The focus of our attention is Kyiv. Firstly, because it is the capital, whose language situation has an effect on the entire population of the country. Secondly, it is the city where the group of bilinguals significantly exceeds the average indicator of the bilingual groups in other large cities of Ukraine.
The object of the research is the language situation of Kyiv and the language behavior of Kyiv bilinguals.
The subject of the study is Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism and diglossia in the modern communicative space of Kyiv.
The purpose of the work is to analyze the bilingualism and diglossia in the city, to investigate the language behavior of Kyiv inhabitants in bilingual situations.
The scientific novelty of the dissertation is that this is the first systematic study of the language situation in Kyiv since 2000. On the basis of the conducted sociolinguistic survey, the functional usage of the Ukrainian and Russian languages in different spheres of communicative space of the city is revealed. The analysis of the language behavior of the capital's residents in formal and informal spheres of communication was presented for the first time in Ukrainian sociolinguistics. A comparison of the results of our study with the data of the sociolinguistic survey of Kyiv in 2000 revealed changes in the bilingual situation of the capital, in particular the growing prestige of the Ukrainian language.
The practical significance of the dissertation is related to the possibility of using the materials for future sociolinguistic research. These data will help to develop the lecture courses and special courses in sociolinguistics. Research materials can be used to formulate practical recommendations for the state language policy.
Research results. In the dissertation, the concepts of bilingualism and diglossia are characterized in full detail, as well as the criteria of their differentiation. It is defined that both phenomena can exist simultaneously in the same language society. The history of the russification of Kyiv by the way of the continuous assimilation of the Ukrainian people is presented.
In order to describe the language situation in Ukraine the results of the mass survey, conducted within the project AZ № 90217, have been used. Analyzed here are the attitudes of the residents of different Ukrainian cities to the status of the Ukrainian and Russian languages and state language policy, their views on the use of two languages today and in the future, the degree of the prestige of both language codes in the minds of the respondents, and the level of conflict of language problems in a bilingual society. It is proved that bilingualism and diglossia exist in the communicative space of the country. The defining feature of diglossia at present is the differentiation of formal or informal communication.
To study the Kyiv language situation we use the materials of the All-Ukrainian Population Census 2001 and the results of some surveys. On the basis of these data the tendencies of using Ukrainian and Russian in different spheres of communication in Kyiv, including formal and informal communication, are outlined.
In our study, we analyze the language behavior of the most popular Kyiv universities’ students in order to identify their attitude to the language problems in Ukraine. Thus, in 2017 the survey was conducted among the students of 4 universities. During the questionnaire motivation for code-switching, the preferable language for formal and informal communication, the issue of language resistance, and the students’ thoughts of the usage of the Ukrainian and Russian languages in the future have been determined. The language situation in the students’ environment, as well as throughout whole Ukraine, is bilingual.
One more aspect of the thesis is the analysis of the speech of the civil servants during their work in order to determine the peculiarities of their language behavior. It is found that despite the official requirement to use the state language at work, the civil servants often switch and mix language codes, and even use Russian.
According to the results of the investigation, the dynamics of the language situation in the capital and the perspectives for its further transformation towards monolingualism are characterized. It is predicted that the state language will be the main one in the formal communication of Ukrainians and, in the informal it will gradually force out Russian. It is determined that we need the relevant actions of the authorities, qualitative education, and monolingual space in the environment of the educational institutions, control over the language regime in official spheres.
