LINGUISTIC LANDSCAPE AND WHAT IT TELLS US ABOUT THE INTEGRATION OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE INTO ISRAELI ECONOMY

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Abstract

This essay analyzes the use of Russian in the linguistic landscape of Israel. Despite continu-ing hegemony of Hebrew, Russian has penetrated all spheres of public life, although concessions to multi-lingualism in Israeli society are hesitant and unsystematic. Russian written texts marking urban areas are unevenly distributed and reveal ethnic and social stratification of Israeli cities. The concentration of Russian signs is highest in business and commercial areas, where they target both domestic and international cus-tomers. The article focuses on the use of Russian in language-intensive domains and traces its influence on the symbolic economy in which cultural symbols are used as a marketing strategy.

About the authors

Maria Yelenevskaya

Technion-Israel Institute of Technology

Email: ymaria52@technion.ac.ie
Maria Yelenevskaya, Ph.D., head of Computer-Assisted Language Learning Laboratory in the Department of Humanities and Arts at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Research interests: the use of language in multilingual and multicultural settings, lingua-cultural aspects of computer-mediated communication and investigation of humor. In collaboration with Larisa Fialkova she has written 28 articles and three monographs. Her professional activities include organization of conference panels, editorial work and reviewing for various journals. She is on the editorial board of two linguistic journals and Israel Association for the Study of Language and Society. Technion City, 3200003 Haifa, Israel

Larisa Fialkova

The University of Haifa

Email: lara@research.haifa.ac.il
Larisa Fialkova, Ph.D., Lecturer in the Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Haifa. Research interests: Russian literature, Slavic and contemporary folklore. She teaches various courses, among them: Folklore and Immigration, Folklore in the Era of High-tech, The Image of the Other in Folklore, Russian and Ukrainian folklore in English, Hebrew, Russian and Ukrainian and so on. In collaboration with M. Yelenevskaya she has written 28 essays and 3 joint monographs. Ave. Abakhoushy Mount Carmel, 3498838 Haifa, Israel

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