This study explored the language and literacy practices of multilingual families in Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Israel, and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on the different roles of family members in language... more
This study explored the language and literacy practices of multilingual families in Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Israel, and Sweden during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on the different roles of family members in language transmission in order to understand whether these practices might have been influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. We aimed to answer two key research questions: RQ1, whether and how the pandemic conditions affected the heritage language, societal language acquisition, and heritage language literacy learning environments in the five countries examined (Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, Israel, and Sweden); and RQ2, what is the nature of child and parental agency in facilitation of the possible changes in the corresponding five countries? Fifty semi-structured interviews (ten in each country) were conducted. The data highlighted the factors that triggered changes in family language policy during the pandemic and the role of the child’s agency, parents, extended family...
Research Interests: Languages, Russian Studies, Second Language Acquisition, Languages and Linguistics, Cultural Heritage, and 15 moreMultilingualism, Israel Studies, Russian, Cyprus Studies, Bilingual Education, Russian Language, Language Policy, Sweden, Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Bilingualism, Estonia, German as a Foreign Language, Translanguaging, Family Language Policy, and Coronavirus COVID-19
The linguistic and cultural values of migrants, as well as their attitudes and behaviour, differ from those of the host society. All resources and values can be characterised as linguistic and cultural capital, which can provide migrants... more
The linguistic and cultural values of migrants, as well as their attitudes and behaviour, differ from those of the host society. All resources and values can be characterised as linguistic and cultural capital, which can provide migrants with certain advantages in their new country of settlement. A heritage language (HL) and knowledge about another culture are important components of this linguistic cultural capital. It is crucial for multi-generational families to maintain their HL and transmit the culture of their heritage to help individuals gain a better understanding of their own identity. This study aims to investigate the views, attitudes, and beliefs of second-generation migrants in Cyprus and Sweden in relation to their HL, linguistic and cultural capital, factors affecting HL use, maintenance, and development, as well as their future plans and aspirations regarding HL transmission. Narrative analysis of the semi-structured interviews revealed certain differences and simila...
This chapter focuses on Russian and its heritage language use, maintenance and transmission in Cyprus (which shares the Eastern Orthodox religion with Russia), in Estonia (part of the USSR until 1991) and Sweden (a somewhat neutral... more
This chapter focuses on Russian and its heritage language use, maintenance and transmission in Cyprus (which shares the Eastern Orthodox religion with Russia), in Estonia (part of the USSR until 1991) and Sweden (a somewhat neutral country vis-à-vis the USSR and Russia). Drawing on theoretical issues of family language policy, we investigated multilingual families, consisting of majority language (MajL)-speaking and Russian-speaking members, examining whether Russian is maintained and transferred to the next generation. Under ‘multilingual family’, we include four situations: (1) a Russian speaker and a MajL speaker, (2) a Russian-MajL mixed speaker and a MajL speaker, (3) both parents are Russian-MajL mixed speakers (common in Estonia) and (4) both parents are Russian speakers (more common in Cyprus). Our results show the discrepancies between the desired and valid efforts and choices in Russian-language transmission. We examined how these phenomena occurred and what practical issues and societal factors affected the Russian language in the (home) lives of the families.
Research Interests: Multiculturalism, Cyprus Studies, Language Planning and Policy, East European studies, Language Policy and Politics of Identity, and 15 moreMinority Studies, Linguistics, Russian Language, Cultural Diversity, Multidisciplinary, Language Policy, Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Cultural Heritage and Preservation, Estonia, Marriage and Family, Language policy and planning, Family Language Planning, Family Language Policy, Heritage Language, and Springer Ebooks
The aim of this study is to examine the peculiarities of the pronunciation and the accent in the speech of bilingual children in the three countries: Finland, Sweden and Cyprus. It attempts to reveal similarities and differences in terms... more
The aim of this study is to examine the peculiarities of the pronunciation and the accent in the speech of bilingual children in the three countries: Finland, Sweden and Cyprus. It attempts to reveal similarities and differences in terms of phonetic development of bilingual children with different language pairs and the type of cross-linguistic interaction, in particular acceleration, deceleration, transfer or its absence, or neutral effect. A paper presented in Conference: Problems of ontolinguistics, 2021: The language system of a child in monolingual and multilingual settings.publishedVersionPeer reviewe
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Introduction With the first language(s) a child gains a whole cultural heritage that influences his/her way of thinking, feelings, identity and attitudes (Mwaniki 2014). Children are provided with opportunities and experiences through... more
Introduction With the first language(s) a child gains a whole cultural heritage that influences his/her way of thinking, feelings, identity and attitudes (Mwaniki 2014). Children are provided with opportunities and experiences through direct and indirect conditions of the home literacy environment (HLE) (Burgess et al. 2002; Burgess 2011). HLE includes various oral and written family interaction experiences of children and parents (Leseman & de Jong 1998; Aram & Levin 2002). It affects reading and writing development (Senechal & LeFevre 2002) via informal and formal literacy experiences. HLE is the totality of communicative conditions surrounding a child, which are in dynamic interaction with each other. Creating a specific balance of multilingual practices, families strive to shape the multilingual HLE so as to maximise the chances of social success for their children, whose linguistic behaviour might be more or less stable, or who, on the contrary, might follow conflicting practic...
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The aim of this paper is to highlight translanguaging practices in the home among bilingual/multilingual Russian-speaking children and their parents in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia. Multilingual families are the focus of our research: 50 in... more
The aim of this paper is to highlight translanguaging practices in the home among bilingual/multilingual Russian-speaking children and their parents in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia. Multilingual families are the focus of our research: 50 in Cyprus, 20 in Estonia and 50 in Sweden. Using parental written question- naires with the focus on general background, socio-economic status and language proficiency, as well as oral semi-structured interviews and ethnographic participant observation, our study attempts to describe how family language policy is managed through translanguaging and literacy activities in multilingual Russian-speaking families in three different cultural and linguistic environments. Our results show both differences and similarities among Russian-speakers in the three countries, not only in their family language practices, but also in their attitudes towards the fluidity of language, language repertoires, translanguaging and Russian-language literacy. Russian-speakers ...
Research Interests: Sociology, Russian Studies, Multiculturalism, Multilingualism, Multi- & Bilingualism & Biliteracy, and 15 moreSociolinguistics, Russian, Multicultural Education, Bilingual Education, Russian Language, Estonian Language, Bilingual Language Acquisition, Bilingual education (mother tongue-based), Russian linguistics, Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Bilingualism, Multilingual Education, Teaching Russian as a second language, Bilingualism and bilingual education, and Translanguaging
Research Interests:
This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings... more
This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir, 2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish). The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0-6;11 living in 15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There was a robust effect of w...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Vocabulary, Language Development, Linguistics, and 15 moreLanguage Assessment, First Language Acquisition, Medicine, Cross Linguistic Studies, Humans, Child, Comprehension, Female, Male, A Short History of Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, Clinical Sciences, Lexical Development, Internationality, Child Language, and Child preschool
Translanguaging is seen both as a threat and as an opportunity for minority language development and transmission. While the theme of translanguaging has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of this study lies... more
Translanguaging is seen both as a threat and as an opportunity for minority language development and transmission. While the theme of translanguaging has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of this study lies in its investigation of the multiple contexts in which translanguaging is examined. In order to understand the nature of translanguaging, we adopt a novel interdisciplinary approach and view it in all its complexity, including liminal spaces of linguistic landscape. Family language policy affects the home linguistic environment. Our purpose is to investigate language choices by multilingual Russian-speakers in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia, immigrant and minority settings, and try to understand how they are reflected in the multilingual interaction of the families. Using ethnographic participant observations and oral spontaneous multilingual production, our study attempts to describe how communication is managed through translanguaging practices among m...
Research Interests: Languages, Russian Studies, Intercultural Communication, Family studies, Multilingualism, and 15 moreLanguage Variation and Change, Diversity, Linguistic landscapes, Language Maintenance and Shift, Russian linguistics, Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Code Switching, Immigrant integration, Post Soviet Studies, Code switching and code mixing, Human development and Family Studies, Family Language Planning, Linguistic Landscape, Family Studies, and Family Language Policy
Translanguaging is seen both as a threat and as an opportunity for minority language development and transmission. While the theme of translanguaging has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of this study lies... more
Translanguaging is seen both as a threat and as an opportunity for minority language development and transmission. While the theme of translanguaging has been explored especially in a context of migration, the novelty of this study lies in its investigation of the multiple contexts in which translanguaging is examined. In order to understand the nature of translanguaging, we adopt a novel interdisciplinary approach and view it in all its complexity, including liminal spaces of linguistic landscape. Family language policy affects the home linguistic environment. Our purpose is to investigate language choices by multilingual Russian-speakers in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia, immigrant and minority settings, and try to understand how they are reflected in the multilingual interaction of the families. Using ethnographic participant observations and oral spontaneous multilingual production, our study attempts to describe how communication is managed through translanguaging practices among multilingual Russian-speaking families' members in the cultural and linguistic environments of the three countries. By looking closely at the complexities of translanguaging space, it is our ambition to gain new insights about how it is organised and how translanguaging becomes a valuable linguistic resource in multilingual families. Our results indicate that translanguaging practices can be used in family conversational contexts and contribute to the creation of a rich and positive family repertoire. A new norm of Russian has been developed in all the three settings. A language shift can happen more quickly than expected, and, thus, it is important for parents to provide many opportunities for practising Russian as the L1.
Research Interests: Languages, Russian Studies, Intercultural Communication, Family studies, Multilingualism, and 15 moreLanguage Variation and Change, Diversity, Code-Switching, Linguistic landscapes, Post-Soviet Studies, Language Maintenance and Shift, Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Immigrant integration, Code switching and code mixing, Human development and Family Studies, Super-diversity, Family Language Planning, Linguistic Landscape, Translanguaging, and Family Language Policy
Russian Journal of Linguistics продолжает серию научных онлайн-семинаров с участием авторов журнала и его читателей. 20 декабря 2021 г. приглашаем всех желающих обсудить специальный выпуск журнала «Сохранение русского языка и языковые... more
Russian Journal of Linguistics продолжает серию научных онлайн-семинаров с участием авторов журнала и его читателей.
20 декабря 2021 г. приглашаем всех желающих обсудить специальный выпуск журнала
«Сохранение русского языка и языковые контакты постсоветских
иммигрантов в Европе и за её пределами».
20 декабря 2021 г. приглашаем всех желающих обсудить специальный выпуск журнала
«Сохранение русского языка и языковые контакты постсоветских
иммигрантов в Европе и за её пределами».
Research Interests: Russian Studies, Multiculturalism, Languages and Linguistics, Family studies, Cultural Heritage, and 15 moreMultilingualism, Sociolinguistics, Diversity, Learning and Teaching, Minority Studies, Linguistic landscapes, Minority Languages, Language contact, Immigrants, Interethnic Relations, Russian and Slavonic Studies, Multilingual Studies, Identity Studies, Border identities, hybridity, multilingualism, poetry, bilingual poetry, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, globalization studies, third culture kids, Russians in America, Russians, and Intergenerational Language Transmission
The aim of this paper is to highlight translanguaging practices in the home among bilingual/multilingual Russian-speaking children and their parents in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia. Multilingual families are the focus of our research: 50 in... more
The aim of this paper is to highlight translanguaging practices in the home among bilingual/multilingual Russian-speaking children and their parents in Cyprus, Sweden and Estonia. Multilingual families are the focus of our research: 50 in Cyprus, 20 in Estonia and 50 in Sweden. Using parental written question¬naires with the focus on general background, socio-economic status and language proficiency, as well as oral semi-structured interviews and ethnographic participant observation, our study attempts to describe how family language policy is managed through translanguaging and literacy activities in multilingual Russian-speaking families in three different cultural and linguistic environments. Our results show both differences and similarities among Russian-speakers in the three countries, not only in their family language practices, but also in their attitudes towards the fluidity of language, language repertoires, translanguaging and Russian-language literacy. Russian-speakers i...
Research Interests: Russian Studies, Multiculturalism, Multilingualism, Multi- & Bilingualism & Biliteracy, Sociolinguistics, and 15 moreRussian, Multicultural Education, Bilingual Education, Russian Language, Estonian Language, Bilingual education (Education), Bilingual Language Acquisition, Bilingual education (mother tongue-based), Russian linguistics, Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Bilingualism, Multilingual Education, Teaching Russian as a second language, Bilingualism and bilingual education, and Translanguaging
We investigated language transmission in Russian-speaking families in multilingual settings in Cyprus, Estonia and Sweden. What they have in common is their Russian-language background and the minority status of their native language. In... more
We investigated language transmission in Russian-speaking families in multilingual settings in Cyprus, Estonia and Sweden. What they have in common is their Russian-language background and the minority status of their native language. In Cyprus and Sweden, participants mainly come from immigrant and mixed-marriage communities, while in Estonia they live in a bilingual society, where Estonian is a prestigious language and Russian has low status. To investigate the complex contexts of the informants' language choices, the language ecology theory was chosen as a theoretical framework. Particular attention was paid to similarities and differences in the three country groups under investigation. Written questionnaires and oral sociolinguistic interviews were used for data collection among Russian-speaking informants in the three countries. We asked whether Russian as the first language was transmitted to the second generation and why. The attitudes towards bilingualism and Russian language transmission (including the change of these attitudes over time) – depending on the parents' success in bringing up children bilingually – seemed to matter. Parental language choice is one of the main factors contributing to successful transmission. A lot depends on whether there was a desire for integration with the dominant language community, for staying isolated and only preserving the home language, or for having a balanced bilingual/multilingual approach and positive attitude towards both majority and minority languages. The socioeconomic status, level of education and mother's employment status played crucial roles in language transmission and attitudes. The linguistic repertoire of the father (minority, majority, or mixed) also had an effect.
Research Interests:
Challenges for the strategy "One parent - one language": on the experience among bilingual families in Sweden, Estonia and Cyprus
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing in Multilingual Settings... more
This article investigates the cross-linguistic comparability of the newly
developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing
in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir,
2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish).
The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0–6;11 living in
15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew
significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There
was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than
verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production.
Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons
of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.
developed lexical assessment tool Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (LITMUS-CLT). LITMUS-CLT is a part the Language Impairment Testing
in Multilingual Settings (LITMUS) battery (Armon-Lotem, de Jong & Meir,
2015). Here we analyse results on receptive and expressive word knowledge tasks for nouns and verbs across 17 languages from eight different language families: Baltic (Lithuanian), Bantu (isiXhosa), Finnic (Finnish), Germanic (Afrikaans, British English, South African English, German, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Swedish), Romance (Catalan, Italian), Semitic (Hebrew), Slavic (Polish, Serbian, Slovak) and Turkic (Turkish).
The participants were 639 monolingual children aged 3;0–6;11 living in
15 different countries. Differences in vocabulary size were small between 16 of the languages; but isiXhosa-speaking children knew
significantly fewer words than speakers of the other languages. There
was a robust effect of word class: accuracy was higher for nouns than
verbs. Furthermore, comprehension was more advanced than production.
Results are discussed in the context of cross-linguistic comparisons
of lexical development in monolingual and bilingual populations.