SCHOOLCHILDREN APPREHENSION OF THE SURZHYK IN THE CONTEXT OF POST-TOTALITARIAN DEFORMATIONS OF THE LINGUISTIC SITUATION IN UKRAINE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 2IST CENTURY

Abstract

Introduction. The article focuses on the problem of Ukrainian-Russian oral speech forms mixing, known as Surzhyk in Ukraine. In particular, it traces approaches to the terminology of the concept in Ukrainian linguistics. It was emphasized that the conclusion about the destructive nature of the lingual mix resulting in the Surzhyk was made at the beginning of the 20th century, when the linguistic phenomena arising as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian linguistic interaction became the subject of linguistic analysis.

Purpose. The purpose of the article is to investigate the ways of linguistic understanding the notion of Surzhyk by contemporary Ukrainian adolescents, to ascertain whether the young speakers associate the emergence of a Surzhyk with the language policy of previous historical
periods.

Methods. The research is based on the analysis of adolescents' comments to the open questions of the sociolinguistic questionnaire, which they filled in personally during the targeted survey: the questionnaire surveys were conducted in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Bila Tserkva, Poltava, Cherkasy in the spring of 2014; 500 questionnaires were collected.

Results. The paper analyzes the ways of conceptualizing the notion of “Surzhyk” in the linguistic consciousness of contemporary Ukrainian adolescents, which testify the negative attitude towards mixed forms of oral Ukrainian-Russian speech. It is concluded that the idea of adolescents about Surzhyk as a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian languages, littered, unclean or as a separate language, arising from the merger of two languages into a new language or through the “Blurring” of the borders between languages, or generally as a “Non-language” reflects the destructive nature of the interaction between Russian and Ukrainian languages, which is typical of the linguistic situation in Ukraine of the Soviet and post-Soviet times, which resulted in the hybridization of the oral speech of a significant number of Ukrainians.

Conclusion. The paper arises the idea of excluding the questions on Surzhyk from questionnaires for mass interviewing as there is no criteria yet to describe such kind of speech as Surzhyk.