Authors

Jennifer Bown¹; Grant Lundberg¹; Miriam Whiting¹; Wendy Smemoe¹;  ¹ Brigham Young University, United States

Discussion

ummary:
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, scholars have examined the extent to which ethnic Russians living in former Soviet republics identify with their native language culture (Trofimovich & Turuševa, 2015; Zabrodskaja, 2015). One of the tools employed to study group identification is the Ethnic Group Affiliation (EGA) scale developed by Gatbonton and Trofimovich (2008). The EGA scale is comprised of four factors: core EGA (basic feelings towards the ethnic group including pride in knowing the group’s history and accomplishment, in displaying its symbols , and willingness to defend the group), group identification EGA (willingness to be identified as part of a particular group and pride in being so identified), language EGA (beliefs about the importance of language in group identity), and political EGA (supporting political interests of the ethnic group, including schooling in the native language, etc.). This scale has been used to examine the relationship between EGA and proficiency in Latvian among the ethnic Russian population in Latvia.
 
Our study sought to replicate those findings among ethnic Russians in Lithuania, a country in which the Russian population is considerably smaller and the language policy more liberal. Nevertheless, Lithuania has a complex political and linguistic history, particularly in relation to Russian language speakers. This study is guided by three primary research questions:
 
1.     What is the relationship between the EGA of L1 Russian speakers in Lithuania and their language use and social networks?
2.     What is the relationship between the EGA of L1 Lithuanian speakers and their judgements of Russian-accentedness in Lithuanian?
3.     What is the relationship between the EGA of L1 Lithuanian speakers and their attitudes towards Russian L1 speakers?
 
We found correlations between the EGA of L1 Russian speakers and their language use and social networks, suggesting that strong affiliation with their Russian ethnic group impedes integration with L1 Lithuanian speakers. We found no correlation between the EGA of L1 Lithuanian speakers and judgements of accentedness in Russian, but we did find a correlation between the EGA of L1 Lithuanian speakers and their attitudes towards Russian L2 speakers of Lithuanian.
 
References
Gatbonton, E. & Trofimovich, P. (2008). The ethnic group affiliation and L2 proficiency link: Empirical evidence. Language Awareness. https:doi.org/10.1080/09658410802146867.
 
Trofimovich, P., & Turuševa, L. (2015). Ethnic identity and second language learning. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 35, 234-252. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190514000166.
 
Zabrodskaya, A. (2015). “What is my country to me?” Identity construction by Russian-speakers in the Baltic Countries. Sociolinguistic Studies 9(2/3),