Sociolinguistic Transition in Former Eastern Bloc Countries

This volume offers empirical perspectives on the current sociolinguistic situations in former Eastern Bloc countries. Its seventeen chapters analyse phenomena such as language choice, hierarchies and ideologies in multilingualism, language policies, minority languages in new legal, educational, business and migratory contexts, as well as the position of English in the region. The authors use various methodological approaches - including surveys, discourse analyses, descriptions and analyses of linguistic landscapes, and ethnography - in order to deal with sociolinguistic issues in eight countries and seven regions, from Brandenburg, Germany, in the West to Sakhalin, Russia, in the East.

Autorentext

Marián Sloboda is Assistant Professor at the Department of Central European Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.

Petteri Laihonen is Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Applied Language Studies, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Anastassia Zabrodskaja is Professor of Estonian as a Second Language at Tallinn University and Senior Research Fellow in Sociolinguistics at the University of Tartu, Estonia.

Inhalt

Contents: Petteri Laihonen/Anastassia Zabrodskaja/Marián Sloboda: What transition, which sociolinguistics? - Ekaterina Gruzdeva: Treasure Island at the turn of the millennium: The socioeconomic and sociolinguistic situation on Sakhalin, Russia - Hector Alos i Font: The Chuvash language in the Chuvash Republic: An example of the rapid decline of one of Russia's major languages - Nina Dobrushina: Multilingualism in highland Daghestan throughout the 20th century - Verena Mezger: Sociolinguistic transition in a former GDR region: Multilingual Brandenburg and its challenges - Krzysztof Przygonski: Political transformation as a trigger for a sociolinguistic revolution in post-socialist Poland: English and its rising power - Marián Sloboda: Transition to super-diversity in the Czech Republic: its emergence and resistance - Attila Beno/János Pentek: Hungarians in Transylvania: Language policy and mainstream language ideologies in Romania - Jelena Timotijevic: The sociolinguistic transition of the discourse of nationalism in Serbia from Tito to neoliberal crash in the 2000s - Birute Klaas-Lang: State policies and institutional language choice: The vitality of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian in higher education - Meilute Ramoniene/Loreta Vilkiene: Changes in the social value of languages in urban areas of Lithuania, 1990-2010 - Brigita Seguis: Post-Soviet multilingualism: Code-switching in the Polish community in Lithuania - Kadri Koreinik: Multilingualism on the periphery: Valuing languages in south-eastern Estonia - Istvan Csernicsko/Viktoria Ferenc: Transitions in the language policy of Ukraine (1989-2014) - Olga Ivanova: Language situation in post-Soviet Kyiv: Ukrainian and Russian in the linguistic landscape and communicative practices - Sholpan Zharkynbekova/Damira Akynova: Ethnic minorities in Kazakhstan: Analysis of language preferences among high school students - Sholpan Zharkynbekova/Aliya Aimoldina: The role of English language in the context of new language policy implementation in Kazakhstan - Maganat Shegebayev: Linguistic diversity and business communication in today's Kazakhstan.