Projects
Editing ideas and practices
The standard language norm is established not only via school and mass media, but also via creators and language editors of prose fiction. The object of the research project is the ideas and practices of prose fiction language editing in Lithuania after the restoration of independence, in comparison with such ideas and practices during the Soviet rule. I am going to analyse the ideas and practices of correcting linguistic variants and the understanding of ‘good style’ that derives from them, as well as how editors and writers perceive their roles in the publishing process and the perception of literary fiction as a means to spread ‘good’ language.
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English in post-1990 Lithuania
Crucial political turning-point of Lithuania two decades ago concurred with the worldwide technological developments and expansion of the globalization processes. Certainly it brought a number of significant changes into the sociolinguistic landscape of Lithuania. The need for and benefits of an international language for information access and external communication rapidly increased the demand of learning English. Additionally, the English language has gained noticeable symbolic power as a linguistic resource that ensures a speaker the most profitable social mobility and serves as a means of identity expression. The project focuses on the social value of the English language in Lithuania after the country regained independence in 1990.
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Vilnius Speaking: the role of Vilnius speech in present Lithuania
The Lithuanian normative tradition has a deeply entrenched negative attitude towards Vilnius speech as well as the language of Vilnius youth: it is often regarded as incorrect and nonstandard semi-language. From the scientific point of view, however, any language variety is a unique and valuable construct of historical circumstances and the speech community. Today's Vilnius is the largest city of Lithuania and undoubtedly the strongest political, administrative and cultural centre of attraction. Even though Vilnius dialect played no major role in the creation of the standard language, it might be seen as a prestige variety in our speech community today.
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Polylanguaging Vilnius Youth
Youth language researchers perceive adolescents as skilled social actors who use a wide array of linguistic features, among which features of different languages are significant. Adolescents use those features (Danish teenagers use Arabic features or British youth often inserts German features) playfully, creatively, to achieve their communicative aims as best they can. Youth language reasearches employ the concept of polylingualism to refer to such linguistic practice of late modern adolescents. Even though polylanguaging youth has been much investigated across many European cities, no significant analysis has yet been undertaken of the polylingual aspect of Vilnius adolescents’ language. It is likely that Vilnius, as a multicultural and multilingual city, is an interesting niche for the analysis of polylingual youth practice.
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Journalists about language
The informants of the study was/were one professional group – TV and radio journalists. They are interesting for us as public speakers who are usually expected to produce an ideal standard language. However, the standard is changing: it is becoming less official, the variety of genres increases, the media is trying to speak the language of its audiences. In other words, diversity is a new norm. Does it mean that the ideal of the standard language implemented for a hundred years in Lithuania is not relevant in the public sphere anymore? What kind of language, according to the professional public speakers, is most suitable for creating the image of the contemporary mass media?
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Language notions in mother-tongue school textbooks
Education system plays an important role in construing attitudes of a linguistic community towards the language, its value and functions. Namely at school, through the mother-tongue textbooks pupils get instilled language judgement criteria and often also stereotype attitudes. The object of this research is language notions and functions that are being presented in the Lithuanian mother-tongue school textbooks. The important question is, how non-standard Lithuanian language varieties and language variation are presented and assessed in the textbooks, how much there is being referred to the newest science knowledge about language.
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Lithuanian Language: ideals, ideologies and identity shifts
Language standardization, evaluations of standard language(s), dialects and other sociolinguistic varieties as well as the understanding of the role of language in society are inseparable from broader societal developments and changes within the public space. Our project aims to explore how different accents are associated with particular social identities in contemporary postmodern Lithuania, also to reflect upon the shifts of Lithuanian language ideologies and of the use of language in spoken media since the Soviet times until now. We also hope to forge academic ground to the public debates about Lithuanian and to make an impact on the prevailing attitudes in language policy.
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Language of leading TV personalities
Standard Lithuanian language norm-setters and officials from institutions controlling public language have for several years bemoaned the fact that spoken media language is falling behind or even degradating. Besides pronunciation and stress shortcomings, occasions when famous television personalities use informal words have been received especially negatively. Nevertheless, despite the criticism they receive, television channel directors continue to appoint people who have on more than one occasion been identified as serious language norm offenders and incompetent for live-to-air work to host their most popular shows. How could this discrepancy between language requirements and realistic use be explained?
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Youth language and identity
There are different attitudes to adolescents, most of them are, however, negative. Youth speech is often criticized for being incorrect, harsh and full of obscene swearwords and words from foreign languages. Even though youth language and culture differs from adults’ language and culture in many aspects, it doesn’t mean that it is any inferior. Youth language and culture is an important part of our society which can be analysed in its own terms. This study is one the first cross-disciplinary studies on the social dynamics of Vilnius youth – their social groups and language. The study also gives an opportunity to hear adolescents’ opinions about themselves which are often forgotten in the discussions about the youth.
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Typological research of Language Ideologies
Language has been a subject of ideologization for a long period of time, and many factors such as local history, internal politics, foreign policies, language standardization and culture have shaped these ideologies. Being a growingly important issue in today´s world, language is often discussed in the public sphere, especially in the internet (virtual sphere). This project looks at language ideologies on three different levels: grassroots (in internet user-created internet content), in texts of linguists and other experts as well as in state policies and laws. The main goal is to use insights into language ideologies from three European regions (Baltics, Balkans and Scandinavia) to develop a typology of language ideologies.
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