Language attitudes, practices and identity in the new Lithuaniandiaspora

After the changes in the socio-political situation in many countries of Eastern and Central Europe in the last decade of the 20th century, these countries experienced a major growth of emigration. In the context of the European Union, Lithuania is one of the countries that has faced the highest rates of emigration. The quick and somewhat sporadic emigration mainly for economic reasons is of interest both to linguists and language policy makers in order to support and give guidelines for the maintenance of the heritage language and identity. This paper deals with the data of the new post-Soviet wave of Lithuanian emigrants analysing the language behaviour and language attitudes. The aim is to look into the issues of language attitudes, practices and identity through the tripartite theoretical model - beliefs, emotions and declared language practices - of this wave and to compare it to the overall context of Lithuanian diaspora.