Abstract: The subject of the research is identification of deviations made by Russian-speaking students in articulation of English consonants. The object of the research is English lingua franca of representatives of the main Russian socio-demographic sector, Russian students who comprise the University community. The author examines such aspects of the topic as functioning of the English language as international contact language, English lingua franca of communication where participants, firstly, represent different initial languages and, secondly, one of them is used as the second language. The author focuses on analysing deviations in articulation of English consonants and explanation of of some regular particularities of Russian students' pronunciation. The research is based on the hypothesis of Ekman's differential markedness that relates pronunciation difficulties to the most marked structures. The main conclusions of the research are the following: 1) results of the analysis define nuclear markers of pronuncing consonants in speech activity of students that include devocalisation of final sonorous, dentalisation of alveolates, palatalisation, velar shift and reinforcement of /h/ spirant; 2)the author proves that informants transform English consonants into contiguous less marked structures based on similar articulation in the Russian language. The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that for the first time in the academic literature the author deffines dependence between the range of semantic markers transformation of sociophonetic variables and skills in the English language of Russian students studying at V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University.