VII EDISO Symposium

Yvette Bürki is a Titular professor at the Instituto de Lengua y Literaturas Hispánicas of the Universität Bern (Switzerland) where she heads the Linguistics section. Her research fields focus on critical sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, and sociocultural linguistics. She works on peripheral varieties of Spanish, as well as semiotic and discursive manifestations of minoritized ethno-linguistic groups, focusing on linguistic identities and ideologies. She has published numerous chapters and journal articles, as well as thematic issues, such as Variedades olvidadas del español (2016, with Laura Morgenthaler García, Ruhr-Universität Bochum), Desafíos metodológicos en la sociolingüística hispánica actual (2020, with Caroline Patzelt, Universität Bremen), and Actores humanos en las políticas y planificaciones lingüísticas. Agencia, ideología y prácticas (2023 with Anik Nandi, Woxen University). Her recent publications focus on Spanish as a heritage language and on language policies of Spanish-speaking and/or bilingual families in German-speaking Switzerland.

The researcher and professor Agurtzane Elordui works on the field of Sociolinguistic applied to the media. She teaches on language and communication at the degrees and masters of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication. Her research interests are focused on sociolinguistics and media discourse studies. Her current research interests include language ideologies, minority languages, multilingual practices in social media, stylization in audio-visual discourse and performance, and sociolinguistic and ideological change among Basque youth. Nowadays she is a member of the NOR Research Group (IT881-16). Within that research group, and in collaboration with the University of Navarre and the CNRS of France (University of Bayonne), shehas been the principal researcher of the Project 'Gaztesare, Multilingualism and glocal identities among Basque youth in the social networks', 2018-22. Today she leads the project 'Youth Voices: youth culture, Basque and linguistic ideologies' and she is responsible for the Basque Country of the project' Estandarev. Revision of linguistic standardization: mediatization, vernacularization and linguistic ideologies in contemporary Spain'.

Ph.D. in Second Language Acquisition (Carnegie Mellon University), Associate Professor in the Department of Social Studies of Language (Institute of Linguistics, FHCE, Universidad de la República, Uruguay). He leads the research group “Discourse Analysis in Society” and is a Level II Researcher in the National Researcher System (ANII, Uruguay). His research focuses on critical discourse analysis, ethnographic approaches to discourse, and multimodality.

I graduated in Social Sciences and Communication (UPV/EHU) in the early 1990s, a time that coincided with my journey toward becoming fluent in Basque. This period marked the beginning of my research into various phenomena related to language. A milestone in this three-decade trajectory was completing my doctoral thesis under the supervision of Teresa Del Valle, whose mentorship steered my interests toward the anthropology and ethnography of language, and strengthened my commitment to feminist theory and methodology. Language(s) and feminism(s) are the two core pillars of my research and teaching practice, applied across diverse areas of study. Among the most recent are the analysis of bertsolarism (the Basque tradition of improvised poetry) and work with young Basque speakers - the latter in collaboration with Jaime Altuna Ramirez. Additionally, since 2020, I have been involved in the EquiLing project, which aims at developing critical sociolinguistics. Although I have published in Spanish and English, I consider myself part of a “situated” scientific community that produces knowledge in Basque.

Virginia Unamuno is the principal researcher of CONICET and a full professor of Sociolinguistic Studies at the National University of San Martín (Argentina), where she also directs the Center for Language Studies in Society (CELES). After over a decade working in Catalonia, she has conducted research since 2010 in the province of Chaco (Argentina) in collaboration with indigenous teachers and institutions. She is a specialist in multilingualism studies from various perspectives, and is currently focused on indigenous agency in the creation of language policies through ethnographic and collaborative approaches. She has published books and articles in specialized journals, including “Lenguas, diversidad y escuela”, “Usos i competències multilingües entre escolars d’origen immigrant” (co-edited with Luci Nussbaum); “Prácticas y repertorios plurilingües en Argentina” (co-edited with Angel Maldonado); “Lenguaje y educación” y “Hablar lenguas indígenas hoy” (co-edited with Carolina Gandulfo and Héctor Andreani).