Invitation to the lecture by Prof. Dr. Anja Binanzer entitled: "Multilingualism in South Tyrol. Literary voices - linguistic backgrounds".

We cordially invite you to the lecture by Prof. Dr. Anja Binanzer (TU Dresden) entitled: "Multilingualism in South Tyrol. Literary voices - linguistic backgrounds." The event is part of the seminar South Tyrol/Alto Adige: Literary negotiations in the cultural field of tension by Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Tiller.

The lecture presents South Tyrol as a prototypical language contact area with historically determined asymmetrical multilingualism. German functions as a minority language in the Italian nation state, but assumes a dominant function within South Tyrol, while Italian and Ladin are regionally and functionally differentiated (Glück, Leonardi & Riehl 2019). This constellation is analyzed from a sociolinguistic perspective as the result of language policy, language planning and competing language ideologies. A historical outline shows the Italianization policy of fascism as a case of state-controlled language displacement and the autonomy of South Tyrol as a model of institutionalized multilingualism. The persistence of monolingual patterns of order is illustrated, for example in the language group census, which does not reflect individual multilingualism and migration-related linguistic diversity.

German- and Italian-language literary texts from South Tyrol can therefore be read as sociolinguistic spaces of reflection, for which the voices of three female characters in German- and Italian-language South Tyrolean novels are used: Marta from Gianni Bianco's Una casa sull'argine (1965), Olga from Joseph Zoderer's Die Walsche (1982), and Eva from Francesca Melandri's Eva dorme (2010). In all three novels, language and language policy act as instruments of power that shape the characters' self-perception, scope for action and identity development, making visible the close link between individual identity and social and linguistic framework conditions.

Literature

Bianco, Gianni (1965): Una casa sull'argine. Fratelli Longo. Zoderer, Joseph (1982): Die Walsche. Hanser. Melandri, Francesca (2010): Eva dorme. Mondadori. Glück, Alexander; Leonardi, Mara & Riehl, Claudia Maria (2019): South Tyrol. In Rahel Beyer & Albrecht Plewnia (eds.), Handbook of German in Western and Central Europe. Language minorities and multilingual constellations, 245-280. fool.