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YfíK 81-112.2:81 '27
DO110.25513/2413-6182.2018.4.35-44
RUSSIAN LANGUAGE IN A MULTICULTURAL REGION
E.Ya. Titarenko
V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University (Simferopol, Russia)
Abstract: There are problems of interaction between languages and of multicultural communication in a multicultural region with a glance to the changes in linguistic situation and state language policy considered in this article. The purpose of this study is to study and describe the interaction of Russian and Ukrainian languages in Crimea before and after 2014, as well as the evolution of value regulations in the linguistic consciousness, intercultural communication and behaviour of native speakers of Russian and Ukrainian languages in Crimea after 2014. The relevance of the study influenced by the fact that throughout its history Crimea has changed the jurisdiction and, accordingly, fallen under different state language policy, while in recent decades the Constitution of Crimea formally legalized three languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar. As a multicultural and polylingual region, Crimea is subject to a huge influence of the state language (Ukrainian or Russian) on the language situation in general. As a result of the analysis we consider it possible to characterize the language situation in Crimea now as polylinguacultural (multi-component) with a predominance of one -state - language (Russian). This situation is unbalanced due to demographic and communicative capacity of components of the languages. Significant changes in the Crimea language situation are associated with the reduction of functions of the Ukrainian language, which has lost its communicative power, lost its former positions in education, and moved to the level of home language. Main languages spoken in Crimea are Russian (for all residents) and Crimean Tatar (representing nearly 10 % of the population).
Key words: Russian language, national language, language policy, multicultural region.
For citation:
Titarenko, E.Ya. (2018), Russian language in a multicultural region. Communication Studies, No. 4 (18), pp. 35-44. DOI: 10.25513/2413-6182.2018.4.35-44.
About the author:
Titarenko Elena Yakovlevna, Prof., Head of the Chair of Methods of Teaching Philological Disciplines
Corresponding author:
Postal address: 20, Yaltinskaya ul., Simferopol, 295007, Russia
© E.R. TumapeHKO, 2018
E-mail: [email protected] Acknowledgments:
This work was supported by the 2014-2015 Program for the Development of the Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Education "V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University" in the framework of academic mobility implementation according to the "V.I. Vernadsky CFU" project ''Application-Based Support of Academic Mobility of the University Employees - PMR" at Peoples' Friendship University of Russia
Received: May 21, 2018 1. Introduction
It is known that when choosing a language policy in a multinational state, one must take into account such factors as "the role of individual languages and their speakers in public life" [Yartseva 1990: 616]. Language policy is a set of ideological principles and practices to address language issues in the society, the state. When determining the language policy, the government should take into account the linguistic situation both in the whole country and in specific regions. Crimea is a complex cultural and linguistic space inhabited by representatives of 120 nationalities, among which Russians, Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars are the most numerous ones, i.e. it is a historically multicultural region.
In the 20th - 21st centuries. Crimea repeatedly changed its jurisdiction and, therefore, fell under different state language policies. However, in recent decades, three languages (Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar] were formally legalized in the Crimea Constitution. The influence of the state language (Ukrainian or Russian] on the linguistic situation in the region is quite considerable.
In scientific literature [Bogdanovich 2002, 2004; Titarenko 2003; Shvets 2003], the linguistic situation in Crimea is generally referred to as multilin-guocultural. A multilinguocultural situation is a multidimensional phenomenon with a set of feature characteristics of sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, ethno-linguistic attributes that determine the functional and communicative status of the language of communication [Bogdanovich 2002]. G. Bogdanovich highlights the multilinguocultural phenomenon (MLCP) as a set of traits of the linguistic and cultural character, which is formed in the overall spatial distribution of cultures, where the "adhesion" of cultures, their mutual influence and interpenetration occur, resulting in the acquisition of an adaptive psychological attitude by a linguistic personality [Bogdanovich 2004: 85]. "The MLCP represents the diversity of cultural expressions, and hence a special (tolerant, conflict, etc.] attitude to them" [Bogdanovich 2004: 86]. According to experts, multi-ethnic societies are marked by a particularly complicated linguistic situation, so the government needs to carry out not only the language policy, but also engage in language planning, implying "deliberate, concrete activities on influencing the linguistic behavior of the speakers of language, change of the languages' functioning (status planning], regulation of the language structure
(corpus-based planning], creating conditions for language acquisition (acquisition planning]" [Vusik 2016: 614].
The research goal is to study and describe the interaction of the Russian and Ukrainian languages in Crimea before and after 2014, as well as the evolution of the value regulators in linguistic consciousness, intercultural communication and behavior of Russian and Ukrainian native speakers in Crimea after 2014.
2. The state language and linguistic situation in Crimea
The independent Ukraine inherited bilingualism, characterized by real universal proficiency in one of the international languages - Russian, from the Soviet totalitarian regime. It should be recognized that the USSR language policy did have consequences such as the functional repression of national languages by Russian. However, due to this policy, Ukrainian native speakers were (and still are, if we are talking about the middle and older generations,] fluent in Russian along with their native Ukrainian. At the same time, Russian speakers living in the country are roughly divided into 3 groups:
- those speaking Ukrainian fluently and actively using it in all kinds of speech activity;
- those having a passive command (understand, read, but do not speak];
- those not speaking Ukrainian.
During the years of independence, the generation of Ukrainians who do not have full command of Russian (mostly young people] has increased, and the number of Russians, constituting the third group, has significantly reduced - those are mostly elderly people. It should be noted that one can't fail to understand such closely related languages at the everyday conversation level. In Crimea, the first group (fluent in and actively using the Ukrainian language] were significantly less numerous than on average in Ukraine, while the majority of the Russian-speaking population had (and still has] a passive command of Ukrainian. However, until 2014, all the paperwork had been conducted in the Ukrainian language, which contributed to the development of the written form of the official style of Ukranian speech with Russian-speaking Crimean citizens.
The Ukrainian-Russian bilingualism problems are constantly in the focus of linguists (see, e.g. [Savchenko 2003; Titarenko 2003; Dubchinskii 2005]]. Up until 2014, the question of the common state (Ukrainian] language in the country had been very acute, many scientists and public figures being in favor of recognizing Russian as the second language. De jure there was one national language in the country - Ukrainian, de facto bilingualism existed, but Russian had the status of a national minority language.
In Soviet times, the concept of "national language" was treated negatively, as it was beieved to be contradicting the principle of language equality. The state language was used as an instrument of pressure only "in bourgeois multi-national countries" [Pradid 2002: 7]. By definition, state language is the
main language, approved by the Constitution for use in legislation, official records, proceedings, education, etc. The state Ukrainian language is considered as the "backbone factor in maintaining the integrity of Ukraine, as an instrument for expressing the will of the people ... as a national sign in international legal relations" [Dubchinskii 2005: 6]. In the Russian Federation, the state language is Russian, which also serves as a language of international communication, is supported by the Constitution, laws of the Russian Federation, Federal target programs, which, however, according to researchers, still have a number of unsolved language policy issues [Usacheva 2016].
In addition to state, sociolinguistics highlights the concept of "national language" as a socio-historical category, defining the language, which is a nation's means of communication and acts in two forms, oral and written. "The desire of the people, who present the national society, to have their own national language other than that of other nations belongs to the sphere of feelings and passions, which, despite being caused by objective cultural and historical, political, psychological, social reasons, often bear the imprint of subjective value orientations, frequently contradicting the real linguistic situation. (...) The legal equality of languages can be combined with the actual prevalence of one of them" [Yartseva 1990: 326].
In 2000s, the linguistic situation in Ukraine in general, in our opinion, could be characterized as two-component (the Ukrainian and Russian languages), equilibrium (having equicardinal idioms), homogeneous and homo-morphic (represented by related languages), disharmonious (languages have a different status). Until 2014, the linguistic situation in Crimea had been somewhat different: three-component (the Russian, Ukrainian, Crimean Tatar language), non-equilibrium (the prevalence of Russian native speakers - the so-called "demographic capacity"), disharmonious.
Sociolinguistics distinguishes the concepts of first language, mother tongue, home, main and native language. The language in which the child begins to speak, is called first language. As a rule, it is the language the mother speaks. Mother tongue may be different from father due to mixed marriages. There are cases, when the child uses the language of each parent when talking to them. Home language is the one spoken at home. The main language is considered to be the one in which a person thinks or, according to other criteria, the language used in oral speech and writing in all the breadth of the functional and stylistic registers [Afanasiadi 2006]. It is believed in Europe that the native language is the one in which a person thinks, speaks and writes. It is known that even "in an ethnically homogeneous communication environment it is not the native but the second language that can perform the functions of the main language" [Belikov, Krysin 2001: 21].
According to the 2001 census, in Crimea 79.11 % of the population called Russian their native language, 9.63 % called Crimean Tatar, 9.55 % called Ukrainian their native language. In 2014, according to the new census in the
Republic of Crimea, 81.68 % of the region's population who indicated their native language called Russian; 9.32 % Crimean Tatar, 4.33 % Tatar; 3.52 % Ukrainian their native language. These data are, in our opinion, is not fully representative, however, clearly indicate the changes of the linguistic situation in the region.
The state language policy of Ukraine in Crimea was aimed at bringing Russian to the home language level and placing Ukrainian on the position of the main language followed by its convertion into the native language of all Crimean citizens. However, this policy sparked rejection of a significant part of the Russian-speaking population due to their lack of "language loyalty". The concept of language loyalty is related to evaluative traits that concern the "evaluation of the language by speakers of other languages and native speakers in terms of its communicative suitability, aesthetics, cultural prestige etc. The totality of internal evaluations determines the degree of the so-called "linguistic loyalty" of a given speech community, i.e., the extent of its commitment to the native language" [Yartseva 1990: 617]. The Russian and Crimean Tartar population of Crimea showed greater commitment to the native language.
3. Linguistic situation in education
Under the administration of President Viktor Yushchenko, the Crimea Ukrainization, which had started back in the 90s of the 20th century, was enhanced. Nevertheless, until 2014 more than 93% of schools in Crimea had been Russian-speaking, one Ukrainian school was opened in Simferopol, in some schools with Russian being the language of instruction, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar classes were created. At a meeting with the OSCE Representative for National Minorities Knut Vollebaek in 2007 V. Konstantinov cited the following statistics: only in Crimea, 330 schools with Russian as the language of instruction, 7 with Ukrainian, 15 with Crimean Tatar, 171 with Russian and Ukrainian, 1 with Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian, 27 with Russian and Crimean Tatar, 38 with Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar as the languages of instruction are functioning. Besides, 5 Armenian, 4 Bulgarian and 2 German Sunday schools work in the autonomy (http://www.milli-firka.org/content/8388].
In 2015, the Minister of Education of the Republic of Crimea Natalia Goncharova said that before the school year, not a single request expressing the desire to educate the child in Ukranian had been received from any of the first-graders' parents. According to the Minister, Crimea has no schools with Ukrainian as the language of instruction. "We still have a network of 17 classes with Ukrainian as the language of instruction, including Simferopol Academic Gymnasium, she specified. No requests for education in Ukranian were received in the process of enrollment in the 1st grade" (http://reeana.ru/12439]. According to the Ministry of Education, the network of schools with Crimean Tatar as the language of instruction in Crimea remains at the 15-school level. As of September 1st, three classes of the 1st parallel will be added to the 29 classes
with instruction in Crimean Tatar. It should be emphasized that learning all the three languages (except Russian, of course] is not mandatory in Crimea.
In Linguistics, two types of multilingualism are distinguished, dominant and equitable. "The dominant type of multilingualism, in which one of the languages is main, initial, determining, is internally conflict for the Slavs living in Crimea", wrote A. Shvets in 2004 [Shvets 2003: 247]. At present, the conflict has been resolved in favor of the Russian language as Ukrainian is being expelled from the Crimea educational space.
4. Value regulators evolution
As noted by researchers, at the beginning of the 21st century, the problem of linguistic strategy of Slavic languages development in Crimea was extremely politicized [Shvets 2003]. The authors referred to it as to the coexistence of the terms "competition" [Shvets 2003], "doom" to dialogue [Bogda-novich 2004], etc. The same events - for example, the results of the previously mentioned Ukranian national census in 2001 - were assessed by representatives of different political camps in totally opposite ways. Thus, "Krimska Svitlitsya" (then the only newspaper in Crimea, published in Ukrainian in scanty circulation] was pleased to note that 2/3 of the citizens of Ukraine called Ukrainian their native language, which should put an end to the speculation on giving the Russian language the "official" or the "second state" language status. At the same time, the newspaper "Krymskaya Pravda" stated on behalf of the doctor of sociological sciences Pavel Khrienko, "The All-Ukrainian census reconfirmed the fact that in terms of cultural and national identity, Crimea is primarily Russian. The official census data should help Crimea residents to protect themselves from linguistic aggression, up to the European Court of Human Rights and other human rights structures" (Krymskaya Pravda. 11.01.2003].
Dual identity of the Crimea Slavs labels, to some extent, the social protest of the regional community of a certain region against some Center's attempts to impose its territory development standard (including that of linguistic development] on the region. In this protest, the regional community may be falsly-oriented or simply opportunistic [Shvets 2003: 247]. Thus, the status of the state language, which Ukrainian had had in Crimea until 2014, with the Russian language being a minority one (legally], but a majority one (in fact], allowed the speakers of Ukrainian and those fluent in this language in all fields of speech activity to hold high-ranking positions and posts, have jobs in state institutions, feel their prestige and some competitive advantage.
After 2014 the situation changed for the opposite - Russian became the state language and legally consolidated its status, actually existing in Crimea, the Ukrainian language got the minority language status both legally and factually. The politicized nature of the situation persisted. For example, on September 1st, 2016, the following message from a 5th-grader's mother appeared in one of the social networks: "Hello everyone! Well, we have remained faithful to our
rules). Wearing a vyshyvanka for the first and last bell ceremonies. The only person in class and throughout the school. The kid went to the 5th grade. And it turned out that our class teacher is the chairwoman of the city branch of the well-known party with a bear on its logo. The question was, "Is this a protest?" The answer was, "This is a tradition"). Vyshyvanka - an embroidered Ukrainian shirt - was perceived by the teacher not as a national identity manifestation, a tribute to the national tradition, but as a form of protest. It is obvious that the teacher did have some grounds for such a reaction, the wearing of vyshyvankas, just like the wearing of Muslim headscarves to school, having its hidden meanings.
In our view, the "mutual misunderstanding" between native speakers of two closely related languages also occurs for some intralinguistic reasons. Thus, the Ukrainian language does not have a distinction between the words русский /russkii/ "Russian" and российский /rossiiskii/ "Russia's, of Russia", so Ukrainian native speakers call both Russian citizens of Ukraine and citizens of the Russian Federation (of any nationality] роаяни /rosiyani/. The thesis on the adoption of Russian as the second state language in Ukrainian sounds like a requirement to legalize росшська мова /rosiiska mova/ "the Russian language", i.e. the language of another country, Russia. At the same time, for Russian native speakers, these words are filled with deep meaning and enable to distinguish between citizens of Russia - россияне /rossiyane/ and people belonging to the Russian nation - русские /russkie/. On the other hand, in Ukrainian, the same word is used to refer both to people belonging to the Ukrainian nation and to citizens of the country. That is why the Russian граждане Украины /grazhdane UkrainyY "Ukrainian citizens" (living in Crimea], which were to be called укратщ /ukraintsi/ "Ukrainians" in Ukranian, internally resisted to this as to a denial of their nationality, something that naturally causes a negative reaction.
Some lexical units functioning in both languages, differ stylistically - being literatury in the Ukrainian language, they are colloquial and vernacular in Russian. For example, these are such words as брехати /brekhati/ "to lie'', брехня /brekhnya/ "nonsense", нехай /nekhai/ "let it, let them etc.", чи /chi/, хиба /khiba/ "or", свекруха /svekrukha/ "mother-in-law on the husband's side", яблуко /yabluko/ "apple" and others. Word forms - imperatives бiжи /bizhi/ "run", заходь /zahod'/ "come in, 2nd person sg", заходьте /zakhod'te/ "come in, 2nd person pl''; personal verb forms хочете /khochete/ "(you) want, 2nd person pl", хочу /khóchu/ ''(I] want"; case forms of nouns: пбльта/pál'ta/ ''pl nominative case of coat", вiдкрий рота /vidkrii rota/ "open your mouth", etc. When these ukrainisms apprae in the speech of Russian speakers as the result of cross-language interference, Russian native speakers tend to have unwanted connotations (the interlocutor is considered to be an uneducated person].
Thus, there are both extra- and intralinguistic reasons of communication failures in the intercultural communication between speakers of closely related languages.
5. Research results
Currently, we consider it possible to characterize the linguistic situation in Crimea as multilinguocultural (multicomponent) with the predominance of one - state - language (Russian); by demographic and communicative capacity of the languages' components, the linguistic situation is nonequilibrium; by its qualitative characteristics, the linguistic situation is homogeneous and het-eromorphic, disharmonious, nondiglossic. Significant changes in the linguistic situation of Crimea are associated with reduced functions of the Ukrainian language, which has lost its communicative power, its former positions in the field of education, has shifted down to the home language level. The main languages spoken in Crimea are Russian (for all residents] and Crimean Tatar (for representatives of almost 10% of the population]. At the same time, the state language policy of the Republic of Crimea is aimed at supporting the three languages (Russian, Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar], and preservation of all national languages of the peoples inhabiting the peninsula, especially such as Krymchaks, Karaites and others.
The state language policy in the modern world is often at the forefront of the ideological struggle. Sociolinguistic and political aspects stand out in this issue. In further studies, we hope to find answers to the following questions, among others: Is equal co-existence of several state languages possible on the same territory? Can a multicultural region do without a compulsory state language? How to avoid conflicts between speakers of closely related native languages and representatives of the respective cultures in cross-cultural communication?
References
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Savchenko, L. (2003), Mizhmovni komunikatsii: Problemi bilingvizmu v Ukraini. Interlingual communications: problems of bilingualism in Ukraine. Kul'tura narodov Prichernomor'ya [Culture of the Black Sea Region Peoples], 2003, No. 37, pp. 62-65. (in Ukrainian) Shvets, A. (2003), Osobennosti lingvisticheskikh vzaimodejstvij osnovnykh slavyanskikh narodov Kryma [Features of linguistic interactions of the major Slavic peoples of Crimea]. Kul'tura narodov Prichernomor'ya [Culture of the Black Sea Region Peoples], 2003, No. 37, pp. 244-248. (in Russian) Titarenko, E. (2003), Russkaya rech' v Krymu i Ukraine segodnya [Russian speech in Crimea and Ukraine today]. Russkoe slovo v mirovoi kul'ture [Russian word in world culture], Proceedings of the 10th MAPRYAL Congress, Plenary sessions, collection of reports, in 2 volumes, St. Petersburg, Politekhnika Publ., Vol. 2, pp. 530-535. (in Russian) Usacheva, O. (2016), Nekotorye aktual'nye voprosy funktsionirovaniya russkogo yazy-ka v kachestve gosudarstvennogo [Some topical issues of the Russian language functioning as the state language]. Slavyanskie yazyki i kul'tury v sovremennom mire [Slavic languages and cultures in the modern world], Proceedings and materials of the 3rd International Scientific Symposium (Moscow, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Philological Faculty, May 23-26, 2016), Moscow, MAKS Press, pp. 623-626. (in Russian) Vusik, A. (2016), Osnovnye faktory formirovaniya yazykovoi situatsii [The main factors of forming linguistic situation]. Slavyanskie yazyki i kul'tury v sovremennom mire [Slavic languages and cultures in the modern world], Proceedings and materials of the 3rd International Scientific Symposium (Moscow, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Philological Faculty, May 23-26, 2016), Moscow, MAKS Press, pp. 613-615. (in Russian) Yartseva, V. (Ed.) (1990), Lingvisticheskii entsiklopedicheskii slovar' [Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary], Moscow, Sovetskaya entsiklopediya Publ., 685 p. (in Russian)
РУССКИЙ ЯЗЫК В ПОЛИКУЛЬТУРНОМ РЕГИОНЕ*
Е.Я. Титаренко
Крымский федеральный университет им. В.И. Вернадского (Симферополь, Россия)
Аннотация: Рассматриваются проблемы взаимодействия языков и межкультурной коммуникации в поликультурном регионе с учетом изменений языковой ситуации и государственной языковой политики. Цель исследования -изучение и описание взаимодействия русского и украинского языков в Кры-
* Настоящая работа выполнена при поддержке Программы развития федерального государственного автономного образовательного учреждения высшего образования «Крымский федеральный университет имени В.И. Вернадского» на 2015-2024 годы в рамках реализации академической мобильности по проекту ФГАОУ ВО «КФУ им. В.И. Вернадского» «Поддержка академической мобильности работников университета на заявительной основе - ПМР» в РУДН.
му до и после 2014 г., а также эволюции ценностных регулятивов в языковом сознании, межкультурной коммуникации и поведении носителей русского и украинского языков в Крыму после 2014 г. Актуальность исследования обсуловлена тем, что за свою историю Крым неоднократно менял юрисдикцию и, соответственно, подпадал под разную государственную языковую политику, при этом в последние десятилетия в Конституции Крыма были официально узаконены три языка: русский, украинский и крымскотатарский. Будучи поликультурным и полилингвальным регионом, Крым подвергается весьма большому влиянию государственного языка (украинского либо русского) на языковую ситуацию в целом. В результате анализа считаем возможным охарактеризовать языковую ситуацию в Крыму в настоящее время как полилингвокультурную (поликомпонентную) с преобладанием одного - государственного - языка (русского). По демографической и коммуникативной мощности составляющих языков - ситуация неравновесная. Существенные изменения в языковой ситуации Крыма связаны с сокращением функций украинского языка, который утратил свою коммуникативную мощность, потерял прежние позиции в образовательной сфере, переместился на уровень домашнего языка. Основными языками общения в Крыму являются русский (для всех жителей) и крымскотатарский (для представителей почти 10 % населения).
Ключевые слова: русский язык, государственный язык, языковая политика, поликультурный регион.
Для цитирования:
Титаренко Е.Я. Русский язык в поликультурном регионе // Коммуникативные исследования. 2018. № 4 (18). С. 35-44. DOI: 10.25513/24136182.2018.4.35-44. (На англ. яз.).
Сведения об авторе:
Титаренко Елена Яковлевна, доктор филологических наук, доцент, заведующая кафедрой методики преподавания филологических дисциплин
Контактная информация:
Почтовый адрес: 295007, Россия, Симферополь, ул. Ялтинская, 20 E-mail: [email protected]
Дата поступления статьи: 21.05.2018
