Where borders meet, language, culture, and identity are continually negotiated. The featured paper brings together questions about multilingual regions—where more than one language is used—and multicultural settings, where different cultural traditions coexist, alongside geopolitical change and the risks of linguistic or cultural assimilation [1]. It also considers how technological change produces new language forms and genres, from internet and youth language to digital cultural expression [1]. This is where podcasts become especially valuable. They are not only flexible spaces for learning, connection, and identity negotiation; they are also emerging sources for studying how people speak and communicate [1]. Alongside dialects—local forms of language—and sociolects—ways of speaking associated with particular groups—podcasts can help researchers examine how border experiences and digital communities reshape language and belonging [1].
Against that backdrop, the 2022 thesis collection Slavic Borders at the Turn of the 20th and 21st Centuries: Language–Society–Culture–Identity offers a broad investigation of how border regions bring language, society, culture, and identity into contact [1]. Its contributors examine relations between people of different nationalities, life amid multilingual environments (where more than one language is used), and multicultural environments (where different cultural traditions coexist), while also considering geopolitical changes and their influence on everyday life [1].
The collection places these border questions alongside concerns about linguistic and cultural assimilation—the possible replacement or weakening of one group’s language and culture through contact with others [1]. It compares rural and urban language, considers standard languages and dialects (local varieties), and discusses sociolects, or ways of speaking associated with particular social groups [1]. It also addresses globalization, cultural homogenization, and the Internet and youth language, linking wider social change with the emergence of new language forms and genres .