The view from the border: a comparative study of autonomism in Alsace and the Moselle, 1918–29
This article offers a comparative analysis of the origins and development of autonomism in interwar Alsace and the Moselle. Upon the liberation of the provinces in November 1918, the local populations of Alsace and the Moselle enthusiastically welcomed French troops. For President Raymond Poincare´ this enthusiasm constituted a clear ‘plebiscite’. But, in light of perceived heavy-handedness on the part of the new French rulers, this enthusiasm proved short-lived and rapidly gave way to a widespread malaise. In response to local fears for the preservation of their distinctive social, linguistic and religious traditions, Autonomist organisations emerged to oppose the loss of what they perceived to be the soul and character of Alsace and the Moselle. They rapidly became a pervasive force in local politics, cutting across ideological and class barriers and dividing parties. For the French government, autonomism represented a serious threat to national unity. For local autonomists, however, it represented an attempt to preserve local socio-economic structures and linguistic and cultural practices. The discussion here seeks to reposition autonomism within the context of local politics and to compare the distinct experiences of Alsace and the Moselle in the decade after their return to French rule.
The Price of Exclusion: Ethnicity, National Identity, and the Decline of German Liberalism, 1898-1933
"The failure of Liberalism" in Germany and its responsibility for the rise of Nazism has been widely discussed among scholars inside and outside Germany. This author argues that German liberalism failed because of the irreconcilable conflict between two competing visions of German identity. In following the German liberal parties from the Empire through the Third Reich Kurlander illustrates convincingly how an exclusionary racist Weltanschauung, conditioned by profound transformations in German political culture at large, gradually displaced the liberal-universalist conception of a democratic Rechtsstaat. Although there were some notable exceptions, this widespread obsession with racial community Volksgemeinschaft caused the liberal parties to succumb to ideological lassitude and self-contradiction, paving the way for National Socialism.
Heritage Languages: In the 'Wild' and in the Classroom
Heritage speakers are people raised in a home where one language is spoken who subsequently switch to another dominant language. The version of the home language that they have not completely acquired – heritage language – has only recently been given the attention it deserves from linguists and language instructors. Despite the appearance of great variation among heritage speakers, they fall along a continuum based upon the speakers’ distance from the baseline language. Such a continuum-based model enables researchers and instructors to classify heritage speakers more accurately and readily. This article discusses the results of research on lower-proficiency speakers, identifying recurrent features of heritage languages in phonology, morphology, and syntax. Preliminary results indicate that different heritage languages share a number of structural similarities; this finding is important for the understanding of general processes involved in language acquisition. The article also presents implications of the main findings for language education and identifies areas needing further study.