The Coding of Linguistic Ideology in Arvanítika (Albanian) Language Shift: Congruent and Contradictory Discourse

Arvanítika, a dialect of Tosk Albanian spoken in Greece, is now undergoing attrition. The process of the gradual replacement of Arvanítika by Greek can be viewed best in the context of political economy of language, in which issues of ideology figure prominently. The relationship between Greek and Arvanítika is one of subordination where a social agent is subjected to the decisions of another. This outcome is apparent in the hegemony that the official national Greek discourse has exercised on the ideological consciousness of the Greek-Arvanítika bilingual speakers who have, thus, undergone the process of self-deprecation. At the heart of this process is the acceptance of Greek as the power code by Arvanítika speakers. Self-deprecation often gives rise to congruent ideological discourse concerning language. In congruent discourse the power (Greek) and the solidarity (Arvanítika) codes are represented in speakers' narratives and other instances of natural speech as being in noncontradictory relationship. On the other hand, modernization, economic development, and the advent of urbanization have caused the emergence of contradictory ideological discourse, in which the two languages become parts of heteroglossia. In speakers' narratives and other naturally produced speech segments tension appears between the merits of tradition and those of modern life as indexed through their respective linguistic affiliations.