018-2021), funded by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.

 

The SMiLE research project produced seven in-depth case studies, focusing on how language revitalization programmes and efforts can be sustained over time. In doing so, they highlight how community-driven efforts can grow and gain agency to ensure the future of their languages.

 

The book addresses the question of agency in the revitalisation of minoritised languages in Europe, with each chapter presenting an ethnographic account of how language policy operates in a specific linguistic context. The chapters investigate how grassroots actors shape revitalisation, and how individuals and groups negotiate historical factors, motivations, and institutionalised initiatives and policies in a variety of efforts. Between them the chapters address both contexts where social actors have gained and exerted agency in their revitalisation efforts, and contexts where issues of authority, authenticity and lack of engagement plague efforts; these chapters provide insights into how social actors work within and against social conventions and strictures.

 

Bernie O’Rourke and Alejandro Dayán-Fernández focussed on the dynamics of language revitalisation amongst new urban Galician speakers which they discuss in the following book chapter:

 

O’Rourke, B., & Dayán-Fernández, A. (2024). Sowing the seeds at Semente: Urban breathing spaces and new speaker agency. In Agency in the peripheries of language revitalisation: Examining European practices on the ground. Multilingual Matters, pp43-61 Open Access available here.

 

First published: 16 September 2024

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