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Article published In:
Language of Empire, Language of Power
Edited by Kees Versteegh
[Language Ecology 2:1/2] 2018
► pp. 112–127

The Russian-Chinese Pidgin

An attempt at the sociology of grammar

| European University at St. Petersburg

For a long period in history, the border between Russian Empire and China was a place of constant and intensive cultural and language contacts, which resulted in the emergence of the Russian-Chinese Pidgin. In the 19th century it was used by no less than one million people around the border with China, in an area of more than 3,000 kilometers long. The grammatical analysis of Russian-Chinese Pidgin reveals several features (e.g. using the imperative as a basic verb form), which can be interpreted not only linguistically but sociologically as well, because they are intertwined with the social positions of the contact groups and their attitudes towards each other. Interestingly, features found in the pidgin’s grammar have certain parallels in foreigner-directed talk used nowadays by Russian speakers when communicating with Chinese speakers in the border area, which may indicate there are rather stable linguistic stereotypes associated with these contact situations.

Keywords: language contact, Russian-Chinese Pidgin, pidgin grammar, interethnic communication, communicational asymmetry, linguistic stereotypes
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Brief history of the Russian-Chinese Pidgin
  • 3.Social context of pidgin usage
  • 4.The Russian-Chinese Pidgin’s lexicon and grammar: An overview
  • 5.Grammar and social asymmetry
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References
Published online: 9 November 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.18003.fed
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