Acceso usuarios
Daria Bahtina, Ira Throne
Language shift is often motivated by economic advantages, social integration, or cultural assimilation and typically occurs gradually. This article examines diachronic changes in language choice leading to a significant language shift in the context of a war. The Ukrainian language has long been essential in countering Russian linguistic and cultural hegemony. With the onset of the full-scale war, reconciling one's dominant language with sociopolitical affiliations has become crucial. However, the swift shift to Ukrainian presents challenges for nonfluent speakers. Our data comprise 10 hours of streamed videos from three popular Russian-speaking vloggers in Ukraine who recently switched to Ukrainian. By comparing their speech before and after the invasion, we examine the roles of motivation and preexisting linguistic knowledge in this context. We focus on the rapid transition from one matrix language to another, in months rather than generations, and the evolution of linguistic practices reflecting a new sociopolitical identity. The findings contribute to our understanding of synchronic sociolinguistic change based on conscious choices rather than prolonged contact. Finally, we demonstrate how limited linguistic proficiency can be leveraged to construct a new identity in a rapidly changing world
