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In:Italo-Romance Heritage Languages: Multiple approaches
Edited by Eugenio Goria and Margherita Di Salvo
[Studies in Bilingualism 68] 2025
► pp. 199–227

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On the vitality of Sardinian as a heritage language

A corpus-based study

 | University for Foreigners of Siena
 | University of Bergamo
 | University of Bergamo
Published online: 11 September 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sibil.68.09pis
Abstract
This investigation focuses on the analysis of the vitality of Sardinian varieties in migration contexts and discusses the use of corpus linguistics methodologies to highlight the outcomes of language contact phenomena in the heritage scenarios. Despite the recent interest in the Italian heritage languages, this field of research is still unexplored, due to the lack of data resources available to the scientific community. This contribution intends to provide an in-depth description of the features of Heritage Sardinian, focusing on (i) internal linguistics phenomena, (ii) consequences of language contact, (iii) sociolinguistic layering of Heritage Sardinian; (iv) ideological values concerning Heritage Sardinian maintenance. Finally, this work aims at contributing to the studies of theoretical linguistics focused on Sardinian and at showing the potentialities of corpus methodologies for the study of language contact in migration contexts.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sardinian diaspora
  • 3.Corpus description and method of analysis
  • 4.Data discussion and results of the analysis
    • 4.1Internal linguistic phenomena
    • 4.2Contact and sociolinguistic layering of Heritage Sardinian
    • 4.3Ideological values concerning Heritage Sardinian maintenance
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (46)
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