Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences


The Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is a structural unit in the Language and Literature Section of History and Philology Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This Institute is one of the major centers in the field of linguistic research in Russia.
Researchers of the Institute of Linguistics are involved in the study of fundamental linguistic problems as well as in applied linguistic studies of the languages of Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and foreign countries too. These include Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Iranian, Turkic, Mongolian, Finno-Ugriс languages and languages of the Caucasus region, Tropical Africa and South-Eastern Asia.
Great attention is paid to the problems of linguistic typology and comparative and historical linguistics. Much attention is given to the research of psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic problems in different regions of the world.

History

The Institute of Linguistics of the USSR Academy of Sciences was created in 1950 in Moscow after the so-called “discussion of linguistic issues” during the campaign against the Marrism. The Institute was organized on the basis of the Institute of the Russian Language of the Academy of Sciences, established in 1944, as a "counterweight" to the Marr Institute of Language and Mind in Leningrad, the leading center of theoretical language studies in the USSR of that period. The latter in 1952 was reorganized as the Leningrad branch of the Moscow Institute of Linguistics.
The first Director of the Moscow Institute of Linguistics was Viktor Vinogradov, in 1954 this position was taken by his deputy, Аcademician Viktor Borkovskiy; Viktor Vinogradov became the Director of a renewed Institute of the Russian Language in 1958. Later Institute of Linguistics was headed by acad. Boris Serebrennikov, corr.-member Fedot Filin, corr.-member Viktoria Yartseva, acad. Georgiy Stepanov, corr.-member of Vadim Solntsev, corr.-member Viktor Vinogradov.
On June 19, 2012 Vladimir Alpatov became the Director of the Institute of Linguistics, as elected by general meeting of all the researchers of the Institute.
On May 25, 2017 Andrej Kibrik was elected the Director of the Institute of Linguistics by the general meeting of the researchers.

Administration

The Institute is headed by the Direction:
The Director also presides over the Scientific Council of the Institute.

Structure

The structure of the scientific divisions of the Institute includes one Research Center, 8 Research Departments, the Department for international relations and the Department for the scientific personnel training. In 2002 the Department of Foreign Languages has been included in the structure of the Institute. In 2012 the Psycholinguistics Sector was transformed into the Department of Psycholinguistics comprising the General Psycholinguistics Sector and the Ethnopsycholinguistics Sector.
The Institute's subdivisions:
There are also a secretariat, an administrative and management apparatus and an economic department.

Directions of scientific research

The Institute’s directions of research include:
Researchers of the Institute are involved in the preparation of a multi-volume encyclopaedia "Languages of the World". A three-volume encyclopaedia of the languages of Russia and the ex-USSR countries has been published.
Joint international research is conducted in cooperation with scientific institutions of France, the USA, Canada, Spain, Germany, Vietnam and other countries.
The Institute provides practical assistance in the development of literary oral and writing norms for rare and revitalized languages.
Scientists of the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences have created the "Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary", the first edition of which was published in 1990 with Viktoria Yartseva as the chied editor. In 1995, the main authors and editors of this encyclopaedia were awarded the State Prize in the field of science and technology.