Erzhen V. Khilkhanova
Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation
Abstract
The article examines the relationship between social networks (friendly contacts) and multilingual language practices of Buryat migrants in Western Europe employing field research materials. The main influencing factors are belonging to intellectual migration, the small size of the ethnic group and dispersed character of their settlement in the host country, as well as the changing nature of migration itself, which is now defined in terms of mobility, transculturalism and transnationalism. The consequence of these factors is the lack of a wide ethnic social network and a large (in particular, intergenerational) diversification of friendly contacts of Buryat migrants and their corresponding language strategies and practices. In general, the conclusion is made about the lack of communicative support for L1 (the Buryat language) and the implementation of the inner language and lingua franca functions by L2 (the Russian language) for the entire Russian-speaking community abroad. There is a high level of L3-n (foreign languages) proficiency in this group and a variety of strategies and practices for their use, which depend on migrants’ life plans, family status and the characteristics of modern migration in general.
Keywords: social networks, friendly contacts, migrants, Buryats, ethnicity, multilingualism, Buryat, Russian and foreign languages, Western Europe
For citation: Khilkhanova E.V. Languages and social networks in migration (the case of post-Soviet Buryat migrants in Western Europe). Sociolinguistics, 2021, no. 1(5) [online], pp. 113–129. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.37892/2713-2951-2021-1-5-113-129