Archaic words in the speech practice of a modern city (stratificational analysis)

The article discusses the realization of archaic words in the speech practices of a modern city. The observations are based on experimental data. The process of actualization of archaic words in the language is determined by the analysis of two editions of S.I.Ozhegov's Dictionary of the Russian Language. The renovation of the archaic words shows liaisons between structure-language and social factors, which is demonstrated by two experiments. Social stratification explains the usage of archaic words in students' speech. The experiments reveal that the students know 1.7 more archaic words than they use in their speech. In conclusion, the author presents a socio-cultural model of speech behavior showing the knowledge of an archaic word and its usage in speech determined by the speaker's belonging to a range of social strata: age, sex, place of birth, education, profession and gender.