27.2878, Review: Sociolinguistics: Ryazanova-Clarke (2014)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-2878. Wed Jul 06 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.2878, Review: Sociolinguistics: Ryazanova-Clarke (2014)

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Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 12:29:46
From: Liubov Baladzhaeva [baladjaeva at gmail.com]
Subject: The Russian Language Outside the Nation

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-4074.html

EDITOR: Lara  Ryazanova-Clarke
TITLE: The Russian Language Outside the Nation
SERIES TITLE: Russian Language and Society
PUBLISHER: Edinburgh University Press
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Liubov Baladzhaeva, University of Haifa

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

‘The Russian Language Outside the Nation’ edited by Lara Ryazanova-Clarke
addresses relatively recent phenomena – Russian language spoken in large
communities outside Russia and the formation and development of multiple new
dialects that are more or less independent of the language of the metropolis.
The breakup of the USSR led to the emergence of both Russian-speaking
communities in the former Soviet countries and numerous immigrant communities
around the world. The book deals with language policies on the micro-level
inside the communities, the policies instituted by the countries the speakers
live in, and the relationship of these communities with the Russian language
spoken in the modern Russia.

Lara Ryazanova-Clarke. “Introduction: The Russian Language, Challenged by
Globalisation.”
The introduction focuses on the new status of Russian as a global language,
spoken by multiple communities around the world. The chapter offers an
overview of the history of the global status of Russian, starting with its
role as lingua franca for the linguistic minorities in the Russian Empire and
the USSR, the emergence of Russian-speaking diasporas in the 20th century, and
the current pluricentric state of Russian which resulted from the divergence
and independent sociolinguistic processes happening in the language
communities. The introduction also presents an overview of the chapters in the
volume.

Part 1: Russian and Its Legal Status

Chapter 1: Michael Newcity. “International Law, Minority Language Rights and
Russian(s) in the ‘Near Abroad’.”

This chapter provides an examination of the current legal status of Russian in
the former Soviet republics and a controversy regarding its position of a
“minority language”, when in many countries it is spoken by the majority of
the population (either natively or as lingua franca). The author also places
Russian in the global context of the legislation on regional and minority
languages of such entities as the UN, Council of Europe, and European Union.
The chapter specifically focuses on the status of Russian in Armenia and
Latvia as representing the two ends of the spectrum of the official policies
towards Russian in the FSU. Armenia is a member of the Council of Europe and
it has a small Russian-speaking minority. Armenian language policies are based
on the European Charter and place Russian among other minority languages of
the state. In Latvia more than a third of population speak Russian natively;
however, the language has no official status in the country and the official
policies towards Russian-speaking residents have been quite controversial.
Recently, when Latvia became the member of the European Union, these policies
started to change and became more favorable toward Russian as a result of the
influence of the European Charter and the European Court of Human Rights. .

Chapter 2: Bill Bowring. “The Russian Language in Ukraine: Complicit in
Genocide, or Victim of State-Building?”

This chapter focuses on the conflict over the legal status of Russian in the
independent Ukraine. While Russian is linguistically quite close to Ukrainian
and almost all the population of Ukraine speaks it either natively or as a
second language, use of Russian has often been seen as a threat to the
political independence of Ukraine and to the vitality of the Ukrainian
language. The author concludes that Russian in Ukraine does not quite fit the
definition of a minority language adopted by the European Charter for Regional
or Minority languages and a different kind of legislation has to be adopted to
regulate its status. 

Part 2: Linguistic Perceptions and Symbolic Values

Chapter 3: Curt Woolhiser. “The Russian Language in Belarus: Language Use,
Speaker Identities and Metalinguistic Discourse.”

The chapter examines the relationship between the actual language use and
language attitudes and identities in Belarus. The author claims that Belarus,
unlike other post-Soviet countries, displays a rather weak link between the
titular language and the national self-identification. Both Russian and
Belarusian are official languages of the state, however, the majority of the
population prefers to use Russian or a mixture of the two in daily life. On
the one hand, many Belarusians believe they also have ownership of the Russian
language and their version is different from the language of the metropolia,
just like  the English of the USA differs from that of the UK. On the other
hand, the idea of the nation-state is becoming increasingly popular, as is
seeing the influence of Russia as a threat to independence; and this results
in more and more people believing that Belarusian should be spoken more widely
in the country.

Chapter 4: Volodymyr Kulyk. “What is Russian in Ukraine? Popular Beliefs
Regarding the Social Roles of the Language.”

This chapter again turns to Russian in Ukraine; however, it looks at it from a
different perspective: not the legal status of the language, but the beliefs
and attitudes of people towards it. The chapter presents a study of focus
group discussions in different regions of Ukraine regarding  language use.
Traditionally, the western part of Ukraine is predominantly
Ukrainian-speaking, while the east and south regions speak mostly Russian.
While the participants in the western Ukraine argued that Ukrainian should be
the sole official language of the state and all citizens should speak it at
some level, they readily accepted that, in daily life, Russian is the main
language of communication for many Ukrainian citizens and it will remain so.
The participants from the east and south argued that Russian has to be granted
 official status alongside Ukrainian; however, they did not want the full
dominance of Russian over Ukrainian. The author concludes, that although the
official discourse tends to present the divide between Russophone and
Ukrainophone ideologies, the majority of people take up a centrist position in
which Ukrainian holds a symbolic status as the national language, while both
languages coexist peacefully in most social domains.

Part 3: Russian-Speaking Communities and Identity Negotiations

Chapter 5: Monica Perotto. “Post-Soviet Russian-Speaking Diaspora in Italy:
Results of a Sociolinguistic Survey.”

In this chapter identities of the Russian-speaking community in Italy are
analyzed. The community is mostly made up of the last immigration wave, people
who moved to Italy after the USSR’s breakup. It includes both Russians and
people of other nationalities who speak Russian either natively or as a second
language. In the sociolinguistic questionnaires most of them stated that they
identify with Russian or Soviet culture. However, Russian language was not the
main part of their identity. The author believes that the reason for this is
the small number of Russian speakers in Italy and the lack of a strong and
unified community: the immigrants tend to assimilate and Italian dominates
many spheres of their lives. Their Russian speech is characterized by multiple
instances of code-switching and borrowing. The author thinks that language
loss and a switch to Italian in future generations are most likely.

Chapter 6: Martin Ehala, Anastassia Zabrodskaja. “Ethnolinguistic Vitality and
Acculturation Orientations of Russian Speakers in Estonia.”

In this chapter, the authors analyze the Russian-speaking community of Estonia
in terms of ethnolinguistic vitality. Based on the questionnaire analysis, the
authors conclude that the community is far from unified. It can be divided
into several subgroups differing from each other in their attitudes towards
Russian language and culture, ranging from very assimilated to those who feel
very strongly about their Russian identity. The researchers suggest that it is
only possible to talk about ethnolinguistic vitality in regard to these
subgroups, but not to the community as a whole, because it is too diverse.
Since there are several groups who tend towards the maintenance of Russian, it
is safe to assume that the language will be present in Estonia, at least in
some segments of the currently Russian-speaking community.

Chapter 7: Claudia Zbenovich. “Linguistic Performance of Russianness among
Russian-Israeli Parents: Child-Raising Practices in the Immigrant Community.”

Zbenovich turns to the parent-child communications in Russian-speaking Israeli
families. She discovers a clash between the Russian (or Soviet) model of
child-rearing and the Israeli one in the relationship between immigrant
parents and their Israeli-born children. Russian child-rearing practices are
considered to be more authoritative and more concerned with “proper” behavior
and showing respect to adults, while Israeli practices place children at the
center and give them much more freedom. Parents use the Russian language to
transmit their cultural values to children and to discuss their differences
with the Israeli culture, while children use Hebrew with their parents to
promote Israeli values and child-rearing practices. 

Part 4: Language Contact and the Globalisation of Russian

Chapter 8: David R. Andrews. “Similarities and Differences between
American-Immigrant Russian of the 1970s and 1980s and Post-Soviet Russian in
the Motherland.”

Andrews compares two situations of Russian-English contact: daily speech of
the Russian-speaking immigrants in the US and English borrowings in the
Russian of Russia. Andrews shows that certain phenomena are only happening in
the speech of immigrants, such as categorical shifts mimicking English
categories, while in other aspects, such as using phonetic and not graphemic
borrowing, modern Russian of Russia is closer to the Russian of immigrants. In
both versions borrowed words become phonologically and morphologically
assimilated. A major difference is that in the Russian of immigrants borrowed
words are mostly used in the same sense and context as in English, while in
Russian they change or acquire additional meanings. 

The Russian of Russia also uses phonemic borrowings from English, while in the
past most borrowings were graphemic or mixed. The study presents a difference
between the processes of a regular language change caused by changes in
culture and a change induced by direct contact with another language.

Chapter 9: Aleksandrs Berdicevskis. “Predictors of Pluricentricity: Lexical
Divergences between Latvian Russian and Russian Russian.”

This chapter provides another argument for Russian as a pluricentric language,
describing the differences between the Russian of Latvia and that of the
metropolis. The author conducts quantitative and qualitative analysis of the
Latvian Russian corpora and concludes that there are multiple lexical
differences from the Russian of Russia. These differences exist not just in
the colloquial speech, but in the high-register varieties as well, such as
newspapers, legislation, documents, and official speeches. He suggests that
these instances point out to the existence of the local standard of the
language, different from the standard of the metropolis, and this standard is
being organically developed and codified, making Latvia an independent center
of Russian language.

Part 5: Globalisation of Russian as Soft Power

Chapter 10: Lara Ryazanova-Clarke. “Russian with an Accent: Globalisation and
the Post-Soviet Imaginary.”

While the previous chapters looked at the versions of Russian being developed
in other countries, this chapter looks at the Russian-language TV channel
‘Mir’ which broadcasts in the FSU countries. The channel is produced in Russia
and one of its main goals is to present Russia as the center and the golden
standard of Russian language and culture. The author analyzes examples of
programs and language practices that conduct this message, such as the
programs on how to speak Russian properly. However, at the same time when
regular speakers are shown in the newscasts and TV-shows, they speak different
varieties of Russian, demonstrating its globalized and pluricentric
tendencies.

EVALUATION

The volume brings an overview of an extremely important topic – development of
new centers of Russian language and new dialects and status of Russian in
different communities in the past decade. The chapters of this volume make an
argument that the versions of Russian in the many communities outside Russia
either already constitute new dialects or are on the way toward developing as
dialects. The chapters also make a case for the possible future development of
a pluricentric Russian similar to English or Spanish, with different standards
in different countries.

The volume presents many different aspects of Russian outside the nation. All
the chapters present high quality research and the introduction connects them
smoothly. However, there might be too much focus on Russian in the Western
(mostly European) countries, while Asian countries (both the FSU and countries
with significant Russian minorities, such as Thailand) get very little if any
attention.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Liubov Baladzhaeva is a PhD student at the University of Haifa. She is
interested in multilingualism, language acquisition and attrition.





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