To the Zoominar

For Zoom inlog password, please email jose.aleman.banon@biling.su.se.

Astract

Sweden has often been hailed as a textbook example of  ‘multicultural pluralist citizenship’ (Koopmans and Statham 1999, 661); that is, a context in which ‘the state not only offers easy access to full social and political rights, but actually sponsors ethnic difference’ (ibid.). While it is true that the Language Law in Sweden overtly ratifies multilingualism, in this talk I illustrate how language policies about so-called ‘national minority languages’ (Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani, Sami and Yiddish) are framed by the three main principles that have characterized a colonial logic: census, maps and museum (Anderson 1991; see also Gal 2021). In order to bring into relief the coloniality of Swedish minority language policy, I will focus on a language, Yiddish, which does not have a straightforward link to colonialism in Sweden but has posed a series of challenges to legislators. More specifically, I will illustrate how a colonial logic based on the principles of census, maps and museum was used in order to make sense of Yiddish and ultimately argue against its recognition as a national minority language. However, I will also show how Yiddish language activists reacted through ‘affective practices’ (Wetherell 2012), which led to the official recognition of Yiddish in the end. Through these examples, I not only hope to engage with current discussions about decolonial perspectives in applied linguistics (Pennycook and Makoni 2021) but also give an example of a somewhat overlooked aspect of language policy, namely its affective dimensions (see also Årman 2020).

Biography

Tommaso M. Milani is George C. and Jane G. Greer Professor of Applied Linguistics, Jewish Studies, African Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. Before joining The Pennsylvania State University, he held positions at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. His research aims to understand how power (in)balances are reproduced and contested through meaning-making resources (language, visuality, the body etc.). While identifying strongly with the intellectual tradition of critical discourse analysis, he is not committed to a single theoretical paradigm. In his analyses of language and power he has drawn upon different theoretical frameworks, which include but are not limited to, language ideology, intersectionality, queer theory, southern/decolonial perspectives and theories of affect. Together with Professor Susan Ehrlich, he is co-editor of Language in Society.

Tommaso Milani

About the Higher seminar in Research on Bilingualism