Participatory sociolinguistics across researchers’ and participants’ language ideologies

Abstract

The participatory approach is becoming more widespread in the social sciences and is also starting to take hold in the study of language in society. However, there has been little research done on how critical sociolinguistics can be linked to research that is based on the involvement and engagement of as many participants as possible at a level they find relevant for themselves. We argue that the academic separation between the ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’ is worth reexamining in sociolinguistic research, as all participants do ’ideologizing work’ that establishes the perspective from which they view language. We discuss this through a case study from Moldavia, the North-Eastern region of Romania, which aimed to explore the contemporary language practices of former students of a Hungarian-language revitalization program. We point out that being critical of language-related inequalities cannot be separated from being critical of participation in the research process, if we are to work together across a multiplicity of language ideologies.