Staff profile

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. Three years later, I completed my PhD which focused on the loan language material in West-Russian and Belarusian medieval chronicles. In February 2004, I joined the Bakhtin Centre at the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies, University of Sheffield, as a research fellow to work on a project investigating the formation and development of early Soviet sociological linguistics (1917-1938). During my time in Sheffield I also contributed to delivering a range of modules in Russian and Russian linguistics. For a brief period I taught Soviet and East European Post-communist culture at the University of Leeds before joining the Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies in Nottingham as a lecturer in Russian language in 2010 where I taught a wide range of specialised and generic linguistic modules and contributed to cross-departmental programmes in translation studies.

Research

The archival material collected during my previous work on early Soviet sociological linguistics encouraged me to take a closer look at the specifics of the development of Russian language theory at the beginning of the 20^th century, its multidisciplinary nature and the diversity of the scholarly fields contributing to it. My recent research was focused on the role of Russian theatre and performance theory and practice in the formation of the functional approach to the study of language and applied linguistics in late imperial Russia and the early Soviet Union. I am currently investigating the grassroots of Russian and European clinical linguistics during the interwar period and their link with the rise of speech aesthetics and public rhetoric in the socio-political context of the first part of the 20^th century. I am interested in the conceptual differences in the development of this branch of medical humanities in the USSR and the West, as well as its lasting legacy. 

An additional strand of my research is contact linguistics, particularly the process of semantic changes in medieval and modern Russian brought about by foreign influence, both oral and written.

Edited book

• Chown, E., & Brandist, C. (Eds.). (2010). Politics and the Theory of Language in the USSR 1917-1938: The Birth of Sociological Linguistics. Anthem Press

Journal Article

• Chown, E. (2014). Priroda intonatsii kak kommunikativnogo znaka v rabotakh rannikh sovetskikh issledovatelei (V.N. Vsevolodskii-Gerngross, A.M. Peshkovskii, S.I. Bernshtein). Новое литературное обозрение. Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 129(5), 284-295
• Chown, E. (2010). Linguistic determinism and the history of early Soviet language planning. Russian Linguistics, 34(2), 139-141. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11185-010-9056-5
• Chown, E. (2008). Reflex theory in a linguistic context: Sergej M. Dobrogaev on the social nature of speech production. Studies in East European Thought, 60(4), 307-319. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-008-9063-x
• Chown, E. (2008). The Soviet Language Workshop (1930-1939): The Struggle for Tools, Principles and Approaches. Russian Literature, 63(2-4), 201-219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ruslit.2008.04.004