Knowledge and usage of local lexis in Perm krai: 1980s - 1990s vs 2020

The article discusses the changes that have occurred over the past 30 years in the knowledge and usage of local lexical units in Perm Krai. In the 1980s - 1990s, T. I. Erofeeva carried out a study of native speakers’ competence in local lexis (localisms) and its dependence on the speakers’ social parameters. The questionnaire method was used for collecting the material, the ANOVA method was applied for its analysis. The authors of the article conducted a similar study using the same lexical material at the present time. Comparison of the results received in the 1980s - 1990s and in 2020 showed that the level of knowledge and usage of localisms in Perm Krai has markedly reduced; moreover, the number of social factors that have statistically significant influence on the knowledge and usage of localisms has decreased: at present, both the knowledge and the use of localisms are only affected by one of the factors considered - the ‘age’ factor. The received result can be explained by two reasons: firstly, opening of territorial and social boundaries in the current context leads to a decrease in the number of local lexical elements in speech; secondly, the set of Perm Krai localisms has changed over the past 30 years. In both cases, changes in the language and its use are observed.