Sociolinguistic Parallels Across Europe

Comparisons of the linguistic situation established by English and Scots in Lowland Scotland with other situations constituted by pairs of closely cognate languages has become a popular approach in the field of Scots studies. Closely cognate East Slavic languages, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian, can provide abundant material for observation in this respect. Four chapters of this book focus on the major historical and sociolinguistic parallels between Scots on the one hand and Ukrainian and Belarusian on the other, and compare the key stages and trends in their social history from the Middle Ages to the present day. Two other chapters deal with the Russian toponyms derived from Scottish personal names in the territory of the former Russian Empire. Such place-names constitute a noteworthy part of the Scottish legacy in Russia. The final chapter considers a striking example of parallel lexical development in Shetland Norn and Old Russian which may shed more light on the universally recognized etymologies.

Introduction -- What Is Similar and What Is Different in the Social Histories of Scots and Ukrainian? -- The Early Soviet Experience of "Ukrainization" as a Reference-point for Today's Scots Language Activists -- The Case of East Slavic Languages in Sociolinguistic Studies of Scots (a Comparative Approach) -- A Belarusian Perspective on Scots and Its Social History -- An Issue of Language Policy for the Post-Soviet Economies: the Case of Ukraine and Belarus -- A Scottish Trace in Russian Toponymy (Focus on: Two Rural Place-names) -- Hamilton-Khomutov: a Toponymic Dimension of a Russified Scottish Family name -- An Index of the Russian Place-names of "Overt" and "Covert" Scottish Origins -- An Alternative Perspective on Early Scandinavian Borrowing into Russian (Introducing Shetlandic Evidence)

This book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in researching or just learning more about the changing role and status of English across Europe. The status of English today is explained in its historical context before the authors present some of the key debates and ideas relating to the challenge English poses for learners, teachers, and language policy makers.

Within the scope of today’s globalisation, linguistic diversity is a given fact of the world we live in. In several educational contexts in Europe, language awareness (LA) activities have been introduced with the objective to prepare pupils cognitively, socially and/or critically for life as multilingual, open minded and/or empowered citizens in a diverse world. Despite previous research in various contexts, the concept of LA remains problematic: a generally accepted, evidence-based conceptualisation is missing. This confronts both research and education with a challenge: in order to develop LA activities, implement them successfully in educational contexts and achieve the expected outcomes, we should know what the concept stands for, how it works and why we would choose to implement it in classrooms (or not). This volume focuses on three apparent simple questions: what, how and why? The first question – what? – refers to the concept(ual mess) of LA. The second question – how? – refers to the implementation of LA activities in several educational contexts. The third question – why? – is a recurrent theme running through all the chapters and deals with a reflection on the way we deal (un)consciously with LA activities in education.

Providing an original approach to the study of language by linking it to the political and economic contexts of colonialism and capitalism, Heller and McElhinny reinterpret sociolinguistics for a twenty-first-century audience. They map out a critical history of how language serves as a terrain for producing and reproducing social inequalities. The book, organized chronologically, and beginning in the period of colonial expansion in the sixteenth century, covers the development of the modern nation state and then the fascist, communist, and universalist responses to the inequities such nations created. It then moves through the two World Wars and the Cold War that followed, as well as the shift to liberal democracy, the welfare state, and decolonization in the 1960s, ending with the contemporary period, characterized by a globalized economy and neoliberal politics since the 1980s. Throughout, the authors ask how ideas about language get shaped, and by whom, unevenly across sites and periods, offering new perspectives on how to think about language that will both excite and incite further research for years to come.

The status of English in Europe is changing, and this book offers a series of studies of attitudes to English today. Until recently English was often seen as an opportunity for Europeans to take part in the global market, but increasingly English is viewed as a threat to the national languages of Europe, and the idea that Europeans are equally at home in English is being challenged. This book will appeal to anyone interested in global English.

This new and updated textbook gives students a coherent view of the complex interaction of language and society.

Offers a survey of research trends in sociolinguistics around the world. This work focuses on traditional variationist sociolinguistics and on the areas of bi- and multilingualism together with diglossia and code-switching, language and culture, language and power and language planning.