Attitudes from Above: How Ausbau-centric Approaches Hinder the Maintenance of Linguistic diversity and why we must rediscover the role of structural relations

Abstract

Modern linguistics tends to perpetuate an “Ausbau bias”, namely a tendency to reserve the term “language” for varieties with high levels of standardisation, relegating other varieties to the status of “dialects” and often leading to cases of language contestation (Craith, 2006; Tamburelli & Tosco, 2021; Wells, 2011). Far from being a mere terminological quirk, this bias permeates through linguistic communities, shaping linguistic attitudes and bringing about negative consequences for a range of languages and their speakers. This paper outlines some properties of the Ausbau bias, discussing its negative effects in several contexts across ostensibly dissimilar communities. We will see how the widespread expectation that a “true” language must have a high number of Ausbau-related characteristics, inevitably leads to the consequence that non-standardised languages are more likely to elicit negative attitudes among their speakers as well as the academic community and other language professionals, thus feeding a vicious circle of contestation and endangerment. The paper concludes with some suggestions on how contestation can be mitigated by moving away from the “Ausbau-centric” tendency that views languages as mainly socio-political objects.