Agendas digitales

Here, Durnwalder appears to situate his ‘no’ in a temporal framework:

47 So it is useless to delude ourselves about a change of course.

48 “For now no. The time has not yet come.”

49 And when would this be?

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50 “Perhaps the day in which Italians and Germans can talk, each their own language, 51 understanding perfectly, however, the other. But we’re still a long way away. For 52 the rest, I don’t understand why [people] continue to insist on immersion, knowing 53 we are against it.”

54 Because it is probably the most efficient method of learning other languages?

55 “Already today, if one so wishes, there are a thousand possibilities for learning 56 German or Italian respectively. There is even the possibility for the schools to 57 increase the number of hours of German or Italian up to 50%. And we are always 58 open even to the introduction of new didactic instruments for reaching the objective.

59 Not only, if one truly wants to learn German, one can force oneself to speak it in 60 everyday life.”

61 What do you think of the possibility, offered to 4^th year high school students, to 62 attend one year in the other group’s school as Julia, daughter of the SVP 63 MEP Lukas Amonn, among others, is doing?

64 “It’s one of the many possibilities that our school system offers for learning the other 65 language.”

When pressed by the journalist as to a more specific time frame, Durnwalder’s answers with a less-than-committal ‘Perhaps in the day in which’ (line 50), and ‘But we’re still a long way away’ (line 51). Durnwalder’s notion of an “everyday” bilingualism is also interesting. It is one which allows speaker and listener to remain within their “own”

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language during interactions, but which is nonetheless a marker of separateness and linguistic distinction.

In responding to this question in lines 55-60, the provincial president appears not to answer it directly, or express an opinion on might be considered, in all intents and purposes, individual as opposed to institutional immersion.

This brings to mind Bourdieu’s notions not just of linguistic capital, but also markets (for production and reproduction of such capital), which must be protected (1977): a point which is becoming analytically important in this thesis. This idea is at least suggested, when we consider that the experimentation of immersion or bilingual education is not being put forward as a replacement for the existing Italian and German-language schools, but rather as an addition to them. Also, the school system which has been experimenting with immersion is the Italian-language system, with no serious discussion of similar experimentation in the German-language schools.

The interview throws up a number of other points worthy of discursive analysis. For example language and national or ethnic identity are taken as givens. The role of

education in the maintenance of the German (-speaking) minority is clear, together with the fear of the minority disappearing should immersion be implemented.

There are two other general points I wish to make regarding the interview. The first is that throughout, the terms ‘German’ and ‘Italian’ are used. Legally, everyone he refers to is an Italian citizen, in the sense that they are deemed to belong to the Italian state. Also, the province has never been a part of Germany. What we see here is the language spoken taken as national or ethnic identity. The second point is that the position

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Durnwalder takes in Lines 28-29, that with immersion young people don’t know one language or the other, also reappeared in a statement, reported in the same newspaper on the 19^th and 22^nd of February 2011. However, the discourse changed subtly, in that he added that this is what happens in the Ladin (trilingual) schools: a point which was

attacked by Ladin representative quickly afterwards, and reported in the Alto Adige on 22^nd February 2011.

The interview is given in the provincial Italian-language daily newspaper, L’Alto Adige.

Whilst not every Italian-speaker in the province buys or reads it, the newspaper is ubiquitous in the bars and cafés of Bolzano (invariably found alongside the German-language daily Dolomitten). As one might expect, the newspaper is an important platform for local politicians and other interested actors, as DiGiacomo (1999) notes of course, ideologically redacted by the editorial staff and journalists. Nonetheless, I would argue that as such a platform, it is also an important source of news for issues which concern life in the province for the general population, not only for Italian-speakers.

One would reasonably assume that Durnwalder is talking to Italian-speakers, since he pointedly comments on the “dangers” of immersion for Italian identity (lines 37-38).

There are also his comments about assimilation (lines 45-46). However I would argue that these comments are aimed as much at German-speaking readers of L’Alto Adige as their Italian-speaking counterparts, due to the deep historicity of assimilationist (overt or perceivedly covert) policies of the Italian state in the province during the twentieth century.

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On a close reading of the Durnwalder interview (especially section 3.6.1, lines 21-26 and section 3.6.3, lines 43-46), there appears to be agreement between Durnwalder and Tolomei (section 3.5.3) on the role of the school in passing on linguistic culture and identity. Although I would state explicitly that whereas for Tolomei the school was the vehicle to Italianise , for Durnwalder it is a means to keep the German-language minority safe through separation.

Interlude: Changing & Aternative perspectives on language in Bolzano-Bozen

In the broader discursive economies of language in Bozen-Bolzano – especially in education – we can see tensions how language is viewed. In the data seen so far, the common thread is an essentialised view of language, inexorably linked to identity, itself defined through a nationalist (or Herdian) lens. In the data which now follow, all taken from the historical present, we see how these ideas are not universally accepted in Bolzano-Bozen. So here I attempt to illustrate what I see as the two main strands of antagonism to the “accepted wisdom” which underpins the discourse(s) in the data presented earlier in this chapter. Both of the following data sets are from Polyglot public meetings: my nexus of practice. In one, an invited speaker from the governing SVP puts forward his own position, a position at odds with establishment views evident in sections 3.4 and 3.6, representing changing views of language within the political elite. In the final data set, Polyglot members discuss their own alternative views on language, especially with regard to identity. In both we see similarities, yet we also see key differences, particularly in the reasons and motivations for the superficially comparable positions taken.

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3.7 – Changing views: Hannes Mair, An alternative SVP?

Having seen, thus far, the discourse itineraries of language and education in

Bozen-Bolzano and province, and the mainstream positions held regarding these, I now return to the historical present and a meeting of the parents association Polyglot.

I begin with the guest speaker’s Historical Body, moving then to aspects of the Interaction Order, before presenting what the guest speaker says during the meeting. Here these elements are important to see, especially in the contrast it shows with the previous data set.

On the 2^nd March 2011, Polyglot organised an open meeting with a guest speaker by the name of Hannes Mair. The event took place two and a half years after the first Polyglot meeting I attended (see section 3.3) and three and a half years after the newspaper interview with Luis Durnwalder (in section 3.5). It should also be noted that the invited speaker was a relatively senior member of the same political party (SVP) as Luis

Durnwalder, whose official party line has been to obstruct the extension of bilingual or immersion education.

At the time, Mair was chair of the Bozen-Bolzano city branch of Südtirolervolkspartei (SVP) and autonomous provincial councillor with a special interest in economic issues. As a reminder (see chapter 1, section 1.2.2) SVP is the German-language majority political party in the province, which governs in coalition with the Italian-language Partito Democratico (PD). The complex consociational model of governance in the province requires that the majority political party of one ethnic/language group (defined in and through language) govern with a partner party from the other ethnic/language group.

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As I have shown in the previous section, through the presentation of local newspaper discourse and pronouncements of the province’s most senior politician (Luis Durnwalder, SVP), we see that the official position of SVP has been to resist the extension of bilingual education: be it immersion programmes within the provinces monolingual schools or the institution of bilingual schools, citing issues of legality, identity and even ethnic survival as the principal objections.

Mair, born in 1964, could be said to be of a later generation than Durnwalder, growing up in a province in which the provisions of the Statute of Autonomy afforded detailed and far-reaching protection to the German-speaking population (www.consiglio.regione.taa.it.

Accessed 27^th November 2014). He has been vocal on what he sees as the need to capitalise of the linguistic potential of the province and has repeatedly and publically called for multilingual education and reported in the press across the province (Alto Adige 2^nd July 2011). As such, Mair is arguably somewhat out of step with the orthodox SVP stance which we see contested in section 3.4 and defended in section 3.6.

The format of the 2^nd March 2011 Polyglot meeting could best be described as an informal evening in which attendees were free to ask Mair questions related to bilingual education in the province. The tone of the evening was cordial, in that there were no noticeably heated exchanges or disagreements at any point in the evening. The meeting was held in the function room of a local municipal theatre; in fact the same theatre as for the 2^nd October 2008 Polyglot meeting presented in section 3.3. For this encounter, however, seats were arranged in a large circle, with thirty-one people in attendance (including myself and Mair. See figure 14 for the room plan), making this the second most

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attended Polyglot public event I had been present for. Amongst the attendees were senior representatives from each of the German- and Italian-language school systems and the ex-rector of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano: each present in an unofficial

capacity.

The meeting opened with an introduction (in German) from the Polyglot treasurer

Hubert, which was repeated by Andrea in Italian, explaining the format and reason for the meeting, together with an explanation of the aims and activities thus far of Polyglot.

The meeting – in terms of the discussion, questions and answers – moved fluidly between German and Italian: sometimes this was done for extended stretches of speech, other times this was confined to specific lexical items. Whilst space is limited here to discuss the translanguaging (Creese & Blackledge 2010a) aspects, I would argue that using the Italian terms ‘convivenza vera’ (truly living-together) and ‘plurilinguismo’

(multilingualism), key terms in provincial discourse, in stretches of German-language talk is not insignificant. Rather, this is indicative of how such issues are felt to be more of an issue for Italian speakers than German speakers.

The discussion lasted just under two hours and ten minutes, which I digitally recorded whilst making field notes. From this recording I now present a transcribed and translated section. In this section, Mair is responding to three questions from the floor which were put to him in rapid succession. The first question was how or whether his personal

position reflected or fitted with the official position of the SVP; the second was a question on the views of German-speakers in general on bilingual education; the third asked about

163 8 almost inhuman that

9 a family which lives the two cultures 10 should have to choose

11 it’s something absurd because

12 it’s it’s almost a a human (short exasperated laugh) 13 right, that of being able

23 of these bilingual experiments of these eh 24 bilingual proposals are necessary uh 25 above all else for you [2^nd per pl.]

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33 to impart the languages and if only this is the most opportune one

34 for those who already live two cultures in their family 35 it’s necessary that the possibility should be given

because it’s inhuman

36 to expect from them to choose, or to say, eh uh

As is clear from the above, Mair actually begins not with the answer to the question (this comes a little later), but by aligning himself with mistilingue parents. He positions himself as being deeply empathetic to the situation in which mistilingue families are placed in by the rigidity of the provinces socio-legal framework, i.e. which forces parents to choose an educational path in one language or another. This he does using the strongest language, using the adjective “inhuman” twice (lines 12 & 35). Evident is a view of culture as fixed and clearly defined shown in his use of the term “two cultures” four times in this short stretch (lines 15, 16, 27-28, 34). There is also an assumption that language and culture are synonymous (lines 14-29 & again in lines 33-36), or at least the link between the two is taken for granted with implications for identity (compare section 3.8.3, later).