Language policy at times of instability and struggle: the impact of fluctuating will and competing agendas on a Slovene language strategy

摘要

This article analyses how the drafting and implementation of the Resolution for a National Language Policy Programme 2014-2018, a Slovene language strategy, were influenced by political instability and inter-institutional struggles. By conducting a historical ethnography to trace how different authors contributed to the policy text, and examining these contributions against political shifts and the dynamics of the media discourse surrounding the policy, and by collecting accounts from key actors through interviews, the paper presents a detailed reconstruction of the process of drafting the strategy. The analysis uncovers an on-going struggle between different groups of Slovene linguists to secure their own interests, and finds that political shifts enabled different groups to shift wordings within the document in their own favour. It also analyses how, once officially adopted by the Slovene parliament, the strategy began to be implemented as serious discussions began about funding the creation of a new monolingual dictionary of Slovene.