Identity and discursive practices of friulians and slovenes in the province of Udine, Italy, in recent decades

Abstract

In the past, Slovene spoken in the Province of Udine and Friulian, mainly spoken in the Provinces Udine, Pordenone and Gorizia of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy, were limited to the private sphere, but recently, they are becoming more seen and heard in public life, i.e. outside their traditional communication situations. The change can be attributed to the changes in the perception of their mother tongue in the Slovene and Friulian communities themselves in relation to the prevailing Italian language, the use of which implied a more prestigious position in society in the past, as well as to the change of attitudes towards the two minority languages among the majority population. Changes of discursive practices are occurring hand in hand with changes in identity practices. The paper presents a qualitative study on the topic in which 22 sociolinguistic interviews with the speakers of Friulian and the Slovene were carried out.