This study addressed the language in professional communication and national identity of civil servants-bilinguals in the Ukrainian border oblasts with Russia. It was empirically determined that the civil servants mainly use the Ukrainian language in professional communication with the users of civil services, but with colleagues, the Russian…

The current article applies interactional sociolinguistic discourse analysis to interviews with three parents of Ukrainian families living in New Zealand to further complexify what we know about Family Language Policy (FLP) and language transmission. More specifically, this article theorizes what we call "Aspirational FLP"--when the…

This paper analyses adolescent Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals' stances towards polylanguaging as evidenced in their talk about and use of "suržyk," a stigmatised polylingual practice that combines features from Ukrainian and Russian. Drawing from group interviews with 39 Ukrainian young people (aged 14-15), it uses Bakhtin's ("The…

In this study on language ideologies and multilingualism in Ukraine, I start from Geeraerts approach, which identifies two cultural models of linguistic standardisation: rationalist and romantic. Drawing on this typology, I show that the present-day ideology is a largely distorted version of the romantic model that transforms into linguistic…

This study focuses on lexical diversity and the use of academic and lower frequency words in essays written by EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students enrolled in Years 1 and 2 at the undergraduate university level. The purpose of this study is to find out the extent to which EFL students become more proficient in their use of academic and…

This paper presents the results of fieldwork conducted among the small Italian minority living in Kerch, a coastal town in Crimea, between 2012 and 2013. After introducing the socio-historical background and the current situation of the minority, it presents and discusses the attitudes of members of the community towards the different languages…

Using an ecology of language framework, the purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which English as a medium of instruction (EMI) at a private university in eastern Ukraine allows for the use of Ukrainian, the state language, or Russian, the predominantly spoken language, in large cities in eastern Ukraine. Uses of English and Russian…

In Ukraine, the Russian and Ukrainian languages have historically alternated in policy and practice in their official status and social prestige. As in many areas of the world, English is emerging in Ukraine as a language of economic value, social prestige, and education though it is not a language of wider communication. The goal of the research…

Previous research in the field of heritage language (HL) acquisition has focused on the connection between frequency of language use and HL speakers' connection to and maintenance of their HL. This dissertation introduces the concept of positioning through discourse into the study of HLs to show evidence that while frequency of HL use contributes…