Malin Olivia Dahlberg (born 1982 in Ålesund) has studied English language and literature, History of religion, and Russian in Bergen, Pondicherry (India) and St. Petersburg. She received her BA degree in 2005 at the University of Bergen. She is now an MA student and is writing her MA thesis on the status of, and attitudes towards, dialect use in Russia today. During the Soviet period there was a strong trend towards language conformity, hence the Russian dialects were under pressure. After 1985, however, one saw a radical change in the language norms and linguistic usage; language varieties earlier considered to be vulgar or “low” (such as prostorečie, mat and slang) increased their use and acceptance even among standard language users. The thesis will try to answer why dialects do not seem to have achieved a similar acceptance and popularity.

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