Language & communication

The article deals with representation of labour migrants' languages in St. Petersburg's linguistic landscape. The data analyzed in the article were gathered through fieldwork (in 2016–2017) in different districts of the city. The communication between the majority and ethnic minorities is conducted only in Russian, both in official and in informal exchanges, such as between commercial agencies and non-Russian speakers. Even in places with no official regulation, non-Russian languages' use is significantly rare and occurs predominantly in the frame of in-group communication. Only two languages, Chinese and Uzbek, occasionally can be used in advertisements but targeted exclusively to minorities. Both official language policy and attitudes of ethnic majority tend to ignore actual diversity of the city, maintaining urban monolingual 'façade'.

‘Invisible minorities’ and ‘hidden diversity’ in Saint-Petersburg's linguistic landscape