Walking the tightrope of linguistic nationalism in a multilingual state: constructing language in political party programmes in Luxembourg

摘要

Linguistic nationalism in Western Europe most commonly takes a monolingual form, involving the promotion of one dominant national language. This is not the only form of linguistic nationalism possible, however, as the link between language and nation can also be constructed in more multilingual ways. This article looks at the case of Luxembourg, a small officially multilingual country, to examine how political parties portrayed the language-nation link in their published election programmes for the past two national elections (2013 and 2018) and in their accompanying websites. The results reveal tension between fidelity to classic monolingual linguistic nationalism and nods towards a form of trilingual linguistic nationalism, all set against an increasingly multilingual society. The discursive balancing act required to uphold these competing ideological stances reflects broader tensions across contemporary Europe regarding how to reconcile a classic linguistic nationalist ideology with ever more multilingual societies.