ACDH-CH Research Day 5

Aims and content

The identity of language and nation was proclaimed – successfully – in the 19^th century and, as a consequence of this ideology, the monolingual individual was declared as (desirable) norm. This notion of multilingualism as deviance shapes language attitudes and language policy (also) in Austria up to present days. This leads, amongst other, to devaluation of first language competence(s) other than the German language. At the same time, there are tendencies of context-dependent monolingualism in trans- and multinational communication practices such as in science due to a dominant position of English as lingua franca. This even further intensifies the devaluation of languages other than the “state language” (Staatssprache) German (B-VG §8) and lingua franca English and, thus, contradicts the language political basic concept of the European Union, propagating that all citizens of the EU should speak at least two further languages.

Against this backdrop, four projects financed by the thematic platform “multilingualism” of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) in 2021–2023 aim at making linguistic diversity in Austria more visible and strengthen its added value with regard to recognizing and preserving the cultural heritage against monolingualism in science and society. Research efforts include the elicitation of data on individual and societal multilingualism in Austria using both qualitative and quantitative methods. For Vienna specifically, a special focus is put on multilingualism in science and the media landscape.

At the 5^th ACDH-CH research day “Multilingualism in society and science”, results of these four projects will be presented and discussed in the context of selected further contributions. All talks share their focus on diverse aspects of multilingualism in (especially the Austrian) society and science. Thus, the research day provides ground to connect various institutes, units, projects and people of the OeAW as well as other Viennese research institutions, which deal from linguistic, sociological, media studies, ethnological or historical perspectives with questions such as

• which languages and/or varieties of persons or groups of persons in Austria are acquired, learnt or used in which social contexts,
• which attitudes and/or language ideologies are connected to the (non)use of languages and/or varieties in certain contexts and
• how they are/were (re)produced from language policy perspectives both in the past and present.