Introduction
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Date
2025
Authors
Kobchenko, Natalia
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Journal ISSN
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Abstract
Postcolonial linguistics focuses on researching the language experience and language situations of countries of the Global South that gained independence from colonial rule in the 20th century. In particular, numerous studies address the language policy and language planning, language ideologies, creolizing of indigenous languages, multilingualism, language resilience and resistance, language victimization and language opportunism, the formation of linguistic theories, and standardization of native languages in former colonies. However, a large number of these processes can be observed on the European continent as well, although they have certain peculiarities. Viewing these phenomena through the lens of ‘subordinated–dominator,’ or in other words ‘colonized–colonizer’, will give us a chance to comprehend a deeper social interaction and language processes in some Eastern European countries, and in Ukraine, in particular, and to reveal the origins of current language issues. In the case of Ukraine, it has greater importance due to Russia’s full-scale invasion, as it facilitates the understanding of the anticolonial nature of this war and decolonial processes of wartime. Thus, on the one hand, postcolonial linguistics could be a useful basis to analyze languages, language practices, and language policy in countries that were not colonies in a traditional sense. On the other hand, postcolonial approaches need to enhance their methodological basis, collect and carefully consider empirical data that were not part of linguists’ focus before. This special issue aims to make a partial contribution toward filling these gaps.
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Keywords
postcolonial linguistics, decolonial processes, language ideologies, language policy, preface
Citation
Kobchenko N. Introduction / Natalia Kobchenko // Мова: класичне - модерне - постмодерне. - 2025. - Вип. 11 (спеціальний випуск). - С. 5-8.