Gjuha shqipe e deputetëve në Kuvendin e Kosovës
Varieties of Albanian used in the Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo

Summary/Abstract: This paper shall examine the Albanian language used in the Parliament of the Republic of Kosovo in a bid to investigate the use of Albanian language varieties in this institution. The corpus for this paper consists of four selected parliamentary sessions. Official transcripts, but also the recordings, of the sessions will be examined to compare and contrast the spoken and written language in the transcripts. Of special interest will be the spoken language of the members of Parliament. Written speeches (which are read out in the sessions) will not be featured in this paper for the simple reason that they are generally edited/proof-read in advance and this shuts out the varieties of Albanian the people, in this case the MPs, actually speak in Kosovo. For comparison, and to illustrate the phenomenon, besides Albanian language varieties, this paper will examine the varieties of German in the German Bundestag, drawing upon the latter’s transcripts and recordings of parliamentary sessions. The research work that has gone towards completing this paper will expose both the linguistic competence of the Kosovo (and German) parliamentarians, and the different practices of the treatment (the editing process involved) of the spoken language of speakers coming from the major legislative bodies in Kosovo and Germany.

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