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LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES IN SPEECH PRACTICES OF MULTILINGUAL POST-SOVIET MIGRANTS AS A BARRIER TO TRANSLANGUAGING // Tomsk Journal of Linguistics and Anthropology. 2022. Issue 1 (35). P. 78-91

The main purpose of the article is to uncover and analyze language ideologies underpinning multilingual practices of non-Russian first-generation migrants from the former Soviet Union from a translanguaging perspective. The article uses data collected by the authors during a 3-month ethnographically-oriented field study in Western European countries (in-depth semi-structured interviews and participant observation) supplemented by sociolinguistic analysis of informal online communication. It was found that fluid, translingual practices are generally not characteristic for the majority of well-educated post-Soviet migrants, despite the presence of ethnic languages (L1), Russian (L2) and foreign languages (L3-n) in their linguistic repertoire. Instead, we observe predominantly Russian normative speech, lack of desire to cross language boundaries and create hybrid linguistic forms, at least between L1 and L2. The authors see the reasons for this in the Soviet language policy, which products the immigrants from the USSR are “exporting” the relationship between Russian and ethnic languages formed in their home country. The article examines some of the language ideologies and habits that serve as a barrier to translanguaging, namely the ideology of language purism and (Russian) monolingualism, as well as adherence to the “standard language culture”. The level of education is also associated with “pure” speaking in Russian — the more prestigious and more familiar language in which the respondents have the greatest linguistic competence. In general, the authors come to the conclusion that the speech behavior of this polyethnic and multilingual group of migrants described in the article is a consequence of a habitus — deeply hidden, unconscious, “imprinted” linguistic and cultural habits inherited from the Soviet experience and reproduced in life practices abroad.

Keywords: translanguaging, code switching, language ideologies, multilingual post-Soviet migrants, linguistic purism, monolingual ideology, standard language culture