ENGLISH AS A MEANS OF POLITENESS (RE)CONSTRUCTION IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA

The epoch of late modernity is characterized by accelerating
increase of translingual practices across the globe. Regarded by
scholars as a Lingua Franca, Business Lingua Franca, an
international language and the global language, English most
frequently comes into contact with other languages, penetrating
and influencing communicative spaces of other countries. Such a
penetration is characterized not only by a wide spread of
anglicisms, present in various niches of communication, but also
by covertly expressed English-mediated rules of speaking, which
affect grammar, syntax, as well as communicative and politeness
norms of the Russian language.
Being an exceptionally flexible sphere, sensitive to paradigmatic
socio-economic and ideological shifts in society, speaking
etiquette is particularly perceptive of extraneous influences. The
aim of the study is to analyze the way globally spread English,
which comes most frequently into contact with other languages
and cultures, influences speaking etiquette norms of non-English
speaking cultures, as well as local people’s perception of
politeness.
To identify what motivates people to resort to English resources
in apology providing situations and what role English plays in
modifying politeness norms in Russian communication the
methods of ethnographic interviews and a survey were
implemented. The interviews were conducted with two
differently-aged (about 50 and 25) Russian speakers on their
attitude and motivations to use the anglicism hi in Russian
communicative space. In the survey 370 Russian young people
(aged 16 – 31) provided their opinion on reasons and peculiarities
of the usage of the anglicism sorry in non-English
communication.
The study distinctly shows the presence of both explicit and
implicit mechanisms of politeness construction by means of the
English language resources in Russian-based communication.
Overtly expressed anglicism sorry, which originally functioned as
a metacommunicative apology in computer mediated discourse
when appeared in Russian communicative space, now enjoys a
significantly wider sphere of application and has come to convey
a strictly specific for this particular resource meaning. More than
half (201 out of 370) of the respondents acknowledged resorting
to sorry rather than Russian прости(те), извини(те) when
apologizing for minor or insignificant offense. And another 10%
of the participants reported sorry to better convey conventional
apology for the offense caused by a third party.
Sorry, thus, offers a different, half-hearted “underapology”, the
notion of which is alien to the Russian language. Having entered
Russian communicative space, the English-sourced apology
resource, has been appropriated to express a new, tenuous, type
of apology which did not constitute politeness norms in Russian
communication a decade ago.
Implicit instance of English-induced norms of politeness can be
traced in communicative acts of greeting and apology, which,
unlike in English, generally presuppose clear-cut distinction
between formal or informal direct address. Due to increased
English-mediated translingual contacts some Russian people
become exposed and over time used to equality being valued
more than status, and consequently, face a linguistic dilemma
when entering new to them communities of practice and not
knowing exactly what politeness background of the Hearer to
expect. Speakers opt for resorting to politically neutral linguistic
resources. They can be either the Russian language resources
(very limited in number), such as greetings добрый день,
доброго времени суток (good afternoon, good day) neutral in
terms of honorific form, or the resources of the language which
caused the linguistic fix in the first place, for example the
English-sourced hi or sorry, the latter being reported by 16 % of
the respondents to be chosen over Russian equivalents as it did
not produce a problem of choice between formal and informal
address.
So, neutral in terms of politeness language resources are
becoming noticeably widespread under the influence of
globalization. Cautious linguistic behavior of Russian-speaking
people testifies to their awareness of a wide spread of Englishinduced politeness norms across different communities of
practice. Such an awareness, in its turn, signals gradual inclusion
of English-based politeness forms into shared memory of a wider
community, which is a subject of further investigation and
evaluation.
Key words: politeness, English, globalization