Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 29, No. 5: 865–883 September 2003 Asserting ethnic identity and power through language Augusto Carli, Cristina Guardiano, Majda Kauc ˇic ˇ-Bas ˇa, Emidio Sussi, Mariselda Tessarolo and Marina Ussai Abstract This paper examines excerpts from interviews in which informants from six European border communities formulate explicit or implicit reflections on the ‘linguistic universe’ – including language use, linguistic diversity and language variation. Our results show that not only is linguistic diversity considered a fundamental element of ethnic and cultural identity, but that the very concept of diversity is used to assert, confirm or defend power interests. Evaluation of the individual languages is legitimated through apparently rational arguments incorporating marks of prestige or stigma which emerge from language attitudes based on linguistic prejudice and stereotyping. The linguistic ideology at work here is founded both on the concept of the ‘mother tongue’ (informants on both the east and west sides of the border claim that the unique ‘character’ or ‘mentality’ of each ‘people’ is created by their mother tongue), as well as on the ‘one nation, one language’ principle. This linguistic ideology gives rise to three key issues of linguistic ecology: the restriction of societal bilingualism to minority groups; the risk of minority language endangerment or obsolescence; and the close ties between the prestige or stigma of the language and resulting social power. In general, communities on the western side of the border are not interested in learning the language of their eastern neighbours. Eastern communities, on the other hand, are strongly motivated to learn western languages. The importance attributed to English as the ‘language of globalisation’ is common to both sides. KEYWORDS: LANGUAGE ATTITUDES; LINGUISTIC PREJUDICE; SOCIETAL BILINGUALISM; LAN- GUAGE ECOLOGY; ETHNIC IDENTITY Introduction and aims Border communities constitute a reservoir of ‘natural’ multilingual and multicul- tural experiences (Appel and Muysken 1990; Baker and Jones 1998; Edwards 1989). Yet, as a result of a whole range of political and economic factors, such experiences are very often restricted to an ‘artificial’ monolingualism (de Bot 1993; Gustavsson 1990; Haugen 1972; Mu ¨ hlha ¨usler 1996). Nevertheless, border communities offer a privileged observatory for the study of the relationships between language and identity, and in a deeper sense between dominant and dominated ethno-linguistic groups (Bister-Broosen 1998; Finger 2001). The pur- pose of this paper is to illustrate the ways in which our informants, from six different sets of East–West border communities, evaluate their own language(s) and the language(s) of the ‘Other’, and how they use and reflect on language as a marker of ethnic identity. According to Ruth Wodak et al. (1999), identity can be considered as a mutable ISSN 1369-183X print/ISSN 1469-9451 online/03/050865-19  2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd DOI: 10.1080/1369183032000149613 Carfax Publishing