Symbolic ethnicity, cultural and linguistic landscape: remnants of ‘Little Europe’ in the Valcanale (Northeast Italy)

Abstract

This study investigates 'Little Europe', the rural, mountainous Italian region of the quadrilingual Valcanale, bordering Austria and Slovenia. The combined analysis of cultural landscape, linguistic landscape (LL) and symbolic ethnicity provides a new concept to examine multilingual regions. In this once Austrian valley, where German was the official language before WWI, Italian now dominates over minority languages, as exemplified by official signs. However, elements of the area's cultural and linguistic landscape reveal unexpected linguistic practices and visible, locatable artefacts of the Valcanale's ethnolinguistic heritage, which we assume to play a key role in the preservation of symbolic ethnicity.

Toponymic politics and the role of heritagisation in multiethnic cities in Romania

“…Moreover, the inherent power-relations in heritagisation may not only be apparent in what is displayed but also in how names are displayed. The font and style of letters, the accuracy of spelling, the visibility of minority language inscriptions and the hierarchy of languages all carry information about their relative importance and the local power relations of various language-speaking groups (Jordan et al 2021;Plautz et al 2021).…”

“…Our field experience confirmed that in comparison to the previous period, the trilingual information boards improved the visibility of the Hungarian language. Nevertheless, using the same, smaller font size for Hungarian and English might dilute the local presence of Hungarian language (see Duchêne 2012) in the same vein illustrating the inherent power relations between local majority and minority (see Jordan et al 2021;Plautz et al 2021).…”