In this presentation, Britta Schneider will examine the complex social-indexical functions that languages can perform in multilingual contexts characterized by complex social relations. Schneider's aim is to understand how language categories emerge and what their social functions are, in order to critically question Western concepts of language as a priori entities.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Belize in Central America, she examines how speakers negotiate language boundaries where linguistic structures, especially between Belizean Kriol and English, are densely intertwined. Kriol exhibits multiple social indexicalities, simultaneously indexing national identity, transnational postcolonial resistance, and class-based positioning. Schneider argues that these overlapping social indexical functions contribute to the blurring of structural linguistic distinctions. Nevertheless, English and Kriol as language categories continue to be socially meaningful, with constructions of belonging and prestige, and the way language is materialized, maintaining language boundaries. Her findings suggest that despite linguistic codes fusing in actual interaction, processes of social differentiation can maintain distinct linguistic categories. Given their fluid nature, she refers to these as liquid languages.

This study contributes to theoretical discussions on how linguistic and social boundaries emerge dialectically, and to our general understanding of what constitutes a language.

Bio:
Britta Schneider works at University of Vienna and studies language ideologies, that is, how people conceptualize language and how these ideas shape social life. She explores how languages and social boundaries emerge together, and how practices such as speaking, writing, and digital communication contribute to the creation of meaning and shared conventions, as well as the formation of social communities. Through her work, she aims to question monolingual standard language epistemologies and to understand how language ideologies change in relation to evolving technological practices.