LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXVII (1988)

LIETUVIŲ KALBA IR BILINGVIZMAS

YAKOVAS TRIFONOVAS

THE DYNAMICS OF LANGUAGE PROCESSES IN A MULTILINGUAL TERRITORY

Introduction. The objective conditions for the development of a multinational state create a natural need for the comprehensive intensification of internationalization processes. This is determined by the increasing number of indigenous nationalities alongside the growing multinational character of the population, and by changes in ethnodemographic structures against the background of migration processes. These factors lead to a continual expansion in the scale of direct, mass communication among representatives of different nationalities—communication that is impossible without further developing and expanding the social functions of Russian as a means of interethnic communication and international solidarity.

Russian was able to assume the function of an interethnic means of communication under new social conditions thanks to its historically evolved, dynamic structure. By virtue of its openness, this structure “is constantly enriched and transformed as ever new social and national collectives are drawn into its sphere of influence”; as a result, the social and national domains in which the language is used, its functional relations with other languages, and the mutual relations among the language’s various levels all change (Dinamika struktury sovremennogo russkogo yazyka, 1982, p. 10).

One specific manifestation of this change was the redistribution of the functional structure of the language, which led to a change in the functions of the dialect. Under pressure from linguistically common and sociologically more prestigious tendencies, the dialect gradually draws closer to colloquial speech. Of particular interest in this respect are dialect systems that exist in a foreign-language environment, which exerts a conserving influence on the development of the dialect system and thereby determines its stability. Studying the functioning of such systems is of great interest as a concrete manifestation of the dialectical character of language processes—the dialectics of language as a system and language as a function in their actual operation.

This character of language development distinguishes the island dialects of Russian, in particular the Russian old-settler dialects of Lithuania, which formed as a result of the migration of Russian Old Believers who were fleeing

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religious persecution following the implementation of the Nikonian church reform in Russia in 1667 (Nemchenko, 1963 a, pp. 65—67; Karaliūnas, 1983, p. 23).

The object of the present study is one such dialect, which formed as a result of the further movement of the Russian population in the early XX century from its original settlements (present-day Zarasai, Jonava, and Panevėžys districts) in a northwesterly direction and the merging of several Russian old-settler dialects of Lithuania (RSGL) in a new territory—in the central part of what is now Šiauliai District—and is therefore referred to as the dialect of Russian old settlers in Šiauliai District (GRSH). Because its speakers were few and settlement in the new territory had a distinctive pattern (approximately 300 people formed three Russian villages almost simultaneously, located 5—7 km apart and surrounded by, or directly adjacent to, the indigenous Lithuanian population: Smilgiai village in 1908, Amalai in 1909, and Gilaičiai in 1910), the dialect’s island character became even more pronounced, expressed in its double isolation: not only from the parent dialects of Russian but also from the main area of RSGL (Nepokupny, 1964, pp. 7—8, 14—15). In terms of the timing and nature of settlement, this dialect should be classified as a late migrant dialect, characterized by the simultaneous, mass migration of settlers and a high degree of isolation (Barannikova, 1975, pp. 22—31).

The aim of this article is to study certain features of the functioning of this dialect system in a foreign-language territory under conditions of bilingualism and diglossia.

In a sociolinguistic study of the functioning and interaction of languages, it is necessary to identify purely linguistic parameters of functional development in terms of the use of different forms of language existence and its various subsystems in different spheres of people’s social and cultural activity, as well as in terms of the results of the long-term use of a language in one function or another (Mikhalchenko, 1984, p. 8). The functional development of a language itself is always determined by a combination of social and linguistic factors, represented in the most general terms, on the one hand, by language policy and, on the other, by the language situation, understood as the totality of all types of language variation, both functionally loaded and lacking a clearly expressed functional load (Stepanov, 1976, p. 30). In this article, we shall limit ourselves to an analysis of phonetic variation and a general characterization of variation at the lexical level. The latter is most clearly conditioned by sociological factors.

1. Sociolinguistic characterization of the functioning of the phonetic system of the GRSS.

Despite the exceptional stability of this level of the language system, the phonetic level, like the others, undergoes certain changes, обусловленные прежде всего внутренними закономерностями языкового развития. But this does not preclude the influence of external factors, which, as is well known, usually act as a kind of

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catalyst, accelerating or slowing the internal processes of phonetic development, which proceed in close interaction with the manifestation of general grammatical development trends.

The material from the dialect under investigation confirms the theoretical proposition that primary features of a dialect, which constitute “its most significant departures from the norms of the literary language or from other dialects under conditions of mixing” and therefore serve as “an obstacle to linguistic communication with speakers of other varieties,” do not form any immobile, statically closed group of linguistic phenomena (Zhirmunsky, 1976, pp. 389–390). Thus, for example, whereas for older-generation speakers of the GRSS the truncation of personal endings, especially in the verb system, serves as such a primary feature, for the younger generation it is strong yakanye and the hard pronunciation of affricates. This differing approach to identifying the most “acute” dialectal features results in differing degrees of convergence between dialect speech and the literary norm.

The study of phonetic variation in this dialect is based on identifying the range of variation (Variationsbreite) (Fleischel, 1961) in such major features of its phonetics as strong yakanye, dzekanye and tsekanye, depalatalization of affricates, as well as certain other phonetic phenomena. On the other hand, the functional study of phonetic variation requires both a synchronic and a diachronic approach, which entails the need to take account of the particular features of the formation and development of the dialect under investigation.

Since the dialect under investigation arose through the merger of a number of isolated, long-established dialects of Lithuania, the main features of its phonetic system attest to its commonality with them. These shared features include: in the vowel system—non-dissimilation akanye, strong yakanye, the vowels of the first pre-stressed syllable after sibilants and [ts], instances of second full vocalism, the pronunciation of initial and final unstressed non-high vowels, and others; in the consonant system—dzekanye and tsekanye, instability in the pronunciation of the consonant /r/, hard labial consonants at the end of a word, soft dental /s/ in the suffix -sk-, yotation of initial vowels in pronouns, simplification of consonant clusters at the beginning and in the middle of a word, and others (for details, see Trifonovas, 1978b, pp. 90–93).

However, over a comparatively short period of separate existence, certain features of the phonetic system emerged in the dialect of the Russian long-established residents of Šiauliai District, distinguishing it from other Russian dialects of Lithuania. This difference is most clearly expressed in the hard pronunciation of the affricate /ch/ and the clusters /shch/ and /zhdzh/, corresponding to the long soft /sh’/ and /zh’/ of the literary language: час, чорт, чыста, чэсный, сичас, ничаво, чылавек, чылный, иччас’йа, иччука, рачют, иччапка, иччак, иччытай; вожжжы, дажжжы, прийджжжайут, прийежджжый and so forth (here and below, dialect words and texts are given in simplified transcription). At the same time, in the dialect

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of the Russian long-established residents of Jonas District, the specified affricates and consonant clusters are pronounced softly (Nemchenko, 1958, pp. 156–157).

Historically, the pronunciation of affricates may be grouped with akanye and yakanye, which are especially prone to develop under the influence of internal impulses (Orlova, 1959, pp. 5–23). The hard pronunciation of the affricate /ch/ and the clusters /shch/ and /zhdzh/ should be regarded as among the most archaic features, linking the dialect under investigation with most mainland western dialects of Russian, where this feature occurs alongside the pronunciation of a long hard /ts/ in participial suffixes (ibid., pp. 58, 64–65), which also characterizes the dialects under investigation. However, phenomena that disrupt “the uniformity of sound established under the influence of former purely phonetic processes” may develop “under the influence of factors brought about by specific historical conditions” (ibid., p. 23). Two groups of phenomena can be identified as conditions that decisively influenced the preservation of the hard pronunciation of affricates, which runs counter to their soft pronunciation characteristic of certain other Russian long-established dialects of Lithuania. The first is the influence of Belarusian phonetics, experienced during the first migration of the distant ancestors of speakers of the dialect under investigation and of other RSLD from the mainland dialects of southwestern Pskov Oblast, whose phonetic features are closest to those of the dialect under investigation (Tsareva, 1962, pp. 58, 61; Filin, 1972, pp. 244–254, 296–300), into the Pskov-Belarusian borderland, more precisely, the former Vitebsk Governorate, as historical evidence attests (Volkov, 1866, pp. 31–33, 47–51). This influence manifested itself mainly in the consonant system, since, alongside dzekanye and tsekanye, Belarusian is characterized by particularly widespread hard pronunciation of affricates (Karsky, 1955, pp. 46–47; Orlova, 1959, p. 64; Filin, 1972, p. 312). Traces of this influence have survived not only in the hard pronunciation of affricates but also in the nature of dzekanye and tsekanye, which is closer to the Belarusian type of dzekanye and differs considerably from analogous features of modern Pskov dialects (Tsareva, 1954, p. 297) in the degree of tension and the sibilant component involved in pronouncing the soft affricates /dz’/ and /d’/. Later generations of these Russian settlers gradually settled in the Baltic region—first in the Lithuanian-Latvian-Belarusian borderland, and then in the central regions of Lithuania. The preservation of hard affricates in the Russian long-established borderland dialects of Latvia, particularly in the dialect of Dagda District (Novgorodov, 1958, p. 353), supports this supposition.

In the area of early settlement (present-day Zarasai, Jonas, Panevėžys, and Ukmergė districts), the large number of Russian settlers and the compact nature of their settlement (Koretsky, 1863; Memorial Book of Kovno Governorate, 1914, 1915) led to the formation of an enclave of Russian-language dialects, within which linguistic development, although somewhat slowed by the surrounding languages, continued according to general pat-

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the regularities of language processes that led to the softening of affricates as a result of the increasingly strong influence of a normalized type of language (Orlova, 1959, p. 64). The dialect under study, which arose as a result of the further advance of the Russian population into the northwestern part of Lithuania, including the territory of present-day Šiauliai District, found itself on the periphery of the language area of insular Russian dialects. This determined its distinctive development in comparison with the former focal area or center of the area, expressed in the preservation of features lost in the focal area or center of the language area (Nikonov, 1977, pp. 212—215). The dialect’s double isolation contributed to this, intensifying the isolating influence of the foreign-language environment on the development of the dialect’s internal structure and thereby determining the preservation of its most archaic features. It is noteworthy that some sources describe analogous phonetic development in insular Russian dialects surrounded by other languages—for example, the preservation of hardened clusters /шч/, /ждж/ in one of the Pechora dialects (Lisenkova, 1964, pp. 7—9, 15).

The general patterns in the manifestation of the social conditioning of phonetic variants in dialect speech are determined by: 1) communicative appropriateness, which entails choosing optimal linguistic means suited to different types of speech activity (Leontiev, 1974, p. 237); 2) the stratification of the Russian-speaking population according to the proportion of dialect features in their speech (Tarasov, 1974, p. 62); 3) the localization of semi-dialectal linguistic structures, and so forth. Thus, for example, in the family and domestic sphere, the principal features of the vowel and consonant systems of the dialect under study are realized much more frequently than in official and business communication, while whether speakers of the dialect live in rural or urban areas determines the stability of individual phonetic features.

The most important social determinants primarily conditioning phonetic variation are age and sex (Barannikova, 1972, pp. 9—11). Selective analysis and statistical processing of the linguistic material show that the greatest frequency of such features of the vowel system of the dialect under study as strong yakanye, the vowel system of the first pre-stress syllable after sibilants and /ц/, and the occurrence of prothetic sounds at the beginning or in the middle of a word is characteristic of older speakers of GRSSh. Thus, whereas the frequency of the most striking vowel feature—strong yakanye—varies very little among informants of this generation, by only 5% (see Table 1), among speakers of the younger generation the range of variation is very large—from 20 to 95%. The frequency of realization of affricate hardening among men of the older generation also ranges from 94 to 100%, while there is no variation at all among women; among younger informants, however, it ranges from 20 to 83% for men and from 10 to 97% for women.

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In addition to the factors noted above, phonetic variation depends to a considerable extent on the mobility of speakers of the dialect. Thus, among non-mobile members of the older generation, variation in the frequency of realization of all three principal phonetic features of the dialect is either entirely absent (among those with little formal education) or insignificant (amounting to 2—3%), whereas among mobile speakers it reaches 6—12%; mobility is characteristic mainly of men, as a consequence of their greater social activity. This factor is even more significant among members of the younger and middle generations, where variation in the frequency of realization of affricate hardening, dzekanye, and tsekanye exceeds 40% among men and is 7—10% among women, at the same level of education. At the same time, the difference in variation in strong yakanye is less significant in relation to both the sex and mobility of informants; in our view, this is explained by the fact that this phonetic feature of the dialect is closer to standardized pronunciation than the other two.

The higher frequency of realization of certain phonetic features of the dialect among members of the younger and middle generations with secondary and higher education is determined to a greater extent by subjective or individual factors; nevertheless, the same inverse relationship is evident in this group overall: the higher the level of education and mobility, the lower the frequency of realization of the principal phonetic features of the dialect. The educational level of younger informants undoubtedly far exceeds that of older informants: 67% of the former have incomplete secondary education, 25% have secondary education, and 8% have higher education, whereas 73% of older informants have only primary education, about 20% can read and write, and about 7% are illiterate—mainly elderly women (according to the Prospective Plan for the Social Development of the Collective Farms, which include the villages surveyed, for 1975—1980).

The isolating influence of the foreign-language environment on phonetic variation in the dialect under study is particularly evident when analyses of samples of dialect texts from Russian dialects in central Lithuania, particularly Jonava District, are compared with the characteristics of the dialect under study noted above. Not a single instance of affricate /ц/ hardening or of the clusters /шч/, /ждж/ is recorded in any of the dialect texts of the Russian old-settler dialect of Jonava District; at the same time, other archaic phonetic features are observed at approximately the same frequency as in the dialect under study (Nemchenko, 1963б, pp. 97—110). In text samples from the Russian dialect of Ignalina District (Svischenko, 1963, pp. 111—113), in the Lithuanian-Belarusian borderland zone, the frequency of affricate hardening approaches the level characteristic of the dialect under study, ranging between 70—80%. In both cases, the text samples are recordings of dialect speech by speakers of the older generation who had little formal education or were illiterate, as may be judged from

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in accordance with the content of the text or the compilers’ instructions; therefore, the frequency of occurrence of the two other phonetic features of the dialects is extremely high (see Table 2).

In some cases, analysis of specific linguistic material from a synchronic perspective revealed sharp differences in phonetic variation among individual speakers of the dialect who belonged to the same age group. Studying these individuals’ sociolinguistic biographies helped reveal the complex and diverse interaction of external and internal factors in the functioning of the dialect’s entire system and, in particular, in the development of phonetic variation (for more detail, see: Trifonovas, 1978a, pp. 89–90).

The study of phonetic variation in the speech practices of speakers of the dialect under investigation leads to the conclusion that the present state of the internal structure of this Russian island dialect of long-standing residents of Lithuania is the result of diffuse interaction between the linguistic systems and subsystems coexisting within the boundaries of the dialect under investigation, an interaction determined both by the internal characteristics of these systems and by external factors.

2. Sociolinguistic characteristics of socially actualized dialect vocabulary.

A sociolinguistic study of dialect vocabulary entails identifying the functional distribution of its various strata—distinguished through intra-structural or interlingual analysis—among particular age, social, professional, or other groups of speakers of the language or dialect in question. This is a specific manifestation of the social differentiation of language, which is inseparable from the social differentiation of society (Schweitzer, 1983, p. 6). A necessary prerequisite for successfully analyzing the problem of social differentiation in language as a whole and in one of its individual levels—lexicon—is the study of social variation in language and speech, which takes two forms: stratificational and situational variation (Schweitzer, 1976, pp. 78–79). Stratificational variation, which is directly linked to the social structure of society, is particularly helpful in revealing the nature of social differentiation in dialect vocabulary.

For the purposes of studying dialect vocabulary, stratificational variation may be represented by the narrower concept of the social actualization of dialect vocabulary, a specific type of stratificational variation. It is conditioned by the influence of a single social factor—the occupation or type of activity of the speakers—which, as is well known, is always closely interconnected with the influence of a range of other social factors.

On the basis of a generally accepted and widely used thematic classification of dialect vocabulary, it is possible to identify in the lexicon

8. 1880

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of the dialect under investigation seven thematic groups that most fully reflect its vocabulary: 1) names for natural phenomena and the plant and animal worlds; 2) names for farmsteads, residential buildings, and outbuildings; 3) names for household items; 4) names for clothing, footwear, and ornaments; 5) names for food and food products; 6) vocabulary of agricultural production; 7) names for objects and concepts associated with crafts and trades.

To identify processes of social actualization in dialect vocabulary, attention must be focused on those lexical groups that reflect the main qualitative changes in the social and professional distribution of speakers of the dialect under investigation: the expansion of the range of available occupations, the emergence of new occupations and their particular association with specific age groups, changes in the age composition of socially active people, and so on. This makes it possible to distinguish several groups of socially actualized dialect vocabulary that characterize the speech practices of people in the most important contemporary agricultural occupations: crop farmers, livestock farmers, rural machine operators, rural builders, and agricultural specialists.

In our view, the vocabulary of rural builders is characterized by the most pronounced social actualization. It contains rich and diverse linguistic material—vocabulary from the Russian literary language, dialect vocabulary, and borrowings from various languages. Its speakers are characterized by a high degree of social activity and public prestige, which have been maintained since the time when members of this occupation were few in number and very widely known.

The vocabulary of rural builders is a little-studied stratum of the dialect vocabulary of the Russian old-resident dialect of Lithuania (Nemchenko, 1961, pp. 147–175; Marchenko, 1968, pp. 73–81). It encompasses terms and concepts used to denote construction processes, the procurement and processing of building materials (formerly mainly by hand), tools and implements, methods of organizing and remunerating work, and so forth.

When dialect vocabulary is classified according to its functional dependence on speakers’ occupations and other non-linguistic factors, two broad groups emerge: strictly professional vocabulary, that is, words serving as specific names or terms for a particular professional group; and semantic professionalisms, that is, polysemous words that acquire specialized uses through their capacity to develop additional meanings and retain them in synchronic use alongside their primary meaning (Barannikova, 1973, p. 111).

From the perspective of sociolinguistic analysis, semantic professionalisms are of particular interest; in their primary meaning

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are used by all speakers of the dialect under study, regardless of their occupation and other social determinants. In a secondary or figurative sense, these same words, always being limited in their possibilities of use, are used in this speech community only in a narrowly specialized sense, characterized by strictly restricted semantic distinctions, i.e., they are socially activated, e.g.: гнать, ставить, крутить and their prefixed forms выгнать, прогнать, поставить, выкрутить, прокрутить may be used in the dialect under study: a) with the same meaning as in the standard language—in this sense they are used by all speakers of the dialect; b) with a special meaning, as names for certain construction processes—only in the speech of rural construction workers, mainly those of the older generation (for more details, see: Trifonovas, 1978б, pp. 152—154).

3. Intrastructural interaction of contacting language systems and subsystems.

Despite the high degree of stability of phonetics, the available linguistic material attests to the presence of certain instances of intrastructural interaction between contacting language systems at this level.

In both the native and Lithuanian speech of older-generation Russian long-term residents, the diphthongization of certain stressed vowels is sometimes observed; for example, the pronunciation of the diphthongoids ᵘо, ᵘе in place of stressed non-high vowels /о/, /е/ occurs both in native speech (мноᵘго, зарабᵘотана, Смолᵘенска, губᵘернию — ‘a lot’, ‘earned’, ‘Smolensk’, ‘province’) and in Lithuanian (tᵘoki, senᵘovė, kalᵘėjimas — ‘such’, ‘in olden times’, ‘prison’). The presence of such diphthongoids in the Lithuanian speech of Russian long-term residents, even in place of unstressed Lithuanian word-final /ė/ or in other unstressed positions, attests to the influence of phonetic features of local Lithuanian dialects, in which the pronunciation of long vowels /o/, /ė/ varies from open /aː/, /æː/ to close, tense /oː/, /eː/, or to the diphthongs and diphthongoids ᵘо, ᵘo, ᶦe, ᶦe (Zinkevičius 1966, p. 68, 74) (cf. Garšva, 1983, p. 159).

At the same time, in this case one can speak of the preservation of the substrate of the ancestral dialects, since some mainland dialects of Russian, although not often at present, are characterized by diphthongal pronunciation of sounds corresponding to the phonemes /o/, /e/, which usually occurs alongside non-diphthongal pronunciation (Russian Dialectology, 1964, p. 33).

The supporting influence of the sound of the Lithuanian vowel /e/ in the first pre-stress syllable may explain the relatively high degree to which strong yakanye is preserved in the speech of middle- and younger-generation Russian long-term residents, who encounter the Lithuanian pronunciation of this sound far more often than the standard Russian pronunciation (cf. Russian dialectal and Lithuanian standard pronunciations: вᵘаду ‘I lead’ — degù, вᵘаду ‘I lead’ — vedu, вᵘазу ‘I transport’ — vežu, нᵘасу ‘I carry’ — nešu, сᵘестра ‘sister’ — sesuo).

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In the area of consonantism, interaction between the contacting languages occurs in the pronunciation of sibilants and affricates, with Lithuanian consonantism exerting a twofold influence. On the one hand, the “law of affricates,” characteristic of local Lithuanian dialects, helps to preserve, to a certain extent, their archaic hardness in the Russian dialect under study. At the same time, the soft standard pronunciation of the affricate /ч/ in both Lithuanian and Russian has the opposite effect, as a result of which this pronunciation predominates in the speech of younger-generation speakers and gradually spreads to the speech of certain older-generation speakers.

A certain influence of the phonetics of foreign-language dialects is particularly evident in some thematic groups of lexical borrowings from Lithuanian, especially in the adaptation of Lithuanian toponyms (Garšva, Trifonovas, 1977, p. 27—31). As a result of the general tendency to shift stress from the ending to the stem, characteristic of the dialect under study and other Russian dialects of Lithuania, stress in borrowed Lithuanian toponyms is invariably shifted from the final syllable to the preceding one. This is reinforced by the influence of stress attraction from the end of the word toward its initial syllables, a pattern found across almost the entire territory of the Samogitian dialect, including the area surveyed (Grinaveckis, 1973, p. 38—39), e.g.: Буби, Груздзи, Кужы, Шавли, С’ада, Тэл’шы—cf. Lithuanian standard Būbiai, Gruzdžiai, Kužiai, Šiauliai, Seda, Telšiai.

The distinctive features of the Lithuanian vowels /е/ and /ё/ are neutralized; in the dialect under study they are in most cases merged as /а/ after a hard or soft consonant: Акм’аны, Дуб’аны, Куршаны, Нывар’аны, Шавк’аны, Шыланы—cf. Lithuanian standard: Akmenė, Dubėnai, Kuršėnai, Nevarėnai, Šaukėnai, Šilėnai; the second component of the Lithuanian diphthong /au/ is replaced by the consonant /в/: Давгели, Каунас|Ковна, Тавреги, Шавли—cf. Lithuanian standard Daugėliai, Kaunas, Tauragė, Šiauliai, a feature also found in other dialects of Lithuania (Nemchenko, 1958, p. 4); Lithuanian endings -iai- and -is, -ė are generalized and universally replaced by the ending -ы (after hard consonants) or -и (after soft consonants): Смил’ги, Гуроги, Минейки, Ужвенты, Радывилишки, Кел’мы, Жагоры—cf. Lithuanian standard Smilgiai, Gūragiai, Mineikiai, Užventis, Radviliškis, Kelmė, Žagarė.

The generalization of Lithuanian endings in the speech of Russian long-term residents of Šiauliai District also manifests such a striking phonetic feature as the hardness of the affricates /ч/, /дж/, as well as residual instances of tsokanye, e.g.: Байайцы |-чы, Буткайцы |-чы, Гил’вйцы |-чы, Станайцы |-чы, Груджджы—cf. Lithuanian standard Baisčiai, Butkāčiai, Gilvūčiai, Stonāčiai, Gruzdžiai.

Conclusions.

1. The dynamics of language processes in the surveyed area are most clearly manifested in phonetic variability, determined by a number of social factors, such as age and gender, mobility, level of education, and others. 2. The double isolation of the dialect under study intensified the conservative influence of the foreign-language environment and led to the preservation in

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the dialect under study of certain archaic features that distinguish it from other Russian dialects of Lithuania. 3. The social actualization of dialect vocabulary, as a particular case of stratificational variability, constitutes a socially conditioned functional differentiation of professional terms, based on their capacity to develop additional meanings and retain them in synchronic use alongside their primary meaning.

4. The functional and intrastructural interaction of the language systems and subsystems in contact—the Russian and Lithuanian languages and their local dialects—determined the gradual transformation of the structure of the dialect under study, which at present retains its dialectal basis while simultaneously incorporating elements of three speech norms: archaic dialectal, dialectal shifted toward the literary language, and literary. The socially determined relationship among these elements in the speech practices of dialect speakers shapes a semi-dialect approaching colloquial speech. 5. Optimal conditions for the widespread functioning of both languages in contact in the surveyed area led to the development of mass bilingualism and a high level of proficiency in the second language

Table 1. Frequency of occurrence of the main phonetic features of the dialect according to speakers’ age, education, and mobility,%

Older generation | Younger and middle-aged generations | Main phonetic features | with primary education | with 8 years of education | with incomplete secondary and higher education | non-mobile | mobile | non-mobile | mobile | mobile | Strong yakanye m*. | 100 | 95–97 | 85–90 | 88 | 75 | yakanye f**. | 100 | 100 | 95 | 90 | 20 | Dekanye m. | 97 | 88–100 | 93 | 50 | 25 | and tsekanye f. | 100 | 100 | 95 | 85 | 83 | Hardness m. | 98 | 94–100 | 60 | 20–63 | 83 | affricates f. | 100 | 100 | 97 | 92 | 10

*men, **women.

The table is based on a selective analysis of dialect texts representing transcribed tape recordings of speech by representatives of different groups of GRSSh speakers. The figures indicate the percentage occurrence of the dialect’s main phonetic features on one typed page of dialect text.

Note. In the speech of poorly educated, non-mobile members of the older generation, the dialect’s main phonetic features are fully realized (100%); among mobile, poorly educated members of this generation and non-mobile members of the younger and middle-aged generations with incomplete secondary and higher education, they are practically not realized.

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Table 2. Comparison of the frequency of occurrence of the main phonetic features in three Russian old-settler dialects of Lithuania,%

Phonetic features Šiauliai District Ignalina District Jonava District Strong yakanye 95…100 85…100 100 Dzekanye and tsekanye 88…100 75…100 100 Hardness of affricates 94…100 70…80 —

The table was compiled on the basis of a comparative analysis of dialect texts produced by representatives of the older generation of speakers of the corresponding dialects.

Table 3. National composition of work collectives and the former Russian villages territorially belonging to them

Names of work collectives and villages Total number of people incl. by nationality Russians people% Lithuanians people% Collective farm “Raudonasis Spalis” 478 120 25 358 75 incl. village of Smilgiai 186 94 50.5 92 49.5 Collective farm “Taribu Lietuva” 329 106 32 223 68 incl. village of Amaliai 169 96 56.5 73 43.5 Kalinin Collective Farm 432 118 28 314 72 incl. village of Gilaičiai 241 98 41 143 59 Total: in work collectives 1239 344 27.7 895 72.3 in the surveyed villages 596 288 48.3 308 51.7

The table was compiled from data in the collective farms’ economic records as of January 1, 1975.

Table 4. National composition of the rural population of the Lithuanian SSR in Šiauliai District and the surveyed area

Name of territory Total population, people incl. individual nationalities,% 1959 1970 Russians 1959 1970 Lithuanians 1959 1970 Lithuanian SSR 1 665 500 1 556 500 3.2 2.6 85.7 87.1 Šiauliai District 42 500 42 200 3.5 2.6 95.3 96.2 Surveyed area 723 638 62.3 48.3 36.8 51.7

The table was compiled from: Results of the 1970 All-Union Population Census for the Lithuanian SSR. Vilnius, 1971. Vol. 1. Pp. 261, 274, 285–288. Data for the surveyed area represent the result of statistical processing of agricultural survey data, compared with data from the administrations of collective farms and the apilinkas Councils of People’s Deputies.

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Table 5. Forms and degree of second-language proficiency among representatives of different nationalities in the surveyed area

Forms of second-language proficiency | Number of positive responses,%: Russians, Lithuanians | Degree of second-language proficiency | Number of positive responses,%: Russians, Lithuanians Understand | 100 | 98 | Speak fluently | 88 | 61 Converse | 94 | 85 | Speak with difficulty | 6 | 24 Read and write | 79 | 71

The table was compiled from the results of statistical processing of the sociolinguistic survey data. The percentage of positive responses is calculated in relation to the total number of informants surveyed—approximately 600 people.

Table 6. Functional distribution of the Lithuanian and Russian languages in the surveyed area,%

Domains of language use | Surveyed settlements: Amaliai, Gilaičiai, Smilgiai | Russians, Lithuanians Language of communication in the family | Russian 100 — 100 — 100 24 | Lithuanian 20 100 46 100 20 100 At work, at school | Russian 50 48 72 63 85 54 | Lithuanian 94 96 96 100 91 100 Language of public and official-business communication | Russian 20 9 24 3 15 4 | Lithuanian 80 91 76 97 85 96 Language for reading books and newspapers | Russian 74 44 46 57 60 48 | Lithuanian 76 92 84 99 63 98 Language of radio and television | Russian 100 78 100 75 96 88 | Lithuanian 92 98 90 100 87 100

The table was compiled from the results of statistical processing of the sociolinguistic survey data; the percentage was calculated using the same method as in Table 5.

J. TRIFONOVAS

DYNAMICS OF LINGUISTIC PROCESSES IN A MULTILINGUAL TERRITORY

Abstract

The article examines the features of the functioning of the dialect of Russian old settlers in Šiauliai District. The dialect formed through the merging of several Russian dialects of Lithuania when Russian old settlers moved from central Lithuania to this district in the early 20th century. Until Soviet rule was restored in Lithuania, the dialect was isolated from the main area of Russian dialects and from other Russian dialects of Lithuania. For this reason, some archaic phonetic features of the dialect have survived to the present day. This sets it apart from other Russian dialects of Lithuania.

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The functioning of the dialect under conditions of bilingualism and diglossia brought about substantial changes in it. The dialect was continually influenced by local Lithuanian dialects and by the norms of the Lithuanian and Russian literary languages. These changes depended on the nature of linguistic contacts, which was determined by various non-linguistic factors (the speakers’ age, education, social activity, mobility, and so on). The present-day transformed structure of the Russian old settlers’ dialect has retained its dialectal basis and contains elements of three linguistic norms: archaic dialectal forms; semi-dialectal forms resembling the literary language; and the literary language. As a result, three half-dialects (Halbmundart) are emerging in the dialect, characteristic of different age groups of speakers.

The dialectal and normative (literary) systems of Russian and Lithuanian complement each other in the speech of the dialect’s speakers. Optimal conditions for using both languages have resulted in widespread bilingualism and good command of the second language. Lithuanian is used in many spheres of communication, while Russian is spoken in the family. As a means of interethnic communication among all the peoples of the USSR, Russian, alongside Lithuanian, is widely used in cultural life and the mass media. The need for Russian in other spheres is determined by the formation of international production collectives.

J. TRIFONOVAS

Dynamics of Language Processes in a Multilingual Territory

Abstract

The article discusses the functional features of the dialect of Russian old settlers in Šiauliai District. The dialect developed in the early 20th century through the merging of several Russian dialects of Lithuania, when Russian old settlers moved from central Lithuania to this area. Until that time, the dialect had been isolated from other Russian dialects. Consequently, individual phonetic features of the archaic dialect have been preserved to this day. This is precisely what distinguishes this dialect from the other Russian dialects of Lithuania.

The functioning of the dialect under conditions of bilingualism and diglossia had a substantial effect on its changes. The dialect was constantly influenced by the local Lithuanian dialect and by the norms of both literary languages. Their mutual relations changed depending on the level of development and the nature of linguistic contacts, which were conditioned by various non-linguistic factors (the speakers’ age, education, social activity, etc.).

The structure of the present-day transformed dialect of Russian old settlers has retained its foundation and contains elements of three language norms: the norm of the archaic dialect; the norm of the dialect close to the literary language; and the norm of the literary language.

Consequently, three so-called half-dialects emerge within the dialect, characteristic of different age groups of speakers.

The dialectal and literary systems of Russian and Lithuanian most commonly used in speech complement one another. Optimal conditions for using both languages determine the character of bilingualism and the good command of the second language.

Lithuanian is used most often in communication, while Russian is spoken in the family. As a means of communication among all the nations of the USSR, Russian is widely used in cultural life and in the mass media.

The formation of international production collectives led to the spread of the Russian language.

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