Diagnostics Of Person's Speech Behavior In Applied Linguodidactic Research

Abstract

Linguistic diagnostics of a person's speech behavior in the context of Russian as a foreign language studies are considered in the article. These studies include not only descriptive linguistics, but also require explanatory approaches, the introduction of diagnostic technologies, which are already actively used in various fields of knowledge and professional activity in the field of applied knowledge, being the wide practice of linguistic diagnostics. The article demonstrates new directions of diagnostic research of oral and written speech. It stands up that linguodidactics issues relate to the field of applied research and are based on approved linguistic and psycholinguistic methods, as well as pedagogical technologies focused on working with different types of linguistic personality. Linguistic diagnostics demands the detection of significant points that characterize speech behavior of groups; the creation of a systematized paradigm of diagnostic characteristics; development of methods for the speech diagnostics. The article reveals some approaches to the diagnostic material processing for the formation of various linguistic and speech competence. It is assumed that these approaches can be possibly used to improve methodical work and diagnose the level of linguistic and speech competence of a person. The aim of this research is to clarify the approaches to the creation of automatic speech analysis methods and the formation of text corpora for diagnostic purposes.

Keywords: Diagnostics, diagnostic linguistics, diagnostic points, linguistic personality, linguistic competence, linguodidactics, speech behavior

Introduction

Discursive practices, which today include all members of society without exception, are considered as the most important types of human activity. The speech behavior of a person bears the features of a social group, which can be diagnosed taking into account communicative, educational and legal goals. In this case, we are talking about groups of people united by common social, age, sex characteristics, socio-cultural characteristics of speech behavior, communication style, as well as the level of linguistic competencies. On the basis of a set of typical linguistic features, a speech portrait is built that reflects the group features of the communicants.

The study of this sphere of speech is of absolute relevance, since it is associated with the analysis of linguistic features that determine the educational, communicative and legal risks of a person's speech behavior in a learning, real and socially complicated communication situation.

These results are of great theoretical importance for the development of linguistic research in the field of personal linguistics, cognitive linguistics, writing theory, bilingual linguistics, sociolinguistics, as well as in the field of linguodidactics. The applied significance of the research lies in the creation of models for diagnosing the speech behavior of an individual as a carrier of generalized group linguistic traits, which are in demand in the methodology of teaching language as a native and as a foreign language, in the development of linguistic and communicative competencies, in legal linguistics and linguistic forensics (Argamon, 2018, р. 7; Chaski, 2013, р. 333; Rossinskaya, 2019, р. 221).

Problem Statement

Diagnostics in the broad sense of the word (from the Greek "dia" - transparent and "gnosis" - knowledge) is a general way of obtaining, defining information about the object or process under study, a system of measures aimed at recognizing, disclosing the essence of the phenomenon or process being studied. As a field of research in linguistics, diagnostics (from the Greek diagnōstikos - capable of recognizing) is associated with the establishment of signs of speech behavior, linguistic consciousness, various types of personality competencies as a carrier of group (age, sex, educational, professional, social, national-cultural, etc.) traits.

In different professional spheres, different aspects of this phenomenon are actualized: recognition, identification of signs, knowledge of signs, knowledge of symptoms, experience, examination, methods of diagnosis, laboratory studies, prediction of possible deviations, prevention of violations, assessment of the state of an object, determination of the causes of malfunctions.

In linguistics, the elements of diagnosis are used in connection with the solution of various applied problems: the study of written and oral speech of typical representatives of groups of linguistic personalities (see, for example: Potapova (Moscow), Butakova (Omsk), Golev (Kemerovo), Matveeva (Rostov-on-Don), etc.), emotional linguistic personality (Shakhovsky, Ionova, Krasavsky), communicative types (Karasik, Dmitrieva), theory and grammar of writing (Rakhilina, Leshutina, Utesheva, etc.), generation of utterances (Kibrik), competence of recognition of creolized texts (Osadchiy, Gorbacheva, etc.), natural written speech (Lebedeva), physical and geographical identity (Telpov), etc. It can be stated that the work on the creation of corpuses of diagnostic material is at an early stage, scientists from different scientific schools use different approaches and methods for diagnosing group traits of a linguistic personality.

The systematization of approaches and methods of diagnosis, the accumulation of an empirically grounded base of diagnostic features of linguistic personalities of different types will allow linguists to solve diagnostic problems demanded by modern practice: 1) diagnose the educational competencies of the individual (linguistic, speech, cognitive, textual, written, etc.) (Butakova, 2016, р. 51; Juola, 2012, р. 91; Leshutina & Zhdanovich, 2019, p. 214); 2) diagnose her communicative behavior (communicative style, type, toxic communication, etc.); 3) diagnose signs of non-ecological speech communication (violations of speech and discourse norms, norms of etiquette, social interaction, valeological and emotional balance, the use of legitimate speech acts) (Argamon, 2018, р. 7; Belyanin, 2000, р. 30; Ionova, 2015, р. 20; Rossinskaya, 2019, р. 220).

Research Questions

The study of this problem is of particular importance in the field of studying the Russian language as a functioning system (Kuryanova, 2018, р. 65; Russia Linguistic, 2012, p. 7). Diagnostics is one of the important parts of the process of teaching Russian as a foreign language, which does not always, however, imply a control measure. Often, diagnostics consists in ascertaining the actual level of quality of the learned material, and its results can be used by the teacher for the further correction of the training plan aimed at filling the gaps.

The most popular and convenient format for carrying out any diagnostics is testing, which allows to objectively determine the level of knowledge or the formation of competencies based on comparing the student's answers with their standards. The diagnostic test reveals the quality of previous education, difficulties and errors typical for a certain contingent, or allows you to measure the achievements and gaps in knowledge in a particular discipline (Balykhina, 2006, p. 20). This affects the choice of further learning strategy for an individual student or a group. The diagnostic test can also predict the potential mistakes of students (Azimov & Shchukin, 2019, p. 70), which is important for the long-term planning of the teaching paradigm for one or another foreign audience.

Language tests aimed at identifying knowledge about the systemic properties of a language are insufficient in the sphere of a person's speech competencies. In this area, there are still no precise and proven technologies for establishing communicative competencies, speech teachings. The solution to this problem is not limited to the descriptive linguistic aspect, but requires the study of speech skills, the generation of text, understanding the message and the ability to conduct dialogical communication. To do this, it is necessary to develop systemic tasks of a diagnostic type that solve the problem of "measuring" the speech abilities of a person.

The trend that has existed in the past few years of a gradual transition to online learning and the spread of e-learning technologies (Alksnit, 2020. р. 26; Litvinova, 2015, р. 37; Melnikova et al., 2020, р. 115) makes the use of multimodal training materials relevant. Digitization has made its own adjustments to the communicative practice of a modern person, which entailed bringing into linguodidactics a wider variety of written genres, examples of oral and written speech, texts of Internet communication (Kupreschenko, 2020, p. 70; Lebedeva et al., 2020, р. 74). All this gave rise to a social demand for the methodology of teaching RFL in the new educational environment.

Purpose of the Study

Diagnosis is aimed at studying an object outside the language using the means and methods of linguistics, including using interdisciplinary approaches (Ionova et al., 2021, р. 769). The methods used today in applied research create real opportunities for diagnosing the level of competencies, social and national-cultural belonging of a person, and the characteristics of his speech behavior. Groups of people are identified, united by common socio-cultural features of the speech behavior of individuals, on the basis of which a speech portrait is built, reflecting the group features of the communicants (Butakova, 2016, р. 40; Fesenko, 2018, р. 91; Matveeva & Zyubina, 2016, р. 68). The task is to establish the author's belonging to a particular social group depending on his education, profession, socio-demographic characteristics, gender, age, educational level, profession, etc. The purpose of this study is to substantiate the diagnostic capabilities of didactic material that is used in teaching the Russian language. For this, a system of tasks is proposed that will help determine the level of different types of communicative competencies of a person. The study of this problem is aimed at studying the speech characteristics of the individual and his mastery of the Russian language as a functional system (Kuryanova, 2018, р. 69; Russia Linguistic, 2012, р. 7).

Research Methods

The study of diagnostics in linguodidactics is based on the following methods:

• analytical and descriptive (observation method);
• methods of lexico-semantic, lexicographic, contextual, conceptual, linguocultural, lexicographic, semantic-stylistic analysis;
• linguodidactic testing method (online tests with tasks of closed open types);
• method of educational experiment;
• transformational text analysis (this method was used by the compilers when creating diagnostic tasks for the Reading subtest for international students of levels A1-B1).

The recipients used the method of self-diagnosis (the formation of a language portfolio and an information card of the student).

Findings

Analysis of workshops and demonstration options for TEL (Standard tests, elementary level, 2008), TBL (Standard tests, basic level, 2019) and TORFL-1 (Standard tests, I certification level, 2019) showed that the most universal linguistic method is transformational text analysis. This method was used by the compilers when creating diagnostic tasks for the «Reading» subtest for foreign students of levels A1-B1.

Online learning is characterized by asynchronous communication with a teacher or tutor, it has a lot of independent student work. Partial automation of the educational process makes it possible to check the success of the student's mastering of educational modules by using online tests with tasks of closed and even some variants of open types as the most easily implemented according to the criterion of automaticity of the test.

Self-diagnosis, which is important for the conscious and high-quality mastering of a foreign language, helps the student to carry out reflection and corrective work on his knowledge. One of the methods of reflection is the formation of the student's language portfolio and information card. The information card includes information entered by the student independently on the basis of formal indicators of success in the classroom, assessment and self-assessment (Artishcheva, 2014, pp. 174-175). At the present stage of the development of digital technologies, it is possible to modify and process the language portfolio into an electronic version - a student's personal account, which combines the point-rating values of the student's progress, the results of his classroom work and the implementation of diagnostic and control works, his reflexive assessments of his own work, as well as his own comments on their work.

We see the advantages of (self) diagnostics online in the following: 1) in the ability to present diagnostic materials in the form of digital texts (for example, publication on social networks, infographics, commentary, long read), genre forms of media discourse; 2) in the possibility of passing diagnostics at any time; 3) in the possibility of automatically obtaining the result.

We will give examples of diagnostic materials and tasks developed by us for diagnosing speech skills, taking into account the considered relevant features of the material. In the development of the task of intermediate diagnostics, a multimodal text was used, its transformational analysis was used in combination with contextual analysis.

The analysis of workshops and demonstration options for elementary level test (Type tests, elementary level, 2008), basic level test (Type tests, basic level, 2019) and TORFL-1 (Type tests, I certification level, 2019) showed that the most universal linguistic method used the authors of the tests when creating tasks for the subtest "Reading" is a transformational analysis of the text. It is understood as the transformation of syntactic structures that are close or identical in meaning, which makes it possible to identify systemic connections between them, remove their homonymy, separate the lexical meanings and syntactic functions of certain words as part of a phrase or sentence (Leontovich, 2011, p. 157). In diagnostics, transformational analysis can be used to test the general understanding of the content of the text through the use of synonymous constructs in assignments. Test tasks containing in their formulation paraphrased sentences of the source text, depending on the level of language proficiency, appeal to the language competence of students, and in particular to their vocabulary, the ability to identify grammatical categories that are essential for the task, as well as reading skills, and more specifically - to the ability to clearly perceive the meaning of individual sentences in the context and the text as a whole. Transformational analysis is reflected in the ability to create an unlimited number of test variants that differ not only in the wording, but also in the lexical and grammatical variations of the expression of the same content.

Based on the observation made, the following features of the test items in the indicated subtest can be distinguished: 1) reliance on certain types of reading; 2) belonging to the group of text-based tasks; 3) possession of specific formulations (rather narrow range).

Test assignments are based on the following types of reading: introductory, search, studying. Certification exam formats assume that the predominantly test is the student's reading skill at A1 level, which ensures full reading comprehension, at A2 level, introductory and exploratory reading elements are added to the student reading type, consisting in full and detailed understanding of the text, and at B1 level, introductory reading skills are tested and studying reading (Balykhina, 2006, p. 18). Thus, we note a certain pattern of changes in the type of reading required for passing diagnostics (and, accordingly, the content, presentation format of the proposed texts) in accordance with the increasing complexity of the language level.

Review reading becomes the basis for pre-text work, since it is mainly aimed at creating a general idea of the text with a cursory analysis of the heading and / or any graphical content of the text, which is applicable for teaching reading. However, the bulk of the diagnostic tasks is made up of text-based exercises based on the content of the text and helping the student to apply in practice one of the types of reading, allowing a deeper analysis of the proposed material from different points of view. Thus, in the reading subtest, pre-textual tasks predominate, the purpose of which is to test the language abilities of students in the context of the perception of the printed text.

It also seems possible to distinguish three types of tasks that are most popular when testing students' reading skills. Test items of diagnostics are divided into three groups: 1) test items with multiple choice (aimed at checking the quality of reading comprehension); 2) test items with multiple choice, implying a check on the understanding of the thematic or intentional features of the text («Эта статья о …», «Выберите самый точный заголовок» / «This article is about ...», « Choose the most accurate title», etc.); 3) tasks to establish the correspondence of the meaning of the proposed phrases to the content of the source text, functionally similar to multiple choice tasks, but nevertheless differing in the format of the presentation of answers («Выберите информацию, которая» / «Select information that»: А) соответствует тексту, Б) не соответствует тексту, В) отсутствует в тексте… / A) matches the text, B) does not match the text, C) is not in the text…) and requiring the student to have developed search reading skills.

These tasks are present in all test workshops, demo versions of linguodidactic testing, textbooks, etc., that is, they form the basis of the formulations used in testing to identify the level of proficiency in the skills necessary for reading. Transformational analysis is used in the formulation of tasks for reading diagnostics at each language level.

Starting from A1, phrases repeating sentences from the original text are introduced into the test tasks. It is possible to replace single words or phrases with completely synonymous ones, or to exclude words from the original sentence that do not affect the main meaning of the statement. For example, a sentence from text that sounds like «Официально люди начали играть в футбол в Англии в середине XIX века» («Officially, people started playing football in England in the middle of the XIX century»), in the text-based task was reformulated as follows: «Официально люди начали играть в футбол в XIX веке» (Type tests, elementary level, 2008, pp. 17-19). Thus, the syntactic construction of two sentences (from the source text and the task) remains unchanged, and the lexical replacement becomes basic at this level. Many tests check the knowledge of lexical units that are memorized without prior understanding of their grammatical construction, such as the words «каждый год» and «ежегодный» in the same context become interchangeable elements in sentences of the same content. In this regard, it is possible to change the sentence with a change in its syntactic structure, since the focus of the task is shifted to a specific linguistic unit.

Tasks of a thematic nature, based on introductory reading, at the A1 level are formulated in the same way («Эта статья о…», «Здесь можно…» / «This article is about...», « Here you can…»), regardless of the number of identical tasks. The emergence of diversity in formulations is associated with the transition to the next level of the language - the basic one.

At the A2 level, there is a greater discrepancy between the wording of tasks and sentences of this text: the syntactic construction of sentences is replaced with a synonymous one, except for 2-3 words, key words in the statement, allowing you to quickly understand what information in the text needs to be found and analyzed to complete the task (this is mainly referring to test items that focus on the content of the text). Often, the functions of the subject remain, and variations in the expression of the predicate appear. In this case, the student needs to use the so-called search reading, since the isolation of such anchor words from the formulation of the assignment and the search for a thematic passage in the main text requires the skill of identifying a linguistic unit and correlating it with a specific passage of the read. Thus, there are replacements «стал большим и тяжёлым» – «увеличился», «работал в условиях открытого космоса» – «пробыл в открытом космосе». Changes often affect the lexical-semantic group of verbs of action, movement, state, which become synonymous in separate contexts, which also correlates with such a feature of the basic level as the replenishment of the vocabulary of students mainly with verbs, with and without prefixes.

Items related to the topic or intention of the text are much more variable in the tests of the basic level. Differences in wording appear depending on the content of the text. Within one block of test items, phrases may be present: «Автор считает, что…», «Статистика говорит, что…», «В этой статье рассказывается…», which, on the one hand, leaves the wording of the same type of assignments synonymous within one block, on the other hand, it delimits the texts, only functionally bringing them together and uniting them as the same type.

The same process of replacing phrases or parts of a sentence with synonymous ones with partial changes in syntactic structure is seen in matching tasks. The peculiarity of the basic level test items consists in replacing the initial constructions with synonymous ones that are closest in meaning, which cannot be said about the tasks of the pre-threshold level (B1). Level B1 assumes the presence in the tasks of formulations that coincide with the sentences of the source text only ideologically and thematically, without using the same lexical units. In addition, at the indicated level, the transformational analysis used in the preparation of assignments is supplemented by another type of linguistic analysis of the text - contextual. Initially, contextual analysis consists in studying a specific linguistic unit and context, the environment in which the meaning of this unit is realized (Leontovich, 2011, p. 158). Thus, we are dealing with a certain modification, the use of two types of analysis at the same time to formulate tasks for the pre-threshold level of Russian language proficiency. The essence of this modification lies in the simultaneous change in the syntactic structure of the original sentences to similar to them (that is, only to contextually synonymous), as well as in an appeal to the student's knowledge of a specific lexical unit, the rules for its use in a sentence, and can also refer to the level of development of compensatory the competence of the student, that is, his ability to determine the meaning of an individual lexeme from the context. In addition, attention is paid to the student's ability to correlate contextual synonyms with each other, which in practice lies in his ability to understand the requirements of a specific task in the process of completing the subtest.

The increasing complexity of the formulations of test items is accompanied by a complete replacement of syntactic constructions, a greater prevalence of sentences, and also a lesser degree of synonymy of constructions. The rejection of the synonymy of sentences in favor of their similarity was made in order to complicate the wording (see examples below).

The introductory reading ends with the task «Содержанию текста более всего соответствует название…» («The content of the text is most consistent with the title…»), etc., thereby noting the increasing discrepancy between the wording of the tasks and the reference text, which requires a combination of the skills of the student and search reading at the pre-threshold level of learning the Russian language in order to find the most thematically and ideologically the exact title, as well as the direct complication of these formulations in comparison with the formulations for the elementary level «Эта статья о…» («This article is about…»), expecting from the student an unambiguous answer based on the results of the student's reading and perception of the general content of the text.

Tasks for establishing correspondences are absent at this level precisely because test developers are trying to move away from the synonymy of sentences in order to increase the level of difficulty in finding the correct answer. Understanding the requirements of the tasks now requires as much intellectual effort as understanding the proposed distractors and the correct answer and the difference between them.

At the B1 level, the main type of tasks are test ones with multiple choice of answers, and tasks for the correspondence of sentences to the presented text are excluded. The formulations of the test items fully demonstrate the wide and active use of transformational analysis in their compilation: «Было открыто 37 залов и посетители увидели коллекцию произведений искусства, собранную Александром III и его семьёй» («37 halls were opened and visitors saw the collection of works of art collected by Alexander III and his family») in the assignment was expressed by the words «В конце 19 века основную коллекцию составляли вещи, переданные царской семьёй» («At the end of the 19th century, the main collection consisted of items transferred by the royal family»); «Он родился в семье директора гимназии» («He was born in the family of the headmaster of the gymnasium») was replaced by «Отец Менделеева работал директором гимназии» («Mendeleev's father worked as a gymnasium director») in the wording of the text-based test task (Type tests. First certification level, 2019, pp. 23-25). The above examples confirm the observations about the regularity and sequence of the application of transformational analysis in the preparation of diagnostic tasks for reading as a type of speech activity.

We define the multimodality of the proposed texts as an important criterion for the selection of educational content. Materials designed according to the principles of polycode for students are especially relevant and interesting, motivate them to master the educational topic. The implementation of materials in relevant genres of media discourse increases the indicator of their attractiveness for students, focusing on pragmatic language acquisition. The substantive validity of multimodal texts of all genres (infographics, comics, memes, longreads, etc.) is due to the introduction of elements and genres of Internet communication in Russian into the curriculum. Attempts to introduce elements of electronic technologies into the course have long been undertaken by publishers of textbooks and teaching aids through their visual design in the form of emails or SMS messages in the messenger, comments, etc. For foreign students who are starting to learn Russian, the Internet is becoming the first socio-cultural environment for using the Russian target language, where they find their first interlocutors (Lebedeva et al., 2020, р. 97). Constructive validity, determined by the degree of correlation of the character of the text with the psychological (cognitive) characteristics of the perception of the material by students, requires a separate, more detailed commentary.

For the distance educational process and m-learning, it turns out to be important that when reading digital text, general and fragmentary factual information is successfully read and perceived, however, for more detailed work with text, such text presentation formats are less suitable than traditional ones. For teaching work with the text, students need to form a "special strategy of slow analytical reading". The multimodal digital format contributes to the development of potentially demanded skills for extracting information and synthesizing the meaning obtained from different sources into one whole, as well as the use of interactive functions of digital text (Lebedeva et al., 2020, p. 89).

Modern trends in the transformation of traditional forms of diagnostic measures into relevant ones that meet modern social and educational needs determine the specificity of diagnostic tests in modern linguodidactics. This determines its importance as a stage in the learning process and as a starting point for correcting the student's knowledge, the implementation of which is possible only in the direct process of learning and self-learning and only as a response to the results of this diagnosis (Artishcheva, 2014, pp. 174-175).

We have already noted that one of the positive characteristics of multimodal texts is a high degree of clarity. Informational texts are much better perceived from the screens, and the narrative text is equally successfully read both from the sheet and from the screen; in the digital version, it is possible to use accompanying visual elements associated with the narrated plot (Lebedeva et al., 2020, p. 85). Thus, the cognitive features of the perception of digital multimodal texts correspond to the formal educational request.

At A1 level, it is proposed to use a multimodal text about free time, excursions, timetables, etc. It allows you to transform information and present the text in the form of a table using abbreviations typical for the Russian language (for example, days of the week), conventional signs and icons that complement the text elements of the material. We offer an example of such a text in Figure 1.

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(«MSU Botanical Garden. You can't go in the garden... In the garden you can...»)

Variants of text-based test items for the proposed text:

1. Test task to determine the intention:

Эта публикация… / This publication…

А) о правилах и экскурсиях Ботанического Сада / A) about the rules and excursions of the Botanical Garden

В) о цене билетов / В) about the ticket price

С) о расписании работы Ботанического Сада / C) about the schedule of the Botanical Garden.

2. Test task to determine compliance:

Выберите информацию, которая / Select the information that:

А) соответствует тексту / A) corresponds to the text

В) не соответствует тексту / В) does not match the text

С) отсутствует в тексте / C) missing in the text.

- В Саду можно купить билет только на экскурсию / In the Garden, you can buy a ticket only for the tour.

- Перед началом экскурсии надо встретиться с гидом у кассы за 30 минут до начала / Before the start of the tour, you need to meet with the guide at the ticket office 30 minutes before the start.

- В Саду можно трогать растения / You can touch the plants in the Garden.

- Утром в среду можно пойти на обзорную экскурсию / - On Wednesday morning, you can go on a sightseeing tour.

- Билет стоит 200 р. / The ticket costs 200 rubles.

3. Test items with multiple choice (for understanding the content):

1. Обзорные экскурсии есть / Sightseeing tours are available:

А) каждый вечер / A) every night

В) только в выходные / В) only on weekends

С) три раза в неделю / C) three times a week

2. В саду можно / In the garden you can:

А) бегать / А) бегать

В) фотографировать / В) take photos

С) ходить по траве / C) walking on the grass

3. Во вторник экскурсия по фруктовому саду будет / On Tuesday, the tour of the orchard will be:

А) в 11 часов утра / A) at 11 o'clock in the morning

В) в 2 часа дня / В) at 2 p.m.

С) в 11 часов вечера / C) at 11 p.m.

To demonstrate the sequence of applying transformational analysis in test tasks, we present a multimodal text for level B1, as shown in Figure 2, based on the demo version of TORFL-I, provided on the website of the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute (Samples of test blocks by level, 2020, рр. 10 - 29), https://www.pushkin.institute/Certificates/CCT/tests-online.php). The use and transformation of already existing test materials within the framework of research work is motivated by the hypothesis that it is possible to bring most of the texts into a multimodal format using three modes: text, visual elements and configuration.

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(«A new food mall "Depo" has opened in the old tram park on Lesnaya Street in Moscow»

In addition to standard test items, it is possible to use modified formulations, which aim not to focus the test taker's attention on specific language units, but to provide a qualitative check of reading comprehension by combining transformational analysis with contextual analysis. For example:

2. Найдите фразу, которая наиболее точно передает смысл предложения «В «Депо» вы не найдете пластиковой посуды, всю еду подают в керамической» / «You won't find plastic dishes in the Depot, all the food is served in ceramic dishes»

А) Здесь используют одноразовую посуду / A) They use disposable dishes here

В) Еда подается на привычных тарелках / В) The food is served on the usual plates

С) Тут запрещена посуда из пластика / C) Plastic tableware is prohibited here.

The compensatory competence of students can be tested by giving the definition of words that are absent in the main course and the lexical minimum level, but can be understood by students from the context or because the word belongs to a group of internationalisms. The task in this case is to give the word the most accurate explanation in Russian, as, for example, in the multiple-choice task:

3. Дайте определение слову с опорой на текст / Define the word based on the text.

Кто такие стартаперы? / Who are startups?

А) начинающие бизнесмены / A) aspiring businessmen

В) знаменитые шеф-повара / В) famous chefs

С) выпускники университетов / C) University graduates

Another variant of the assignment can be formulated in such a way as to provoke the student to use speech variants. In such exercises, an integrated approach is implemented to test the comprehension of read information and the level of speech competence based on reference material.

4. Замените слова синонимичной конструкцией или Впишите пропущенное слово, соответствующее смыслу текста / Replace the words with synonyms or enter the missing word:

Всех любителей сказок заинтересует лавка единорогов / All lovers of fairy tales will be interested in the unicorn shop.

Лавка единорогов … детям и любителям сказок / Unicorn Shop … children and fairy tale lovers.

The answer is the word "like", which students must define, relying not only on knowledge of grammatical agreement, but also on the ability to make a communicatively appropriate choice of unit. Thus, a whole range of skills necessary for successful communication in Russian can be tested: the level of linguistic variability; the level of style relevance; level of communicative accuracy; level of ethics; level of creativity. Taken together, such data allow the researcher to compose a speech portrait of a student, diagnose him on a scale of types of linguistic personalities.

The advantages of the aforementioned type of task - the close test - lies in its mobility, the ability to change the subject of diagnosis, its criteria, and educational goals. The property of a close test is its multidimensionality: it allows diagnosing a student's reading skills, as well as assessing the ability to process the information received, extracting all pragmatic information from the micro context (Kolesnikova, 2008, p. 367). Thus, the following linguistic and conditionally communicative tasks for working out individual lexical-semantic groups, for example, prefixed verbs of movement, are also possible:

5. Расскажите, как дойти до европейской кухни. Вставьте глагол движения с нужной приставкой / Tell us how to get to European cuisine. Insert the motion verb with the appropriate prefix:

Чтобы … до европейской кухни, надо… мимо рынка и… налево / To ... get to the European cuisine, you have to ... pass the market and ... turn left.

Answer: дойти, пройти, повернуть/пойти/свернуть / walk, walk, turn/go/turn. Task such a plan may involve several correct answers.

Similar tasks (such as in examples 2-5) given in this study are absent in the "Reading" TORFL subtest of any level due to the fact that they violate the homogeneity and subject purity of the test (Balykhina, 2006, p. 44), preventing high-quality diagnostics concerning each type of speech activity separately. However, intermediate diagnostics does not have such restrictions as the isolation of tasks and their classification into separate blocks according to the types of speech activity, and may include various exercises that meet the interests and requirements of the teacher for students at one or another stage of language learning.

At the A2 level, there is a discrepancy between the wording of tasks and sentences of the text: the syntactic construction of sentences is replaced by a synonymous one, with the exception of 2-3 key words in the statement, allowing you to quickly understand what information in the text needs to be found and analyzed to complete the task (this mainly applies to test assignments focusing on the content of the text). Often, the functions of the subject remain, and variations in the expression of the predicate appear. In this case, the student needs to use the so-called search reading, since the isolation of such anchor words from the formulation of the assignment and the search for a thematic passage in the main text requires the skill of identifying a linguistic unit and correlating it with a specific passage of the read. Thus, there are replacements «стал большим и тяжёлым» – «увеличился», «работал в условиях открытого космоса» – «пробыл в открытом космосе». Changes often affect the lexical-semantic group of verbs of action, movement, state, which become synonymous in separate contexts, which also correlates with such a feature of the basic level as the replenishment of the vocabulary of students mainly with verbs, with and without prefixes.

Tasks related to the topic or intention of the text are more variable in the tests of the basic level. Differences in wording appear depending on the content of the text. Within one block of test items, phrases may be present: «Автор считает, что…», «Статистика говорит, что…», «В этой статье рассказывается…», which, on the one hand, leaves the wording of the same type of assignments synonymous within one block, on the other hand, it delimits the texts, only functionally bringing them together and uniting them as the same type.

The peculiarity of the basic level test items consists in replacing the initial constructions with synonymous ones that are closest in meaning, which cannot be said about the tasks of the pre-threshold level (B1). Level B1 assumes the presence in the tasks of formulations that coincide with the sentences of the source text only ideologically and thematically, without using the same lexical units. In addition, at the indicated level, the transformational analysis used in the preparation of assignments is supplemented by another type of linguistic analysis of the text - contextual. Initially, contextual analysis consists in studying a specific linguistic unit and context, the environment in which the meaning of this unit is realized (Leontovich, 2011, p. 158). Thus, we are dealing with a certain modification, the use of two types of analysis at the same time to formulate tasks for the pre-threshold level of Russian language proficiency. The essence of this modification is to change the syntactic structure of the original sentences to contextually synonymous ones, as well as to appeal to the student's knowledge of a specific lexical unit, the rules for its use in a sentence. The task can refer to the level of development of the student's compensatory competence, to his ability to determine the meaning of an individual lexeme from the context. Attention is paid to the student's ability to correlate contextual synonyms with each other.

The increasing complexity of the formulations of test items is accompanied by a complete replacement of syntactic constructions, a greater prevalence of sentences, and also a lesser degree of synonymy of constructions. The rejection of the synonymy of sentences in favor of their similarity was made in order to complicate the wording (see examples below).

The introductory reading ends with the task «Содержанию текста более всего соответствует название…», etc., thereby noting the increasing discrepancy between the wording of the tasks and the reference text, which requires a combination of studying and search reading skills to find the most thematically and ideologically accurate title, as well the complication of these formulations in comparison with the formulations for the elementary level «Эта статья о…», expecting from the student an unambiguous answer based on the results of the student reading and perception of the general content of the text.

Tasks for establishing correspondences are absent at this level, therefore, an increase in the level of complexity is required in finding the correct answer. Understanding the requirements of the tasks now also requires intellectual effort, understanding the proposed distractors, the difference between them.

The current stage in the development of linguodidactics, including digital pedagogical diagnostics in teaching foreign languages in its individual aspects, and in general, requires a thorough and scrupulous approach to its study (Alksnit, 2020, р. 27) and the introduction of its new options and modifications into the educational process of foreign students in order to ensure a high-quality mastery of the Russian language. as a foreigner in the modern situation.

Conclusion

The above achievements in the field of diagnostics of a person's speech behavior show that in diagnostic linguistics, diagnostic linguodidactics, new approaches to the study of speech activity and personality behavior are being developed. The solution of applied problems (Kushneruk, 2017, рр. 6 - 17) in the field of teaching Russian as a foreign language today makes it possible to develop systems of diagnostic signs for "measuring" not only linguistic knowledge, but the ability to use this knowledge in communication. The digital sphere of communication has intensified the verbal interaction of people in a foreign language. The use of this material for diagnostic purposes seems natural for teachers and students.

The actual task of diagnostic linguistics today should be the allocation of the hidden and unconscious part of speech activity, automated skills and stereotyped speech manifestations. This approach is not identical with research in the field of studying the author's idiostyle characteristics and individual parameters of speech. When diagnosing, flexible, regular, superpersonal signs of speech are studied, which make it possible to identify the features of an indefinite personality belonging to one of the types of linguistic personalities.

As shown in the article, today in linguistics, work is underway to create a theoretical base and methodology, and an online bank of tests of all types of speech and communicative competencies of a person (Tests оnline bank, 2020, рр. 20 – 30), which can be used for diagnostic purposes. The task of diagnostic linguodidactics is to integrate the achievements of scientists and create a system of diagnostic markers that reflect different aspects of the study of a person's speech behavior, his linguistic, speech and communicative competencies.

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