Durham E-Theses Linguistic Biographies & Communities of Language of Russian Speakers in Great Britain KLIUCHNIKOVA, POLINA How to cite: KLIUCHNIKOVA, POLINA (2016) Linguistic Biographies & Communities of Language of Russian Speakers in Great Britain , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11374/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 LINGUISTIC BIOGRAPHIES AND COMMUNITIES OF LANGUAGE OF RUSSIAN SPEAKERS IN GREAT BRITAIN POLINA KLIUCHNIKOVA Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Russian School of Modern Languages and Cultures Durham University 2015 LIST OF CONTENTS Declaration v Statement of copyright v Acknowledgements vi Abstract vii Transliteration notice viii List of abbreviations ix List of illustrations x Introduction Language in migration: The case of Russian speakers 1 Snapshot 1: Language between self-identification and statistics 4 Snapshot 2: The ‘(in)visibility’ of migrant communities 7 Snapshot 3: Linguistic landscapes and sociolinguistic environments 8 Outline of the thesis 10 Chapter 1. Russian speakers abroad: Historical and sociocultural context 1.1. Russian-speaking migration through different analytical lenses 14 1.2. Historical perspectives on Russian-speaking communities worldwide: From émigrés to Russians abroad 20 1.3. Russian-speaking migrants in the UK: The community under study 24 1.4. Maintaining the Russian language abroad: Practices, vernaculars, meanings 30 1.5. The phenomenon of ‘Russophonism’ in historical perspective 34 1.6. Russian-speaking migration today: Language and identity on the move 40 Chapter 2. Language in migration: Linguistic resources as experienced by Russian-speaking migrants in the UK 2.1. Theoretical perspectives on language in migration 44 2.2. Language attitudes and symbolic interpretations of language 48 2.3. Social implications of language use and discourse on language(s) 51 2.4. The theory of superdiversity in language studies 54 2.5. ‘Superdiversity’ in the North-East of England? 57 ii 2.6. Methods of data collection and analysis 60 2.6.1. Interviews 61 2.6.2. Participant observation 69 2.6.3. Discourse analysis and virtual ethnography 71 2.7. Conclusions 72 Chapter 3. Language attitudes and ‘folk linguistics’ of Russian- speaking migrants in the UK towards Russian 3.1. The field of ‘folk linguistics’ and its subject 75 3.2. The ‘folk linguistics’ of Russian-speaking migrants in the North-East of England 78 3.3. The ‘great and mighty Russian language’ 80 3.4. Russian taken personally: Changing patterns of linguistic behaviour 86 3.5. The status of Russian through the relationships between languages 97 3.6. Portraying the Russian speaker: Self-imaging and outer reflections 102 3.7. Conclusions 105 Chapter 4. ‘Russian English’: Linguistic biographies of Russian- speaking migrants of the North-East of England 4.1. ‘Russian English’: On the concept and its development 108 4.2. English in a Russian-speaking context: A socio-historic perspective 113 4.3. Russian-speaking migrants reminiscing on learning English 117 4.4. Russian speakers in Britain: First encounters, new identities 125 4.5. ‘Russian vs. English’: On social distance and language difference 135 4.6. Russians meeting Geordies: ‘Russian English’ in North-East England 142 4.7. Conclusions 148 Chapter 5. Language, gender and generations in transcultural families of Russian-speaking migrants 5.1. Language and familyhood in migrant contexts 151 5.2. Family portraits: Russian-speaking migrants’ family experiences through the prism of their linguistic identities 157 5.3. ‘Language desire’ and interlanguage couples 161 5.4. The child as boundary: Gendering the language upbringing process 170 5.5. Cultural boundaries and gender roles in extended families 182 5.6. Conclusions 186 iii Chapter 6. Language(s) at work: Individual migrant career paths and ethnolinguistic entrepreneurial strategies 6.1. Language as resource and capital in migrant career-building 189 6.2. Languages and careers: Experiences of career trajectories and of multilingualism in the workplace 192 6.2.1. Migrant job-hunting and the ‘asset’ of Russian 193 6.2.2. Non-natives at work: Loci of constraint, domains of comfort, spaces for self-presentation 202 6.3. Making language work: Strategies of incorporating Russian into entrepreneurial initiatives 206 6.3.1. ‘Working for the community’ 207 6.3.2. Placing Russian in the local market 216 6.4. Conclusions 221 Chapter 7. Communities of Russian-speaking migrants of the North-East of England: Language ideologies and speech practices 7.1. Language community, speech community or community of practice? 224 7.2. Russian language schools in the North East of England 231 7.2.1. Back to school: Institutionalising language maintenance among Russian-speaking migrants 235 7.2.2. Russian language taught in Russian weekend schools: To whom it may concern 244 7.3. ‘The USSR in Newcastle’: Russian speakers, unite! 252 7.3.1. ‘The USSR in Newcastle’ as a community of practice: Nostalgia or imagination? 255 7.3.2. The language of ‘the USSR’ – towards the transculturalism of speech practices 261 7.4. Conclusions 267 Coda. A chapter that could have been C1. Language creativity and translingual playfulness 269 C2. On ‘stereowords’: Bilingual creativity in miniature 273 C3. ‘I am Russian and I cannot keep calm’: Labelling belonging in language games 277 C4. The book yet to be written: On narratives of migrant experiences 280 C5. Conclusions 290 Conclusion 292 iv Appendices Appendix 1. List of interviews and informants 304 Appendix 2. Guide for the in-depth semi-structured interview (in Russian) 309 Appendix 3. Interview consent form 313 Appendix 4. List of places and groups for participant observation 314 Appendix 5. Migrant literature, media and movies 315 Appendix 6. Internet sources 317 Appendix 7. The Oxford Archive of Russian Life History interviews 320 Appendix 8. Seminar papers, conference presentations and articles arising from this study 321 References 323 Word Count: 100 623 words DECLARATION This thesis is the sole work of the author. No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted previously by any other candidate for another degree or qualification at Durham University or any other university or institute of learning. STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest gratitude goes to all my informants for their time, involvement and genuine interest in this project. I am not quite sure what their initial motives were – helping out a fellow migrant, taking part in academic research, or talking about their life to someone ready to hear them out – but I consider myself lucky to have met all these wonderful people and am always thankful for their help. I am extremely grateful to my supervisor, Dr Andy Byford, whose constructive comments always prompted me to further develop my line of argument and whose excellent guidance helped me make it to the end. I also thank my second supervisor, Dr Alexandra Harrington, for her emotional support and readiness to proof-read. Thank you to all the faculty of Russian Studies and MLAC in general for welcoming my project. This research would have never been possible without generous financial support from Durham University (through the Durham Doctoral Studentship) as well as grants from BASEES (Postgraduate Research & Development) and the John Simpson Greenwell Memorial Fund (County Durham). I would like to thank my thesis examiners, Dr Moya Flynn and Dr Sergey Tyulenev, for their expert feedback and suggestions that helped me improve this research and inspired further plans. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my colleagues who helped me greatly with their comments, questions and suggestions while reading my papers, listening to my conference talks or discussing my research with me – I am especially grateful to Dr T. Havlin, Dr O. Morgunova, Dr E. Protassova, Dr L. Ryazanova- Clarke, and Dr M. Yelenevskaya. I am always thankful to Prof A. Baiburin, Dr I. Utekhin and Dr O. Zaporozhets who I am proud to consider my teachers. I am grateful to the other Durham PG students for their unconditional support, mutual encouragement, and created sense of collegiality, especially to Anna, Jessica, John, Khaled, Sheila, Steve, and Wei who have become my friends. I am also sending my thanks to all my friends elsewhere who always manage to stay close whatever the geographical distance between us has been. My warmest thank you goes to my family – Mama, Papa, Boria – who have always been there for me whether I failed or succeeded. This is in loving memory of babulia Mila (1931-2015) who believed in me like no one else. vi ABSTRACT In migration, language undergoes crucial changes. Not only are the linguistic practices of migrants reshaped in the new environment, but migrant displacement has a major effect on the way language users see and talk about language as such, especially in relation to linguistic varieties they encounter or acquire as part of their migrant experiences.