Ukraine in Transition
Language Shift Among Russophone Vloggers
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12906800 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daria Bahtina (University of California, Los Angeles, corresponding author), Ira Throne (University of California, Riverside) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 326-349 |
| Publication date | 2025-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociolinguistic Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1750-8657 • E-ISSN: 1750-8649 |
| Publisher | Equinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.3138/ss-19-3-4-0005 |
| OpenAlex | W7115738850 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 25 |
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
Construct (python library · Context (archaeology · Focus (optics · Language change · Language shift · Swift · Transition (genetics · Ukrainian · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics, Language Diversity, and Identity · Multilingual Education and Policy
Language anxiety and achievement
Language Contact
Stance
The Internet and Social Life
The Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (Leap-Q)
Contacts of Russian in the post-Soviet space
From language mixing to fused lects
Psychological and sociodemographic correlates of communicative anxiety in L2 and L3 production
A typology of surzhyk
A gateway to complexity
Language Contact and Deliberate Change
The Ukrainian–Russian Linguistic Dyad and its Impact on National Identity in Ukraine
Attitudes towards foreign accents among adult multilingual language users
Odessa and Lvov or Odesa and Lviv
Shedding Russianness, recasting Ukrainianness
Language identity, linguistic diversity and political cleavages
Imperfect measures of dynamic identities
Language contact outcomes as the result of bilingual optimization strategies
From codeswitching via language mixing to fused lects
The bilingual adaptation
Defining the new speaker
Common and uncommon ground
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |