The programming period of „Development Plan of the Estonian language 2011–2017” will end soon. It... more The programming period of „Development Plan of the Estonian language 2011–2017” will end soon. It is high time for an interim evaluation of the status quo of Estonian but also for setting new strategic targets. Puur et al. (2016) have taken up the task by providing an overview of native languages spoken in Estonia, the competence of Estonian as a second language, and the processes of language shift over the last 25 years. While they might be right that the analytic potential of the census data has not been exhausted yet, this data is limited in scope and unable to reflect multilingualism and language practices in a necessary detail. Thus, the census data provides a somewhat simplified account on multilingualism and language shift. However, this can be tackled with quantitative and qualitative, mixed methods research which combines the census data with those from language sociological survey, ethnographic observation, and micro-sociolinguistic analysis. This article presents new survey data from the research project „Sustainability of Estonian in the Era of Globalisation” (2014–2019) at the University of Tartu to complement the analysis by Puur et al. (2016). To start with, the paper outlines the meaning of ‘language environment’ by highlighting constraints of its census and register-based definitions. Then the use of Estonian as a second language in different Estonian language environments is analysed. The focus is on the Russian speakers’ choice of Estonian in different communicative situations, e.g. in family, with friends, colleagues, officials. The analysis indicates that the family domain is largely monolingual Russian with little signs of language shift. The use of Estonian is wider in official settings, and in public spaces. The analysis also shows that the representatives of third ethnicities attend to shift either to the Estonian or to the Russian community.
Finland grants exclusive status to Finnish and Swedish as national languages and has had a relati... more Finland grants exclusive status to Finnish and Swedish as national languages and has had a relatively homogenous language situation so far. Among four bigger immigrant groups, Estonian-speakers make up the second largest community of practice in Finland; their number increased by more than thirtyfold between 1990 and 2015. We support the idea that Estonian-speakers’ practices should be looked at in the context of the emergent Estonian–Finnish transnational space. This means that their language political (LP) agency should be analyzed in terms of Estonian-Finnish transnational relations. After providing an extensive historical account of the emergence and development of Estonian-speakers’ diaspora in Finland, the paper briefly addresses the legal and institutional aspects of the Finnish state language policies. Then we go beyond both the state and the family by offering a preliminary exploration of different aspects of language management, language practices and ideologies which may affect Estonian-speaking familiesʼ choices of Estonian-language day-care and a comprehensive school with a bilingual, Estonian-Finnish program available in Helsinki. Our preliminary findings contribute to the understanding of LP as a situated sociocultural process which is however further complicated by the multi-sited nature of LP and speakers’ transnational relations.
Estonian language policy and planning (LPP) research has begun to expand beyond its decades-long ... more Estonian language policy and planning (LPP) research has begun to expand beyond its decades-long focus on the integration and the Russian minority and on the state’s central role in policymaking. These traditional and critically important areas of focus, however, threaten to obscure other important and fascinating trends in Estonian LPP. Critical areas such as the Anglicization of higher education, the practices of transnational families and corporations, the changed security discourse, dynamic regional language communities, and the emergence of important political agents in LPP, in addition to the state, are also in need of attention. This edited volume aims to help expand our understanding of the dynamism of language policy and planning by exploring the ways in which Estonian-based research in the field reveals shifting borders and new centers of LPP influence and power.
In the era of increased economic competitiveness and the global race to secure skilled labor, non... more In the era of increased economic competitiveness and the global race to secure skilled labor, non-anglophone higher education institutions find themselves in a complicated situation. On one hand, t...
How to study the sustainability of Estonian? Keywords: language, sustainability, language ecology... more How to study the sustainability of Estonian? Keywords: language, sustainability, language ecology, agent-based modelling, Estonia The scene for discussing the sustainability of Estonian was set by early Estonian nation-builders’ – doctors Faehlmann (1843) and Kreutzwald (1857) – existentialist writings such as a foreword to the Estonian national epic „Kalevipoeg” (cf. Undusk 2004). While the endangerment of Estonian has been a topical issue for centuries already, there are no serious academic attempts of, except for a couple of Martin Ehala’s (2006; 2010; 2011) writings, judging its vitality and sustainability. The then offers a new ecolinguistic approach which increasingly takes into account environmental factors of a language in question. The importance of environmental Edwards (1992). Furthermore, the paper introduces a potential programme of studying the sustainability of Estonian within this new theoretical framework. Finally, the paper shortly presents the potential of applying agent-oriented modelling to sociolinguistic problems.
The post-communist transition, in the globalised world, has brought about new centres and periphe... more The post-communist transition, in the globalised world, has brought about new centres and peripheries. The centre/periphery dynamic has an impact on multilingualism, its discourses and its practices (Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes 2013). Besides the main majority/minority divide involving Estonianand Russian-speakers, which has received considerable scholarly attention at home and abroad, both in sociolinguistic and ethnopolitical literature (e.g. Ehala & Zabrodskaja 2011; Hogan-Brun et al. 2007; Laitin 2003), there are other minor divisions. Southern Estonian neighbourhoods contain residual spaces (cf. Appadurai 2005) where linguistic uniformity has been weaker than elsewhere in Estonian-speaking areas (Pajusalu et al. 1999). In spite of the language shift to Standard Estonian, which peaked between the 1960s and the 1980s, speakers of South Estonian varieties have not easily given up their vernaculars. On the contrary, at the end of the 1980s, language activists began openly arguing fo...
In this chapter we analyse societal discourses about the Voro language as a recognizable skill an... more In this chapter we analyse societal discourses about the Voro language as a recognizable skill and measurable entity, but principally as a capacity and a resource. We argue that the endangerment of the Voro language has, in part, helped to propel it into particular spaces—the 2011 national census and public schools—where it is publicly defined and in some cases positioned as an asset. In both sites—the census and the schools—the language had historically been overlooked, ignored or disregarded. By drawing on 2014 qualitative interview data with Voro-language teachers and discourse analysis of pre- and post-2011 census-related texts from newspapers, we find that the twenty-first century marks the first time Voro has broadly been named, constructed and categorized into an official category. This public categorization has neither sharply defined the language in the mindsets of the local population nor the educational community that continues to try and find its appropriate space in sch...
ABSTRACT This article presents an empirical analysis of patterns of individual multilingualism in... more ABSTRACT This article presents an empirical analysis of patterns of individual multilingualism in Estonia based on 2015 survey results. We hypothesize that individual multilingualism is situated at the intersection of three major overlapping social factors: 1) geographic locale, the space where individuals interact daily, measurable primarily by its ethno-demographic characteristics, 2) mostly economic factors, the commodification of languages, and 3) patterns of civic participation in a particular locale. To explore patterns of multilingualism as multi-competence, we used the self-reported command of the three dominant languages and mapped this against those three factors. The article interprets and discusses the findings in light of language policy implications.
Many universities around the world are actively engaged in the process of the internationalizatio... more Many universities around the world are actively engaged in the process of the internationalization of their higher education systems, trying to become more competitive in all possible respects, especially in the areas of research and teaching. Language, naturally, plays a central role in this process, but this is not always explicitly recognized as such. As a result, key sociolinguistic challenges emerge for both individuals and groups of people. Most prominently, the question of whether English constitutes an opportunity or a threat to other national languages in academic domains is a controversial one and remains unresolved. The analysis featured in this book aims at addressing this question by looking at language policy developments in the context of Estonian higher education. Adopting a discourse approach, the book emphasises the centrality of language not only as a site of struggle, but as a tool and a resource that agents in a given field utilize to orient themselves in certai...
Estonian language policy and planning (LPP) research has begun to expand beyond its decades-long ... more Estonian language policy and planning (LPP) research has begun to expand beyond its decades-long focus on the integration and the Russian minority and on the state's central role in policymaking. These traditional and critically important areas of focus, however, threaten to obscure other important and fascinating trends in Estonian LPP. Critical areas such as the Anglicization of higher education , the practices of transnational families and corporations, the changed security
Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe Jemie, 2012
Institutions are seen as the societal rules of the game in the broadest sense. Institutions inclu... more Institutions are seen as the societal rules of the game in the broadest sense. Institutions include informal norms and formal laws, which are not necessarily functional, but shape human interaction by both prohibiting and enabling it. In language maintenance, too, institutions can serve as obstacles or can provide support, for example through additional resources. In our article, both the normative and legal aspects of language maintenance are presented and discussed on the basis of the example of South Estonian. Although its varieties-Seto and Võruare traditionally grouped into one category of sub-language, the speakers' senses of identity and different cultural practices lead to objections to this exclusively linguistic branching. We discuss how, given the similar linguistic resources the Seto and Võru speech communities possess, norms and laws concerning varieties of South Estonian have been maintained and whether they have changed.
The article examines, and questions, the centering of the state as the primary language policy ac... more The article examines, and questions, the centering of the state as the primary language policy actor particularly in the context of Estonia. In responding to several paradigmatic shifts in the field of language policy and planning, including a critical turn that shifted researchers’ attention to language users, the authors explore the multiple expressions of language policy and introduce language policy actors other than the state. The article opens with an introduction to the core concepts of language, policy, and state with attention to the multiple interpretations and examples that trouble standing understandings of these ideas. The authors then turn to present the case for focusing on Estonia. First, Estonia is situated on multiple borders — geopolitical and linguistic among others — resulting in the country’s rich language ecology — that reflect political and migratory shifts over time. Second, Estonia represents a case of dynamic state-building. From the enduring commitment to being “European” to legal restorationism and neoliberal economic policies, language policies are developed in a multifaceted, changing context. The article then presents the fresh focus on language policy and Estonia by moving beyond the past, dominating foci of research on the temporal border which either fixed Estonia in a post-Soviet, Baltic, and European Union frame or tethered it to a singular development, particularly “solving” the Russian problem. While these frames dominate research, other geographic imaginaries, like the Baltic Sea Region, lend themselves to a redrawing of the lines and influence of the language-policy power of the state. The authors also examine the powerful decentering of the state in language policy through attention to globalization, migration, and regionalization. Finally, the article explores the enduring ways the Soviet “covert” language policies (Grenoble 2017) continue to shape contemporary Estonian language policies.
Dominating and other language ideologies and linguistic representations within the public discour... more Dominating and other language ideologies and linguistic representations within the public discourse of South Estonian (SE) are analysed in this dissertation. Language ideologies contribute to the construction of some languages and linguistic practices of greater worth than others and to a positioning of them hierarchically. Efforts to legitimate SE varieties and to achieve their public recognition as the SE language and resulting legitimacy claims in print media together with pro and contra arguments regarding legal recognition belong to the discourses of (de)legitimation and language endangerment. Estonian print media, texts, which focus was on language endangerment and the (de)legitimation of SE are qualitatively analysed. The methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) have been applied. The dissertation draws upon three original research publications.
Despite explicit polarisations and diverging discursive strategies, opposing voices, i.e. the proponents of SE legitimation and their opponents, reinforce rather similar representations: both reproduce essentialist representations of Estonian and South Estonian. Besides having value on its own, the analysis of linguistic representations in public discourse is complementary to research on the (discourses of) Estonian nation- and standard-building. The discourse of language endangerment should be given increased attention in future analyses of the politics of language and identity.
The programming period of „Development Plan of the Estonian language 2011–2017” will end soon. It... more The programming period of „Development Plan of the Estonian language 2011–2017” will end soon. It is high time for an interim evaluation of the status quo of Estonian but also for setting new strategic targets. Puur et al. (2016) have taken up the task by providing an overview of native languages spoken in Estonia, the competence of Estonian as a second language, and the processes of language shift over the last 25 years. While they might be right that the analytic potential of the census data has not been exhausted yet, this data is limited in scope and unable to reflect multilingualism and language practices in a necessary detail. Thus, the census data provides a somewhat simplified account on multilingualism and language shift. However, this can be tackled with quantitative and qualitative, mixed methods research which combines the census data with those from language sociological survey, ethnographic observation, and micro-sociolinguistic analysis. This article presents new survey data from the research project „Sustainability of Estonian in the Era of Globalisation” (2014–2019) at the University of Tartu to complement the analysis by Puur et al. (2016). To start with, the paper outlines the meaning of ‘language environment’ by highlighting constraints of its census and register-based definitions. Then the use of Estonian as a second language in different Estonian language environments is analysed. The focus is on the Russian speakers’ choice of Estonian in different communicative situations, e.g. in family, with friends, colleagues, officials. The analysis indicates that the family domain is largely monolingual Russian with little signs of language shift. The use of Estonian is wider in official settings, and in public spaces. The analysis also shows that the representatives of third ethnicities attend to shift either to the Estonian or to the Russian community.
Finland grants exclusive status to Finnish and Swedish as national languages and has had a relati... more Finland grants exclusive status to Finnish and Swedish as national languages and has had a relatively homogenous language situation so far. Among four bigger immigrant groups, Estonian-speakers make up the second largest community of practice in Finland; their number increased by more than thirtyfold between 1990 and 2015. We support the idea that Estonian-speakers’ practices should be looked at in the context of the emergent Estonian–Finnish transnational space. This means that their language political (LP) agency should be analyzed in terms of Estonian-Finnish transnational relations. After providing an extensive historical account of the emergence and development of Estonian-speakers’ diaspora in Finland, the paper briefly addresses the legal and institutional aspects of the Finnish state language policies. Then we go beyond both the state and the family by offering a preliminary exploration of different aspects of language management, language practices and ideologies which may affect Estonian-speaking familiesʼ choices of Estonian-language day-care and a comprehensive school with a bilingual, Estonian-Finnish program available in Helsinki. Our preliminary findings contribute to the understanding of LP as a situated sociocultural process which is however further complicated by the multi-sited nature of LP and speakers’ transnational relations.
Estonian language policy and planning (LPP) research has begun to expand beyond its decades-long ... more Estonian language policy and planning (LPP) research has begun to expand beyond its decades-long focus on the integration and the Russian minority and on the state’s central role in policymaking. These traditional and critically important areas of focus, however, threaten to obscure other important and fascinating trends in Estonian LPP. Critical areas such as the Anglicization of higher education, the practices of transnational families and corporations, the changed security discourse, dynamic regional language communities, and the emergence of important political agents in LPP, in addition to the state, are also in need of attention. This edited volume aims to help expand our understanding of the dynamism of language policy and planning by exploring the ways in which Estonian-based research in the field reveals shifting borders and new centers of LPP influence and power.
In the era of increased economic competitiveness and the global race to secure skilled labor, non... more In the era of increased economic competitiveness and the global race to secure skilled labor, non-anglophone higher education institutions find themselves in a complicated situation. On one hand, t...
How to study the sustainability of Estonian? Keywords: language, sustainability, language ecology... more How to study the sustainability of Estonian? Keywords: language, sustainability, language ecology, agent-based modelling, Estonia The scene for discussing the sustainability of Estonian was set by early Estonian nation-builders’ – doctors Faehlmann (1843) and Kreutzwald (1857) – existentialist writings such as a foreword to the Estonian national epic „Kalevipoeg” (cf. Undusk 2004). While the endangerment of Estonian has been a topical issue for centuries already, there are no serious academic attempts of, except for a couple of Martin Ehala’s (2006; 2010; 2011) writings, judging its vitality and sustainability. The then offers a new ecolinguistic approach which increasingly takes into account environmental factors of a language in question. The importance of environmental Edwards (1992). Furthermore, the paper introduces a potential programme of studying the sustainability of Estonian within this new theoretical framework. Finally, the paper shortly presents the potential of applying agent-oriented modelling to sociolinguistic problems.
The post-communist transition, in the globalised world, has brought about new centres and periphe... more The post-communist transition, in the globalised world, has brought about new centres and peripheries. The centre/periphery dynamic has an impact on multilingualism, its discourses and its practices (Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes 2013). Besides the main majority/minority divide involving Estonianand Russian-speakers, which has received considerable scholarly attention at home and abroad, both in sociolinguistic and ethnopolitical literature (e.g. Ehala & Zabrodskaja 2011; Hogan-Brun et al. 2007; Laitin 2003), there are other minor divisions. Southern Estonian neighbourhoods contain residual spaces (cf. Appadurai 2005) where linguistic uniformity has been weaker than elsewhere in Estonian-speaking areas (Pajusalu et al. 1999). In spite of the language shift to Standard Estonian, which peaked between the 1960s and the 1980s, speakers of South Estonian varieties have not easily given up their vernaculars. On the contrary, at the end of the 1980s, language activists began openly arguing fo...
In this chapter we analyse societal discourses about the Voro language as a recognizable skill an... more In this chapter we analyse societal discourses about the Voro language as a recognizable skill and measurable entity, but principally as a capacity and a resource. We argue that the endangerment of the Voro language has, in part, helped to propel it into particular spaces—the 2011 national census and public schools—where it is publicly defined and in some cases positioned as an asset. In both sites—the census and the schools—the language had historically been overlooked, ignored or disregarded. By drawing on 2014 qualitative interview data with Voro-language teachers and discourse analysis of pre- and post-2011 census-related texts from newspapers, we find that the twenty-first century marks the first time Voro has broadly been named, constructed and categorized into an official category. This public categorization has neither sharply defined the language in the mindsets of the local population nor the educational community that continues to try and find its appropriate space in sch...
ABSTRACT This article presents an empirical analysis of patterns of individual multilingualism in... more ABSTRACT This article presents an empirical analysis of patterns of individual multilingualism in Estonia based on 2015 survey results. We hypothesize that individual multilingualism is situated at the intersection of three major overlapping social factors: 1) geographic locale, the space where individuals interact daily, measurable primarily by its ethno-demographic characteristics, 2) mostly economic factors, the commodification of languages, and 3) patterns of civic participation in a particular locale. To explore patterns of multilingualism as multi-competence, we used the self-reported command of the three dominant languages and mapped this against those three factors. The article interprets and discusses the findings in light of language policy implications.
Many universities around the world are actively engaged in the process of the internationalizatio... more Many universities around the world are actively engaged in the process of the internationalization of their higher education systems, trying to become more competitive in all possible respects, especially in the areas of research and teaching. Language, naturally, plays a central role in this process, but this is not always explicitly recognized as such. As a result, key sociolinguistic challenges emerge for both individuals and groups of people. Most prominently, the question of whether English constitutes an opportunity or a threat to other national languages in academic domains is a controversial one and remains unresolved. The analysis featured in this book aims at addressing this question by looking at language policy developments in the context of Estonian higher education. Adopting a discourse approach, the book emphasises the centrality of language not only as a site of struggle, but as a tool and a resource that agents in a given field utilize to orient themselves in certai...
Estonian language policy and planning (LPP) research has begun to expand beyond its decades-long ... more Estonian language policy and planning (LPP) research has begun to expand beyond its decades-long focus on the integration and the Russian minority and on the state's central role in policymaking. These traditional and critically important areas of focus, however, threaten to obscure other important and fascinating trends in Estonian LPP. Critical areas such as the Anglicization of higher education , the practices of transnational families and corporations, the changed security
Journal on Ethnopolitics and Minority Issues in Europe Jemie, 2012
Institutions are seen as the societal rules of the game in the broadest sense. Institutions inclu... more Institutions are seen as the societal rules of the game in the broadest sense. Institutions include informal norms and formal laws, which are not necessarily functional, but shape human interaction by both prohibiting and enabling it. In language maintenance, too, institutions can serve as obstacles or can provide support, for example through additional resources. In our article, both the normative and legal aspects of language maintenance are presented and discussed on the basis of the example of South Estonian. Although its varieties-Seto and Võruare traditionally grouped into one category of sub-language, the speakers' senses of identity and different cultural practices lead to objections to this exclusively linguistic branching. We discuss how, given the similar linguistic resources the Seto and Võru speech communities possess, norms and laws concerning varieties of South Estonian have been maintained and whether they have changed.
The article examines, and questions, the centering of the state as the primary language policy ac... more The article examines, and questions, the centering of the state as the primary language policy actor particularly in the context of Estonia. In responding to several paradigmatic shifts in the field of language policy and planning, including a critical turn that shifted researchers’ attention to language users, the authors explore the multiple expressions of language policy and introduce language policy actors other than the state. The article opens with an introduction to the core concepts of language, policy, and state with attention to the multiple interpretations and examples that trouble standing understandings of these ideas. The authors then turn to present the case for focusing on Estonia. First, Estonia is situated on multiple borders — geopolitical and linguistic among others — resulting in the country’s rich language ecology — that reflect political and migratory shifts over time. Second, Estonia represents a case of dynamic state-building. From the enduring commitment to being “European” to legal restorationism and neoliberal economic policies, language policies are developed in a multifaceted, changing context. The article then presents the fresh focus on language policy and Estonia by moving beyond the past, dominating foci of research on the temporal border which either fixed Estonia in a post-Soviet, Baltic, and European Union frame or tethered it to a singular development, particularly “solving” the Russian problem. While these frames dominate research, other geographic imaginaries, like the Baltic Sea Region, lend themselves to a redrawing of the lines and influence of the language-policy power of the state. The authors also examine the powerful decentering of the state in language policy through attention to globalization, migration, and regionalization. Finally, the article explores the enduring ways the Soviet “covert” language policies (Grenoble 2017) continue to shape contemporary Estonian language policies.
Dominating and other language ideologies and linguistic representations within the public discour... more Dominating and other language ideologies and linguistic representations within the public discourse of South Estonian (SE) are analysed in this dissertation. Language ideologies contribute to the construction of some languages and linguistic practices of greater worth than others and to a positioning of them hierarchically. Efforts to legitimate SE varieties and to achieve their public recognition as the SE language and resulting legitimacy claims in print media together with pro and contra arguments regarding legal recognition belong to the discourses of (de)legitimation and language endangerment. Estonian print media, texts, which focus was on language endangerment and the (de)legitimation of SE are qualitatively analysed. The methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) have been applied. The dissertation draws upon three original research publications.
Despite explicit polarisations and diverging discursive strategies, opposing voices, i.e. the proponents of SE legitimation and their opponents, reinforce rather similar representations: both reproduce essentialist representations of Estonian and South Estonian. Besides having value on its own, the analysis of linguistic representations in public discourse is complementary to research on the (discourses of) Estonian nation- and standard-building. The discourse of language endangerment should be given increased attention in future analyses of the politics of language and identity.
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Papers by Kadri Koreinik
Despite explicit polarisations and diverging discursive strategies, opposing voices, i.e. the proponents of SE legitimation and their opponents, reinforce rather similar representations: both reproduce essentialist representations of Estonian and South Estonian. Besides having value on its own, the analysis of linguistic representations in public discourse is complementary to research on the (discourses of) Estonian nation- and standard-building. The discourse of language endangerment should be given increased attention in future analyses of the politics of language and identity.
Despite explicit polarisations and diverging discursive strategies, opposing voices, i.e. the proponents of SE legitimation and their opponents, reinforce rather similar representations: both reproduce essentialist representations of Estonian and South Estonian. Besides having value on its own, the analysis of linguistic representations in public discourse is complementary to research on the (discourses of) Estonian nation- and standard-building. The discourse of language endangerment should be given increased attention in future analyses of the politics of language and identity.