Dr. Kadri Koreinik – Estonia Principal Investigator

Kadri Koreinik is Associate Professor of Language Sociology at the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics at the University of Tartu. With a background and training in social sciences, she is interested in all kinds of extralinguistic factors (ideologies, policies, migration) which have impacts on (socio)linguistic and social change.

“More than two decades ago I found myself surrounded by linguists, to whom I owe a lot for sharing their nuanced understanding of language (with me). Even before that, I had started to wonder why people avoid some language practices – certain accents and language varieties, ‘foreignisms’ and archaisms, vernacular and mixed speech. After observing energetic language activism in southeastern Estonia, the objectives of Re:voice – to explore the manifestations of intangible cultural heritage in a region (i.e. Salaca Livonian areas) where language shift has taken place centuries ago – seems quite a challenge.