E.A. Zhuravleva (Kazakhstan)

TRENDS OF FORMING  KAZAKHSTAN’S VERSION OF THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE

Key words: variability, language contacts, foreign environment, the Kazakhstan’s version of the Russian language.

Languages with the world status and several development centers are capable of forming national variants with their own language processes and standards. Linguists have deeply studied versions of such languages as English, Spanish, French, and German. Currently, the term “national variant” may be applicable to many millions of Russian speakers, for whom it is native, i.e. national version of the Russian language is formed by the ethnic Russians living outside Russia.

Geopolitical conditions and communicative linguistic space, the Russian language is functioning in, determine the path of its development. In this regard, the status of the Russian language in new independent states and the scope of its use are of particular importance. Russian, not being the official language in most countries of the former Soviet Union (except Belarus), is used as a lingua franca, and is also studied in educational institutions of these countries as a mother tongue, second language and/or foreign language.

Geographic, political, economic, social and cultural features influence all tiers of the ethnic Russian language and people of other nationalities who consider Russian their native language, which leads to the formation of variable layer of the Russian language, while maintaining the core. Most of the changes take place on lexical stage, which manifests itself in the expansion of its scope and affects the other tiers, in particular, morphological and phonetic.

During the study quantitative and qualitative research methods were used: observation, a method of continuous sampling of lexical units taken from oral and written texts, systematization, classification, semantic and conceptual analysis, and survey.

Active language contacts, inter-ethnic integration, legal status and scope of functioning of Russian in all spheres of official and public life of Kazakhstanallow stating the formation of a single conceptual basis of language speakers relevant for this particular society.

A feature of the multinational Russian language in relation to other languages which have versions is that it is manifested not only in the language of other ethnic groups, who use it as a mother tongue, in intra or inter-ethnic communication, but also in the language of ethnic Russians.

The fields of communication where the Kazakh version of Russian is dominant are: official business, socio-cultural, gastronomic and onomastic areas.

The limited region of a foreign environment, in our case – Kazakhstan, where Russian is functioning and developing, helps to complete the lexical structure through loanwords – regionalisms, which are adapted to the language with the help of Russian word-formation processes.

Deep and thorough study of the phenomenon of language variability allows judging the relationship between the universal and original national variants of Russian and, in particular, the Kazakh version of the Russian language.