Russian In Latvia: An Outlook For Bilingualism In A Post-Soviet Transitional Society  

Oleh:

Dilans, Gatis

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Full Text) vol. 12 no. 1 (Jan. 2009), page 1-13.
Topik: L1/L2; language and nationalism; post-Soviet Latvia; Russian; societal bilingualism
Fulltext: Vol. 12, No. 1, January 2009, 1-13.pdf (137.94KB)

Isi artikel

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 Russianspeaking 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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