Eurolinguistics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Eurolinguistics is a comparatively young branch of linguistics which deals with questions on the languages of Europe. However, Europe is not defined in a unanimous way. There are three different definitions of Europe.

  • political (languages of the European Union) (this definition is often used by authors dealing with language policy, e.g. Ahrens 2003, Kraus 2004)
  • geographical (from the Atlantic to the Ural) (this seems the most current definition of Europe, e.g. in Haarmann 1975 and 1993, Görlach 2002, Heine/Kuteva 2006)
  • anthropological (languages of the nations characterized by a Greek and a Latin heritage (including the rules of law), the (West) Roman variant of Christian religion (and its developments during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation), the use of the Latin alphabet, the separation of spiritual and secular power, societal pluralism and individualism, a common history of the arts (in their broadest sense) as well as a common history of education and formation like the establishment of the universities) (this is the definition that is used, for instance, by Huntington [1996: 45ff.] and Schmidt [2000: 207ff.]; Haarmann uses this definition to define the western part of Europe in its geographical sense)

Contents

[edit] State of the art

The term Eurolinguistics was first used by Norbert Reiter in 1991 (German equivalent: Eurolinguistik), but Eurolinguistic works had already been published before that date (e.g. Lewy 1964, Décsy 1973). Apart from a series of works dealing with only a part of the European languages, the work of Harald Haarmann pursues a pan- or trans-European perspective. This goal is also pursued by Mario Wandruszka. In reality, however, Wandruszka like many others (including encyclopedias) only takes into account the big European languages: German, English, Italian, French, Spanish. In addition, German is only understood as German of Germany, French as French of France etc. The realization of national varieties has only begun to play a role in eurolinguistics. In recent years, typological questions have mainly been dealt with by the Eurolinguistischer Arbeitskreis Mannheim (ELAMA) and the EUROTYP projects. Important sources of linguistic data for Eurolinguistic studies are the Atlas Linguarum Europae (for vocabulary studies) and the World Atlas of Linguistic Structures (Haspelmath et al. 2005, for grammar studies). The internet platform EuroLinguistiX (ELiX) (edited by Joachim Grzega) offers a bibliography of Eurolinguistic publications as well as a wiki, a discussion forum, an academic internet journal in order to address also aspects of "linguistic and cultural history", "sociology of languages", "language politics" and "intercultural communication". In 2006, Joachim Grzega published a basic reader on common features of European languages.

[edit] Research results

See the description of Eurolinguistic features under European languages.

[edit] Select Bibliography

  • Rüdiger Ahrens (ed.): Europäische Sprachenpolitik / European Language Policy, Heidelberg: Winter 2003.
  • R. E. Asher et al. (eds.): The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Oxford: Pergamon 1994.
  • Roger Axtell: Do's and Taboos Around the World, White Plains: Benjamin 1993.
  • Jasone Cenoz / Jose F. Valencia: 'Cross-Cultural Communication and Interlanguage Pragmatics: American vs. European Requests', in: Journal of Pragmatics vol. 20 (1996): p. 41-54.
  • Peter Collett: Foreign Bodies: A Guide to European Mannerisms, London: Simon & Schuster 1991.
  • Gyula Décsy: Die linguistische Struktur Europas: Vergangenheit – Gegenwart – Zukunft, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1973.
  • Manfred Görlach (ed.), English in Europe, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002.
  • Joachim Grzega: EuroLinguistischer Parcours: Kernwissen zur europäischen Sprachkultur, Frankfurt: IKO 2006, ISBN 3-88939-796-4 (most of the information presented here is a summary of this book--the book was positively reviewed by Norbert Reiter here and by Uwe Hinrichs here)
  • Harald Haarmann: Soziologie und Politik der Sprachen Europas, München: dtv 1975.
  • Harald Haarmann: Universalgeschichte der Schrift, 2nd ed., Frankfurt (Main)/New York: Campus 1991.
  • Harald Haarmann: Die Sprachenwelt Europas: Geschichte und Zukunft der Sprachnationen zwischen Atlantik und Ural, Frankfurt (Main): Campus 1993.
  • Martin Haspelmath: "The European Linguistic Area: Standard Average European", in: Martin Haspelmath et al. (eds.), Language Typology and Language Universals, vol. 1, p. 1492-1510, Berlin: de Gruyter 2001.
  • Martin Haspelmath et al. (eds.): The World Atlas of Language Structures, Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005.
  • Bernd Heine / Tania Kuteva: The Changing Languages of Europe, New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press 2006.
  • Leo Hickey / Miranda Stewart (eds.): Politeness in Europe, Clevedon etc.: Multilingual Matters 2005.
  • Samuel Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon & Schuster 1996.
  • Peter A. Kraus: Europäische Öffentlichkeit und Sprachpolitik: Integration durch Anerkennung, Frankfurt (Main)/New York: Campus.
  • Ernst Lewy: Der Bau der europäischen Sprachen, Tübingen: Niemeyer 1964.
  • Desmond Morris et al. (1979): Gestures: Their Origins and Distribtions, New York: Stein & Day.
  • Terri Morrison et al.: Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands: How to Do Business in Sixty Countries, Holbrook: Adams Media 1994.
  • Gyula Paczolay: European Proverbs in 55 Languages with Equivalents in Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Chinese and Japanese, Veszprém: Veszprém Press 1997.
  • Baldur Panzer: "Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede im Wortschatz europäischer Sprachen", in: Werner Besch et al. (eds.), Sprachgeschichte, vol. 2, p. 1123-1136, Frankfurt (Main): Lang 2000.
  • Siegfried Piotrowski / Helmar Frank (eds.): Europas Sprachlosigkeit: Vom blinden Fleck der European Studies und seiner eurologischen Behebung, München: KoPäd 2002.
  • Glanville Price: Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe, Oxford: Blackwell 1998.
  • Peter Rehder: 'Das Slovenische', in: Rehder, Peter (ed.), Einführung in die slavischen Sprachen, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1998.
  • Helmut Schmidt: Die Selbstbehauptung Europas: Perspektiven für das 21. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart/München: Deutsche Verlangs-Anstalt 2000.
  • Miquel Siguan: Europe and the Languages, 2002, English internet version of the book L'Europa de les llengües, Barcelona: edicions 62.
  • Bernd Spillner: Die perfekte Anrede: Schriftlich und mündlich, formell und informell, national und international, Landsberg (Lech): Moderne Industrie.
  • M. Stephens: Linguistic Minorities in Western Europe, Llandysul 1976.
  • Anna Trosborg: Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter 1995.
  • Jan Wirrer (ed.): Minderheitensprachen in Europa, Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag 2000.
  • Jan Wirrer: 'Staat -- Nation -- Sprache, eine Gleichung, die -- fast -- aufgeht: Minderheiten- und Regionalsprachen in Europa", in: Metzing, Dieter (ed.), Sprachen in Europa: Sprachpolitik, Sprachkontakt, Sprachkultur, Sprachentwicklung, Sprachtypologie, p. 21-52, Bielefeld: Aisthesis 2003.

[edit] External links

  • ELAMA
  • EuroLinguistiX (ELiX) (including an academic journal, a discussion forum, a wiki for projects, a collection of internet links as well as a bibliography of Eurolinguistic studies)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../e/u/r/Eurolinguistics.html"