LTŠiame skyriuje nagrinėjamas kalbų mokėjimas ir kalbų vartojimas Klaipėdoje. Analizuojant kalbų mokėjimą, atsiskleidžia miesto istorinės praeities bruožai, dabartinės Lietuvos geopolitinės orientacijos ir globalizacijos tendencijos. Kalbų vartojimo duomenų analizė leidžia kalbos - vienos svarbiausių kultūros elementų - aspektu pažvelgti į Klaipėdoje gyvenančių etninių grupių santykius ir jų integraciją. Norint rasti nustatytų kalbų mokėjimo ir vartojimo tendencijų paaiškinimus, duomenys analizuojami pagal socialinius demografinius požymius, daugiausia tautybę, tautinę šeimų sudėtį ir amžių. Analizė atlikta naudojant projekto „Miestai ir kalbos" metu atliktos Vilniaus, Kauno ir Klaipėdos reprezentatyvios gyventojų apklausos duomenis (TNS-Gallup, 2008). [Iš straipsnio, p. 251]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Daugiakalbystė; Kalbos miestuose; Tarmės miestuose; Sociolingvistika; Multilingualism; Languages in cities; Dialects in cities; Sociolinguistics.
ENThe study of language use in Klaipeda gives us an insight into the history of the city as well as the current geopolitical orientations and globalisation trends in Lithuania. Analysis also allows us to assess the relationship between the various ethnic groups residing in Klaipeda and their integration into the city community. The findings of the study are interpreted in terms of sociodemographic characteristics, including ethnicity, family composition and age. The chapter on Klaipėda first looks at the history of Klaipėda in terms of its ethnic composition, followed by a linguistic description of the current population of the city, including their skills in ethnic minority languages and foreign languages, language use in the private and public spheres, the workplace and schools and, finally, the ability to recognise regional dialects and their use are touched upon. The sociolinguistic picture of Klaipėda is not uniform. Klaipėda is a multicultural city with a large proportion of ethnic Russians and other ethnicities. Of the respondents in Klaipėda, 29% said that Russian is their native language and 4.2% said that they have more than one native language. The Russian speaking inhabitants fall mostly into the age group between 40 and 60, which shows that the city is becoming increasingly Lithuanian. Although Klaipėda is a multiethnic city with one third of its population speaking non- Lithuanian as their mother tongue, the various ethnic and linguistic groups have no difficulty communicating with each other as they can speak each other's languages: 99% of the Russians understand Lithuanian and 96% of the Lithuanians understand Russian (though their speaking, reading and writing skills are less developed than their listening skills). Russian is the best known and most widely used language in Klaipėda after Lithuanian.It should be admitted, however, that the proportion of Russians who can speak Lithuanian is bigger than the proportion of Lithuanians who can speak Russian. About one fifth of Russian families send their children to Lithuanian schools. Thus it can be claimed that the Russian ethnic minority have adopted Lithuanian as the state language and are seeking linguistic integration. Many Lithuanians can communicate with ethnic Russians in Russian as they learned Russian as a compulsory subject at school in the Soviet period. The younger generation (under 30) have lower competence in Russian than the older generation of Lithuanians. The integration of ethnic groups is also evident in their choice of language in different social contexts. Although in the private sphere most Russians use Russian, there are a number of Russian families where Lithuanian is used alongside Russian. Russians more often than Lithuanians switch to the language of their different language speaking neighbours or friends. At work, Russians use both Russian and Lithuanian. In formal public situations, such as medical or administrative institutions, about half of Russians use Lithuanian only. Lithuanians do use Russian to communicate with their neighbours and hear it on the radio and TV, but in general they switch to Russian less often than Russians switch to Lithuanian. Meanwhile, the global need to learn and use English has equally affected all ethnic groups in Klaipėda. While 56% of the respondents say that they can understand English, a slightly smaller number can speak, read and write in English. The main factors determining the learner s level of competence in English are age and occupation. More of younger respondents have a higher competence in English than older respondents do.The majority of the respondents, who currently learn or are about to learn a language, say it is English. This implies that the importance of English will become stronger in the future. At the moment, however, Russian is used more extensively and with a higher degree of competence than English in the occupational sphere as well as in other areas of public life. Regional dialects are recognised and used by over half of the Lithuanian respondents in Klaipėda. The žemaičių (western) regional dialect is certainly predominant here. Dialects are most commonly used in the personal domain and sometimes at work. The findings of the study indicate, however, that dialect use is decreasing; younger respondents use dialects less frequently and can recognise fewer of them than the older respondents can. [From the publication]