ISSN: 2158-7051 ==================== INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES ==================== ISSUE NO. 9 ( 2020/2 ) |
THE SOFT POWER OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE, By Ayse Dietrich*,
Published by: Routledge, New York. Edited by Arto Mustajoki, Ekaterina Protassova
and Maria Yelenevskaya, Year of Publishing: 2020.
Subject Area: Russian Language. Book
Type: Sociolinguistics. Total Number of Pages: 261. ISBN: 9780367183660, £120.00, Hardcover.
This collaborative work examines
the socio-linguistic situations of the Russian language and its status outside
the Russian Federation, or, as the authors put it, the Near and
Far Abroad.[1] The pluricentric trends that involve
political, ideological and socio-economic power, and the intensified
centrifugal tendencies in the development of Russian on the territory of
ex-Soviet states are also analyzed.
The book consists of four
chapters. Each chapter is composed of several articles
(twenty-one) that complement one another.
Part I In
“Russian
as a Communicative Tool: lingua franca, intermediator or something else?”, the
authors examine a number of issues. These range from concerns about increasing
language contacts due to wide-scale migrations that have resulted in bilingual
societies; language policies implemented according to the needs of a
multilingual society; and the promotion of linguistic rights by interest groups
and NGOs. The authors explain how the White Wave of Russian émigrés adjusted to
their new lives, or lived like a strangers till the
end of their lives, and the significant impact they left in many countries
since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
This Chapter is completed
by an historical analysis of the internalization of the Russian language during
the Soviet Union and discusses how language policies differed from one
territory to another; the process of alphabet change and the problem of
alphabet choice which is directly connected to the political and cultural
orientation of the state; how linguistic
norms are determined by the authorities as top-down policies and whether they
are democratic or antidemocratic; the radical changes witnessed in language
practice; the massive influx of loanwords which threatens the vitality of
Russian language; the expansion of brutal and colloquial lexicons; whether
systematic normalization measures are being taken by the former Soviet states
and whether the former states have created an inherent natural norm; and,
finally, whether the situation is different in the countries where Russian is
heavily influenced by the surrounding society and languages.
Part 2 “The Russian-language legacy” examines the
official language policies in the post-Soviet countries and the use and the
status of the Russian language. These countries include the Caucasus states:
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan; the Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania;
the Slavic states: Belarus, Ukraine; and the Central Asian states: Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan. After giving a short historical perspective, the authors discuss
the current language policies in each country.
Part 3,
“The Russian speaking
diaspora” is concerned with the
Russian-speaking diaspora living in European countries such as France, Germany,
and Finland; Canada, South America and the USA. Each author deals with the
history of Russian immigration, the attitudes toward Russian, the acquisition
and maintenance of Russian and its use in education, the role of the internet
and the role of the communication networks. This chapter also discusses the Russian dialects spoken by the Old Believers
who were quite successful in preserving their language outside of Russia.
Part 4, “New trends in the functioning of the
Russian language” talks about how Russianness
was an effective tool to strengthen the cultural and linguistic bond between
former Soviet citizens and hold the Russian-speaking diasporas around the world
together. It focuses on the importance of family interactions for language
maintenance and discusses how parents transmit their language to their children
by providing a comparative analysis of the situation in Cyprus and Sweden. This
chapter ends with an article that examines current Russian language teaching,
problems and methods in Japanese high schools.
The book is a well-written and well-referenced collaborative work
that presents a broad analysis of the historical
developments of the
socio-linguistic situations of the Russian language and its status outside the
Russian Federation. The
primary audience for this reference book are
researchers who are interested in the field of Russian language history, and
language teaching. This book complements previous studies written on language
politics and policies towards Russian and the issues of diaspora communities.
[1]Political terms Near Abroad describes
the family of socialist states that are now independent and emerged after the dissolution
of the Soviet Union, and the term Far Abroad
describes Central and Eastern European countries.
*Ayse Dietrich - Professor, Part-time, at Middle East Technical University, Department of History, and Eurasian Studies. Editor and the founder of the International Journal of Russian Studies e-mail: editor@ijors.net, dayse@metu.edu.tr, dietrichayse@yahoo.com
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