Anti-language as a social form of language on the example of Russian protest discourse (2011-2012)

Analysis of language practices of Russian protesters in the winter 2011-2012 revealed that state of art in Russian sociolinguistics is missing a concept that can be used as an adequate definition for these practices. Sarcastic, metaphorical, humorous language of protesters received phenomenal attention of social scientists but mostly in a sociological prospective as a tool of middle class self-manifestation. Attempts to classify this language phenomenon were very limited. Nevertheless, the similarities between winter 2011-2012 protest discourse and language shifts accompanying revolutions are rather apparent. Even though, revolutionary discourse is apparently an extreme case of social 're-construction' of reality, "carnavalesque" protest language formed in the winter 2011-2012 has properties and features resembling it. Albeit a fact that Russian sociolinguistics was heavily formed during revolution in the beginning of the 20 century, the unified concept for revolution's language definition was not crystallized. Present article proposes to use a concept "anti-language" introduced by British sociolinguist M.A.K. Halliday as a proxy for description of protest and revolutionary language. Author is distinguishing the main features of "anti-language" and analyzing protest discourse of the winter 2011-2012 in order to find them. The conclusion is that this concept is more appropriate definition for protest and revolutionary discourse than terms generally accepted in Russian linguistics (e.g. jargon, sociolect, etc.). In future will be established links between concepts of anti-language (Halliday), carnavalesque (Bakhtin) and social construction of reality (Berger and Luckmann). Based on that Halliday's concept of anti-language will be refined and complemented.

Keywords

Authors

References