Introduction

1

Писатели о языке: Contemporary Russian Writers on the Language Question
Ingunn Lunde -

Post-perestroika Russian society exhibits a pronounced concern with the language question. Linguistic issues are discussed at all levels of society, and a great many people engage in these debates. One group of language users frequently invited to contribute to the various forums discussing the language question are professional writers. Russian writers have long been accorded a special role in the context of the language question. Not only have the classics of Russian literature served as models in standard language education and maintenance, but there is also a tradition of collecting and publishing statements by professional writers on language and linguistic matters. This article proposes an analysis of statements by contemporary Russian writers on the language question. Outlining the socioliterary framework of the various venues for discussion, it analyses the writers’ views on language cultivation and language planning, the norm, the use of non-standard language, and the relationship between the standard language (literaturnyi iazyk) and the language of literature (iazyk literatury). In today’s modern world of mass and new media culture, it is clear that literature is but one among many verbal arenas with a potential impact on the general language culture. The writers’ views are realistic on this point, yet both in their attitudes and in their style of responding to the language question, we can still sense the traditions and lines of thought of the past: the writers respond to questions about the language situation with a natural authority. Even if the relative impact of the writers’ opinions on linguistic matters in Russia today is probably low, the sociological framework of the forums discussed suggests that at least parts of the contemporary Russian society — above all the intelligentsia and academic milieus — still have certain expectations and hopes with regard to the role of writers in the language question.

3

«Ручкой скрип-скрип, клавиатуркой тюк-тюк, головёнкой дум-дум». О влиянии современных письменных и коммуникационных технологий на русскую поэзию
Энрика Шмидт -

Skrip-skrip goes the pen; tuk-tuk sounds the keybord, dum-dum makes the brain. Concerning the influence of contemporary writing and communication technologies on Russian poetry

“What new did the Internet bring for literature”, asks poet Aleksandr Levin with regard to the discussions surrounding the (supposed) existence of “net literature” (seteratura). And offers himself a clear-cut answer: nothing. Because “the ways of writing remained the same. Skrip-skrip goes the pen, tuk-tuk sounds the keyboard, dum-dum makes the brain.” But Levin’s position, as show further statements by the same author, is inconsistent if not contradictory. Thus, when asked how the usage of the PC affects his work, he insists that “the mode of first publication influences the poetic techniques used in a literary text”. The aim of the present article is to examine and explain this paradox, typical for quite a number of Russian writers and poets who, on the one hand, negate the determination of literature by the material circumstances of its production, and, on the other hand, creatively use and abuse the digital and networking technologies in their own writing. Or in a broader context: to explore how the changes in writing and communication technologies of the last decades are reflected in literary discourses in Russian and how they are implemented into the poetical practices. For that goal I will analyze poetic texts written by professional authors as well as by so called graphomaniacs who inhabit “the Runet” in great number. This decision to include the sector on non-professional writing into my analysis is motivated by one of my central hypotheses, namely: that the peculiarities of net aesthetics are realized at best precisely in graphomanian writing. Why so? Because only the mass textual production (massovost’), the millions of texts available on servers as Stihi.ru and the like, generates the needed level of collectivity that turns literary activity on the web in an aesthetic factor of its own value and in its own right.

19

The Poetics of Paraphrase: The Positivist Postmodernism in Mikhail Gasparov’s ‘Experimental Translations’
Heinrich Kirschbaum -

In this article, the author is discussing Mikhail Gasparov’s book “Experimental Translations” (or ETs), an anthology of translations of works by authors from different epochs and literary traditions, from Pindar to Enzensberger. In his condensed translations Gasparov shortens the originals drastically. However, the ETs are experimental not only because of Gasparov’s new “technique of translation,” but also because of the new objects of translation: in addition to foreign authors, Gasparov translates Pushkin and Lermontov, from Russian into Russian, shortening and paraphrasing them beyond recognition. Who was Gasparov? What kind of experiment does he conduct in his ETs: a poetic or maybe an ethical one? By analysing the self-legitimations of Gasparov’s paraphrasing translations, Kirschbaum tries to show how and why Russian philology in the person of Gasparov is approaching and at the same time attacking postmodernism.

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Преподавание литературы в советской школе 1960 -70-х гг. и современная поэзия (Тимур Кибиров, Всеволод Емелин)
Elena Markasova -

The article is devoted to the connection between the Soviet School education and the style of the modern Poetry. Students’ social self-realization at school links them with other members of society and thus involves them into mental procedures which have the status of “normal” or “natural” in the historical context they live in. A child learns his or her “common places” at school. The common places learnt at school are recognizable to the same generation as they represent shared images of the past and provoke remembrance. This fact is the reason for the high popularity of T.Kibirov and Vs.Emelin among their own contemporaries.

Teaching text analysis at the lessons of literature and the Russian language became a key to the interpretation and understanding of facts and information within the framework of the Soviet norms of reception.

The question I am exploring in this article is how rhetorical skills which are acquired and which help to be successful at school are preserved and further operated after school as fundamental mechanisms for text interpretation. Understanding these mechanisms can help to elucidate how literary text as well as all other sources of public information are interpreted by the reader and how the sources of quotations are connected with the early children’s experience of learning the psycho-traumatical texts at the lessons of Literature and Russian language.

The article is based on the comparative analyses of common places used in the poetry by T. Kibirov and Vs. Emelin and the interview (memory-text) by informants, who remember their school experience.

69

On the Satirical Counter-Discourse of Processed Cheese
Lara Ryazanova-Clarke -

The article examines the discourse of the satirical radio programme Plavlenyi syrok (Processed Cheese) written by Viktor Shenderovich and broadcast on the Ekho Moskvy radio station in 2007. The argument is based on a theoretical framework incorporating Pierre Bourdieu’s social theory of language, Richard Terdiman concept of counter-discourse and Paul Simpson’s discursive approach to satire. Supported by the analysis of a corpus comprising five months of transcripts of the programme, the article argues that Shenderovich uses the two stage model of satire in order to construct alternative meanings, which counteract the dominant knowledge frames produced and perpetuated in contemporary public discourse. The article explores the various patterns of satirical construction and linguistics devices employed in the counter-discourse.

93

Говорит «Русское радио»… (о языковых функциях в СМИ)
Olga Thomason -

This paper is aimed at investigating functional particulars of the language style used in modern Russian mass media. Having analyzed speech of DJs on Russian radio I propose that a shift has occurred in linguistic functions of these communications: beginning as primarily informative, they appear to be mainly entertaining now. Radio DJs focus on the emotional, expressive function of communication and not on the informative one. Such shift, in turn, leads to a change in linguistic norms of the present-day Russian language spoken in mass media. Emotional function which is centered on a speaker (as opposed to a listener) and appears the most intimate and instinctive for an addressee, generates a high level of variation in speech, excessive wordiness and various lexical, grammatical and other linguistic transformations. One should not claim that radio anchors completely dismiss all previous standards of radio broadcasting. Rather, Russian radio DJs strive to combine and use all styles of language manifestation available to them to fulfill the general policy of their radio station – to create an intimate, relaxing atmosphere. Therefore, they speech is an ingenious conglomerate of different styles of written and spoken modern Russian.

113

Функционирование неологизмов в разных жанрах в языке газеты
J. Jacee Cho -

Данная работа посвящена исследованию одной из актуальных проблем развития словарного состава русского языка, а именно, проблеме неологизма. В работе неологизмы рассматриваются как коммуникативное срадство деятельности журналиста в средствах массовой информации, а именно, в газете.

Объектом работы являются неологизмы, появивщиеся на страницах современных росийских газет за период 1993-2004.

Анализ, проведённый мной, свидетельствует о том, что новые слова функционируют в зависимости от цели и намерений участников коммуникации. В настоящей работе впервые предпринята попытка перечислить и рассклассифицировать разнообразные функции неологизмы, проанализировать роль каждой функции в конкретном контексте.

133

Использование церковной лексики и отношение к ней среди носителей современного русского языка
Artemi Romanov -

В статье рассматривается тенденция, связанная с возвращением религиозной лексики в общее словоупотребление в пост­советский период. В Москве и Санкт­Петербурге был проведен лексикологический и социолингвистический опрос среди 132 человек, которым было предъявлено 22 слова религиозного характера с тем, чтобы выяснить, в какой степени возвращающиеся религиозные слова понятны носителям русского современного языка, насколько активно эта лексика используется в речи, а также каково отношение к религиозной лексике среди русскоговорящих сегодня. Опрос показал, что уровень знания и использования специализированной церковной лексики среди носителей русского языка остается низким. Более пожилые носители языка по собственным оценкам несколько чаще молодых употребляют специализированную церковную лексику, встречают ее в периодике, и в речи своих родственников и знакомых. Женщины, значительно чаще посещающие церковь, не продемонстрировали лучшего владения церковной лексикой, чем мужчины. Была установлена статистически значимая зависимость между отношением к церковной лексике и частотой посещаемости церкви.

159

Negotiating Reality with Anekdoty: Soviet vs. Post-Soviet Humor Lore
Daniela S. Hristova -

As a genre, anekdoty have been among the most popular oral narratives in the Soviet as well as post-Soviet era. Similar to other folkloric and literary genres, the post-Soviet social and linguistic liberalization has impacted Russian humor lore, but to a much lesser degree than it might seem on the surface. Since effective humor narratives impart laughter by way of reacting to significant sociopolitical phenomena, the changed economic and ideological reality in post-Soviet Russia fostered paradigmatic classes of anekdoty that feature new protagonists. The question that the article raises and answers, however, is whether what made a Soviet anekdot funny differs from what makes a post-Soviet anekdot amusing. I examine representative examples of the two periods and delineate the differences between them. In contrast to most research on Russian humor that takes a sociological or psychological approach in the analysis of anekdoty, this study presents a formal linguistic approach informed by Attardo and Raskin's revised version of the Semantic Script Theory of Humor.

287

‘Не трожь молодежь!': A Portrait of Urban Youthspeak and the Russian Language in the 21st Century
Thomas J. Garza -

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, not only have the social and political norms of the country been reworked, but so has the linguistic. Among Russia's youth, this shift in both lexicon and usage is felt particularly strongly. This work reviews the changing state of Russian "youthspeak" within the lexico-semantic fields of business, technology and politics, focusing on shifts in usage of established lexicon and the addition of neologisms, especially in the form of foreign (i.e., English) loan words. The bulk of the data for the study is culled from interview and questionnaire data gathered from over 800 Russian native informants over the past decade. The study points to a growing trend of Russians assimilating English loan words into their own lexicon as "indigenous," and this tendency shows no signs of abating.

213

Эволюция русской языковой картины мира и культура речи
Алексей Шмелёв

The idea that the Russian language has been radically changed after perestroika has become a common place. It is often claimed that the modern Russian has become inundated by new words, mainly from American English and youth’s and criminal slang, speech etiquette has been changed, mass media often use non-normative grammar constructions and non-standard stress, so people has a feeling that Russian has been “spoiled”, standards of “speech culture” have been declined, and the modern Russian language is “on the verge of a nervous breakdown” (the title of a popular book by Maxim Kronhaus).

The paper discusses criteria for the distinction between real and imaginary linguistic changes and claims that changes are imaginary in many cases. More often than not, we deal with a change of the social and sociolinguistic situation rather than genuine linguistic shifts, changes of speech etiquette, a decline in the standards of speech culture or massive deviations from the linguistic norms.

On the other hand, the past 20 years have witnessed some real changes determined by the overall economic and social transformations in the country. The most significant and characteristic changes in the language has to do with changes in the conceptualization of the world and the system of values and cultural scripts. They include the increase of the volume and the rate of the words that are not only borrowed from other languages but also convey values and attitudes alien to the traditional Russian culture; the loss of pejorative flavor of certain words referring to profit, success, consumption and enjoyment; the “criminalization” of the everyday lexicon and the adoption of certain attitudes typical of the “criminal” jargon; the spread of phrases with discordant nominative apposition as a reflection of the consumer culture’s demands.

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