Like so many others this week, we here at BILD are deeply shocked and saddened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We take this opportunity to remind BILD readers that nearly a year ago, in April 2021, our J-BILD journal published a special issue entitled “Boundaries and Belonging: Language, Diaspora, and Motherland” (v5n1), guest-edited by Alla Nedashkivska and Holger Kusse. Four of the articles in the special issue discuss language issues in contemporary Ukraine: “Native Language Activism: Exploring Language Ideologies in Ukraine,” by Alla Nedashkivska; “The Instrumentalization of the Language Issue in Ukraine,” by Marianna Novosolova; “Bloggers as Social Actors in Language Policy Debates in Ukraine,” by Nadiya Kiss; and “Language Tenacity of Ukrainians in the 20th Century as a Means of National Self-Assertion,” by Liudmyla Pidkuimukha. The abstracts are below. We encourage our readers to find out more about the linguistic resilience of the Ukrainian people through these articles, and to support their struggle by spreading the word about their extraordinary courage under fire.

Native Language Activism: Exploring Language Ideologies in Ukraine. ALLA NEDASHKIVSKA, University of Alberta. ABSTRACT. The study explores language ideologies focusing on the ideology of mother tongue or native language activism in Ukraine in the sociopolitical context of events that prompt attention to language questions. Data are drawn from online media texts that are explicitly devoted to or address language matters in Ukraine. These texts are studied as ideological sites (Philips, 2000; Silverstein, 1979), which construct the specific ideological tendencies of a community. The study relies on Kroskrity’s (2000; 2004) notions of language ideologies as various conceptions of and beliefs about language(s) and language practices. These language ideologies are also about various constructions of an image, place, and role of language(s) in a community. All of these conceptions index certain belongings, boundaries, and specific interests of members of a community. The results of analyses of both verbal and visual data allow us to discuss the positionality of online communities in producing and shaping specific beliefs and feelings with respect to languages in Ukraine, both Ukrainian and Russian. The native language ideology, prominent in the online media studied, is multifaceted and complex, and is explored within the established categories of language image, language facelift, and language drive. This study demonstrates that the ideology of native language activism is visible in various forms and through multiple expressions in online media, with the key idea that Ukrainian is the native language of all Ukrainians and is a unifying mechanism of the Ukrainian nation, state, and people.

The Instrumentalization of the Language Issue in Ukraine. MARIANNA NOVOSOLOVA, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany. ABSTRACT. The article focuses on the instrumentalization of the language issue in Ukraine, beginning with a confrontation between the Russophone and Ukrainophone language ideologies used by opposing political parties, and up to the weaponization of language during the hybrid Russian-Ukrainian war. The study also analyses the instrumentalization of the language issue in the self-proclaimed republics in Donbas. It is assumed that the concepts of language, nation, and territory are interconnected within identity discourses, and that their interconnections engender different frames that underlie complex ideological and propagandistic argumentation, evoking conflictual discursive practices. The sequential overview of the language and ideological situation in Ukraine is illustrated by typical examples of the instrumentalization of the language issue by political actors, including the media. The analysis considers underlying frames, different intentions of discourse actors and destructive consequences for society. After describing typical cases of the instrumentalization of the language issue in Ukraine, the article focuses on Donbas, the self-proclaimed republic from 2014–2020. The delineation of the special language and identity situation in Donbas is followed by an overview of the instrumentalization of the language issue in this region. The article concludes by outlining five main tendencies regarding the instrumentalization of the language issue in Ukraine.

Bloggers as Social Actors in Language Policy Debates in Ukraine. NADIYA KISS, Justus Liebig University of Giessen. ABSTRACT. Based on the actor-centered and discourse-analytic approaches, the article highlights the role of bloggers in debates on language policy in contemporary Ukraine. The article analyses 118 blogs, published on different platforms in the Ukrainian online media space (Ukrajinska Pravda, Radio Svoboda, BBC Ukraine, Liga.net, Hromadske, Obozrevatel and others). All blog entries were circulated in the period between March and May 2019, and discussed from different perspectives the Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian as a State Language” (2019). The article tackles the three thematic trends in the blogs: concept of change, myth refuting, and financial sanctions of the law. Close attention is paid to writers as bloggers and opinion-makers, as well as their arguments in language policy debates. Multimodality, as a special feature of language-related blogs, is analysed on the material of images, memes, infographics, photos, and videos. Conceptualisations of the

Language Tenacity of Ukrainians in the 20th Century as a Means of National Self-Assertion. LIUDMYLA PIDKUIMUKHA, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. ABSTRACT. The goal of this article is to analyze language tenacity of Ukrainians in the first half of the twentieth century as well as geographical and historical factors that have influenced language behaviour and language choice. The data set used for the analysis comes from a collection of interviews “Unusual Fates of Usual Women. Oral History of the 20th Century” (Vynnytska, 2013). These texts are chosen as they represent demonstrative samples of women’s language practices and interviewees’ reflections on the language situation in Ukraine in the first half of the 20th century. The women-interviewees explain their language choices and define how it has influenced national identity of the individuals and groups. In total, 21 interviews, which I view as discourse (text in context), are studied. The analysis is informed by critical discourse studies and reveals that the concepts of language stability and language tenacity describe the language situation studied. Language attitudes are also shown to be instrumental in creating the sociolinguistic conditions which support language stability. The discussion focuses on the concept of language tenacity as the most relevant notion in preserving or maintaining a language in a society.