Russian as a non-dominant variety in Cyprus:
Family language policy, identity, language use, maintenance and transmission

Sviatlana KARPAVA

UCLan Cyprus Larnaka, Cyprus
skarpava@uclan.ac.uk

Keywords: Russian, identity, language use, maintenance, transmission

Language and identity are interconnected (Bucholtz and Hall 2003; Rothman and Rell 2005; Cislo 2008; Hernández 2009; Alfaraz 2012). Language awareness in the community, effective family language policy (FLP) and socialisation activities are important for language maintenance and transmission. FLP presupposes practice, management and ideology as well as emotional and psychological factors (Cooper 1989; Spolsky and Shohamy 1999; Shohamy 2006; Spolsky 2004, 2009; King, Fogle and Logan-Terry 2008). Language ideologies depend on family, language use and value, place and status of minority and majority languages, dynamics, quality, extent and longevity of social use, social networks and strategies for revitalization (Spolsky 2004, 2009; Shohamy 2006; King 2000; King et al. 2008).

After the 2000s there is a tendency for Russian to be a new lingua franca in the former USSR republics and abroad (Pavlenko, 2012). There is an increased valorization of Russian in Cyprus due to tourist flow, immigration, international marriages, cultural and religious ties, military and political cooperation, investments and transnational corporations (Kuznetsov, 2010; Filippov, 2011). Russian is functioning as lingua franca in Cyprus and is perceived as commodity (Bourdieu, 1991; Eracleous, 2015).

This study examines the issues of identity, language use, maintenance and intergenerational transmission faced by Russian speakers in Cyprus. Both questionnaires and oral interviews were used for data collection. The participants of the study were 30 international Russian-speaking students studying and residing in Cyprus and 60 adult females, native speakers of Russian living in Cyprus: 50 of them are members of mixed-marriage families and 10 are representatives of Russian-speaking families.

The analysis of the data revealed that female adults, members of mixed-marriage families, have either Russian or mixed (Russian, Cypriot Greek) cultural and linguistic identity and pro-bilingual family language policy (FLP); while the representatives of Russian-speaking families in Cyprus have mainly Russian or mixed (Russian and English) identity and pro-Russian FLP.

All the participants believe that people in Cyprus are tolerant to multilingualism and they have nearly never experienced discrimination or bad attitude towards them due to their L1. Only members of mixed-marriage families believe that they need to learn Greek in order to integrate into Cyprus society, to improve their knowledge and to be successful at work. Societal linguistic affordances shape individual linguistic affordances (Aronin and Singleton, 2012). As for language maintenance, the participants from mixed-marriage families use either ‘one parent one language approach’ or mix both languages while communicating with their children, whereas only Russian is used in monolingual Russian-speaking families in Cyprus.