Walking the tightrope of linguistic nationalism in a multilingual state: constructing language in political party programmes in Luxembourg

Linguistic nationalism in Western Europe most commonly takes a monolingual form, involving the promotion of one dominant national language. This is not the only form of linguistic nationalism possible, however, as the link between language and nation can also be constructed in more multilingual ways...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of multilingual and multicultural development 2020-10, Vol.41 (9), p.779-793
Main Authors: de Bres, Julia, Rivera Cosme, Gabriel, Remesch, Angela
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bilingualism
Elections
Fidelity
Foreign Countries
French
German
Ideology
Indo European Languages
Language
Language Attitudes
Language ideologies
Language Planning
language policies
Language policy
Linguistic nationalism
Luxembourg
Monolingualism
Multilingualism
National elections
National languages
Nationalism
Official Languages
Political Attitudes
Political Influences
Political parties
Politics
Sociolinguistics
Walking
Web Sites
Websites
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Summary:Linguistic nationalism in Western Europe most commonly takes a monolingual form, involving the promotion of one dominant national language. This is not the only form of linguistic nationalism possible, however, as the link between language and nation can also be constructed in more multilingual ways. This article looks at the case of Luxembourg, a small officially multilingual country, to examine how political parties portrayed the language-nation link in their published election programmes for the past two national elections (2013 and 2018) and in their accompanying websites. The results reveal tension between fidelity to classic monolingual linguistic nationalism and nods towards a form of trilingual linguistic nationalism, all set against an increasingly multilingual society. The discursive balancing act required to uphold these competing ideological stances reflects broader tensions across contemporary Europe regarding how to reconcile a classic linguistic nationalist ideology with ever more multilingual societies.
ISSN:0143-4632
1747-7557
DOI:10.1080/01434632.2019.1655567