The Russian language in the narratives of two generations of Russian-German bilinguals

Abstract

The article deals with the sociolinguistic features of Russian speech by 20 families of Russian-German bilinguals living in Germany. The informants were adult bilinguals aged 35–50 who moved to this country in the 1990s–2010s and their children aged 10–15 who were born in Germany or arrived there at an early age. The relevance of the study is due to the importance of studying the state of the Russian language in the families of Russian compatriots living abroad, its preservation and development. The purpose of the study is to determine which subsystems of the Russian national language are spoken by family members of Russian-German bilinguals. Research materials are transcripts of audio recordings of stories based on pictures from M. Mayer’s book “Frog, where are you?” Four groups of families in relation to the normativity of Russian speech in narratives are identified. The interpretation of the use of Russian language subsystems in each group from the standpoint of sociolinguistics is given. It has been established that the mean of communication in 25 % of families is the literary language, and in 75 % of families is the vernacular. Examples of language attrition in families using vernacular in communication are described. It is concluded that the literary language in the study groups is not subject to the attrition, that has not only sociolinguistic, but also linguodidactic significance, because it indicates the need to teach it to the children of compatriots as an important factor in preserving the Russian language in the diaspora.