The linguistic landscape of cemeteries in Alsace

Katharina Vajta: The linguistic landscape of cemeteries in Alsace. Language shift and identities.

Abstract

In this presentation I will focus on Alsace, a region in the East of France which has undergone several nationality shifts between France and Germany, with following language shifts between French and German. I intend to show how the study of cemeteries allows to examine linguistic shifts and how the inscriptions in the cemetery display identities and ideologies, both in diachrony and in synchrony. Indeed, the language choice on tombstones was expected to be made according to the language of the ruling power, but could also follow from beliefs and convictions. Here, epitaphs can be considered as contributing to the construction of a regional identity. Overall, they also reflect the language shift from German and Alsatian, the dialect spoken since centuries, to French.

I will first briefly present the region Alsace, its history and languages. Then, I will discuss the difficulties one encounters when doing fieldwork in cemeteries and present the cemetery as a linguistic landscape. After that, building on specific examples, I will reflect on the German–French language shift as displayed in epitaphs, on identities and on explicit and implicit messages on the graves.

About the author

Katharina Vajta is associate professor of French at the Department of languages and literatures at the university of Gothenburg, Sweden, where she also is Head of Department. Her main research interests are within the fields of sociolinguistics, language and identity, French speaking world and intercultural education. Her current research deals with language in cemeteries, especially in Alsace, a region in the East of France which has undergone a series of nationality shifts between France and Germany.

Her latest publications in the field:

• 2021. Identity beyond death. Messages and meanings in Alsatian cemeteries. Mortality, 26:1, pp. 17–35.
• 2020. Names on Alsatian Gravestones as Mirrors of Politics and Identities. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 19(5), pp.288–310.
• 2018. Gravestones speak – but in which language? Epitaphs as mirrors of language shifts and identities in Alsace. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, vol 39, 2, pp. 137–154.