Expanding Marginality: Linguascaping a Transcarpathian Spa in South-Western Ukraine

Abstract

Abstract. This chapter explores how language is conceptualized in the Transcarpathian Oblast of Ukraine, and why and how some languages are used and others are absent in the realm of tourism and how these processes contribute to the escaping of the region's marginality. The linguascape denotes an extended notion of the linguistic landscape including all kinds of images, symbols and forms of interaction and discourse, spoken and written, included in tourism. The Transcarpathian Oblast is the most western administrative region of Ukraine, bordering Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. Since Ukrainian independence in 1991, Russian is no longer taught in Transcarpathian schools. Tourism in the Transcarpathia region of Ukraine displays the region's complex and heterogeneous multilingualism along with the post-Soviet ideological tensions over Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism. The region of Transcarpathia can be brought into the center for Ukrainian tourists through the commodification of Hungarian language and culture as the most modern, European corner of the country.