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Examines the material culture of Russian-speaking migrants
Exploring Russian as a pluricentric language, this book provides a panoramic view of its use within and outside the nation and discusses the connections between language, politics, ideologies, and cultural contacts. Russian is widely used across the former Soviet republics and in the diaspora, but speakers outside Russia deviate from the metropolis in their use of the language and their attitudes towards it. Using country case studies from across the former Soviet Union and beyond, the contributors analyze the unifying role of the Russian language for developing transnational connections and show its value in the knowledge economy. They demonstrate that centrifugal developments of Russian an...
The notion of the native speaker and its undertones of ultimate language competence, language ownership and social status has been problematized by various researchers, arguing that the ensuing monolingual norms and assumptions are flawed or inequitable in a global super-diverse world. However, such norms are still ubiquitous in educational, institutional and social settings, in political structures and in research paradigms. This collection offers voices from various contexts and corners of the world and further challenges the native speaker construct adopting poststructuralist and postcolonial perspectives. It includes conceptual, methodological, educational and practice-oriented contribut...
Exploring Russian as a pluricentric language, this book provides a panoramic view of its use within and outside the nation and discusses the connections between language, politics, ideologies, and cultural contacts. Russian is widely used across the former Soviet republics and in the diaspora, but speakers outside Russia deviate from the metropolis in their use of the language and their attitudes towards it. Using country case studies from across the former Soviet Union and beyond, the contributors analyze the unifying role of the Russian language for developing transnational connections and show its value in the knowledge economy. They demonstrate that centrifugal developments of Russian an...
This book investigates socio-linguistic interactions in different second language (L2) contexts in an effort to identify the trends that lead to the acquisition of sociolinguistic variations by L2 learners, contributing significantly to L2 research and practice. It addresses sociolinguistic subjects such as multilingualism and its effects, as well as regional and social dialectology in L2. The different chapters explore the overall effect that society – including cultural norms, expectations, and contexts – has on L2 usage. They also consider how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables such as ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, and age, and how these variables categorise individuals into social or socioeconomic classes. The volume brings together careful theoretical and empirical research conducted in different countries, including Catalonia, Finland, Greece, Malta, Malaysia, the Republic of Cyprus, and the United Arab Emirates.
In today’s world where other cultures are being tapped to a greater extent than ever before, the processes of mixing and matching are especially relevant in making sense of Russia. Not only do borrowing and assimilation, interaction between the familiar and the alien, constitute a venerable tradition in Russian culture, but during the two last post-Soviet decades a notable Western influence has become apparent. This book provides means for understanding Russianness in this new situation. By bringing together Russian and Western, eminent and younger scholars it provides insights both from inside and outside. By extending its perspectives to three fields – linguistics, cultural studies, and social sciences – it covers different dimensions of creative misunderstandings , hybrids, tensions and other modes of adaptation in the Russian culture. By offering concrete case studies it avoids easy stereotypes, deconstructs clichés, problematizes accepted truths, and identifies points of interaction between Russia and the West.
In this book the expert international contributors attempt to answer questions such as: How far is it possible to attribute change in contemporary Russia as due to cultural factors? How does the process of change in cultural institutions reflect the general development of Russia? Are there certain philosophical ideas that explain the Russian interpretation of a modern state? This edited volume elaborates on processes of Russian modernisation regarding a wide range of factors, including the use of modern technology, elements of civil society, a reliable legal system, high levels of education, equality among citizens, freedom of speech, religion and trade. The main focus is on the Putin era bu...
In this volume, the editors aim to offer a timely focus on preschool bilingual education in the 21st century by drawing attention to the following trends: (1) the diversity of language models and their hybrid, dynamic and flexible nature; (2) the complexities of children's linguistic backgrounds; (3) children's, parents' and teachers' agencies in interaction; and (4) early bilingual development and education as contextually embedded. Given the complexity of providing a global and comprehensive view of these trends in just one issue, the selection of studies included here seeks to offer insightful consideration of these trends using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods. The contrib...
In the era of globalization, issues of international and intercultural communication in different professional areas become even more acute. There is a growing demand to increase the efficiency of higher learning educational programs, called upon to enhance second or foreign language communicative competence of would-be specialists. Yet the existing methods of teaching a foreign or second language are far from being satisfactory in terms of expected efficiency. This is symptomatic of a general methodological problem: we lack holistic understanding of how natural language shapes the cognitive domain of human interactions. Orthodox linguistic science is based on a premise that language is a to...
This is the first international and interdisciplinary handbook to offer a comprehensive and an in-depth overview of findings from contemporary research, theory, and practice in early childhood language education in various parts of the world and with different populations. The contributions by leading scholars and practitioners are structured to give a survey of the topic, highlight its importance, and provide a critical stance. The book covers preschool ages, and looks at children belonging to diverse ethno-linguistic groups and experiencing different histories and pathways of their socio-linguistic and socio-cultural development and early education. The languages under the scope of this ha...