ГАЗЕТЫ РУССКОЯЗЫЧНОЙ ДИАСПОРЫ В ГЕРМАНИИ И ЕЁ СОЦИОЛИНГВИСТИЧЕСКОЕ ПРОСТРАНСТВО

Научная статья
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18454/RULB.4.10
Выпуск: № 4 (4), 2015
PDF

Аннотация

Статья посвящена изучению функционирования русского языка в русскоязычной диаспоре Германии. Представлены результаты лингвистического анализа двух ведущих русскоязычных газет, выходящих на территории ФРГ, а также теоретическое осмысление структуры социолингвистического пространства диаспоры как инструмента описания контакта языков.

1. Introduction
Any language is a natural effect of the constant influence of the nation’s spiritual peculiarity (Постовалова, 1982:46) and it can satisfy its communicative needs. This function is constant and permanent as long as the language exists. The present sets new peculiar problems for the language, though the novelty lies first in the scale of the phenomena and not in their essence. The case in point is the language functions, which it obtains in new, changing geopolitical situation. Socialization function is one of them, or in other words, the function of integration into society with another culture and language. The Russian language press issued on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany is a striking example of this function.

In the last 35 years, many people have left the CIS and obtained a permanent residence in Germany. According to the official statistics, this country adopted 2.8 million immigrants from 1980 to 1997, including 1.6 million from the USSR (Добровольский, 2002:137), and now over three million residents of Germany speak Russian (see http://www.bmi.bund.de). The Russian-speaking immigrants speak German at different levels, when they migrate to this country; and the number of those, who almost do not speak German, is large. On the other hand, the informational and communicative needs of immigrants are tremendous. They should know and want to know according to what laws and unwritten rules the German society exists and would like to participate in this life. The new principles often shock the immigrants, therefore the acquired experience must be interpreted rationally and emotionally (Менг, Шовгенин, 2004:544-545). The Russian language newspapers play the significant role to facilitate their integration into the new society. They appear on the whole territory of the present-day Germany. But as noted by K. Meng in her book Sprachbiografien der Russlanddeutschen (Meng, 2001:450), reading is not that significant for the immigrants, and therefore, we cannot expect these Russian language newspapers exert a potent normalizing influence on the Russian language in Germany. 

This research is based on the material of two following editions:

  • the Russian language weekly «Русская Германия» (РГ) (“Russkaya Germaniya”) and
  • the Russian language monthly «Земляки» (З) (“Zemlyaki”).

Both newspapers appeared first in 1996 and are sold on the whole territory of the FRG. Nowadays the average circulation of the newspaper «Русская Германия» is about 80 000 copies and of the newspaper «Земляки» – 70 000. It is to point out, that the project «Русская Германия» also includes regional editions in addition to the general edition, for example «Рейнская Газета», «Русская Германия – Франкия», «Русская Германия – Гамбург», in all five different regional variants under different titles. 

The purpose of «Русская Германия» editors is to publish a newspaper for a wide readership, giving no preference to any particular social or age groups. In its turn the newspaper «Земляки» is specially targeted at Russian Germans, who make the largest group among the Russian speaking immigrants in Germany. 

There are analytic articles, literary publications, reports, reviews, interviews, gossips, advertisements of very different contents in both newspapers. As for the thematic scope, the events in Germany take the most important place, because these newspapers are intended to help the immigrants in their integration into new living conditions and new society.

The other themes include Europe, the countries of the former USSR, recollections by Russian Germans, etc.

As the circulation analysis demonstrates: the readership for these newspapers makes approximately 2.6 % of potential readers each, and they are issued in the conditions of rather tough competition not only to other Russian-speaking and actual Russian editions, but also the German press. Practically all immigrants are bilingual to some extent, which allows them to choose an information source, including being switched from language to language. However, the Russian-speaking newspapers provide the immigrants with the important advantage – they use the Russian language for perception of the German reality.
Both newspapers are represented on the Internet, but there the information content is not that full as in the printed editions.

The peculiarities of the periodicals appearing outside mother country are determined by the following: the Russian language exists in isolation from the most part of the native speakers and does not react to the changes in the relevant political, economic, social and cultural situation; the Russian language functions in the bilingual environment and reflects the peculiarities of the interference of the languages by those who speak and write them. Thematically the press covers firstly the comprehension of the life in the host country, secondly the ascertainment of one’s attitude towards Russia and other places where people speak Russian, thirdly the attempt to understand the bilateral relations of the countries in the historic perspective and in the present-day world, fourthly the identification of oneself as a separate group of the population (Протасова, 2002:57). Besides, the Russian language newspapers appearing in Germany do not identify themselves as the immigrant ones. The editor-in-chief of the «Русская Германия» stresses that the newspaper he is heading is an ordinary German newspaper although appearing in the Russian language. The Problems brought up in it are of interest both for the immigrants and for the whole population of Germany (Feldman, 2002:31).

The research and description of the language integration processes of the immigrants are of interest from different points of view, because they allow observing directly the smallest changes in the language functioning which can lead to the appearance of new regional variants of the Russian language.

2. Linguistic Analysis of the Newspapers
The main peculiarity of the Russian language newspapers is the interference (see Шамне, 1999: 78-80). First it can be seen in the wide usage of German words and phrases which are written both in the Russian transcription or transliteration and in the original (German) spelling. Following E.Yu. Protasova (see Протасова, 2000:49-60) we see the main cause firstly in the unreadiness of the conceptual apparatus in the Russian language for many phenomena of the German reality and, secondly, this facilitates learning of the necessary vocabulary. Besides, it is to point out that the authors of the articles often use the German variants of names in the Russian text because of the evident ignorance of conventional Russian equivalents.

Thus, we turn our attention to the problems of spelling, resulting from the fact that the Russian language uses Cyrillic alphabet, and the German language – the Latin alphabet, completed in addition with several special letters (ä, ö, ü, ß). 

Of course, one can find equivalents of the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin letters and vice versa. 

However, the principles developed for it are not used extensively in the everyday speech by the Russian-speaking citizens of Germany; they are not generally known, and they are not observed.

Indeed, it is worth noting that the spelling of the German lexemes based on the Cyrillic alphabet is the first opportunity for the immigrants to contact still unknown words and expressions. 

Thus, the Cyrillic spelling may result in initiating the articulatory habits which would obstruct communication with Germans. 

For example, those who have learnt the name of the German town Hannover according to the traditional Russian spelling and therefore pronounce it as ‘Gannover’ (Ганновер), are not understood by the German speakers.

Besides, here we want to emphasize that the authors of the newspaper articles often use German variants of the geographic names in the Russian texts due to the obvious ignorance of the established Russian equivalents, for example:
(1) …отдыхать на Мольорку (З №10(80), Диалог, В отпуске с "Земляками", с. 13)
(2) …профессор из Балтики и… (З 10(92), с. 23, реклама, Удача в кошельке, письма)

In the given context, the Russian «Майорка» is replaced by the transcription of the German name of this island “Mallorca” – «Мольорка». Herewith, there is grammatical integration phenomenon. In the latter case, we deal with the borrowing of the meaning based on the phonological similarity of the geographical name of the Baltic Sea (Baltika), conventional in the Russian language, and the German name of the region “Baltikum”.

Besides, the immigrants in Germany are faced with serious problems due to their inability to handle the Latin alphabet. 

Hence, it becomes clear why in the Russian texts there are German borrowings written in both Cyrillic, and Latin alphabet. Sometimes these ways alternate each other. 

Thereupon, we have to consider the ways of German words integration into the Russian text. There are three logically possible variants, which are widely represented: transliteration, transcription and the original spelling. We can consider the case, when there is a conventional spelling of one or another root or a word in the Russian language, for example Autobahn – автобан as an exception.

Let us consider in detail the use of German borrowings in the Russian texts from the grammatical point of view. Two ways have been revealed. The first one is that borrowed German nouns are regarded as indeclinable. The second one is that the immigrants refer every borrowed German noun to some Russian type of declension, mainly to the second one, which shall be considered later, and add the corresponding case endings to it. The tendency towards grammatical integration seems to be stronger, if the borrowed German word is written in Cyrillic alphabet. 

Analysing the German language elements in the Russian language press of Germany, it is to point out that they include mostly nouns. As stated above, it is connected with the necessity to refer to the phenomena of the German reality. Therefore, the main part of our article deals with nouns.

Let us consider first the peculiarities of the grammatical gender. There are three grammatical genders both in the German language and in the Russian language, but if a German noun is used in the Russian text, it often changes its gender. Let us take the following examples for consideration:

(3) …и не заметил, как сошел с автобана. (З, No. 10(80), p. 8)
(4) Я была в школе, пошла в югентамт,… (З, No. 7(77), p. 6)
(5) В антраг на постоянное место жительства мы ее внесли. (З, No. 8(78), p. 8)

As we can see from the given contexts, all the nouns are of masculine gender, although Autobahn is feminine, Jugendamt is neutral, Antrag is masculine. We can suppose that the native Russian speaker chooses the gender relying on the conventional models of word borrowing from the German language into the Russian one, which he or she follows unconsciously. Therefore, the writers do not have any difficulties with the grammatical agreement of the words in the sentence adding Russian suffixes and endings to a German word: 

(6) Георг с женой живут в Oerlinghaus’е. (З, 10(80), p. 11)
(7) Выписаны все номера автобанов… (З, No. 8(78), p. 10)
(8) Возможна оплата через Sozialamt или Hausverwaltung. (РГ, No. 46/334, частн. объявл., p. 11)

It makes significantly easier reading and understanding of the text, which is naturally addressed to the readers having some skills of the German language. But German nouns are also often used without agreement. In this case they are not usually transliterated.

(9) Оба Einzelunternehmer перепробовали немало видов бизнеса. (З, 10(80), p. 11)

Sometimes the authors avoid in their articles the necessity of agreement using a Russian equivalent, that does not fully reflect the essence of the concept therefore in addition the German name is used to define it more exactly.

(10) Георг дважды участвовал в пробеге Hermannslauf. (З, No. 10(80), p. 11)
(11) Проживаю в земле Saar. (РГ, No. 46/334, частн. объявл., p. 2) 

The cases to point out are when in the same sentence one noun is made agree and the other one is not. 

(12) Помогу по хозяйству в Гельзенкирхене или Ванне-Айкель. (РГ, No. 46/334, частн. объявл., p. 12)

The usage of abbreviations in the Russian language newspapers is also of interest; usually these are the abbreviations of organizations and parties. They can be used both in the original spelling and in the Russian transcription. The abbreviation usage makes no problem, because in both languages they are not to be made agree:

(13) Самая крупная из них известна под названием РАФ, Rote Armee Fraktion. (РГ, No. 43)
(14) Программа Рабочего союза за восстановление KPD. (РГ, No. 46/334, p. 1)
(15) Генеральный секретарь SPD очень скоро перешел к планам на будущее. (З, No. 8(78), p. 4)

The analyzed material shows that if there is a conventional translation variant of an organization name in the Russian language then the Russian abbreviation can be used: 

(16) Согласно пресс-релизу земельного объединения СДПГ, … (РГ, No. 46/334, p. 9)

The use of German adjectives, that is very seldom, is especially interesting. In the Russian language the adjectives are always to be made agree with the noun they define. Therefore, German adjectives always get in the text Russian suffixes and endings. But it is to point out that sometimes adjectives can be used in their original form in the advertisements. They are usually not transliterated in this case:
(17) Рейнвестфальские владельцы собак. (РГ, No. 46/334, p. 12)
(18) Продается коктейль-бар, braureifrei, укомплектована. (РГ, No. 46/334, частн. объявл., p. 13)

Let us consider the context usage of German words in the Russian language press of Germany, which have in the Russian language at least phonetically similar roots with the German ones:

(19) Комплекс Friedensschule объединяет вместе начальную, реальную и основную школы. (РГ, No. 43)
(20) …детективы, занимающиеся проверкой материального положения у получателей «социала». (РГ, No. 46/334, p. 9)
(21) …не знает немецкого языка и не может сдать шпрахтест. (З, No. 10(80), p. 15)
(22) 2791 тамошний «социальщик» причинил городской казне ущерб в 4,5 млн. €. (РГ, No. 46/334, p. 9)
(23) Сейчас в западных землях квота работающих женщин составляет 60%, в восточных – 73%. (З, No. 8(78), p. 4)

Those who write do not have any problem with the agreement of these words in the sentence, because they just follow the grammatical norms of the language. However, those who read without skills of German are not able to understand these words correctly. It happens because they are used with their German meanings, which do not exist in the Russian language. 
A special case is the word-for-word translation here. It is characteristic of private advertisements given by the Germans in the Russian language:

(24) Продается хорошо идущий кафе-бар. (РГ, No. 46/334, частн. объявл., p. 13)
(25) Продаю большое здание: деловая часть + 2 жилья, … (РГ, No. 46/334, частн. объявл., p. 13)

Sometimes the authors make such translation in the articles, especially when the German expression of the idea is more laconic than the Russian one: 
(26) Анечка с Леонидом имеют второе место в земле Nordrhein-Westfalen. (З, No. 7(77), p. 6)
(27) …налоговая реформа увеличила нетто-доходы людей. (З, No. 8(78), p. 4)

Thus, the analyzed factual material clearly shows us that interference occurs mainly on the lexical level of the language. Mostly the immigrant language borrows words functioning in the social and cultural sphere of life. Our research allows to draw the following conclusion: on the one hand, it is the result of the absence of full equivalents for the concepts of the German reality; and, on the other hand, the use of the original lexemes facilitates the assimilation into the society speaking another language contributing to the socialization, because the descriptive translation into the Russian language can cause misunderstanding of the information and its false interpretation. 

The grammatical system being closed and quite stable maintains, according to the results of our research, these qualities mostly during the language contact. The analysis shows that the grammatical system of the Russian language in the absolute majority of cases despite several exceptions is maintained; and it dominates over the functioning of the borrowings from the German language, adjusting them to the Russian paradigms of declension and conjugation. We believe that the correct grammatical agreement of the borrowed words in the sentence makes the reading of the text significantly easier because the readers do not need to make any additional efforts to analyze the grammatical relations between the words in the sentence, which are not expressed with suffixes or endings. Therefore, the information published in these newspapers can be understood by the immigrants living in Germany for a long time as well as by newly arrived ones.

We can agree to E.Y. Protasova’s viewpoint on the same problem, (Протасова, 2000: 49-60) and summing up all data we can say that the peculiarities of the language of the Russian language press cannot be considered as mistakes though the norm is broken. Because of that, we can find out how actively the native speakers can interpret their life experience in the discourse.

3. Sociolinguistic Space of the Diaspora
Our linguistic research of the Russian-speaking press of Germany led us to the conclusion that the diaspora assisted by the Russian language is a specific sociolinguistic space.

What does one mean by the term sociolinguistic space? Actually, in the literature, it is rather uncommon; and we have not been able to find a rather accurate definition for it. Therefore, we shall quote several sayings shedding some light on its meaning. Thus, A.D. Dulichenko in his article notes:

Как известно, в связи с развалом Советского Союза социолингвистическое пространство РЯ сократилось, его функции в бывших республиках Союза (за исключением Белоруссии, Киргизии, Казахстана) и особенно в бывших соцстранах существенно ослабли. Ослабело и лексическое и иное влияние РЯ на соседние языки. Формируется тенденция к регионализации РЛЯ за пределами России – в силу политико-административных условий, установления границ, культивирования разных политических доктрин и идеологий (Дуличенко, 2001: 28) (It is well known, due to the collapse of the Soviet Union the sociolinguistic space of the R(ussian)L(anguage) decreased, its functions weakened considerably in the former republics of the Union (with the exception of Belorussia, Kirgizstan and Kazakhstan) and especially in the former socialist camp. Both lexical and other influence of the Russian language on the neighboring languages weakened. There has been a tendency lately of the Russian literary language regionalization outside of Russia – due to the political and administrative conditions, establishing borders, cultivating different political doctrines and ideologies).

On the site of the Faculty of Philology, Grodno State University in the section Basic Obtainable Knowledge one shall find the item "geopolitical and sociolinguistic space of the Russian language (in Russia, in the Republic of Belarus, in the CIS, in the world)". (http://www.abit.grsu.by/html/abit-site/data/fack/fil.doc). 

In the German language the equivalent for the term in question is the term soziolinguistischer Raum, which we find in the 2006 European Parliament Draft Decision on new frame strategy of preserving multilinguism (Entwurf einer Entschließung des Europäischen Parlaments zu einer neuen Rahmenstrategie zur Mehrsprachigkeit).
Viz.:
…technologische Entwicklungen bieten das größte Potential für die Gewährleistung eines soziolinguistischen Raums für alle Sprachen Europas; andernfalls werden sie ausgeschlossen bleiben und ihr soziolinguistischer Raum wird von den größeren Sprachen - insbesondere Englisch - vereinnahmt werden; gewährleisten, dass alle europäischen Sprachen geschützt werden und einen soziolinguistischen Raum erhalten, in dem sie sich entfalten können (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/pr/622/622030/622030de.pdf)

The given examples allow us to conclude that sociolinguistic space is understood first of all as residence area of some linguistic community, i.e. organized group of people united with the common language. Therefore, their sociolinguistic space borders with other sociolinguistic spaces or other linguistic communities. Thus, we have a nice possibility to define sociolinguistic space through the borders of monolingual societies speaking different languages. However, such approach is realizable only in the ideal or perfect circumstances – well-defined geographic differentiation of areas of language usage, and on closer examination, it proves to be very formal. It is obvious that this particular model does not describe in a proper way the situations in diaspora, where almost all its members live alternately with the representatives of the linguistic majority. In its turn, the diaspora possesses the indications given above. It is the community of people, who are united with the common language. Thus, for the further investigation in the frames of the stated problem it is worth noting that the members of diaspora are as a rule bilingual. It results in appearing of borrowings. S.I. Kartsevsky notes:

Беженецкий быт способствует формированию особого argot, в который входит значительное количество заимствований из языка той страны, где обосновалась данная категория эмигрантов (Карцевский, 1923:43) (Refugee’s conditions of life give an incentive to form specific argot including great amount of borrowings from the language of the country where the particular category of emigrants has settled down).
Such situation is likely to emerge constantly. Using loan word, as stated above, is determined by the accuracy requirement, necessity of being understood in a right way. Besides, the speaker hears and sees constantly local nominations used to designate local realias; it is natural that they are first to occur in his mind when it concerns everyday life surrounding him. Hence, one of the reasons of the borrowings appearance from the surrounding language is in the economy of efforts of two (or more) communication partners. Due to it, the recipient understands an issue at once; the speaker does not need to find proper equivalent to designate an alien realia, furthermore often there is no accurate literal equivalent at all. In the latter case, there is no choice of language strategy at all (Головинская, 2001:438). 

Back on the meaning of the term sociolinguistic space, it must be emphasized that in all given examples it possesses obvious shade of politics. Thereby, while determining sociolinguistic space, its inner structure is also ignored, and from our point of view, it is absolutely inadmissible.

Analyzing the physical space, in the article «Реализация идеи перемещения в пространстве в русском и немецком языках (Movement in the Space Idea Realization in the Russian and German languages) N.L. Shamne notes:
Познавая мир, человек обращается к структурным особенностям его организации и обнаруживает, что части и элементы, из которых построены материальные объекты, определённым образом расположены друг относительно друга, образуют некоторые устойчивые конфигурации, которые задают границы объекта по отношению к окружающей среде, и это делает любые объекты протяжёнными. Кроме этого, каждый объект занимает какое-то место среди других объектов, граничит с ними (Шамне, 2000:43) (Perceiving the world, a man refers to the structural peculiarities of its arrangement and reveals that parts and elements constituting the material objects, are located in a particular way relative to each other, form some steady configurations, which set the borders of the object with respect to the environment, and it makes any objects extensive. Besides, every object occupies certain place among other objects, borders them).

The same to our mind is typical of sociolinguistic space as well. Except that, the individual fixes the objects of the social reality surrounding him or her in his mind with the help of language. Individual’s identification and recognition of these objects’ belonging to the sociolinguistic space can take place on the basis of the fixed in the language names and proper names if some person acts as an object under certain conditions. For example, Bundesregierung, Krankenkasse, Deutsche Telekom, Angela Merkel etc. indicate German sociolinguistic space and Правительство Российской Федерации, Фонд обязательного медицинского страхования, Ростелеком, Дмитрий Медведев – Russian sociolinguistic space. Hence, we can establish one more essential difference of sociolinguistic space from the physical one. It lies in the fact that sociolinguistic space is formed by the reflex in the language social objects and breaks up, as soon as the same objects begin to be perceived and comprehended by the society in the other language, for example, in the case of the language shift. In that event they become the part of the other sociolinguistic space if they do not disappear. The objects of the physical space, in their turn, do not alter and do not change their properties depending on the language, with the help of which they are comprehended. 

Therefore, it is significant to take into consideration that the individuals perceive, comprehend and process actively their sociolinguistic space. N.L. Shamne notes:

Группы и индивидуумы членят и структурируют окружающее пространство, которое требует от них языковой и культурной интерпретации. В результате таких интерпретаций возникают пространственные образы, территориальные сети и оси, с помощью которых становится возможным достоверное ориентирование и перемещение членов языковых групп в пространстве. В данном случае принято говорить о «когнитивной картографии» как о способе усвоения, обобщения и запоминания пространственных характеристик (Шамне, 2000:44) (Groups and individuals divide the surrounding space into parts and structure it, which demands linguistic and cultural interpretation from them. Such interpretations result in occurrence of spatial images, territorial nets and axes, enabling the reliable orientation and movement of the members of the language groups in the space. In this situation it is customary to speak of “cognitive cartography” as a mode of adoption, generalization and keeping in mind the spatial properties).

This quotation concerns the orientation in the physical space, but this attitude is applicable to the sociolinguistic space as well.

Summarizing the contact linguistics and social science data, we can resume that sociolinguistic space is formed by social institutes in exactly the same way, like physical space is formed by the objects of the reality as it is. Under the social institute in our research, we understand the arranged system of relations and social norms, uniting the significant social values and procedures satisfying the primary needs of the society (Тематический словарь основных понятий и терминов). In general, this definition is an elaboration of the definition of the social institute given in the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language by S.I. Ozhegov and N.Yu. Shvedova (Толковый словарь русского языка» С.И. Ожегова и Н.Ю. Шведовой):

Совокупность норм права в какой-н. области общественных отношений, та или иная форма общественного устройства (Ожегов, 1995:243) (The aggregate of law norms in some sphere of social relations, one or another form of the social order).

Every social institute bears the imprint of culture of the society, where it functions. Its realization and actualization can take place by means of language. 

Strictly speaking, the individual always implements the communication in the frames of the certain social institute, with which the definite language or variant of language as a rule is relating to. The family, work place, education, mass media, etc. give an example of such institutes. L.V. Shcherba describes the particular case of such situation in his article «К вопросу о двуязычии» (On the Issue of Bilingualism) in the following way:

В старом Петербурге имелось довольно много людей, у которых «семейным» языком, а зачастую и обычным языком интимного круга знакомых, являлся немецкий язык, тогда как вся их общественная деятельность связана была теснейшим образом с русским языком (Щерба, 1974: 313) (In the old Petersburg there were many people, whose “family” language, and very often common language of the intimate circle of acquaintance was the German one, whereas their social activities were connected with the Russian language very tightly).

This situation is beneficial for emerging language contact, place of which is the speaker himself, according to U. Weinreich’s definition (Weinreich, 1953). It is determined by the fact that the individual often needs to discuss some situation concerning one social institute within the bounds of the other one. For example, to discuss situation at work - with the family. Meanwhile communicative requirements within every institute are served by different languages. As a result, the speaker suffers language difficulties, determined by language incompetence in the certain sphere in the certain language. It leads to the interference appearing.

Thus, the sociolinguistic space of the Russian and German languages contact is an aggregate of the social institutes, where the process of the individual’s life takes place; and about which the individual communicates with the other individuals.

4. CONCLUSIONS
The carried out research of the Russian speaking diaspora’s sociolinguistic space in Germany has demonstrated convincingly that it is inhomogeneous and has a structure consisting of social institutes. Immigrant effecting communication is always within the frames of the certain institute, with, as a rule, the certain language assigned to. Such institutes are supposed to be family, work place, education, etc. Assigning the certain language to each of the social institute results in development of asymmetric German-Russian bilingualism among the Russian speaking immigrants, i.e. the German language is able to satisfy the individual’s communicative needs only within the limited range of topics, connected with the necessity of interaction with the public authorities, social institutions, etc. At the same time, there is frequently no correlation between the Russian vocabulary and German equivalents in the case of their availability. Therefore, while generating the text in the Russian language on one of the topics, which the German language is assigned to, a large amount of borrowings would arise inevitably in the immigrant’s speech. This fact is manifested clearly by example of the borrowings from the German language in the texts of the newspapers of Germany, which at the core are the German newspapers. Such conclusion is determined not only by their self-positioning, but by the thematic scope as well, with the events in Germany ranking first. Exactly the texts dealing with the FRG life and events are the reflection of the interference procedure taking place in the diaspora’s language. These texts are the reflection of the linguistic essence of the sociolinguistic space of the Russian speaking diaspora. 

Hence, we have managed to establish that the German-Russian bilingualism of the Russian-speaking immigrants functions complementary in the communication, i.e. the German language is used in those situations and for relating to those situations, when the Russian language cannot be used. With regard to above mentioned, these situations are conditioned by the social institutions. Therefore, we have succeeded in proving that the functioning of the borrowings in the texts of the Russian speaking newspapers of Germany is institutionally determined; and it is due to the coordinated asymmetric bilingualism. 

The carried out study of the nature of the borrowings usage in the Russian texts of the immigrants press has showed, that the overwhelming majority of the lexical borrowings in the press are presented by nouns and substantive word combinations, divided by us into two groups – proper names and common names; the cases of borrowing attributes and verbs are single.

The analysis of the factual material has demonstrated that the direct borrowing of the proper names into the Russian text is typical of the Russian speaking immigration language in Germany. We have managed to determine as well, it is conditioned by immigrants’ striving for confirming their belonging to the German ethnos at the language level. Herewith, predominately the phrase is intentionally constructed in such a way that to exclude the necessity of the obvious grammatical agreement of the proper name or names.

In addition, our research shows that the borrowing of the common names is chiefly institutionally determined. Any immigrant, becoming part of a new society, must understand its structure; otherwise, in new conditions he will be unable to live a normal social life. The receiving society’s structure appears before the immigrant through the relevant vocabulary required for serving his communicative needs in the new country. First, the immigrant assimilates the vocabulary from those spheres of life, which he or she is engaged in every day; including immigration, social system, health care, employment, obtaining goods, transport, taxation, education, and politics. In this case, a relative majority of the borrowings is integrated in the written form, i.e. the words are written down in Cyrillic letters; and at the same time, there is the obligatory grammatical agreement. Including the German direct borrowings in the Russian substantives second declension paradigm form the basis of their grammatical integration into the Russian text; therefore, those who write do not find difficulty in making the words in the sentence agree. At the same time, the borrowed German lexemes are considered by the native Russian speakers as to be equal to the root, because the German morphology cannot be identified in the frames of the Russian language. Nonintegrated in writing borrowings (according to our observations) are not subject to the grammatical integration into text. Thereby, we have established direct dependence between the way of the borrowing and grammatical integration in writing of the borrowed word.

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