Abstract
Some minority languages behave like good children, seen but not heard. Others behave like normal children, both heard and seen. And yet others may behave like unruly children and be heard or seen even when banished away from the public eye. The latter is the case of Russian in Ukraine. Russian is an unusual minority language. It is spoken by the majority of the population of Ukraine and understood by the rest. The study of Russian in Ukraine offers minority language scholars an opportunity to examine the process of creation of a minority language, through downgrading of a former lingua franca. This downgrading is particularly visible in the area of linguistic landscape, or public uses of written language. Russian in Ukraine also offers an excellent case study of transgressive semiotics. Scollon and Scollon (2003, p. 146) define transgressive signs as signs unauthorized in terms of placement, for example, graffiti. In the present chapter, this definition is extended to signs unauthorized in terms of language choice, that is, signs whose languages are not sanctioned by language laws.
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© 2012 Aneta Pavlenko
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Pavlenko, A. (2012). Transgression as the Norm: Russian in Linguistic Landscape of Kyiv, Ukraine. In: Gorter, D., Marten, H.F., Van Mensel, L. (eds) Minority Languages in the Linguistic Landscape. Palgrave Studies in Minority Languages and Communities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230360235_3
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