Multilingualism as a Concept for the Study of Culture

The concept of multilingualism has produced a large body of scholarly literature across the humanities and social sciences in recent years. By opening up the dialogues between various disciplinary and national perspectives, this volume aims to develop multilingualism as a travelling concept for the study of culture, in the sense elucidated by Mieke Bal. The contributions in this volume examine multilingualism from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives. The volume investigates multilingualism in three main ways: first, as a socio-political condition and the point of conflict between different political forces, especially in the context of post-Soviet multi-ethnic societies in transition; second, as a method employed in multilingual classroom settings; and third, in multilingual literary works. The multilingual texts analysed in these contexts address various challenges of inhabiting 'in-between spaces'. At the same time, they provide frameworks for addressing these challenges by showing how multilingual speakers and texts re-signify the beliefs, ideologies, and histories which shape the conditions of multilingual societies and the experiences of individuals. By exploring multilingualism through a variety of methods and approaches, the articles in this volume themselves comprise a multilingual project which encompasses a wide range of languages, disciplines, and texts from around the globe.


TABLE OF CONTENTS

TOM CLUCAS, KSENIA MAKSIMOVTSOVA AND NEVENA STAMENKOVIC
Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1


I. SOCIETAL RESPONSES: LANGUAGE POLICIES
AND IDEOLOGIES IN MULTILINGUAL SOCIETIES


THOMAS DAIBER
Emotional Multilingualism .......................................................................................... 17

EKATERINA PANKOVA
Language and Ideology: Analysis of the Debate on the Foundations
of the State Cultural Policy in