The Volga Region as an indicator for language policy in the multinational Russia of today. Multilingualism in the area of tension between the Republics and the Federation

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As the official successor state to the USSR, the Russian Federation (RF) conceives of itself in its constitution as a multiethnic state, in which the principles of bi- and multilingualism apply. However, since the turn of the century, an increasing number of measures have entered into effect which are focussed on a (Russian) language-based nation state: e.g. the law regarding the Cyrillic alphabet as the sole alphabet for all state languages (2002), the Education Act of 2007 (Art. 7 of which abolished the regional and national components which had previously been anchored in the laws of the constituent Republics of the RF), the introduction of common state examinations, in the Russian language only, in 2009 and the introduction of federal language programmes only for Russian, not for national languages. These measures are subjects of controversial discussions between the republics and the federal level. This project seeks to analyse this change of direction in the RFs recent language policy regarding the non-Russian national languages. Furthermore, and in contrast to other investigations into the contemporary RF, the project will focus its attention upon the perspective of the Republics as the main subjects in federal systems in order to show both the legal aspects and the reality of RF language policy. The touchstone for this policy is the Volga Federal District, which is made up of six Republics covering a broad spectrum of sociolinguistic profiles, and from which one can therefore draw conclusions about other Republics of the RF. Methodologically, the project focuses on typological conceptions of language situations and on a computer-based discourse analysis of language ideology: the conceptualisation and implementation of the current language legislation and programmes of the Volga Republics will be investigated in their relationship, often tense, to federal language policy; the computer-based discourse analysis of language-related debates both in the Volga Republic and at the federal level will allow us to detail the ways in which multilingualism is dealt with in the multinational state. For the discourse-analytical examination of language ideology, a computer corpus of language programmes, language debates and interviews with language-politics actors in the Republics will be compiled. This will then be analysed and assessed using both software developed for qualitative analysis, and methods of argumentation analysis. The fields of analysis will be the education sector, which shapes the next generation, and the mass media, which reaches large sectors of the population.The proposed project cooperates closely with partners in the Volga region, against the backdrop of which it will seek to illuminate the language policy of a multinational state which, as a member of the Council of Europe, is charged with the preservation of cultural and linguistic diversity.