Category=CF
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eq_dictionaries-language-reference
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forthcoming
language
linguistic minorities
national identity
Russian diaspora
Russian language
sociolinguistics
Product details
- ISBN 9781399572699
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 30 Nov 2026
- Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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The collapse of the Soviet Union dramatically changed the global distribution of the Russian language. Apart from Russia, it is now spoken in fourteen successor states of the former Soviet Union, while the increased mobility of Russian speakers has expanded russophone communities across the world.
Taking a broad sociolinguistic perspective, this book explores a comprehensive set of tensions which emerged from the dislocated and deterritorialised position of Russian in the contemporary world. It examines contexts for shaping Russian speakers’ identities in various locations across the globe, the shifting attitudes towards Russian language outside the metropolis, emerging new global varieties of Russian, and the use of Russian language as soft power in the transnational russophone media. In order to discuss problems posed by the current stage of globalisation of Russian, a number of non-metropolitan spaces are sampled: chapters take the reader to locations which include both the post-Soviet states, specifically Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Belarus, and the countries of the traditional ‘West’ – Italy, the US and Israel.
A thought-provoking and engaging book, it is essential reading for advanced students and specialists in Russian and Eastern European Studies, Post-Soviet Studies, Language Studies and Sociolinguistics.
Lara Ryazanova-Clarke is Professor of Russian and Sociolinguistics at the University of Edinburgh. She works in several fields within Russian language studies: sociocultural linguistics, discourse analysis, metaphorical studies, language policy, and the nexus between language, ideology and identity.
