Соціолінгвістичні параметри багатомовності: європейські засади й українська дійсність

The concept of multilingualism has gained considerable spread in linguistic and political discourse. It causes the need to concrete the sociolinguistic parameters of the term in the context of the Ukrainian language situation, taking into account the experience of pan-European theories and practices. The feasibility of the research is also caused by the expansion of approaches to the problems of multilingualism in the 21st century and some differences in the interpretation of multilingualism in different countries, which is caused by differences in implementation of policy and practice of multilingualism in different state and regional contexts. Theoretical approaches to the definition of multilingualism and the classification of its types allow us to consider the policy of multilingualism and the practice of multilingualism in the coordinates of social types of languages - state (official), minority, immigrant, foreign. This research is also an attempt to give some answers for questions: “What is the difference between multilingual society and multilingual state?”, “How does the practice of multilingualism influence on language policy or language policy on language practices of multilingual territories?”, “How do the concepts of language diversity, multilingual communication, plurilingualism and language education differentiate in sociolinguistic concept of multilingualism?” The sociolinguistic dimension of multilingualism is defined in terms of systemconceptual connections: multilingualism and globalization, multilingualism and territorial linguistic identity, multilingualism and the status of languages, multilingualism and the functionality of languages, multilingualism and language education. The description of the language situation in Ukraine is presented in the coordinates of the theory of social and institutional multilingualism as a monolingual state with bilingual and multilingual territories. The basic sociolinguistic concept of multilingualism is proposed; it is based on the distinction between the policy of multilingualism and the practice of multilingualism and the principles of coexistence of linguistic identities and linguistic practices of individuals and communities.