Dr Katya Chown

MA in Russian and German, PhD (both from Novosibirsk University, Russia); Research Associate

Contact details

telephone: +44 (0)114 222 7412

Biography

I obtained an MA in Russian and German from Novosibirsk University, spending one semester at Rostock University (Germany), where I studied the history of German and comparative linguistics as part of my course. In 2001, I completed my PhD, the main focus of which was the loan language material in the chronicles of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. Working with the Old West-Russian dialects, I also acquired an interest in the history of Belarusian, particularly the development of the language in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
I joined the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies in February 2004 as a research fellow to work on a project The rise of Sociological Linguistics in the Soviet Union, 1917–1938: Institutions, Ideas and Agendas. The project is directed by Professor Craig Brandist and is based in the Bakhtin Centre.

Research interests

The development of language theory in the early Soviet years and the way it was influenced by the multidisciplinary nature of institutional research at the time. The relations between theatrical studies and language theory of the same period. The changing profile of Russian applied linguistics of the period 1900-1930s.

Recent publications

(With C. Brandist) 'Iz predystorii Instituta Zhivogo Slova: Protokoly zasedanii Kursov Khudozhestvennogo Slova', Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 86, 96-106 View the online version
'Reflex Theory in a Linguistic Context: S.M. Dobrogaev on the Social Nature of Speech Production', forthcoming in Studies in East European Thought, 2008.
'The Soviet Language Workshop (1930-1939): The Struggle for Tools, Principles and Approaches', (forthcoming in Russian Literature, 2, 2007)
'Le motif syncrétique dans les theories grammaticales de Marr: sources, parallèles et perspectives', Cahiers de L’ILSL, 20, 2005, p.77-88 View the online version

Recent lectures, papers etc.

'The Living Word versus Language Theory in the Early Soviet Years (1917-30s): on the Problem of Word Definition', AAASS, New Orleans, November 2007.
'The Early Soviet Precursors of Corpus Linguistics: Forms, Objectives, Socio-Political and Cultural Significance', The Second International Conference on Multicultural Discourses, Institute of Discourse and Cultural Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, April 2007.
'Reflex Theory in a Linguistic Context: S.M. Dobrogaev on the Social Nature of Speech Production', Sociological Theories of Language in the USSR, 1917-1938, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, September 2006.
'Cultivating the proletarian discourse: A "pan-proletarian" trend in the Soviet linguistics of the 1930s', BASEES, Cambridge, April 2006.
'Aesthetics versus Functionality in Early Soviet Language Policy', Bakhtin Centre Theory Research Seminar, Sheffield, December 2004.

Teaching

RUS3622 (The Structures of Russian), jointly with Neil Bermel and Dagmar Divjak
RUS6010 (Advanced translation into Russian), jointly with Neil Bermel