Discriminatory Instrumentalization of Language

2019 – 2022

Principal Investigator: Lucia Molnár Satinská

Co-Principal Investigator: Roman Soóky

Scientific Co-Workers: Perla Bartalošová, Júlia Behýlová, Júlia Choleva, Slavomír Ondrejovič, Jaroslava Rusinková, Jana Wachtarczyková

Project summary: The project aims to describe the manifestations of discriminatory language instrumentalization, explaining them in the context of offering and reproducing social relations, and to draw conclusions for the support of anti-discrimination activities in society. The studied language is the contemporary Slovak in terms of how its discriminatory potential in its cultural environment is being updated and what anti-discrimination activities are desirable for the gradual democratization of society. The conceptual framework is defined by parameters: using and mastering the language, language ideology and politics and interpretation of language products. The methodological basis is the parallel application of the objectivistic and ethnomethodological approach to the observed phenomena, which corresponds to the intention to confront the view of the observer and the users of the language on language discrimination, and thus to recognize their perceptiveness of this phenomenon.

Outcomes (in Slovak)

• Papers

  • Highs and Lows of the Fight for Palatal ľ in Standard Slovak Mainly in So-Called Weak Position
  • Accommodation-assimilation Activity in Intergenerational Communication from the Perspective of Older People
  • Purism in Discriminatory Discourse I.
  • Standardization of Foreign Geographical Names as a Manifestation of Adaptive Maximalism (with an Example of Lombardia vs. Lombardsko)
  • Purism in Discriminatory Discourse II.
  • How We Do (Not) Test Reading Comprehension – Reading Literacy on the Background of Interpretative Competency

• Books

  • The Language of Older People in Aspect of Sociolinguistics
  • Standard Slovak as a Natural Language. (On the Background of Language Attitudes)