Choosing a Mother Tongue

This book investigates narrative accounts of language and politics in Ukraine, including the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war, providing a detailed analysis of how national and linguistic identity are discursively renegotiated during a time of mass conflict. It examines connections between language, identity and politics in Ukraine and the diaspora. This book presents a sociocultural linguistic analysis of discourses of conflict, as well as an examination of how linguistic identity is embodied, negotiated and realized during a time of war. It provides new insights regarding multilingualism among Ukrainians in Ukraine and in the diaspora of New Zealand, the US and Canada, and sheds light on the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on language attitudes among Ukrainians around the world. Crucially, it features an analysis of a new movement in Ukraine that developed during the course of the war – ‘changing your mother tongue’, which embodies what it is to renegotiate linguistic identity. It will be of value to researchers, faculty, and students in the areas of linguistics, Slavic studies, history, politics, anthropology, sociology and international affairs, as well as those interested in Ukrainian affairs more generally. This book is open access under a CC BY NC ND licence.