SPONSORS
Fritz Thyssen Foundation

PROJECT PERIOD
, 2014–2019

PROJECT LEADER:

Prof. Dr Gerd Hentschel

PROJECTTEAM:

2014–2016: Anastasia Reis

from 2017: Olesya Palinska

PARTNERS:

Prof. Dr Oleksandr Taranenko, Institute of Linguistics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Brief description 2014

The terms ‘Suržyk’ (in Ukraine) and ‘Trasjanka’ (in Belarus) refer specifically to those forms of ‘mixed’ speech in which indigenous (Ukrainian or Belarusian) and Russian elements and structures alternate in quick succession, even within individual sentences. Millions of speakers in both countries use this form of speech. Whilst in Belarus, Belarusian and Russian are official languages, with Russian—as in Soviet times—clearly dominating politically and socially, in post-Soviet Ukraine, Ukrainian is the sole official language. Nevertheless, Russian remains extremely prevalent to this day. ‘Suržyk’ and ‘Trasjanka’ became modern mass phenomena particularly as a result of industrialisation and urbanisation, and the associated linguistic adaptation of Ukrainian and Belarusian rural-to-urban migrants to Russian, which dominated in the cities. The ‘prototypes’ of ‘Suržyk’ and ‘Trasjanka’ are therefore linguistic phenomena based on indigenous (Ukrainian and Belarusian) languages. (A more recent ‘Suržyk’ based on Russian is not the subject of this project). Today, mixed speech is regarded by normatively oriented linguists and cultural studies scholars in both countries as a sign of a lack of education or cultural deprivation. Owing to this stigmatisation, the neutral terms ‘Ukrainian-Russian mixed speech’ (URGR) and ‘Belarusian-Russian mixed speech’ (WRGR) will be used hereinafter.

The proposed project pursues four core objectives, three of which are linguistic: Firstly, the aim is to provide a comprehensive linguistic description of URGR in terms of its phonological, grammatical (morphological and syntactic) and lexical structures. (For the WRGR, this has already been largely achieved by the Slavicist applicant as part of an earlier project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.) The second objective of the proposed project is a systematic comparison of URGR and WRGR. Thirdly, a linguistic-theoretical objective is pursued: linguists in the target countries (Ukraine, Belarus) generally report irregular, unsystematic, even chaotic mixtures of autochthonous (Ukrainian/Belarusian) and ‘foreign’ (Russian) components in the mixed speech of individual speakers. In contrast, studies on WRGR (using a quantitatively oriented sociolinguistic analysis of extensive text corpora) have identified stable qualitative and quantitative patterns with hierarchical characteristics, according to which Russian and WR elements, constructions and features vary. These results are now to be tested using Ukrainian-Russian data, with the aim of identifying constants of variation in language mixing. Linked to this is the discussion of the theoretical question regarding qualitative, quantitative and/or sociolinguistic criteria for the emergence of ‘independent’ mixed languages, in this case from two closely related languages. To date, this question has mainly been discussed in the context of contact between source varieties that are structurally and typologically very different. At the same time, it is necessary in this context to clarify what is, in principle, meant by ‘usage’ in highly variable social sub-varieties. In this case, ‘usage’ is certainly something different from that in a standard language stabilised by codification, and also something different from that in ‘old’ autochthonous dialects spoken by a local population with little social mobility.

Finally, the fourth objective is to evaluate the URGR from a sociolinguistic perspective. (The applicants have already carried out the sociolinguistic analysis of the WRGR in the aforementioned ‘VW project’.) The most important question here is whether the URGR has the potential to serve as a means of identification for certain sections of the population, and to what extent its use is an expression of a social, national or ethnic (or even ‘subnational’ / ‘sub-ethnic’) identity.

Given the proposed linguistic and sociological research aspects, the proposed project is interdisciplinary in nature, with a focus on socio-linguistic and variationist linguistic issues, both descriptive and theoretical. The study of the URGR and, as a point of comparison, the WRGR breaks away from the largely persistent focus of ‘native’ (Ukrainian and Belarusian) linguistics on the ‘preservation’ of the respective literary languages, as well as on dialectology in the traditional sense. It thus takes account of the plurality of linguistic forms of expression within a linguistic area where sociolinguistic and sociological research into language has long been possible only to a limited extent for political reasons.

Short Report 2015

Mixed Speech | »Variability and Stability in Mixed Substandard Speech in Extensive and Long-Term Language Contact: A Comparison of Ukrainian-Russian Mixed Speech in Ukraine with Belarusian-Russian Mixed Speech in Belarus’is the centre of a project led by Prof. Gerd Hentschel, Institute of Slavic Studies, University of Oldenburg, and Prof. Bernhard Kittel, Institute of Economic Sociology, University of Vienna.

‘Ukrainian-Russian mixed speech’ (URGR) and ‘Belarusian-Russian mixed speech’ (WRGR) are widely spoken ‘mixed varieties’ in which Ukrainian or Belarusian and Russian elements alternate. Whilst the WRGR is a relatively widespread phenomenon across Belarus, in Ukraine the URGR was considered more of a phenomenon of the centre, particularly the eastern regions. Here, in the centre, sociolinguistic surveys and sociolinguistic recordings of language data are being carried out for the project. The latter are being processed into annotated corpora (similar to existing Belarusian ones: uol.de/ok-wrgr).

The sociolinguistic part of the project focuses on the relationship between national or social orientation and the use of the three relevant codes in Ukraine (Ukrainian, Russian, URGR). Initial findings are available regarding the distribution of the codes. The following diagram illustrates this, revealing five sub-areas (cf. Hentschel & Taranenko 2015):

(please click on the image to enlarge)

The vast majority of respondents use more than one code. Between 40 per cent of respondents in area (A) and over 80 per cent in area (D) frequently use URGR in everyday life. In general, not only an east–west dimension but also a centre–periphery dimension of gradual differentiation is observed. Largely regardless of their linguistic orientation, respondents (90 per cent or more in the individual districts) regard Ukrainians and Russians as two separate ‘nations’. Similarly, a majority of respondents see a clear distinction between Ukrainian and Russian culture, although the observable differences across the districts are, once again, not linked to linguistic orientation.

The linguistic materials are currently being transcribed for the comprehensive description of the URGR—covering its phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical structures—as envisaged in the linguistic part of the project. Each individual word form is classified according to relevant grammatical criteria. A comparison of the corpora on URGR and WRGR is intended to contribute to the theory of contact linguistics: do WRGR and URGR exhibit comparable hierarchical patterns according to which elements of their ‘source languages’ vary? In such highly variable mixed social subvarieties, is there a ‘usage’, i.e. can relatively stable patterns be identified in the distribution of Ukrainian or Belarusian elements on the one hand and Russian elements on the other?

Publications on the subject:

• Oldenburg publications on the topic ‘Variability and Stability in the Mixed Substandard: Suržyk’