Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SPELLFLICT (Understanding spelling conflicts. A case study of new standard languages in the former Yugoslavia in the European context)
Période du rapport: 2020-12-01 au 2022-11-30
Since the beginning of mass education, standard languages have been undergoing spelling reforms/changes that produce controversies to a lesser or greater extent. Attempts by governments or other authoritative bodies to change the official orthography often meet resistance. The resistance leads to social divisions and conflicts manifested in activities such as public protests, boycotts, and even referendums.
The SPELLFLICT over-arching objective was to produce a descriptive model of orthographic controversies of the selected group of South Slavonic languages in the 1990s and onwards. The focus of the proposed research is on the complex situation among the South Slavonic languages (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian), a crucial and timely case for three major reasons: 1. South Slavonic languages share a long history of common socio-political identity and high mutual intelligibility; 2. The orthographic conflicts were entwined with the actual war in the 1990s; 3. The languages in question had important spelling reforms/changes since the 1990s. The historical moment of recent orthographic codifications of four standard languages is both an urgent real-world problem and an ideal case study to study spelling controversies.
The state-of-the-art literature does not provide a comparative and comprehensive description of spelling reform/change phenomena by integrating top-down and bottom-up analysis of standard language codifications in Europe. Lack of research on speakers' attitudes and beliefs means that we cannot answer three important questions: 1) Are orthographic conflicts observable in media articles merely political constructs or do they reflect the speakers’ attitudes to a greater extent?; 2) How relevant are these controversies today?; 3) Have the younger generations inherited orthographic conflicts? Furthermore, if methodology of orthographic standardization is not thoroughly studied, we are unable to answer three relevant questions: 1) How relevant is level of transparency and democratization of orthographic codification in spelling controversies?; 2) What are the economic aspects of orthographic (re) standardization?; 3) To what extent does lack of orthographic legislation or inadequate language planning lead to social conflicts?
The SPELLFLICT research objectives aimed to fill these gaps. A more detailed exploration of spelling reform/change controversies, which incorporates these research dimensions, is essential such that the phenomenon of language norms in modern societies (e.g. the link between orthography and identity/ideology) can be understood and language policy and planning (LPP) makers can mitigate against future conflicts.
The SPELLFLICT video pitch (3 min): https://youtu.be/we3GkXnBoRA(s’ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)
The SPELLFLICT over-arching objective was to produce a descriptive model of orthographic controversies of the selected group of South Slavonic languages in the 1990s and onwards. The focus of the proposed research is on the complex situation among the South Slavonic languages (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian), a crucial and timely case for three major reasons: 1. South Slavonic languages share a long history of common socio-political identity and high mutual intelligibility; 2. The orthographic conflicts were entwined with the actual war in the 1990s; 3. The languages in question had important spelling reforms/changes since the 1990s. The historical moment of recent orthographic codifications of four standard languages is both an urgent real-world problem and an ideal case study to study spelling controversies.
The state-of-the-art literature does not provide a comparative and comprehensive description of spelling reform/change phenomena by integrating top-down and bottom-up analysis of standard language codifications in Europe. Lack of research on speakers' attitudes and beliefs means that we cannot answer three important questions: 1) Are orthographic conflicts observable in media articles merely political constructs or do they reflect the speakers’ attitudes to a greater extent?; 2) How relevant are these controversies today?; 3) Have the younger generations inherited orthographic conflicts? Furthermore, if methodology of orthographic standardization is not thoroughly studied, we are unable to answer three relevant questions: 1) How relevant is level of transparency and democratization of orthographic codification in spelling controversies?; 2) What are the economic aspects of orthographic (re) standardization?; 3) To what extent does lack of orthographic legislation or inadequate language planning lead to social conflicts?
The SPELLFLICT research objectives aimed to fill these gaps. A more detailed exploration of spelling reform/change controversies, which incorporates these research dimensions, is essential such that the phenomenon of language norms in modern societies (e.g. the link between orthography and identity/ideology) can be understood and language policy and planning (LPP) makers can mitigate against future conflicts.
The SPELLFLICT video pitch (3 min): https://youtu.be/we3GkXnBoRA(s’ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)
This is the first multiple comparative and comprehensive research on spelling reform/change phenomena that integrated top-down (methodology of orthographic codification, language policy actors, language legislation) and bottom-up analysis (speakers' attitudes and beliefs) of the South Slavonic standard languages in Europe.
A considerable amount of data was collected during the project. Besides 1672 press clip media articles and 1246 photos of archival documents, the project resulted in one of the largest data sets of speakers’ attitudes and beliefs on language identity and its sociopolitical context in sociolinguistics. A 2022 survey of 2000 participants in four countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia), matched to country census quotas on five demographic criteria, collected data sets that are more representative and robust than the current state of the art in sociolinguistic survey research, invaluable not just for sociolinguists, but also for language anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars.
The main research results were presented in two journal paper manuscripts. It was shown that the likelihood of spelling-change conflicts is low in a society in which spelling is not strongly linked with national language ideology or where national language identity is not endangered, in which spelling standardization is conducted in a socially responsible way; and in which the acceptance of specific spelling changes (such as spelling variants without national language symbolism) does not pose any threat to a speaker. Furthermore, the analysis of four Serbian language policy actions (2021-2022), which have caused significant international repercussions among the post-Yugoslav countries, revealed a new role of the public in language policy actions. An observed discrepancy between speakers’ views and language policy ideas, represented in Serbian language declarations, demonstrated a novel method of shaping public opinion with greater national-political aspirations.
One of the particularly noteworthy project exploitation activities was the task of co-drafting the Croatian Language Act, commissioned on 10 January 2022 by the Presidency of Matica hrvatska, the oldest cultural and publishing society in Croatia, which is expected to be a new language legislation act in Croatia. Several SPELLFLICT research aspects were beneficial to this language policy objective, such as the methodology and social responsibility of spelling standardization, presented in one of the journal article manuscripts.
The dissemination activities are very rich. Some of them are: two conference presentations, the teaching of three language modules at the University of Nottingham, two invited lectures, three interviews, one project video pitch, three press statements, three round table presentations and panel discussion talks, the organization and moderation of two panel discussions, six essays/columns, and organization and co-authoring of one Open Letter which was signed by 30 members of the Croatian academic community from Croatia and abroad.
A considerable amount of data was collected during the project. Besides 1672 press clip media articles and 1246 photos of archival documents, the project resulted in one of the largest data sets of speakers’ attitudes and beliefs on language identity and its sociopolitical context in sociolinguistics. A 2022 survey of 2000 participants in four countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia), matched to country census quotas on five demographic criteria, collected data sets that are more representative and robust than the current state of the art in sociolinguistic survey research, invaluable not just for sociolinguists, but also for language anthropologists, sociologists, and other scholars.
The main research results were presented in two journal paper manuscripts. It was shown that the likelihood of spelling-change conflicts is low in a society in which spelling is not strongly linked with national language ideology or where national language identity is not endangered, in which spelling standardization is conducted in a socially responsible way; and in which the acceptance of specific spelling changes (such as spelling variants without national language symbolism) does not pose any threat to a speaker. Furthermore, the analysis of four Serbian language policy actions (2021-2022), which have caused significant international repercussions among the post-Yugoslav countries, revealed a new role of the public in language policy actions. An observed discrepancy between speakers’ views and language policy ideas, represented in Serbian language declarations, demonstrated a novel method of shaping public opinion with greater national-political aspirations.
One of the particularly noteworthy project exploitation activities was the task of co-drafting the Croatian Language Act, commissioned on 10 January 2022 by the Presidency of Matica hrvatska, the oldest cultural and publishing society in Croatia, which is expected to be a new language legislation act in Croatia. Several SPELLFLICT research aspects were beneficial to this language policy objective, such as the methodology and social responsibility of spelling standardization, presented in one of the journal article manuscripts.
The dissemination activities are very rich. Some of them are: two conference presentations, the teaching of three language modules at the University of Nottingham, two invited lectures, three interviews, one project video pitch, three press statements, three round table presentations and panel discussion talks, the organization and moderation of two panel discussions, six essays/columns, and organization and co-authoring of one Open Letter which was signed by 30 members of the Croatian academic community from Croatia and abroad.
Three SPELLFLICT aspects can be considered beyond the state of the art.
It was shown that the analysis of speakers’ attitudes and beliefs can uncover the motives for spelling changes and the causes of such conflicts.
Three principles were presented that aimed to describe spelling conflicts. The principles are (1) The more politically contested a national language ideology, the greater the potential for spelling conflicts. (2) The more specific a spelling issue, the greater the potential for spelling conflict. (3) The less socially responsible the spelling standardization, the greater the potential for spelling conflict. These principles may contribute to the prediction of spelling conflicts in order to avoid future language controversies and conflicts.
Speakers’ language self-identification could be utilized as a prime criterion in new language classification. Sociolinguistically-based classification of languages is inherently biased by speakers’ preconceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, but compared to linguistic nomenclature that is biased by scholars’ preconceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, the former has a considerably lesser potential for misinterpretation, political manipulation and controversies. Although this conclusion needs to be further explored and exemplified with other language groups and contexts, it may have a significant impact on the way we classify languages and dialects, which is one of the central, oldest, and most controversial issues in (socio)linguistics.
It was shown that the analysis of speakers’ attitudes and beliefs can uncover the motives for spelling changes and the causes of such conflicts.
Three principles were presented that aimed to describe spelling conflicts. The principles are (1) The more politically contested a national language ideology, the greater the potential for spelling conflicts. (2) The more specific a spelling issue, the greater the potential for spelling conflict. (3) The less socially responsible the spelling standardization, the greater the potential for spelling conflict. These principles may contribute to the prediction of spelling conflicts in order to avoid future language controversies and conflicts.
Speakers’ language self-identification could be utilized as a prime criterion in new language classification. Sociolinguistically-based classification of languages is inherently biased by speakers’ preconceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, but compared to linguistic nomenclature that is biased by scholars’ preconceptions, beliefs, and attitudes, the former has a considerably lesser potential for misinterpretation, political manipulation and controversies. Although this conclusion needs to be further explored and exemplified with other language groups and contexts, it may have a significant impact on the way we classify languages and dialects, which is one of the central, oldest, and most controversial issues in (socio)linguistics.