Rückblick: 17.-18.10.2024, Giessen: EUPeace-Workshop "Language ideologies in the EU and wider Europe"

Uniting Minds: the EUPeace workshop on language ideologies at the GiZo
by Nadiya Kiss, Liudmyla Pidkuimukha, Sergio Pizziconi

On October 17-18, GiZo welcomed the workshop Language ideologies in the EU and wider Europe: Reconsidering present and prognosing future, generously supported and funded by the EUPeace University Alliance Fund. Researchers from the universities within the alliance, namely JLU Giessen, and the University of Calabria, developed a workshop program to present their research and curricula and to tackle similarities and peculiarities of their findings and methodological approaches. The workshop opens with greeting words by Dr. Liudmyla Pidkuimukha (Institute for Slavic Studies, JLU Giessen) and Dr. Nadiya Kiss (University of Erfurt) who initiated the research collaboration and hosted the 1st workshop (the 2nd workshop as a follow-up event is planned at the University of Calabria in 2025). Eva Zimmerman, the EUPeace coordinator at the JLU Giessen, also sent warm greetings to all the participants. 

The greeting section was followed by an impulse keynote lecture by Prof. Dr. Alex Krouglov from the University College London, entitled The European mosaic: Language ideologies in the shadow of war. The lecture focused on language policy and planning (LPP), briefly outlining the historical context of language ideologies in Europe and examining how they are shaped in present-day Europe, affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While providing examples from the war in Ukraine and how language ideology develops in a war-torn country, the lecture then focused on identifying the dominant language ideologies in Europe and the role of English and other European languages in the EU and wider Europe.

Moreover, the lecturer coined a new term that could be used to describe the situation – decolonilingualism – and reflected on the practices of decolonisation based on the example of wartime Ukraine. The keynote lecture was commented by two discussants that participated online:  – Prof. Dr. Natalia Kudriavtseva from Kryvy Rih State Pedagogical University and George Washington University and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Olha Shevchuk-Kliuzheva from Borys Hrinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University. The discussants pointed out that decolonization should be somehow measured, and that Ukraine would face the complexities of its language situation after the war is finished, and while the objective of joining the EU becomes closer and more realistic. The lecture was accessible to both onsite and online audiences, with colleagues from GiZo in attendance and researchers from Poland and Ukraine participating virtually. This format fostered an engaging discussion.

The afternoon session was devoted to the projects and curricula presentations. Dr. Vanessa Marcella from the University of Calabria presented her research on language ideologies through the language centers’ websites. She compared the situation in Italy and the United Kingdom and reflected on how multilingualism, diversity, and language learning are conceptualized on the websites to attract language students. Prof. Dr. Natalia Kobchenko from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, who is now a guest professor at the JLU Giessen, presented a curriculum of the master program on Ukrainian and English language and communication. She described not only the program's uniqueness in the educational landscape of Ukraine, but also the challenges the bilingual program faces and the enrichment it brings from guest lecturers’ courses. 

Dr. Sergio Pizziconi presented his research on the quantitative measurement of language attitudes in Italy.  He explained in detail how the team of Italian researchers adapted Bernstein’s model of language attitudes, previously used in the USA, to the Italian sociolinguistic reality. Using this model to explore language attitudes among Italian language educators provides a holistic picture of language attitudes, use, and prestige, as well as gives an understanding of how the state language coexists with regional varieties and dialects, as well as with minorities and migrant languages in the country. Dr. Nadiya Kiss reported on her new project at the University of Erfurt, supported and financed by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. She focuses is on researching how displaced Ukrainian scholars, enrolled in various fellowships for refugee academics in Germany and other European countries, are transforming and performing their identities in Western academia, and are uniting their efforts in newly emerged networks. Dr. Liudmyla Pidkuimukha from the JLU Giessen presented her project on language ideologies in Russia and Ukraine and narrated how it could be developed to expand the research area to Estonia and Kazakhstan. She demonstrated that language ideologies could be explored using different data, such as laws, documents, handbook analysis, and qualitative in-depth interviews. 

On September 17, the workshop participants met to discuss the possibilities of further cooperation. Besides the already planned follow-up workshop at the University of Calabria (in March or April 2025), the possibility of joint research in the future was elaborated. During the workshop in Giessen, the participants learned from each other about different sociolinguistic research, and in their future endeavors could use mixed methods, applying both quantitative and qualitative approaches to collecting research data. Furthermore, Bernstein’s model, used for analysis of the Italian language situation, could be further expanded to comparative data analysis, including the United Kingdom (Prof. Dr. Alex Krouglov) and Ukraine as a future EU country (Dr. Liudmyla Pidkuimukha, Dr, Nadiya Kiss, Prof. Dr. Natalia Kobchenko and further partners from Ukraine, for instance, Prof. Dr. Halyna Shumytska from the Uzhhorod National University, who joined the workshop online). The participants agreed that it is essential to explore further funding possibilities, both within the EUPeace University Alliance and by other European initiatives. The collaborative trip to Marburg enforced formal and informal cooperation and brought perspectives of uniting minds in further research. 

The Workshop was organised by Dr. Liudmyla Pidkuimukha and Dr. Nadiia Kiss and funded by the EUPeace Alliance "EUPeace - European University for Peace, Justice, and Inclusive Societies".