Troublesome Words by Simon Franklin
Language can be a battleground of ideas, and nowhere is this more vivid than in the Russian context. Across 350 years, Russian has been shaped by competing visions of what it should be, from early grammarians defining a literary standard to digital-era debates about slang, obscenity and online identity. Simon Franklin traces how tradition and disruption have continually reshaped the language, including sections on the discovery by the educated elite of the language of ‘the people’, the linguistic experiments of writers and revolutionaries, politics and the rhetoric of empire. Clear, concise and engaging, Troublesome Words is both a history and a cultural portrait, examining the global diversity of Russian today and revealing how language reflects power, imagination and the changing world.
"Given its technical subject, it’s hard to imagine a more seductive presentation, accessible at multiple levels to readers fascinated by all manner of aspects of Russian culture and politics" - Simon Dixon, Sir Bernard Pares Professor of Russian History, University College London
Simon Franklin is Emeritus Professor of Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of The Russian Graphosphere, 1450–1850 (2019) and co-editor of The New Cambridge History of Russian Literature (2024).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781836392668 |
| ISBN 10 | 1836392664 |
| Title | Troublesome Words |
| Author | Simon Franklin |
| Series | Language Worlds |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Reaktion Books |
| Year published | 2026-08-01 |
| Number of pages | 296 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |