Ukrainian-Russian Mixed Speech in Public Space

Abstract

The article dwells upon the features of the public use of the Ukrainian-Russian mixed speech (URMS, or the so-called “surzhyk”). Based on the sociological survey and in-depth interviews conducted in the central and the southern regions of Ukraine in 2014–2020, we analyzed the communication spheres in which the respondents consider it possible to use the URMS, language attitudes regarding the evaluative aspects of “status” and “solidarity”, as well as the respondents’ sociodemographic peculiarities parameters in connection with their assessment of possibility to use mixed speech in public.
In relation to the URMS, this region is divided (center vs periphery) with few exceptions. These data correlate with the areal distribution and the number of hybrid word forms in the speech of the respondents. The division of communicative spheres into “mixed” and “pure” basically corresponds to the status distribution: where the “status” evaluative aspect prevails, according to the respondents, only “pure” idioms should be used, but mixed speech is more acceptable in situations of “solidarity” and informal communication.