Status Language Planning in Belarus: An Examination of Written Discourse in Public Spaces

摘要

This research examines the treatment of Belarusian and Russian on signs located in the Minsk metro and on official signs affixed to government buildings, specifically the District Administration, War Commissariat, House of Marriage, Police, Security (division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs), Notary Public, Public Prosecutor, Courts, and Tax Inspection. Such data provide valuable insights into status planning efforts on the part of government officials and illustrate changes prompted by past and current language policies. Preliminary findings suggest an overall increase in public display of Belarusian, albeit it more systematic within the metro than on official signage affixed to government buildings. Such an increase reflects a top-down effort to conform to a 1990 language policy that granted Belarusian “official” language status. The same policy in its 1995 amended form grants Russian “co-official” language status—a linguistic situation that understandably precipitates questions of consistent and equal representation of both languages in public spaces, both in terms of inclusion of Belarusian and Russian and their positioning on signs.