Research into Multilingualism in Estonia

Abstract

The present paper concentrates on several issues relevant to research into multilingualism in Estonia. It is argued that a macrosociolinguistic approach is insufficient when not counterbalanced with microsociolinguistic studies (case studies of actual linguistic behaviour, linguistic creativity, mechanisms and practices of multilingual communication, construction of immediate and long-term strategies of multilingual communication, etc). Furthermore, it is demonstrated why the census of 2000 in Estonia gives a rather distorted picture of multilingualism. Another problem is the lack of scholarly attention to the so-called third languages (nonRussian and non-Estonian). The example of the Jewish community in Estonia shows how a minority with a supposedly common ethnohistorical background is in fact split into two separate groups (indigenous and nonindigenous) with different sociolinguistic profiles. It remains to be seen for which minority groups in Estonia the same kind of division is relevant. Finally, topics for future research (language change and identity construction, dynamics of multilingual conversation, emerging ethnolects) are outlined.

Problematizing ethnolects: Naming linguistic practices in an Antwerp secondary school

“…Auer regards an ethnolect as "a way of speaking (style), that is associated by the speakers themselves and / or by others with one or more non-German ethnic groups" (2003, p. 255, my translation). Moreover, following Androutsopoulos (2001), Auer distinguishes between several kinds of ethnolect: a primary ethnolect, that is, the actual language use of mostly young males of Turkish descent in ghettoized areas of large urban centers, the secondary, mediatised images of this, and a tertiary ethnolect which involves the use and further development of these secondary representations in white (adolescent) interaction (also see Nortier, 2001;Verschik, 2005). Defined in this way, the concept usually does not apply to contact phenomena such as guest worker language, foreigner talk, interlanguages or pidginized versions of the host language typical of new or first-generation immigrants (even though some of these phenomena probably serve as inspiration for secondary representations).…”

Sentence comprehension in heritage language: Isomorphism, word order, and language transfer

“…and may affect long-term linguistic outcomes (e.g. see Romanov (2000) and Verschik (2005) on the status of the Russian language in Estonia).…”

‘She’s the big dog who knows’ – power and the father’s role in minority language transmission in four transnational families in Tallinn

“…Similarly to the present author's previous studies (Doyle 2013, Verschik, Doyle 2017, this study employs a micro-sociolinguistic, qualitative approach with the semi-structured interview as its data-gathering tool. This type of research assists a researcher in arriving at a more nuanced picture of a sociolinguistic phenomenon by shining a light on smaller communities of practices that are overlooked by macro-research and also seeks to uncover the 'why' to a speaker's speech acts (Verschik, Doyle 2017; see Verschik 2005 for a discussion).…”