Agency in the Peripheries of Language Revitalisation: Examining European Practices on the Ground

This 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.

This book is available Open Access under a CC BY ND License.

Mary S. Linnis Curator of Language and Cultural Vitality at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Washington DC, USA. Her primary research is in effective grassroots strategies in language reclamation and cultural sustainability, especially in small language communities. She directs the Language Vitality Initiative, which focuses on training, networking, innovation, and advocacy, and she is on the curatorial committee of the annual Smithsonian Mother Tongue Film Festival.

Alejandro Dayán-Fernández is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Glasgow. Grounded in Critical Sociolinguistics, his PhD research explored the role of language in diaspora community building processes based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted among Galicians in the UK. By combining his interdisciplinary background in Political Science, Translation Studies and Sociolinguistics, his current research focuses on the use of language in processes of collective action among grassroots social movements and the instrumentalisation of minoritised languages for political gains by different ideological forces.