Gesine Argent
Teaching fellow

- Russian Section
- Department of European Languages and Cultures
- School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 650 9902
- Email: gesine.argent@ed.ac.uk
Availability
Consultation hour: Tuesdays 15-16h via Teams
Background
I began my research career in Russian linguistic culture with postgraduate study of language attitudes in post-Soviet Russia, analysing metadiscourse in print media on perceived foreign language influences on Russian, especially from English.
After defending my thesis on metadiscourse in the Russian media at the University of Edinburgh, I joined the AHRC-funded project 'The History of the French Language in Russia' at the University of Bristol as a postdoctoral research fellow. My role concerned the integration of historical sociolinguistic enquiry into the project. I specialised in the study of language attitudes expressed in published and unpublished historical sources.
In 2017, I joined the University of Edinburgh as the Centre Manager and research associate at the Princess Dashkova Russian Centre.
I now work as a teaching fellow in the Russian section.
Undergraduate teaching
Russian Studies 1A Read&Write
Russian 2A Grammar
Russian 2B Grammar
Past PhD students supervised
Jessica Tipton (University of Bristol, 2017): "Multilingualism in the Russian nobility|: a case study on the Vorontsov family (mid-1700 to mid-1800)"
Research summary
My research interests concern language culture and linguistic ideologies, predominantly in the Russian-speaking world, both in past and present times. I engage in historical sociolinguistics enquiry and use discourse analytical tools to conduct textual study of metadiscourse. I am particularly interested in how language discussion is instrumentalised in formal or informal creation and maintenance of groups (from community groups to societal strata and entire nations).
Current research interests
My current project is a historical sociolinguistic study of the history of language attitudes in the Baltic region during the Russian imperial era. I am particularly interested in the negotiation of borders - between societal groups, between different Baltic regions, between the Russian empire and the West - as expressed in language attitudes in this complex multilingual landscape. Another strand of my work looks at present-day language attitudes of Russian speakers towards foreign linguistic material. I am studying the differences in attitudes between 'native', 'homeland' speakers of Russian and those of the Russian-speaking diaspora.Past research interests
From 2012 to 2015 I was part of "The History of the French Language in Russia", an AHRC-funded project at the University of Bristol. Working on this project brought me to historical sociolinguistics, as I studied language attitudes of mainly the Russian multilingual nobility during the long eighteenth century. I have also previously looked at language attitudes expressed in Russian post-Soviet print media.Affiliated research centres
-
French as a diplomatic and official language in Imperial Russia
(76 pages)
In:
Jus Gentium: A Journal of International-legal History, vol. 4, pp. 419-494
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Multilingualism(s) and language attitudes in the Russian media
(13 pages)
Research output: › Chapter (Published) -
The French Language in Russia: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Literary History
Blog post › Other contribution (Published) -
The French Language in Russia: A Social, Political, Cultural, and Literary History
(702 pages)
Research output: › Book (Published) -
Gallotropismus und Sprachdebatten in Russland im langen 18. Jahrhundert
Research output: › Chapter (peer-reviewed) (Published) -
French and Russian in Imperial Russia: Language use among the Russian elite
(270 pages)
Research output: › Book (Published) -
French and Russian in Imperial Russia: Language Attitudes and Identity
(266 pages)
Research output: › Book (Published) -
The coexistence of Russian and French in Russia in the first third of the nineteenth century: Bilingualism with or without diglossia?
(18 pages)
Research output: › Chapter (Published) -
Introduction
(26 pages)
Research output: › Foreword/postscript (Published) -
Foreign-language use in Russia during the long eighteenth-century: The Functions and Value of Foreign Languages in Eighteenth-Century Russia
(19 pages)
In:
Russian review, vol. 74, pp. 1-19
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/russ.10752
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)