Description
Book Synopsis‘Politics and the Theory of Language in the USSR 1917-1938’ provides ground-breaking research into the relationship between linguistic theory and politics during the first two decades of the USSR. This work introduces some of the era's most notable figures whose achievements have been largely overlooked in the West, and provides a thought-provoking discussion of the innovative approaches they developed. Some of these insights still have a progressive role to play in scholarship today.
Trade Review‘A very rich and captivating book on the history of the first phase of Soviet linguistics.’ —Roger Comtet, Université de Toulouse II, in ‘Historiographia Linguistica’
‘This is an excellent volume with a set of extraordinarily thoughtful and insightful papers. It is an intellectual history and is of immense relevance to linguists and literary scholars alike as well as historians of the Soviet period.’ —Lenore A. Grenoble, University of Chicago, ‘The Russian Review’
‘This volume is a key contribution to the intellectual history of socially grounded studies of language, and it will be valuable to scholars interested in the place of theories of language in early Soviet politics, as well as to scholars examining the links between language, power, and society in general.’ —Laada Bilaniuk, University of Washington, in ‘Slavic Review’
‘This succinct volume of articles straddles the interdisciplinary divide between history, political science, linguistics and literary studies […]. It opens a new vista for future research that will take into account the entire milieu of the interwar Soviet theoreticians and implementers of linguistic and social engineering.’ —Tomasz Kamusella, Cracow University of Economics, ‘European History Quarterly’ Book Reviews
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Soviet Linguistics of the 1920s and 1930s and the Scholarly Heritage; 'Sociology' in Soviet Linguistics of the 1920-30s; Theoretical Insights and Ideological Pressures in Early Soviet Linguistics; Early Soviet Linguistics and Mikhail Bakhtin’s Essays on the Novel of the 1930s; Language as a Battlefield - the Rhetoric of Class Struggle in Linguistic Debates of the First Five-Year Plan Period; The Tenacity of Forms; The Word as Culture; Language Ideology and the Evolution of Kul´tura iazyka ('Speech Culture') in Soviet Russia; Psychology, Linguistics and the Rise of Applied Social Science in the USSR; Appendix 1: Introduction to Japhetidology: Theses - Ivan Meshchaninov; Appendix 2: Glossary of Names; Appendix 3: Contributors; Index of Names
