Abstract
In our introductory article, we outline the main sociolinguistic features of Russian as a heritage language of post-Soviet immigrants in European settings and beyond. We offer a general overview of the evolution of Russian as a global language, with a particular focus on its geodemographics and economic and social value as a lingua franca . Based on this, we analyse the main principles defining the maintenance of Russian as a language of migration and as a heritage language in different countries, and emphasise the most important questions that still need to be addressed in this field of research. The main objective of this special issue is to combine the most recent research on the vitality of different languages of post-Soviet republics in new political milieu, with a particular focus on European and Asian countries, but there are other objectives as well. We propose to explore the factors that have either favoured or hindered the maintenance and transmission of languages of post-Soviet immigrants and repatriates, and how these sociolinguistic processes become evident in language vitality on both private and public levels. Our special issue primarily addresses the questions of family language policy, new language contacts and their management, and linguistic landscape in heritage speakers, diasporas and their new settings in Europe, Asia and the US.
Highlights
The sociolinguistic situation of languages of the post-Soviet states, both as national and heritage languages, has been dynamic and highly heterogeneous in the past three decades
It is difficult to estimate how many speakers of the Russian language live outside Russia, and the first obstacle to determining this is the variety of terms that are used in referring to them
The linguistic outcome became multi-layered: while some postSoviet migrants formed large communities of ex-pats, which favoured heritage language maintenance, use and new-place vitality, many others integrated into their host societies and/or assimilated culturally and linguistically, leaving their heritage language behind
Summary
The sociolinguistic situation of languages of the post-Soviet states, both as national and heritage languages, has been dynamic and highly heterogeneous in the past three decades. The situation of Russian in the worldwide arena may be described in Pavlenko’s (2015: 387) definition of languages as commodities, i.e. their role as market values: “(t)he corollary of this trend is a shift from the discourses of ‘pride’ that tie languages to identities, territories, and nation-states to the discourses of ‘profit’ that frame languages in economic terms as commodities useful for production of resources.” It is the second new function of Russian, which deserves deeper attention because of its dynamics and direct effect on the understanding of the sociolinguistic value of the language. One of the most challenging issues relates to the understanding of social and psycholinguistic aspects that drive its maintenance in immigrant families and among groups of ex-pats from different post-Soviet states These countries themselves are important subjects of sociolinguistic analysis, since different approaches to national language policies have given rise to highly heterogeneous status levels of Russian and its presence in linguistic milieux. The contributors discuss different sociolinguistic variables which drive first-generation migrants to transmit or not to transmit their native languages to second-generation speakers; the peculiarities of identity construction in different generations of migrants; phenomena which characterise language choice and heritage language systems in successive generations; and the visibility of migrant languages in such settings as a linguistic landscape
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