Language representations and language attitudes in the Mishar dialect continuum

Abstract

To forecast the sociolinguistic dynamics of the language, to determine the level of its vitality and to provide adequate measures of language policy and planning, it seems important to analyze the structures of the symbolic components of the language situation, which include language representations and language attitudes, that is, social attitudes towards language. The article presents the results of the analysis of the main types of Tatar language representations and linguistic attitudes among speakers of the Mishar idiom of the Tatar language. The data were collected in the regions where the Mishary Tatars live, namely in the Middle Volga region and in Prisurie. The main research method was a semi-structured interview with subsequent analysis of the obtained data, its classification and interpretation. The paper proposes five clusters of language representations in the minority situation: representations related to the instrumental, symbolic and regulative functions of language, on the one hand, and representations related to the actualized identity structures and to the deontic attitudes of the individual, on the other. In connection with these classes of representations and taking into account language forms, language competences and language practices, a typology of language loyalty is proposed, which includes instrumental loyalty, symbolic loyalty, loyalty according to the forms of language used, loyalty according to language competences and prescriptive loyalty. The material analysis showed the prevalence of positive representations of the Mishar idiom among its speakers, the presence of active positive loyalty in oral spheres of communication at the local level, a high level of idiom preservation, and the integrative nature of sociolinguistic dynamics. At the same time, the situation should be regarded as diglossic both in relation to the Russian language and to the literary Tatar language, which is considered to be prestigious.

Keywords

• language representation
• language attitudes
• language situation
• language functions
• tatar language
• mishar dialect continuum