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The age factor in language practices and attitudes: continuity and change in Ukraine's bilingualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Volodymyr Kulyk
Volodymyr Kulyk*
Affiliation:
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies, Kyiv, Ukraine
*
*Email: v_kulyk@hotmail.com
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Abstract

This article analyzes inter-cohort differences and intra-cohort changes in language proficiencies, use patterns and attitudes in a society undergoing a radical political and cultural transformation. My analysis focuses on Ukraine, a country with an asymmetrical bilingualism where the new independent state mildly promotes the titular language but the formerly dominant Russian maintains an active presence in most social domains and individual repertoires. While confirming earlier findings on the small scale of age differences, this study detects the end of the inter-cohort shift toward Russian. Another important finding is that the apparent continuity with a slow drift toward the titular language in Ukraine as a whole conceals two radically different developments in the two geographical “halves” of the country. The study demonstrates an advantage of combining a synchronic analysis of inter-cohort differences with a diachronic analysis of intra-cohort changes.

Keywords

language policylanguage ideologiesmedia discourseethnicitynational identityUkraine
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , March 2015 , pp. 283 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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