Language Attitudes and Language Ideologies in Eastern Europe

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue focused on language attitudes and ideologies studies in Eastern Europe.

Sociolinguistic research in post-Soviet Eastern Europe mostly focuses on two main aspects: macro-level language policy studies (official status of languages, their use in education and public sphere, their speakers rights, etc.; see, e.g., Pavlenko 2008; Hogan-Brun & Melnyk 2012) and micro-level language practice studies (multilingualism, language contact, family language policies, etc.; Verschik 2008), which can also be conceptualized as studies of language choices on group and individual levels (Spolsky 2004). However, behind all these choices, there are always language attitudes and ideologies, determining whether this or that language or variant is considered to be accepted and welcome in a given society, or not (Irvine & Gal 2000; Garett 2010; Ruth & Lipp 2022). Sociohistorical context is highly relevant in language ideology research, and the language situation in post-Soviet Eastern Europe has distinct features that render it different from both the so-called West and East (Ryabchuk 2010; Verschik 2010). Therefore, it is reasonable to concentrate on a particular region that has many common features (cf. Liddicoat & Baldauf 2008).

The purpose of the proposed Special Issue is to shed light onto language ideologies, language attitudes, and language dynamics in the East European contexts, that is, in societies that have either become independent or restored their independence after the collapse of USSR and language dynamics therein. The impact of Russian full-scaled aggression against Ukraine has definitely affected language attitudes not only in Ukraine itself but in the whole region, and contributions dealing with such topics are welcome as well.

We hope that this Special Issue will not only contribute to the existing field of language ideology studies, but also, by focusing on a specific region sharing common past and historical traumas, will provide a good basis for comparison between different situations and practices, deepening our understanding of them and, on a theoretical level, of mechanisms determining language choices in certain conditions.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors (annave@tlu.ee  and kapitolina.fedorova@tlu.ee). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative Completion Schedule
Abstract Submission Deadline: 15 November 2024 
Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 1 December 2004 
Full Manuscript Deadline: 1 June 2025

References

Garett, Peter. 2010. Attitudes to Language. Cambridge University Press.

Hogan-Brun, Gabrielle and Svitlana Melnyk. 2012. “Language policy management in the former Soviet sphere.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Policy, edited by Bernard Spolsky, p. 592–616. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Irvine, Judith T. and Susan Gal. 2000. “Language ideology and linguistic differentiation.” In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, edited by Paul V. Kroskrity, p. 35–83. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

Kircher, Ruth and Zipp, Lena (eds.).  2022. Research Methods in Language Attitudes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Liddicoat, Anthony J. and Richard B. Baldauf. 2008. “Language planning in local contexts: Agents, contexts and interactions.” In Language Planning in Local Contexts, edited by Anthony J. Liddicoat, and Richard B. Baldauf, p. 3–17. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Pavlenko, Aneta ( ed.). 2008. Multilingualism in the Post-Soviet Countries. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Ryabchuk, Mykola. 2010. The Ukrainian “Friday” and the Russian “Robinson”: the uneasy advent of postcoloniality. Canadian-American Slavic Studies 44, 7-24.

Spolsky, Bernard. 2004. Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Verschik, Anna. 2008. Emerging Bilingual Speech: From Monolingualism to Code-Copying. New York: Continuum.

Verschik, Anna. 2010. Contacts of Russian in the post-Soviet space. Applied Linguistics Review 1, 85-128.

Prof. Dr. Anna Verschik
Prof. Dr. Kapitolina Fedorova
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• language ideology
• language attitudes
• sociolinguistics
• Eastern Europe
• language policy