The origins of Soviet sociolinguistics

Abstract

The work of Lev Iakubinskii, Boris Larin and Viktor Zhirmunskii working at the Institute of Discursive Culture in Leningrad in the 1920s and 1930s deserves to be recognised as an early version of sociolinguistics. These thinkers combined dialect geography with Marxist sociological thought and contemporary work on linguistic con¯icts and planning to produce very sophisticated sociological re¯ections on language. The in¯uence of their teacher, Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, was crucial to their work, as was the tradition of Russian dialect research carried out by Aleksei Shakhmatov and others. However, the sociopolitical conditions for linguistic research brought about by the 1917 revolution were decisive. The historical signi®cance of the reception and reinterpretation of these ideas is considerable, leading to a reconsideration of the origins of sociolinguistics and of the relationship between Marxism and the language sciences in the early years of the Soviet Union.

Bakhtinian Dialogic and Vygotskian Dialectic: Compatabilities and contradictions in the classroom?

“…I also support the work of Derry (2004) who suggests that "thephilosophy informing Vygotsky's work has not been fully appreciated in contemporary interpretations and that this shortcoming has affected the way his work has been interpreted in relation to practical educational questions" (p. 114). Such a view is consistent with writers who argue similarly in relation to Bakhtin (see, for example, Gardiner, 2000;Matusov, 2007;Tihanov, 2000;Brandist, 2000;2003;, suggesting that his ideas are frequently misrepresented. Brandist (2007) calls for an interpretation of both Vygotksy and Bakhtin that takes cognissance of their historical influences.…”

“…Bakhtin drew on Marxism as a base rather than a theory and introduced the idea of Russian formalism to his thinking in order to juxtapose art with life (Brandist, 2004) alongside neo-Kantian philosophy and Russian formalism -a combination which earnt Bakhtin his description as an eclectic thinker or "two-faced Janus". During this Stalinist period Brandist (2003) explains that a split grew between language as a means of communication and language as ideology, and this led to Bakhtin's subsequent writing of centrifugal and centripetal forces "leading towards linguistic centralization (edinyi iazyk) and discursive plurality (raznorechie)" (p. 221). Bulavka (2007) explains that the Stalinist era of Soviet Russia dissolved man as a subject of history so the only way for him to retrieve this identity was through aesthetics, a concept central to Bakhtin's ideas.…”

‘Social phonology’ in the USSR in the 1920s

“…This reorientation among phonologists is at least partially a reflection of the general development of Soviet linguistics when they were working (see Brandist, 2003).…”

The rise of Soviet sociolinguistics from the ashes ofVölkerpsychologie

“…20. For evaluations, see Desnitskaia (1974) and Brandist (2003). prominent linguist in this project, and it was Polivanov who, in 1929, set out an "immediate program of sociological linguistics" in seven basic subdivisions:…”