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Language Policy in the Ukrainian Media: Authorities, Producers and Consumers

2013; Routledge; Volume: 65; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09668136.2013.824138

1465-3427

Volodymyr Kulyk,

Gender Studies in Language

Abstract This article deals with language policy in one crucial domain, the media. It treats language policy as the interaction between actions or inactions of the authorities, producers and consumers contributing to change or continuity of existing practices. It is argued that the main long-term contribution of all three actors, despite some notable changes, is the maintenance of the status quo characterised by the coexistence of Ukrainian and Russian with the predominance of the latter language. In particular, consumers mostly maintained their accustomed language preferences, although they did not resort to any protest actions when those preferences were disregarded. Notes The bulk of the data used in this article was obtained within the framework of the research project 'Language Policy in Ukraine: Anthropological, Linguistic and Further Perspectives', which was implemented in 2006–2008 by an international team of scholars with the financial support of the International Association for the Promotion of Cooperation with Scientists from the New Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (INTAS). I hereby acknowledge the association's support for the project and permission to use the project data in the further work of the participants. Thanks are also due to the journal's anonymous referees for their helpful comments. 1 Law of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 'On Languages in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic', adopted on 28 October 1989, art. 33, available at: http://www.minelres.lv/NationalLegislation, accessed 5 August 2010. 2 Zakon Ukraïny, 'Pro drukovani zasoby masovoi informatsii (presu) v Ukraini', adopted on 16 November 1992, art. 4, available at: http://www.rada.gov.ua, accessed 5 August 2010. 3 Zakon Ukraïny, 'Pro telebachennia i radiomovlennia', adopted on 21 December 1993, art. 9, available at: http://www.rada.gov.ua, accessed 5 August 2010. 4 Author's interviews with Oleksii Mustafin, information programmes manager, STB television channel, Kyiv, 12 August 2008, and Serhii Tykhyi, editor-in-chief, Gazeta po-kievski daily, Kyiv, 27 December 2009. 5 Later these outlets launched special editions for Ukraine which were printed in the country and turned out to be quite competitive with Ukrainian periodicals, not least due to their well-known brands. 6 Author's interview with Ihor Huzhva, editor-in-chief, Segodnia daily, Kyiv, 13 November 2008. 7 Author's interview with Volodymyr Ruban, editor-in-chief, Hazeta po-ukraïns'ky daily, Kyiv, 13 June 2008. The advertisers' avoidance of Ukrainian-language newspapers paradoxically coexisted with the predominance of the Ukrainian language in advertisement texts placed in the print media (which were published mainly in Russian-language outlets and, in effect, made them bilingual), as prescribed by the law on advertisements and ensured by the overseeing authorities. 8 Not taking into account the administratively distributed school textbooks, most of which were in Ukrainian, these books constituted 54% of Ukrainian publications in 2005. 9 The word 'wire' is used to refer to the Soviet-made wire network encompassing all households and many workplaces, which differs from the post-Soviet TV cable networks limited to big cities. 10 Zakon Ukraïny, 'Pro kinematohrafiiu', adopted on 13 January 1998, art. 14, available at: http://www.rada.gov.ua, accessed 5 August 2010. 11 See Bryndza and Bezverkha (Citation2008). Unfortunately, I have no data on consumer preferences for internet use. 12 Zakon Ukraïny, 'Pro telebachennia i radiomovlennia', adopted on 13 January 2006, art. 10, available at: http://www.rada.gov.ua, accessed 5 August 2010. 13 The president's prerogative to appoint half of the members of the National Television and Radio Council meant that, unlike with the cinemas and many other domains, his preferences regarding broadcasting were largely taken into account, even in the period of his weakened power because the anti-Orange forces were unable to take control over the council. 14 The questionnaires for the survey and focus groups were prepared in both languages and read in the former case in accordance with the declared individual preferences of respondents and in the latter with the demonstrated preferences of the group's majority: in Ukrainian in Lutsk and Lviv and in Russian in the three other cities. Although most participants in each group used the same language, some (notably, Russian-speakers in the west) deviated from the predominant pattern in which case the moderators tried to reciprocate these people's choice. Each focus group included about ten participants. 15 It is not immediately clear how one should define language groups since, unlike in most other countries, in Ukraine there is a large discrepancy between language use and language identity. Given the indeterminacy of the notion of native language in Soviet and post-Soviet practice, it is variously thought of as the language of thinking, predominant use, childhood, family and nationality. In general, language identity is a no less powerful predictor of one's language-related attitudes and policy preferences than language use in that many people primarily support the social use and state promotion of the language they identify with rather than the language they mostly speak themselves (Kulyk Citation2011a). In the case of media consumption, however, language use appears to be more relevant since most people prefer to read or watch in the language which they know best and are thus most comfortable with. In other words, while in the language groups as defined by everyday use an overwhelming majority prefers to read newspapers in the respective group language, among those people considering Ukrainian to be their native language this share is just over half. The same is true of other media consumption practices. It is, therefore, everyday-use groups that I will deal with in the article. 16 Hereafter, references to Ukrainian-speaking and Russian-speaking (or, alternately, Ukrainophone and Russophone) respondents in the survey include those who declared using the respective language exclusively or 'in most situations'. Thus defined Ukrainian-speakers constitute 35.3% and Russian-speakers 40.3% of the sample. A further 20.4% said they used both languages equally, and 4.0% reported the use of other languages or surzhyk, mixed Ukrainian–Russian speech. 17 The regional breakdown of the sample referred to in the article is as follows: west (18.8% of the respondents) includes Volhynia, Rivne, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Chernivtsi and Zakarpattia oblasti; centre (32.4%) encompasses Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Sumy and Chernihiv oblasti as well as the city of Kyiv; east and south (48.8%) mean Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa oblasti as well as Crimea. 18 At the same time in post-Soviet Ukraine, English has become a strong competitor to Russian in the role of a world language (Bilaniuk Citation2005). 19 The distinction between the 'corpus' of a language (variety), that is, the sum of its elements and internal relations, and its 'status' or function in various social domains was introduced by Heinz Kloss (Citation1969). Accordingly, language policy in its narrow sense of intentional language planning is divided into corpus planning and status planning. 20 A number of participants from all parts of Ukraine expressed their appreciation of the quality of Russian literature, sometimes in an explicit contrast to that of Ukrainian. They were particularly critical of translations of Russian classical texts into Ukrainian in which their beauty was supposedly lost. This perception explains most Ukrainophones' preference for reading Russian literature in the original, similar to their predominant choice of the original language for watching Russian films and TV series. 21 Another reason for this difference between the two media could be greater popularity of the state (cable-transmitted) radio than that of state television, particularly in the countryside where many people do not possess receivers for FM broadcasting. In both cases, state-owned stations broadcast predominantly in Ukrainian and were thus potentially appealing to Ukrainian-speakers. Further research is necessary to verify these hypotheses. 22 Despite the moderator's attempts to make them focus on the specific question under discussion, participants often referred to both media at the same time. 23 See Vel'bovets' (Citation2006). 24 For a discussion of this practice in relation to television, see Kulyk (Citation2010b). 25 The only noticeable protest was a non-partisan initiative of supporters of Ukrainian to boycott films which were not translated into the titular language. The initiative was announced in November 2006 on the internet as a pledge by one individual and within two months it was supported by about 4,500 people from various parts of Ukraine, primarily the capital which provided more than half of cinema revenues (see Pomidorov Citation2007). 26 In the east and south where the situation of Ukrainian was more serious the Ukrainian-speaking respondents were too few to obtain reliable statistical data on their preferences. 27 The media consumption is by no means exceptional in this respect, although here the asymmetry between the two groups is perhaps the greatest.