Russian Speech Culture: Russian As A Foreign Language

Abstract

The article discusses issues of Russian speech culture of the XXI century. The research subject is features of Russian speech culture in everyday, business, public fields and during lessons of Russian as a foreign language. The article aims to study linguoculturological features of the Russian language: value dominants of national linguistic consciousness, national specifics of speech behavior of native speakers, Russian paremiology, and analyze various approaches to the study of semantic and pragmatic characteristics of violations committed by foreigners in oral and written speech, which will allow students to develop methods for describing Russian as a foreign language for practical analyze features of text perception. Special attention is paid to the rhetorical aspect of the study of the elite type of personality as a model and the use of the communicative method for teaching Russian as a foreign language. The lnguistic, textual space is expanding, but very significant cultural texts drop out of it. Meanwhile, the requirements for professionals include the following criteria: ethics, intelligence, wit, memory, aesthetics, reading, thinking about what is read, creating original texts of different genres.

Keywords: Rhetoricdialoguespeech culturestyleRCTRussian

Introduction

The research subject is features of Russian speech culture in everyday, business, public fields and during lessons of Russian as a foreign language. At the end of the XX – beginning of the XXI centuries, monographs and articles by Annushkin (2010), Mikhalskaya (2019), Verbitskaya (2000) dealt with this issue. The book by Mikhalskaya “Rhetoric” was written on the basis of Russian elite speech close to a classical Pushkin literary norm (Mikhalskaya, 2019).

Problem Statement

The society needs model elite speech. According to Annushkin (2010), “the linguistic life of modern society is sometimes glamorous, sometimes aggressive, but we all cannot help but see and feel how a new information world, a new lifestyle is created by the word. The questions “where do we go? how?” issues of a new type of speech” (Annushkin, 2010, p. 13). In our opinion, oral public Russian speech has not been studied; there has been no emphasis on the need to study model literary speech in a rhetorical aspect. We proceed from well-defined theoretical and practical premises. A speaking person should be aware of what type of speech culture he has learned (elitist, medium-literary, colloquial); how rich his vocabulary is; whether he can choose syntactic constructions and ways of verbal expression of emotions; whether he knows principles of cooperation, has his own individual style.

Research Questions

The people's speech culture is a deep and multidimensional concept, embracing both the national language and ethnic features of the linguistic picture of the world, customs, rules of behavior. They are reflected in cultural texts of various genres. Along with universal human qualities reflected in any speech culture, there is something that is characteristic of speech culture of one people. Each nation has developed its own mentality (in Russia it is the soul of the people, the Russian world). And if the English language developed under the influence of the Latin culture, oriented to the language of law, legal accuracy, pragmatism of ideas and strict adherence to the law, ancestors of the Russian language are Greek and Old Slavic as languages of philosophy and morality which influenced on the tendency to philosophical dialogue and the search for truth. The national picture of the world is manifested in concepts, proverbs, sayings, aphorisms. Let us give some examples: Russian speech culture (Russian stove, Russian bath, Russian samovar, Russian spirit, Kursk nightingale, Astrakhan watermelon, etc.); Turkish speech culture (Turkish sofa, Turkish coffee); African speech culture (African heat, African passions); English speech culture (foggy Albion, good old England, English costume, safety pin); Chinese speech culture (Chinese porcelain, Chinese lantern, Chinese umbrella, Chinese ceremonies); Indian speech culture (Indian guru); Polish speech culture (proud, arrogant like a Pole); German speech culture (German pedantry, German shepherd); French speech culture (French love, elegant as a Frenchwoman); Italian speech culture (Italian marriage, Venetian glass); Finnish speech culture (hot Finnish guys, Finnish bath); American speech culture (American uncle, American humor); Austrian speech culture (Viennese waltz); Cuban speech culture (Cuban cigars, Havana tobacco); Latvian speech culture (Riga sprats, Riga balsam).

Each nation is guided by its own system of values and cultural attitudes, which must be taken into account when studying Russian as a foreign language. This does not prevent representatives of different speech cultures from entering into dialogue, because “nothing of what is included in human experience is left without discussion” (Rosenstock-Hussie, 1995, p. 82). The dialogue takes place “in an atmosphere of somnolence, empathy”, because dialogism, according to Bakhtin, is the comprehension of meanings. It is a rhetoric focused on spiritual improvement. A rhetorical word allows you to solve complex problems (thoughts generate words, and words – actions). The rhetorical dialogue is different from the everyday dialogue, it is based on cultural traditions and laws of dialectics.

The single speech world is many-sided and priceless, associated with exemplary texts of previous eras. The high level of education of famous personalities creates conditions for generating original texts, makes us pay attention to the interaction of texts, discourses.

The reference to the style of changing life, a new phenomenon of human consciousness, the style of modernized behavior focused on new communicative technologies became traditional. It is important to remember about the need to preserve traditional values. In modern TV dialogs, an appeal to the “golden shelf”, the “golden hundred” of the individual is made. What a person reads determines his image and style of behavior.

The methodology of teaching Russian as a foreign language is based on classical sources – the conversations of Socrates with students presented in the Plato’s Dialogues (on benefits of justice and injustice, true and false literature, the role of poetry in education, wisdom, courage, knowledge, military duty, the role of philosophy in an ideal state, virtue, immortality of the soul, etc.), “Rhetoric” by Stagirit Aristotle, “Tusculan Conversations” by Mark Thulius Cicero, consisting of five books – «About the contempt of death", “On Overcoming Pain”, “On Consolation in Woe”, “On Passion,” “On Self-Enforcing Virtue.” The emphasis is placed on spiritual and moral values. Information society puts forward a need to live and work according to the market laws, and genuine speech art should rely on spiritual, moral, ethical and aesthetic values, traditions and cultural memory.

Model new and unique texts can be created by worthy speaking personalities with a rich cultural memory and experience in public communication. Bright public dialogues – television interviews with prominent figures of culture, art and science can be heard on the channel "Culture", in the program "White Studio" by Zlatopolskaya (2019).

Purpose of the Study

The article aims to study linguoculturological features of the Russian language: value dominants of national linguistic consciousness, national specifics of speech behavior of native speakers, Russian paremiology, and analyze various approaches to the study of semantic and pragmatic characteristics of violations committed by foreigners in oral and written speech, which will allow students to develop methods for describing Russian as a foreign language for practical analyze features of text perception. It can solve problems of professional communication and increase the level of knowledge of foreign languages.

Research Methods

• The method of contextual analysis of linguistic phenomena

• The descriptive method with its main components – observation, systematization, classification, generalization, interpretation

Findings

Speech behavior of public people should be a model for other people. This applies to the correct pronunciation and observance of the norms of the Russian literary language, and their ability to intonate and speak well. Correct Russian speech is a requirement for journalists, TV presenters and those speak on TV. Editors and publishers need stylists with a good literary taste. For school books, a corpus of the best texts of Russian and world literature should be created. A compulsory school subject should be classical rhetoric. A novice speaking personality needs a pattern. When teaching a language, the priority should be an elitist language representing the classical Pushkin literary norm cultivated by the Russian elite. None of us is a rhetorical model, but for each of us, language is the subtlest instrument of self-expression. The word creates our life. Life is determined by language.

The peoples of the USSR and the CIS were bilinguals. The Russian language was language of education and science.

The uniqueness of the Russian language is in the uniqueness of its origin and development. For example, in English, 70 % of words are from Latin and French. The correlation with Latin culture determines the picture of the English-speaking world: the desire for legal accuracy of formulations, pragmatism of ideas. The ancestors of the Russian language are Greek and Church Slavonic languages. These are languages of philosophy and morality.

The Russian mentality is different from the western one. It is called “spirituality”, “Russian character”. The substitution of words entails the substitution of concepts. The words "honor", "conscience", "feat" exist only in the Russian language. In English, the word “resurrection” is just a sunny day, and in Russian speech culture, resurrection means the revival of the soul, heart.

The main task of the communicative method is to teach students to participate in speech activities. It is necessary to know how they learn language, what intellectual abilities and emotional features are manifested. Successful development is based on educational skills which ensure the collection, processing and use of information to solve educational problems linked with “knowledge of student’s motives, communicative needs, strategies for mastering language” and using acquired skills.

Key skills of a foreign student are as follows: the ability to work with written texts (different types of reading; switching from one type to another one; reading fiction, journalistic, popular science texts; find required books or articles using bibliographic lists, card indexes, catalogs; using bibliographic cards; describing books; distinguishing between scientific, official business, journalistic and fiction written texts, etc.

The texts should be interesting, fascinating and significant in the linguistic and cultural aspects. At the same time, socially neutral texts should be used.

Conclusion

The spiritual perfection of man is carried out through language. The rhetorical word is considered as "a house of thought." It performs an information-pragmatic and ethical functions, awakening good and aesthetic feelings – a sense of beauty.

Language is an ever-changing complex system of systems, but not all changes are justified, indicating its development and enrichment. The problem of a decline in the speech culture is rooted in changes in views on life, rejection of authoritative opinions, a decrease in interest in reading, inability to choose books and find speech patterns.

The lnguistic, textual space is expanding, but very significant cultural texts drop out of it. Meanwhile, the requirements for professionals include the following criteria: ethics, intelligence, wit, memory, aesthetics, reading, thinking about what is read, creating original texts of different genres.

Cultural memory, culture of thought, reading is formed through literature and theater, because culture is not only the ability to choose the best. It is accumulation, traditions.

References

• Annushkin, V. I. (2010). Stock up on Suvorov optimism. Literary newspaper, 6-7, 13.
• Mikhalskaya, A. K. (2019). Rhetoric: textbook. Moscow: INFRA-M.
• Rosenstock-Hussie, O. (1995). How Language Establishes Relations. Rhetoric, 1, 82.
• Verbitskaya, L. A. (2000). Preserving the beautiful Russian language is our task. Word and text in the dialogue of cultures. Anniversary collection by V. G. Kostomarov, 54–66.
• Zlatopolskaya, D. (2019). Important things. Dialogues about love, success, freedom. Moscow: Eksmo.