The Ukrainian language in the polylingual space of Transcarpathia

Abstract

This article explores trends in language policies in the Transcarpathian region during 1991–2020 within the general Ukrainian sociopolitical context. It is argued that the status of the Ukrainian language as the state language in the region has become strengthened as evidenced by recent developments in language planning and language policy, including the adoption of the Law “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Lan-guage as the Official Language”. However, the manipulation of the language question in Ukraine, especially in the border regions, has taken on a political character, spreading beyond the borders of the state, threatening the constitutional order and the state sovereignty of Ukraine, in particu-lar in education, economics, and legal sphere. In Transcarpathia, a multi-ethnic border region in the extreme west of Ukraine, warrants attention of both scholars and politicians. This article looks into the changes in the Ukrainian language policies in the local state administration, and the importance of the Ukrainian president office in this regard. Specific features of the linguo-political situation in Transcarpathia, viewed at different periods of its development from the independence of Ukraine in 1991 on-ward, are presented. This study determines the role of the media in shaping a regional linguo-political situation, including the Internet media language space. The paper provides data of a comprehensive analy-sis of the results of the 2017–2019 external independent evaluation as an indicator of language competence of the participants of EIE, the results of research on the perception of educational language innovations in the region through a survey of different categories of respondents during 2018, the monitoring of experimental experience in implementing elements of multilingual edu-cation in educational institutions in Ukraine, particularly in Transcarpathia. The author outlines prospects for continued research in the framework of the project “Debat ing Linguistic Diversity: Managing National Minority Languages in Ukraine and Russia” (2020–2023). Keywords: language policy, language situation, state language, mother tongue, minority language, multilingual education, mass media.