New speakers of Ukrainian: Ideologies of linguistic conversion

Abstract The article examines ideologies behind linguistic conversion —a widespread transition to Ukrainian from Russian—which intensified in Ukraine after the onset of Russian aggression in 2014, and particularly after the 2022 full-scale invasion. Employing ‘new speakerness’ as a theoretical lens, the study draws on biographical interviews with twenty-one new full-time Ukrainian speakers recruited among participants in informal language-learning initiatives in Ukraine. The primary focus is on the ways in which the new speakers legitimise their ownership of the Ukrainian language: how they imagine their positions in the socially constructed traditional hierarchies of Ukrainian speakers, based on the mastery of the standard language, and what new ideologies arise out of their challenges. The findings reveal that, in most of the cases, traditional hierarchies are deconstructed as new ideologies prioritising fluency and elevating translingual practice emerge in the linguistic safe spaces of grassroots language courses and community clubs. (New speakers, language ideologies, linguistic conversion, suržyk , linguistic safe spaces, Russo-Ukrainian war)