Attitudes towards the languages ​​of Ukrainians of various ethnic origins during the full-scale war

Abstract

The article reveals the peculiarities of attitudes towards the Ukrainian and Russian languages by Ukrainians of different ethnic origins based on their language biographies. It has been shown that attitudes towards language are dynamic. They have been forming and changing throughout a person’s life, primarily under the influence of such factors as social and historical events, language environment, education, close people, and psychological aspects. The language biography of an Azerbaijanian male illustrated the effect of the language environment and close people on his attitude towards the Ukrainian language. The language biographies of female respondents of Russian origin, as well as a female respondent of Armenian-Ukrainian origin with Russian as her mother tongue, demonstrated the influence of education, psychological and socio-political factors (The Revolution of Dignity 2013—2014, the Russian war against Ukraine (since 2014), and the full-scale invasion in 2022). Attitudes toward languages are linked to the socio-political circumstances in which a person lives. The environment or events affect a person’s emotions, which in turn influence attitudes toward languages. Representatives of the Russian ethnic group are experiencing a difficult time during the Russian aggression in Ukraine. They have an internal conflict; on the one hand, they are beginning to use the Ukrainian language more, but on the other hand, Russian continues to be part of their ethnic identity and the dominant language of communication. At the same time, we see different levels of rejection of everything related to the Russian aggressor: condemnation of the aggressor’s actions, refusal of Russian literature, and language shift from Russian to Ukrainian. Keywords: language attitudes, sociolinguistics, bilingualism, Ukrainian, Russian, Russian war against Ukraine.