Public lecture Aneta Pavlenko
On Wednesday, 2 March 2011, Prof. Dr. Aneta Pavlenko, gives a public lecture at the Institute of Multilingualism,
in English on the following subject:
Language rights versus speakers' rights in multilingual contexts.
17.15 - 18.45, Room K0.02
Abstract:
The key purpose of this talk is to consider the issue of linguistic rights in a context where two conceptions of rights, the rights of a language and the rights of speakers, come into direct conflict. To exemplify this conflict I will examine language policy debates in two post-Soviet countries, Latvia and Ukraine. I will begin with a brief overview of Soviet language policies and their outcomes. Then I will discuss similarities and differences in language management dilemmas faced by Latvia and Ukraine after the dissolution of the USSR. Subsequently, I will focus on ways in which Latvian and Ukrainian language policy makers and their Western supporters justified the transition from official bilingualism to official monolingualism in the two countries. Last but not least, I will consider reasons for which the policies that shaped this transition have been defended in the field of sociolinguistics and critiqued in other fields, such as political science and education.