13.–14.06.2024, Giessen: Workshop Language Ideologies in the Successor States of the USSR – Soviet Legacies and New Developments

Language policy as well as concepts of bilingualism and multilingualism continue to be the subject of intense societal debates in the successor states of the Soviet Union. Here, language ideologies with their references to the Soviet Union on the one hand, and new developments on the other play an important role. To what extent the language ideologies of the successor states of the USSR can be classified as continuity, break, reinterpretation or reorientation in comparison with those of the Soviet Union is the aim of the analyses at the planned workshop.

Language ideologies as “sets of beliefs (or ideas/conceptualizations) about language” (Ajsic / McGroarty (2015, 182), Kroskrity (2010, 192)) have been examined for the past four decades to a greater extent, and various studies have recently emerged investigating “the sum of all values with which linguistic reality is discursively constructed by social actors” (Spitzmüller 2013, 264), how ‘language matters’ and ‘language does not matter’ in wartime (Bilaniuk 2016), how language ideologies vary from the understanding a language as a national and state symbol to the ideology of plurilingualism and internal diversity (Nedashkivska 2020). Language ideology has been broadened “from a marginalized topic to
an issue of central concern” (Kroskrity 2004, 501).

We welcome contributions that deal with theoretical, methodological, or empirical issues about language ideologies or particular case studies in the Soviet Union and/or successor states of the USSR. Diachronic comparative analyses are particularly invited.

Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to, the following:
● language ideologies in synchrony and diachrony;
● key topics of language ideologies in the Soviet Union and/or its successor states;
● language ideologies in nation-building discourses;
● language ideologies and identity constructions;
● the role of language in sociocultural practices of protest;
● language, violence, and language ideologies in conflict/war times;
● language ideologies in education and political discourse;
● language ideologies in both traditional and digital media and mass culture;
● language ideologies and their interrelationships with language policy, language attitudes, language practices, and language beliefs.

Please, send us your abstracts (250-300 words) that thematically address the selected topics and themes outlined above, as well as your short biography (100 words) to email:
Liudmyla.Pidkuimukha@slavistik.uni-giessen.de

The conference will be held on-site (potentially in a hybrid format) at the Justus Liebig University Giessen (Germany).
Organisers: Prof. Dr. Monika Wingender and Dr. Liudmyla Pidkuimukha, JLU Giessen.Selected papers will be published in a thematically arranged volume.

Travelling expenses and accommodation will be covered by the event's organisers. Please find the official document here.