Marginal Linguistic Identities: Studies in Slavic Contact and Borderland Varieties

The present conference volume is an attempt to extend the scope of Eastern European linguistics by bringing together contributions from the fields of sociolinguistics and social anthropology hitherto neglected in the study of Eastern European languages. The collection of papers focusses primarily on cultural and linguistic hybridity in contexts of marginalization. Special attention is given to the language-identity nexus. All analyses are based on field research covering the spectrum from largescale questionnaire elicitation to participant observation. This reflects the editors’ concern and hope for a renewed appreciation of field work by Slavic scholars. The volume is structured thematically, dealing withas diverse topics as cultural hybridity, linguistic identity in borderland communities, language death and genesis, code-mixing, as well as dialect shift under conditions of sociopolitical upheaval. Among the languages treated are Kashubian, Banat Bul-garian, Aegean Macedonian, Slovene, non-standard and contact varieties of Russian (Karelian-Russian, Old settlers’ Russian, Russian lexifier pidgins and Russian foreigner talk), mixed lects (Surzhyk and Trasianka), and standard-dialect-continua in Ex-Yugoslavia.