Learning languages to save the nation, but which nation? (Sub)nationalist imaginaries orienting Belgian language-in-education politics

Description

In many parts of the world, language and education constitute prominent arenas for the construction, maintenance or transformation of (sub)national identities (McAndrew, 2010). Although often overlooked in research on nationalism and language policy (cf. Liddicoat, 2022), foreign language education can be linked to such identity bordering in an interesting twofold way: promoting or disfavoring the acquisition of certain foreign languages might index not only how a given community imagines itself and seeks to strengthen its own sociopolitical position, but also how it intends to open up or rather oppose to other (inter)national communities (Pavlenko, 2003).

This presentation focusses on the Belgian context, and examines the auto- and hetero-images of Flanders and Wallonia in political discourse on foreign language education. Since these debates have a lengthy past, we adopt a diachronic approach. Parliamentary discussions at six key moments in Belgian legislation for language-in-education (1932-1963-1970's-1998-2004-2022) were subjected to discursive analysis in line with the Discourse-Historical Approach (Reisigl & Wodak, 2016):

     − What auto/hetero images are invoked by political parties in their discourse to promote the acquisition of which foreign languages?

     − Which imaginaries persist, disappear, shift or return?

     − Through which rhetorical/linguistic mechanism are those imaginaries realized over time?

The results reveal a constant balancing act between sentiments of Belgian nationalism and sentiments of (anti-)Flemish or (anti-)Walloon sub-state nationalism. While auto-images remain constant, hetero-images between our oldest and most recent data fluctuate, in oscillation with the socio-economic, language-ideological and (party-)political climate. This reveals a most interesting dynamic in which very similar arguments of community protection are employed at different times for completely opposite policy choices.

In further detailing these tendencies, the presentation aims (1) to recall the richness of parliamentary data for diachronic analyses of political discourse and (2) to evidence how foreign language education presents a sensitive, symbolical prism to study the manifestations and elasticity of (sub)nationalist imaginaries.

Période	21 nov. 2024
Titre de l'événement	Metapol 3 Conference: Discourse, ideologies and sub-state nationalism
Type d'événement	Une conférence
Emplacement	Liège, BelgiqueAfficher sur la carte
Degré de reconnaissance	International