Sociolinguistic Transition in Former Eastern Bloc Countries

Sociolinguistic Transition in Former Eastern Bloc Countries
Author: Marián Sloboda
Publisher: Prague Papers on Language, Society and Interaction / Prager Arbeiten zur Sprache, Gesellschaft und Interaktion
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016
Genre: English language
ISBN: 9783631662724

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.

The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World

The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World
Author: Martin J. Ball
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 992
Release: 2023-07-28
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1000901963

Drawing on examples from a wide range of languages and social settings, The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World was originally the first single-volume collection surveying the current research trends in international sociolinguistics. This new edition has been comprehensively updated and significantly expanded, and now includes more than 50 chapters written by leading authorities and a brand-new substantial introduction by John Edwards. Coverage has been expanded regionally and there is a critical focus on Indigenous languages. This handbook remains a key tool to help widen the perspective on sociolinguistics to readers interested in the field. Divided into sections covering the Americas, Asia, Australasia, Africa, and Europe, the book provides readers with a solid, up-to-date appreciation of the interdisciplinary nature of the field of sociolinguistics in each area. It clearly explains the patterns and systematicity that underlie language variation in use, along with the ways in which alternations between different language varieties mark personal style, social power, and national identity. The Routledge Handbook of Sociolinguistics Around the World is the ideal resource for all students in undergraduate sociolinguistics courses and for researchers involved in the study of language, society, and power.

Language of the Revolution

Language of the Revolution
Author: Eugen Wohl
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 419
Release: 2023-12-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 303137178X

This edited book fills a void in the existing research concerning anti-communist movements in Central and Eastern Europe, outlining the linguistic implications of the cultural, social and political metamorphoses brought about by the (change of) regime. The authors included in this volume approach the topic from a variety of perspectives, but, ultimately, focus on language seen as a fundamental tool for simultaneously subjugating and liberating, concealing and revealing truth, discouraging dissidence and fostering revolt. Readers are invited to discover the linguistic implications of the many shapes and forms that the 1989 anti-communist revolutions took. Equally interesting are the investigations of the revolution aftermath, in the first years of transition to democracy. Perceived as a whole throughout the Cold War (1947-1991), the so-called "Eastern Bloc" managed to reveal its heterogeneity, the singularity of each of its comprising states and the multitude of its internal contrasts, most vividly perhaps, in the manifold manifestations of the 1989 anti-communist fight. This book will be of interest to academics and researchers from various fields, including history, (socio)linguistics, political studies, and conflict studies.

Minorities in the Post-Soviet Space Thirty Years After the Dissolution of the USSR

Minorities in the Post-Soviet Space Thirty Years After the Dissolution of the USSR
Author: Paola Bocale
Publisher: Ledizioni
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2023-03-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 8855268546

When the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, the Russian Federation and the newly independent republics of the Baltics, the Caucasus and Central Asia engaged in redefining their national identity in a challenging regional and global context. The stances and policies towards the minorities living in these countries became part of the striving towards national independence and identity formation. Despite vastly different post-Soviet nation-building trajectories, the development and implementation of state policies towards minorities had similar relevance and importance across the region. Thirty years after the end of the USSR what is the situation of minorities and minority issues in the countries that emerged from that multi-ethnic state?How have the former republics – including Russia dealt with their minorities and minority affairs? To what protection and rights are minority communities entitled to? Studies of the dissolution of the USSR and of nation-building in the independent post-Soviet states have flourished over the past decades. However, despite the relevance of the theme, there is a dearth of specialist publications which address the many issues related to minority communities in the post-Soviet space. This volume attempts to fill this gap by providing a collection of essays covering some of the most relevant aspects of the contemporary status and situation of minorities in the area.

Language Contact in the Territory of the Former Soviet Union

Language Contact in the Territory of the Former Soviet Union
Author: Diana Forker
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2021-06-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 902726001X

The former Soviet Union (USSR) provides the ideal territory for studying language contact between one and the same dominant language (Russian) and a wide range of genealogically and typologically diverse languages with varying histories of language contact. This is the first book that bundles different case studies and systematically investigates the impact of Russian at all linguistic levels, from the lexicon to the domains of grammar to discourse, and with varying types of outcomes such as relatively rapid language shift, structural changes in a relatively stable contact situation, pidginization and super variability at the post-pidgin stage. The volume appeals to linguists studying language contact and contact-induced language change from a broad range of perspectives, who want to gain insight into how one of the largest languages in the world influences other smaller languages, but also experts of mostly minority languages in the sphere of the former Soviet Union.

Multilingualism in the Baltic States

Multilingualism in the Baltic States
Author: Sanita Lazdiņa
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 515
Release: 2018-11-03
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 113756914X

This edited collection provides an overview of linguistic diversity, societal discourses and interaction between majorities and minorities in the Baltic States. It presents a wide range of methods and research paradigms including folk linguistics, discourse analysis, narrative analyses, code alternation, ethnographic observations, language learning motivation, languages in education and language acquisition. Grouped thematically, its chapters examine regional varieties and minority languages (Latgalian, Võro, urban dialects in Lithuania, Polish in Lithuania); the integration of the Russian language and its speakers; and the role of international languages like English in Baltic societies. The editors’ introductory and concluding chapters provide a comparative perspective that situates these issues within the particular history of the region and broader debates on language and nationalism at a time of both increased globalization and ethno-regionalism. This book will appeal in particular to students and scholars of multilingualism, sociolinguistics, language discourses and language policy, and provide a valuable resource for researchers focusing on Baltic States, Northern Europe and the post-Soviet world in the related fields of history, political science, sociology and anthropology.

The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class

The Making and Unmaking of the Ukrainian Working Class
Author: Denys Gorbach
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 478
Release: 2024-03-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1805392999

Industrial workers in Ukraine have a complex political lifeworld because their political action aimed at bringing radical social change coexists with a demobilizing stance that condemns all political participation as corrupt. This contradictory attitude to politics defines the character of populist mass mobilizations that shook Ukraine in 2004 and 2014, as well as the electoral overhaul of 2019 and the popular response to the Russian invasion in 2022. Based on three years of fieldwork in the city of Kryvyi Rih, the book focuses on the moral economy that constitutes the working class and structures its relations with other social groups.

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity
Author: Angela Creese
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 547
Release: 2018-02-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1317444671

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity provides an accessible and authoritative overview of this growing area, the linguistic analysis of interaction in superdiverse cities. Developed as a descriptive term to account for the increasingly stratified processes and effects of migration in Western Europe, ‘superdiversity’ has the potential to contribute to an enhanced understanding of mobility, complexity, and change, with theoretical, practical, global, and methodological reach. With seven sections edited by leading names, the handbook includes 35 state-of-the art chapters from international authorities. The handbook adopts a truly interdisciplinary approach, covering: Cultural heritage Sport Law Education Business and entrepreneurship. The result is a truly comprehensive account of how people live, work and communicate in superdiverse spaces. This volume is key reading for all those engaged in the study and research of Language and Superdiversity within Applied Linguistics, Linguistic Anthropology and related areas.

Language Planning in the Post-Communist Era

Language Planning in the Post-Communist Era
Author: Ernest Andrews
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2018-02-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3319709267

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.

Linguistic Choices in the Contemporary City

Linguistic Choices in the Contemporary City
Author: Dick Smakman
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2022-05-22
Genre: Foreign Language Study
ISBN: 1000555437

Linguistic Choices in the Contemporary City focuses on how individuals navigate conversation in highly diversified contexts and provides a broad overview of state of the art research in urban sociolinguistics across the globe. Bearing in mind the impact of international travel and migration, the book accounts for the shifting contemporary studies to the workings of language choices in places where people with many different backgrounds meet and exchange ideas. It specifically addresses how people handle language use challenges in a broad range of settings to present themselves positively and meet their information and identity goals. While a speaker’s experience runs like a thread through this volume, the linguistic, cultural and situational focus is as broad as possible. It runs from the language choices of Chinese immigrants to Beijing and Finnish immigrants to Japan to the use of the local lingua franca by motor taxi drivers in Ngaoundéré, Cameroon, and how Hungarian students in their dorm rooms express views on political correctness uninhibitedly. As it turns out, language play, improvisation, humour, lies, as well as highly marked subconscious pronunciation choices, are natural parts of the discourses, and this volume provides numerous and extensive examples of these techniques. For each of the settings discussed, the perspective is taken of personalised linguistic and extra-linguistic styles in tackling communicative challenges. This way, a picture is drawn of how postmodern individuals in extremely different cultural and situational circumstances turn out to have strikingly similar human behaviours and intentions. Linguistic Choices in the Contemporary City is of interest to all those who follow theoretical and methodological developments in this field. It will be of use for upper level students in the fields of Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Linguistic Anthropology and related fields in which urban communicative settings are the focus.