This research investigates language use in Linguistic Landscapes (LLs) of an urban center of post-Soviet eastern Ukraine The major focus is on how the signs represent linguistic, social and ideological phenomena in the context of competing local, national, and global language ideologies with Ukrainian, Russian and English in Cyrillic and Roman scripts. More than 100 pictures of public signs were selected and analyzed, from more than one thousand photographs.Detailed analyses of the signs show that the `one state - one language' official language policy is not effective in the predominantly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine: the signs frequently use Russian, and blend in Ukrainian. There were revealing differences between establishment categories. Bank signs were almost all in Ukrainian, because they are government regulated. In contrast, local clothing store signs used Russian, along with English and European languages to convey `modernity', `prestige' and `high fashion'; other establishment (casinos and electronics stores) mixed Russian and Ukrainian with some English. English and European languages with Roman script were also frequently used to `smooth over' the conflict between Ukrainian and Russian.The genetic closeness of Ukrainian and Russian allows a linguistic phenomenon that reconciles the languages, `bivalency'. Bivalency refers to shared linguistic elements between the languages, allowing the signs to appeal to the local population, while complying with the official Ukrainian language policy. This work analyzes and documents bivalency at phonological, morphological, and lexical levels, introducing a new sensitive tool for quantifying language dominance in signs.The overall conclusion is that signs in the LLs reveal that despite the official language policy, both Ukrainian and Russian appear in signs. In this way, Linguistic Landscapes may predict a future Ukraine in which both Russian and Ukrainian are accepted as official languages.This work contributes several new perspectives to the analyses of LLs. It demonstrates that LLs are multimodal, multilayered and multidimensional to be studied from a multidisciplinary perspective; the methodology integrates Critical Discourse Analysis and grounded theory; LLs are considered as texts analyzed on multiple discourse levels. The work invents and applies continua of bivalency as a multilevel phenomenon. The research focuses on LLs in eastern Ukraine.

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This study brings into focus the issue of reproduction and transformation ofcultural authority in the so-called post-Soviet context. It seeks to examine howintelligentsia may be presented and what empowering narratives it may articulatein a concrete locality, namely, in the post-1991 West Ukrainian city of L’viv. Theauthor argues that claims for cultural authority stemming from the socio-culturallocation of intelligentsia are decisive in discussions about Ukrainian nationalidentity and cultural development, which gained momentum after independence.Despite significant discursive transformations, after 1991 intelligentsia is stillpresented as the essence of the nation, as its typical and brightest representativeswho assume the right to speak for the whole nation and to extrapolate own valuesand choices to it. The debate focused on the issues of ‘the national’ actualizes a very significantissue of whose class vision is to become a winning concept for the Ukrainiannation-building. Post-Soviet ‘normalization’ in L’viv implies that cultural patternstypical of the privileged and educated urbanites have been rehabilitated andpresented as both nationally authentic and culturally superior ones. In the post-1991 L’viv the representations embedding the urban community into variouslocal, regional, national, and supranational symbolic contexts resonate with effortsof the intelligentsia to (re-)gain control over reproduction of their own socialpositions and cultural narratives about the nation. This study suggests that analysisof the nation-building processes in Ukraine should pay more attention to symbolicrepresentations of cultural authority which are exploited by local actors runningtheir empowering projects. / Denna studie tar upp frågor om sociokulturell reproducering och omvandling avkulturell auktoritet i en postsovjetisk kontext. Studien undersöker de sätt på vilkaen intelligentia kan representeras och de maktanspråk som den genom berättelserartikulerar i den västukrainska staden L’viv efter självständigheten 1991.Författaren hävdar att de anspråk på kulturell auktoritet som intelligentianuttrycker har principiell betydelse i de diskussioner som förs kring ukrainsknationell identitet och nationens kulturella utveckling. Trots betydande diskursivaomvandlingar som intelligentian genomgått har den behållit sin position somnationens centralfigur. Intelligentian representeras som nationens mest typiskaoch framstående representant med rätt att tala i hela nationens namn, vilket gör attden också kan överföra sina egna värderingar och åsikter till sina landsmän. Diskussioner om det nationella temat sätter mycket betydelsefulla frågor ifokus, inte minst de som handlar om vilkas klassvisioner som kommer att fågenomslag i det ukrainska nationsbyggandet. Den postsovjetiska”normaliseringen” i L’viv har inneburit att de kulturella mönster som är typiskabland privilegierade och högutbildade stadsbor har återupprättats, ofta framställdasom nationellt genuina och kulturellt överlägsna. I det postsovjetiska L’viv ärsymboliska representationer av urbansamhället färgade av olika lokala, nationellaoch supranationella symboliska kontexter. Dessa kommer väl till pass iintelligentians försök att (återigen) kontrollera reproducering av sina socialapositioner och de kulturella berättelserna om nationen. Avhandlingen sätterdärmed fingret på hur kulturell auktoritet utnyttjas av lokala aktörer som strävarefter ett socialt och politiskt övertag samt uppmärksammar betydelsen avsymboliska framställningar i analyser av nationsbyggandeprocesser i Ukraina.