Introduction

In our attempt to understand the complex and multiple functions of language in the highly diversified sociolinguistic space (or ‘linguascape’: Coupland 2003) of central Europe, combining diachronic and synchronic perspectives, we will necessarily draw on a wide range of information sources and theoretical influences. However, at the heart of our discussion will be an investigation not so much of language contact or multilingual practices, of the relationships between languages and their speakers, as of different ways in which people engage with ideas about language at many different levels. Our principal object of study will be what we shall refer to as discourses on language in social life, and our aim will be to show how an understanding of the web of linguistic functions depends on an analysis of the interconnectedness of discourses on language and on a recognition that these operate simultaneously on different scales (from the most macro to the most micro), on different planes (from the most public to the most private) and in different spheres of behaviour (from policy to practice) (see Blommaert 2003, 2005). We will also try to show how this multi-dimensional discursive process creates, expands and contracts the space(s) available for people to develop a sense of self and to enact, negotiate and defend individual and social identities.