Феномен русского просторечияThe Phenomenon of "Russian Urban Popular Language"

Abstract

This paper deals with the problem of defining Russian urban prostorečie (popular language), which in a collection of articles published by the Institute for Russian Language of the Academy of Sciences of the SSSR (1984) is given two principally different definitions, one based entirely on linguistic facts, the other combining linguistic and social features. The author attempts to demonstrate that the definitions cover two different phenomena, each requiring its own approach.