What’s In A Russian English Username? A Case Study of Social Media Accounts Names

Abstract

The present paper examines social media account usernames of Russian speakers of English. It aims to classify over a hundred Russian English usernames (collected between 2016–2021) in terms of their structure, typical linguistic features as well as translingual and transcultural patterns that underpin their creation. This paper argues that Russian speakers of English consciously and / or subconsciously creating their usernames employ a number of translingual and transcultural strategies and practices that are aimed at retaining and transmitting Russian linguacultural identity within such global multicultural English-dominated domain as international social media. Apart from signalling Russian identity of their owners, the analyzed usernames demonstrate that Russian social media users being bilingual en masse (at least, at a graphic level), do draw on Russian English for communication within the landscape of this social media thus facilitating further formation of the social media Russian English.