Chinese loanwords in the novel Blue Lard by Vladimir Sorokin

Abstract

The article discusses the Chinese loanwords that appear in the novel Blue Lard by Vladimir Sorokin. The novel contains an allegory of the Russian language of the future. Most of the neologisms created by Sorokin in Blue Lard come from foreign words, including an abundance of Chinese loanwords. The author of the article analyzes the Chinese loanwords from the point of view of phonetics and semantics, points out the mistakes in pronunciation in the novel, when Sorokin uses Chinese words or expressions. The analysis also focuses on the aesthetics of the word “Mei guo”, which by pronunciation in Chinese refers to the United States, and the word “Hei long jiang”– as one of the provinces in China, or the Amur River, fl owing through the territory of three countries. Sorokin purposely changes their interpretation at the end of the novel to “beautiful country” and “Black Dragon River” in order to create the normal atmosphere of a dystopian society devoid of geopolitical boundaries. Sorokin introduces the word “dan huang”, which in the novel refers to the pro-China Russians and resembles the Chinese slangs “banana-man” and “egg-man” from the position of transcultural distribution. Moreover, in the course of the research, the author provides a comparison of Chinese loanwords with other foreign-language words used in the novel. By using Chinese loanwords as swear words, Sorokin literally commits linguistic violence. The fi nal conclusion is that Chinese loanwords can be seen as a product of the overlap of cultures, which appear in the Russian-language fi ction text. In addition, the Chinese loanwords with other Chinese elements give the novel a mystical oriental fl avor and an absurd tone.

Keywords

• vladimir sorokin
• blue lard
• chinese loanwords
• barbarism
• transculture