I am interested in sociolinguistics in general, and Balkan, especially Modern Greek, sociolinguistics in particular.
Modern Greek diglossia has been an old interest of mine. Although diglossia was officially abolished in Greece in 1976, the erstwhile High diglossic mode, katharevousa, has left permanent traces in the lexicon and, to a lesser extent, the grammar of Modern Greek. The influence of katharevousa on the grammar of the erstwhile Low diglossic mode, demotic Greek, has been the main focus of two of my papers, namely Kazazis 1992 and 1993.
I occasionally teach a course for people who already know Modern Greek entitled "Modern Greek Diglossia and Literary Prose." In it I try to teach my students how to identify lexical items that are of learnèd origin (vs. items that were inherited from Ancient Greek without any bookish interference). Students are usually blown away by the sheer number and salience of learnedisms in contemporary urban spoken Greek.
The state of affairs that resulted from the collapse of the communist regime in Albania and the breakup of post-Tito Yugoslavia in the early 1990s have drawn me into areas that have little to do with linguistics -- cf. Kazazis 1994 and forthcoming.
In Kazazis 1994, I examine the issue of national identity among some Greco-Albanians (Arvanites), now that Greece is (the temporary?) home of hundreds of thousands of Albanian economic immigrants. On the whole, Greco-Albanians consider themselves Greeks. Still, national identity is not carved in stone, and it will be interesting to see whether the present state of affairs will persist, in an environment where there are so many "real" Albanians around.
References
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