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The article is aimed at describing a number of certain recurrent features of Russian English in the academic, educational and literary domains of the written discourse in English created by the Russian speakers of English. The article argues that Russian culture, identity and academic traditions are verbalized through a range of translingual practices, starting with the transference of the Russian punctuation and sequence of presenting ideas, including lexical variety and Russian-English hybrids, and finishing with the “nativization and localization” [Platt, Weber and Ho, 1984: 2–3] of the common lexical units, terms, urbanonyms included, and even classic world literature, which is retranslated into Russian English from Russian (for instance, Andersen’s Thumbelina and Brothers Grimms’ Snow white). The combination of analyzed characteristic features invariably turns Russian English presented in the written discourse into a potent tool for the Russian identity construction recognizable both to the Russian and non-Russian speakers of English, specifically to those who are familiar with Russian culture and academic traditions. Yet, written discourse created via Russian English might mislead the speakers of other Englishes in case they have not been exposed to this particular variety on a regular basis.

The article investigates the role and functions of English in the contemporary Russian hip-hop dance discourse. Although there is a raft of research focusing on the functioning of the English language within the landscape of hip-hop culture, hip-hop dance omasticon in Russia has not been analyzed or classified so far. A qualitative analysis and further classification of 335 proper names, denoting Russia-based international hip-hop contests (held in Moscow, Reutov, Yekaterinburg and Sochi in 2025) as well as dance studios and solo artists that participated in them, demonstrate that it is Russian English that is being utilized in the 90% of cases of the examined proper names. The key recurrent translingual practices based on the bilingual interplay of English and Russian languages, such as graphic, semantic, lexical and grammatical hybridization, nativization, and acculturation, are identified and described. Russian English is viewed as a vehicle of identity construction that is not aimed at projecting Western popular culture but rather at manifesting Russian culture. Hence, it targets primarily Russian speakers of English in Russia instead of international community.