Russian Language Studies

Textbooks are the basis for implementing the curriculum and an important support in teaching activities. They play an important role in foreign language teaching, representing teaching materials that combine the characteristics of the time, learning objectives, advanced teaching concepts, and patterns of self-learning. The aim of the research is to identify trends and problems in the sphere of preparation and publication of teaching aids for reading in Russian in China. The author analyzed 84 manuals on reading in Russian published in China over the last 30 years. Special attention was paid to the 4 most representative books published at different times. Comparative-typological method, as well as methods of induction and mathematical processing were used. The comparative analysis of teaching aids was carried out considering the aspects of the purpose of creation, structure, content. The features of universal (comprehensive) and professional-specialized reading textbooks, including auxiliary teaching materials are considered. The necessity of creating a series of high-quality textbooks is emphasized, and the ways of solving this problem are determined. The author has deeply explored the alternatives of composing Russian reading textbooks from the point of view of a system of multifunctional thematic content, integration of intercultural and national-specific elements, and multipolar learning.

The increasing tensions between the Russian Federation and the United States of America have exacerbated the already serious decline in numbers of students seeking to study Russian, as well as the concomitant elimination of many Russian language programs at both the K-12 and university levels. The purpose of the research is to consider the need to improve the preparation and quality of future teachers of Russian in U.S. public schools. This work draws on applied philosophical analysis and policy studies, as well as a review of existing Russian language and literature programs at major U.S. universities. Measures of relevant data are presented, showing a paucity of linguistic competence in Russian produced through current practice in the U.S. Implementation is suggested. A model five-year program is proposed for the preparation of future Russian language teachers in the United States. Based on the typical undergraduate curriculum, this model would involve coursework in three broad areas: general education courses (the liberal arts and sciences), Russian language and related courses, and courses concerned with pedagogy.

In the digital era, folk orthologs (language normalizers who are not professional in the quality of speech, the choice of criteria, and the codified norm) have received unlimited access to the electronic publication of their opinions, which has come to the attention of scientists. The relevance of the proposed topic is determined by the need to popularize traditional cultural values, in particular, knowledge of the Russian language. The purpose of the study is to find out the motives of folk orthologs and the norm criteria used in their rulemaking, degree of objectivity, the correspondence of their opinions to scientific ideas and the level of literacy in their statements. The research material was based on judgments about the language of non-professional linguists available at online forums (public dialogues) about the Russian language. The method of content analysis was used, including the search and selection of judgments of folk orthologs, as well as the analysis of linguistic material from the perspective of compliance with norms in linguistic dictionaries. The results of the study showed both the lack of knowledge of folk orthologs about the Russian language and their demand for this knowledge. The motives for their activities were identified - interest in the language and its protection, self-realization, leisure time, and also the main areas of activity of folk orthologs - rulemaking, and the search for norms in spelling, vocabulary and grammar. This knowledge made it possible to propose recommendations for a possible dialogue between scientists and folk orthologs.

Socio-economic changes, reforms of the pension system have transformed the perception of old age by Russian language native speakers. The authors deal with the dynamics of the semantic volume of the lexeme ‘pensioner’, caused by the above-mentioned extra-linguistic factors. The aim of the study is to describe the semantic transformation of the lexeme ‘pensioner’ representing the concepts ‘pensioner’, ‘pension’ and ‘old age’. The material of the research was the data of the National Corpus of the Russian Language for the period from 1995 to 2021, lexicographic sources, data of the associative experiment, which identified the conceptual, value-oriented and image-bearing components of the concepts ‘pensioner’, ‘pension’ and ‘old age’. The method of analysis and generalization of linguistic material from lexicographic sources, associative experiment, and the method of component analysis were used. The analysis of verbal elements reflecting cultural, traditional and value representations of Russian language speakers presented the dynamics of the semantics of the lexeme ‘pensioner’, its semantic transformation, which reflects changes in the Russian linguistic world picture. Semantic merisms identified as a result of contrastive analysis of potential associations allowed to present the semantic volume of the word considering the extra-linguistic data. As a result, the data were obtained, which can be used in lexicographic sources when defining the lexeme ‘pensioner’. Theoretical and practical approaches to modeling of Russian linguistic-cultural concepts are generalized. This reveals cultural and moral dominants of Russian language speakers and sacred meanings of the Russian culture.

The conceptual dyad “Life - Death” in the Russian linguistic picture of the world is analyzed. The relevance of the research is conditioned by the existential significance of the studied phenomenon in the axiological field of the Russian linguistic picture of the world. The aim of the study is to conduct corpus analysis of the conceptual dyad “Life” and “Death”. The research material includes 70 poetic units containing the nuclear lexemes “Life” and “Death” in the Russian National Corpus. The poetic units are semantically complete contexts of poems by Russian poets (M. Tsvetaeva, M. Voloshin, S. Esenin, Z. Gippius, etc.). Descriptive method, conceptual analysis, method of linguistic-cultural commentary, contextual analysis, corpus method were applied. It was concluded that the concepts “Life - Death” reconstruct the dominant features of the Russian linguistic picture of the world, which is characterized not only by qualitative heterogeneity, but also by a certain bipolarity in the subject's behavior (agenticity vs passivity, providentiality vs activity, etc.). Such semantic parameters of the concepts “Life” and “Death” were established as transience and uncontrollability of life; life as an element, where a person is not an active subject, but an object for external forces; transience of life and its unpredictability; belief in life after death; death as a transition to otherness. The explanatory context for adequate commenting of conceptual meanings is formed.

The relevance of the study is due to the lack of methodological complexes designed to develop linguistic intuition among foreigners studying the Russian language at pre-university stage. Foreign students at the initial level of education usually use linguistic intuition formed in their native language, but observations show that a full-fledged linguistic intuition in Russian-language speech communication is based on the automatic use of elements and constructions of the Russian language. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the need for consistent use of tasks that contribute to the automated speech skills and stimulate linguistic guess in the process of teaching Russian as foreign language. The following methods were applied: observation of the communicative activities of students learning the Russian language with the proposed methodology, analysis and synthesis of results, as well as observation in order to identify difficulties in achieving automaticity of speech skills and the use of linguistic intuition. The research was conducted at the elementary and basic levels of teaching the Russian language to Iranian students of medical and biological specialties at the Preparatory Faculty of the Kazan (Volga Region) Federal University. A methodology has been developed, based on the system of phonetic, lexical-grammatical and text tasks for classroom and independent work. The training complex uses elements of critical thinking to form and improve speech and cognitive skills that will help foreign students develop the ability to independently solve various communicative problems. Provided that tasks for developing intuition are regularly completed at classroom, it seems promising to achieve freedom of speech behavior of foreign students in communicative acts of various types.