Language representations and language attitudes in the Mishar dialect continuum

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Abstract

To forecast the sociolinguistic dynamics of the language, to determine the level of its vitality and to provide adequate measures of language policy and planning, it seems important to analyze the structures of the symbolic components of the language situation, which include language representations and language attitudes, that is, social attitudes towards language. The article presents the results of the analysis of the main types of Tatar language representations and linguistic attitudes among speakers of the Mishar idiom of the Tatar language. The data were collected in the regions where the Mishary Tatars live, namely in the Middle Volga region and in Prisurie. The main research method was a semi-structured interview with subsequent analysis of the obtained data, its classification and interpretation. The paper proposes five clusters of language representations in the minority situation: representations related to the instrumental, symbolic and regulative functions of language, on the one hand, and representations related to the actualized identity structures and to the deontic attitudes of the individual, on the other. In connection with these classes of representations and taking into account language forms, language competences and language practices, a typology of language loyalty is proposed, which includes instrumental loyalty, symbolic loyalty, loyalty according to the forms of language used, loyalty according to language competences and prescriptive loyalty. The material analysis showed the prevalence of positive representations of the Mishar idiom among its speakers, the presence of active positive loyalty in oral spheres of communication at the local level, a high level of idiom preservation, and the integrative nature of sociolinguistic dynamics. At the same time, the situation should be regarded as diglossic both in relation to the Russian language and to the literary Tatar language, which is considered to be prestigious.

About the authors

Svetlana A. Moskvitcheva

RUDN University

Author for correspondence.
Email: moskvitcheva@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8047-7030

holds a PhD in Philology. She is Associate Professor at the Department of General and Russian Linguistics, Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Philology at RUDN University, Director of the Research and Academic Institute of Modern Languages, Intercultural Communication and Migration, Faculty of Philology at RUDN University. Her research interests embrace sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, minority languages and languages in minority situations, language ideologies, symbolic dimension of the language situation, language representations, language loyalties, language need. She authored over 100 publications. She is Editor of the journal Macrosociolinguistics and Minority Languages (RUDN University, Moscow, Russia) and member of the editorial board of the Diglossi@ series (Presses universitaire de Bordeaux).

Moscow, Russia

Alain Viaut

Maison des sciences de l’homme de Bordeaux

Email: alain.viaut@orange.fr
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-6643-1856

holds a PhD in linguistics, HDR, is Director of Research, Emeritus of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), UMR 5478 Iker. His research interests include sociolinguistics, minority languages, language standardization, sociolinguistic categorization, language and territory, language planning, and Occitan dialectology. He is the author of over 150 publications, including 9 monographs, articles, and book chapters, editor of 8 collective monographs. He is also a member of the editorial board of Lengas - Revue de sociolinguistique (Univirsité Montpellier) and Glossema (Université de Oviedo, Espagne), and co-editor of the Diglossi@ series (Presses universitaire de Bordeaux).

Bordeaux, France

Radif R. Zamaletdinov

Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University

Email: director.ifmk@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2692-1698

Professor of the Department of General Linguistics and Turkology, Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication at Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University, Russia. His research interests cover cognitive linguistics, linguacultural studies, comparative linguistics, history of the Tatar and Russian languages, bilingualism, theory and methods of Tatar language teaching. He has authored over 250 publications, including 22 monographs and has 3 certificates of authorship. He is a member of the Presidium of the Russian Language Council under the President of the Russian Federation, Corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Education, Editor-in-chief of the journals Philology and Culture (Kazan Federal University) and the Tatarica (Kazan Federal University).

Kazan, Russia

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Copyright (c) 2023 Moskvitcheva S.A., Viaut A., Zamaletdinov R.R.

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