SURZHIK AS A LANGUAGE BARRIER IN THE PROCESS OF MASTERING THE LITERARY NORM OF THE LANGUAGE
The topicality of the study lies in the fact that the level of language proficiency is considered a criterion in characterizing intellectual and cultural development of the society. Nowadays in Ukraine we have the problem of so called surzhik, which is the result of long-term coexistence of Ukrainian and Russian languages in Ukraine. Surzhik is a mixture of grammatical features of two languages − Ukrainian and Russian, thus it is a mixed language that grammatically is neither of the languages mentioned above. Surzhik negatively contributes to the foundations of the national language. Moreover, it is the result of illiterate language use. Therefore, it becomes a serious obstacle in communication between students and teachers during the classes. Furthermore, the results of a poll of 200 students of higher education institutions in Zhytomyr prove that students who speak surzhik speak neither Ukrainian nor Russian fluently. In addition, they have low speech self-esteem. Thus, at least 22% of respondents do not have a clear understanding of which language they speak. Consequently, it signifies about the immaturity of their linguistic personality. Therefore, the aim of the study is to determine, based on the survey data, for which language group and to what extent surzhik is a speech barrier in the process of studying the literary norm of Ukrainian and whether there is any relationship between the ability to master its literary norm and readiness to learn a foreign language. The authors use the methods of sociology − questionnaires and statistical processing of data. The results of the research prove that surzhik is a speech barrier not only in mastering the literary norm of native language, but also in learning a foreign language.