THE PRESTIGE OF THE UKRAINIAN LANGUAGE AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS BILINGUALISM IN THE ASSESSMENTS OF DIFFERENT-AGE-GROUP SPEAKERS

Abstract

Introduction. Contemporary language situation in Ukraine is characterized as bilingual one. However, despite the mass character of Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism, the bilingualism in Ukraine is not balanced: less than half of the respondents, who assessed their language competence as fluent ability to use Ukrainian and Russian, possess, during the use of the two languages, the same feeling of easiness, while the other respondents gave advantage of the one over two languages. The difference in amount of people in Ukraine who use language and what they think about their language behaviour and the behaviour of others, is the indicator that points at the distortion of language situation in Ukraine.Purpose. The paper aims at defining the position of different-age-group speakers towards Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism on the basis of the results of sociolinguistic studies and examining the changes in speakers' assessment of language prestige.Methods.Analytical and statistical analyses of sociolinguistic and sociological investigations’ results, published after 2000 and showing the position of respondents to bilingualism and language prestige regarding the age parameter, comprise the main methods of the research.Results. The comparison of the results of sociolinguistic studies from 2006 and 2017 confirmed the growth of the prestige of the Ukrainian language. With regard to the attitude towards the bilingualism, Ukrainian speakers are not of equal opinion. The fact that most of the speakers understand the information in Ukrainian and Russian without any problems does not explicate that many of them are considered to be bilingual. Also, there is no consensus on the assessment of language environment: 44,6 % of respondents consider the inhabitants of their city/town to be bilingual (the „no“ response was chosen by 45,3% of them); the inhabitants of their region – 46,5 % („no“ – 37%); according to almost 53 % of respondents, the inhabitants of Ukraine are bilingual (23% of them do not agree with that opinion). There is a tendency according to which the inhabitants speak Ukrainian, as opposed to those who speak Russian, in relation to self-identification, and they strongly define themselves as monolinguals. Such self-identification is different from the conclusions resulted in previous studies, when larger language stability was more visible in speakers who spoke Russian. The more defined position, when it is about the national language self-identification, is more significant for the youth.Conclusion. The basis for a different assessment of language situation in Ukraine regarding the age, can be found in the attitudes towards language and culture, widespread in the society, that is, the attitude towards the language which is seen as the language prestige. The results of the recent studies have shown a constant tendency of the growth of the prestige of the Ukrainian language.