Globalisation and national communities of communication

Abstract

Using the work of Dante to provide a historical perspective, this paper discusses the connection between nations, states and languages. Dante practiced both policy and cultivation approaches and, as a language strategist, he had a profound impact on the language directions of fourteenth-century Italy. By introducing the questione della lingua Dante set the terms of language debate in Italian public life and established himself as a language planner, and as a theorist of nationality and linguistic nationalism. Today, urbanisation, progressive aggregation of populations into larger identity groupings and the globalisation of economies appear to have led to a contraction in the vitality of many..