Russian as a Heritage Language: From Research to Classroom Applications brings together linguistically and pedagogically oriented research traditions in a comprehensive review of current Russian heritage language (HL) studies. Divided into three parts, the collection offers a variety of frameworks and approaches spanning research on HL speakers’ linguistic and pragmatic competence, literacy development, and sociocultural characteristics of Russian in diaspora. Presenting a wide range of new empirical findings, the volume explores topics at the forefront of HL studies, from assessment of HL learners’ linguistic competence and language attitudes to research on communities and institutional affordances impacting HL acquisition and maintenance. Each chapter connects current research with specific classroom applications, presenting Russian as a global language in various sociopolitical and majority-language contexts. Combining methodological rigor with theoretical insights across diverse areas of language study, Russian as a Heritage Language advances the field of HL pedagogy and serves as essential reading for HL educators and researchers as well as for linguists studying bilingualism.

This work discusses the notable contributions from the related fields of foreign language anxiety, heritage language learning, Russian heritage language, and heritage language anxiety studies in order to suggest manners of constructing a more complete and complex profile of Russian heritage language learners. While past research has contributed to the current understanding of heritage language learning and anxiety, there are bounds to be made in understanding the role of identity and anxiety in regard to heritage language learners of Russian, a perspective which is especially pertinent given the intricate linguistic landscape of modern Russia and surrounding countries which complicate ethnic, national, and racial affiliations. This report argues that a greater focus on Russian heritage language learning anxiety, with pointed and intentional consideration of identity and the multiplicity of cross-sections that impact an individual’s access (inhibited or unfettered) to their identified heritage language would substantially add to the presently crafted profile of a Russian heritage speaker

This volume illustrates how language revival movements in Russia and elsewhere have often followed a specific pattern of literacy bias in the promotion of a minority’s heritage language, partly neglecting the social and relational aspects of orality. Using the Vepsian Renaissance as an example, this volume brings to the surface a literacy-orality dualism new to the discussion around revival movements. In addition to the more-theoretically oriented scopes, this book addresses all the actors involved in revival movements including activists, scholars and policy-makers, and opens a discussion on literacy and orality, and power and agency in the multiple relational aspects of written and oral practices. This study addresses issues common to language revival movements worldwide and will appeal to researchers of linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, education and language policy, and culture studies.

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 and its pluricentricity are grounded in the language and education policies of their host countries, as well as the goals and functions of cultural institutions, such as schools, media, travel agencies, and others created by émigrés for their co-ethnics. This book also reveals the tensions between Russia’s attempts to homogenize the 'Russian world' and the divergence of regional versions of Russian reflecting cultural hybridity of the diaspora. Interdisciplinary in its approach, this book will prove useful to researchers of Russian and post-Soviet politics, Russian studies, Russian language and culture, linguistics, and immigration studies. Those studying multilingualism and heritage language teaching may also find it interesting.

This study looked at Russian as a heritage language in the U.S. by surveying a sample (N = 38) of Russian-speaking parents. The study explored attitudes towards Russian as a heritage language and reviewed the existing family language policies and patterns of language use with young children across different contexts. Various factors potentially contributing to the rapid language decline were explored. The importance of formal education and different forms of offering the Russian language through education were addressed. The results revealed important trends and commonalities of English versus Russian language use with young children. Additional findings of the study revealed how the mothers' language of formal educational instructions affected FLP, choice of language use with young children across contexts, considerations for current and future education of young children with regard with heritage language, and others.

Soviet language policy provides rich material for the study of the impact of policy on language use. Moreover, it offers a unique vantage point on the tie between language and culture. While linguists and ethnographers grapple with defining the relationship of language to culture, or of language and culture to identity, the Soviets knew that language is an integral and inalienable part of culture. The former Soviet Union provides an ideal case study for examining these relationships, in that it had one of the most deliberate language policies of any nation state. This is not to say that it was constant or well-conceived; in fact it was marked by contradictions, illogical decisions, and inconsistencies. Yet it represented a conscious effort on the part of the Communist leadership to shape both ethnic identity and national consciousness through language. As a totalitarian state, the USSR represents a country where language policy, however radical, could be implemented at the will of the government. Furthermore, measures (such as forced migrations) were undertaken that resulted in changing population demographics, having a direct impact on what is a central issue here: the very nature of the Soviet population. That said, it is important to keep in mind that in the Soviet Union there was a difference between stated policy and actual practice. There was no guarantee that any given policy would be implemented, even when it had been officially legislated.

This series offers a wide forum for work on contact linguistics, using an integrated approach to both diachronic and synchronic manifestations of contact, ranging from social and individual aspects to structural-typological issues. Topics covered by the series include child and adult bilingualism and multilingualism, contact languages, borrowing and contact-induced typological change, code switching in conversation, societal multilingualism, bilingual language processing, and various other topics related to language contact. The series does not have a fixed theoretical orientation, and includes contributions from a variety of approaches.

This edited collection presents a range of methods that can be used to analyse linguistic data quantitatively. A series of case studies of Russian data spanning different aspects of modern linguistics serve as the basis for a discussion of methodological and theoretical issues in linguistic data analysis. The book presents current trends in quantitative linguistics, evaluates methods and presents the advantages and disadvantages of each. The chapters contain introductions to the methods and relevant references for further reading. This will be of interest to graduate students and researchers in the area of quantitative and Slavic linguistics.

This volume presents a multidisciplinary perspective on teaching heritage language learners. Contributors from theoretical and applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychology, educational policy, and pedagogy specialists explore policy and societal issues, present linguistic case studies, and discuss curricular issues, offering both research and hands-on innovation.