Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
138
result(s) for
"Language policy Estonia."
Sort by:
Language policy and the internationalization of universities : a focus on Estonian higher education
Many universities around the world are actively engaged in the process of the internationalization of their higher education systems, trying to become more competitive in all possible respects, especially in the areas of research and teaching. Language, naturally, plays a central role in this process, but this is not always explicitly recognized as such. As a result, key sociolinguistic challenges emerge for both individuals and groups of people. Most prominently, the question of whether English constitutes an opportunity or a threat to other national languages in academic domains is a controversial one and remains unresolved. The analysis featured in this book aims at addressing this question by looking at language policy developments in the context of Estonian higher education. Adopting a discourse approach, the book emphasises the centrality of language not only as a site of struggle, but as a tool and a resource that agents in a given filed utilize to orient themselves in certain positions. The book will be of interest to language policy scholars, linguistic anthropologists, and critical sociolinguists. Education scholars interested in discourse studies will also find it useful.
Book
Ethnic differences in activity spaces as a characteristic of segregation
Given ongoing developments altering social and spatial cohesion in urban societies, a more comprehensive understanding of segregation is needed. Taking the 'mobilities turn' at heart, we move beyond place-based segregation approaches and focus on the practised urban experiences of individuals through a more comprehensive assessment of their activity spaces. This study contributes to people-based segregation research by mapping the activity spaces of individuals on the basis of mobile phone data in Tallinn (Estonia) and relating these activity spaces to (mainly) the users' ethnic background (i.e. Estonian versus Russian). Significant ethnic differences in terms of (1) the number of activity locations, (2) the geographical distribution of these locations, and (3) the overall spatial extent of activity spaces are found. We also find that these differences tend to deepen as the temporal framework is extended. We discuss the main implications for segregation research and highlight some avenues for further research.
Journal Article
Language Practices within the Mixed Spanish-/Italian-/French- and Estonian-Speaking Families in Tallinn
This phenomenological study examined six mixed families living in Tallinn who are composed by French-/Italian-/Spanish-Estonian native speakers, who have at least one child who is being raised simultaneously with the combination of French-/Italian-/Spanish-Estonian and who all appeared to follow the one parent one language strategy as family language policy. The semi-structured interviews were conducted with parents. The theoretical aspect features family language policies and strategies, identity and its types, globalisation forces, bilingualism, and multiculturalism. The research aimed at highlighting the reasons behind parents’ ideological decision, more specifically, on how these bilingual families manage and adapt their language policies. The study shows how families control their chosen strategies. Research revealed in which languages children prefer to speak if they have been raised in multilingual environment. The results demonstrated that parents prefer to use a one parent–one language approach and they are led by their intuition and desire to speak in their own mother tongue with their children. It was found that bilingual reading to children during their first years contributes to their ability to speak in both parents’ mother tongues. Data showed that bilingual children living in Tallinn prefer to speak Estonian while having competency in both languages. This study revealed that parents were content about their children being bilingual.
Journal Article
“My English Skills Are a Huge Benefit to Me”: What Local Students’ Narratives Reveal About Language Ideologies at the University of Tartu
This study investigates how Estonian L1 students with high self-perceived English proficiency experience and (re)produce the language ideological regime at the University of Tartu. Situated within the broader context of globalization and Englishization in higher education, and informed by scholarships on language ideologies, critical language policy, and stakeholder perspectives within EMI, the study explores how students position themselves in relation to their peers and academic staff, and how they evaluate the advantages and challenges associated with different language repertoires. The analysis is based on 17 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2024 with students enrolled in Estonian-medium programs that incorporate English expectations and practices. Findings show that students perceive their repertoire as an asset, granting full access to academic content and networks. Yet, their accounts also reveal challenges related to academic literacy. Students position themselves as competent users of English and sometimes question the legitimacy of those with perceived weaker skills. The study highlights how English privilege and native-speakerism intersect to shape perceptions of academic competence and authority. It calls for great attention to stratifying language ideologies to foster more inclusive and equitable academic environments.
Journal Article
Resistance and adaptation to newspeakerness in educational institutions: two tales from Estonia
The term ‘new speaker’ has recently emerged as an attempt by sociolinguists not only to understand the different types of speaker profiles that can be found in contemporary societies, but also to grasp the underlying processes of becoming a legitimate speaker in a given society. In this article, we combine the results from two studies situated in two educational institutions in Estonia in order to find out about speakers’ language attitudes and experiences in connection to learning and using Estonian. We concentrate on members of the international community who have relatively recently arrived to the country. Our results indicate that these speakers fluctuate between two prototypical discourses, which we broadly dub as ‘resistance’ and ‘adaptation’ to newspeakerness. Our study thereby adds to current debates on ‘new speaker’ and language policy issues by illustrating how tensions around language legitimacy are played out on the ground in a small nation state such as Estonia.
Journal Article
Language Conflicts in Contemporary Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine
Language policy and usage in the post-communist region have continually attracted wide political, media, and expert attention since the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.How are these issues politicized in contemporary Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine?.
eBook
Using non-monetary deprivation indicators to analyze poverty and social exclusion: Lessons from Europe?
Non-monetary indicators of deprivation are now widely used in studying poverty in Europe. While measuring financial resources remains central, having reliable information about material deprivation adds to the ability to capture poverty and social exclusion. Non-monetary indicators can help improve the identification of those experiencing poverty and understand how it comes about. They are most productively used when multidimensionality is explicitly taken into account, both in framing the question and in empirical application. While serious methodological and measurement issues remain to be addressed, material deprivation indicators allow for new insights in making poverty comparisons across countries and analyzing changes over time.
Journal Article
(De-)ethnicizing Estonian language acquisition and practice
Drawing on over four years of ethnographic data, this article explores how Estonian language acquisition policies and practices tend to be overtly ethnicized. By setting up ethnic/national categorization as a naturalized facet of personhood, Estonian language acquisition initiatives routinely obligate individuals to ethnicize themselves and others, thereby (re)constructing boundaries and prompting dialogue with stereotypes and frameworks of power and inequality. They collaborate with broader political projects of belonging and bordering, constructing the narrative of a homogenous Estonian people, with Estonian language as the cornerstone of this imagined-as-cohesive identity. Through such essentialist categorization and construction of language ownership vis-à-vis primordial criteria, current frameworks are geared towards exclusion and othering, rather than conviviality and care. This article gives attention to de-ethnicization as a strategy to inform both language policy and quotidian community practice aimed at more pluralistic imaginings of who belongs in contemporary Estonia. As such, it contributes to wider critical scholarship dealing with the intersection of language policy, diversity management, and social equality.
Journal Article
The unintended and intended academic consequences of educational reforms: the cases of Post-Soviet Estonia, Latvia and Russia
In this paper, we try to unravel some of the unintended and intended academic effects associated with post-Soviet educational reforms by focusing on three cases: Estonia, Latvia and Russia. We have chosen this comparison because a unique 'natural experiment' in the three countries allows us to compare the changing academic performance on an international test of a largely similar population in the three countries-Russian origin students attending Russian-medium schools-subjected to three variations of post-Soviet reforms. We find that relative to students in Russia, Russian-medium students in the Baltics made significant gains in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test. In Latvia, these appear to be an unintended effect of somewhat 'softened' state language policies, the conditions surrounding minority rights, and the general context of maintaining social cohesion. In Estonia, the (later) relative gains of Russian students appear to an intended effect of locally grown educational (and language) policies and increased, more effective cooperation with Russian medium schools to further improve PISA performance in a relatively high scoring, PISA-focused country.
Journal Article
Finno-Ugric Identity in Estonia: Visual and Discursive Analysis
This article seeks to discover how this contemporary Finno-Ugric identity has been politically instrumentalized and negotiated in Estonia. First, we look at how the Estonian state engages with the concept of Finno-Ugric world and inscribes it into Estonia’s foreign policy goals. Then, we delve into the role of Finno-Ugric traditionalism in Estonian populist and far-right discourses. Third, we discuss how local identity constitutes and cements community building initiatives and projects in the Seto region known for its local specificity and cultural peculiarity.
Journal Article