The pronouns “сей” and “оный” (‘this’ and ‘that’) in N. Ya. Bichurin’s book “China. Its Inhabitants, Morals, Customs, and Education”: on the history of the linguistic debates of the 1840s

<jats:p>The article analyzes the functioning of the demonstrative pronouns “сей”, “оный”, “этот”, “тот” (‘this’, ‘that’) based on the material of N. Ya. Bichurin’s book “China. Its Inhabitants, Morals, Customs, and Education” (1840). The study is conducted using four chapters of different genres (a statistical report, a guidebook, a historical narrative, a description of a ceremony). The aim of the study is to reveal the genre-conditioned nature of the use of archaic and neutral demonstrative pronouns in a popular science text of the first half of the 19th century. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that, for the first time, a comparison of quantitative data with functional analysis of demonstrative pronouns has been carried out on the material of the multi-genre chapters of Bichurin’s book. The results show the absolute dominance of the pronoun “сей” in all chapters, which primarily performs an anaphoric function and ensures textual coherence. “Оный” is used only for textual correlation, “этот” tends toward contact anaphora, and “тот” tends toward classification. It is concluded that Bichurin’s choice in favor of archaic forms was functionally and genre-motivated rather than being a consequence of deliberate archaization. The results can be used in courses on the history of the Russian literary language and the history of Russian scientific texts of the 19th century.</jats:p>