Peripheral multilingualism
Sociolinguistic ethnography of contestation and innovation in multilingual Sámi, Corsican, Irish and Welsh indigenous and minority language contexts.
Peripheral multilingualism examines contestation and innovation in multilingual Sámi, Corsican, Irish and Welsh indigenous and minority language contexts. Starting from the premise that the relative fixity and fluidity of language boundaries are emergent properties of interaction, we focus on the tensions and creativity that arise from complex and changing multilingual processes, practices and experiences in these contexts. We argue that peripheral multilingual minority language sites are particularly revealing for rethinking what multilingualism means as they call into question the very nature of categories like “language” and “speaker”. We adopt a collaborative, multisited ethnography together with a discourse studies approach to identify and explore linguistic, social and ideological characteristics of peripheral multilingualism present across these indigenous and minority language contexts.
Recent News
Sari Pietikäinen, Helen Kelly-Holmes, Alexandra Jaffe and Nikolas Coupland 2016. Sociolinguistics from the Periphery: Small Languages in New Circumstances. Cambridge University Press.
Sari Pietikäinen 2016: Knowledge that matters: Politics of knowledge production in researching discourse and identity issues. Keynote lecture at the 2nd Workshop on Doing Research (Integrity) Across the Arts and Humanities. Doing Research in the Community: Responsibility – Impact – Feedback. The University of Hong Kong. April 14, 2016.
What counts? Notes from the field of researching dynamics of discourse, power and identity. Postgraduate workshop by prof. Sari Pietikäinen (University of Jyväskylä) at the 2nd Workshop on Doing Research (Integrity) Across the Arts and Humanities. Doing Research in the Community: Responsibility - Impact - Feedback. The University of Hong Kong. April 14, 2016.
Sari Pietikäinen 2016: Rhizomatic discourses on language and identity in transforming North. Keynote paper at conference Aktasne – Together: New concepts, theories and methodologies on Sami studies. Umeå University, Sweden. March 9-11, 2016.