Language adaptation of young migrants from Donbas and Crimea in the bilingual environment

Ivanna Tsar,
PhD in Philology, Junior Researcher of the Department of Stylistics, Language Culture and Sociolinguistics,
Institute of the Ukrainian Language of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
4 Hrushevskyi St., Kyiv 01001, Ukraine
E-mail: vakavaka7@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9764-5758

Heading: Researches
Language: Ukrainian

Abstract: The language adaptation process of Russianspeaking youth from Donbas and Crimea are considered in this article on the basis of interview recordings and with using the method of language biography. Changes in the language behavior of Russianspeaking young people after moving to Kyiv are revealed.

All respondents began to speak Ukrainian more after moving to Kyiv. This is due to psychological and ideological attitudes of young people and the influence of language environment. At the beginning, some of them tried to switch completely to Ukrainian, but then stopped trying because they realized that you can dispense with Ukrainian language in Kyiv. For the most part they use Ukrainian depending on the situation. However, in their daily Russian speech some Ukrainian

words began to appear. Besides, some informants began to speak in surzhyk. Even those who continue to communicate only in Russian have noticed that they began to think Ukrainian more.

The scientific intelligence clearly demonstrates the interest of Russianspeaking youth in Ukrainian language, their desire to communicate in it. Young people are mainly passive, do not want to go beyond the usual rhythm of life and make internal efforts to switch completely to the Ukrainian language, because they are mostly guided by pragmatic motives. However, they will be ready to do it if an external requirement and suitable language environment are created.

It is founded out that although the bilingual linguistic situation in Kyiv gives the respondents an opportunity to speak Ukrainian more often, but it does not encourage them to switch to Ukrainian completely.

The social and psychological barriers to communication in Ukrainian are revealed. It includes absence of mass Ukrainianspeaking environment, insufficient knowledge of Ukrainian, fear of looking ridiculous and weak integration into the Ukrainianspeaking cultural space.

Keywords:
language adaptation, bilingualism, language environment, Russianspeaking youth,  language behavior, internal migrants.

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