Eestivene keel(evariant): kas samm segakoodi poole?
Russian-Estonian Language (Variety): a Step Towards a Fused Lect?

Summary/Abstract: The study is concerned with Russian-Estonian bilingual language use. It is based on recorded interviews with eighteen Russian-speaking first year students of Tallinn University, a questionnaire on self-report of language use and spontaneous everyday language practices. It seems that Peter Auer's model – from codeswitching via mixing towards fused lects – that combines conversational and grammatical points of view is the most appropriate for analysing the students' Estonian-Russian language (variety). The main focus of research is on convergence in Russian sentences, most frequent lexical borrowing of Estonian items into Russian and the use of Estonian pragmatic particles in monolingual Russian speech. It is shown how the various levels of language work together to achieve convergence of two systems. Estonian pragmatic particles are used in Russian speech in order to express politeness, solidarity, emotions, irony etc. Special attention is also paid to double marking of certain grammatical features by functionally equivalent but structurally divergent strategies. These issues are considered in relation to the emergence of a new Estonian-Russian fused lect.

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