Language revitalisation: attitudes, engagement and linguistic interaction

The Project examines the revitalisation of a North- and a Lule-Sámi variety in two communities of speakers from the perspective of linguistic interaction. It asks what speakers do with their languages and why their linguistic acts take the particular form s they do take. An important issue in the context of language revitalisation is the speakers' personal engagement, their evaluation of the values and meanings of their ethnic heritage language, and their emotions and attitudes towards it. This is expresse d through language in interaction with others and embedded in a complex situational, social and cultural context. By analysing speakers' choices in linguistic interaction from these perspectives, the study takes a new approach to the understanding of the complex processes that lie behind linguistic revitalisation. The results of the study will have an impact on both theory development and practical work in language revitalisation. Fieldwork for this case study will be carried out in two communities of spe akers in the municipalities of Gáivuotna/Kåfjord (Troms) and Divttasvuodna/Tysfjord (Nordland). The basic view on language that underlies this project is an interactional one, namely saying and doing things in interaction with each other. The gathered dat a will therefore be submitted to a qualitative discourse analysis. The analysis focuses on the concrete linguistic behaviour of the individual speakers and their negotiation and evaluation of language attitudes in linguistic interaction. The tools of anal ysis suitable to focus on both linguistic structure and meanings are drawn from the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics.