Arto Mustajoki, Ekaterina Protassova

Ekaterina Protassova, Arto Mustajoki

WESTERNIZATION, RUSSIFICATION, OR SELF-REFLECTION?

HOW RUSSIAN PEOPLE INTERPRET FOREIGN CONCEPTS

The purpose of the present article is to shed light on how the Russians interpret foreign concepts. The peculiar behaviour in adopting influences from outside cultures has inevitably aroused attention among both Western and Russian scholars. The usual conclusion made by the researchers is that the Russians try to create from Russian cultural elements (i.e. the own) and foreign impact (the alien) something called the third (see. e.g. Бердичевский, Колларова 2006). We have no quarrel with such an interpretation: in our view it corresponds very well to reality. Nevertheless, we believe that it is important to go beyond this explanation, because creating something ‘in between’, the third, is quite a common feature in different cultures. Let us take only a very everyday like example: the Russian have established the concept (and trade mark) Rostiks[1], which is a ‘Russified’ version of McDonald’s in the same way as the Finns have Hesburger. Thus, creating ‘the third’ is not THE feature which makes the Russians different; it must be something else. In this paper we try to give a more detailed picture of the way the Russians adopt foreign concepts.

When foreign concepts are adapted to the system of the Russian language, they are inevitably integrated into the contradictory and dualistic system of values that prevails in the Russian-speaking world. Moreover, sociologists increasingly talk about the stratification of Russian society not only as one of its inherent characteristics, but also as a strategy employed by those in power to safeguard their own position. Russian society is divided into layers and segments which stand in opposition to one another to the extent that even a mythical (ideological) or real threat of invasion cannot reconcile them (as happened before and after the 1917 revolution and during the two world wars). Russian society as a whole does not seek unity, but some segments of it declare the finding of a common idea as the goal of their humanitarian activity. Ideological disunity may be seen as a reason for the absence of solidarity among the citizens (cf. Dubin 2007).

From the point of view of communicative strategies, we can observe that Russian texts, by comparison with Finnish ones, contain many more clues reflecting the author’s underlying ideological position and adherence to a given set of principles. The aim is to ensure that the author’s position as someone belonging to a particular segment of society cannot be misinterpreted by the recipient of the message. A simple comparison of how the same piece of news is reported in the Russian and Finnish media shows that the concept of ‘public opinion’, based on a fundamental outlook shared by the majority of the population as a result of civic education, is much more applicable to Finland than to Russia. News reporting in Finland is neutral in tone, and this is regarded as an obligatory norm, yet there is an underlying assumption that the reaction of all Finns to the news will be more or less similar, and may indeed be emotionally coloured, though not in the same way as the reactions of the Russians. In Russia, news is hardly ever reported in a neutral way: the headlines, the newsreader’s intonation, and various textual devices always reflect the point of view of the ‘powers’ behind the media. Yet one single piece of news can provoke very different reactions in society: some share the point of view of the source of information, others categorically disagree, yet others remain indifferent. This is reflected even in ‘dry’ genres such as weather forecasts.

The positions adopted by the citizens are based on cultural preferences coloured by the global opposition between ‘the own’ and ‘the other’: East/West, authoritarianism/democracy, sympathy/opposition to the powers that be, collectivism/individualism, etc. In every case, self-positioning on the value continuum is dependent on the emotions displayed. The emotional colouring of Russian discourse, in contrast to the neutrality of Finnish discourse, is part of a scale on which various authorial assessments of the events are placed. There are, in fact, many cultures where emotions are expressed even more vividly in media discourse than in Russia. At the same time it cannot be assumed that the expression of one’s perceptions is of an individual nature: the points of view adopted are chosen from a given set of options, one statement almost inevitably leads to another.

Contemporary scholars have observed a democratization of language and a general shift towards lower levels of style even by comparison with the norms that were current at the end of the twentieth century. The evaluative activity of the linguistic subject expresses his or her emotional and value-based position, also taking into account the position of the partner in communication (Vepreva 2003). The phenomenon of linguistic fashion has been examined in more detail by A. Mustajoki and I. T. Vepreva. The authors argue that while words belonging to the standard language are easily recognized and reproduced, innovative expressions require commentary: on a social plane, fashion (according to A. B. Gofman) must display such features as modernity, universality, demonstrativeness, and playfulness. This is precisely what is found in the mass media: it is here that people discern the models that they ‘must’ or ‘want to’ follow. Fashionable words can be used with a meaning of positive or negative evaluation: they can be attractive to the masses or become objects of irony. Their meanings are usually indeterminate and diffuse (Mustajoki, Vepreva 2006). On the other hand, reflection on contemporary phenomena in language and speech can also be seen in other kinds of questions and evaluations (Gekkina 2006, Krongauz 2008). Many try to find in the speech around them the most typical key phrases of the present moment (Vepreva 2002, Harlamova 2008). The futile battle for correctness in language is reflected in specialized studies, which themselves become a form of metareflection (Gusjenov 2005, Lunde, Roesen 2006, Mustajoki 2009, Ryazanova-Clarke, Wade 1999). All contemporary linguistic usage makes up one single big text, and authors frequently refer to the fact that the participants in communication are aware of other contexts in which particular words, word combinations, and expressions have previously been used (Sadovskaja 2008).

These observations are to a significant extent consistent with the gradual nature of the introduction of loanwords into the Russian language, as described e.g. in (Aristova 1979, Dem’janov 1990, Krysin 2004). Russian turns out, in fact, to be more open to English loanwords than the other Slavonic languages (Pfandl’ 2003). The same thing happens when a word from the local language is borrowed into the Russian spoken by emigrants or representatives of Russian-speaking minorities in diaspora (Protasova 2004): speakers and writers often feel a need to explain why they are using a loanword, in what sense, and why a Russian word with a similar meaning will not do (‘as they say here’, ‘they have this word for it’, etc.). This happens because the use of a word that draws attention to itself needs to be clarified.

The government and the opposition tend to focus on the same issues in their political discourse, although their priorities may differ. However, any given text will normally include a number of clues signalling the author’s ideological position (Wagnsson 2000, Yelenevskaya 2006). Contemporary Russian media discourse is seeking to find its own paths among the various Western, Soviet, and post-Soviet paradigms (Hutchings 2002). In the Bakhtinian tradition, based on the notions of polyphony and the text being addressed to a listener, the perception of a verbal message inevitably calls forth associations based on all previous textual occurrences of the quotation (which may consist of no more than a single word). This makes the Russian discourse tradition famous for its saturation with subtextual meanings. There is, in fact, no freedom of discourse production: any utterance must take its place in one or more traditions. The articles of O.A. Lapteva (2003, 2004) show how colloquial variants come to be accepted as part of the norm, producing internal transformations in the language, which thus reorganizes itself at a new stage of development.

In self-reflection we apply introspection to our own behaviour. One of the prerequisites for this is awareness of one’s doings. One form of self-reflection is metacommunication, in which the speaker comments on his/her own speech, i.e. explains why (s)he says or said something in a particular way. There are various ways of doing this, e.g.:

(1) Commenting on a single word or expression:

(a) a ‘fashionable’ foreign word: Сегодня у нас, как сейчас модно говорить, эра продюсеров. Ненавижу это слово и….; Он от присяги не отказался, от погон не отказался тоже. Но тогда, очевидно, нужно, извините за модное слово, позиционировать это не как новости, а как некую программу, которая вокруг новостей;

(b) a calque from another language: Прошу прощения, что мне не хватило русских слов. Есть такое французское выражение "быть на спасибе" в дословном переводе.

(c) a vulgar or frank expression: В нашей нормальной традиционной церкви все мы сталкивались, прошу прощения за грубое слово, с придурью отдельных батюшек, талдычивших о конце света, о вреде информации, новых технических приспособлений; Тут я употреблю слово, которое я очень не люблю употреблять. Для меня он предатель;

(d) a dubious choice of expression: Что, оказывается, спектакль, поставленный, прошу прощения за истрепанное слово, традиционно, может быть абсолютно современным; Что касается Театра Школа современной пьесы, то в отличие от других театров, в которых пришлось поработать, мне в нем хорошо и... уютно (прошу прощения за такое слово применительно к высокому искусству);

(e) desire to avoid a frequently used word: Это ошибка считать тех людей, которые вышли из-под контроля, условно говоря, я не люблю этого слова там… «маргиналы», «не маргиналы» - это плохие слова; Его очень четко и хорошо вел гениальный режиссер, я не люблю слово "гениальный", но я обожаю Марка Анатольевича;

(f) wordplay: Моноспектакль Анны Макагон, прошу прощения за невольную игру слов, вовсе не монотонен.

(2) commenting on the theme of the conversation: Об отношениях людей друг с другом никогда не говорю, могу лишь сказать об отношениях с некоторыми; Голые старухи, голая старуха, уже не очень красивое тело, я прошу прощение за такие слова, вот в чем смысл этого всего?

(3) explanation for saying something: Я это говорю не из-за собственного консерватизма, а потому что безвкусие просто чудовищное!;

(4) self-positioning by the speaker: Говорю это не только как отец, но и как руководитель института и Южного научного центра.

The reasons for such metacommunication are varied, but it is possible to distinguish some obvious objectives: (1) to show one’s awareness of the political and public discussion going on in society; (2) to show one’s consciousness of the way one speaks; (3) to apologize for the way one speaks. In their Russian discourse, people often explain what they hear and repeat; they explain to the interlocutor the difference between meanings in the two languages in contact, or apologize for using a foreign word, for not being able to speak in a proper style (as in Pushkin’s ‘люблю я очень это слово, но не могу перевести’).

The current political situation in Russia is marked by the use of different modalities: things that should be said, should not be said, must be said, must not be said, etc. For example, the set of usable terms during the conflict with Georgia kept changing from day to day, and people reflected on which terms were currently acceptable and which should be avoided (cf. the famous ‘we will be silent upon things that are too close to us’ by A. Tolstoy).

Self-reflection can be also seen in linguistic self-corrections (stress, pronunciation, use of dialect forms, etc.), e.g. так нельзя сказать, но я так говорю; я знаю, это не правильно; нужно говорить …, но мне не хочется; совсем запутался, как нужно говорить. The idea that there is a NORM standing over USAGE is relevant for the whole society (as A. Shmelev puts it in the present volume). Quotation marks also serve to highlight the special meaning of a (loan)word, or to mark the speaker’s attitude to it (cf. Zaliznjak 2007).

On 24 February 2009, Viktor Erofeev said in the Apokrif programme on the Kultura channel that ‘we speak tenderly of superman [using the English loanword], but sverkhchelovek [the Russian equivalent] puts us on our guard’. This seems to us to be yet another case of how Western loanwords are much more attractive on the surface and ready for use in an intellectual game, while words of Russian origin require a more thoughtful attitude. Western values always seem glossy, superficial, and artificial, unable to grow in native soil.

As an example of the third culture, we may consider the self-reflection of the author Viktor Pelevin in a novel that has been published with the title Empire V. in the Roman alphabet on the cover, even though the publication has been officially registered as Ампир В. (the same title in Cyrillic letters). The author does not, however, use different quotation marks for Russian and non-Russian text, as would be customary. On page 75 he writes:

Я, кстати, обратил внимание на пошлейшую примету нашего времени: привычку давать иностранные имена магазинам, ресторанам и даже написанным по-русски романам, словно желая сказать – мы не такие, мы продвинутые, оффшорные, отъевроремонтированные. Это давно уже не вызывало во мне ничего, кроме тошноты. Но названия «LovemarX» и «Archetypique boutique» я видел так часто, что поневоле перестал раздражаться и подверг их анализу.