FUNCTIONS OF THE ETHNIC LANGUAGE IN THE MARI DIASPORA OF THE MOSCOW REGION

В статье приводятся результаты социолингвистического обследования, проведенного автором в марийской диаспоре московского региона с целью выявления и описания функционирования этнического языка. Один из аспектов исследования посвящен установлению функций, которые закреплены за этническим языком в условиях диаспорного проживания группы. Несмотря на незначительную степень использования марийского в московском регионе (ввиду повсеместной распространенности и доминирования русского языка) и тяготение к его употреблению в семейно-бытовой, дружеской, иногда — профессиональной сферах общения, марийский язык, тем не менее, выполняет в диаспоре ряд важных функций. В ходе обследования автором были определены следующие функции: коммуникативная, фатическая (контактоустанавливающая), функция тайного языка (используемая в общественном пространстве между носителями марийского языка, а также в семейно-бытовой сфере между некоторыми членами семьи), эмоциональная (на каком языке опрошенным доводится думать, видеть сны, ругаться, шутить), а также сакральная (язык обращения к божественным силам, а также язык религии и религиозных отправлений) и символическая (язык как символ групповой идентификации). В результате обследования было установлено распределение функций марийского языка по поколениям; в отношении набора функций языка у респондентов в выборке был выявлен ряд закономерностей, связанных, с одной стороны, со степенью владения ими марийским языком, с другой стороны, с принадлежностью тому или иному поколению диаспоры. Кроме того, были выделены факторы, препятствующие использованию марийского в той или иной функции. The article presents the results of a sociolinguistic survey conducted by the author in the Mari diaspora of the Moscow region aimed at identifying and describing the functioning of the ethnic language. One of the aspects of the study is devoted to the establishment of the functions, assigned to the ethnic language in the conditions of the diaspora residence of an ethnic group. Despite the insignificant degree of the Mari language use in the Moscow region (due to the ubiquity and dominance of the Russian language there) and its use mainly in family, household, friendly, sometimes professional communications, the Mari language, however, performs several important functions in the diaspora. The survey results revealed the following functions: communicative, phatic (contact-establishing), the function of a secret language (used in a public space between Mari speakers or in the home communication between some family members), emotional (which language the respondents are likely to think, dream, swear, joke in), sacred (the language of appeal to the divine powers, the language of religion and religious practices) and symbolic (language used as a symbol of group identification). As a result of the survey, the distribution of functions of the Mari language by generations was established, as well as some patterns, majorly related to the proficiency levels in the Mari language and the respondents’ belonging to the first or the second diaspora generation. Factors preventing the use of Mari in some functions mentioned above have been equally singled out.

Moscow Mari: Ethnic Culture in the Internal Diaspora

The article deals with the problem of maintaining and preserving Mari ethnic culture in the conditions of an internal diaspora. The purpose of the article is to identify the conditions for maintaining and to determine the prospects for preserving Moscow Maris’ ethnic culture in Moscow’s multicultural urban space. Methods. In 2019–2021, the author of the article conducted a sociolinguistic survey in the Mari diaspora of the Moscow region; the selective sample includes 106 respondents (100 respondents belong to the first generation of the Mari diaspora, six to the second). One of the aspects of the survey was to study markers of ethnic identity in two generations of the diaspora. Results. The results, obtained in the interviews, reveal that Mari culture (knowledge and observance of Mari traditions and customs) is one of the key markers of ethnic identity in the first generation (coming only third after the small homeland and the Mari language markers). Respondents in the second generation demonstrate remnant knowledge of ethnic cultural practices due to a weak intergenerational transmission of the Mari language. The author concludes that in order to preserve ethnic traditions and customs in the diaspora, it is extremely important to maintain an ethnic language; at the same time, as the world practice of revitalizing minority languages shows, ethnic culture can be viewed as a source of initiation into an ethnic language, and later become a channel for its maintenance.

Master’s Photo Art Project ‘Ethnic Language of the Sacred’

The author’s idea of this master’s photographic art project was to create a series of photographs that should draw attention to the current state of the sacred heritage of Boykivshchyna with the aim of their future preservation. The series of works consists of photographs that convey archaic architecture, a special style of icon painting, church objects, carvings and interior paintings that are typical of the Boyko ethnos.

Why the term "professional language" can confuse the reader?

The article warns readers interested in the specialised communication against an uncritical adoption of the term professional language, which is often used in the extensive literature on the subject without care for terminological precision. The lack of awareness of the meaning of the term professional language leads to negative consequences in linguistic argumentation, such as the neglect of the current state of research in general linguistics, the contamination of the scientific term by its naive understanding in everyday communication between laypersons, or the identification of language and its use, which is a serious methodological deficiency. The reader of the specialised literature might therefore, without sufficient linguistic knowledge, mistakenly take the contents presented in the reading as self-evident and corresponding to the current state of knowledge. In the first part of the article, the aforementioned sources of interpretative dangers in reading are pointed out, using the history of research as an example. Subsequently, the reader is offered some constant points of reference fur further interpretation, which allow to recognise a stylistic-functional variety of ethnic language in the concept of professional language, including phenomena that go beyond the reduction of professional language to mere terminology. The author also pointed out the forms of acquisition and existence of the so-called professional languages, as well as the distributional features that distinguish them from other functional-stylistic varieties of the ethnic language. In conclusion, their peculiarity was highlighted, arising from the need for precise naming of phenomena and processes in the field of human activity, which is concluded by the specificity of the field; from the fact that people in the said field communicate at the expert level, and the related need for such a selection of linguistic means from the ethnic language in which communication takes place that its users communicate efficiently in the field of professional communication. The knowledge of these conditions will enable the reader to approach the relationship between language and the so-called professional language with greater understanding.

Biz birgemiz, or Revisiting the Diversification of Russian Language in Kazakhstan

The criteria for pluricentric languages, generalized by the Working Group on NonDominant Varieties of Pluricentric Languages (WGNDV), as well as our earlier condition of tightness, opacity, incomprehensibility of Kazakh Russian were used to discuss the possibility of its gradual formation. Two main conclusions were made: a) the Russian language of the post-Soviet space currently meets the criteria for pluricentric languages; b) the Russian language in Kazakhstan is going through rapid and noticeable diversification processes. The arguments of Kazakhstani linguists who assert (B.Kh. Khasanov, E.A. Zhuravleva, D.D. Shaibakova, etc.) or deny (Z.K. Sabitova, A.K. Kazkenova, etc.) the qualifications of the Russian language as variant in Kazakhstan - a country of long-term and massive Kazakh-Russian bilingualism. Generations of Russian speakers (monolinguals - ethnic Russians, Koreans, Ukrainians and others and bilinguals - Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Uighurs and others) with a dominant Russian or a dominant ethnic language - are involved in the processes of Soviet Russification and modern Kazakhization with different effects. Nowadays the diversification of the Russian language in Kazakhstan is taking place against the background of a fundamental change in the status and functional state of the Kazakh and Russian languages; reducing the number of native Russian speakers; fundamental changes in Kazakh-Russian bilingualism, reflected in the crisis of the linguistic identity of a part of Kazakhstanis, in a linguistic shift towards the Russian language (Koreans, part of Kazakhs, Ukrainians, small ethnic groups, etc.) and a turn of the linguistic shift of Kazakhs; strengthening the position of the Kazakh language in business, culture, education, mass media, interethnic communication; the changed vector of influence of languages (Kazakh Russian) and the openness of the Russian language for oral and written borrowings, especially in media texts; finally, new communication needs of Kazakhstanis. The long-term linguistic and cultural borderland, which forms the internalized conceptual-mental picture of the world inherent in Kazakhstanis, has become a fundamental factor stimulating the diversification processes of the Russian language in Kazakhstan.

Functions of Borrowed Vocabulary in Literary Texts by a Bilingual Author

The article is devoted to understanding the functional range of borrowed vocabulary in the Russian-language literary text of a bilingual author. In modern science, there is an opinion that this range is limited to a specific nominative function. Moreover, there is a research position that the fact of borrowing vocabulary from an ethnic language is an indicator of interference, that is, in a broad sense, it indicates an unconscious, often erroneous, inclusion of a foreign language word in a literary text. Based on modern research in the field of literary bilingualism, we refute this thesis and strive to show that the functional load of borrowings in works of verbal creativity is very significant: lexical units with a national-cultural component play an important role in text and plot formation, have conceptual, archetypal, symbolic content, act as significators of onto-linguistic being and perform an aesthetic function.

A Multitude of Languages - and One Country: Building up Communication among the Peoples of Russia through Translation

The article gives a survey of the problematics, historic and cultural practice of maintaining and developing the ethnic languages of Russia through translation; it retrospectively describes the history of polycultural co-existence (including the unified method of presentation for childrens folk lore in S. Marshaks version) and outlines the ways of dealing with todays urgent problems of preserving ethnic language. The article describes the models of reconstructing the lost texts and the strategies of translating the texts of small ethnic groups, as well as the models of maintaining the quality of translation from Russias ethnic languages into Russian. We especially stress the importance of the Russian language in its role of the cultural mediator. The article pays due attention to the need to develop specific practiceoriented theories of translation which would embrace the global experience in translatology and take into account the specificity of ethno-centric mentality and the ways to keep it in translation. The article is an introduction to the following materials in the volume.

ETHNIC-LANGUAGE PROCESSES AMONG THE KUMANDY, TUBALARS AND CHELKANS IN THE 19TH — EARLY 21ST CENTURIES

Статья посвящена проблеме языковой идентичности кумандинцев, тубаларов и челканцев. В статье будут рассмотрены этноязыковые процессы, определено современное состояние и дана характеристика перспектив развития этноязыковой ситуации у трех коренных малочисленных тюркоязычных народов Алтая. На основе анализа архивных источников (материалов делопроизводственных документов региональной власти, Всероссийской сельскохозяйственной переписи 1917 г.), опубликованных данных переписей, глубинных интервью, результатов соцопроса представлены процессы этнолингвистической трансформации среди коренных малочисленных народов предгорий Северного Алтая. В ходе исследования выявлены факторы, повлиявшие на изменение языковой картины, а также последствия трансформаций для данных этнических групп. Доказано, что на протяжении XIX — начала XXI вв. этноязыковая ситуация у коренного населения предгорий Северного Алтая кардинально изменилась. Сделан вывод о том, что до 30-х гг. XX в. подавляющее большинство населения изучаемого региона говорило на родном языке и не знало русского языка, несмотря на работу Алтайской духовной миссии и широкое расселение переселенцев в регионе. В пределах 10 % от общей численности коренных тюрко-язычных жителей, в основном мужчин, владело русским языком. В раннесоветский период, в том числе, благодаря программам советской власти по формированию сети школ, организации «национальных колхозов» распространение русского языка среди кумандинцев, тубаларов и челканцев сдерживалось. В дальнейшем «национальные» школы и колхозы были закрыты. Русский язык стал доминировать в публичной сфере. Именно поколение родившихся в 20–30-х гг. XX в. становится массово билингвами. Отправной точкой нивелирования миноритарных языков стало разрушение среды, в которой они функционировали, в результате ликвидации неперспективных сел и отрыва от родной языковой среды вследствие миграции молодых людей за пределы этнической территории в 50–70-е гг. XX в. Современное состояние миноритарных языков характеризуется кризисными явлениями; перспективой для них является деятельность общественных организаций. The article is devoted to the problem of linguistic identity of the Kumandy, Tubalars and Chelkans. The article will consider ethnic-language processes, will determine the current position and will char-acterize the future of the ethnic-language situation among the Kumandins, Tubalars and Chelkans. Based on the analysis of archival sources (materials of paperwork of regional authorities, materials of the All-Russian Agricultural Census of 1917), published census data, and indepth interviews, results sociological survey the processes of ethnolinguistic transformation among the indigenous peoples of the foothills of Northern Altai are presented. The study identified factors that influenced the change in the linguistic picture, the consequences of the change for these ethnic groups. It is proved that during the XIX — early XXI centuries. The ethnic-language situation of the indigenous population of the foothills of the Northern Altai has changed dramatically. It is concluded that until 1930s the vast majority of the population of the studied region spoke their native language, despite the work of the Altai spiritual mission. Within 10 % of the total number of indigenous Türkic-speaking inhabitants, mainly men, spoke Russian. In the early Soviet period, including thanks to the programs of the Soviet government to form a network of schools and the organization of “national collective farms”, the distribution of the Russian language among the Kumandy, Tubalars and Chelkans was restrained. In the future, “national” schools and collective farms were closed. The Russian language began to dominate in the public sphere. It is the generation born in the 1920–1930s becomes massively bilingual. The starting point for the leveling of minority languages was the destruction of the environment in which they functioned as a result of the liquidation of unpromising villages and separation from their native language environment due to the migration of young people outside the ethnic territory in the 1950–1970s. Currently minority languages are being lost. The number of their carriers is reduced. The Kumandin, Tubalar and Chelkan languages can retain the interest of indigenous people and the activities of public organizations.

EARLY ETHNIC LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN MOSCOW REGION MARI DIASPORA

В статье приводятся результаты социолингвистического обследования, которое проводилось автором в марийской диаспоре московского региона с целью выявления и описания функционирования этнического языка. Один из аспектов исследования посвящен вопросу межпоколенной передачи этнического языка в условиях диаспорного проживания. Респонденты первого поколения в выборке в целом демонстрируют высокий уровень языковой лояльности и уверены в том, что не утратят этнический язык, их опасения касаются скорее представителей второго поколения, выросших в московском регионе. Среди основных факторов, способствующих раннему овладению этническим языком во втором поколении, были названы следующие: погружение в языковую среду в марийской деревне летом; внутрисемейное бытовое общение на этническом языке; привлечение детей к участию в культурных мероприятиях, организованных в Москве марийским землячеством, по инициативе отдельных представителей или групп диаспоры. Однако при непосредственной реализации данные модели обнаруживают на практике ряд существенных недостатков: дальнейшая русификация марийской деревни, а значит, скудное овладение марийским; отведение ребенку роли пассивного слушателя в разговорах взрослых; отсутствие культурных форм, отвечающих запросам подростков. Заметную роль в слабой передаче детям этнического языка играют негативные аттитюды, стигматизирующие идеологии, языковые практики, унаследованные респондентами в отношении марийского языка на малой родине. В ходе обследования были зафиксированы отдельные позитивные сдвиги в этом направлении, преимущественно среди молодых респондентов, вследствие осознания ценности языка и изменения языковых стратегий и идеологий. Это важно, поскольку марийский язык является одним из основных признаков этнической идентичности в выборке: утрата во втором поколении диаспоры марийского приводит к утрате некоторых других этнических маркеров и как следствие — к размыванию границ этнической группы. The article presents the results of a sociolinguistic survey conducted by the author in the Mari diaspora of the Moscow region aimed at identifying and describing the functioning of the ethnic language. One of the aspects of the study is devoted to the issue of intergenerational transmission of the ethnic language in the conditions of diasporic residence. The first-generation respondents in the sample generally demonstrate a high level of language loyalty and are confident that they will not lose their ethnic language, their concerns are more likely to deal with to the second-generation representatives who grew up in the Moscow region. Among the main factors contributing to the early acquisition of an ethnic language in the second generation, the following ones were mentioned: immersion in the language environment in the Mari village in the summer; intra-family everyday communication in an ethnic language; children’s participation in cultural events organized in Moscow by the Mari community, as well as on the initiative of individual representatives or groups of the diaspora. However, when directly implemented, these models reveal several significant drawbacks in practice: further russification of the Mari rural areas, which leads to a child’s poor proficiency in Mari; assigning the child the role of a passive listener in the conversations of older family members; lack of cultural forms that meet the adolescents’ demands. Negative attitudes, stigmatizing ideologies as well as language practices inherited by respondents in relation to the Mari language in their small homeland all play a significant role in the weak transmission of the ethnic language to children. The survey revealed some positive changes, mainly among young respondents, due to their increased language awareness and changes in language strategies and ideologies. The Mari language is one of the main features of ethnic identity in the sample: the decay of the ethnic language in the second generation of the diaspora leads to the loss of some other ethnic markers and, as a result, to the blurring of the boundaries of the ethnic group.

INTRODUCING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN PRIMARY SCHOOL = FADING AWAY AN ETHNIC LANGUAGE AMONG FUTURE YOUNG GENERATION

The Indonesian government puts an English lesson at the primary school. On the other hand, it has an intention to preserve local languages. The presence of the two additional lessons in the same school invites a certain problem. Through the questionnaire distributed randomly to 26 primary school parents whose children learn English and Javanese at school in 4 different cities like Surabaya, Sidoarjo, Gresik, and Malang, it could be found out that many students got the competencies of lowering the usage of local language at home, switching codes, lowering competence in implementing Javanese script and constructing sentences, unwilling to watch Javanese news, lowering local culture appreciation, and lowering the usage of local language among peers. Furthermore, in the comparative in English and Javanese learning the students had a lower interest in competing for language, appreciating culture, and literacy in Javanese.