Language Politics and Practices in the Baltic States

Keelekasutuse aluspõhimõtted Eesti Vabariigi põhiseaduses ja nende rakendamine

“…Iseseisvumise taastamise järel on Eesti keelepoliitika peamine ülesanne olnud eesti keele funktsioonide taastamine riigikeelena. Ennekõike on see tähendanud vabanemist Nõukogude okupatsiooni tagajärgedest, mille tõttu madaldus olulisel määral eesti keele staatus ühiskonnas ning ahenes selle kasutusala (G. Hogan-Brun et al 2009). …”

English-Medium Instruction in European Higher Education

“…The profound socio-political changes in 1991 led to important modifications in the legal and educational spheres so as to revert that situation. To a significant extent, one can talk about the successful reversal of a language shift (Fishman 1991;Hogan-Brun et al 2007;Skerrett 2012). From the language political point of view, the 1992 Constitution establishes Estonian as the sole official language of the country and Language policy in Estonian Higher Education declares all languages other than Estonian to be foreign languages.…”

Agency lost in the discourse of language endangerment: nominalisation in discourse about South Estonian

“…Given the symbolic and declarative language laws of the late 1980s, which acted as de facto statements of Baltic independence, recent Baltic politics of language, however, have been growingly informed by issues of language ideology (Hogan-Brun et al 2007). Language professionals and perhaps speakers too have become aware of the power embedded in politics of language and language policy.…”

“…Thus the Baltic, incl. Estonian language markets are characterised by the paradoxical situation where both major speech communities -the autochthonous and the Russian-speaking -consider their languages as threatened or minority languages (Hogan-Brun et al 2007). Kalmus (2003) in her analysis of ethno-political discourse of both major ethnic groups in Estonia has described Estonians' discursive position as either that of established or endangered majority and the Russians' discursive position as minority.…”

“…My analysis has also revealed some essentialised linguistic representations, which are rather characteristic to a nationalising state such as Estonia (cf. Hogan-Brun et al 2007). There are a number of reasons to consider the discourse of (de)legitimation as a discourse of endangerment.…”