Language choice among rural Mari families and their motives
Language choice is a core value of language policy that consists of three elements: management, or direct efforts to manipulate a language situation: practice, a sum of sound, word and grammatical choices that an individual speaker makes; and ideology, a set of beliefs about appropriate language practice (Spolsky 2004). Motives are related to the last component. As stated by researchers, language usage within a family can be determined by even one of these factors. This article presents the results of an analysis of quantitative and qualitative data collected during my fieldwork in Mari El (Russia). Comparative analysis of the survey data confirmed the process of weakening of intergenerational language transmission among rural Maris and the fact that the linguistic behavior of family members varies by generation. Usage of Russian or Mari within a family is mainly the result of different values attached to each language and their social roles among certain sectors of society.