Abstract
After the changes in the socio-political situation in many countries of Eastern and Central Europe in the last decade of the 20th century, these countries experienced a major growth of emigration. In the context of the European Union, Lithuania is one of the countries that has faced the highest rates of emigration. The quick and somewhat sporadic emigration mainly for economic reasons is of interest both to linguists and language policy makers in order to support and give guidelines for the maintenance of the heritage language and identity. This paper deals with the data of the new post-Soviet wave of Lithuanian emigrants analysing the language behaviour and language attitudes. The aim is to look into the issues of language attitudes, practices and identity through the tripartite theoretical model - beliefs, emotions and declared language practices - of this wave and to compare it to the overall context of Lithuanian diaspora. The data analysed in this paper has been collected using quantitative (online surveys) and qualitative methods (in-depth interviews) in two research projects in the Lithuanian diaspora in 2011-2017. The main focus is on the use of the heritage Lithuanian language in various domains (home, community, friendship, church), comparing the use of Lithuanian by the post-Soviet emigrants with the language behaviour of the emigrants of earlier emigration waves. The results show equally positive beliefs and affective attitudes of the post-Soviet emigrants compared to previous waves, but a different language behaviour especially when comparing to the emigrants of the end of World War II.
Highlights
After the changes in the socio-political situation in many countries of Eastern and Central Europe in the last decade of the 20th century, these countries experienced a major growth of emigration
The complex structure of the Lithuanian diaspora permits the comparison of language attitudes of different emigration waves and gives the possibility to get insight into the way attitudes are related to the declared language behaviour
The Lithuanian language is used by the majority of Lithuanians of the new emigration wave in various domains
Summary
After the changes in the socio-political situation in many countries of Eastern and Central Europe in the last decade of the 20th century, these countries experienced a major growth of emigration. Researchers study Lithuanian communities in various countries of the world, some of them founded at the end of the 19th century, and analyse different aspects of emigration. The complex structure of the Lithuanian diaspora permits the comparison of language attitudes of different emigration waves and gives the possibility to get insight into the way attitudes are related to the declared language behaviour. The research questions of the paper are: what are the language attitudes of numerous post-Soviet emigration waves; how they are related to the language behaviour; and what are the differences or similarities of this wave of emigration in comparison with the earlier ones. Within the tripartite model of language attitudes, the paper analyses the overt language attitudes through the lens of the cognitive and affective dimensions combined and studies the language behaviour in different domains
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