Changing Language Practices in Wartime Ukraine and Beyond   — The Association Specialists
  1. Schedule
  2. COLLOQUIA 6: C25
  3. Changing Language Practices in Wartime Ukraine and Beyond  

Changing Language Practices in Wartime Ukraine and Beyond   (20307)

Olga Maxwell 1 , Chloe Diskin-Holdaway 1 , Natalia Kudriavtseva 2 , Dariia Orobchuk 3 , Alla Nedashkivska 4 , Corinne Seals 5 , Oleksii Stepura 5 , Sara Kindon 5 , Maja Krtalić 5 , Laada Bilaniuk 6
  1. University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
  2. Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University, Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine
  3. Universität Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany
  4. University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
  5. Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
  6. University of Washington, Seattle, United States

Issues around language and language choices have been at the forefront of ongoing social and political debates in Ukraine (Pavlenko, 2013; Bilaniuk, 2020) and are deeply rooted in history, including centuries of Russification and suppression of the Ukrainian language and identity. Many L1 Russian speakers have shifted from speaking Russian to Ukrainian since the collapse of the Soviet Union, particularly during times of political and social unrest, such as after the Orange Revolution of 2004 or after Russia’s military interventions in Crimea and the east of Ukraine in 2014 (Bilaniuk, 2020; Kulyk, 2023).

Language ideologies in Ukraine have ranged from purism, a preference for a ‘pure’ or ‘standard’ Ukrainian language, to bilingualism and a more pluralistic acceptance of language varieties (Bilaniuk, 2017/2018; Seals, 2019). Post-independence Ukraine has long exhibited contrasting views, including retaining bilingualism, or promoting Ukrainian monolingualism. Research has shown that diverse language ideologies can often co-exist (Kudriavtseva, 2021), and language practices in present-day Ukraine include code-switching, polylanguaging, and receptive multilingualism or non-accommodation (Bilaniuk, 2005).

Wartime Ukraine has accelerated transformations in language practices and emphasised contradictions. While more Ukrainians are abandoning their mother tongue, Russian, many others still use the language and deny the need to change their practices (Kulyk, 2023). Even for those who do not use Ukrainian regularly, the Ukrainian language holds symbolic power and indexes belonging and strong attachment to Ukraine.

The goals of this colloquium are to explore dynamic language practices in wartime Ukraine and to provide a platform for the growing community of researchers to share their findings. The colloquium will start with an introduction by the chairs followed by four presentations. Two papers will focus on language shift and bilingualism, drawing on interviews and ethnographies with Ukrainians, and two will take a discourse analytic approach to analysing media and social media representations of language ideologies about Ukrainian and Russian. Given the ripple effect of transformations beyond the borders of Ukraine, the discussion also extends to the Ukrainian diaspora in two settings: Canada, where the community has a long-standing history; and New Zealand, where the Ukrainian diaspora is relatively recent. The last 30 minutes will be dedicated to a general discussion, led by Professor Laada Bilaniuk (University of Washington) whose research expertise includes language ideologies, language politics and nationalism in Ukraine and other post-Soviet states.  

 

Colloquium outline

1. Olga Maxwell & Chloé Diskin-Holdaway, University of Melbourne

Introduction

2. Natalia Kudriavtseva, Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University

“Ideologies of Linguistic Conversion in Wartime Ukraine”

3. Dariia Orobchuk, Universität Hildesheim

“Language Ideologies of Shifting from Russian to Ukrainian in Public Discourse in Ukraine”

4. Alla Nedashkivska, University of Alberta

“Language and the War: Sensitivities and Transformations in the Ukrainian Canadian Diaspora”

5. Corinne Seals, Oleksii Stepura, Sara Kindon, and Maja Krtalic, Victoria University of Wellington

“Negotiating Language Ideologies and a Place to Belong as Humanitarian Migrants in the Diaspora”

6. Laada Bilaniuk, University of Washington

General discussion

 

Ideologies of Linguistic Conversion in Wartime Ukraine

Natalia Kudriavtseva

Kryvyi Rih State Pedagogical University

Among the pretexts for the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 were claims of Russian sovereignty over and protection of Ukraine’s Russian-speaking population. A major response to that was a widespread language shift to Ukrainian from Russian – “linguistic conversion” – among L1 Russian speakers in Ukraine (Bilaniuk, 2020; Kulyk, 2023). This presentation draws from an ethnographic study that examines multiple ideologies of language driving the process of linguistic conversion in wartime Ukraine. The study draws from interviews with 65 adult L1 Russian speakers from north-eastern and south-eastern Ukraine who have fully or partially switched to speaking Ukrainian. The interviewees were recruited among the participants of grassroots Ukrainian language teaching initiatives which emerged in Ukraine after the 2013–2014 Euromaidan and the 2022 Russia’s full-scale invasion to support Russian speakers in their language transition. The interview data were analysed by means of microlevel critical discourse analysis and interpreted within the theoretical framework of ideologies of identification, understanding and purity suggested by Kulyk (2010). The findings reveal that the identification ideology surfaces as a dominant motivation. However, other ideologies, such as the view of Ukrainian as a means of understanding/communication, can also be discerned. The ideology of purity works as a demotivating factor for linguistic converts while it is also re-conceptualised under the influence of the ongoing war.

 

Language Ideologies of Shifting from Russian to Ukrainian in Public Discourse in Ukraine

Dariia Orobchuk

Universität Hildesheim

The interplay between the Ukrainian and Russian languages within Ukraine, characterised by bilingualism (Danylevs’ka, 2019) or diglossia (Bilaniuk, 2005), has long occupied a central position in the realm of political, educational, media, and social discourse. In recent decades, a discernible trend has emerged, marked by the increased prevalence of the Ukrainian language (Horner & Weber, 2018).

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has significantly accelerated the dynamics of Ukrainian language usage within the bilingual context of Ukraine, a development substantiated by the findings of surveys conducted in March 2022 (Rating Group, 2022) and August 2023 (Rating Group, 2023). This transformation has been particularly driven by media personalities and influential bloggers, who have played pivotal roles by adjusting the linguistic content of their platforms and openly addressing the process of language transition. This study employs discourse analysis techniques (Warnke, 2007), focusing on YouTube videos featuring bloggers and media figures: 5 videos of 5 different bloggers who are conducting interviews with other media persons (including comment section), published after February 2022, who switched from Russian to Ukrainian. Through a discourse analysis approach, this paper investigates the roles played by these media figures and delineates the language ideologies that contribute to the shift from Russian to Ukrainian within the public negotiation process.

These discussions encompass the construction of identity, political stances, cultural attributes, the aesthetics of language, the expression of emotions, and questions of authenticity and solidarity. The language ideologies depicted vary, and they are closely linked to the image of the bloggers, the interviewed guests, and their respective audiences. In this regard, the paper sheds light on the unique process of language awareness, providing insights into attitudes towards the Ukrainian and Russian languages and their dynamics.

 

Language and the War: Sensitivities and Transformations in the Ukrainian Canadian Diaspora

Alla Nedashkivska

University of Alberta

The present study focuses on the terrain of language during war and explores language attitudes and language practices among the newest waves of Ukrainian diaspora in Canada, which followed the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity and now during the war. The study analyses texts about languages focusing on how language is fuelled by political actions and accrues sociopolitical meaning, particularly now in the context of war. The texts studied include public social media discourse about languages (YouTube, Telegram), as well as questionnaire and interview data collected in 2022-2023.

The discussion  includes changes in participants’ beliefs and feelings about language(s), relating them to issues of identity construction and negotiation that are observable in the complex multilingual community studied (Makarova & Hudyma, 2015; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004). The analysis also considers real and symbolic language practices of Ukrainians, focusing on transformations, changes, and crossing of linguistic boundaries that are taking place (Nedashkivska, 2018). 

The study links the results to a larger discussion on the role of language(s) in the diaspora, integrating considerations of the significance of ‘native’ vs ‘first’ language development and maintenance in this community, as well as the constructions of ‘new’ or shifting social identities through language. 

 

Negotiating Language Ideologies and a Place to Belong as Humanitarian Migrants in the Diaspora

Corinne Seals, Oleksii Stepura, Sara Kindon, and Maja Krtalic

Victoria University

Following Russia’s mass-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, New Zealand created a Special Ukraine Visa allowing residents to bring family members from Ukraine for two years. Upon arriving in New Zealand, however, humanitarian migrants’ experiential knowledge regarding Ukrainian language ideologies and cultural capital has to be renegotiated. While the Ukrainian diaspora in New Zealand is very familiar with language ideologies in Ukraine (Seals, 2019), these ideologies have taken a different shape in the diaspora as families have also had to make choices about language maintenance in an English-dominant setting (Seals & Beliaeva, 2023). Therefore, since arriving, the humanitarian migrants must navigate a “familiar yet different” set of language ideologies while living in the diaspora and trying to find a space to belong. 

This negotiation of ideologies and cultural capital came to the fore interactionally in the context of semi-structured interviews that we held with humanitarian migrants and their sponsoring family members in 2023, which we analysed via interactional sociolinguistic discourse analysis. The focus interviews for this presentation include six humanitarian migrants (two individual interviews and two interviews in pairs). In the course of the interviews, humanitarian migrants commented on each other’s use of language; the interviewers’ use of language; translanguaged between Ukrainian, Russian, and English while telling narratives; and at times corrected others’ Ukrainian grammar. These complex language practices were further engaged with by their sponsoring family members who indexed linguistic practice to a sense of belonging.

 

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  3. Bilaniuk, L. (2020). Linguistic conversion in Ukraine: Nation-building on the self. Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, 6(1), 59–82.
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