PHILOLOGY STUDENTS’ APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE USE WITHIN TRANSCARPATHIA’S MULTILINGUAL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

Transcarpathia represents a region of remarkable linguistic diversity. However, the language practices of its tertiary-level students remain insufficiently documented. To address this issue, the present study investigates the linguistic repertoires and everyday language use of philology students enrolled at a higher education institution in Transcarpathia. The research is situated within the theoretical framework of translanguaging, which conceptualizes language not as discrete systems but as a unified, dynamic repertoire of communicative resources. The central aim is to elucidate how students negotiate their multilingual environment, particularly within academic contexts. This inquiry constitutes part of a broader five-year project on foreign language (FL) learning in multilingual higher education and the pedagogical application of translanguaging in FL classrooms, with anticipated contributions to the fields of language education and applied linguistics. This article introduces preliminary findings from the initial phase of the project, derived from questionnaire data collected from 157 full-time and part-time philology students majoring in English, Hungarian, Ukrainian, and German at the Philology Department of Rákóczi University in Berehove, Transcarpathia. The study examines the extent to which students employ different languages both within the classroom and in broader institutional and informal contexts. As all respondents are multilingual, their language preferences encompass a wide range, including Hungarian, Ukrainian, English, German, Russian, Slovak, French, and other languages. Notably, students articulated highly positive attitudes toward their multilingualism, frequently characterizing it with descriptors such as proud, rewarding, valuable, important, convenient, amazing, and awesome. The findings indicate that participants’ language use preferences can be described as three-dimensional: mother-tongue (L1) usage in the informal context, state language (L2) usage in the formal context, and foreign language (FL) usage in the academic context.