Russian as a Transnational Language

This collection contributes to emerging work in critical sociolinguistics, using a multidisciplinary and multiscalar approach to understanding the diasporic experience in the Russian-speaking world. The volume expands on research in the sociolinguistics of mobility, multilingualism, and diaspora studies. It critically examines the ways in which transnational Russian identities are perceived and discursively enacted in online and offline spaces, and how this interplay contributes to diasporic identification across the globe. In highlighting a range of critical methodologies at multiple scalar levels - across family, national, and global lines - the book raises key questions about what binds and distinguishes individuals belonging to diverse communities of Russian speakers. It likewise interrogates established notions of memory, nostalgia, authenticity, and belonging, as well as perceptions of futurity and change. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language and education, and linguistic anthropology.

Olga Solovova (PhD in Sociolinguistics) is a researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies (CEIS20), University of Coimbra, Portugal. She was a Marie Sklodowska Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan, University of Oslo, Norway, with a project on the use of Russian in the trilateral Norway-Russia-Finland borderland. Her research interests include language policies, semiotic landscapes, and speaker-centered approaches to multilingualism. Sabina Vakser holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Melbourne. Her doctoral work focused on multilingualism, transnational identity, experiences of migration, and Russianness in family life. Her research interests include the sociolinguistics of mobility, semiotics, somatics, and sensory methodologies.  

List of Contributors, Preface, Acknowledgements, Introduction: Contextualizing the Volume Olga Solovova and Sabina Vakser, Chapter 1 The dissolution of the USSR, the Newly Independent States and their Diaspora Policies Olga Gulina, Chapter 2 Towards Post-Russianness? Narrative Adjustment among Kazakhstani Teachers of Russian Juldyz Smagulova and Eleonora Suleimenova, Chapter 3 Russian Immigrants in Portugal: Diasporic Nationalism and Identities Elena Bulakh, Chapter 4 Workplace Experiences of Russian-speaking Women in Japan: Victimhood Narrated Ksenia Golovina and Varvara Mukhina, Chapter 5 Russian Speakers in Finland: Online Discussions of the Russian language Vera Zvereva, Chapter 6 Bridging and Bonding on-line: Russian-speaking Migrants in the United Kingdom and Their Social Networks Oksana Morgunova, Chapter 7 How to "Immigrate into History": Russian Speakers in the Finnish Border Region and the Politics of Memory in Transnational Settings Olga Davydova-Minguet, Concluding remarks Renewal as the Unfolding Future: Ways Forward in Multilingual, Diasporic Research Sabina Vakser and Olga Solovova, Index