Language contacts as a factor of ethnic identification

E article discusses the problems of ethnic identification in a multicultural environment. We consider the affiliation of the individual to a particular group in ethnoheterogeneous environment through language contacts of a constructive or destructive orientation. “Friend or foe” distancing helps to reveal the specificity of one's own culture, performs ethnoconsolidating function. The language unites representatives of the ethnic group, and language contacts in the system of ethnic identification serve as a means of interaction, which allows for the reflexive projecting of culture's sameness. By interacting the ethnic group determines the content of auto- and heterostereotypes that make up the group's ethnic identity. Positive types of interaction of linguocultures in modern multiethnic space allow actors to form and develop cross-cultural competence and, therefore, successfully function in various sociocultural contexts to achieve the objective of effective social interaction.