Филологические науки.
Язык, речь, речевая коммуникация.
Ph. D. in Philology Baykova O. V., Baykova A. V.
Vyatka State University of Humanities (Kirov)
The functioning of the German island dialects in the conditions of
language interaction
(by the example of the German minority
in the Kirov region)
According
statistics, 1408 Russian Germans live at present in the Kirov region. They do
not belong to the autochthonous ethnic groups. Till the 20th century
representatives of this ethnic groups didn’t comprise the unified ethnic group,
unlike the Russian Germans living in
the dense settlements in Ukraine, the
Volga region, Transcaucasia, Saint Petersburg Governorate, Siberia and
Central Asia. They were not peasants but qualified professionals and intellectuals.
Their quite dense settlements appeared in the Vyatka region only in the middle
of the 20th century.
It
should be noted that issues of the language contacts are studied on the basis
of linguistic materials of informants who saved and still speak their native
dialects (idiolects) in everyday life. These people kept original ethnic
characteristics with deportation, i.e. their forced migration influencing the
process of remaining the traditional traits and appearing of new ones in their
culture. Original peculiarities of their way of life are still remaining in a
way in their habits, traditions, day-to-day life but recently they are best
seen in spheres of spiritual culture and national self-awareness.
The
study of the Russian Germans in the Kirov region is made by research into the 4
main aspects of functioning of the German dialects in terms of linguistic
island. These aspects are historical-demographical, cultural, sociolinguistic
and linguistic proper.
The proper linguistic aspect of
the present research deals with the following 2 processes: interdialect and
interlingual interaction in speech of the Russian Germans living in the Kirov
region. This interaction examination made it possible to define all the levels
of specific character of the language realization for the Russian ethnic
Germans.
Sound-phonemic (segmental)
level is basic for the research. It
should be noted that the main consonantism difference between idiolects under
review is based firstly on spirantization of intervocalic occlusives b > v (w), g > j, g > x, ç; secondly, on different ways
of realization of consonantal clusters including sch; and thirdly on
realization of the second consonant shift. In terms of vocalism opposition of
the dialects is more successive firstly on the basis of presence/absence of the
vowels widening for i > e, u > o; secondly on the basis of
presence/absence of epenthesis between smooth
r,l and velar sonant ch, reduction of unstressed vowels in pre-stressed
syllables. Along with these basic diachronic processes, the data for the
following types of variation were collected: interchange of nasalized and
non-nasalized vowels, umlaut, refraction and reduction of unstressed vowels.
The results of research let us state the mixed character of the dialects under
review at the segmental level.
The
present research was the first to include complex experimental phonetic
analysis of suprasegmental structure
of the German speech of the bilingual Germans in the Kirov region. Its
algorithm is the following: 1) segmentation of intonation phrases with computer
program PRAAT (6700 units); 2) analysis of complete intonation phrases (500
units), incomplete intonation phrases (250 units); 3) intonation transcription
of nuclear outlines of complete and incomplete intonation phrases.
This
research proves the hypothesis on the mixed character of the dialects, not only
at segmental level but at suprasegmental one as well, which makes it possible
to form a concept of prosodic interference for the German island dialects under
review.
According
to results of the present research, the German dialects under review fell under
great influence of the Russian language during long-term development in the
alien language surrounding. This development has brought about considerable
changes at all the levels of the dialects structure.
Analysis of empiric material made it possible to systematize
interlingual and interdialect borrowings at phonetic level (complete reduction of the final vowel), e.g.
brigadə «бригада», mašinkə «машинка», etc., at morphologic level (use of the
borrowed nouns with an article in accordance with gender of the borrowed noun
(dr prədsəta:təl, tə˙bã:nja); forming plural
and singular of the nouns (tə˙partiə˙ –
tə˙partiən «die Partei – die Parteien»); noun declension (von
dəm savot – «von dem Betrieb»), and at the syntactical level (word order in a German sentence corresponds
to that of a Russian sentence) viə˙ hã:m ghəirət
ən sozəmskom (мы
поженились
в
Созимском), iç ha:bə˙ g(ə)arbəit ən bətri:b
krənofšəkom (я работала на заводе
крановщиком).
When
studying an interfering influence of the native German language on alien
Russian, it was experimentally specified that Russian speech of the bilingual
Germans is not homogeneous, and varies from ‘having practically no accent’ to
‘unnatural’ for the monolingual Russians. This phenomenon is viewed in terms of
intermediate system, i.e. interlanguage
which doesn’t coincide either with native German or non-native Russian, and
performs an adaptive function in bilingual mind.
References
1. Байкова, О. В.
Языковые острова – к истории их понятия и исследования // Материалы XXXVI
Международной филологической конференции. Вып. 24: История языка
(романо-германский цикл); отв. ред. Г. А. Баева. – СПб.: Изд-во
СПбГУ, 2007. – С. 11–17.
2. Байкова, О. В.
Современное состояние немецких говоров Кировской области и особенности их
системы вокализма: монография. – Киров: Изд-во ВятГГУ, 2008 – 222 с.
3.
Baikova, O. Der Sprachgebrauch von russlanddeutschen Sprecherinnen in Gebiet
Wjatka in der Textsorte Erlebnisbericht // Bausteine zu einer Geschichte des
weiblichen Sprachgebrauchs VIII : Sprachliches Agieren von Frauen in
approbierten Textsorten / Internationale Fachtagung Magdeburg 10, 11.09.2007. –
Stuttgart : Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, 2008. – S. 179–187.