Филологические науки / 9. Этно-, социо- и психолингвистика
Laletina
A.O.
Linguistics
University of Nizhny Novgorod, Russia
Language
Contact in Russia: a Global Perspective
Introduction
Globalization has brought about a dramatic shift to
a new social, economic and political order as well as a new order (or
hierarchy) of languages. The world is seen as a single interconnected society
as a result of the new media, supranational organizations and economic interdependencies.
The new political and economic configuration requires linguists to reconsider
traditional concepts of language and language contact. I first discuss aspects
of language contact which are typical of federative states across the globe
(USA, Germany and Russia); then I turn to peculiarities of language contact in
the Russian Federation today, how language order within the country has changed
under the influence of such globalizing factors as new communication
technologies, political reform, global economic dependencies and migration
flows.
Social
domains of language contact today
In the last twenty years there have developed two
main social spheres of close language contact across the globe. They are
interaction with “new” immigrants who are very ethnically and national
conscious and reluctant to assimilate and popular culture. Both social domains are fairly broad and have
their specifics in each country, however, this appears to be global trend, and
thus these characteristics can be defined as universal sociolinguistic
phenomena.
Bilingual communication between ‘native’ and
‘incoming’ population is the most traditional form of language contact as it is
based on physical interaction between representatives of different cultural and
linguistic communities. In a global world such contacts are as a rule
asymmetrical, relatively stable and mostly casual.
Asymmetrical nature of the contact is determined by
the dominant position of the ‘native’ language in the given state: English is
more prestigious than any of the diasporic languages in the US; German and Russian
are state languages in Germany and Russia respectively. Language policy and
planning is either directly aimed at maintaining the status of dominant
language or implies preserving this hierarchy of languages. For instance, in
the US English possess no specific status which would be formalized in federal
legislation, its official status is enacted in 31 states only. Meanwhile, the
prestigious status of English is asserted in colleges and universities where
English is chosen as the primary medium of education. A two-year academic
experience at high school or college gives immigrants a right of TOEFL waiver. Many
foreigners come to the US to finish high school in order to qualify for simpler
admission to college. Immigrants not involved in education tend to assimilate
more slowly and keep closer ties with their first language.
Daily
routines define the level of stability of language contact. Involvement in
diverse social institutions where the dominant language is in active use makes
the contact more intense and continual. As a result the volume of language included
in communication increases; this leads to immigrants’ rapid language shift.
Irregular social interactions and cultural particulars of social institutions
(their withdrawal from the dominant language) contribute to both groups’
maintaining their distinct languages and diglossic situation in general.
Popular
culture with its variety of genres and forms is considered to be a global
phenomenon although it may possess some localized traits defining a particular
genre. Its mass character presupposes broad target audience, as points out the
main function of popular culture in a globalized world is socialization through
offering an individual a “set of cultural patterns, codes and styles”. [1]. Popular culture is equally inherent to countries
across the globe as in any national state modern communication channels enable
broadcasting similar if not the same cultural forms – popular music,
contemporary cinema, news; restaurants and shopping facilities belonging to one
network can be observed across the globe. Thus a common core of cultural codes
is supplemented by local meanings or is redefined through the lens of local
culture, which can be seen as a type of language and culture contact. As an example
one could mention the case of urban freeride youth subculture in Russia which combines
a global hobby with typical Russian ideology of action and language [2]. Taking
in account widely recognized sociological and psychological data that active
socialization takes place during one’s adolescent years, the assumption that youth
play the leading role in contemporary language contact is seen as well
justified. Young people most actively participate in various social
institutions and youth subcultures tend to exhibit the most recent trends in
cultural globalization.
Language contact in Russia
Language
contacts in Russia are unique from both traditional and global perspectives. There
are three major factors defining language contact in Russia: multinationality
of the state; popular culture and the pressure of the English language; and
migrant flows of people from the former Soviet republics who have a profoundly
low competence in the Russian language, once an official language of the Union.
Long-term contact in a multinational state
Being a
multinational state, Russia is characterized by language diversity as more than
a hundred languages are in use in more than a hundred language communities.
Stable
language contacts can be observed in national republics which account for
twenty-one region of the state. However, even though the majority of national
languages and ethnic communities are bilingual, the Russian language is
regarded as a more prestigious one, its dominating status being maintained due
to the large proportions of monolingual population in all regions of the
country. V.M. Alpatov points out that the underlying principle of the Russian
language ideology is a viewpoint that the Russian language ‘opens all doors,
whereas a national language only secludes from the outer world and can be used
only in everyday casual communication’ [31]. This statement is true for all
regions except for the ones where the geographic location, economic infrastructure
and low penetration of Russian in Soviet time preserved the national language
as the main medium of interpersonal communication. These are the Republic of
Sakha Yakutia and the Republic of Tuva. Throughout the course of their history
both republics had a well-developed network of national schools, in Tuva, for instance,
in 80 per cent of secondary schools Tuvinian is adopted as the language of
instruction. Taking the national average, 45 per cent of schools offer
instruction in a local language.
Implementation
of language equality in regional language policy in education has an ill-effect
on the Russian language as it leads to disparity of languages. Thus, regional
component of the curriculum allows schools to introduce more courses on the
local language and literature whereas the number of Russian language courses is
determined by the federal component and remains the same. The Republic of
Tatarstan has included the Tatar language as a compulsory course not only in
all schools but also in colleges and universities. The government of the Sakha
Republic has increased the number of English language courses at the expense of
the Russian language.
Strange though it might seem, the Russian
language experiences a remarkable pressure from some of the national languages
in the country. Anecdotal evidence given by Olga Artemenko, the director of the
Center for National Problems of
Education, testifies
that high-school graduates from some regions are rejected college admission
because of their poor proficiency in the Russian language [4].
English
and popular culture
Global popular
culture and the global spread of English it brought about also exert a significant
influence on the status of the Russian language. The consequences of Russian-English contact are both ‘traditional’
and ‘modern’. As it was previously attested lexical and morphemic borrowings are
the most visible factor of such a contact. However, global language contact
encompasses penetration of communicative patterns and cultural ideological
discourses. The traditional reference and
address to a person by their name and patronymic is replaced by an Anglo address
by the first name. Primaries as a genre of political campaigning were first introduced
in Russia and 2011 and reflect its American origin. Social domains where English-Russian
contact is most evident include popular culture (cinema, music, sport, eating habits,
and clothing), science, business, or economy broadly defined, and politics. The
major medium of contact is mass media, Internet inter alia.
Migrant workers and language competence
Migrant
flows from the former Soviet republics constitute the third important aspect of
language contact in Russia. The Russian language competence of the newcomers from
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan is so poor that it leads to the development of the
new Russian pidgin. A hyperbolous illustration of this new dialect form is the
communication pattern of construction workers in a famous TV programme ‘Nasha
Russia’ (‘Our Russia’). Their names (Ravshan, Dzhamshut) have become appellatives
in reference to all immigrants from Central Asia.
Humorous
sketches about labour migrants are often based on miscommunication and mutual
misunderstanding between the migrants and the Russians. Another aspect of
migrant flows is the rise of nationalism and national consciousness. The State
Duma has already passed a bill in first reading which would require all labour
immigrants to prove their competence in Russian as a prerequisite for obtaining
a work permit. The proposal refers to protecting the rights if foreigners in Russia
and providing them with an opportunity ‘to fully adapt to cultural and social requirements
of the country’ as the primary ground for enacting the bill. It is aimed at keeping social peace and security
of the Russian society. Language policy and planning which pursues to protect
the official language always testifies to the ideology of national (ethnic)
identity. Legislative practice in this case only legitimizes the fully formed beliefs within the society.
Additional measures to protect the state language and prevent xenophobic
attitudes are the consequence of shift from Russian to another language, the
Russian language proficiency ‘at least at an elementary level’ is a legal
mechanism of maintaining the dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
The
following citation reflects the contradictory nature of language ideologies.
There is an initiative to introduce the minimal language proficiency level for incoming
labour immigrants. Therewith, English insertions in a Russian text are not seen
as a breach of the language status. Moreover, they are used and overused.
Правоохранительные
органы Казахстана вводят "моду" на браслеты электронного слежения...
Таким "fashion-методом" в
миграционной полиции надеются убить сразу двух зайцев: снизить в стране
количество "джамшутов" и
"равшанов", которые находят всяческие лазейки, чтобы избежать
депортации, и сэкономить – если уж не бюджетные деньги, то нервы и время на
поиски нелегалов. [5]
Kazakhstan law enforcement agencies introduce a “fashion”
for electronic tracking bracelets ... By this "fashion-method"
the immigration police hopes to kill two birds with one stone: reduce the number of
"Dzhamshuts" and "Ravshans" who find all sorts of loopholes
to avoid deportation, and to save - if not
budget money, but time and effort in search for illegal immigrants.
To sum,
it should be emphasized that language contact in Russia in the era of globalization,
or language contact which appears as a result of globalization, combines two distinct
characteristics. On the one hand, the Russian language maintains its status as
a dominant language in all social domains, even in stable language contact
situations. On the other hand,
languages from within (national regional languages) and languages from without
(migrant languages and English) constitute difficulty keeping its uppermost
position. The current account cannot be seen as exhaustive, language contact in
Russia as well as in other localities needs to be further investigated from anthropological
and sociolinguist approaches.
References
1. Savelyeva I.G. Massovaya
i populyarnaya kultura v sovremennom obschestve: kommunikacionny aspect.
Atvoreferat disseratacii. Kazan, 2000.
2. Gritsenko E.S.
Ideologiya, identichnost, stil: globalnoye i lokalnoye // Polifoniya bolshogo
goroda. Terentij L.M., Krasnykh V.V.,
Kirilina A.V. (Eds.) – М: MIL, 2012. – p.
141-149
3. Alpatov V.M.
Jazykovaja situacija v regionah sovremennoj Rossii // Otechestvennye
zapiski. М., 2005, № 2(23). Web: http://www.philology.ru/linguistics1/alpatov-05.htm
4. Ivoilova I. Na
chuzhom yakike // Rossiskaya gazeta, July, 05, 2011. Web: http://www.rg.ru/2011/07/05/artemenko.html
5. Braslet osobogo
naznacheniya // МК Sept, 13, 2011 в 16:59. Web: http://www.mk-kz.kz/article/2011/09/13/623099-braslet-osobogo-naznacheniya.html