Dynamics of parents' nominations in Russian speech culture

The subject of this article is the dynamics and change of vocal forms of address to parents in Russian speech culture during three historical periods: pre-Soviet (1700–1916), Soviet (1918–1991) and post-Soviet (1992–2016). The author analyses data from the National Corpus of the Russian Language and uses a specially developed programme. A particular focus is placed on the lexico-semantic, pragmatic and stylistic characteristics of vocatives, which serve to reflect socio-cultural changes and trends within Russian speech culture. The author conducts an investigation into the utilisation of vocatives as markers of social affiliation, and the subsequent dissolution of these differences over time. Moreover, the analysis encompasses their functions in family and non-family communication. The present study is founded upon a quantitative analysis of the frequency of use of different vocatives. The present analysis was conducted utilising the software program 'Counting and Comparing Word Frequency in Text Files'. The present programme enabled the analysis of files from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, which contained 250 million word uses in total. The analysis determined the corresponding vocatives and their frequency of use. The following conclusions are drawn in the paper: firstly, that the variety of vocatives is decreasing; secondly, that 'mum' and 'dad' now prevail; thirdly, that vocatives are no longer a marker of social belonging; fourthly, that there has been a differentiation in the use of vocatives in relation to one's own and other people's parents in the second half of the twentieth century; fifthly, that the number of appeals conveying affectionate attitudes to father and mother is decreasing; and sixthly, that vocatives that used to express respectful and affectionate attitudes are acquiring reduced or rude connotations.