Interethnic Communication on the Russian-Chinese Border: Its Past and Present

Abstract:This article deals with the situation in the Russian-Chinese border area, with a special focus on the process of interethnic communication, both now and in the past. Two sets of data are used for analysis: written sources on the Russian-Chinese pidgin, which was in use in the region in the 18th and 19th centuries and until the end of the 1930s, and the author's field work materials gathered in 2008–10 in the Zabaikalskii territory of Russia and in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. The article reveals a similarity in the communicative strategies used by Russian and Chinese speakers in everyday communication at present with those reflected in the sources on the Russian-Chinese pidgin, a fact which implies the stability of linguistic (as well as ethnic) stereotypes.