A Study Of Russian Language Policy In The Early Days Of Soviet Union

Balancing the relationship between promoting national lingua franca and maintaining domestic language diversity is a universal problem faced by language policies in multiethnic countries.In the Soviet Union,which was a multiethnic,multilingual country,this problem was particularly prominent.“How to deal with the relationship between the lingua franca and other languages” has also become the mainline running through the language policy of the Soviet Union.The practice of its language policy is of great theoretical and practical value to constructing a lingua franca in multilingual and multi-ethnic countries.The language construction of the Soviet Union in the 1920 s and 1930 s is the beginning of the country's language planning activities.This period of history is significant for understanding the origin and development of Russian as the national lingua franca.However,the policies and practices of this period are easily ignored by Chinese and western academics.This study combines The Advocacy Coalition Framework with the Framework of Language Policy and Planning Goals to construct a theoretical analysis framework.By analyzing the content,characteristics,influencing factors,and aftereffects of the Russian policy in the Soviet Union(1917–the 1930s),this study explores the process and mechanism of the national lingua franca policy.The research questions include :(1)What are the connotations and influencing factors of Russian policy?(2)How is the implementation effect of the Russian policy?(3)What is the process mechanism of the national lingua franca policy?This study takes a historical approach,collecting data including historical policy texts,census data,textbooks,media texts,quotations from policymakers,academic research works,interviews with contemporary authoritative experts,etc.Combining content analysis with historical-comparative analysis,this study explores the historical background,policy content,characteristics,influencing factors,and aftereffects of Russian policy.Based on the discussion of the Russian policy in the early period of the Soviet Union,this study puts forward the process analysis framework of the lingua franca policy.In addition,to identify internal influencing factors,the research applies historical discourse analysis to excavate the relevant discourses of the leaders of the Soviet Union and studies the policy ideas of Lenin and Stalin on Russian.These three methods complement each other and enhance the effectiveness and validity of the research findings.The main findings of this paper are as follows:(1)In the early days of the Soviet Union,to consolidate the new regime,the first language policy(language construction)implemented by the Soviet Union adhered to the core idea of “language equality of all ethnic groups”.They realized ethnic equality,which was also a symbol of democracy and equality,through a multilingual system at the cost of language unity.At the core policy idea,national language was regarded as the symbol of great Russian chauvinism.Therefore,in the early period of the establishment of the Soviet Union,policymakers consciously gave up the expression of national language and did not grant Russian any privileges in the explicit language policy.This approach ensured the equality of all languages at the national level and made full use of the neutrality of Russian,which played a specific role in the national integration at the early stage of the establishment of the Soviet Union.In multilingual language construction,the government has never denied the pivotal role of Russian in economic circulation and inter-ethnic communication.“Encouraging Russian to serve the new socialist country” has become the driving force of Russian corpus planning and acquisition planning.In practice,Soviet linguists challenged Saussure's view that “language policy is impossible”,and their corpus planning measures had an essential impact on the structure and function of Russian.These measures include the construction of Russian norms and standards,the simplification of Russian letters and spellings,and the modernization of vocabulary;The corpus planning improves the social role of Russian in expressing new society and new things and makes it the most advantageous lingua franca in social function.It can be argued that the essence of the Russian policy in the early days of the Soviet Union is a policy of “developing a lingua franca that can unite all social classes”.(2)The changes in the Russian language policy are affected by the combined effects of internal and external factors.In terms of internal factors,the political system of dual sovereignty of the Soviet Union determines the power distribution mechanism of language policy.Among them,the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union dictated the decision-making process,and the allied republics do not have the legislative power of relevant languages.The Soviet Constitution adheres to the two basic principles of the legal equality of language and language as a communication tool on language issues.The language functions and social and cultural issues left over from the Imperial Russian era became obstacles to national construction and affected the Soviet society's understanding and judgment of Russian.The changing course of national development also changes the understanding of the nature of language.In terms of external system events,The changes in economic conditions and the improvement of the national cultural level have highlighted the communicative value,economic value,and cultural value of Russian.In addition,the change of national leaders has become an essential external event that affects policy changes.In the late 1930 s,constructing the Russian language into a national lingua franca that was in line with economic development,national unified management,and national communication became the core of the Russian policy.To ensure the core concept system of the socialist country stable and unchallenged,the idea of equality of all languages has never been changed.(3)In addition,a successful national lingua franca policy depends not only on a top-down decision-making path,but also on an effective language policy coordination mechanism.Its determination and operation are often based on a particular country's social and historical conditions.In formulating and implementing a stable national lingua franca policy,policymakers usually need to consider external factors to better understand the tasks and challenges that language must undertake in different historical periods.Among them,it is imperative to respect the values and contributions of different policy subjects.