Language Policy in the Soviet Union
Language Policy in the Soviet Union

Author: L.A. Grenoble

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-04-11

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 0306480832

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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.

The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy
The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy

Author: Bernard Spolsky

Publisher:

Published: 2012-03

Total Pages: 768

ISBN-13:

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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.

The Languages of the Soviet Union
The Languages of the Soviet Union

Author: Bernard Comrie

Publisher: CUP Archive

Published: 1981-06-04

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13:

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A general account of the languages of the Soviet Union, one of the most diverse multinational and multilingual states in the world as well as one of the most important. There are some 130 languages spoken in the USSR, belonging to five main families and ranging from Russian, which is the first language of about 130,000,000 people, to Aluet, spoken only by 96 (in the 1970 census). Dr Comrie has two general aims. First, he presents the most important structural features of these languages, their genetic relationships and classification and their distinctive typological features. Secondly, he examines the social and political background to the use of functioning of the various languages in a multilingual state. The volume will be of importance and interest to linguists and to those with a broader professional interest in the Soviet Union.

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

Published: 2021-06-15

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 902726001X

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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 Soviet Union
Multilingualism in the Soviet Union

Author: E. G. Lewis

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-03-18

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 311081899X

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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.

Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries
Multilingualism in Post-Soviet Countries

Author: Aneta Pavlenko

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1847690874

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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.

The Soft Power of the Russian Language
The Soft Power of the Russian Language

Author: Arto Mustajoki

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-12

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0429592299

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Exploring Russian as a pluricentric language, this book provides a panoramic view of its use within and outside the nation and discusses the connections between language, politics, ideologies, and cultural contacts. Russian is widely used across the former Soviet republics and in the diaspora, but speakers outside Russia deviate from the metropolis in their use of the language and their attitudes towards it. Using country case studies from across the former Soviet Union and beyond, the contributors analyze the unifying role of the Russian language for developing transnational connections and show its value in the knowledge economy. They demonstrate that centrifugal developments of Russian and its pluricentricity are grounded in the language and education policies of their host countries, as well as the goals and functions of cultural institutions, such as schools, media, travel agencies, and others created by émigrés for their co-ethnics. This book also reveals the tensions between Russia’s attempts to homogenize the 'Russian world' and the divergence of regional versions of Russian reflecting cultural hybridity of the diaspora. Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book will prove useful to researchers of Russian and post-Soviet politics, Russian studies, Russian language and culture, linguistics, and immigration studies. Those studying multilingualism and heritage language teaching may also find it interesting.

The Vernaculars of Communism
The Vernaculars of Communism

Author: Petre Petrov

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-17

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1317647475

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The political revolutions which established state socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were accompanied by revolutions in the word, as the communist project implied not only remaking the world but also renaming it. As new institutions, social roles, rituals and behaviours emerged, so did language practices that designated, articulated and performed these phenomena. This book examines the use of communist language in the Stalinist and post-Stalinist periods. It goes beyond characterising this linguistic variety as crude "newspeak", showing how official language was much more complex – the medium through which important political-ideological messages were elaborated, transmitted and also contested, revealing contradictions, discursive cleavages and performative variations. The book examines the subject comparatively across a range of East European countries besides the Soviet Union, and draws on perspectives from a range of scholarly disciplines – sociolinguistics, anthropology, literary and cultural studies, historiography, and translation studies. Petre Petrov is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Texas at Austin. Lara Ryazanova-Clarke is Head of Russian and Academic Director of the Princess Dashkova Russia Centre in the School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh.

Language Policy and Language Issues in the Successor States of the Former USSR
Language Policy and Language Issues in the Successor States of the Former USSR

Author: Sue Wright

Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 100

ISBN-13: 9781853594632

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This book looks at the question of language rights: the rights of minorities to remain monolingual if they so wish and the rights of governments to promote the language of the majority as the language of the state. The central question is once again the thorny problem of whether linguistic rights are fundamental human rights, and therefore inalienable and individual, or whether they are group rights, since communication necessarily involves more than one individual. The context of this discussion is the situation of the Russian speakers in Latvia and Kyrgyzstan.