Promoting public communication in Basque: The “Jendaurrean Erabili” Practice Community

Basque language revitalisation and normalisation policies and initiatives are in a period of change. The necessity to go beyond knowledge has spread progressively in policies and social initiatives to support the effective use of the Basque language. In this context, public communication has a strategic importance and for this reason the Basque Sociolinguistics Cluster and the University of the Basque Country cooperated on a research project and action at the end of 2015 called the Jendaurrean Erabili Praktika Komunitatea. The main goal of the project has been basically to establish a practice community for promotion of the public use of the Basque language. In this paper we explain: 1) the sociolinguistic context and the political-ideological framework of the project and of the intervention; 2) why, for what purpose and how the practice community has been used as a method; 3) the adaptation and development of the practice community; and 4) the upcoming challenges derived from the results obtained to date.
Keywords: practice community, Basque language promotion, public use of Basque.