This bachelor's thesis examines the influence of dialectal background on the academic achievement and subjective academic experience of students at the University of Ljubljana. It draws on the sociolinguistic theories of Basil Bernstein, William Labov, and Pierre Bourdieu, as well as on the concepts of language codes, linguistic cultural capital, standard language ideology and linguistic hegemony. Particular attention is devoted to the Slovenian higher education system, in which RP Slovenian holds the status of the language of instruction, while the issue of dialectal diversity is not specifically addressed in the legislation and policy guidelines examined.
The empirical part is based on qualitative research conducted through semi-structured interviews with students at the University of Ljubljana from different dialectal groups. The study finds that dialectal background does not in itself determine academic achievement, but significantly affects classroom participation, confidence in oral expression, sense of belonging in the academic environment, and perceptions of one’s own academic identity. The most pronounced speech accommodation and the greatest difficulties were reported by members of the Pannonian dialectal group, while the speakers from the Upper Carniolan dialectal group did not perceive their way of speaking as a barrier.
The results indicate that dialectal varieties are not valued equally within the academic environment. Speech accommodation may impose an additional psycho-social burden on students, which becomes particularly evident during the already demanding transition to higher education. The findings therefore support the understanding of language as a form of cultural or linguistic capital and highlight the importance of greater awareness of dialect diversity when creating a more inclusive higher education environment.
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