Multilingualism In Post Soviet Countries

In the past two decades, post-Soviet countries have emerged as a contested linguistic space, where disagreements over language and education policies have led to demonstrations, military conflicts and even secession. This collection offers an up-to-date comparative analysis of language and education policies and practices in post-Soviet countries.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.

The articles collected in this volume address linguistic diversity in Russia and Finland from different perspectives and aim to provide both theoretical and empirical knowledge concerning recently emerged multilingual and multicultural developments. The topics include representations and conceptualisations of multilingualism, the language education of immigrants, the linguistic rights of ethnic minorities, language policy, and ideologies underlying multilingual activities. Linguistic and cultural diversity is approached from different theoretical and methodological perspectives (e.g. discourse analysis, ethnography). The focus is on both micro and macro level phenomena. The articles show how the ideologies that underlie language policies and also various grass-root multilingual practices are conditioned by broader political, historical and socio-cultural contexts.

The Languages of the Former Soviet Republics describes the evolution of each of the languages of the 14 non-Russian Soviet republics paying particular attention to periods of Russification during the Tsarist and Soviet eras. Non-linguistic in content, Gary C. Fouse delves into languages that other authors frequently overlook or ignore, and documents first hand accounts of native-speakers who describe their experiences growing up in a bilingual environment. Targeted toward those interested in the former Soviet Union or language in general, this book will be a tremendous resource for professors and students of Sociolinguistics and Soviet Studies.

This is the first Handbook to deal with language policy as a whole and is a complete 'state-of-the-field' survey, covering language practices, beliefs about language varieties, and methods and agencies for language management. It will be welcomed by students, researchers and language professionals in linguistics, education and politics.

Soviet language policy provides rich material for the study of the impact of policy on language use. Moreover, it offers a unique vantage point on the tie between language and culture. While linguists and ethnographers grapple with defining the relationship of language to culture, or of language and culture to identity, the Soviets knew that language is an integral and inalienable part of culture. The former Soviet Union provides an ideal case study for examining these relationships, in that it had one of the most deliberate language policies of any nation state. This is not to say that it was constant or well-conceived; in fact it was marked by contradictions, illogical decisions, and inconsistencies. Yet it represented a conscious effort on the part of the Communist leadership to shape both ethnic identity and national consciousness through language. As a totalitarian state, the USSR represents a country where language policy, however radical, could be implemented at the will of the government. Furthermore, measures (such as forced migrations) were undertaken that resulted in changing population demographics, having a direct impact on what is a central issue here: the very nature of the Soviet population. That said, it is important to keep in mind that in the Soviet Union there was a difference between stated policy and actual practice. There was no guarantee that any given policy would be implemented, even when it had been officially legislated.

This volume provides an in-depth analysis of the attempts of language experts and governments to control language use and development in Eastern Europe, Eurasia and China through planned activities generally known as language planning or language policy. The ten case studies presented here examine language planning in China, Russia, Tatarstan, Central Asia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and focus in particular on developments and disputes that have occurred since the ‘fall of communism’ and the emergence of a new order in the late 1980s. Its authors highlight the dominant issues with which language planning is invariably intertwined. These include power politics, tensions between ‘official language’ and ‘minority languages’, and the effects of a country’s particular political, social, cultural and psychological environment. Offering a detailed account of the socio-political and ideological developments that underlie language planning in these regions, this book will provide a valuable resource for students and scholars of linguistics, cultural studies, political science, sociology and history.

This volume offers perspectives on the current sociolinguistic situations in former Eastern Bloc countries. Employing various methodological approaches, the authors analyse phenomena such as language choice, hierarchies and ideologies in multilingualism, language policies, minority languages, and the position of English in the region.

What challenges face jurisdictions that attempt to conduct law in two or more languages? How does choosing a legal language affect the way in which justice is delivered? Answers to these questions are vital for the 75 officially bilingual and multilingual states of the world, as well as for other states contemplating a move towards multilingualism. Arguably such questions have implications for all countries in a world characterized by the pressures of globalization, economic integration, population mobility, decolonization, and linguistic re-colonization. For lawyers, addressing such challenges is made essential by the increased frequency and scale of transnational legal dealings and proceedings, as well as by the lengthening reach of international law. But it is not only policy makers, legislators, and other legal practitioners who must think about such questions. The relationship between societal multilingualism and law also raises questions for the burgeoning field of language and law, which posits--among other tenets--the centrality of language in legal processes. In this book, Janny H.C. Leung examines key aspects of legal multilingualism. Drawing extensively on case studies, she describes the implications of the legal, practical, and ideological dilemmas encountered in a given country when it becomes bilingual or multilingual, discussing such issues as: how legal certainty and the linguistic ideology of authenticity may be challenged in a multilingual jurisdiction; how courts balance the language preferences of different courtroom participants; and what historical, socio-political and economic factors may influence the decision to cement a given language as a jurisdiction's official language. Throughout, Leung elaborates a theory of "symbolic jurisprudence" to explore common dilemmas found across countries, despite their varied political and cultural settings, and argues that linguistic equality as proclaimed and practiced today is a shallow kind of equality. Although officially multilingual jurisdictions appear to be more inclusive than their monolingual counterparts, they run the risk of disguising substantive inequalities and displacing real efforts for more progressive social change. This is the first book to offer overarching discussion of how such issues relate to each other, and the first systematic study of legal multilingualism as a global phenomenon.

This collection contributes to emerging work in critical sociolinguistics, using a multidisciplinary and multiscalar approach to understanding the diasporic experience in the Russian-speaking world. The volume expands on research in the sociolinguistics of mobility, multilingualism, and diaspora studies. It critically examines the ways in which transnational Russian identities are perceived and discursively enacted in online and offline spaces, and how this interplay contributes to diasporic identification across the globe. In highlighting a range of critical methodologies at multiple scalar levels − across family, national, and global lines − the book raises key questions about what binds and distinguishes individuals belonging to diverse communities of Russian speakers. It likewise interrogates established notions of memory, nostalgia, authenticity, and belonging, as well as perceptions of futurity and change. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language and education, and linguistic anthropology.