Contesting linguistic legitimacy: the case of Silesian in Poland

Abstract

This paper examines political debates on the recognition of Silesian as a regional language in Poland. Drawing on qualitative and corpus-assisted analysis, it considers parliamentary bills, debates, and presidential vetoes to study how the linguistic legitimacy of Silesian is constructed and contested. The findings show that competing arguments draw on shared themes, including the language–dialect distinction, language endangerment, linguistic human rights, and language ideologies (standard, nationalist, and purist). While proponents justify recognition on legal, cultural, and social grounds, aligned with international frameworks, opponents challenge it by reinforcing dominant understandings of national identity and language through strategies of absences, reframing, and recontextualisation. The study demonstrates that debates on Silesian extend beyond classification to broader questions of minority language recognition and identity politics, with debates on language functioning as a proxy for broader ideological divisions.