Language, Identity and Conflict

1 Introduction

Any assessment of conflict involving ethnic identity requires delicate treatment of language.

(Independent International Commission on Kosovo. Introduction p. 5 http://www.kosovocommission.org/reports/3-introduction.html)

[L]anguage is the ultimate measure of human society. More than any other of life's faculties, it is language that tells us who we are, what we mean and where we are going.

(Fischer, 1999: 203)

Europe, like nature itself, cannot abide a vacuum.

(Davies, 1997: 1136)

Language, identity and conflict

This study arises from a widespread failure to respond to the way in which language functions in situations of conflict (e.g. Baker and Jones, 1998: 276–286 and 333–338; Fishman, 1989: 605–626). That problem results ...