N. Anthony Brown

Status Language Planning in Belarus: An Examination of Written Discourse in Public Spaces

This research examines the treatment of Belarusian and Russian on signs located in the Minsk metro and on official signs affixed to government buildings, specifically the District Administration, War Commissariat, House of Marriage, Police, Security (division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), Notary Public, Public Prosecutor, Courts, and Tax Inspection. Such data provide valuable insights into status planning efforts on the part of government officials and illustrate changes prompted by past and current language policies. Preliminary findings suggest an overall increase in public display of Belarusian, albeit it more systematic within the metro than on official signage affixed to government buildings. Such an increase reflects a top-down effort to conform to a 1990 language policy that granted Belarusian “official” language status. The same policy in its 1995 amended form grants Russian “co-official” language status—a linguistic situation that understandably precipitates questions of consistent and equal representation of both languages in public spaces, both in terms of inclusion of Belarusian and Russian and their positioning on signs.

Language Shift or Maintenance? An Examination of Language Usage Across Four Generations as Self-reported by University Age Students in Belarus

Abstract This paper examines the degree to which language shift or maintenance is obtained across four generations in Belarus. Linguistic homogeneity and heterogeneity receive particular attention as potential contributing factors to language shift or maintenance in the home, arguably the last bastion in terms of language maintenance. In an effort to elicit feedback from participants relative to language use, the survey instrument developed for this research inquired as to respondents’ language use with their maternal and paternal grandparents during childhood versus their language use with their mother and father in childhood. Furthermore, this paper examines the degree to which maintenance of Belarusian receives support among respondents as evidenced by self-reported language use with spouses and children, including prospective use with children for those either married without children or single. Finally, the question of language maintenance or shift is analysed in terms of self-reported concern (or lack thereof) about the future of Belarusian and the extent to which language use with prospective children reflects that concern.