The Democratic Language Policy of Plurilingual Code-switching: A Comparative Study across Minority Language Communities

The complex linguistic scenario in present-day Italy is still not fully acknow l - edged by an appropriate provision of democratic language policies promoting minority languages alongside Italian as the official language of the country. Nevertheless, the concept of language policy cannot be restricted to institu-tional provisions alone as it also encompasses the language practices and be-liefs of all the minority communities present on the national territory. This key aspect allows for a major democratization of language policy and for its pro-motion at grassroots level. This paper advocates the importance of conduc t-ing research on the specific language practice of plurilingual code-switching (PCS) across standard and non-standard varieties, and also on disclosing re-lated beliefs held by minority community members. In this light, an empirical survey was conducted across three minority communities in the southern Ita-lian region of Calabria, namely, Albanian, Occitan, and Filipino. Data was co l- lected on sample informants’ attitudes towards PCS and on their acceptability judgments, based on the criteria of the integrated model of PCS we propose. Findings from the comparative analysis generally highlight positive attitudes towards PCS, although noticeable differences in terms of language practices and beliefs were found across the three communities. The study thus contrib-utes to highlighting the importance of adopting a bottom-up approach to be t-ter promote democratic language policies as it discloses the policies of single communities, which can inform institutional language policymakers.