Language on Display
Writers, Fiction and Linguistic Culture in Post-Soviet Russia
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:18th Dec '17
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Post-Soviet Russia was a period of linguistic liberalisation, instability and change with varied attempts to regulate and legislate language usage, a time when the language question permeated all spheres of social, cultural and political life. Key topics for debate included the Soviet linguistic legacy, the past and future of Russian, linguistic variation, language policy and linguistic ideologies. This book looks at how these debates featured in literature and illustrates the discussion through six interpretive readings of post-Soviet Russian prose. It analyses both the writers’ explicit and implicit responses and in doing opens up new perspectives for sociolinguistic research on metalanguage. Spanning a number of theoretical fields including language variation, language policy and literary stylistics, Ingunn Lunde provides a coherent way of triangulating these fields by the introduction of the concept of performative metalanguage. The book also offers insight into the role of writers in the broader social and political context of language culture in contemporary Russia and into the various ways in which the linguistic and aesthetic practices of literary art can engage in questions related to the negotiation of linguistic norms.
Lunde’s study deserves a wider audience than Slavists alone. Her groundbreaking interdisciplinary methodology, as well as the compelling argument about performative metalanguage, could inspire new (comparative) perspectives on other cultural and linguistic contexts. -- Boris Noordenbos, University of Amsterdam * The Russian Review *
Lunde’s study deserves a wider audience than Slavists alone. Her groundbreaking interdisciplinary methodology, as well as the compelling argument about performative metalanguage, could inspire new (comparative) perspectives on other cultural and linguistic contexts. -- Boris Noordenbos, University of Amsterdam * The Russian Review *
A highly stimulating book that understands the range of contemporary literary performative metalanguage in Russia. -- Holger Kuße, Dresden * Zeitschrift für Slavische Philologie *
Like few others among her contemporaries, Lunde expertly bridges the disciplinary divide between language and literary studies. Language on Display is a rare philological gem that offers as much sociolinguistic insight into the complicated fate of the Russian language after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as it does critical illumination of the role writers play in both articulating and pushing the boundaries of language standards and norms. -- Michael S. Gorham, University of Florida
ISBN: 9781474421560
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 502g
232 pages