tandfonline.com – An Ethnolinguistic conflict on the compulsory learning of the state languages in the republics of Russia: policies and discourses

ABSTRACT

Until recently, not only students of the titular nationalities (ethnicities) learned their native language but also ethnic Russians and other nationalities in some ethnic republics of Russia had to learn titular state languages of those republics. The political campaign in Russia against the compulsory teaching of state languages of republics started two years ago and culminated in the adoption of the amendment to the Russian education law on 3 August 2018. The law enacted some additional mechanisms to ensure the voluntary study of non-Russian languages. The law adoption signified the escalation of the conflict around linguistic rights and the compulsory study of state language. The problem is that the official discources typically overshadow the discourses of individuals and non-govenrmental ogranization who have their own language attitudes and agendas, which distorts the depiction of the conflict. In this paper, we will study official and public discourses together, combining the ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ perspectives, in order to explore both the language policy and language ideologies, and, thus, to provide a multifaceted picture of the conflict. We use policy analysis and discourse analysis to study official documents, surveys, mass media, social media discussions.