On Russians' and their descendants' language competence in Chinese-language environment (basedon speech of descendants of Russian immigrants to border China)

The Russian Diaspora which was formed in China in the first half of thetwentieth century was not compound and had several locating centers. The border areas of Heilongjiang province were one of theRussian immigrants settlements. In view of the peripheral position and in terms of the territory and from the position of the commonculture level (the main representatives were peasants by birth) this segment of the Russian abroad has not been researched.Consideration should be given, to this feature of the Russian emigration, including linguistic comprehension. In this article there is anattempt to retrace the Russian language destiny in the present territory and to research the present condition and degree of the Russianlanguage preservation by the Russian immigrants' descendants. On the basis of the speech materials received during the researchexpedition in 2011 the article analyses the language competence of one of the first generation representatives of the Russian immigrants'descendants and the language competence of his family members. The object of the analysis is the Russian speech which was recordedin the border village of Byantszyan Sunke County. The analysis of the speech and the language competence makes it possible tocharacterize a typical representative of the Russian emigration of the north-east border area, to reveal the specifics, which describe theRussian language in Chinese environment, to determine the factors influencing the Russian language condition in the present territory.In this case the language competence is a language set and its forms that are in an active and passive possession of a language person.The analysis shows that now the linguistic competence of the informant, the mongrel in the first generation, includes a parent languageof the titular nationality (Chinese) which is in active use and also includes the language of the parent non-titular nationalities (Russian)which is in passive use. The Russian mother language is preserved in the colloquial dialect-form. During the life the languagecompetence of the informant varied from bilingualism and the dominant of the Russian language to bilingualism and the dominantChinese and forth, from a bilingual to monolingual type of verbal behavior. A passive use of the Russian language, with an active use ofChinese led to a norm breach of the first under the influence of the second, the interference is observed in speech at all the languagelevels. The analysis of the linguistic competence of different generations of the descendants shows the loss of the Russian language. Theloss is made of several factors, including: a mixed marriage, the place of residence of the family and the language environment, a lowlevel of education and culture of a language person, the lack of cultural life attributes, the possession of oral speech, the social-politicalsituation in the country of residence. It helps to consider naturally the forgetting and the loss of Russian by the descendants from mixedRussian and Chinese marriages.

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