Emerging Bilingual Speech: From Monolingualism To Code-Copy

Description: Anna Verschik offers a new perspective on how a previously monolingual community of Russian-speakers in Estonia is rapidly becoming bilingual after the end of the Soviet occupation in 1991. The contact-induced change in Russian under the growing impact of Estonian is analysed in the theoretical framework of code-copying. Changes in linguistic behaviour of the speakers are often a result of intentional cultivation of non-monolingual communication strategies and language policies, and go hand in hand with the development of a new identity, 'Estonian Russians'. Emerging Bilingual Speech is a fascinating study that will be of interest to researchers studying language contact, language change and bilingualism.

Contents: Abbreviations; Transliteration of Russian; Introduction; 1. Theoretical background: combining structural and sociolinguistic factors; 2. Emerging multilingual communication: Russian in Estonia, Russian and Estonian, Estonia's Russian; 3. Code-copying framework and copiability; 4. Case-studies in code-copying; 5. Code-copying and patterns of bilingual communication; 6. Conclusions; Bibliography; Index.

Author Biography: Anna Verschik is Professor of Linguistics at Tallinn University, Estonia.