Aneta Pavlenko | University of York (original) (raw)

Papers by Aneta Pavlenko

Multilingualism and history (Cambridge University Press) , 2023

This introduction has three aims: (a) to discuss the causes of historic amnesia in the field of m... more This introduction has three aims: (a) to discuss the causes of historic amnesia in the field of multilingualism; (b) to offer a brief survey of historic language management (Spolsky, 2009), defined here as explicit efforts to regulate the choice of languages and scripts and to facilitate communication in the public domain; and (c) to reconsider the relationship between past and present multilingualism and identify productive directions for future inquiry. I begin by listing the myths and misconceptions that raised my own interest in the history of multilingual societies. Then, I will discuss the paradoxes and contradictions of historic language management in six institutional domains: administration, courts of law, religion, army, education, and public signage. In the last section, I consider the big picture emerging from recent historic work. This picture undermines the sense of contemporary exceptionalism and shows that the claims of the uniqueness of today’s ‘multilingual challenge’ are patently false, deeply ignorant and utterly absurd.

This chapter examines the many role played by ghost signs in dissonant languages, that is languag... more This chapter examines the many role played by ghost signs in dissonant languages, that is languages no longer spoken on city streets, in the urban linguistic landscape. These signs are examined in four cities designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as World heritage sites: Toledo, St Petersburg, Palermo and Lviv. Primary data comes from my fieldwork, which included site visits, participation in tours in relevant languages, interviews with tour guides and foreign visitors, and analyses of UNESCO reports, tourist guides, media, and travelogues. A critical analysis of the data shows that multilingual ghost signs are multi-tasking in ways that aren't obvious, benign, nor banal.

Blackwood, R. & U. Royland (eds.) Spaces of multilingualism. Routledge, 2022

The chapter compares the communication of rights in police investigative interviews with second l... more The chapter compares the communication of rights in police investigative interviews with second language (L2) speakers in the US and in Norway. Differences between the two contexts involve specific rights and the mode of communication – in the US rights are scripted, while in Norway investigators deliver rights in their own words. The application of Conversation Analysis to four recorded interviews reveals that despite these differences, L2 speakers face similar challenges in both contexts, including a highly formal register and unfamiliar legal jargon. The authors also identify best practices to facilitate the comprehension of rights and offer recommendations for training police investigators who work with L2 speakers.

Language and Law , 2021

In 1966 the US Supreme Court ruled that custodial suspects should be advised of their rights, inc... more In 1966 the US Supreme Court ruled that custodial suspects should be advised of their rights, including the right to silence and the right to an attorney, before questioning begins. If they waive their rights and the defense can prove that they did not do so voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently, their confession may be excluded from the evidence. Judges consider many factors in their decisions on motions to suppress, including expert testimony. In this paper, I discuss a case where two experts evaluated language proficiency of the same suspect and arrived at radically different conclusions regarding her ability to understand the warnings. I will show why one assessment was superior to the other, but the true significance of the case is in showing that a dialogic approach to delivery of the rights can reduce linguistic guesswork and help safeguard the integrity of the investigation and due process.

The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 2019

The purpose of the Miranda rights in the USA is to ensure that suspects know their fundamental ri... more The purpose of the Miranda rights in the USA is to ensure that suspects know their fundamental rights under the law, yet even native speakers of English do not always understand their rights (Rogers et al., 2010, 2011). To evaluate their understanding, Grisso (1998) developed Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments (MRCI), normed with native speakers and widely accepted in the legal community. Comprehension of second language (L2) speakers of English, on the other hand, is inferred based on their L2 proficiency but no studies to date offer the scientific basis for causal connections between L2 proficiency and understanding of the Miranda rights. The purpose of the present study was to compare understanding of the Miranda rights among native (n = 82) and advanced L2 speakers of English (n = 183) to determine whether standardized assessments of L2 proficiency can predict comprehension of the Miranda rights.

Schmenk, B., Breidbach, S., & L. Küster (eds.) Sloganization in language education discourse: Conceptual thinking in the age of academic marketization. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2019

The purpose of this chapter is to articulate the reasons for my unease with the concept of superd... more The purpose of this chapter is to articulate the reasons for my unease with the concept of superdiversity, the affective rhetoric it is couched in and the process that transformed a newly coined word into 'a fact on the ground' and an academic brand. I will begin with an overview of processing features that differentiate academic slogans from bona fide academic terms. Next, I will examine branding strategies that made superdiversity a recognizable name in sociolinguistics. Then, I will consider the many meanings of superdiversity and argue that referential indeterminacy renders it impervious to critique of Eurocentric biases and ahistoric premises and makes the new slogan an extremely valuable tool for branding and creation of a new academic hierarchy and new elite.

Psychology Today blog Life as a bilingual

This paper reviews recent developments in the study of multilingualism and affect, with the focus... more This paper reviews recent developments in the study of multilingualism and affect, with the focus on two active areas: affective processing and decision-making. The converging pattern of findings suggests that foreign (FL) and second language (L2) processing do not engage affect to the same extent as processing in the first language (L1). This decreased reliance on affect has been linked to the systematic finding that speakers dealing with moral dilemmas and financial scenarios in a foreign language are less concerned about negative consequences and less averse to risk. This finding, termed the foreign language effect, may have important implications for language policies in multilingual contexts but first future studies need to link them conclusively to affective processing and identify mechanisms that give rise to these effects.

Полевые исследования, включая исследования, представленные в статьях в данном выпуске, показывают... more Полевые исследования, включая исследования, представленные в статьях в данном выпуске, показывают, что в последние десять лет русский язык стал одним из наиболее востребованных и рас-пространенных языков в зарубежной сфере обслуживания, туризма и маркетинга — наряду с английским и китайским. Этот исторический момент открывает новые возможности для исследований русского языка за рубежом. В статье предлагается обзор социолингвистических методов, исполь-зуемых в исследованиях функционирования русского языка за рубежом. Ключевые слова: русский язык, социолингвистические методы, языковые ландшафты, полевые исследования, коммодификация, лингва-франка В ноябре 2016 г. российские и французские СМИ пестрели заголовками: «Рус-ские спасают тунисский туристический сезон», «В Тунисе начали учить русский язык ради российских туристов». Журналисты отметили, что теракты 2015 г., на-правленные против туристов, испугали путешественников из Западной Европы и негативно отразились на местном туристическом бизнесе. В то же время поток визитеров из России вырос более чем в десять раз (см. табл. на стр. 507). В ответ Тунисское Национальное управление по туризму организовало курсы русского языка для гидов, сотрудников отелей и ресторанов и прочих работников туриндустрии. Эта взаимосвязь между изучением русского языка за рубежом с од-ной стороны и геополитическими, экономическими и демографическими факторами с другой находится в центре исследований, опубликованных в данном номере. Исследования Центра социологических исследований показывают, что за по-следние 25 лет заметно снизилось как абсолютное число владеющих русским язы-ком, так и их доля в общем населении Земли. В 1990 г. число владевших русским языком составляло 312 млн (5,9% мирового населения), а сам язык занимал четвер-тое место в мире (после китайского, английского и испанского). К 2015 г. русский язык утратил свои позиции в системе образования на постсоветском пространстве и в Восточной Европе, число владевших русским сократилось до 243 млн (3,2%), а сам язык переместился на восьмое место (Арефьев 2017). Парадоксально, в тот же период на улицах многих зарубежных городов появились надписи, объявления и реклама на русском языке, а в сфере обслуживания появился русскоязычный

The study examined granularity of lexical partitioning of the blue area in speakers of English, w... more The study examined granularity of lexical partitioning of the blue area in speakers of English, which encodes the term blue; Russian, which encodes two terms, sinij [dark/navy blue] and goluboj [light/sky blue]; and Ukrainian, which encodes the terms synij [dark/navy blue] and blakytnyj and golubyj [light/sky blue]. Five groups of participants took part in the study: (1) 30 L1 speakers of English, (2) 30 L1 speakers of Russian, (3) 30 Russian–English bilinguals, (4) 30 English–Russian bilinguals, and (5) 25 Ukrainian–Russian–English trilinguals. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that L1 Russian speakers referred to different types of blue significantly more frequently than all other groups, while bilinguals patterned with L1 English speakers. These findings suggest that classroom exposure to L2 Russian does not make the distinction between sinij and goluboj communicatively relevant for L1 English speakers and that everyday use of L2 English may trigger attrition of the contrast in L1 Russian.

The study examined granularity of lexical partitioning of the blue area in speakers of English, w... more The study examined granularity of lexical partitioning of the blue area in speakers of English, which encodes the term blue; Russian, which encodes two terms, sinij [dark/navy blue] and goluboj [light/sky blue]; and Ukrainian, which encodes the terms synij [dark/navy blue] and blakytnyj and golubyj [light/sky blue]. Five groups of participants took part in the study: (1) 30 L1 speakers of English, (2) 30 L1 speakers of Russian, (3) 30 Russian-English bilinguals, (4) 30 English-Russian bilinguals, and (5) 25 Ukrainian-Russian-English trilinguals. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that L1 Russian speakers referred to different types of blue significantly more frequently than all other groups, while bilinguals patterned with L1 English speakers. These findings suggest that classroom exposure to L2 Russian does not make the distinction between sinij and goluboj communicatively relevant for L1 English speakers and that everyday use of L2 English may trigger attrition of the contrast in L1 Russian.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Russian became a commodity in the global service indu... more The purpose of this paper is to examine how Russian became a commodity in the global service industry in the decade between 2004 and 2014 and, in some places, much earlier. I will begin with a discussion of sociolinguistic theory of ‘commodification of language’, focusing on aspects critical for this case study. Then, I will trace the process of commodification of Russian, starting with why (reasons) and when (timeline), proceeding to where (locations) and how (forms), and ending with the so what. I will also talk about what next, identifying the opportunities for research on global Russian and the many gaps that are waiting to be filled.

The purpose of this article is to introduce the Guidelines for communicating rights to non-native... more The purpose of this article is to introduce the Guidelines for communicating rights to non-native speakers of English in Australia, England and Wales, and the USA. The guidelines were authored by the international Communication of Rights group (CoRG) that brought together 21 linguists, psychologists, lawyers, lawyer-linguists and interpreters. The intention was to " translate " research on the communication of rights to non-native speakers in police interviews for practitioners and policy makers. Drawing on linguistic and psychological research, as well as our collective experience of working with speciic cases, CoRG produced a 2000-word guidelines document with seven recommendations, an explanation accessible for police oocers, lawyers, judges and justice administrators, and a bibliography of relevant research. The article explains why this project was restricted to three common law countries, and encourages others to consider using the document, following this article, as a starting point for a similar development in their own country or jurisdiction. Resumo. Este artigo apresenta as Orientações para comunicação de direitos a falantes não nativos de inglês na Austrália, Inglaterra e País de Gales, e Esta-dos Unidos da América. As orientações são da autoria do grupo internacional Communication of Rights (CoRG), que agrega 21 linguistas, psicólogos, juristas, jurilinguistas e intérpretes, e procuram " traduzir " investigação realizada sobre comunicação de direitos a falantes não nativos em interrogatórios policiais para proossionais e decisores políticos. Baseando-se em investigação em linguística e psicologia, bem como na própria experiência coletiva com casos especíícos, o CoRG produziu um documento de 2000 palavras com sete recomendações, uma ex-plicação acessível para agentes policiais, juristas, juízes e oociais de justiça, e uma bibliograaa relevante. O artigo explica a delimitação do projeto a três países da tradição " common law " e incentiva outros investigadores a utilizar o documento (no nal do artigo) como ponto de partida para o desenvolvimento de trabalho idêntico no seu próprio país ou jurisdição.

В статье анализируется роль русского языка в эпоху глобализации. На материале по-левых исследован... more В статье анализируется роль русского языка в эпоху глобализации. На материале по-левых исследований, проведенных в 11 странах, показано, что русский язык стал одним из наиболее востребованных и широко распространенных языков после английского в зарубежной сфере обслуживания. С точки зрения современной социолингвистиче-ской теории русский язык становится не только предметом национальной гордости, но и конвертируемого символического капитала, который может рассматриваться в ка-честве экономического капитала. По мнению автора, этот переходной момент открывает новые возможности и для исследователей русского языка за рубежом, и для педагогов и методистов. Ключевые слова: глобализция, языковой рынок, коммодификация, лингва франка. Th e purpose of the article is to analyze the role of the Russian language in the era of globalization. Based on fi eldwork conducted in eleven countries, the study shows that Russian became one of the most popular and widely used foreign languages — aft er English — in the global service industry. From the point of view of contemporary sociolinguistic theory, Russian language has become not only the object of national pride but a form of symbolic capital that could be converted into economic capital. Th e author argues that this transitional moment opens up new opportunities for teachers and researchers studying Russian abroad.

Debates about linguistic relativity commonly focus on one question: Does language affect thought?... more Debates about linguistic relativity commonly focus on one question: Does language affect thought? This yes-or-no question does not do justice to the complexity of Whorf’s ideas and skirts several issues of great importance to Whorf. My first aim in this paper is to recover the arguments that got lost in translation of Whorf’s ideas into the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. I will show that, for Whorf, languages were also one of the ways in which we think, scientists were not immune to language effects, and the key to advancement of Western science was multilingual awareness. My second aim is to draw on these insights to articulate a Whorfian agenda for the field of second language acquisition (SLA) that asks new questions about second language learning and cognition and expands the boundaries of the field and the scope, duration, and locations of SLA research.

An interview with bilingual writer and poet Gustavo Perez-Firmat

It is commonly argued that the proliferation of urban writing known as linguistic landscapes repr... more It is commonly argued that the proliferation of urban writing known as linguistic landscapes represents "a thoroughly contemporary global trend" (Coupland, 2010: 78). The purpose of this paper is to show that linguistic landscapes are by no means modern phenomena and to draw on our shared interest in multilingual empires to highlight the importance of diachronic inquiry and productive dialog between sociolinguists of modern and ancient societies. We will argue that while signs do operate in aggregate, the common focus on all signs at a single point in time on one street is problematic because the interpretation of signs is diachronic in nature, intrinsically linked to the preceding signs in the same environment and to related signs elsewhere, and the process of reading "back from signs to practices to people" (Blommaert, 2013: 51) is not as unproblematic as it is sometimes made to look.

Communication of rights guidelines are a document jointly authored by a group of 21 linguists, la... more Communication of rights guidelines are a document jointly authored by a group of 21 linguists, lawyers, psychologists, and interpreters that outlines seven recommendations for how the right to silence (and other rights) can be better worded and communicated by the police to non-native speakers of English.

Multilingualism and history (Cambridge University Press) , 2023

Blackwood, R. & U. Royland (eds.) Spaces of multilingualism. Routledge, 2022

Language and Law , 2021

The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 2019

Schmenk, B., Breidbach, S., & L. Küster (eds.) Sloganization in language education discourse: Conceptual thinking in the age of academic marketization. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2019

Psychology Today blog Life as a bilingual

The study examined granularity of lexical partitioning of the blue area in speakers of English, w... more The study examined granularity of lexical partitioning of the blue area in speakers of English, which encodes the term blue; Russian, which encodes two terms, sinij [dark/navy blue] and goluboj [light/sky blue]; and Ukrainian, which encodes the terms synij [dark/navy blue] and blakytnyj and golubyj [light/sky blue]. Five groups of participants took part in the study: (1) 30 L1 speakers of English, (2) 30 L1 speakers of Russian, (3) 30 Russian-English bilinguals, (4) 30 English-Russian bilinguals, and (5) 25 Ukrainian-Russian-English trilinguals. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that L1 Russian speakers referred to different types of blue significantly more frequently than all other groups, while bilinguals patterned with L1 English speakers. These findings suggest that classroom exposure to L2 Russian does not make the distinction between sinij and goluboj communicatively relevant for L1 English speakers and that everyday use of L2 English may trigger attrition of the contrast in L1 Russian.

An interview with bilingual writer and poet Gustavo Perez-Firmat

Language on the Move

Just before the holidays, Professor Aneta Pavlenko and I chatted about Aneta's new book Multiling... more Just before the holidays, Professor Aneta Pavlenko and I chatted about Aneta's new book Multilingualism and History. We talked about amnesia and ignorance pacts in contemporary sociolinguistics, ghost signs that point to dark pasts and presents, and the politics of romanticized multilingualism.