Resumen de The construction of an ”outsider’s” voice by low-proficiency speakers of an Albanian variety (Arvanítika) in Greece: language and ideology

Lukas D. Tsitsipis

• Arvanitika spoken in Greece, a variety ofTosk Albanian, nowfaces attrition.

  The sociolinguistic profile of Greek-Arvanitika Speakers reveals the emergence of a group of Iow-proficiency Speakers of the language. These lowproficiency, or terminal, Speakers, despite reduced linguistic competence in the threatened language, manipulate various discursive-generic conventions in order to express their linguistic ideology. As a social group caught in the middle of contradictions, Iow-proficiency Speakers have to maintain good relations with both the local Community and the wider matrix society.

  As a result, they construct an "outsider's" voice that satisfies the requirements imposedon them by their precarious sociolinguistic condition. Recent work in the study of leaky boundaries and language and ideology provides helpful methodological and theoretical tools for the investigation of language-shift-related phenomena.