Seminar “Speakers' perspectives on spelling changes in four post-Yugoslav countries (1991-2017): Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia”
On 8 November at 16:00 p.m. (Moscow time)
Speaker: Tomislav Stojanov, former Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies of the University of Nottingham
Since the beginning of mass education, standard languages have been undergoing spelling reforms/changes that produce controversies to a lesser or greater extent. Attempts by governments or other authoritative bodies to change the official spelling rules often encounter resistance.
The conflicts related to spelling among South Slavs (Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Serbian) have a long history that continues even today. Spelling has a strong symbolic role in national and cultural identities in the region, so the description of spelling changes and conflicts can reveal even more complex socio-political and socio-cultural contexts.
I will demonstrate a part of the results from a 2022 survey of 2000 participants in four countries, which is one of the largest datasets of speakers’ attitudes and beliefs on language identity and its socio-political context, and present several conclusions, which aim to contribute to the goals of comparative standardology and sociological conflict theories.