Speaking With and About Chinese

Les stéréotypes ethniques, sociaux et linguistiques jouent un rôle crucial dans la communication interethnique, en influençant les représentations et les stratégies communicatives, et en construisant des images des autres et de soi. Les zones frontalières, où les contacts interethniques font partie de la réalité quotidienne, offrent aux chercheurs une opportunité d'étudier ce processus en détails. L'article est consacré à la situation à la frontière russo-chinoise : la région avec une longue histoire de relations économiques, culturelles et linguistiques intenses entre plusieurs groupes ethniques. L’analyse porte sur les stratégies linguistiques utilisées par les locuteurs russophones dans leurs interactions avec les locuteurs chinois, ainsi que sur la « communication symbolique » – les pratiques discursives de la négociation et de la construction des images des Chinois dans les conversations en groupe et dans des entretiens. L’enquête est basée sur les données de terrain recueillies par l'auteur en 2008-2010 dans le kraï de Transbaïkalie en Russie, ainsi que dans la ville de Manzhouli en Chine (région autonome de Mongolie-Intérieure). La recherche est au croisement des approches linguistique et anthropologique.Ethnic, social and linguistic stereotypes play crucial role in interethnic communication, influencing people’s perceptions and communicative strategies and shaping the way they construct images of others and themselves. Border areas where interethnic contacts constitute a necessary part of everyday reality provide researchers with an opportunity to study this process in details. The article deals with the situation on the Russian-Chinese border, the area with a long history of intensive economic, cultural and language contacts between several ethnic groups. Linguistic strategies employed by native speakers of Russian in actual interpersonal communication with Chinese speakers are studied as well as their “symbolic communication” − discourse practices of discussing and constructing images of Chinese in in-group conversations and interviews. The research is based on the field data gathered by the author in 2008-2010 in the Zabaikalskii territory of Russia and the Chinese city of Manzhouli (Autonomous region Inner Mongolia). The study combines linguistic and anthropological approaches

Accents of Russian in Performative Use: Ethnic Styles, Language Attitudes, and Identities of Young Non-native Speakers

The paper deals with the performative use of different ethnic accents by young multilingual speakers of Russian. It aims at revealing the ways ethnic accents are used to challenge existing monolingual bias and reclaim agency opposing ethnic and linguistic prejudices. The study is based on an analysis of videos representing and discussing different nonnative accents of Russian, created both by professional comedians and by amateurs and published on YouTube and TikTok. Metadata and comments on the videos expressing attitudes towards the performance of accents and linguistic stereotypes were also included in the analysis to reveal typical audience reactions.Keywords: youth multilingualism, language ideology, ethnic identity,Russian, migration, comedy, vlog

Hierarchies of trade in Yiwu and Dushanbe: the case of an Uzbek merchant family from Tajikistan

This article focuses on the trading trajectory of an Uzbek family of merchants from Tajikistan. This family runs businesses in both Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, and China’s famous international trading city: Yiwu. The analysis is centred on the accounts placed by Tajikistan’s Uzbek merchants about their historically sustained experience, often across several generations, in trading activities. These merchants’ claims of belonging to a ‘historical’ trading community rather than being ‘newcomers’ to long-distance commerce are articulated in relation to notions of ‘hierarchies of trade’ as they evolve in a twofold relational model linking Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood and Dushanbe. I suggest that the forms of conviviality enacted in Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood need to be understood in terms of the historical, multinational and transregional contacts that have occurred within the spaces of the former Soviet Union, as well as along the China-Russia and China-Central Asian borders. Equally, the hierarchies of trade of Uzbek merchants from Tajikistan in Yiwu’s Changchun neighbourhood cut-across markers of identity that juxtapose the roles of Tajik and Uzbek communities in Tajikistan’s contemporary politics and economics

Can We Witness the (Re)making of a Pidgin in Real Time? Contact in the Russian–Chinese Border Area

The empirical focus of this paper is on the interethnic communication along the Russian–Chinese border. Language contact in this area has a long history; in the 18th century, it resulted in a contact variety, the so-called Kyakhta language, or Russian–Chinese pidgin, which fell into disuse after a century. The contact has resumed recently, and we are currently witnessing the emergence of new contact varieties in real time in the area. The reported research aimed to study language contact as a social practice and gain access not only to linguistic facts but also to speakers’ perceptions of them revealed in interviews and conversations. The discussion is based on field data collected between 2008 and 2010 in Zabaykalskiy Krai in Russia and in the province of Inner Mongolia in China. The study reveals different non-standard varieties emerging through interethnic interactions in the border area, and uncovers linguistic features that were typical of Russian–Chinese pidgin (and impossible in Standard Russian) being ‘reinvented’ now both in the Chinese ethnolect of Russian and in some extreme forms of foreigner talk employed by Russian speakers professionally involved in regular communication with Chinese speakers. The paper stresses the role of the professionalization of communication for pidgin development

Overcoming Aggressive Monolingualism: Prejudices and Linguistic Diversity in Russian Megalopolises

The study deals with linguistic prejudices of citizens of the two main Russian cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, toward speakers of foreign languages. It aims to reveal possible recent changes in the language ideology dominating Russian society. Monolingual and linguistically normative orientations rooted in the Soviet ideological approach are being challenged nowadays by global processes of migration and cultural diversification, which influence the everyday reality of Russian megalopolises. The research is based on the analysis of two sets of data: (1) meta-discourse on language attitudes derived from interviews with labor migrants and native Russian speakers in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and posts and comments on issues of language, migration, and linguistic landscapes, collected from websites and social media and (2) linguistic landscape data collected in 2016–2019, mainly in St. Petersburg, which reflect recent changes in attitude toward linguistic diversity in public space. These data show, on the one hand, that most city dwellers still relate to monolingual speech norms and try to implement control over public space; on the other hand, that the tolerance toward multilingual communication has been increasing over the years. The study suggests that these “first cracks” in monolinguals facades of Russian cities could eventually lead to the establishing of a less rigid language regime

Bilingualism, ideology, and identity: Change in the Finland-Swedish variety

Finland has two national languages; Finnish and a variety of Swedish known as Finland-Swedish. This chapter discusses the ideological and practical issues surrounding the two national languages of Finland, exploring how increasing bilingualism and frequent translanguaging in Finland-Swedish communities may lead to phonetic and lexical changes in the Finland-Swedish variety. During the Swedish rule of Finland, from the twelfth until the nineteenth century, Swedish was the language of the state. Due to the urbanisation of the capital city of Helsinki, located in southern Finland, Finnish native speakers have migrated in great numbers to traditionally Swedish-speaking regions on the southern coastline. Since it is only possible to report one native language per child in Finland, the concept of a single ‘mother tongue’ is socially enforced, and is often strongly connected to a person’s experiences and identity. For the Finland-Swedish bilingual, the choice between using Swedish or Finnish in a specific public setting may depend on a number of factors

Identité, culture et intimité

Malgré le long travail de critique des essentialismes à caractère ethnique, racial ou national mené par les sciences sociales, ceux-ci continuent à nourrir de multiples formes de discrimination et de violence. Sur base de ce constat, ce numéro invite à dépasser les approches qui soulignent le caractère historique et/ou situationnel des identités culturelles pour en faire, de façon plus fondamentale, une forme de typification sociale ordinaire, susceptible de prendre une ‘épaisseur culturelle’ différente en fonction des contextes d’interaction. Prenant appui sur des recherches menées en Amérique centrale, en Europe et en Asie, les articles de ce numéro montrent que les stéréotypes jouent, pour construire de l’intimité à l’intérieur d’une catégorie d’appartenance, sur des registres culturels privilégiés tels que la langue, la virilité, l’usage de l’argent ou encore l’esthétique du corps. Loin de relever de l’arbitraire, cette articulation entre identité et culture renvoie à des contextes d’apprentissage et d’expression spécifiques. Un tel angle d’analyse, qui s’inscrit dans une ambition plus large de décloisonnement disciplinaire et théorique, offre des pistes intéressantes pour comprendre la résilience des identifications culturelles