Pluricentricity in the classroom: the Serbo-Croatian language issue for foreign language teaching at higher education institutions worldwide

Abstract

Abstract The study presented in this article looks at the effects of the changes in national language policies following the break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on teaching the Serbo-Croatian language or a “language which is simultaneously one and more than one” as a foreign language. The study explores how language ideologies and conflicting attitudes towards national standard languages, recorded both within nation-states and across nation-state borders, are understood by teachers in the context of teaching Serbo-Croatian as a foreign language. The article also examines the extent to which these understandings reflect current discussions of pluricentric languages and methods adopted for teaching pluricentric languages as foreign languages.