The Role of Identity in Language Emergence

1. 3. 2025 – 31. 12. 2028

Principal Investigator: Roman Soóky

Researchers at ĽŠIL SAS: Mária Mikolajová, Lucia Molnár Satinská, Gabriela Múcsková, Jaroslava Rusinková, Slavomíra Stanková

Other Researcher: Ľuba Kráľová

Partner Institution: Museum of Ruthenian Culture (Slovak National Museum)

Grant scheme and Evidence number: VV-MVP-24-0243

Annotation: As societal awareness of the necessity for equality and respect grows, individuals modify their speech behaviour, language attitudes, challenge stereotypes, or even deliberately modify their language in communication to avoid the use of outdated expressions that might be perceived as offensive. The RIDDLE project is designed to investigate how the language identity of users is reflected in the creation of new varieties or in their disappearance. The distinctive aspect of the project concept is its analysis of language within an ecolinguistic framework. This approach allows for the capture of language within a broader evolutionary context, with the adoption of a naturalised language view. The overarching objective of the project encompasses three research perspectives: (1) the investigation of gender-inclusive Slovak, (2) the analysis of communicative practices in Slovak dialects, and (3) the examination of self-presentation of Rusyns in the Slovak context. These include dialects as a territorial variety, gender-inclusive Slovak as a nationally applicable communicative initiative, and Rusyn as a different language which users had to negotiate for decades to be acknowledged. Therefore, the RIDDLE seeks to address the gap in the existing research on how people in Slovakia experience and express their identity in communication. In doing so, the project employs gender-inclusive Slovak, Slovak dialects, and Rusyn as a material basis for research. It can be postulated that the distinctive identities of these language users compel them to express themselves in a manner that is distinct from the language norm, as it fails to meet their needs. It is therefore obvious that they naturally diverge from standard Slovak, and it is this divergence that is the central focus of the project.