Russian in Latvia: an outlook for bilingualism in a post-Soviet transitional society

被引:5
|
作者
Dilans, Gatis [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Texas San Antonio, Coll Educ & Human Dev, Div Bicultural Bilingual Studies, San Antonio, TX 78249 USA
关键词
L1/L2; language and nationalism; post-Soviet Latvia; Russian; societal bilingualism; LANGUAGE;
D O I
10.1080/13670050802149481
中图分类号
G40 [教育学];
学科分类号
040101 ; 120403 ;
摘要
What makes people, in shifting power positions of a post-independence period, plan on disusing an already known L2 or learn a new L2? What are the reasons for such shifts and what outcomes can, therefore, be predicted for the future of societal bilingualism surviving alongside ongoing efforts at monolingual unification in a newly independent nationstate? In my paper, I examine Russian in Latvia, and also societal bilingualism in the country in terms of L1/L2 users, language-minority education, competitiveness and language policy, couched in a discussion of various theoretical perspectives on language and nationalism. The Baltic republic, which re-established its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has retained a legacy of not only a substantial proportion of the Russian-speaking population who are now learning Latvian as their L2, but also even a slightly greater number of Russian-speaking non-Russians (i.e. Latvians and other ethnic minorities) who had an obligation to acquire and use Russian as their L2 during the Soviet era.
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页码:1 / 13
页数:13
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