Attrition of Russian case morphology: a study of three Russian heritage speakers living in Finland
Vera Kuznetsova (277258) Master’s Thesis
Philosophical Faculty MDP in Linguistic Sciences Sociolinguistics University of Eastern Finland April 2021
Tiedekunta – Faculty Philosophical Faculty
Osasto – School School of Humanities Tekijät – Author
Vera Kuznetsova Työn nimi – Title
Attrition of Russian case morphology: a study of three Russian heritage speakers living in Finland Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –
Date
Sivumäärä – Number of pages
General Linguistics Pro gradu tutkielma Sivuainetutkielma Kandidaatin tutkielma Aineopintojen tutkielma
X 12.4.2021 65 pages + Appendix
Tiivistelmä – Abstract
The present paper attempts to investigate how the system of Russian cases among heritage language speakers living in Finland is influenced by the dominant language and explain the nature of such contact phenomena. Three heritage language speakers were interviewed, the interview data was collected and analyzed qualitatively. The findings show that some cross-linguistic influence exists within the domains of morphology and across inflectional categories. The amount of exposure to language input, age, an individual linguistic identity, the official status of a language and its prestige, and language attitudes in the family and society are among sociolinguistic factors that contribute to heritage language attrition. The finding showed that language attitudes play an important role in language maintenance among heritage speakers.
Avainsanat-Keywords
Heritage speakers, Language attrition, Case markings, Russian language in Finland
Tiedekunta – Faculty Philosophical Faculty
Osasto – School School of Humanities Tekijät – Author
Vera Kuznetsova Työn nimi – Title
Attrition of Russian case morphology: a study of three Russian heritage speakers living in Finland Pääaine – Main subject Työn laji – Level Päivämäärä –
Date
Sivumäärä – Number of pages
Yleinen Kielitiede Pro gradu tutkielma Sivuainetutkielma Kandidaatin tutkielma Aineopintojen tutkielma
X 12.4.2021 65 sivua + liite
Tiivistelmä – Abstract
Tämän pro gradu -tutkielman tarkoitus on selvittää, miten Suomessa asuvien Venäjää perintökielenä puhuvien hallitseva kieli vaikuttaa heidän venäjän kielen sijamuotoihin, sekä kuvata tätä kielikontaktien ilmiötä. Tutkimuksessa haastateltiin kolmea Venäjää perinnekielenä puhuvaa henkilöä ja kerätty tutkimustieto analysoitiin laadullisen tutkimuksen menetelmällä. Tuloksista on havaittavissa, että kontaktit kielten välillä johtivat muutoksiin kielten morfologiassa ja taivutusluokissa. Vallitsevan kielen altistuksen määrä, yksilön ikä, kielellinen identiteetti, kielen virallinen asema ja arvostus, sekä perheen ja yhteiskunnan suhtautuminen tutkittavaan kieleen saattavat vaikuttaa kielen perintöön sosiolingvistisinä tekijöitä.
Avainsanat-Keywords
Perintökielen puhujat, kielen kuluminen, sijamuodot, Venäjän kieli Suomessa
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Who is a heritage speaker? ... 7
2.1 Heritage language speaker or native language speaker? ... 7
2.2 Family choices in heritage language maintenance ... 7
3. Age in language acquisition ... 10
3.1 Acquiring heritage language grammar ... 10
3.2 Critical period and sensitive period hypotheses ... 12
3.3 Acquisition of Russian cases ... 14
4. Russian as a heritage language ... 16
4.1 Attrition and reduction of case morphology... 16
4.2 What motivates attrition or incomplete acquisition in heritage language? ... 17
4.3 Features of heritage Russian grammar ... 19
4.4 Previous studies of the case system in heritage Russian ... 22
4.5 A brief overview of the Russian case system ... 24
The nominative case ... 26
The accusative case ... 26
The genitive case ... 27
The dative case ... 28
The locative case ... 28
The instrumental case ... 28
5. Data and methodology ... 30
5.2 Participants ... 32
5.3 Data analysis... 36
6. Results of data analysis ... 39
6.1 Results ... 39
Anna’s interview ... 39
Leevi’s interview ... 42
Aleksi’s interview ... 48
6.2 Discussion ... 51
Research question 1: Are there any changes in the system of Russian cases in the speech of Russian heritage speakers living in Finland and using Finnish as the main language for communications? ... 51
Research question 2: If there are such changes, what could possible explain them? ... 53
7. Conclusion ... 55
References ... 58
Appendix I...66
List of Tables
Table 1: A brief overview of Russian cases and their functions ... 24 Table 2: A brief overview of main Finnish cases and their functions ... 25 Table 3: Brief information about interview participants ... 32
List of Abbreviations
ACC DAT F GEN INS L1
accusative dative feminine genitive instrumental first language L2
LOC M N NOM PL PREP PRS
second language locative
masculine neuter nominative plural preposition present
I am grateful to my thesis supervisor, Professor Mikko Laitinen, for sharing his extensive professional experience and providing all the support I needed.
I would also like to thank all the research participants for allowing me to collect data and showing sincere interest in my research.
1. Introduction
Russian Finns are an ethnic and linguistic minority in Finland. According to Finnish statistics, there were 88,057 Russian speakers living in Finland in 2019 (Statistics Finland - Population - Population Structure 2019). Immigration of Russian families to Finland has a long history.
There were several waves of Russian immigration to Finland. The oldest generation of Russian immigrants, who came to Finland in 1917–1922, spoke not only Russian but also learned other languages: they mastered German, Swedish, French, and Finnish. Russian-Swedish bilingualism prevailed in the cities. People immigrated due to different political, economic, and social reasons. Russian was actively taught and spoken in the family, in villages, and in cities (Muradov 2003).
More problems with preserving the Russian language and culture started after the Winter War in 1939–1940. Even though there was a need for Russian interpreters and translators during and after the war, Russia was perceived as an enemy country, thus Russian became the language of the enemy.
This all contributed to changing the language identity and the status of the Russian language in Finland as it became impossible to freely speak Russian in any environment and situation. Russian speakers faced a hostile attitude and opted for speaking Finnish (Liebkind 2004).
Immigration of Russian speakers to Finland was at its peak at the end of 1990s when people of Finnish origin (i.e. Ingrian-Finn repatriates) were granted the right by the Finnish government to move to Finland. Unstable social-economic situation in Russia, fear of unpredictable and unpleasant changes dramatically increased the number of Russian-speaking population in Finland. People moved to seek for better life and improve their employment opportunities (Protassova 2008).
A large governmental program provided support to immigrants and maintained integration programs. Many services were accessible to people in the Russian language, there were also organizations, clubs, courses, institutions that offered Finnish language courses. One of the most
useful services was aimed at assisting with job hunting: the services were provided in Russian as well (Protassova 2008).
Nowadays, new immigrants are trying to preserve Russian as a heritage language while actively trying to become new members of the Finnish society. A heritage language is a language acquired to a certain level of proficiency with limited language input because it is not the dominant language of the community. That is why it is not unusual for Russian immigrant families in Finland to grow children in a situation when they start learning a foreign language, Finnish, after moving to the country and settling down.
Even though Russian has no official status in the country and is the language spoken by a minority population, Finnish government protects human rights and linguistic rights and grants everyone the right to maintain their mother tongue. Every conversation about language rights is always intricately linked to the question of basic human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights protects the rights of every person to use their languages as means of communication and expressing their identity, belonging to a social group: “Local languages, especially minority and indigenous, transmit cultures, values and traditional knowledge...” (UNESCO 2017)
Therefore, linguistic rights cannot be separated from human rights, which is part of our identity: “The language is the most direct expression of culture; it is what makes us human and what gives each of us a sense of identity” (Press corner 2020).
Even though the connection between identity and language is strong, heritage language speakers might experience a decline in their command and even lose their languages skills totally. It is the most usual scenario that new immigrants are trying to develop fluency in Finnish to avoid social exclusion and support their children in acquiring Finnish. That is why the Russian language loses its exclusiveness and dominance as the main language spoken at home and within the Russian-speaking community.
The Finnish National Curriculum 2014 (POPS 2014: 87) grants children with a mother tongue other than Finnish and Swedish the right to be educated in their native language. Access to education in Finnish and Russian creates a perfect platform to develop and maintain bilingualism, create and strengthen cultural identity. These developments contribute to prevention of heritage language loss and attrition.
School and kindergartens offer education in Finnish and Russian. The biggest schools offering bilingual education are located in Helsinki, and in three cities in Eastern Finland: Imatra, Joensuu, and Lappeenranta. Even though the main language of instructions is Finnish, students can practice and learn about the Russian culture in bilingual classrooms. As a native Russian speaker, I had the honor to make my modest contribution to increasing interest in the Russian language by having teaching practice at the Finnish-Russian school of Eastern Finland in Joensuu. I was also invited to give some master classes on Russian traditions to another school located in Joensuu, called Karsikko.
Students expressed their sincere interest in learning about the Russian culture, they also had the opportunity to compare it to the Finnish culture and find some similarities. The class was assisted by two Finnish teachers who helped to draw a link between Finnish traditions now and 20 years ago and to show how many things have changed. This all created a warm atmosphere and helped to strengthen relationships between Russian and Finnish people, and also helped students to become more aware of the world around them.
After graduating from school in Finland, students can continue studying Russian at Universities. For example, the curriculum at the University of Eastern Finland is designed in a way that heritage speakers can study together with Finnish-speaking students.
Phenomena of interference in the second language (L2) due to the influence of the first language (L1) has always been in the center of research (Polinsky 2008, Montrul 2014, Gürel 2004).
Recently, researchers have started to take interest in investigating second language interference and contact phenomena and changes observed in the first language. Attrition of the first language might
be explained by the amount and type of language contact, the typological closeness of languages in contact, the architecture of the linguistic systems, the social environment, etc.
Polinsky (1997, 2006, 2008) and Montrul (2008, 2011, 2013) have contributed to studying language contact phenomena. Their research focuses mostly on studying language of heritage speakers. They study attrition and loss of the first and the second language, as well as incomplete acquisition. The main interest is in the nature of interlanguage and bilingual grammars; the linguistic selectivity of acquisition and loss; the reasons behind inability to reach proficiency in L1 or/and L2, as well as factors that cause such phenomena.
Pavlenko (2004) studies the system of Russian verbs of motion and finds that there is almost no change in it in the speech of Russian-English participants of the research. She explains such good preservation of the heritage language system by lack of similarities between Russian and English:
Russian verbs of motion is a separate category that does not have an equivalent in English. For example, the Russian ‘поехать’ is the same as ‘to set off’, ‘уехать’ corresponds to the English ‘to leave’, and ‘приехать’ means ‘to arrive’. In Russian, prefixes are added to the main verb to create a new meaning, whereas in English separate words are used.
Schmid (2004) finds that in the type of contact when languages have a similar system of cases (Russian has 6 cases and German has 4, and both languages have nominative, accusative, dative and genitive), a deviation in Russian case marking is observed in every fifth case. Therefore, languages that are typologically close to each other or share similar grammatical categories are more likely to have an influence on each other. In case of heritage speakers, this usually leads to attrition of the first language. This is supported by research works of other scholars: Schmid and Köpke (2007), Schmitt (2001, 2004), Gürel (2004), Hutz (2004).
Finnish and Russian language contact phenomena are studied by Horn (1997), who focuses on the cultural elements among Russians living in Finland; Leisiö (1998, 1999, 2001, 2006), who takes interest in studying code-switching, agreement, etc.; and Leinonen (1992, 1994), who
investigates the speech phenomena of bilinguals. Baschmakoff and Leinonen (2001), Protassova (2004, 2008) finds that Russian of heritage speakers often changes under the influence of Finnish.
The objective of this research is to investigate what changes the case system of the Russian language undergoes being influenced by the dominant language of the society. It is aimed at studying loss/partial loss of case agreement due to the first language attrition. For example, Russian speakers always use the locative case when they use the verb «купить» (to buy). The locative case in Russian is an equivalent to the inessive case in Finnish, however, the verb “to buy” works with the elative case in Finnish. The elative case shares part of its functions with the Russian genitive case. If Russian speakers use the Russian genitive case instead of locative with the verb “to buy”, it can be a clear sign of a transfer-induced deviation in the case system.
It seems likely that the Russian language is going to be influenced by the second language, which is Finnish in this research. There are several possible scenarios what might happen to the grammar of heritage Russian:
1. The system of Russian cases will not undergo any changes.
2. The system of Russian cases will be influenced by the system of Finnish cases.
3. The speaker will stop using the case system and will start using the words in their dictionary form.
Since Finnish has a complex system of cases, I argue that the Russian case system will be influenced by the system of Finnish cases. It seems unlikely that Russian speakers would stop using the case system as it constitutes an integral part of the language. This research is aimed at studying these phenomena among heritage speakers who started acquiring a second language at the age of puberty or later. The reasons for that are provided in Chapter 3.
To study attrition of Russian case morphology, the following research questions were formed:
1. What are the changes in the system of Russian cases in the speech of Russian heritage speakers living in Finland and using Finnish as the main language for communications?
2. What factors could possibly explain these changes?
Chapter 2 defines heritage speakers, talks about unbalanced bilingualism, and the importance of parental and family choices in maintaining heritage languages. Chapter 3 explores the role of age in language acquisition. Chapter 4 investigates Russian as a heritage language.
In Chapters 5 and 6, the research method and results of the data analysis are presented and discussed, while recommendations are made in the concluding Chapter 7.
2. Who is a heritage speaker?
2.1 Heritage language speaker or native language speaker?
For the purpose of this study, a heritage speaker is an individual who acquired grammar of their first language (L1) that was not the socially dominant language in the area that surrounded the speaker.
Heritage speakers can be described as “individuals who attain a high degree of fluency in L2, so it becomes their dominant language in life. Heritage speakers may have begun to learn the dominant language in early childhood at home and outside home, or they may have begun their second language acquisition at school” (Montrul 2013: 172).
A heritage language is different from a native language. A native language is acquired by a speaker at an early age, and the speaker usually achieves full fluency and proficiency in this language.
This language is the dominant language of the speaker’s environment: it is spoken not only at home but also by the majority of people in the current language community. This is a dominant language for the speaker.
Heritage language is the language which was acquired by the speaker to a certain level of proficiency (one can be fully proficient in the language or reach native-like proficiency) but which is not the dominant language of the surroundings. Thus, the speaker received limited language input while acquiring the language, being mostly limited to communications with family members and/or using it at school. The primary language of communication for heritage speakers is L2, which is the dominant language of the environment (Benmamoun, Montrul and Polinsky 2013).
2.2 Family choices in heritage language maintenance
As languages do not function in isolation, they are used in society to define their speakers and create part of their identity, it would be important to consider what influence family members and family traditions have on language learning and usage. The family can be defined not by blood relatives but
rather by people who share the same household, spend time with children, participate in caregiving and upbringing and are responsible for helping children with their daily activities.
Traditionally, there are several approaches that family could have when raising children in diverse language environments. “One parent – one language” approach is recommended by many researches as it helps children to differentiate languages and facilitates communications. This approach suggests that every parent should use just one language, which is their mother tongue, when talking to children to avoid problems in language acquisition. This is particularly important for young children but also helps teenagers to form their cultural identity (Grosjean 2010, De Houwer 1990).
This approach is, however, not recommended for parents raising children in an environment where one parent’s language is the language of the linguistic minority because it does not provide sufficient language input. Within time, a child might tend to refuse speaking in their heritage language (De Houwer 2007).
Another approach is using both languages, switching from one to another when needed, when the act of communication itself, as well as place, topic, and other factors determine what language will be used. Parents decide what language to use to speak to their children (Grosjean 2010).
Some parents might introduce the second language once the child has reached near-fluency in the first language. This is very likely to be rejected by the child, especially when the new language introduced is not the dominant language of the surroundings, because communications in L2 create unnecessary stress and difficulty. Most of the time, even if children understand the message, they would reject to respond to their parents in the same language, preferring to choose their mother tongue to answer (Wiley, 2001).
A common approach to choosing a language among immigrants, especially when both parents or all family members are fluent just in one language, is speaking L1 at home, and trying to speak L2 outside home. Parents’ intention is to help their children to learn to use a new dominant language and
develop a new linguistic and cultural identity. This is also dictated by parents’ fear that they children might be rejected by their peers if they are too different from them. Russians living in Finland are not a homogeneous group: some have been living in Finland for hundreds of years and developed their own way of speaking (Leisiö 2001). Others have moved to the country recently, and their language is different from groups who have been living here for a long time (Protassova 2004). This stresses the importance of linguistic identity and belonging to some group. Case studies presented in this research show that parents of three participants, Anna’s, Leevi’s, and Aleksi’s, had no choice but speak Russian at home, with the only exception in Anna’s family. Since code-mixing, code-switching, incomplete gender acquisition were studied before, this thesis looks into how heritage speakers use cases and the reasons behind this usage.
3. Age in language acquisition
3.1 Acquiring heritage language grammar
This research focuses on studying changes in the case system in heritage Russian. That is why it is important to consider the reasons why acquisition of grammar might be incomplete and what role age plays in language acquisition.
First language (L1) acquisition among heritage speakers might be incomplete due to a number of reasons. Dorian (1977, 1981) compares grammar of heritage language speakers with grammar of standard languages. The findings show that L1 speakers cannot be described as “full speakers” as the grammar they acquired deviates from the standard language grammar. Polinsky (1997, 2006), Montrul (2008, 2009, 2011), Rothman (2009) argues that simplified grammars found in heritage language grammars can be explained by the disruption of the language acquisition process of children.
It is not clear, though, at what age L1 is fully acquired in childhood. Montrul (2002, 2008, 2009) and Polinsky (2006) differentiate L1 attrition and incomplete acquisition. According to these studies, the key difference between these terms is as follows: whereas L1 attrition describes performance differences in a “fully acquired”, mature L1 grammar due to increased exposure to an L2, incomplete acquisition, on the other hand, shows when heritage speakers (often bilingual) are exposed “to less than optimal input conditions during the age of primary linguistic development (birth–4 years) and/or the period of later language development that takes place during the pre-school and school years (4–13 years)” when “many aspects of grammar may not reach full development and remain incompletely acquired” (Montrul 2009: 241).
Montrul (2009: 242) argues “that both incomplete acquisition and L1 attrition can affect different grammatical features in the same individual at the same time or later in life”. Language acquisition is not simply based on the amount of language. In other words, “frequency of exposure to input is not enough for a stable grammar to be acquired since not all exposure to input necessarily
involves processing of input for comprehension and it might even be less likely to involve processing for production” (Montrul 2008: 524).
So, if language acquisition does not only depend on the amount of input and its frequency, it is also important to take the age of the learner into account. “Under a view of the critical period, according to which the cortical representations subserving early L1 and late L2 acquisition are very different, exposure to a language early in childhood should have long-lasting traces in the neural circuits subserving language processing, representation, and use. This means that once completely acquired and stabilized, knowledge of the L1 should be very difficult to lose under normal circumstances in a dual language context, even when input is no longer available. However, in cases of early bilingual acquisition and development into adulthood, if input to the first languages is severely reduced or interrupted altogether during childhood, degree of language loss should also be a function of age” (Lenneberg 1967: 142).
For more than half a century, there have been many attempts to investigate how age influences bilinguality and language learning. The age of a learner has always been in the centre of attention in language learning, and researchers have been trying to see what influence it might have on the learning process. Lenneberg (1967) focuses on the importance of age in language acquisition and discovers that after the critical period acquisition might be incomplete. Cummins’s findings show that there must be a certain ‘threshold of fluency’ to guarantee complete L1 and L2 acquisition (1979).
Other researchers focus on the dependence of age and degree of acquisition and discover that the earlier acquisition starts, the higher chances of achieving linguistic fluency are (Genesse 1981;
Johnson and Newport 1989; Bialystok and Hakuta 1999). Abrahamsson (2012) also states that the age of onset is crucial in L2 fluency. Everyone agrees that age plays an important part in language learning. Scholars try to understand whether language acquisition is incomplete after the critical period for language learning, which is around puberty. The findings show that even though age is a factor that should be taken into consideration, it is not an overriding factor and other factors, such as
language attitudes and motivation to speak a language, might be crucially important to assess language acquisition results. Individual results of language acquisition vary from person to person, and everyone’s learning process is different.
Various researchers (Chiswick and Miller 2008; Johnson and Newport 1989; Uylings 2006) conclude that those who start learning a language in childhood achieve more prominent results compared to older learners. This seems to support the critical period hypothesis (Lenneberg 1967), which suggests that after a certain period of time language acquisition cannot be perfect. Lenneberg actively supports this hypothesis and set two critical ages for language learners: the lower one being 2 years old, the upper bound being at the age of puberty. Language acquisition after this critical age is considered to be incomplete (Uylings 2006). In other words, grammar and semantic proficiency cannot be reached.
Therefore, the age factor is to be considered as one of the core elements in language acquisition. It is assumed that language acquisition after a critical age cannot be complete. Therefore, different critical period hypotheses should be considered.
3.2 Critical Period and Sensitive Period Hypotheses
When investigating age as one of the factors affecting language acquisition, one needs to explore what influence age has on brain functions. Researchers base their conclusions on an assumption that brain development in the area of studying languages comes to an end after a certain age, which is usually around puberty (Krashen 1975).
Lenneberg (1967) claims that the neurological factor is one of the most crucial ones in the area of language acquisition. He suggested that a child should start to demonstrate proneness to their dominant hemisphere at the age of two. The elder the child becomes, the more lateralized language functions are; hence, children seem to have an advantage in learning languages at an early age due to the cerebral immaturity and plasticity of the brain (Krashen 1975).
Numerous evidence shows that after accidents children who experienced some brain injury can restore their speech abilities more quickly than adults due to brain plasticity (Lenneberg 1967).
Lenneberg (1967) argues that children with aphasia have greater chances of recovering from it successfully if they are younger than nine years old and the brain damage occurs in just one of the hemispheres. This seems to provide convincing evidence to “the earlier, the better” principle introduced by Penfield (Penfield and Roberts 1959). He argues that there are biological constraints on language acquisition after a certain age, therefore the earlier learners start to acquire the language, the higher their chances of successful acquisition are.
Lenneberg (1967) states that the critical period starts approximately at the end of the second year of life and finishes approximately when the child reaches puberty. He bases his critical period hypothesis on observing patients with brain lesions and specifics of their recovery processes.
“Hemispheric dominance or language specialization” (Lenneberg 1967: 66) diminished chances of full speech recovery. At the same time, language is not represented by speech only. Critical period of language acquisition overdue does not have influence on language areas, other than speech (Scovel 1969).
Krashen (1975, 1982) hypothesises that five years is a critical period for language learning as morphology, syntax, and pragmatics are affected by this age. However, there are cases of children aged more than five who were deprived of proper communication and exposure to language but managed to develop their language skills to a level that of their peers at the age of twelve. This does not support Krashen’s hypothesis (Jedynak 2009).
Mabila (2014) reports that ‘sensitive period’ term is more appropriate to use in situations of language acquisition as it sets different constraints on acquiring morphology, phonology, and syntax of the language.
Knudsen (2004) sees a difference between the critical and the sensitive periods. He described the latter as the period when a human brain is particularly ready to consume stimuli that would lead to acquiring language, whereas the critical period is characterized by the need for stimuli, without which brain would fail to function properly.
All these findings above show the importance of extensive language exposure before reaching teenage years, as “after puberty, or even earlier, loss of the L1 under attrition is highly unlikely. This indicates that a biologically or cognitively-determined maturational period unquestionably links both acquisition and attrition” (Montrul 2009: 146).
Therefore, this paper studies competence in L1 and completeness of acquisition among participants who started acquiring L2 around puberty since it significantly reduces the risk that the loss of L1 language might be associated with poor acquisition rather than influence of L2.
3.3 Acquisition of Russian cases
Acquisition of Russian cases (see a brief overview of the Russian case system in chapter 4.5) and the learning of the entire case-system is partially known from Makarova’s work (2012). Makarova shows the following order in the acquisition of case forms: nominative > accusative/genitive >
dative/locative > instrumental. In other words, the first thing that we acquire is how to express the subject (nominative) and the direct object (accusative).
Russian case marking is necessary to interpret relationships between the subject and the object in the sentence, thus the nominative and accusative cases are studied first. They help show relations between the subject and the direct object since it is one of the main functions of the accusative case.
The genitive case usually serves as a quantifier (or it modifies a noun). The main function of dative is to make indirect objects agree with the rest of the sentence.
Locative and instrumental cases are not considered to be structural, therefore they are the last ones to acquire. The locative case is a lexical case because it is always governed by a prepositional
phrase. The instrumental case expresses the agent of a sentence in the passive voice, or it might refer to a tool.
Native speakers acquire cases approximately at 2, but it takes much more time in order to finish acquisition of the whole system, and it happens when children go to school. They make almost no mistakes in the use of accusative and nominative at age 2, other cases are more difficult for children to acquire.
The role of animacy in the acquisition of case-marking is essential (Slobin 1966). Russian treats animate and inanimate direct objects in different ways: a possessive suffix -ин (-in) can be added only to animate nouns (кошкин – koshkin – cat’s; папин – papin – father’s).
Even though animate nouns seems to be acquired earlier, and function with all the cases, Russian adults speakers demonstrated in a series of experiments that case-marking played the most crucial role in making uttenrances (Kempe and MacWhinney 1999).
4. Russian as a heritage language
4.1 Attrition and reduction of case morphology
Bar-Shalom and Zaretsky (2008: 281) argue that the “loss of language-specific morphosyntactic structures, as well as the lexicon, is a hallmark of a ‘heritage language’”. Other studies also show that cases have partially lost their functions or disappeared in L1, when speakers were exposed to L2 in their daily lives. Groot (2005) studies attrition of case marking in Hungarian as spoken by immigrants, especially in the context of case optionality and differential object marking.
Montrul and Bowles (2009) study incomplete knowledge of differential object marking by Spanish heritage speakers raised in the United States in comparison with fully competent native speakers. Their findings show that optionality and more fine-grained semantic distinctions were lost in the heritage language. A research by Leisiö (2009) shows that the genitive case used for negation in the Russian language is a weakening grammatical feature that experiences attrition in heritage language.
One of the most prominent and thorough research is done by Polinsky (1997) who investigates American Russian, which is the language of second-generation Russian-speaking immigrants in the USA. The research findings show that speakers made a significant number of mistakes in gender agreement. They struggle with the use of prepositions, which leads to mistakes in case use since it is almost impossible to process the meaning of a Russian case without a preposition. Cases and prepositions often work together and create semantical units. Russian Americans often have problems trying to define the gender of nouns ending with a soft sign (these nouns can be either feminine or masculine). Since they cannot define gender correctly, they are unable to use the correct inflections, and in the long run they even gave up using endings and preferred to use nouns in the nominative case (dictionary form). Gender agreement triggers particular noun declension; thus loss of gender characteristics is to cause the incorrect usage of noun declensions.
Research done by Leisiö (2001) does not support this idea. Her findings show that Russian speakers living in Finland make errors with gender agreement when the noun itself is declined correctly (example from Leisiö 2001: 215-216).
(1) сторона моей папы - storona moej papy side my-F dad-M
'relatives on my father's side'
(the correct usage is: сторона моего папы - storona moego papy)
Thus, although speakers made mistakes in gender agreement, their case system functioned properly.
4.2 What motivates attrition or incomplete acquisition in heritage language?
The reasons behind language loss and attrition might vary. The potential reasons for such outcomes are many, however, some of the most possible scenarios are changing the amount and quality of language practice, insufficiency of input, and loss of motivation.
The importance of high-quality language input is hard to underestimate. As we are talking about heritage learners who studied L1 as children, their language proficiency developed only because of the satisfactory amount of language input. When they were exposed to L2, the amount of L1 input was very likely to decrease substantially. Therefore, L1 started to become structurally and functionally weaker than L1. It is important to take into account the input that heritage language speakers receive from their community as this helps maintain the native language. Montrul (2013) argues that if the input changed in the first place, this would inevitably lead to lack of mastery, eventually leading to lack of knowledge.
The question that we need to address is why the amount of input decreases. Most likely, this is closely linked to social and political factors, as well as the question of identity. Language is part of basic human rights to self-expression and belonging to a group. Failure to express one’s identity
through language would lead to tensions between social groups, which we can observe nowadays.
Social identities help to form the national identity; thus, it is essential and central to the well-being of the whole country. When speaking of identity, we consider one’s ethnicity, linguistic profile (languages someone speaks and fluency in every language, as well as command in every domain), a feeling of belonging to some territory, shared cultural beliefs, values, customs, traditions, expectations. Such identities are formed via sociocultural discourse, with language and culture playing the key role.
Language serves not only as a medium of communication, but also as a tool to pass on knowledge, beliefs, values to other generations through words, fairy tales, stories, idiomatic expressions and so on. This all is crucially important to form and maintain identity, which is always in the center of preserving and sharing linguistic heritage (Crystal, 2000).
To see what motivates people to maintain their heritage language, we can use Gardner’s (1985) definition of motivation: it is an individual desire and efforts in a certain activity and satisfaction that it brings. Individual’s motivation is based on many various factors:
1. Attitudes towards the language community;
2. Attitudes towards speakers of the same language;
3. Attitudes from speakers of other languages to the individual’s community;
4. Interest towards the culture of the language in question;
5. The need to use language daily at home and/or at work;
6. Seeing language as a competitive advantage in adulthood in job hunting;
7. Desire to maintain a high level of language fluency.
If Russian heritage speakers face aggression, are excluded from the community of the dominant language, or are not accepted for some other reason because of their first language, they
might not see effort in maintaining L1. Therefore, through time they would forget it due to the lack of practice.
Montrul (2014) proposes a different view of why heritage languages undergo changes.
Montrul argues that language change is internal and obeys universal principles that do not depend on the influence of L2 but happen naturally within. As a result, we can conclude that some innate component drives acquisition and attrition. However, in order to test this theory, one needs to exclude other factors that may contribute to heritage language attrition, such as insufficient input, for example.
This factor is almost impossible to exclude as heritage learners always face the issue of less language input.
4.3 Features of heritage Russian grammar
Features of Russian heritage grammar are studied by many different researchers, mostly by analyzing examples from corpus and through fieldwork with heritage speakers (Laleko 2007, Polinsky 2008).
Scholars have found that the system of Russian heritage grammar undergoes restructuring, for example, Polinsky (2008) argues that for some speakers, gender can be simplified to a two-component system: masculine and feminine. Some speakers stop using neutral and come to a binary system of gender on the basis on phonological forms, for example, they define ‘сито’ (sift) as feminine due to the reduction of the final sound, which makes the word sound as a feminine one. The word ‘дедушка’
(grandfather) would be used with feminine forms, even though the word is masculine, since it has a vowel at the end.
The case system also undergoes restructuring. Polinsky (1997) argued that heritage grammar switches from a three-case system (nominative, accusative, dative) to a two-case system (nominative and accusative) in heritage Russian. Therefore, the dative case is replaced with the accusative.
Another feature is the loss of the locative case, which is replaced with the nominative case.
Polinksly’s (1997) views are not supported by Isurin and Ivanova-Sullivan (2008) who do not find such changes to be typical. This raises a question whether the shift in the case system discovered by Polinsky is systematic.
Current research (examples from Laleko 2010: 64) finds evidence for support of Polinsky’s theory in the corpus. According to Laleko’s research, the nominative case can replace other cases:
• Locative
(2) Я читаю книжки о война и мир.
I read books about war-NOM and piece-NOM.
‘I read books about war and peace’.
The correct form is “о Войне и мире” (LOC).
• Dative
(3) Мама нужно помочь готовить торты.
Mother-NOM need help bake cakes.
‘One needs to help mother to bake cakes’.
The correct form is маме (DAT).
• Accusative
(4) Я никогда не читала “Война и Мир”.
I never read “War-NOM and Peace”.
‘I have never read War and Peace’.
The correct form is “Войну и мир” (ACC).
• Instrumental
(5) Я с бабушка и дедушка говорю по-русском.
I with grandmother-NOM and grandfather-NOM speak in Russian.
‘I speak Russian with my grandfather and grandmother’.
The correct form is с бабушкой и дедушкой (INS).
• Genitive
(6) Каждый год я читаю девять книги.
Every year I read nine book-PL-NOM
‘Every year I read nine books’.
The correct for is девять книг (PL-GEN).
Russian heritage grammar has been found to have a shift in case assignment and case agreement, which leads to changes in the system of possessive pronouns, adjectives, numerals, and so on. Polinsky (1997) argues that this signals the attrition of agreement, which eventually leads to loss of declension and conjugation paradigms in the language.
Prepositions in heritage Russian are found to have been influenced by language transfer as well. The most common outcome of such influence is the omission of the preposition while preserving the case. Such cross-linguistic transfers are found by Laleko (2010: 74):
(7) Субботу я и папа помогаю покрасить дом.
Saturday-ACC I and father help paint house.
‘On Saturday I am helping my father to paint the house’.
The correct form is “в субботу” (PREP Saturday-ACC).
However, not all prepositions are omitted, they might be replaced. Laleko (2010: 75) argues that it cannot always be explained by the interference from English:
(8) на пятом классе on fifth grade
‘in the fifth grade’
The correct form in Russian is “в пятом классе”, which literally means “in the fifth grade”.
The example above shows that even though the Russian and English languages have the same preposition to be used: in/в, a heritage speaker would opt for using another preposition – на, which corresponds to the English “on”. This phenomenon might be explained as these prepositions share the same semantic field: they express the same spatial meaning (Zemskaya 2001).
To sum up, Russian heritage grammar has several coexisting patterns and strategies, which proves that heritage language is a multidimensional and complex phenomenon.
4.4 Previous studies of the case system in heritage Russian
Polinsky’s research of the case system in American Russian has made a great contribution into the understanding of attrition of heritage languages in contact. Understanding what factors might lead to language attrition helps understand how two languages in contact influence each other and what factors are crucially important for maintaining language competence: “The complex phenomenon of heritage language competence is shaped by several phenomena: incomplete acquisition, reanalysis due to attrition, language transfer, and possibly other factors” (Polinsky 2011: 324).
The case marking system in American Russian undergoes a change in declensional classes which leads to the changes in the nominal paradigm. One of the important distinctions of American Russian case paradigm is between the unmarked case (corresponding to the nominative in standard Russian) and the marked case. With nouns, the unmarked case is used for subjects, objects, and objects of most prepositions. With pronouns, the situation is more complex. The most commonly used marked case, which corresponds to the accusative in standard Russian, is used to encode the indirect object; cf. the forms of 'old man' and 'me' in (example from Polinsky, 2006: 215):
(9) Он показывает картина старика.
He shows painting-NOM old-man-GEN
'He shows the painting to the old man’. (The correct forms are: картину-ACC старику-DAT).
Despite the apparent chaos of the case forms occurring in American Russian, a general pattern of argument case shift can be identified. This pattern involves a general decline in the number of case forms and a reanalysis of the salient cases as follows:
dative -> unmarked case -> accusative -> nominative
This turns American Russian into a language with a two-case system: the unmarked case and the case of the second object (goal). The nominative of Full Russian assumes multiple functions, and the accusative is used as the case of the indirect object (goal).
The important question is whether the reduction of cases in American Russian can be explained by the transfer from English, with its extremely shallow case system, or is due to the more general processes of incomplete acquisition (Campbell and Muntzel 1989). If Russian speakers use reduced case system when Russian is in contact with a language with a much more complex case structure, it might tell us of language death. Campbell and Muntzel argue:
“An ideal testing situation would be one where Russian is influenced by a language with a richer case system. If in such a hypothetical situation Russian speakers also used a reduced case system, language death processes would emerge as a valid reason for reduction” (1989:182).
Leisiö's work on Finland Russian (2009) is one of the few studies comparing case changes in Russian under the influence of another case-rich language. Leisiö's speakers overall seem to be more proficient, but even they show a certain degree of case loss and of the predictable analogical levelling.
That suggests that some general patterns of attrition or incomplete acquisition may play a role in the case shift.
4.5 A brief overview of the Russian case system
The purpose of this overview is not to provide a full and in-depth description of all the cases in Finnish and Russian and how they correlate to each other but rather compare these systems and see where they share the same functions, and where we can see significant differences. These differences will help identify possible problematic areas for the speakers of two languages. The overview will be based on defining Russian cases and comparing their functions to the Finnish system.
The system of cases is closely linked to morphology and syntax of the Russian language.
Every case serves a number of fundamental functions. Officially, the Russian system of cases consists of 6 elements: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, and locative. However, there is also the vocative case, which will not be presented in this overview.
The table below provides a brief summary of Russian cases and their functions (Cubberley 2002: 109)
Table 1: A brief overview of Russian cases and their functions
Case Main functions
Nominative expresses the subject or unconnected, parenthetic reference
Accusative expresses the direct object; duration (‘for how long’); limitation of time (‘in how long’); motion and destination or goal (‘to’),
Genitive expresses possession (‘of’); negation; separation; absence; partitive function Dative expresses the indirect object (‘to’) or recipient (‘for’); movement in a general
direction (‘towards’)
Locative expresses location (with prepositions)
Instrumental expresses instrument or tool; works with certain prepositions (‘with’, ‘above’,
‘below’)
Cases play one of the main roles in defining relationships between nouns or nouns phrases and verbs. Some verbs may require a particular case to be used with it, other verbs might work with multiple cases.
Even though Finnish belongs to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages and is quite different from Russian, cases in Finnish sometimes have the same functions as the Russian cases. A brief overview of the Finnish cases and their main functions are provided in table 2 below (Karlsson 2018):
Table 2: A brief overview of main Finnish cases and their functions
Case Main functions
Nominative expresses the subject
Genitive expresses possession; is used in ‘must’ sentences
Essive expresses a role “as”
Partitive expresses partitive function
Translative expresses transformation of an object
Inessive expresses location (“in”)
Elative expresses movement “from”
Illative expresses movement “into”
Adessive expresses a “nearby” location; a tool; possession (with animate nouns)
Ablative expresses movement “from”
Allative movement in a general direction (‘towards’) Accusative expresses the object or target of an action
The instructive, abessive and comitative cases are not studied in this paper.
4.5.1 The nominative case
The main function of this case is naming things. Words in the nominative case are presented in the dictionary form. In the sentences, they are used as grammatical subjects.
The Finnish nominative case has the same function: Kissa on talossa. – Кошка дома. (The cat is in the house).
One of the striking differences between the Russian and Finnish case system is the partitive case. It is not present in the Russian case system but can express the subject and be equivalent to the Russian nominative when one is not sure of the amount: He ovat opiskelijoita. – Они студенты.
(They are students).
Partitive is also used in “I have” constructions, which corresponds to the Russian nominative as well: Minulla on ystäviä. – У меня есть друзья. (I have friends).
4.5.2 The accusative case
The accusative case is one of the most frequently used cases in Russian. Its main function is to express directionality or extension (Jakobson et al. 1984). Accusative works with transitive verbs and is used to express an indirect object. Another function of this case is to define movement towards something.
Three Finnish cases correspond to the Russian accusative:
The partitive case: expresses an object and shows that the action is not complete Minä luen kirjaa. – Я читаю книгу. (I am reading a book).
The accusative case: shows that the action is complete and/or defines a whole item Annan sinulle kirjan. – Я дам тебе книгу. (I will give you a book).
The illative case: indicates a movement into something
Matkustan Moskovaan. – Я еду в Москву. (I am travelling to Moscow).
4.5.3 The genitive case
The genitive case has several main functions: it is used with negations, quantities, and possessive structures.
Genitive is used with the negative particle “не”, the word “нет” and with negated transitive verbs, especially if these verbs belong to the group of perceiving verbs.
Adverbs of quantity (such as, much, many, a lot of, a few, a little, some, several, and many others), as well as numerals require the word following them to be used in genitive.
Another common function of the case is possession, and the possessor of something must be used in genitive form.
Here are the Finnish cases that correspond to the Russian genitive.
The elative case: describes a movement from somewhere
Oppilaat palasivat koulusta. – Учащиеся вернулись из школы. (The students returned from school).
The genitive case: used to indicate possession and in necessity sentences Marjan täytyy opiskella. – Марье надо учиться. (Marja has to study).
Tämä on Jukan kuppi. – Это чашка Юкки. (This is Jukka’s cup).
The Ablative case: expresses the meaning “from somewhere, someone, or something”
Odotan apua Veralta. – Я жду помощи от Веры. (I am waiting to get some help from Vera).
The abessive case: expresses the meaning “without someone or something”
On parempi elää velatta. – Лучше жить без долгов. (It is better to live without debts).
The adessive case: shows who possesses something
Minulla on ongelma. – У меня проблема. (I have a problem).
4.5.4 The dative case
The main function of the case is expression a physical or psychological state, being; it is also used to express obligation.
The only Finnish case that corresponds to the Russian dative is the allative case: it expresses the goal of a verb of motion, where the motion is directed “towards” someone or something.
Minä annan lapsille karkkia. – Я дам детям конфет. (I will give some candy to children).
Bussi menee asemalle. – Автобус направляется к станции. (The bus is heading towards the station).
4.5.5 The locative case
Locative has two primary functions: it shows where something or someone is located (always with prepositions), and it is also used with the preposition “about” (for example, in expressions like:
think about, dream about, talk about, etc.)
Two Finnish cases correspond to the Russian locative.
The elative case: Me puhumme hänestä. – Мы говорим о нём. (We are talking about him).
The inessive case: Me asumme omakotitalossa. – Мы живём в своём собственном доме.
(We live in our own house).
The adessive case: expresses the meaning “something is located on something else”
Kissa on pöydällä. – Кошка сидит на столе. (The cat is on the table).
4.5.6 The instrumental case
The main function is to express how or with the help of what tools/means something is done.
Instrumental serves an agent of an action, especially in passive constructions.
Several Finnish cases correspond to the Russian instrumental case.
The translative case: expresses the meaning of becoming someone or something.
Haluan tulla insinööriksi. – Я хочу стать инженером. (I want to become an engineer).
The essive case: expresses roles, when someone acts as someone Hän toimii kuljettajana. – Он работает водителем. (He works as a driver).
The comitative case: denotes accompaniment
Hän tuli vaimoinsa ja lastensa kanssa. – Он пришёл с женой и детьми. (He came with his wife and children).
5. Data and methodology 5.1 Research instrument
Sociolinguistic interviews were used to collect the data for current research. The choice of interview is justified by two main factors. Polinsky (2008b) faces difficulty with her research when trying to collect valuable data from heritage Russian speakers in America. Psychological reasons here is what she writes:
“When I first started working on heritage languages about ten years ago, I approached the work as a standard “fieldwork experience” and constantly tried to obtain production data from these speakers and to test their grammaticality judgments. It took many years and many frustrating efforts to understand that this was the wrong approach. In heritage speakers, especially low proficiency ones, we are dealing with an extremely reluctant population who are not willing to speak or expose their insecurities in a grammaticality judgment task (GJT).
This reluctance is probably due to a number of factors, some of which are purely psychological (fear of being wrong, insecurity in one’s judgments, greater confidence in the dominant language, difficulty with lexical access, association between the heritage language and “unsophisticated” childhood communication at home, etc.” (2008:13)
It was crucially important to create a comfortable atmosphere for interviewees because "the speech elicited in free, oral production with attention focused on communication, rather than form, would provide a more valid sample for studying acquisition of cases" (Thompson 1980: 44). All four participants were interviewed in Russian in a comfortable and quiet environment and there was no set limit for the duration of the interviews. An average duration of every interview was 1.5 hours. All the answers were recorded with an audio recording device, with prior written permission received from the participants. Even though participants gave their permission to use their real names in the
study, pseudonyms are used to protect their privacy and give them extra guarantee that even if they make many mistakes, nobody will be able to guess who they are.
All the participants were aware of the aims of the study and signed a consent form (see Appendix I). At the beginning, they felt insecure about their language abilities. That is why one of the main objectives of the interviewer was to make all the participants feel relaxed and comfortable so that they would speak naturally and not avoid using language units they were unsure of. In order to eliminate the negative effect of the observer’s paradox and turn a formal situation of an interview into a casual conversation, the interview gave sample questions to the participants in advance to give them an example of what interested the interviewer. Here are examples of such questions which were asked by the interviewer spontaneously:
1. Tell me about your brightest childhood memory.
2. Do you have any family traditions? How do you celebrate Christmas/New Year?
3. Did you like going to school? Why/why not?
4. What was your favourite game as a child?
5. Tell me about your career choices and career path.
Even though participants were given questions in advance, the interviewer’s goal was not to receive answers prepared “in advance” at home, but rather encourage the participants to speak emotionally so that they would forget of the aim of the study and focus on sharing their life experiences.
The majority of questions were open-end questions. The interviewer also actively participated in the discussion, giving some feedback, expressing feelings, doubts, concerns, asking extra questions to clarify unfamiliar terms. This all served the purpose to create a natural dialogue and minimize stress as much as possible.
After the warm-up questions that comforted the participants, the interviewer asked more questions about work, friends, hobbies, friends and family. The participants were free to share their thoughts and were not stopped by the interviewer at any time.
5.2 Participants
Three participants were interviewed for the purposes of this study. Pseudonyms Anna, Leevi, Aleksi will be used in order to protect their identity. Their native language was Russian, they all studied the language and actively used it before puberty. Anna, Leevi and Aleksi moved to Finland and started to actively use Finnish as the dominant language during their teenage years. At the moment, they all reside in Finland permanently, their daily communications are mostly in Finnish. The speak Russian only with their friends and relatives who do not speak Finnish.
Table 3: Brief information about interview participants Participant Brief information
Anna Born in 1988 in Leningrad, USSR. Mother speaks Finnish, father speaks Russian. Moved to Finland aged 11.
Leevi Born in 1981 in Tartu, Estonia. Mother speaks Russian (single parent).
Moved to Finland aged 10.
Aleksi Born in 1988 Petrozavodsk, Russia. Both parents speak Russian. Moved to Finland aged 12.
Anna
The interviewee was born in 1988 in Leningrad, USSR (now Saint-Petersburg in Russia). Anna’s mother is Finnish, and her father is Russian. Anna was raised in a Russian-speaking environment and went to a Russian-speaking kindergarten and the started school at age 6. Anna’s father spoke a bit of Finnish, but the family communicated primarily in Russian. Anna’s mother spoke Finnish when she was alone with her daughter.
The family moved to Finland in 1999, when she was 11. After that, Anna’s life changed dramatically as she found herself in a Finnish-speaking environment. Even though she spoke Finnish since her mother is a native Finnish-speaker, she never had such a significant amount of language input in her life before. Anna was a shy and reserved child and had to face bullying at school. Children teased her because of her surname (Anna has a typical Russian surname), which made her feel more reserved and unwilling to cooperate.
However, time went by and thanks to her family support, she was able to graduate from school with excellence and continued to study at the university to become a doctor. At the moment, she lives in Helsinki and works as a general practitioner at a local clinic. Anna is proud to be speaking two languages and provides services in Finnish, Russian and English.
When I was a having a conversation with Anna and asked her if she ever felt like “cutting off” her Russian past and becoming a true Finn, she said that she had such thought when her family just moved. She could not understand why children had so much aggression towards her even though she looked Finnish and spoke Finnish.
However, it was her father who truly had a positive influence on her life and helped her preserve the Russian language and culture. Anna had a special connection with her father who was always very supportive. He spent a significant amount of time with Anna in her childhood as he was struggling with looking for a job because his Finnish was poor at that time. He picked her up from
school, cooked for her, played games, read Russian books to her, etc. She remembers these sweet moments of her life with gratitude and says that this is something that made her feel proud of her origin later once she overcame the difficulty of starting school in Finland.
At the moment, Anna considers herself to be half-Russian, half-Finnish. Her daily communications are in Finnish. She has some Russian-speaking friends and Russian-speaking customers but these are few.
Anna felt hesitant at the beginning of the interview as she did not visit Russia for a long time and was feeling insecure about her command of Russian. Her motivation to participate in the interview was to help raise awareness of problems that people with a migrant’s background might have after moving to Finland. She also expressed hope that it would help teachers to develop more sympathy towards bilingual children.
Leevi
The interviewee was born in 1981 in Tartu, Estonia. The only language used at home was Russian because his mother is a native speaker of Russian, his father left the family when Leevi was 1 year old. Leevi also had one grandmother who would babysit him while his other was a work.
Russian was also the language of the surrounding environment: Leevi remembers that he almost never heard people use any other language than Russian.
Leevi went to school at the age of 6 (classes were held in Russian), but the family had to move to Finland when he turned 10. The interviewee started learning Finnish at that time: he attended a Finnish school but spoke Russian with his mother at home.
He remembers that he was an active child who was curious about the world around him, and who would have a good ear and learn foreign languages by listening to them. Leevi quickly made friends and felt accepted by the society. His life was marred by a very unpleasant incident at school
when one of the teachers treated him and other students inappropriately. This led to a public scandal and the teacher went to prison but the litigation lasted for two years. Even though it was a stressful moment, Leevi said that he had never felt so united with his classmates before. Parents and children united against the common enemy, communicated with each other, and provided moral support.
Regardless of the negative nature of the incident, it had a positive effect on Leevi’s life: he developed strong bounds with the society and felt empowered by that.
At the moment, this participant works as a film director and a script writer. Characters in his movies speak Finnish and Russian. He thinks in Finnish and 90% of his daily communications are in Finnish as well. Leevi also speaks English, which he uses when traveling to international film festivals. He permanently lives and works in Finland and travels to Russia when he has a project.
Leevi was eager to help me with the interview. Maybe this can be explained by the nature of his work activities as he is used to giving interviews. One of the most common questions he is asked is why he makes movies about the history of USSR and what connection he has to this topic personally. He is always happy to share his experiences and feels that he has the right to talk about history as his family is part of this “Soviet heritage”. He sees his mission in exposing the vices of society so that the terrible episodes of history will never repeat.
Aleksi
Aleksi was born in Petrozavodsk in 1988 in a Russian family. His name at birth was Alexey but his parents decided to change his Russian name after the family moved to Finland because there were afraid that he would not be accepted by the Finnish society. On the other hand, they also wanted to keep it close to his real name not to stress the child. Aleksi is one of variations of the name Alexey, which is used by family members and friends to address a child.
The family moved to Lappeenranta in 2000, when Aleksi was 12. He does not know a lot of his family history as his parents were forced to move to a foreign country seeking a better life. Once
