Emerging Bilingual Speech: From Monolingualism to Code-Copying

Anna Verschik offers a new perspective on how a previously monolingual community of Russian-speakers in Estonia is rapidly becoming bilingual after the end of the Soviet occupation in 1991.

The contact-induced change in Russian under the growing impact of Estonian is analysed in the theoretical framework of code-copying. Changes in linguistic behaviour of the speakers are often a result of intentional cultivation of non-monolingual communication strategies and language policies, and go hand in hand with the development of a new identity, ‘Estonian Russians’.

Emerging Bilingual Speech is a fascinating study that will be of interest to researchers studying language contact, language change and bilingualism.